Who? Me?

The place, Irmo High School in Columbia, South Carolina.

What two words best describe my Junior(1985/86) and Senior (1986/87) years at Irmo High School?

Library Pass

A library pass had to be signed by a teacher and could get you out of study hall and into the library. I managed to score 3 Library Passes a day and spent a good portion of my Junior and Senior years in the Irmo High School Library.

Welcome to Library Pass, where I will tell true stories from the Irmo High School Library.

Who? Me?

Way back in the mid to late 80's, long before Columbine or 9/11, the Irmo High School Library had a very sophisticated Security System.

You could only enter the Library through a narrow glassed hallway. In the hallway were little security gates that swung open to allow entrance to, and exit from, the Library.

To enter, you had to either be with a teacher, or have a Library Pass.

To exit the Library, you had to go through a detection device that beeped if you tried to remove a book from the library without checking the book out.

The security system didn't really keep students from removing books from the Library without checking them out.

If you wanted to take a book, it wasn't hard to tear the little metal detection chip out of the cover of the book and then take the book through the security gate, beep-free.

In fact, it was so easy to tear the little metal detection chip out of the books, that we did it all the time.

Did we read a lot of books?

No, but it was fun to hide the little metal detection chips in other student's stuff so that the beeper would go off when he left the library.

We would stand close by and laugh when the beeper went off and the clueless sophomore looked around with a "Who Me?" look on their face.

Then there would be a lock-down.

Mrs. Gilliam would spring into action and interrogate the sophomore as they fished around in their bag.

Still makes me giggle thinking about it.