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Page 8 text:
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Through 50 Years of E. T. H. S. by T. Leo Dodd The Eldorado Township High School is more than a high school-it is the expression of a community idea. The people of Eldorado did not have a high school forced upon them. The law of the State of Illinois did not require the people to provide secondary education for their children in the first decade of the 20th Century. The privilege of providing such educational advantage was made available and it was up to the expressed choice of the people as to whether or not a high school should be. Thus it is that the Eldorado Town- ship High School is a monument to the abiding ambition of the people of this community to provide the best within their means for their children. Prior to 1908 the only opportunity avail- able for those in the community who sought formal education beyond the 8th grade was in the Eldorado Public School system which provided only two years of high school train- ing or in one of the very few four year high First Board of Education. Standing: D. L. Wood, L. J. Wise, R. F. Jones. Seated: J. A. Watson, J. C. Dodd. schools in Southern Illinois. The need for a high school to accommodate the rapidly in- creasing population of the Eldorado commun- 4 ity was sensed by many local citizens. ln the spring of 1907, a vote was taken in Eldorado Township to establish a high school district, and was carried by a large majority. A high school board of education was elec- ted, consisting of five members: I. A. Watson, President, I. C. Dodd, Secretary, D. L. Wood, R. F, lones, and L. F. Wise. An election to issue bonds, December 14, 1907, and to select a site, April 1908, re- sulted in the issue of bonds and the selec- tion of the present site which was donated by Henry David Westbrook. This area near the High School came to be called College Heights because many people referred to the new school as a college. M. T. Van Cleve First Principal, 1908-1914 Van Cleve Building erected 1908, This is the way it appeared before the addition of the Dodd Building. On May 30, 1908 the Board of Education employed lvl. T. Van Cleve as principal, and authorized him to confer with them in the selecting of teachers and the selecting and purchasing of equipment. He was also to visit
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Page 9 text:
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the schools of the township and examine the pupils to determine who was qualified to enter the high school. It was determined that the number of pupils ready to enter high school would be rather small. Acordingly, an arrangement was Physics class scene in 1910-1911. made with the Eldorado Public School Board of Education to provide classes for the 8th grade, since the school facilities in Eldorado were inadequate to provide room and teachers for the rapidly increasing school population. 1. Marshall Peer and Bess Pemberton were employed as teachers and on Monday, Sep- tember 29, 1908 the school opened in the Methodist Church of Eldorado, since the new building was not ready for occupancy, There The graduating class of 1912 was the first class to attend all four years at E.T.H.S. Standing: Ralph Adams, Clyde Kane, Pearl Roberts, George Shaw, T. Leo Dodd. Seated: Neil Martin, Mary Shafer, Effie- Beare, Angeline Baugh, Freda Farmer. were 80 pupils enrolled in the 9th, 10th, and 11th grades, none in the 12th, and 47 in the 8th grade. For a few days classes were conducted in the Methodist and Baptist churches and then in the high school barn which had been con- structed to shelter the horses driven by the pupils from the rural area. The janitor's dwell- ing, which was fitted for temporary school quarters, was used for that purpose until De- cember 6, 1908, when the new building was completed. By this time the enrollment had reached 129 pupils, and Zola Green was em- ployed as a fourth member of the teaching staff. Basketball Squad of 1913. Standing: Coach Putnam, John David Upchurch, Leslie Stinson, Henry Kirkland, Hubert Bramlet, Seated: George Wilson, Cecil Simp- son, Louis Beasley. The new high school was soon fully accredited by the University of Illinois which enabled graduates from the school to be ad- mitted to the University without examination. Courses of study offered in the first year of the new school included: English, History, Draw- ing, Manual Training, Geometry, Zoology, Bo- tany, Modern and Medieval History, German, Bookkeeping, Agriculture, Physics, American History, Civics, and Arithmetic, all in addi- tion to the courses offered for the 8th grade. The close of the first year was marked, not by graduation from high school since there were no pupils in the twelfth grade that year, but by graduation of the eighth grade pupils, and their promotion to high school. The en- rollment in high school increased constantly until it reached its highest point in 1933 with 650 pupils enrolled. The first class to graduate with the full four-year course from the Eldorado Township High School was the class of 1910, with seven members, two boys and five girls. The class of 1911 had only two members, both girls, The 5
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