New Athens High School - Vespa Yearbook (New Athens, IL)

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Class History On the beautiful bright sunshiny day of September 1, 1943, twenty-seven brilliant and intelligent looking Freshmen crossed the threshold of NXCHS. This was to them a wonderful day—a day which they had looked forward to for many months. Now at last it had arrived and they had a hunch that it wasn’t going to be all fun. Everyone reported to study hall where we were assigned desks, lockers and ah yes,—books. Well, as school progressed we proved to be quite intelligent, in fact, wc were so intelligent that lay the end of the third month we knew exactly where to go and at what time. ’Course it took another month until we learned which books to take along, but that wasn’t too important as we thought we were so smart that we really didn't need books. However, the teachers seemed to disagree with us so—we used books. Then when we were not in class, the study hall was quite the place to be. Fifth hour study hall (if I remember correctly) always proved to be quite interesting. For more information regarding the study periods see Vernon Hepp as he always seemed to be engaged in something other than studying and he usually ended up by getting slapped by someone of the opposite sex who didn’t think he was so funny. During October of the first year, we had the sad misfortune of losing Dorothy Schmittling. Throughout the rest of the year, Norma Stamm, Ronald Horshmann, and Irvin Mueller discontinued their studies. At the end of the first semester Eugene Crosby entered our honorable class. We ended our Freshman year with an outing at the Sparta Country Club, where we really had one swell time, thanks to the guidance of Miss Michael, our class sponsor. Out Sophomore year wasn’t quite as exciting as the Freshman year, this probably being due to the fact we knew what to expect. This year the girls had the honor (we thought it an honor then but we know better now) of serving at the banquets of different organizations and for the proni.’ This year we were happy to add Floye Price from Sparta to our class. However, she did not finish the year with us. We also lost Vera Berthold, Mervin Haefner, Dorothy Weible and Loliy Mehner. This left only 19 to start the Junior year. During the Sophomore year our class was aided by Miss Lindauer whom we found to be very patient with us, and with her help, we succeeded in giving a few parties and school dances. The Junior year was looked forward to by all of us because now we were upper classmen, no longer to be pushed around. At least that’s what we told ourselves but somehow we forgot to tell the Seniors and rest of the school. This was, of course, to be a very active year with a play and a prom. Mr. Mitze, our English teacher, was chosen to be our class sponsor. Later, the fact that he was our English teacher and class sponsor did help considerably as we got out of many an English class to practice our play, “Bandits for Breakfast,” which proved to be quite a success. Play practices always were lots of fun and we hated to see them end. (Continued)

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Class History Next to prepare for was the Prom. We chose a “Wishing Well” theme and worked night and day to prepare for the big day which was May 17. Johnny Harrison's orchestra furnished the music for the dancing after the banquet. During January of our Junior year our long awaited for class rings arrived. We were very proud of them and displayed them every chance we got. Robert Wunderlich and Willard Herzog dropped out of our class during this year. This year was ended as the first two with an outing at Sparta. Seventeen honorable and worthy students were ready to enter into their Senior and last year in high school. Near the beginning of the year we placed an order for cards and announcements with a representative of Josten's. Our class colors are maroon and white and our motto is “Out of the Quiet Harbor into the Billowy Sea”. The white rose was selected for our class flower. Mr. Spieth of Centralia was given a contract to print our annual which everyone worked on constantly. We decided to give another play entitled “The Campbells are Coming” and under the excellent coaching of Mr. Walker, our class sponsor, it was quite a success. This year we lost but one pupil, Delmar Freeh. Some of us plan to go to college, while others have chosen to go to work. No matter what we endeavor, our high school education will come in mighty handy.