Northside High School - Bruin Yearbook (Fort Smith, AR)

Page 16 text:

Bells, bells, ring in new the year. August 25 . . . lt was a day of bells, bells, bells! Listening to the worry and the scurry of the bells. A day of mourning for good classes past many eons ago, never to be heard from again. A day of acquainting the people and the build- ing. A father and his children, you might say. A day of hysterical wandering, wondering where, oh, where has my little class gone . . . ? A day of mass worry, worry, worry and hurry, hurry, hurry! You'Il be late, late, late at this rate, rate, rate! A day when visions of sandy plains danced in your head. A day when spring fever was again in the air. A day when tons of sacrificial offerings were sent to the heavenly god of grades. A day of regret. August 25 was a Comedy of Errors. August 25 was the first day of school. 12 Opening day

Page 15 text:

I Q What is ci Data Bear. The newest riddle of '72-'73 circulating around the halls at Northside was What's red and white and gray all over ? And if you're the average, overweight, undernourished, complacent Grizzly, you'll reply, Why, Data Bear, of course! And if your best friend happens to be the everyday, run-of-the-mill dimwit, he will brightly reply, Duh, what's a Date-A-Bear?! Well, Dimwit, only all NHS knows that Data Bear is the affectionate nickname with which the Publications Department dubbed the computer. Which computer, you say? THE computer. The heavenly Messenger sent to us, courtesy of the great IBM in the sky. The computer that scheduled all Northside High, Southside High and Westark Community College students for the first time all by himself. The Computer that has been housed at Westark since last year. The Computer that has one of the guidance counselors so in awe of HIM that she refuses to Iook HIM straight in the eye. The all-knowing, all-seeing, all-hearing, all-everything Computer! The Age of Aquarius land Data Beari just came in on the last train... lt was a new thing. Northside students this year sunned themselves in the light of the computer's glory, knowing that they were the first NHS classes ever to have been scheduled by a computer. Yet because so much manual labor is required of the guidance counselors to make the job of scheduling easier for the computer lwho in turn is supposed to make the job easier for the guidance counselorsl, it consequently took much longer to make the students' schedules available to them before school started in the fall. As a guidance counselor describes the spring of '72: Twenty-three hundred hours of our manual labor was required to allow the computer to finish scheduling all 1,630 NHS students in merely 23 minutes. In spite of all the unstinted praise of Data Bear, unconfirmed sources report that he can even make mistakes along with his other multifarious talents. One student is said to have been scheduled for three gym classes, while another had gym and five study halls. Academic program 11

Page 17 text:

Opening day 13