Boys High School - Epitome Yearbook (Reading, PA)

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THE EPITOME 57 President's Address of Welcome Mothers and dads of the students of the Class of 1927 February, we bid you welcome to these, our class night exercises. W'e take great pleasure in having you with us this evening because our presence here this evening is due mainly to the innumerable sacrifices you have made and the many hopes you have cherished for the success of your sons. To our relatives and friends present, we extend a hearty welcome, realizing too that a part of our success is also due to the interest you have shown in our development during these most formative years of our life. XVe bid you welcome to these exercises tonight in order that you may see some of the qualities developed in us by our High School training. We shall strive to express these qualities by maintaining, for the most part, a spirit of mirth throughout the evening. These devlopments are due mainly to the influ- ence our home and faculty had upon us. Having ever held high ideals before us. and, with our motto, Sit Veritas Dux -Let Truth Be Our Guide-in our mind, our members enthusiastically entered the fields of athletics, oratory, and scholar- ship, greatly sacrificing to attain the highest possible score in these activities, VVhy? For their own honor? No, chiefly with the idea of raising to unlimited heights the glory of their Alma Mater, dear old Reading High. Loyalty! Faith! Pride! These qualities combined in any youth will always tend to make him a better citizen-the aim of our present day High School. Tomorrow is Commencement: the completion of school education for some of us, the beginning of a higher college education for the rest of us. But, in a larger sense, regardless of whether we engage in our vocation immediately or whether we enter broader fields of knowledge, Commencement means exactly the same thing to all of us: the happy realization that now start those critical tests of the fibre that was woven during the past. And I, with you, am sure that the members of ,27 Feb. will, in later life, make for themselves a name, just as they have done in their' High School days-a-name to be praised highly for its merit. And so tonight, sad with the thought that our good old High School days are over, but happy that we now shall have the opportunity to prove ourselves in practical life, we again welcomeyou, and promise we shall do our best to make this evening most enjoyable to you.

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56 THE EPITOME At last we emerged as Seniors. Another presidential battle was waged, and our'President of the Sophomore year, Fenton Laucks, was again put at the head, with LeRoy Snyder as Vice-President. Riley Moyer and Marshall Huey were re-elected. John Heilman was chosen reporter. I i The Motto Committee submitted its Latin mottoes, and we selected Sit Veritas Dux - Let Truth Be Our Guide. Since our class is small, the amount of the dues was raised from 25 cents to 50 cents. Our last year has been ex- ceedingly busy and active. So far only the political side of our class has been mentioned. Though we are small, we have some very fine athletes in our midst. James Rick, 3rd, started his track career in the spring of 1924. He has served as captain for the last two years and as captain of cross-country for the last three.. Charles SchaeiTer for four years played varsity foot ball and was captain in 1925 and served as honorary captain in 1926. Stein, Zimmerman and Artz all were varsity men. Bill Coombs has been a basket ball and base ball star for years. Charles Schaeifer also was a star on the base ball nine. Huey and Thompson both did creditable work on the track and cross-country teams. Stuart ran cross-country his last year. Rohrbach played well on the foot ball reserves for two years. In the spring of 1926 our track team won the inter-class meet, nosing out '26 june. Last year our class basket ball team was runner-up in the Inter-Class League. . The Student Athletic Association was organized in the spring of 1926. james Rick, 3rd, was elected Vice-President and James Gilder was chosen class repre- sentative.This fall Rick was made President of the Association and Charles Schaeffer was elected class representative. Our fellow class members also lead most of the school societies and organi- zations: LeRoy Snyder as President of the Student Council, James Rick, 3rd, President of the Philos, Sidney Ables, President of the Zelosg John Heilman, twice President of the Thespians, and Allan Klopp, President of the Camera Club. Our social activities, particularly the Frolic and the Prom, were very success- ful, and they reflect credit upon those who had them in charge. Thus ends the history of our class for the period that we spent within old Reading High. lfVhat the future has in store for us must of necessity be re- vealed later. We are sure, however, that none will shirk, and that our record will be one of which all can be proud. I

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58 THE EPITOME Class Prophecy GEORGE R. ROSEN W'hen a fellow graduates, everyone seems to become suddenly interested in his future. The first th-ing they all want to know about him, when they hear he is about to leave school, is W'hat's he going to do now? Around com- mencement time your hear lots of folks wondering what's going to become of all these boys, now that their play days are over and they're face to face with the cruel world. Occasionally you run across an optimistic soul who warms your heart with something like this. Yes, your class is a fine crowd of promising young men-,' but yo-u you-ng people of today are such a giddy lot,' I just wonder wherc you'll be twenty-five years from now. I was reading in the paper only this morn- ing that 8521 of the inmates of Sing-Sing are boys under twenty-one. Now, usually, if a personiwouders what's going to happen twenty-five years from the present, the only thing that he can do about it is wait and jind outj but, remembering that most of you would find it rather difficult to keep track of all of us for such a long period, we decided to hustle things up a bit and reveal the whole story to you here this evening in the form of a little glimpse of our city in 1952. W' e got the information for this thing from a Hindu snake-charmerg so if you don't like pa-rits of it, you can't blame it on us. To tell the truth, I don't think the Hindu was any too honesty so please don't get offended if it sounds a trifle in- sulting in places. . Here it is: - It is night. Penn Square is lit up as bright as day by the huge, dazzling elec- tric signs hanging from the gigantic skyscrapers that line both sides of the street. Up in the air swarms of airplanes are flying about. Out in the middle of the square an immense mob is gathered around a platform. On the platform a man with beautiful teeth is biting the heads off of rattlesnakes. It is Marshall Huey. On the platform with him are Arlington Britton and Russell Bankes, and besides the platform there stands a fellow who looks very much like Jake Maier. These four are in the rattlesnake oil business, and the way they run it is quite a paying proposition. Huey does the entertaining, Britton the talking, Bankes hands out the bottles, and, while the attention of everyone is fixed on them, jake goes around among the crowd and picks pockets. Further up the street passionate strains of music are floating out of the Burning-Ankle jazz Palace, owned and personally conducted by Richard Jenkin- son Essick. The chief bouncer in this place is John D. Corbit. The music is furnished by the Flame-Faced Five, Charles Vincent Regis Wynne, conductor. Herman Rudolph keeps a filling station in the lobby. He sells hot dogs and hamburgers. Across the street is the Raymond Althouse Hoffmaster theatre, where Fred Kaufman and Burton Iones are starring in one of Willard Irwin's plays, entitled Us Angels. Here the music is furnished by Arthur Ericksen, who plays the piano with his feet. It is a player piano. Harold Hanley and Henry Harris are charity workers. They gather up the fruit and cabbage that the audience throws at the actors and deliver it to the poor. ' Alongside of the theatre are the Nifty-Knob Tonsorial Parlors, owned by Samuel Spadafora, who, in spite of his musical aspirations, has become a barber. Henry Frederick, his assistant, specializes in girlish bobs for men. The shoe- shining around the place is done by Gerald Ullman. Meredith Thompson, the owner of the Cash and Carry Meat Market, is be- coming quite prosperous. He now has two clerks-Lester Keiper and Luther