Synchronized swimming at PHS in the 1970s was one of the only opportunities girls had to do some sort of swimming at the high school. These women were part of the club called the Aqua Club.  

The president of the club, Sandy Goelzer, says she tried out synchronized swimming for the first time and ended up liking it.  

“I thought it was kind of pretty. I thought it was a pretty thing to do with our bodies and I liked doing it with other girls,” Goelzer said.  

The girls did many skills that prepared them for competition, or better known as their performances. Leola Johnston, another club member, says that club meetings were a lot of practicing regarding timing and routines.   

“We would learn certain maneuvers like the periscope, … and we would practice those maneuvers by ourselves and then we would line up and try to, … do it in sequence to the music, like dancing,” said Johnston. “When you are kicking in the same height, we tried to make the periscope go up and down and that’s when you would put one leg bent, and your bottom would be down in the water and you would kind of float your chest up and you would have one foot straight up and then you would make movement to make your body move down so your leg was under the water and then you would want to come up at the same time.” 

 This skills like the periscope were in performances that they did together as a group. Usually, they were just at the high school pool, but one time, Johnston remembers going someplace else.  

“We did a scene at the American lake in Fort Lewis, and that was kind of hard because you couldn’t see each other because the water was really murky, and so it was really hard to synchronized it, … We enjoyed them, but there weren’t very many competitions, also I don’t think there was that many groups back then, in Washington state,” Johnston said.