Atwood Hammond High School - Post Yearbook (Atwood, IL)

Page 7 text:

JOHN W. MERRITT BARRED PLYMOUTH POCKS AT THE Maple Lawn Poultry Yards Are bred to win, Bred to pay, Bred for Quality and business in every way. Let me book your order for Eggs $1.50 per Setting. Stock for sale after October 1st. DUANE CARRETT. R, F. D. 8 ATWOOD, ILL. BLACKSMITH and MACHINIST B 'st Equipped Shop in Douglas, Piatt Or Moultrie Celt dies. Plow Work and Horse Shoeing a Specialty. General Repair Work. ATWOOD, = ILLINOIS

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CLASS DAY ESSAYS HA LUTATORY CLY D'5 CL.I NU A N LADIES and gentlemen. It is with a Feeling of pride and pleasure that I welcome to our closing exercises, so many friends of our school and of education in general. Within the past few years education has been making rapid strides. This isshowu by the founding of new schools and the rapid growth of the old ones. Perhaps no institution has shown the marked progress within the past twenty years that has been shown by the public school. The old country school house, with its uncomfortable forms and its very limited facilities, is now almost forgotten. Graded schools are showing decided improvement. The high school for some time has been a preparatory department for the university, and is gradually becoming more than a preparatory school. It is now, in many places, turning out young men and women equipped to make their ways in the world without further schooling. The greater per cent ol students do not enter the university, so to the old curriculum have been added the business course and the manual training department. Our own school has taken part in this pro- gress, so that graduates from the Atwood High School may enter many colleges and universities without examination. What has caused this wonderful growth in school spirit? It has com’ about naturally to some extent, along with the general development that has been taking place within the past few years. But, if, in our own town there has been an onward movement, it has been, in part, due to those patrons and friends who have manifested an interest in the welfare of our school. It is true, to a great extent, that the school is what the pupils make it, but every time you have given us encouragement, or shown an interest in anything we have accomplished, you have unconciously raised higher the stand-dard we have set for ourselves. Your presence here tonight mav encourage some under graduate to continue through school that, at the end of the fourth year, he miy stand before you the hero, as he thinks, of the hour. I know not what may have brought each of you out tonight. Of course it was not the expectation of seeing the girls’ dresses. I trust from the number of intelligent faces I sec before me that you have come in the interest of the cause of education. However, that may be, your very presence here will aid that cause that every one of us should have at heart. It is men and women who are interested as much in our every day school work as in the events of commencement week that are uplifting the standard of education. Such men and wonen as these we are proud to see before us, and now it becomes mv most pleasant privilege in the name of the class of Nineteen Hundred Seven, once more, to bid you welcome.

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('LASS HISTORY M A l«»'. KKT MDKiiAN THE HISTORY of a nation may be written in Hit biographies of it.s great men. This may also be applied to the history ot our cla..s So, as historian. I invite you to follow me in the chronicle of their daring deeds. ir president. Harrison Fahrnkopf, was l rn at M ickville. Illinois, in the nineteenth century. His early life was unev« ntful. At the age of six he started to school. There, o i account of his abnormal height, he was immediately pi tee 1 at the head of his class wh re he has remain d ever since. Throughout the grades and in the high school, lie did not neglect athletics. In M.tv, 111 5. he entered the athletic contest, hel l at Moaticello. where lie surpassed all his former records. Here occure I the only event which marred the tranquil pleasure of his school life. At about five o'clock oa tile d ly of tile contest, the massive amphitheatre was packed to the utmost to witness the pole vaulting. The contest was at its height and only two contestants had been able to clear the bar. It was now Harrison's turn, lie seized the vaulting pole, retreated several feet, ran forward and with a graceful sweep mounted higher and higher, finally he seemed to pause about fifty feet in mid-air, the pole wavered an instant and then broke. Harrison landed on his feet, blit on the wrong side of the bar. The excitement broke up the game and the medal was awarded elsewhere In sympathy for him. the Seniors last year selected him to accept the ladder. This honor somewhat alleviated his disappointment, and he has now fully regained his former high spirits. Recently he was offered a position as tall man” with Ringliog Bros. Circus, but refused as he contemplates entering the next Olympian games. Somewhat over half a century ago in the town of Taylorville. there dwelt a family famed for their musical talent. BesidevS father and mother, there were three children. two sous and a daughter. The eldest son, Clyde, was the pride of the fond parent’s heart. As a babe he bade fair to surpass all others in music. His first efforts were vocals, and while his early yells threatened to drive the n eighbors distracted, the devoted father and mother saw only promise of a strong and cultured voice. At last, as li • grew older they saw chances of their fondest hopes being realized, as he joined the baud. Hut. the son thought differently and decided that music was not his sphere. He started his hopes and ambitions in a different channel, namely that of learning -achauge most fortunate for the reputation of class ‘ 7? of which lie Is a member. In this new capacity he became our authority on history and led us to think that he would immediately secure a position as teacher of that subject. Hut alas! that tickle boy informed us only today, that lie intended to find the North pole, and would start on his first expedition in June We predict tor this undertaking a brilliant success if Cly«l° does not freeze to death courting the little Eskimos One fair member of our class was orginally a native of Atwood, where she lias spent most of her life. As a child Vivian was very precocious. At the age of three, she had literally devoured three spelling books and any number of lead pencils. Hut, when she started to school all was changed; the early thirst for knowledge departed and in vain were the teachers efforts to get her to study anything except geometry in which subject she was naturally a shark . Some music teacher had told her that it required a mathematician to master music. Turning her mathematical bent to account she took up the study of music and stands before us today, the prima dona of the class. It is rumored that the career marked out for her is a course in the Boston Observatory to be crowned by a tour with Madam Melba through Europe.