Kenton High School - Echo Yearbook (Kenton, OH)

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KENTON HIGH SCHOOL MASCOT Alto's Findlay's always favored The Colors gold and blue, And the gentle sons of Marion. To the Red and Black are true, Still our staunch and hearty laddies. Will always bravely fight. For the honor and the Glory, Of the dear old Red and White. Thru the four long years of high school. Mid'st the scene we know so well, As the mystic charm of knowledge We vainly seek to spell. Or we win athletic victories And work with all our might. Still we work for Kenton High School, And the dear old Red and White. When the cares of life o'ertake us, Mingling fast our locks with gray. Should our dearest hopes betray us. False fortune fall away. Still we banish care and sadness As we think of memories bright, And recall those days of gladness, Neath the dear old Red and White. —Unknown 6 — Kenton High School Traditions The nickname ‘ Wildcats origi- nated sometime in the early 1920’s according to the account given to the yearbook staff by for- mer principal, Mr. Carl Russel. According to Mr. Russel, a Mr. Elmer Tam was a vocational agri- culture teacher who was also the faculty manager of athletics. The Ixisketball teams of 1924 and 1925 were very successful and Mr. Tam organized a post season tourna- ment with several other teams, to be held in Kenton. The Kenton team won the tournament and made a large sum of money for athletic teams. Mr. Tam suggest- ed that the school should have a nickname or mascot and suggest- ed the Wildcat. He described the animal to the student body and explained why he felt it would be a good choice. The students must have agreed with Mr. Tam as in publications the next few years the name of Kenton Wildcats became commonplace. Another version of the story has it that Mr Tam was quoted as saying after a tournament game, those boys sure played like a bunch of wild- cats. Which ever story is correct, it seems that Mr. Tam can be giv- en credit for suggesting the name of Wildcats for Kenton High School. KENTON HIGH SCHOOL COLORS RED AND WHITE The poem at left is reprinted from the 1906 Echo, the first year of publishing, and gives us proof that the school was using red and white as school colors by that year. In the early days of Kenton High School, each class, upon entering the high school, would choose its own col- ors, song, motto, and design a crest. There were no official school colors, song, etc. As each class graduated, their symbols were replaced by the next class. The oldest symlx)l we can find proof of is the use of red and white as school colors. No amount of re- search or interviews with former students was able to turn up the story of their beginnings. One pos- sible suggestion is that they are a carry over from the old Kenton Reds baseball team. The earliest mention of school colors is in arti- cles dealing with football games. There are several passages that talk about playing for the red and white. The poem we have printed is further proof of the school colors being used around the turn of the century. Since these early days, every imaginable item that could be made red and white has been made and many former students have collections of school treasures they look back on with fond memories. Research for the articles on pages 6 t- 7 was done by Tony Hattery and Deanna Wolf.

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1939 to 1963 The third Kenton High School was opened in 1939 on a ten acre site on Orien- tal Street It was a large and modern build- ing with sjyace included for special areas of the curriculum such as instrumental mu- sic. vocal music, vocational agriculture, woodworking and a small library. It had its own gym and cafeteria. The sports facili- ties adjacent to the school were donated by the Robinson family in honor of General James S. Robinson, a civil war general and Kenton resident. The high school princi- xil. Mr. Secoy, planned and supervised the work on this athletic facility. Football games were nou played on the new field and the Kenton band expanded and took on the look of what we now call a marching hand. At the south end of the field was the F.F.A. memorial gate The new building also had modern science labs for the ex- panded science curriculum. The building cost $300,000 to build and contains 354.000 bricks. 129720 feet of electrical wire. The early 1960's brought even more students and the Imilding was “twice as full of stu- dents as it was designed for. In Ocotol er of 1963 the present Kenton High School building was ready to move into. Grades ten to twelve moved into the new Imilding and grades seven to nine moved into the old high school. This grade alignment was new and Kenton now had a Senior High School and a Junior High School. The old Ellis building was closed soon after and sold to the Hardin County District Lilnary board to use as a building site for the present library. The new school cost $1,678,000 to build. The building con- tained special areas for vocational educa- tion, science lalts, a language lab. a gym that seated over 2,000and a large cafeteria. The curriculum contained over 100 course offerings for students to chose from. The building has been very well maintained and fs serving its students better than most other buildings its age. 1981 marks the change from Kenton Senior High School back to Kenton High School as grades nine to twelve will again be housed in one build- ing. The class of 1981 will be the 111th graduating class of Kenton High School. 1963 to PRESENT History of Kenton High School — 5

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The school crest is believed to have originated from those designs that the early Kenton High School classes used to represent their in- dividual years. Each class, as it en- tered the high school, would de- sign a crest and use it for the four years they were in the high school. Badges, pins, rings, and other items were made by local jewelers with these designs. When using the second Kenton High School KENTON HIGH SCHOOL CREST building, each senior class was permitted to paint its crest on the stage curtain in the auditorium, covering the one from the pre- vious senior class. Sometime in the late 1920's or early 1930’s, the lo- cal jewelers tried to sell the idea of each school having one official crest to facilitate the making of school items. Whether or not this is the real reason for the adoption of a school crest remains to be seen. However, one school design did emerge from this period and the classes stopped designing their own. Who actually designed the crest is unknown but it was in use on high school items by the late 1930's. It is on the cover of the 1846 yearbook and can be seen on the bass drum of the band in 1940. The crest has been changed only once since it was designed and that was in 1963. In that year, Kenton High School moved into a new building, and the grade align- ment was changed to a 10-11-12 arrangement, thus making Ken- ton High School Kenton Senior High School. The crest was altered by moving the wildcat to the up- per portion of the design and plac- ing a letter “S in the lower por- tion to indicate senior. Established in 1906 as a school newspaper, the Echo was pub- lished to put parents in touch with the doings of the school. The Echo also served as a vehicle for students to express themselves by submitting articles, essays, jokes, and other items for publica- tion. These articles were to be short, simple, original, and clear- ly within the range of the writer. The early issues were almost com- pletely dependent on these stu- dent stories. The first student es- say to appear in print was one en- titled Hiawatha” by James H. Al- len. Jr. The new publication was published monthly and cost ten cents or seventy-five cents for the year. To help fill the pages, the Echo staff carried on a correspon- dence with other schools and re- printed articles that they ex- changed with them. The editors from the beginning had been male, but in 1911 the first female was elected to serve in this office. When publication was changed to semi-annually in 1916, the first step was taken that began the change of the Echo into the tradi- tional yearbook format of today. In 1921 and 1922, the book became an annual issue with pictures of the students in each class now in the book. Athletics, clubs, and oth- er information about Kenton High School was expanded from 1921 on, and the yearbook as we know it was formed. Not many changes were made in the book until 1946 when a journalism class Itegan the task of publishing the book. This continued for about twenty years until the class was dropped from the curriculum of the high school. Volunteers were again asked to carry on the publi- cation of the book and to take over the financial planning for it. This arrangement continues to the pre- sent. The first use of color print- ing in the books was the printing of flags, designs, and ads in the l?ooks almost from the beginning. The first full color page of student activities was in the 1960 book and was of sports and homecoming ac- tivities. From about 1968 on, each yearbook has had one or two color pages. The present book contains 31 color pages. Over the years, class histories, wills, and a class prophecy have been included in the yearbooks. Sports records and teams have been a part of the yearbook from its very origin as has advertising by the local mer- chants. Since 1906, the Echo has changed a great deal, but it is still a student publication and pro- vides a place for expression of stu- dent literary ability and with con- tinued support of the faculty, stu- dents, and community. It will con- tinue in this tradition for many years to come. Traditions of Kenton High School — 7