To: St. Peter, Pearly Gates, Heaven Dear St. Peter: You will find enclosed in this letter the record of the
actions of the Class of 1945 for the 12 years they spent in
a public instruction for guidance, however, this is not a
reflection on them as it is required by law of everyone of
this age. They entered this awesome place in the year of 1933. The
second year of F.D.R.'s first term in the White House.
(Incidentally, as a favor to this class, Mr. Roosevelt
agreed to stay in for several terms so they wouldn't have to
learn too many different presidents.) This was the big
adventure into the great world alone for after the first day
most proud mama's stayed at home and watched sonny off to
fight his own way for a while. Among this bright and shining group were Rachel Lea Rothe
and Jo Ann Cockran who told on Sam Landers for hopping
wagons on the way to school. Whether Sam ever got even or
not is something that is between you and the aforementioned
characters. Margie Stamback, who was smart enough to foresee
the hard road ahead, cried everyday and Miss Rice sent her
home. Laura Lea Kearney started out a little behind the rest
because of an operation. (She had her tonsils out). As a reference for future work with you, the East Side
Kids became Angels, well, anyway, in the Christmas play.
This is the year that the West Side girls starting noticing
John Harvey Long and fought to be in his gang. The third year proved that Buddy Bowers wasn't as tough
as he thought, because when he fell off the fire escape it
knocked him out. This also happened to Bill Manly who hit
his head on a teeter-totter and was out for eight hours. Romance came into their lives this year when Miss Julian
got "hitched". There was a mock wedding with Mary Lou York
and Jimmy Wyrick as bride and groom and Douglas lark as the
Preacher. Perhaps this was a sign, as it was Jimmy then and
Jimmy now for Mary Lou. (But not the same Jimmy.) It was the fourth grade Margaret Black met her waterloo
when she just couldn't remember the names of the birds Miss
Saunders put on the blackboard around the room. But Miss
Saunders was kindhearted enough that she gave Margaret a set
of the bird cards for trying so hard. Oh, Oh, and then came the fifth year in the class of John
Roman whose pointer has made history through the years of
OHS teaching. It was one of the best games they could find
to hide it and pretend not to have the faintest idea where
it was and boy did he get mad! He also had a habit of
spitting on the chalk before writing on the board, you could
look upon it as a sign that he was ready to put the problem
on the board. Miss Walters had quite a time with the ones on
the East Side because the boys were beginning to take notice
of the females and they played a game where every time a
girl was caught the boys kissed them and put them in a
dungeon. Tsk! Tsk! But is must have been fun. And it is to be remembered that the girls would dash down
to the lunch room and corner John Harvey Long or maybe Frank
Colburn. Men must have been scarce even in those days. Then the sixth grade and the puppets - During the making
of the wooden dolls it was necessary to go down to the empty
music room and the first thing . . . Bang! . . . They were
playing post office. That is until Miss Mullins slipped in
and stopped the mail (or was it male?) Jean Ayers was such a
graceful carpenter that she cut her arm and everyone thought
she would bleed to death. . . . Gracia Ann Brown, who was
practicing up for a future part as Wonder Woman, fell off
Ayer's roof and broke her arm. It seems she didn't have the
right touch. And then, the big event of the year, "Jack and
the Bean Stalk", but the giant proved to be human as he
married the second grade teacher, Miss Cole. Also, this was
the year Douglas Clark threatened to put poor Miss Casto in
the "Jug" because she took a swing at him to say nothing of
the newspapers she gave him to eat. Chris Floyd proved his
worth this year when a group of not too well behaved girls
and himself had to adjourn to the cloakroom with "the board
of education" and he hit upon the idea of hitting the coats
instead of themselves. Let's give him one for that! And so ended the first half of the term "East is East and
West is West and never the twain shall meet." but the Class
of '45 did in Junior High School. To show the increase in age we were allowed to pass from
class to class in solemn rows, a responsibility undertaken
and carried out. Mr. Shobe was our principal and health
teacher and to our delight one bright spring day he took the
class out into the sunshine and they played baseball for an
hour . . . Another thing that showed the coming of age of
this group was no recess. Perhaps the saddest circumstance
that touched this bunch of young people was the death of
Miss Neighbors who was a good teacher and well loved by all
her pupils. In the eighth grade the Class of '45 hit the top, they
had a newspaper, pep club, and basketball team. And many was
the time the newspaper staff with Barbara Weaver as editor
got out of class to meet the deadline. . . . The favorite
class of this year was mathematics with Wilber Mosier as
teacher. And was a class! It was then the famous Mosier
Mousetrap Company was formed . . . Romance came into the
limelight again when Randall Cornelius and Stanley Butcher
arrived to win the hearts of most of the girls. Especially
L. L. Kearney who swooned as if Randall might have been Van
Johnson. Imagine! Jack Waymire threw a party that year and
Misses Aelsman and Miller crashed it. This year they took a
measure of intelligence of the class with the Famous
Achievement Test . . . And D. Clark didn't lack much of
being near the border line (Which one no one knows). As dignified Freshman the Class of 1945 entered the last
lap of their education. It was quite different at first than
the other grades, but after the first few days of getting
into the wrong class, etc., the situation was well in hand.
Madine Raymer and Jeanette Lankord joined the freshman class
to add to its reputation of ahem(?) brilliant people. The
Student Council held the first and last penny carnival which
was the cause of many new romances - a few of them still
have their marriage licenses. And Oh! for shame, when a
certain group of young ladies tripped off to the park for a
little smoke. There was one time when someone sneaked up on
them and boy what a quick disappearance of cigarettes! L. D.
O'Brien was the bright boy of the Latin class which each day
struggled through an hour of misery because no one had or
maybe just couldn't translate their lesson. One of the
shadows on this year was the death of Virginia Henness. This
was also the year Miss Clemens took her clothing class to
Manhattan. It was during our freshman year that the upper
classmen sold little Billy Hays an elevator ticket so he
wouldn't have to walk up and down the stairs to get to his
classes. But he had the worst luck - he couldn't find the
elevator. The hi-light of our sophomore year was the winning of the
Tom-Tom. Quite an honor was bestowed on our class when Frank
Platt made the first team in basketball. And boy, did this
group of geniuses think they were something when they got to
be sophomores. The poor freshies were half scared most of
the time. The first marriage out of this class was Marie
Johnston, who had heretofore been looked upon as intelligent
to keep out of traps . . . Marclla Hahn also got hitched. .
. The only way the fifth hour Bookkeeping class was able to
pass was the answer book . . . Camilla Shell coming into the
selected group of '45 went wading in the fishpond at the
G.R. picnic. Frances Roady went to Hoisington to school but
couldn't do without O.H.S. so she returned later . . . This
year the band came out with fancy steps . . . This wouldn't
have any connection with Donnie Griffin who was the high
stepping Drum Major. Or would it? But more than being Sophomores was being Juniors and they
thought surely now they would attain recognition but no
there was still the Seniors above them. Rachel Lea Rothe and
Bill Hays were elected cheer leaders. Irene Riley from
LaCygne and Lela Mae Bassett from Cheap came to boost the
population of the Class of 1945. Harry Sellers was here to
grace the Halls of O.H.S.?S. that year, too, Clarice Beaver,
Mary Lou York, Carolyn Stevens and Gracia Brown made the
National Honor Society during their Junior year. This year
proved to be full of events though the Main Two were the
Junior-Senior banquet which was a huge success with Lilacs
as the theme, and the Junior play "Almost Summer". Alas! the
agony and rush that play caused, but in the end all was
well. As seniors these future people of the world took their
place as the head of the list to be looked up to and
marveled at. Bob Falls came and braced the Typing II class
as the only boy. Rachel Lea Rothe was again elected
Cheerleader. One of the main football events was Sam Landers
running the wrong way. Most of these people had some work
somewhere or other to help relieve the manpower shortage and
several of the senior boys went off to war. Among them were
J. W. Hewitt, Roy Bowers, and Galen Hunt, who finally is
going to get into a fight but here's hoping he won't get
beat like he used to by Eugene Weaver, who has also left.
Gone also is Frank Platt and perhaps others. The big Thanksgiving game was played here the Senior Year
and was graced by the presence of Iris Jeanne Elder and
Rachel Lea Rothe as attendants to the Queen . . . The Senior
play "Gabriel, Blow Your Horn." went off with a bang and
caused a lot of comment for its hillbilly atmosphere. But
everyone thought it was one of the best plays ever put on
here. Sneak Day, The Junior-Senior banquet, this time as
guests and not the hosts, and then at the development of
that lump in the throat about leaving . . . saving they're
glad but most of them would like to be able to continue for
a while anyway. All in all, St. Peter, they're not such a bad lot and I
think perhaps the next report you get will find some of them
in the Hall of Fame and if not at least show that they have
taken their place and filled it as best they could.
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