Comstock High School - Corral Yearbook (Comstock, MI)

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The Owlet 9 ‘Presidents Address IMAGINATION By Herbert Mater Classmates and friends: We of the Senior Class are gathered here tonight for the last time as students of Comstock High School. We have looked forward a very long time toward the coming of this day. In our imaginations we saw ourselves as we hoped to be on this night. Our imagination played an important part in helping us to successfully carry out our school work and to be able to graduate. Very often we find that imagination becomes perhaps one of the greatest things in our lives. We must have it in order to vision our success, in order to make us work harder to become successful. It is said that poets create by imagination the masterpieces for which they are famous. So may we strive toward a better life, a higher goal, by allowing our imaginations to inspire us. Imagination enters our lives before we become of school age. Every one knows that when a child is playing he is a conductor, a policeman, or a fireman, he is using his imagination. Your parents have visions of a brilliant future ahead of you. When you are small they picture you as you will be when you enter elementary school, high school, college, and later when you embark upon life’s sometimes treach- erous sea. And at all times they picture you as a success. Do you live up to their expectations or are you a failure? Is your success or failure due to your imagination or lack of it? It certainly is. You can be exactly as you, in your imagination, pic- ture yourself to be. Imagination is the basis of many inventions. With its aid men foresaw mighty machines, huge buildings, and large cities. The early pioneers foresaw for this country a glorious future and their dreams have been fulfilled because they believed in their visions and created the foundation upon which to build. Their descendants had enough faith in their forefathers to carry on the work of building, and our successful nation is the result. Many of the greatest men of today have profited by their faith in their forefathers and their imaginations. Pick up any of the popular magazines and read the stories of men who have started by tamping ties on the railroad section, and are today sitting in the presi- dent’s chair of the same railroad. Was it luck that put them there? Was it some- thing handed to them on a silver platter? Certainly not! It was because they were able to imagine and foresee the future while working steadily toward the goal of success. Everywhere we see the success of the men who have lived in the land of imagination. Let us take for instance Charles M. Schwab, the great steel magnate. We see him as a young man working in a steel mill for twelve hours a day and at night going home to study until the wee small hours of the morning. He studied and lived in the land of imagination, believing that if he qualified himself, if he trained himself, he would finally reach the attainable goal. Let us think of Swift, president of the Swift Packing Company. Let us look yonder we see him in that little town, as he butchered his first cow and started to peddle it from door to door from a small cart. Today he is president of the Swift Packing Company. Why? Because he had the power of imagination. He had a dream of what he could be. he laid his plans, he visioned his goal, he sacrificed, he toiled, he paid the price of attaining his success. We see the success of the men but have you ever stopped to consider: Ten years from now where will you be? Can you see yourself a successful man oi woman, independent for the rest of your life? You can do it, it is possible, it you will apply yourself. In order to do this you must lay a strong foundation. One cannot be careless and indifferent and still accomplish his ends. He must place the responsibility where it belongs, which is upon each one of us individually. No one can take you and make a success of you unless you have a desire to attain it. When you have that desire, that ambition, that goal, and that determination, there is no power under the canopy of Heaven that can hold you down or keep you from atta?ni ngrsuccess. You will go on. and on. and on. for the world is today crying for men who have lived in the land of imagination and who are willing to stand the har 1 Another lemen which comes with imagination and perseverance is cooperation that joint effort or labor, that association or collective action of persons for their nrvmmnn benefit A story is told of a little child who was lost in the great wheat fields of the West. An alarm was sounded, the people searched all over for child but it could not be found. They all became discouraged but some one suggested that (Continued to next page.)

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8 The Owlet Salutatory By Walter Smith Classmates and friends, the class of “twenty-seven” greets you and extends a most cordial welcome to this our class night. Within one day we will have reached that goal towards which we have been striving four long, yet seemingly short years. We must then enter upon a greater field of life which lies before us. We must cast aside our high school privileges and pleasures, to hold them only in the firm grasp of our memories and assume those graver burdens which beset us as we leave this threshold. But our equipment is good, our armour is strong, so let us meet our worldly battles face to face, knowing a nation looks to her schools for her leaders. Both Nature and Destiny are honest. “To the victor goes the spoils.” Tlie events of this day and past school days are to be remembered with pleasure and perhaps with pride when we have passed far down the vale of years. As we hear our elders of today rehearse the scenes of their youth so shall we recall the memories of our school as we rest after the heat and toil of the day has passed. Now we leave as graduates, soon we hope to return as alumni, to review for a few short days those never-to-be-fcrgottcn lessons learned in the class rooms, on the i Thletic field and in our social gatherings. The time is now at hand for us, as a class, to part, but we can defy those cir- cumstances to arise which will weaken the ties of friendship formed in this school. And in the future both prosperity and disrster (an be but a source of the greatest comfort and pleasure to us if we permit that confidence and truth to abide. Let us go forth as members of a large family and let us help each other as such when the occasion offers, never forgetting to always honor our Alma Mater. We cannot take leave of these familiar walls and part with the pleasant as- sociations which have held us together without acknowledging the debt of gratitude we owe to our school and to our teachers for the'r fostering care. Let us ever re- member them with that gratitude and affection and feel a noble pride also for our parents who have so wisely and generously placed the means of education in the reach of all. To the school officers of the present year and former years, we extend our thanks for your continual interest in our welfare. To us the training we have obtained here will be only the capital for the be- ginning of life; and whatever of wealth and honor we may hereafter win in our field of work we shall be largely indebted to our school for the direct means of success. Yet good-bye seems such a strange word. We l ave been trying to say it these last days; to accustcm ourselves to the parting of the last hour. So let tonight be the happiest and brightest of our school course so that though the term of “twenty-seven” last but one more clay we will be of good cheer. During the exercises of tonight I bid each one listen to our chosen representa- tives, as they bring before us the various pictures of our school life, as they prophesy into the far distant future, as they pay tribute to those dear classmates who must pass from our midst to tasks of coming years. We cannot, we must not forget them tonight. And this evening as we are gathered neath our colors to be entertained with joke and satire, to chide one another, you must remember that good feeling and friendship are the motives. We forget our own mistakes and follies to enjoy those of others. To such scenes the class of “twenty-seven” bids its friends welcome.

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10 The Owlet Class tDill By William Roschek We, the Senior Class of Comstock High, about to leave this school in full pos- session of a sound mind, memory and understanding do make and publish this, our last will and testament, hereby revoking and making void all former wills by us at any time heretofore made: We give to the Freshman Class the following advice, which if they accept it, will lead them to glory. Copy us, learn to work if not to win. Development comes sooner through bearing failures than successes. It isn’t fun but look us over and be encouraged. We also leave some individual wills. Emma Garrison does hereby bequeath her singing ability to Paul Smith. Bernard Gaskill leaves his affectionate and loving disposition to Helen Anderson. Atchison Kirk leaves his talent as a French student to those whom it may con- cern. Bob Allen, I know, would like to be at least six or eight inches taller so Walter Smith promises to share his height with Bob. Herbert Mater leaves his ability as a speaker and debator to Bob De Crocker. Ralph Kirk leaves his experience in Geometry to Helen Willett. William Roschek leaves his quiet, modest and unassuming ways to Evelyn Hughes. To the Sophomores we leave our best wishes for their success. To the Juniors we leave our row of seats. May they be as fond of the front row next year as we have been this. Let every member show his gratitude for this gift by being promptly in his seat each morning. In witness thereof. We, the Senior Class, the testators, have to this, our will written on one sheet of parchment, set our hand and seal this 9th day of June. PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS—continued from preceeding page.) they join hands and cross the field of wheat together. As a result the child was found. Had it not been for the cooperation of these people and imagination of the individual this child might have been lost forever. So. if we all will keep our ideals, of what we would wish to be so firmly im- beded in us, that they are our foundations, if we will cooperate with our fellowmen in working toward our separate goals and thereby do away with any deep selfishness, if we will live in that imaginative state in which we all are at our best, and per- severe, until we make the land of imagination the land of reality, we will all suc- ceed and make our dreams come true.