Nappanee High School - Napanet Yearbook (Nappanee, IN)

Page 31 text:

CLASS HISTORY WELVE years ago, in 1914, thirty-five little eager-eyed children made their first entrance into the Nappanee Schools, where they were placed under the guidance of Miss Bessie Brown. Out of this original group only ten have completed the twelve years of study with the class of ’26. Those ten are: Edward Arch, Jr., LaVon Mellinger, Maxine McAndrew, Josephine Tobias, Evelyn Wagner, Alfred Tobias, Mabel Shupp, Marjorie Tobias, Maynard Lehman, and Harry Sechrist. Through hard work, (which was mostly play), these ten managed to complete the first grade and joyfully went on to their second great year. During this second year, a little shy girl from the country made her appearance in our class. This little girl has become one of the most capable ones of the class for she is now our editor-in-chief, Opal Walters. With one more added to the group that was destined to graduate in ’26, we began our third year. Florence Sundstrom and Gerald Ganger joined the class in this year, and so two more of the “bunch” were added. More girls and boys may have come in and gone out of the classes during those first years, but since there is no record of their arrivals and disappearances, we need only be concerned about our present graduating class. Two bashful country lads, George Landis and Stanley Weldy entered the sixth grade with us. Meanwhile, several of the class left Nappanee for a few years, but they returned to our little city as lost sheep to their fold. These “wayfarers” were: Evelyn Wagner, who attended the second grade at Bremen, our neighboring city; Josephine Tobias, who spent three years “way out west” in Wyoming and later in Iowa; and Florence Sundstrom, who was absent from the class for five years while living at Albion, Indiana. In the fall of 1922, we meekly marched into the great high school building—I say great for it seemed so to us—and, found that many new and interesting classmates were with us, for the country schools added many students to our number. When all the Freshmen were registered, it was discovered that we had the largest class yet on record in N. H. S., as seventy-seven answered the roll-call. We finally organized as a class and chose Jay Wysong as our first president. That first year will never be forgotten for in spite of all the embarrassment our upper classmen caused us, we enjoyed one grand and glorious good time. We had parties almost every other week, first in the country and then in town. After the year was over, we thought high school was not “half-bad” after all. When we returned as Sophomores, we found that, as usual, many had become tired of school-life and had sought a vacation. The result was that only fifty-eight of the seventy-seven remained true to the Blue and Gold. Guy Pippenger was elected President and Opal Walters was chosen to take chai-ge of our swelling Treasury. Of course, as Sophomores, we thought we were quite “it”, for we could take some of our revenge out on the new “Freshies”. Nine dropped out during this year.

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K- THE DAYS OF LONG AGO This picture shows part of us in the second grade during the school year 1915-16. We suppose, dear reader, that you will be unable to recognize very many of the class of 1926. About eight or nine children in the above picture are now in Nappanee High School. The editors would have been pleased to name every child for you and tell where the lot of each has been cast, but this task was found impossible. Hence we must be content to tell you only these few lines. ’26 — Page Twenty-two

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■« il Maynard Lehman was our President in 1924-’25 and Margrete Beach became Secretary-Treasurer. Real work confronted us, as Juniors, for we had to prepare for the Junior-Senior reception. Our hopes to have a graduating class of forty were beginning to dwindle as we lost three more classmates during our third year. When we returned to old N. H. S. in the fall of ’25, we realized that we had a big year before us. We organized immediately as the officers and staff of the Napanet had to be chosen so they could begin work at once. Alfred Tobias became President and Margrete Beach was again chosen Secretary-Treasurer. The names of the staff appear on other pages of this book. Five of the seventy-seven who began high school with us are graduating from other schools this spring: Lowell Mast will complete his course at South Bend; May Yoder has graduated from Wakarusa high school; Wallace Miner will finish at Peru; Ray Phillips belongs to the class of ’26 at Bremen; and Minnie Burtsfield has received her diploma from New Paris high school. Jay Wysong and Charles Welty quit in our Freshman year, but they have returned and are now members of the class of ’28. Ray Mishler, who left us when a Sophomore, is now a Junior. Thus many have left us because of failure or weariness, or for other reasons, until now, our present graduating class consists of thirty-six members, the remainder of whose history you will learn in other pages of this book and on May 27th, the night of our Commencement. FLORENCE SUNDSTROM. ’26 -H H»- 7------ Page Twenty-four