Hartford High School - Hartford Key Yearbook (White River Junction, VT)

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 Senior Class Officers Left to right: Peter Perry, Attorney; Stanley Wright, Vice-President; James Clayton, President; Betty Densmorc, Secretary; Robert Hill. Treasurer; Maurice Doubleday, Sergeant-at-arms 12

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Preside 1 ’s Address When in September we entered upon this, the last of our four years in high school, it was with pride at having at last become Seniors, and at the same time with a sense of the responsibilities which lay before us. We were happy to have Ijecome Seniors, but we knew that to make our last year a success, especially as compared with the records of previous senior classes, we must perform certain tasks creditably. During the past nine months, needless to say, we have not achieved perfection, but through cooperation among ourselves and with the faculty we have met our responsibilities with a gratifying measure of success. For my own part, I should like to thank the officers and members of the class for their cooperation in making this year a success. The four years we have spent together in High School will have a great influence on all our lives, regardless of what we do. For some, graduation marks the end of their formal education; others wall go on to more advanced schools; still others—and this forms a very large group right now—will enter the armed services, but regardless of which course is pursued, the background of our high school education will be a source of never-ending benefit to us. For the past few years, graduating classes have gone forth into the world under circumstances quite unlike those which had prevailed for some twenty years previously. We who are now finishing school face a future which is well represented by a great question mark. But whatever that future may be, one thing is certain—we are the ones who must endeavor to shape it into what it ought to be. In view of this fact, it is well to remember that a democracy is no better than its citizens. The path before us, therefore, after the wrar as well as during it, is one of duty, but it is a duty which we, as citizens in a democracy, should lx proud, rather than loathe, to undertake. Our attitude toward this duty and our ability to discharge it will have a great influence on our future, and on that of our posterity. May our answer to the challenge be that suggested by Emerson nearly a century ago, but under conditions not unlike our own: “When Duty whispers low, “Thou must,” The Youth replies, “I can. 11 JAMES CLAYTON

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The History of the Class of W We, the class of ’44, will have you know that we have the most extreme honor of having spent six long and somewhat ghastly years in Hartford High, the longest sojourn of its kind of any previous class. We are, in other words, the first seventh grade to graduate from the Hartford Junior-Senior High School. One bright September morning in 1938 there arrived at the front door of Hartford High School, a young stalwart of about 12 years. For sake of identification his name is Willy, William Able. That morning in September, 1938 Willy arrived at the Junior High entrance, found his way up the stairs past the cafeteria, and looked with awe at the crowd of pickerel-bait accumulated around Rooms 10, 11, 12, 14. (There must have been all told alxnit thirty, with more to come). Willy kinda shied down the corridor. Opposite room 14 he saw' some of his pals and for want of better to do wandered in. “Your name, please?” asked a brisk, diminutive, black-eyed lady over whom Willy towered even then. Willy Able. Uh, lady, uh, where do 1 belong?” By great and good fortune,” said she, “your name begins with a B and so this will be your home room for this year.” Willy wasn’t listening, a trait he was soon to discover that did not lend itself to the good humor of that particular teacher. All ready he had picked out some of his pals, “Bus” McKenney, “Giggy Gillingham, “Billy Kontos, “Burt” Shepard, “Jimmy” Clayton and Clayton Wood, and with them he was busily renewing past acquaintances. Taking advantage of the lull in the noisy talk afforded by the first l ell. the lady' who took Willy’s name introduced herself as Mrs. Ryan. She was to l e their home room teacher for the year. W illy made many new acquaintances that year from all over the town. There were Marjorie Stockwell, Benton Crowell, Reggy Burnham, Milly Kivler, Bobby Kaskar, and many others. Willy had also the exhilarating thrill of moving from class to class, just like honest to gcxnlness High School students. And, funny thing too, he didn t get lost as he had once lx en afraid. Ah, but there was a draw back to all this. Leonard Timmons told W illy that “they ought to install elevators so that we can go up and down that stairs from room 15 and the gy m more easily. Ah, yfouth, ah, innocence, compared w ith what we go through today, there was little homework and the incompanying evils. Little for W illy to do but play football, baseball, and basketball when the High School varsity wasn t. little piddling adventures such as the Carnival and those Sand Lot learns in “Perry’s Cow Pasture” as Mr. Petersen so aptlyr put it. Little did W illy and his mates realize how much theyr would curse the wasted time in the Junior High, when they would each one night shy up to the old man and ask him what that story about the bees and the flowers was all about anyways. 13