Hartsville High School - Retrospect Yearbook (Hartsville, SC)

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SENIOR CLASS HISTORY 1927 It has been said that an historian is a prophet looking backwards. As I look back upon our four years of high school, I can clearly see the events which compose our history. When we entered Hartsville High School in 1923 we were a proud band of “Freshies,” very, very green. Some of our upper-classmen even declared that we must have been born in the spring, because spring is the time of all green and growing things, fresh and verdest in their newness to all life. And we, so green and sweet in our dewy innocence, received at this time the first seeds of knowledge and felt the first pull of the flow of our high school career. Our Sophomore year was uneventful except for the blossoming forth of some excellent athletes. We were proud of them and the records which they made for our school. We held our heads very high and kept the stalks that supported them very straight. They were not yet heavy with their accumulation of wisdom and so did not droop with the weight. Our Junior year was indeed a happy one. We were the largest class in high school, something of which any class would be proud. Our interest in athletics had steadily increased. During this year individual honors were received by the following members of our class: Mildred Miller, first place in Commencement Expression Contest; Pink King, Short Story Medal, and Ava Mae Billingsley, highest scorer of track honors in the State. Toward the close of this year we began to feel very dignified, for we realized that we would soon be “Seniors,” the height of our ambition, as far as we could see then. A band of happy “Seniors” began the last stretch of their high school career with enthusiasm and willingness in the fall of 1926. We numbered forty-one members, twenty-seven girls and fourteen boys. We ranged in age from Catherine Morgan’s fifteen years, five months and twenty-six days to Joab Watson’s twenty-three years. We ranged in height from Harry Oates’s six feet, two and one-half inches (straw hat and all) to Mary Stewart’s four feet, ten inches (with or without her silk stockings). We ranged in weight from Harry Oates’s two hundred pounds (clothes and shoes included) to Dorothy McDonald’s eighty-two pounds. In spite of all these extremes we were headed toward the goal, a high mark in our life. Our one thought was to win and to reap the harvest— our diplomas! It is needless to say that we had a large part in the activities of our school. Our members were well represented in the Glee Club, Orchestra, Student Council, and on the Megaphone and Retrospect staff's. Wilhelmina Abbott, a member of our class, represented our school in the Girls’ District Expression Contest. Mildred Miller won recognition for us in the State English Contest. Rachel Miller, Eleanor McKinnon, and Caroline Gillespie, members of our class, were three of our school State 17

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SALUTATORY Dear Friends, Teachers and Classmates: To me is given the privilege of welcoming you here tonight. As I look around upon your faces, so much more clearly marked with the lines of wisdom and wider experience than ours may be for many years to come, I cannot but feel that the words of welcome should come from you. To be sure, you have demonstrated your interest in us by coming to listen indulgently to all that we may have to say during this one little hour of our lives, yet it is we who are passing out into your midst, we who are joining you in the larger school of progress outside these doors, we who are entering into your pursuits and pleasures, and becoming one with you in the social and business centers that make up active life. So much of our success there will depend, too, upon the way you respond to our enthusiasm. Is it not we, then, who should ask for the glad hand of welcome? Is it not we who are the outsiders, seeking for admission to your association and favor? Is it not we, who, though we have now the pleasure and privilege of entertaining you for an hour at this turn of the road, must yet step forth and demand our share in all that has been yours for so long? Then while we do truly thank you most humbly for coming, and trust you may have every cause to long remember with a thrill of pleasure the associations of this hour, we yet feel that we must also ask your forbearance and kindly sympathy, and crave from each of you as we step forth into your midst, the warm handshake and cordial smile that will assure us of your joy at bidding us welcome Susan Hicks, ’27. 16

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Debaters. Our negative team, of which Rachel Miller was a member, won second place in the State. In athletics we, too, played a great part. Six girls and seven boys from our ranks made the different athletic teams and were awarded block letters. An Honor Society was organized in our school this year. Our class was intensely interested in this society and look forward to the influence that it will have for good in the school. Before we leave our dear old school, we wish to thank the entire faculty for what they have done for us. Three words can express our sentiments —“we are grateful.” And now' the history of our high school career ends. We look back over the events which have composed it, and give a thought to the experience that is to follow'. And now, when wre are about to leave the school that we have loved so long, W'e think of pleasant happenings, and perhaps of some misfortunes, of some things that w'e should have done differently or should have omitted altogether, and of some in w’hich w'e find complete satisfaction and joy. Hereafter we will each go our own way. But never will we forget old Hartsville High School, our beloved Alma Mater! Dorothy McDonald, ’27. 18