The Class of 1964: A Story of Culver Military Academy

by Cari Lynn

For the Culver Military Academy Class of 1964, their high school years in Culver, Indiana, marked an entirely unique time in history, the likes of which had never existed before―or since. Collected in this oral history, over fifty cadets and one faculty daughter―now in their mid-seventies―reflect on their lives and recall their time at Culver during what was deemed the “Camelot years,” when idealism was in the air, John F. Kennedy was the youngest man ever to be elected president, the Space Race was on, and anything seemed possible. But 1964 also marked the end of an era. Outside the idyllic Culver gates, the civil rights and feminist movements were galvanizing, and American youth were finding a collective voice like never before. The following year brought Selma and the Watts uprising, shaking the country from complacency. And, Vietnam was heating up. The children of the Greatest Generation, these Culver students of discipline and structure, sportsmanship and square meals, were hurdling into a new era of the Sexual Revolution, flower children, the Vietnam War, and the draft lottery. Never again would the world be as straightforward, as peaceful, or as rewarding as it was on Lake Maxinkuckee from 1960 through 1964.

364 pages, Hardcover

Published November 21, 2022