Emerson High School - Emersonian Yearbook (Gary, IN)

Page 9 text:

HiSTORY OF CLASS ’11 Gentle reader you do not grasp the magnitude of the task before me. The Class of ’ll is some class. Do you realize that their average weight is 2540 pounds, which is more than a ton. Is this not a ponderous mass? We number twenty with intellect above the average; if our understandings were placed lengthwise they would cover a distance of almost .5 of a mile. But this is not all; were we to place ourselves one upon the other we would tower aloft to the dizzy eminence of 180 feet; mak¬ ing the school’s flag pole ashamed of its scanty height. Not in height, weight and understanding are we alone famous for we shine with the brilliancy of diamonds in the department of athletics, especially basket ball. No wonder for we have Straton and Kenvin on our five among the boys and Blanche Jillson captain of the girls’ team. Have you never seen our mighty Harold roll his opponent in the dust, incidentally grinding in his ribs, dislocating his jaw, and with Chesterfieldian politeness assist him to arise with the remark, “My dear fel¬ low, I trust I did not hurt you.” It does one good to see Kenvin with agracful hop, skip, and a jump, toss the ball, while the audience with straining eye and bating breath, watch it leave his hands, describe a circle in the air and just miss the basket. We must not forget the wits of our class, and chief among these is the studious, (when excentric little Bertha will let him alone) ponderous Jessie Blake. I never laughed so much in my life as when I heard his cutting remark to Kenvin Kenvin was, as we say, up to the neck in a Chemistry experiment and asked one of the boys to give him a knife. Our Jesse drolly replied, “what you going to do with it Ken, cut out smoking.” Grace our infant phenomenon has troubles of her own. The more she tries to study the more she is disturbed by Dena, who comes rushing into the room scattering Grace’s books everywhere. It is like the outburst of a geyser. Words follow so rapidly they almost choke her utterance but in a moment she has subsided and calm again reigns. As I look around the class as it is today I can hardly realize that four years ago we were only represented by two of our present number, Eunice and Frank. In the Freshmen year our class met in Mr. Wirt’s offices in the Phillips’ building. Even the private office had to be used as a class room. Of course complications arose. The teacher had to try and over-come the voices of the agents which came to see Mr. Wirt to sell their articles. We had no chance to loiter in the cloak room as the one we had was a single hat rack. Although there were only two Freshmen they made up for the rest of us. They received physical attention because they loved to play tricks on the teacher; such as turning up the clock to make her think she was late. The only athletics which were entered into that year was the track meet which took place at Crown Point in May. Frank entered some of the races and brought home great honors for our class. At this first meet Hyman hung up the record in the pole vault which Gary hak clung to ever since and from that point started the loyalty to Gary High School which has increased from time to time. The next year we started in at the Jefferson building. It seemed to be the most wonderful school building after going to school in an office room. This year we had the pleasure of meeting Mr Sargent our present principal. Our class had grown to the number of nine, the greater part of which were boys. The whole class had a hunger for science. The science of the sophomore year was Zoology. We were so interested in the study, that we did everything we could to gather together specimens for the work. We even went so far as to pour some old beer on a post to draw the insects.