Browns Valley High School - Thunderbird Yearbook (Browns Valley, MN)

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year. Wally and Beverly were carnival King and Queen. In April we put on another smash hit play, A Little Honey”, under the direction of Mr. Cates. May 7th, bright and early in the morning we took off on Skip Day. Destination: Duluth. Graduation was May 28th and Baccalaureate was May 23rd. Thus we passed an important milestone in our lives. We have come a long way since we first entered the hallowed halls of B.V. High School. It’ll seem strange not to come back again next year but looking back I think we will all agree that our school days were truly The best years of our lives . PROPHECY As I was glancing through an issue of my Hometown News which, incidently, is edited by the old Thunderbird Editor, Nina Duffield, an article about an old school mate of mine, Janice Hanson, caught my eye. Janice, so the story went, decided to seek fame and fortune by writing a book which was a guide to catching a man. Unfortunately one of the copies got into the hands of her current fiance and so upset him that Gods Gift to Women jilted her and fled to a cave where he’s taken up the hermit1s life. Now most of the other women have banded together and have indicted her for robbing them of good potential husband material. Well, it seems that the class of 1954 is turning out to be quite famous - or infamous. Which is it? My curiosity about Janice and the rest of the class was thoroughly aroused by this time, so I decided to return to the Valley and look them all up. Since I was planning on going back, I thought I’d better do it in style so I rushed down to the nearest automobile agency to look at the new models. The salesman, who turned out to be Dale Kaufman, showed me the newest atomic cruiser. IT , he assured me, is incredible, indivisible, inexplicable, indelible, inedible, and indestructaole. , Well , I gasped, those are pretty big claims. What proof can ybif give me? Gee , he said, my wife, Joanne has been driving one for two months and it’s still in one piece. How much more proof do you need? His sales talk convinced me so I walked over to select my model. I picked out a metallic gray one, which, Dale hastened to inform me, would immediately be installed with the fearless accessory. After noticing my quizical expression, he explained that with each car sold to a woman driver, they installed a fearless mechanism which automatically says, So sorry I every time she hits a pedestrian. That seemed like just the thing for me so I took the car. As I sped towards the Valley I decided I needed a little diversion so after groping around among the maze of buttons, knobs and switches, I turned the radio on. The station it was tuned to was BLAB, located at B.V. The program was one of these Hints For the Harried Housewife which every station (and every prophecy) has. I was about to switch the thing off when the Helpful Housewife herself began to speak. I recognized her immediately as Marlys LeClair (pardon me - Marlys Ziemer). As I peeled my ear to the speaker, she began her program by telling us Not to put that excess bacon fat down the drain - pour it on the floor. Your family will fall for this new and novel use. Also - if you are troubled with having your walls soiled with children’s grimy fingerprints - avoid this - cut off their hands. I quickly switched the radio off as a sickening sensation formed in my throat. What a life poor Harry and the children must live if she takes herself seriously. I was still worrying about that when I sped into the Valley. Though I cut my pile-energizer the moment I spotted the large crowd in front of the theater I was too slow and one of the group was soundly bumped by my bumper. As I skidded to a halt to inspect the damages to the car, the theater-owner rushed up, sputtering excitedly. What do you mean, scaring my crowd away and messing up the pavement? As soon as I calmed him down slightly, I recognized him as Fishty Rees. We agreed to call a lawyer to settle the affair and Fishty led me across the street to a brilliantly lighted bar where we could relax until the lawyer reported back. A gigantic neon sign professed that this was Harlyn’s . Fishty told me that through family connections Harlyn Bartz had taken over Luvern’s shortly after graduation and naturally he had changed the name to Harlyn’s. He now operated a chain of these bars all over the United States and also one in Beardsley. As Fishty and I talked I found out that he was a big businessman too. He had gotten his start in the movie industry by persuading Joyce Vollmers

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to let him be her agent. As Marilyn Maroone, she had made millions for Fishty and herself. But she decided to retire, got married, and now she and her husband jointly own a duck farm, specializing in Teals (Thiels) naturally I Fishty was excited now about his new discovery who was appearing at the theater today - which accounted for the large crowd. It seems Rees had interested another of his classmates in movies and Boo McLane was a smash success as Four Flush Gordon, the Ace of Space . He is the current idol of millions of pre-institution age youngsters. Just as Fishty finished telling me his fascinating success story, the lawyer came bounding up, telling us about the wonderful luck he had and my difficulities were all taken care of. As the lawyer finished his spiel, I recognized him as Ron Duehr. His excellent work on this case was quite an accomplishment for someone who couldnft spell his middle name oefore sixth grade. I asked him if most of his cases turned out this good. Oh, no. In fact most of them wind up as mental cases ’ d Fishty had some bad news to tell me aoout Wally Hennen. He and Merlyn Saxton had enlisted in the Marines and quickly worked themselves up to important Pentagon jobs. One day Hennen left conference for a drink of water. It was supposed that he was lost in the maze and searching parties had scouted for him for fifteen years. Now there is a new lead - that he is the captive of a female Red spy somewhere in Lower-Slobovia. Merlyn is out on an important mission to secure Wally’s freedom. My, I hope we haven’t let such an eligible young man slip from our midst. I suggested driving around to look over the old town so we jumped in my car and took off. The radio oegan emmitting some rather odd noises. Fishty proudly informed me that this was the cowboy singing sensation of the nation, Harry Donath, singing, Put Down That Jukebox, Grandma, You’re Too Old To Carry A Tune”. I finally decided that he must be accompanied by his horse so that accounted for the awful racket. I also learned that the composer of the tuneful tongue-tv ister was none other than Lenole Mundy. He got so sick of hearing Harry’s rendition of ”I’m Baaack In the Saaaddle Agaaain”, that he wrote that new tune. He seems destined to be a success also if Harry doesn’t murder too many of his songs before they have a fighting chance. Next we passed a strange mausoleum of a house with a high fence around it. When I inquired about the occupants, Fishty told me that Barbara, Mahie and Faye had taken up refuge there to escape men. Fishty told me they would be glad to see me. They were very hospitable and invited me to dinner. I was a bit dubious of their culinary skills out I tackled some of the food. I felt as if I had been tackled when I had a few mouthfuls so I asked what it was. Oh , they smiled proudly, we thought you’d get a kick out of our frog legs 1 Not being used to such delicacies I quickly bade them goodbye and rushed off to seek medical aid. After skidding to a halt in front of the nearest hospital and collapsing on the waiting room floor I was put in charge of the doctor present. Dr. Ingerson and his nurse, Beverly Ziemer, quickly went to work to locate the trouble. After they decided to amputate my brain to relieve the pain I told them to never mind because they probably wouldn’t be able to locate it anyway and besides I was feeling a lot better and really should te going ’cause 1 had others to see and thanks anyway. After that close shave, I thought I had better be more careful about my choice of eating places so I stopped at a restaurant which proclaimed, Don’t laugh at our coffee, you too may grow old and weak some day . I was about to splurge and order a nice thick steak when 1 saw that the propietors were Elsie and Sonja. Being thoroughly scared of those Seniors by now I declined to order and just passed the time of the day with them. They had had to enter ousiness for themselves when they were suddenly left widows. When I asked the cause of their husbands death they said it was something they et” and I was awfully glad I hadn’t sampled any of their specialties. They asked me if I had heard that chummy radio program, Breakfast with Darlene and LeRoy . I said no and asked when it came on. They said it wasn’t broadcast till almost suppertime because it took Darlene that long to properly prepare herself to meet the public ear. They must be quite the celebrities so I made up my mind to visit the station. As I approached my car I suddenly realized that someone must have mistaken it for a garbage can. I marched down to the city hall to have the Supt. of the Streetcleaners have something done about it. There behind a magnificent desk, sat Doris Spotts. I was amazed that she should