The awesome ‘80s. What do you think about when someone mentions the ‘80s? Most people think of feathered hair, Madonna, Rubik’s cubes, Troll Dolls, Back to the Future, the fall of the Berlin Wall and Desert Storm.

At Judge the big story in 1989 was the new auditorium. That’s the year the Performing Arts department got a state of the art facility, and that’s when the arts at Judge took a big step toward the level of excellence that we see today.

Principal Patrick Lambert graduated from Judge in 1997 and remembers that time well.

“When I first came here, the auditorium was really new,” Lambert said. “It was exciting because people would come to campus to take a look at it. And we started hosting really big events like concerts. It just brought this renewed life, I think, to Judge Memorial, which was really exciting to be a part of.”

“It was a bit of a mess while they were digging, but it was definitely worth it to have a beautiful auditorium,” Allison LeDuc, JM ’89 said. “Before we had assemblies in what is now the dance studio and had to sit on the floor. It had cheap, old, brown carpeting on the floor and it was ripped at the seams. We also had dance class in this space and if you weren’t careful you would trip on the carpet seams. We had a dance concert at Rowland Hall my sophomore year while we were between auditoriums. It was a huge challenge to fit a large dance group into their small auditorium. We had a makeshift dressing room in their janitor’s closet. It made me truly appreciate our new space.”

“The new auditorium did affect my experience at Judge in two ways,” said Janilee Taylor, JM ’89. “It took away some parking space and we also performed her Senior Dance Concert there. We thought we were pretty cool coming from the old rickety auditorium to this new lush one.”

The auditorium replaced the parking lot where seniors used to park.

“The auditorium construction meant that, as a senior, I would not have a parking space behind the school,” Paul Burke, JM ’89 said. “Of course, I didn’t have a car in high school, so this loss was hypothetical. The temporary loss of my hearing was actual. The construction project disrupted classes throughout the school, but especially in the gym classrooms. The project also inspired a yearbook cover mimicking the album cover of U2’s Joshua Tree.”

Before the auditorium was built all assemblies where held in the current dance studio.

“Before we had the auditorium, we had all of our assemblies in the dance studio,” former Judge teacher Tim Dolan said. “The freshmen got out early to set all  the chairs up, they had to stay after to put the chairs away; and they still had to sit in the back.”

“I remember standing in the space where the stage was going to be, when the auditorium was being built, and just imagining what it was going to be like. It was really cool,” Dolan said.

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What was life like for Judge students in the 1980s?

What do you think about when someone mentions the ‘80s? Most people think of feathered hair, Madonna, Rubik’s cubes, Troll Dolls, Back to the Future, the fall of the Berlin Wall and Desert Storm.

At Judge the big story in 1989 was the new auditorium. That’s the year the Performing Arts department got a state of the art facility, and that’s when the arts at Judge took a big step toward the level of excellence that we see today.

Fashion in the eighties was a big obsession. Slogans like “If You’ve Got It, Flaunt It!” and “You Can Have It All!” were mottos people lived by. Off-the-shoulder tees, fish-net stockings, and mini-skirts were a girl’s best friend. Madonna and Cher were just a few of the icons admired by teenagers worldwide. Guys were mostly apostles of Billy Idol or Boy George. Boys at Judge wore acid washed jeans and white, high-top tennis shoes. Everyone loved bright colors like hot pink and lime green.

Eighties movies rocked the decade with films like Back to the Future, Indiana Jones, Dirty Dancing, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and Ghostbusters. People enjoyed their afternoon line up with series like The Cosby Show, The Wonder Years, Roseanne, 60 Minutes, America’s Funniest Home Videos, and Unsolved Mysteries.

Fads always make a decade, like the sticky-up hair of the Troll Dolls, Cabbage Patch dolls, and Rubik?s Cube, the color cube that could be molded into 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 different color combinations. Pac Man and personal computers became items in everyday life. Talk shows, aerobics, and camcorders were a must for everyone. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fought crime while ET was trying to phone Home.

NASA was highlighted several times, including the first launch of the space shuttle Columbia in 1981, and the explosion of the Challenger, which killed seven astronauts. Racism continued to be a topic of the news, especially when Atlanta native, Wayne Williams, murdered 23 African American kids. Desert Storm came and went, and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial opened. The first case of AIDS was also diagnosed in the ‘80s. The massacre in Tiananmen Square in China shocked the world, opening our eyes to the brutality of the Chinese government. Communism crumbled in 1989 with the falling of the Berlin Wall.

All of these issues, fads, fashions, stars, movies, music and trends form this unique decade. People look back on this decade with fond memories, and laugh at how big their hair was. Most people remember something special about the eighties, whether it is your favorite movie, band, or even if you’re still trying to figure out that darn Rubik’s cube.