Flora High School - Harstan (Flora, IL)

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The Rotary Club sponsored Frank Mellone this year as an exchange student. Frank is from San Paulo, Brazil and throughout his year's stay he lived with various Rotarian families. Here, Carla Lut-trell and Mr. Coleman welcomes Frank to Flora High Kyra Shroeder was the first girl to win a full athletic scholarship from Flora High School. She will attend Indiana State University in the fall of 1979, where she will play volleyball. Ms. Mary Jo Hill and Mrs. Peggy Rip-perdan look on with Kyra's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Galen Schroeder as Kyra signs her letter of intent. Flora High School offers a two-year course for juniors and seniors which provides work skill in construction techniques. They build a house each year and this year's house was located on Sunset Drive. Classes involved are the Building Trades Class, the Residential Wiring Class, the Drafting Class, and the Interior Decorating Class. Students are also bussed in from different schools. 11

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It was February 22, 1979 and high school students heard over the radio there would be no school for them today. Early that morning vandals had broken into the B building through a kitchen window. They had vandalized the vending machines and tried to set several fires in the cafeteria. Then the vandals made their way to the office where they set another fire. Continuing on their rampage, they set a third fire in Mr. River's room upstairs which damaged Mrs. Spitzner's room, also. Other things had been vandalized as well. The faculty and many high school students spent Friday, February 23, 1979 trying to clean as much as possible the grime and soot from the buildings. When students returned February 28, 1979 after a long weekend due to the fire and an ice storm, there was much more damage than what most of them had suspected. The dismal, smokey odor, new locations for classes, and smoke damaged items were just the beginning. A few weeks after the fire, students were informed that the hallway upstairs of Building B would no longer be used. Then a couple of days before Easter vacation the main hallway of Building B was closed permanently because of a sagging beam holding up the ceiling. Students were rerouted through the small gym and learning center. The P. E. girls were also banned from their locker rooms due to the danger of collapse above them. As of the close of the 1978-79 school year no solutions have been reached as to what will be done for the Flora High School. This is what was left of Mr. River's bookshelf. The vandals left a note on the chalkboard for students as well as a mess in Mr. River's room.

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Mrs. Susan Dudley, General Studies teacher, organized Flora High School's first Career's Day. She contacted prominent people from such fields as farming, armed forces, banking, drafting, education, and cosmetology and gathered them together in the gym where students could ask questions in the areas that they were interested. In the Spring of '79, Flora High students from the business classes attended a contest hosted by Newton High School. Fourteen schools participated and of these, Flora placed 2nd. The students who took part in this were: Beth Putbrese, who won first in Typing II, Lorie Conard, who won third in Shorthand I, Denise Williams, who won second in Shorthand 11 and was absent from the picture, Karen Ruckman, Robin Hodges, Theresa Timm, Jennie Forth, Barbara Phillips, Teresa Mason, and Angela Venable, who was absent from the picture. Mrs. Donna Smith and Mrs. Jeanne Hayes accompanied these girls. Every year, Flora High School and Clay City High School hold an exchange day in the spring of the year. This year Doug Slagley, Kathy Stanley, Lee Lewis, Lisa Lane represented Flora at Clay City. Nancy Bryan, Dwaine Milner, Greg Herdes, and Deanna Brant were brought to Flora and assisted through the day by Susan Stanford, Ken Wilker-son, Dave Dulaney, and Stacy Wells. 12