Happy 100th Birthday to Doris Pomphrey Robinson!

Doris Pomphrey Robinson, a member of Rumson High School’s Class of ’35, is celebrating her 100th birthday on November 5, 2017. While a student at Rumson High School, Doris was a member of the Yearbook Staff and of Hi-Y, a school-based organization created to maintain and extend high standards of Christian values. “Doris recalls that all of the female students took cooking classes, and that the food made in this class was served in the high school cafeteria,” said her grandson John Heggie. “Doris was known for her shorthand and for being very quiet – and even at 100 years of age, she is still a quiet lady.” From 1895 to 1933, a two-year high school curriculum was provided in the Rumson school district, and most students completed their coursework in Red Bank. At the time Doris was a student, the high school education program in Rumson was being expanded through the twelfth grade. Doris attended a six-year school called Rumson High School, located in a brick building at the northwest corner of Lafayette and Church Streets. The Class of 1935 was the first to graduate from twelfth grade in the Rumson School District. Rumson High School was relocated to a newly constructed building on Ridge Road in 1936. In 1954, voters in Rumson and Fair Haven approved the formation of a regional high school district for students in ninth through twelfth grade. Rumson High School, then in its current location on Ridge Road, became Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School in 1956. After graduation, Doris moved to Washington, DC and was employed by the Tennessee Valley Authority. There she married her husband, Jack, and had two children, Marie and Jackie. In 1943, Doris moved back to Rumson to help out her family. She worked at the former installation of the Department of the Army in Fort Monmouth, New Jersey until she retired in 1982. Doris is a lifelong member of the First Presbyterian Church of Rumson. According to her grandson John Heggie, she often recalls the many great times and wonderful trips she enjoyed as a longtime member of the Rumson Senior Citizens Group. Doris has donated more than 7,800 hours of volunteer time to the local community. She volunteered at Riverview Hospital in Red Bank from 1974 to 2010, and at the Twin Lights historic site in Highlands, New Jersey for fifteen years. Doris is the grandmother of six, great-grandmother of eleven, and great-great-grandmother of six. Doris’s daughter and John’s mother, Marie Robinson Heggie, was a member of the RFH Class of ’61. Birthday cards can be mailed to Doris Robinson, 44 Pine Street, Apt. 116, Tinton Falls, New Jersey 07753.