John Lennon Came to My School When I Was 8. Or Did I Imagine It?

“It was for Rick, some kind of makeup for a school event we missed when we were out in L.A.,” she told me, and confirmed that Lennon did not bring his guitar or sing. “Rick” was Rick Sklar, the longtime program director for WABC radio and an early Beatlemania champion. He was also the father of two Friends students and a member of the P.T.A. Through his connections, pop stars like Patti LaBelle, Harry Chapin and even Alice Cooper made house calls for assemblies and school fair concerts. Lennon’s appearance was his latest production.

“Let me know if you get the exact date,” Ms. Pang said. “I’m so curious now.”

I thought that would be unlikely, but then Ms. Stern, the retired librarian, called back with a breakthrough: She had dug through old boxes and found a copy of “Genesis,” the upper school’s sporadically published newspaper.

There he was, on Page 3 of the February 1975 issue (Volume 4, No. 3): John Lennon, peering out from a grainy black-and-white photo in his cap and wire-rimmed glasses.

“Beatlemania returned to Friends Seminary on Friday, January 23, when John Lennon paid a visit to our school,” the article begins. Everybody misremembered the year. Unfortunately, Jan. 23, 1975, was a Thursday, not a Friday. But there was another clue: The photo of Lennon was taken by a student photographer, Christopher Gibbs.

I called Mr. Gibbs, who is 66 and a music professor at Bard College, and told him about my quest. Did he have any other pictures from the day Lennon came to our school? Alas, he didn’t think so. But he said that there was another student photographer there that day, Scott Frances, a senior at the time and the best photographer at Friends Seminary. He had shot for the yearbook and went on to have a long career as an architectural photographer.