Louisiana Polytechnic Institute - Lagniappe Yearbook (Ruston, LA)

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you do any way. Don’t ever forget this and you will come out all right —for that is what we did. Then came the end of our Freshman year, and after vacation we eame back to school to take up the same old daily routine—not as “Freshies,” understand, but as Sophomores. We felt big then. No Senior in school felt any more important than did Pauline, Iru, Baxter, Belle, Margaret, Mr. Lupo, Floyd, Paul and Evelyn, when their classifi¬ cation cards read 3-1. It was about this time that honors were heaped upon us along with the allotted amount of study. Several oratorical contests were won by members of our class; other members took part in the various contests but failed. About this time we felt that we were old enough to have a class meeting as did the Juniors and Seniors. So before we completed our third year we were an organized class. Again in 3-2 we had to laugh at Mr. Taylor’s stale jokes, but we laughed, and helped him dig the beds and plant flowers on the campus, too, because we knew it was the time to laugh, and we wanted Mr. Taylor’s good will in our other two years. After another vacation we assembled in the same old class rooms, our original class, with the addition of two names, Corrie and the jester of our class, Houston. One afternoon we had a class meet¬ ing and reorganized, Henry Burt being chosen as our president. We had class meetings every Friday afternoon and, as none of us had ever attended any other class meeting, we thought the thing to do was to have a program. So for some time we had quite enjoyable meetings, but soon found it was such a hard matter to keep Pauline and Houston from talking while the program was going on, that we decided to dispense with the program, talk and have a good time, which we proceeded to do. Houston persisted in bringing apples to the meeting, and this suggested the idea—why not have something to eat sometimes? This plan was brought before the class and it was unanimously decide d that we eat. Houston and Baxter were appointed to smuggle some fruit and other eatables up to the book-keeping room, where we could do justice to them after school. (They brought the fruit, each member sharing equally the expense, which we all gladly did.) This was declared by all the most enjoyable class meeting spent by us as a Junior class. We all looked forward to the annual reception we were to give the Seniors. We toiled many hours thinking how to do this and how 2 4 .

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Itatnrg of tlf? junior (Ela 10 Just think—five long, long years since we started on this weary road that we have trodden so well. Five years ago, when the Industrial building was not so large or improved as it is today, and when the enrollment was not nearly s© large as now, three homesick, driedup looking beings (I won’t call them people, for they scarcely looked human) enrolled as students of this school. They began to work hard, for you know they were only sub-preps and they were all getting old enough to be further advanced. Everyone knows that at the Industrial you are classified according to the intelligent look in your face; but as these poor little people had their eyes full of tears and their faces covered with their handkerchiefs, Mr. Thatcher and Miss King could not see or tell whether they had any sense or not. And as none of them could utter a word for sobbing, they were unmercifully put in 1-1. This is the way Pauline, Baxter and Belle en¬ tered the Industrial. They studied and tugged away at geography and arithmetic until the first term was over, and they were promoted to 1-2. It has since been learned that Pauline was only promoted because she boasted of “going home if she didn’t pass,” and now we always know why she is going home at the end of every term; but she says now she is “really going home for good.” Work is hardly the name for what these children did in 1-2. And when commencement came and they received classification cards for 2-1, they thought they had really left Freshiedom behind for good, but—. On coming back the next fall quite a number of new names were added, and among those were Iru, Margaret, Henry, Mr. Lupo and Floyd. Diligently and earnestly we worked and mixed with work a little flirting—Margaret always boasting of the number of beaux she had on the string at one time. And so we finally reached 2-2. There we had quite a time with Mr. Taylor and his old jokes in the Botany class. I will here tell the future students of the school that if you want to win the undying love of Mr. Taylor, just laugh at all his jokes, no matter whether you see the point or not, for he will think 9 3

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to do that, before we finally decided some other way. Our reception was considered by all present a success in every particular, and it established in the minds of the Seniors the new thought that they were not the only persons on the globe, which they reluctantly admit¬ ted. After we had climbed the same old stile for four years, we had with the help of the insignificant “Freshies,” worn it out, and the President saw fit to have another put there especially for the ’06’s to walk over during their last year at the L. I. I. We were all sorry on our return for the Senior year to find that Henry would not be with us. We called a class meeting and Corrie, our dignified member, was chosen President. The ’05 class bragged about their plans, prospects and the de¬ termination to execute each and all of these plans, but they never thought or dreamed of as many as those with which we ascended Sen- iordom. Ere reaching this point we have met with many difficulties and overcome most of them. Now a change has been manifested in the class; the spirit is the same but something has happened—Iru, our mother, has fallen in love, and this, together with preparations for her demonstration lecture and the Mozart Club practice, more than fills her time. Poor Ma! she always worries about her sewing and cooking, and is always frightened when she has to appear on the program with the Mozart Club, for she knows “they are sure to make a failure—they never practice enough to know the songs.” Poor Ma! everyone has his troubles though. And Mr. Lupo is not the same as when he entered 2-1. He has worked in the shops so much that his aspirtions have fallen from the governorship of Arkansas to the position of fireman in the Louis¬ iana Industrial Institute. After Mr. Lupo began taking shop work we all knew something would come of it—though, as the oldest mem¬ ber of our class, we have respectfully looked up to and obeyed him in all class matters—when they suited us. Belle would be the same old girl if she would only leave the 1-1 boys alone. She is really worse than Miss Cross, if it be possible, when it comes to smiling at the boys—some day people will hear from “the belle” of our class and say, “So it was written, and so it came to pass,” for she always aspired to great things and was always confi¬ dent of success. She was the leader of the Shorthand class and was 25