Kouts High School - Kostang Yearbook (Kouts, IN)

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unknown to us. We found him easy to become acquainted with and one willing to be a daily companion as well as an instructor. The other member of the faculty, Miss Hannon, though this was her first year as instructor of music and drawing here, was known to us as a K. H. S. graduate, and was doubly valued for that. We felt fortuitous in having such a splendid group of instructors and hoped then that we might keep our “Wonderful Four” to share» with us the honors of the Class of 15)17 when it should have finished its High School course. We entered earnestly into our studies. Mr. Robertson taught us in English, guiding us thru the awfulness of our rhetoric and making us fine speeches in imitation of Shylock. In German we learned to decline “der” and “ein,” and also translated “Gluck Auf” and the enthralling story “Immensee.” Mr. Alexander undertook successfully to teach the mysteries of algebra and make us find the value of that “blamed little x.” A num- ber of the boys took Agriculture and before the end of the year Mr. Alexander had a class of agriculturists. The rest of the boys took Zoology, learning to operate on and name the parts of crayfish, snakes, etc. Miss Kring took the girls into her confidence about little secrets of domestic science and soon had a class of future housewives to match Mr. Alexander’s agriculturists. During the year, Clarence Lawrence left our ranks, because of an accident which impaired his eyesight. Jerry Danielson moved away and entered another High School. The class was further lessened when Paul Kraker decided to discontinue High School work. In the autumn of 1914, all of us but one, Eddie Kosanke, returned to take up our work as Sophomores, finding the same “Wonderful Four” ready to guide us further in the pathway of knowledge. We now gained one new member, Ervin Stalbaum, who by the end of the semester, however, left our ranks again. Mr. Robertson still taught German, leading ns over the stumbling stones in our further study of “Vos Essentials” and translating with ns several more interesting books. We now found ourselves under Miss Kring’s guidance in English and studied hard on our various works, including the Scotch dialect of Bobby Burns, who caused Agnes to be astonished at Job’s wonderful early ability of “cursing the day he was born.” Instead of Algebra, Mr Alexander now led us into the field of Geometry and we were soon adept at making circles and getting easy (?) propositions. Under Mr. Robertson most of us now undertook the study of Physical Geography and we learned to distinguish cyclones from hurri- canes and vice versa. Others of the class now took up Ancient History 28

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SOPHOMORE CLASS HISTORY. nllK Class of 1 fH7!” Those few words mean much to the Sophomores of 1915. We are the largest class in the history of K. H. S. and with this distinction we have good right to claim that the Class of 1917 is to he Kouts High School’s greatest. So we wish to interest you in the history of the first two years of our High School course. There were twenty-two excited boys and girls, who gathered in the venerable Kouts High School building that first day of school in the autumn of 1913 to take up the duties as Freshmen. As members of our class there were nine boys and thirteen girls, namely: Jerry Danielson, Bertha Drazer, Genevieve Hannon, Anna Hartman, Hattie Hartman, Emil Jarnecke, Eddie Kosanke, Paul Kraker, Paul LaCount, Agnes Lauer, Clarence Lawrence, Florence Nichols, Leona Rosenbaum, Lydia Rosenbaum, Ruth Stoddard, Sadie Welch, Emil Werner, Bessie Williamson, Leona Williamson, Warren Wright, Hattie Wolbrandt and Frederick Metherd. The faces of the superintendent and the assistant principal were not new to most of us, who had learned to know Mr. Robertson’s beam- ing countenance and Miss Kring’s ever exemplary demeanor. But Jhe kind, earnest face of the new principal, Mr. Alexander, was as yet 27

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under Mr. Alexander and learned of that other Alexander the Great, whom we thought almost as great as our Alexander. Miss Kring took the girls further along in Domestic Science and Mr. Alexander still guided his agrieulturals, while Miss Hannon still taught the arts of Music and Drawing. Everybody worked hard and each tried to do his best, so we got along swimmingly, looking for the goal to be reached two years hence. It was during the second semester, on tin seventeenth of February, that our class felt for the first time tlie bitter heart-aches at the loss of a loved one, when one of the most charming and popular young ladies of our class. Miss Ruth Stoddard, was taken from us by death. Her presence is greatly missed, but each one cherishes some remembrance of her and on reaching the honors that will come to the (’lass of 11)17 at the end of their course, we will still think of Ruth as sharing with us the honors we strive to gain. And may these honors he gloriously won by the the (’lass of 1917! FREDERICK METHERD, ’17. 29