For just a moment Tuesday, I might have wanted to be a Bumblebee.

The high school that returning visitors in a crowded Port Arthur church described Tuesday morning seemed like everything I missed in my own, lackluster high school experience.

Abraham Lincoln High School’s class of 1978 recounted a high school experience unlike my own, which took place in a Boston, Massachusetts suburb.

Lincoln alums talked about teachers who cared deeply that their students might learn. They talked about classmates who became lifelong friends. They talked with pride about growing up and wanting to be a Bumblebee, the mascot that represented Lincoln High, which served students — most of them African-Americans, for 98 years in this city, until 2002 and high school consolidation.

Alums sang along with the alma mater — I don’t know if my high school even had a song — which sounded much like every other alma mater I’ve heard:

“Had I a thousand tongues to sing/

“The half would ne’er be told/

“Of what old Lincoln means to me…/

“Her purple and her gold.”

The difference was, everyone at Israel Chapel AME Church, where the 1978 alums met Tuesday, seemed to know the words.

They are not alone, of course. I’ve heard from a multitude of Thomas Jefferson High School alumni here who treasure their every moment at their high school, which was also a victim of consolidation in 2002. Both Lincoln and Jefferson high schools became middle schools, replaced by Port Arthur Memorial High School.

When Raymond Strother, who made a national reputation as a political adviser, a confidant of Gary Hart and Lloyd Bentsen and John Stennis, visited his hometown recently, he seemed more intent on discussing not those national figures but his own high school teachers and coaches from “TJ.” At 77 years old, those were the people he seemed most intently interested in, long after he’d left Port Arthur for Louisiana and then Washington, D.C.

Strother alluded to moments that led up to integration in our city schools. A 1960 Thomas Jefferson graduate, he talked about isolated experiences in training for track with a Lincoln High runner whose school lacked the athletic facilities that TJ had, about how profoundly unfair that seemed to him, the son of a refinery worker and union member.

On Tuesday, at Israel Chapel — the church was the forerunner to Lincoln High, the alums said — they talked about practicing for basketball on dirt courts and playing games outdoors.

Yet both Strother and the Lincoln alums lauded their teachers and coaches for caring passionately about their students. They talked about teachers as dedicated and ethical and intent on their students doing the right things.

“It was a time of respect for teachers,” Lincoln alum Hilton Kelley said of his high school years.

What made schools like Lincoln and Jefferson different?

“You felt like somebody,” one speaker said. “Every child wanted to be a Bumblebee.”

Dr. Melvin Getwood, Lincoln High’s last principal, said he felt a link to Lincoln graduates before him. He said in 2000 he attended the 60^th reunion of the Class of 1940, which had 18 graduates. Of the 18, 11 graduated college, he said.

“I’m talking 1940,” he said. “That resonated with me.”

That was a high school experience I missed; the fault was surely my own. I’ve never attended a high school reunion, and keep in touch with no classmates.

You can talk about Port Arthur’s miseries all day long. Sometimes, it’s worth talking about its strengths.

The Class of 1978 would count Abraham Lincoln High among them, and have every right to do so. It lives on as long as they live on.

Ken Stickney is editor of The Port Arthur News.