Ames High School - Spirit Yearbook (Ames, IA)

Page 8 text:

Page 8 The Spirit Annual The new building seemed very grand to the students that year. The corridors seemed so wide and straight, after the torturous passages of old Central, and there was now room for four or even six, to walk along and talk “of many things.” Free¬ dom was allowed in the halls now, the old rule of “no talking w ' hile passing from class to class” being abolished with the old building. There was now no teacher standing at the head of the stairs saying “Sh-h-h” to anyone who ventured to plan a picnic or make a date. It was not the freshmen who felt strange and “not at home” this year, but the seniors, who had spent the other three years marching primly up and down the winding stairs of Central. It would take too long to enumerate the teachers who have “ wept in and out” of the portals of Ames High, but some of the ones whom the present studenti all know, we will mention. Maizy Schreiner, w ' ho was principal of this high school from 1906- 1912, is now at work in the Colorado Springs High School, and often renews old acquaintances here during her vacations. I. J. Scott, who was in the high school from 1906-1909, served two terms as county superintendent, and is now a practicing at¬ torney in our midst. Maude Wakefield left her geometry classes in 1913, to take the office of county superintendent, a place she is still filling. Katherine Terrill, w ho taught botany here from 1907-1909. is doing Y. M. C. A. work among the lo’wa boys in France. And there are many others whom there is not space here to mention. THE NEW HIGH SCHOOL BUILDING The first graduating class to have diplomas was the class of 1880. That year there were real graduating exercises and everyone in the class took part. The classes have increased in size from year to year. The class of 1907 consisted of thirty members and several classes of later years have had twice that number. The graduates of Ames High, w’hile not quite as numerous as the sands of the sea, are very many and are very differently occupied. There are bankers and merchants, farmers and college professors, generals and privates, teachers, librarians, and mis¬ sionaries, doctors and nurses, and wise and loving mothers of fine young sons and daughters. While w’e have had as yet no president who graduated from Ames High, we have had scores and scores wiio are filling the necessary and vital places in life, and filling them honorably and well. It is a notable fact that four of the members of the class of 1919 have mothers who graduated from Ames High, all being in the class of 1888. These four are: Robert Potter, Chevalier Adams, Priscilla Dodds, and Harriet Tilden. The four mothers are, respectively: Minnie Adams Potter, Lynn Chevalier Adams, Hattie Chrisman Dodds, and Ruth Duncan Tilden. So Ames High is “lo oking both w ' ays from forty” as Irvin S. Cobb says. She is looking backward wdth pride upon her growTh in building and equipment, her in¬ crease in number, her expanded courses, and her forceful and self-reliant alumni. She is looking forward with hope that her standards may be raised still higher, that the alumni of the future may increase in number and keep up the previous record in personality, and that her courses may be enlarged until there is w’ork for “all the children of all the people.” —Ida M. Boyd.

Page 7 text:

The Spirit Annual Page 7 ANCIENT HISTORY The beginning of this school Avas in lS7i», when the Independent District of Ames first came into existence and elected its first Board of Trustees. These Trustees were; G. G. Tilden, Isaac Black, H. F. Kingsbury, T. Weld, William West and H. R. Brad well. The first school was held in an old frame building which stood on the lots where the residence of Miss Etta Budd now stands. The next building was another frame building on the site of the present Lincoln School. These two buildings housed five different rooms where instruction was given and where some work in the “higher branches or regular high school work was done. Here the first hign school class “finished without diplomas or commencement orations. This class contained seven membe rs, of which our fellow townsman, J. J. Grove, ’was one. As the school was then so new and no regular course had been adopted, the records do not give an ac¬ count of this event, which was really the graduation of the first Ames High School class. This was in 1874. THE OLD BUILDING — NOW CENTRAL SCHOOL The next year, there began to be talk of bonding the district for the purpose of building a new school house. The voters of the district met and voted to issue bonds to the amount of ten thousand dollars, for the purpose of erecting a new school building. This building was started in 1880, and when finished was a very hand¬ some and commodious brick structure, which still stands as the old gabled part of what is now Central School. For a time, no other buildings were needed, but as the town increased in size, the school rooms became more and more crowded, apd so, with no very long intervals between, different ward buildings were erected, the Welch, Beardshear, and finally the Lincoln buildings. All this time, the high school, living in the second story; o Central Building, was growing and growing, until there was hardly room for brj more new student. Then, there was need of departments other than the regmar En¬ glish, scientific and classical courses then offered. The girls began to talk of other schools having courses in cooking and sewing, the boys wanted to exercise their in-, genuity in Manual Training, and the Athletic Association was crying aloud for a gymnasium. Through the efforts of enterprising citizens, and a school board .whicn had the ability to look ahead, it was voted to build a high school. This was in 1911, while F. W. Hicks ' was superintendent of schools, and A. B. Noble, president of the board. The school board visited other schools where there were modern high school buildings, consulted famous architects and used every means to make the new high school building the best that could be built. The building was finished ,and the furn¬ ishings put in, during the summer of 1912, and in the following September, the Ames High School moved in and took full possession of this handsome new brick SQhPol house.

Page 9 text:

r „ % f A ' S.