Only on Hilton Head: How Hilton Head Prep manages to remain really cool

Thomas Wolfe, who wrote the book "You Can't Go Home Again," was my favorite novelist when I was a teenager on Hilton Head in the late 1970s. It was very romantic, nostalgic, and sad when George Webber, the young protagonist, came home to the United States only to find that things had changed while he was away in Europe. Nothing was as he remembered.

I had a similar experience on Hilton Head Island in the 1970s after I left for college and stayed away for seventeen or so years and returned to find that my high school alma mater has changed in a drastic but quite exceptional way.

Last week, I was invited to lunch at Hilton Head Prep to introduce me to the newest headmaster, Jon A. Hopman, and re-introduce me to Hilton Head Prep.

Prep English teacher Peggy Hamilton reminded me that Hilton Head Prep is entering its fiftieth year. It occurred to me, rather alarmingly, that I also, was in my fiftieth year.

"The Super Bowl began officially in 1965," Hamilton said. That same year offered the movie "Dr. Zhivago," the Voting Rights Act, the Pillsbury Doughboy, the song "I Got You Babe" by Sonny & Cher, Medicare/Medicaid, a Grateful Dead tour and the Beatles playing at Shea Stadium, she said.

All that was going on while a little building in Sea Pines was readying classrooms so that residents could send their kids to a private school located on the island.

Before that, most kids had to trek by boat, school bus, or carpools all the way to Beaufort, Savannah, and Bluffton for school.

That was before Sea Pines Academy. It was known as SPA prior to 1985 -- the year May River Academy of Bluffton merged with it to form Hilton Head Prep.

It was a pretty cool place.

Seniors were allowed to smoke cigarettes at the picnic tables by the lagoon. They could drive themselves to school and stroll into the rear door -- very cooly -- just in time for morning meeting. I couldn't wait to be a senior, so I could drive, smoke cigarettes, and arrive cooly.

We were cool in other ways.

Among our classmates was one of the famous Heritage Golf Course streakers, whose name no one would give up to authorities, not even today.

As you can imagine, times have changed.

For one thing, it's healthier. No smoking.

There's a Digital Learning Academy.

Theres's a boarding school for international students.

There's financial assitance for qualifying families.

There's an Alumni Legacy Scholarship.

There are outreach programs that work with Smith Stearns and Van Der Meer Tennis Academy students, the Junior Players Golf Academy and Lawton Stables Riding Academy students.

It's still pretty cool.

It's just cool in much better ways.

Carmen Hawkins De Cecco lives on Hilton Head Island. She blogs at hiltonheadblogangel.me.

This story was originally published October 2, 2015 at 1:20 PM with the headline "Only on Hilton Head: How Hilton Head Prep manages to remain really cool."