Hoopeston High School - Picayune Yearbook (Hoopeston, IL)

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In Memoriam Judy Siler A NEW STAR IN HEAVEN I remember, years ago, that I was a little jealous of my sister. She seemed to have everything I didn't--beautiful hair, lovely skin, good looks, and a smile on her face, no matter how heavy her cares. But during the past three years, Judy and I got to be closer than any two sisters I knew. We ran around together, did everything alike, liked the same kind of people. Eventually, we got so we dressed alike and talked alike when we were together. I'll always remember sitting on her bed planning what we were going to do together, then and always. We had a bet on, or rather, a sort of race. After we got married, we were going to race to see who would have the first baby girl. We both wanted to name our girls Misty. We finally decided that she would name her first girl Misty Ann, and mine would be Misty Sue. We used to talk for hours or just sit and think. Many times she knew what I was thinking, for she thought about the same things. We always got ready to say something and have to laugh because we had started to say the same thing. Sometime late last January or early February, she first met the airmen from Chanute. She found out then, as I found later, that she had met a swell bunch of boys. Even though they came from all over the states, they treated Judy like a queen. One of the boys called her 'Little Sister , and no matter how bad she felt, he could always make her smile or laugh out loud. Even on that wednesday, a lifetime ago, just a few days before she left us, Judy's fiance and two other airmen went up to visit her. I never heard her laugh so much since she had entered the hospital. But the way Steve clowned, joking about his big nose, she laughedsuntil the tears rolled. Many times I would get home a little earlier than she would, and she would whisper up the stairs for me to come down just a minute. Then she would tell me about her date or about meeting someone she thought I would like. Once she almost yelled up the stairs for me to hurry down. Dick had proposed, and she was 'so thrilled she could hardly sleep that night. She loved them as they loved her, and all her Chanute Gang were a bunch of broken guys when they leamed of her death that Sunday. Judy loved to go to the Sugar Bowl and play the juke box. She always told me that no matter where you went in this town, you could never find better cokes, better cheeseburgers, or a better jukebox. Everytime she went in there, she always played her favorite songs on the jukebox--the main one was ANY OLD TIME. It seems strange to remember that bleak night last March. We both had the blues so bad that noth- ing seemed to be right. We sat in Judy's room with the radio on low. We talked about nothing in par- ticular for a while and then started talking seriously. That night we both planned our funerals. She planned everything just the way she wanted it. The week before she died, Judy told me that she didn't think she would be able to come home. She said that she felt so peaceful that God must want her, so she made me make her several promises. Among them was to bury her the way we planned that nightin March and for me to be sure and not cry. Judy's funeral would have made her smile and relax on her joumey through an unknown land, for it was correct in every detail, even the clothes, the people, the pallbearers--just the way she had planned. She has wandered into an unknown land, She is not dead--she is just away! Pat Siler 3

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Dedication Education makes a people easy to lead, but difficult to driver easy to govem, but impossible to enslave. We, the students of Hoopeston High School in the school year 1956-1957, have the honor and privi- lege of being the first to attend a new school. The people of our community, led by the school board, have erected a beautiful building for us and for those who follow in our footsteps. We have seen the edifice take form as it grew, brick by brick. We have watched with pride and sat- isfaction, as the master craftsman surveys his work of art. But we must realize that buildings alone do not make a schoolg they are only the body that houses the soul of the school system--the students. As such, it is our opportunity and duty to carry over the tradition of honor and service which we cherished at John Greer High. Nothing has changed except our immediate surroundings, and we cannot count that as a loss. Rather, let us prove to the world and to ourselves as well, that we are capable of meeting the challenge before us in a new environment. Let us pledge our service to our alma mater through the words of the Hoopeston High School Loyalty song, written by I anis Reetz. Hear this song we sing to praise our school and varsity, Knowing it will lead them forward to a victory. Rah! Rah! Rah! To our colors we will be true Blue and white we'll fight hard 1 for you, Love, faith, and loyalty to pledge to you Hoopeston High. ffinej ---Band--- Hoopeston High fights fairl ---Band--- Hoopeston High fights square! And since we do, we want you to: KD. C. al finej .we, the Picayune staffs, on behalf of the students, dedicate not only this book, but ourselves and our school as well, not to posterity, but to humanity. Jerry German n Editor -in-Chief 4