Principal’s Son Recalls ’45 Prom, Pays Tribute to E.F. McLane

Stories of the past abound at the annual luncheon for the Greater Brandon Oldtimers Association, which meets only once a year for the sole purpose of giving people with deep ties in the community a chance to reconnect and mark the passage of time.

So it was for the 150 attendees of this year’s Greater Brandon Area Community Picnic, held indoors April 28 at the , in conjunction with the annual Brandon High School Grand Reunion.

Count among them Ted McLane.

It’s been 67 years since McLane took his date to the prom, back in the year gas was rationed, World War II would end and classes were in the towers that today comprise the middle school named for McLane’s father.

In the multipurpose room of the Baptist church, standing next to the woman who was his date at the prom, McLane recalled why he took Miriam Miller Bryan to the prom.

“I was a senior and she was a junior,” McLane said. “She was pretty and her boyfriend was far away, in the Navy.”

McLane said his graduating class was far fewer in number than today’s Brandon High graduating classes. In 1945, he said, “we had only about 50 in the senior class, and 10 of my classmates had gone up to the Navy.”

At least that’s how memory serves him.

Back then, McLane said, the issue about getting a car to drive to the prom was not as great as getting the gas needed to fuel it, which is why he said he bought some extra gas on the black market, from the son of the gasoline station’s owner.

“They’d get so much gas to sell and extra gas [to cover] gas evaporation,” McLane said. “It didn’t evaporate that fast so it was sold on the black market.”

In those days, "gas was rationed,” McLane said. "It was the last year of the war but we didn’t know it was going to end. We got three gallons of gas a week.”

One thing is certain in McLane’s mind: His father was, as is recognized by the town community, a pillar in Brandon, having served 35 years as principal, starting in 1930 at the town’s only school, the Brandon School, which served grades 1 through 12.

He’d continue to serve in that role through 1965, when his son walked across the stage to receive his diploma, and long after Yates and Mann opened as the town’s first standalone elementary and middle schools, respectively.

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5 Things To Know About Brandon's E.F. McLane

What’s there to know about E.F. McLane? According to his son, Ted McLane, these five things stand out:

• “He was a principal for 35 years.” McLane said.

• “He was very dedicated to the kids,” McLane said. “They thought he was tough but I thought he was easy."

• Brandon, at the time, “was a poor, little county school, and he helped raise money for the gymnasium,” McLane said. “We were playing basketball outside on the concrete and everybody else had a gymnasium. Plant City had a gymnasium, Tampa schools had a gymnasium, but we didn’t."

• “As principal he was making $45 a week, which was big money in those days,” McLane said. “During the heart of the Depression, the school board would run out of money, so they cut back the school year from nine to eight months, which means he got off the payroll for that month.”

• “He was very dedicated to the school,” McLane said. “He helped form the first band. My senior year we had our first football team. We lost all our games, but we had a football team.”