George Washington High School - Compass Yearbook (Alexandria, VA)

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dedication seventeen years was in the elementary department. Then she took up a position in the high school department. She taught also in the old Alexandria High School, which her uncle established. She studied at the Mt. Vernon Institute and later at the Berlitz School of Languages. The pupils of her English 6 class (September '37-February, '38) will remember a conversation in Italian held with one of the pupils. . . . She obtained both her B. A. and M. A. degrees at George Washington University. Her trip abroad the summer of 1927 has furnished many interesting discussions in classes with first-hand knowledge. During her years of teaching she has coached plays and sponsored the well-known Theodore Ficklin Literary Society (named for her father and the oldest club in the School), and has also headed the English Department. We are proud to dedicate our 1938 Compass to her — our teacher, helper, friend—Miss Kroes Ficklin.

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kroes ficklin There she sits—a small, cheerful, busy little woman—surrounded by a class of students, each of whom loves her for something different—one for her sincere, ready smile; another for the friendly greeting with which she meets everyone; still another for her democratic spirit toward'all. She has taught over forty years, and her loyalty to the school is another of the characteristics for which we love her. She began teaching in a girls’ school and for

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wliat goes io make 111» roue annual The layout —tiring work since it must be almost painfully exact—each page must be as it will be when it comes from the printing press— accurate measurements made—careful sketches showing the placement of write ups and pictures! One hundred fifty pages—each one carefully laid out and the pictures drawn in. i i Typists worked on seemingly endless page write ups and layouts—fingers were literally worn to the bone on the keys of the typewriters—and still the pages came! Almost fifty thousand words were written—making three hundred thousand times that fingers touched the keys. Two hundred dollars for photographs, which by the way, were almost entirely done by the students—one thousand four hundred eighty dollars for five hundred fifty copies printed—a grand total of one thousand six hundred eighty-nine dollars for a book whose selling price of two doiiars is lower than it's ever been before! This money was collected in fifty-cent installments, and you can imagine the time which was spent for counting and collecting. Clatter and drone—you might as well not talk in the presence of a printing press—you’ll never be heard! Day after day they roared on. while bales of paper were presented to its maw, to emerge into pages and pages and pages of the Compass— 38! The printing was done by Newell and Cole Printing Company in collaboration with the Washington Planograph Company.