West High School - Shaheen Yearbook (Davenport, IA)

Page 22 text:

Terrible earthquakes, se- vere drought, and a polar freeze were among the many natural catastrophes which bombarded the world this year. With the windchill factor, temps dipped to below 78 de- grees, and after a day of sitting out in the coldness, many cars refused to start. 1 f 'K 1 ' More than congested hallways make getting to class within the alloted 5 minutes rather difficult. Because of the over population at West and the poor conditions of Central High, a plan for building two new high schools in the Davenport area was proposed. The jerry Lewis Telethon, a 24-hour television special, is a plea to all the people in the nation to give their support in the campaign against muscular dystrophy. Many West High students contributed by donations of money, or by working at the local channel with lim King.

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With the music of the Travelers playing in the background, juniors Irma Gillum and Kirk Ho- venga enjoy dancing to a fast beat. Splat! It's not that senior Dave Mattke is a sloppy eater, or that he usually wears whipped cream in his hair- it's just that someone has to be on the other end of a pie throw! Under a hypnotic spell, sophomore Greg Ben- ischek falls backwards without concern into the hands of Dr. Irwin Ross. Plunging one's face into a mound of sugary meringue doesn't do anything for the com- plexion, but as these two sophomores find out, it's a great way to start a pie eating con- 1651.

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America's believe it or not Due to 1976 being an election year, our lives were bombarded by extensive cam- paigning by both parties on the national and local level. When the smoke finally cleared and the last vote was tabulated on November 2nd, the victors basked in the joy of victory while the losers silently accepted defeat. The race for the oval office between Republican President Gerald Ford and Georgia's Demo- cratic Governor jimmy Carter went down to the wire before Carter was announced vic- tor. On a closer level, in the First Congres- sional District, Republican lim Leach defeat- ed incumbent Edward Mezvinsky. For some, this election meant more than just standing by to see who would win the respective offices. A number of West's stu- dents became actively involved as party vol- unteers. Two such students were senior Ka- tie Maguire and sophomore jon Haack. Ka- tie, who has always held in interest in poli- tics, was a field person for First District Can- didate Congressman Ed Mezvinsky. In the latter stages of the election, Katie spent up to seventy hours a week working at the can- didate's headquarters. By getting in- volved, Katie feels, you could possibly help change the outcome of the election. jon Haack, who worked for Republican lim Leach, invested many hours making phone calls and putting up political yard signs in order to inform the public about his party's candidates. Like Katie, lon feels high school students should become actively in- volved in the political scene. Politics, jon explains, is the only way for a change to occur, and so there's no point in not getting involved if a change is what you want for the country. Besides the local and national elections, many other situations affected us. A severe winter of record low temperatures caused schools and businesses to shut down, snow drifts made highways impassable, and the polar freeze ruined the crops of farmers in Florida and other states. Almost overnight, the prices of oranges, tomatoes, and grape- fruit doubled. Meanwhile, many coffee drinkers became tee-totalers as the price of coffee per pound sky-rocketed as well. Here in Davenport, with the overcrowd- ing situation at West, and the deteriorization of Central High, school and community in- terests focused on the proposal of building two new high schools. With 1977 barely getting a start at the time of this writing, it is difficult to predict the outcome of the new high-schools proposal, Carter's policies, and the total effect of the big freeze. In any case, it was a year of many changes, a year that not many will forget. One of her jobs at the Democrat headquarters this fall was to answer the telephone. During her second semester, senior Katie Maguire worked as a page in the Iowa House, a job which required her to temporarily move to Des Moines.