Hellgate High School - Halberd Yearbook (Missoula, MT)

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finance such a tremendous undertaking-. After several plans had been considered, only to be thrown aside, and after several efforts had been made fruitlessly, our remarkable talent and ability for hard work finally resulted in “THE GOLDEN PRINCESS’5, which was a great success. The “Prom” which we gave that year was in every way a success; and when our third year was completed, we felt satisfied that we had done all that could be required of us. This brings us down to the last year “sojourn”, as it were, in school affairs. We felt keenly the responsibility resting upon and now we stand almost ready to graduate. Yet, during the four years that we have spent here, what great good we have derived, not only from our books, but from our associations with each other and with our teachers! There is surely no one among us who can say he has spent his time here unprofitably! And we have not been here without leaving our stamp upon the school. Among our number may be found those who have dis- tinguished themselves admirably in athletics—captains and man- agers of teams that have brought everlasting fame and glory to the Missoula High School—men who are heroes in the athletic world! Among our number may be found silver-tongued ora- tors—debaters, who will some day be statesmen, congressmen and governors of states! The records made by some of us will never be surpassed. With our high school career, we may be well satisfied, for we have done well—VERY WELL! CLASS POEM. A poem is a wondrous thing, Beloved by all, I wot! It need not history’s facts recall, It need not tell the truth at all. Nor must it have a plot. Since ’tis not mine to prophesy, I will a medley write, Of what we have in High School learned. And whether it has been well-earned. These things I will recite. So very wise I have become, In order to arrange The many thots I would express, And give to each its proper stress, The meter I must change. Tell me not, that hateful Numbers, In the grades were left behind! For in High School, too, they greet us, Tho in different forms, we find. —21—

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CLASS HISTORY. Truth, crushed to earth, even though it has been held there for almost four years by the combined weight of thirty-six dig- nified SENIORS, has risen again; and now, in spite of all our trouble, it confronts us in more hideous proportions than ever. For proud and arrogant as we may be; however self-satisfied and self-important we appear, the unavoidable fact remains that once, not very long ago, we were a motley, awkward and shuffling herd of fearful, apologetic sheep, exemplified only in our loved ones of the present, the FRESHMEN. Yes— FRESHMEN we were, once; we were not always SENIORS, dear undergraduates, but we have passed through all the stages of evolutional develop- ment in which you now find yourselves; we, too, have been FRESHMEN, SOPHOMORES and JUNIORS. We are now almost at the close of four happy, profitable years in high school. There is very little here that remains before us; it is now for us to turn our eyes momentarily backwards; to bring up once again the scenes through which we have passed; the troubles and pleasures which have comforted us in the short four years that we have spent here. Although several of our members have been willed to us by classes who entered previously, the loss, for the most part, made its apologetic entry in the fall of the year 1909. Our feelings, when we first became connected with the school, can best be described by the words of Addison: “Speechless with wonder, and half dead with fearU—a mix- ture of curiosity, wonder and terror for the much-famed tortures which awaited us. The entrance, however, was not so fearful ae we had imagined it would be; we all escaped alive and unhurt, though perhaps a trifle humiliated. And once safely within the gates, you may rest assured, our first two years were exceedingly quie.t ones. So long as we were unmolested by others, we would have been the last ones to stir up trouble of our own accord. Perfectly willing, we were, to allow others to manage school activities, although several of our classmates distinguished them- selves in athletics and in other ways greatly to our credit. Dur- ing our FRESHMAN year, our president was Marie Gibson, who has since been obliged to leave us. During our second year Ernest Prescott, who has since so distinguished himself in ath- letics, had the helm. It was in this year, with no discredit to us, that the thrilling croton oil escapade was “pulled off.” Perhaps the less said about the affair, the better; we merely mention it. The showing we made at a “circus”, given by the school in that year, and especially the vim with which we entered the FRESH- MEN initiation, inflicted upon the present JUNIORS, adds very much to our fame and honor. IN our JUNIOR year, we began to assume some importance in school acairs. We felt keenly the responsibility resting upon us and realized to the full extent the fact that without us the whole school system would inevitably be a failure. We realized also that it was our solemn duty to give the then SENIORS a “Prom” which had never before been equalled. And to accom- plish this, we realized that we must have the “wherewithall” to —20—

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Here they show themselves as angles, Circles, squares, and such as these; Parallelograms and prisms, And as X’s, Y’s and Z’s. What surely is no joke, Is our English as she’s spoke; I should smile! If perfection you’d attain, You must work with might and main All the while. If you are on culture bent, Then don't say “He hasn't went ; Without doubt All slang is very wrong. If with the teachers you’d be strong, Cut it out. Once upon a midnight dreary, while I studied, weak and weary, Over many a History’s pages, filled with deeds and days of yore. Suddenly I thought with sorrow ; “all will be forgot to-morrow— All this great and mighty learning on which now we set such store; All this vast and noble learning on which now we set such store. Will be a nightmare, nothing more.” The flowers that bloom in the Spring, tra la. Must even be dragged into school, For we have to know all of their parts, tra la. And ruthlessly tear out their hearts, tra la. And all, in accordance with rule. So that’s what I mean when I say or I sing “O bother the flowers that bloom in the Spring— Those flowers that bloom in the Spring.’’ Speak ! speak! thou fearful theme! Physics, disturber of my dream. Why. with thy dreadful gleam Comest to daunt me? When I would’st pleasure find. Thou comest into my mind; So life becomes a grind! Why dost thou haunt me? Latin, the language of ancients, the tongue of the Gauls and the Trojans, How you’ve made joyful and gladdened the students of all of the ages! Caesar the warrior, we’ve studied. —22—