North Branch High School - Bronconian Yearbook (North Branch, MI)

Page 7 text:

Mr. C. Wesley Clayton, Mr. Simmons, Mr. Crawford, Mr. Butterfield, Mr. Marion, and Mr. Fike Superintendent Mr. C. Wesley Clayton B.S. Central Michigan College of Education, M. A. Univer- sity of Michigan My Hearty Congratulations to the Seniors of 1954 You have learned or attempted to learn a great number of things during your 13 years of formal school instruction. You now enter the school of hard knocks where most of your learn- ing will depend upon how easily and well you receive, learn and bounce back from setbacks, discouragement, failures, and successes. You will find that everything depends upon you as an in- dividual. Your parents, teachers and friends have helped and protected you up until now. Now it is up to you. I hope and have every reason to believe that you will be a builder rather than a wrecker as the following poem portrays: BUILDERS OR WRECKERS? I watched them tearing a building down, A gang of men in a busy town; With a ho-heave-ho and a lusty yell They swung a beam and the side wall fell. I asked the foreman Are these men skilled? He gave a laugh and said; No, indeed! Just unskilled labor is all I need. I can easily wreck in a day or two What builders have taken a year to do! And I thought to myself as I went my way. Which of these roles have I tried to play? Am I a builder who works with care. Measuring life by rule and square? Am I shaping my deeds to a well made plan. Patiently doing the best I can? Or am I a wrecker who walks the town Content with the labor of tearing down? — Author Unknown Sincerely Mr. Clayto

Page 6 text:

Dedication With great respect the Bronconian Staff gratefully dedicate this 1954 Bronconian to our Superintendent, Mr. Wesley Clayton, in appreciation for his willing service and faithful efforts which have contributed so much to the growth of North Branch High School. The Bronconian Staff

Page 8 text:

MR. ALBERT W. STICKLE- A.B. Sr. High School Principal Central Michigan College of Education, Michigan State Normal College, University of Kansas- Adv. Mathematics Much of the world's beauty, truth, and inspiration is to be found in good poetry. The study of poetry and the memorization of the best will give our boys and girls a new birth of understanding of that beauty, truth, and inspiration given to our world by the greatest poets-of all ages. (For instance from THE BRIDGE BUILDER) The Builder lifted his old gray head Good Friend I have gone this way he said. But there followeth after me to-day, A youth whose feet must go this way. This chasm has held no fear for me But to him it may a pitfall be. He too must cross it in the Twilight dim So you see I'm building the bridge for him. Mr. Stickle MR. GERALD K. SIELSKI Junior High Principal History, Coach Central Michigan College of Education I suppose that to many the Annual, on the face of it, means pictures, pictures that will increase in significance as the years go by, a treasure house of memories made visible, and thereby kept fresh. The Annual also means Graduation, and Graduation time is a period of mixed emotions. It spells at one and the same time the contraries of beginning and end-- the end of four years of High School and the beginning of other and, no doubt, more varied endeavors. However that may be, the graduates of North Branch High School will always be graduates of North Branch High School, but the quality of their nearness to each other and the School will never be quite the same. A line from one of the great English writers comes to mind in which one character says to another: May our partings be as numerous as the stars of the sky.” An odd way to put it. One would think, until one remembers that there cannot be many partings with- out many meetings. So I say, then: May our partings be as numerous as the stars of the sky!” MR. SIELSKI