Axton High School - Axtonian Yearbook (Axton, VA)

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THE AXTONIAN another time they are on the campus with colorful flags flying and Virginia Holland is being crowned Victory Queen by Mr. Saville. A high light of the junior year occurs on an April day. There is a clear reflection of each junior drawing on a gold band with onyx setting — the 1946 class ring. He has the proud assurance that he will be a senior the next year ! But the mirror of time does not show all juniors becoming seniors. Marshall Newton enters the navy. Carleen Matthews, Gertrude and Marjorie Joyce, Gloria Wyatt, Juanita Gillispie and Magdaline Wilson go to work in the summer and do not return. Katherine Moss continues as a junior. This year one sees reflected well organized intra-mural athletics. Every member of this class is active on some team. The outstanding social scene is a school bus, loaded with seniors and juniors happy with laughter and song, wending its way to Fairystone Park where the juniors and their sponsor serve a delightful picnic lunch in a pavilion. After games are played by the lake with one another and the “gnats”, all return home for pleasant dreams. Alas ! only twenty seniors are to be seen on the front seats of the auditorium in the fall of 1945 ! One of these, Clore Eggleston, soon leaves for Martinsville ; and in the spring of 1946, another, Betty Jean Whitfield, quits to join the matrimonial ranks. In the senior year there are many pictures, for World War II is over and peace-time activities are resumed. There is a play, “Don’t Take My Penny”, in which all seniors take part, being staged to an appreciative audience in early December. Intra-mural athletics and literary contests are frequent. Inter-school baseball is resumed in the spring. Six Sen- iors debate on compulsory military training, the question of the Virginia High School League; one enters the state poetry reading contest. Educational moving pictures as part of the curriculum are enjoyed. On April 27, the District S. C. A. of which James Wagner is vice-president, is enter- tained by the Axton S. C. A. of which Mabel Earles is president. It is pleasant to review the visiting students enjoying the lovely Axton campus, the lunch room and attractive programs presented by the District Association. Members of class ’46 are doing their part as hosts. A party of thirteen are at University of Virginia, May 2-3. Seven of these are Axton seniors and their sponor. They are busy with the V.H.L. contests and entertainments. Though the party brings back no championships to Axton, most of them rate superior. The farewell entertainment of the juniors to the seniors one evening in May is a jolly frolic. All are gay as they drive up the winding roads bordered with blooming laurel to Fairy Stone Park. They enjoy boating and swimming until driven into the pavilion by a storm. Then wiener roasting and games occupy them until the moo n comes out and they start for home. But the most triumphant scene recorded for members of class ’46 occurs when, on June 3, they extend their hand for those sheepskins won by four years of work, amidst the applause of hundreds of interested friends. Then there are partings ! The mirror re- flects no more. The history of class ’46 is ended. Pauline Wyatt Historian Page Fifteen

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THE AXTONIAN The Mirror of Time S we, the seniors of ’46 prepare to leave our Alma Mater, we pause to glance backward into the mirror of time and to record some reflections which have made history in our high school. They are vivid pictures and we see our- selves as others see us. In the autumn of 1942, a timid but proud group of forty-two youngsters take their places in assembly with the high school groups and later in their home room with Mrs. Sacra and Miss Ward (now Mrs. 0. W. Hairfield) as sponsors. From the first home room meeting is reflected a scene of the class being organized and Bobby Stultz taking the chair as president and Edna Arrington, as secretary. The mirror of time reflects the activities of the year. Here are the Victory Corps workers selling bonds and stamps ; there are groups of boys and girls strolling in with scrap iron for the large crate outside the agricultural building. Again one group of girls in the home economics club is busy making things for display in the Danville Fair; an- other is working on squares for an afghan to be sent to the U. S. 0., and a third is filling packages for overseas lads. At times boys of the F .F. A. group are bringing in samples of farm crops for judging contests or the fair; others are carrying home tools they have made in the shop. On the campus one catches passing glimpses of games of volleyball, bas- ketball, softball, and baseball. One activity which is reflected vividly is a banquet hall with the boys, their fathers, and Mr. Saville seated at a beautifully decorated table eating, and the home economics girls under the supervision of Miss Nutter (now Mrs. P. H. Barker) serving them. But one sad feature this reflector records is the great changes in the freshmen’s ranks. There is Ramona Barker moving to Roanoke ; Bobby Stultz and Edna Arrington to Mar- tinsville; David Barker to Miami; and Ernestine Biggs, Mary Walls, Edith Boyd, Billy McMillan, Landon Gravely, Jesse Hundley, Thomas Eaton, Robert Dickinson and Junior Nester dropping out. Some enter war work. In compensation for so great losses, one fine boy, Clifton Wells from Brosville High, is welcomed into the group. “ In the fall of 1943, twenty-eight freshmen become sophomores. Ruby Jones and Myra Turner remain freshmen. The group is in two sections. Mrs. Neil Gregory sponsors Group I, of which Virginia Holland is president, Henry Eggleston, vice-president, and Mabel Earles, secretary. Mrs. Bryan has Group II, of which James Wagner is president, Pauline Wyatt, vice-president, and Carleen Matthews, secretary. This year history is repeating itself in club work and athletics. One impressive re- flection is the May Day with Joanne Craig crowned Victory Queen on the campus. An- other scene, very clear, is that of the patrons and friends of the school being served at a tea in the cottage by Mrs. Bryan and the home economacs girls. During the sophomore year, the mirror of time records only three dropping out. Aileen Joyce, Ida Martin and Robert Harris go to work, and later Robert enters the navy. Louise Davis joins the ranks from Ferrum. In the fall of 1944, twenty-six juniors are reflected in the library choosing Dorothy Dillon president, Louise Davis vice-president, and Joanne Craig secretary. War activi- ties are recorded one after another. The Victory Corps busies itself at one time by black- ing up for a minstrel for those who had bought one dollar’s worth of war stamps; at Page Fouytcen

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who’s Who in the Senior Class KEY TO WHO’S WHO IN THE SENIOR CLASS — (1) Most intellectual: Wells, Craig’. (2) Quietest: Burgess, Dillon. (3) Best Looking: Wagner, Holland. (4) Valedictorian, Craig; Salutatorian, Earles. (5) D.A.R. Good Citizen, Wyatt. (6) Wittiest: Kendall, Davis. (7) Most athletic: La ' wrence, Burchell. (8) Most popular and best dressed; Lawrence, Hol- land. (9) Most serviceable: Wilson, Craig. (10) Best-all-round, Craig. (11) V.L.L. debaters: Wagner, Elliott, Wyatt, Craig, Earles, Kendall. (12) Best-all-round boy, Wagner.