Britton Macon High School - Brittonian Yearbook (Britton, MI)

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Teamwork can be put not only into your own career, but also into your personal contribution to democracy. To the keeping of I CAN in American. The same spirit that can make greatness in a person can forge out still new greatness for a people and a nation. Making democracy work is a challenge. A challenge that we can either ac- cept or sidestep. lt is a challenge to leadership as well as a challenge to common folk like you and me. It is a challenge to those of us who will one day be responsible for leadership. - Let us realize that by setting a definite goal, having faith that it can be achieved by looking at setbacks in the right way, loving and serving people, and employing co- operation and teamwork, we can accomplish whatever we begin. Cut the letter T out of the expression I can't do it, and you have a good motto with which to challenge the world. 17

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An inspiring illustration of what faith can do to overcome the greatest of ob- stacles is Glenn Cunningham, who ran the fastest mile on record. When he was a small boy, he was so crippled in a schoolhouse fire that the doctors predicted he would never walk again. Only a miracle could help him. But Glenn Cunningham wouldn't accept the expressed opinion of the doctors. Through sheer perseverance, and the faith that he Could do it, he began walking by following a plow across the fields, leaning on it for support . . . . sturnbling, falling, clinging to the plow handles, but never giving up. He plowed across the fields and walked. Miraculously, his leg mus- cles gained strength. From there he began experimenting to see what he could do with his legs until ultimately he broke all records for his specialty, the gruelling one mile race .... Faith .... That 1 CAN element which enables us to set our goal to seemingly unattainable heights .... Faith that makes it possible to overcome all obstacles. , Glenn Cunningham is only one of many who has made a success of his life despite tragedy and misfortune. There is Helen Keller, blind from birth. Or Charles P. Steinmetz, the hunch-backed wizzard of General Electric. Or Marshall Field, who vowed to build the Wor1d's Greatest Department Store no matter how many times it might burn down, and literally on the smoldering ashes of his first store, destroyed by the great Chicago Fire, began to build it. Did you ever stop to think that often it is your own attitude which determines whether things go well or ill with you? It is all in the way we look at the misfortunes that befall us that determines what our future will be like. Gaining the right point of view .... and holding it .... is never an easy task. But it is well worth the effort. The story is told of a young soldier who was wounded in the Battle of the Bulge. As he came out of the ether on the operating table, the Army surgeon spoke to him ten- derly: You're going to be all right, Son. The only bad part is that you've lost a leg. Nutsf gasped the soldier, I didn't lose it--1 gave it! What a remarkable point of view and so different from what would normally be expected. Because he chose to look at it that way, the rest of his life would be richer: He was challenged and he accepted that challenge. Without bitterness, without resentment, he could start again to shape his future. Now that we have set our goal in the line of useful service and feel confident that we can surmount all obstacles, we should remember that our achievements may be limited or expanded by how much we like and understand people, and how well we get along with others. By our sincere desire to work with and for others, based on a true love and belief in mankind, and asincere desire to be helpful, we can achieve much greater accomplishments than we can by relying on our own capacities alone. First we must know what real teamwork is, how to get along on a team of widely different personalities, and how to like and be liked by others. The building :rf Hoover Dam at Boulder Canyon demonstrates that through teamwork man can accomplish whatever he dares to attempt. It took six separate firms of contractors banding together to do the project that was too big for any one of the firms alone. Scoffers warned that they cou1dn't even stick together long enough to draw up plans and siibmit a bid to say nothing of constructing the dam. Today Hoover Dam, built by the world's largest aggregation of construction forces ever assembled until then, stands as a monument to what teamwork can do. When we have learned to work with others in a spirit of harmonious co-operation of useful service, we can achieve much more than we could achieve by ourselves. 16

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SALUTATORY - WILL OUR JOB BE AN EASY ONE? By Norma Spreeman Teachers, parents, and friends. We the class of 1949, welcome you to our grad- uation exercises tonight. As we stand here tonight in preparation to receive our graduation diplomas we realize that without your care and guidance, we would not be where we are. We are truly grateful for these services. During the past years of our lives, we have been al- most totally dependent upon you for our livelihood and advancement. Now we have reached the point where we must share a much greater portion of that responsibility. We hope we shall be able to do so in a manner which you shall be proud of. lt will be our job to live and act like human beings. That may sound as if it is a very sirnple task, but it is not. lf it is so sirnple, why is it we have so many nations and people in the world today who are not living as human beings but instead more as inhumans ? Many texts, articles, and theories have been expounded in an attempt to explain why Human beings act as they do. Perhaps more time should be spent to explain why we act as inhumans. In 1927 we appeared to be quite hurnan when we entered into the Kellogg Pact along with many other nations agreeing to outlaw war and establish permanent world- wide peace but as we all know we have had two world wars since then and the end is not yet in sight. ln the midst of this present change from peace to war, we have abandoned the religious and educational conventions of 40 centuries ago and have only tried to get more for ourselves. When we act that way we are not human beings at all but like the animal who has enough but is continually trying to get more. We all do this without sometimes realizing it. This inhumanism can also apply to countries. For when they are fighting in war they are only trying to get more for themselves. Each country is like an animal trying to reign above the others. You have all probably heard the saying about the cow that would rather eat the grass on the other side of the fence even though she has enough on her side. All of us are like that, we are never satisfied with what we have. So the current question should not be why we behave as humans, but why are we so inhuman. From this discussion of present human behavior, you can see that our job of acting as human beings, as the true meaning of the word implies, is not an easy one. It proves to be a difficult job to act as a hurnan in the midst of inhumans. Many of you here obtain your living from the soil. You are familiar with the laws and ways of nature. You know that it is a difficult job for a stalk of corn or sprigs of wheat to grow and survive in a field of weeds. So it is in life. We all must realize that it is a much more difficult job for a truly useful person to grow and thrive in a society of weeds than it is to survive in a well cultivated society. lt is our hope that we the members of this class of 1949 will be strong enough in our morals and standards of conduct to survive and thrive as a strong pillar of justice and good in the present field of weeds, 18