Orleans High School - Sword Yearbook (Orleans, VT)

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I know that as a class and as individuals you have many times felt defeated and a bit inferior. You need not feel that way. You have courage; you really know, whether you admit it yourselves or not, what is right, and if you will be truly honest and brave enough to do what you know is right, you will never be inferior to anyone. You have chosen as your motto, Out of the harbor into deep channels.’’ Those channels will be deep, and dark and possibly treacherous. However, every good sailor knows that a deep channel is much safer for his ship than a shallow one. Rivers and water- ways are marked to help the navigator find the deep channel and keep him from crashing on the rocks and shoals. The channel of your life will be marked not quite in the same way, but your course will be charted; make sure you know how to read the markers and follow the chart. Y ou are beginning your life in a difficult world. Some of you will not really be beginning your lives until you have performed a necessary and patriotic duty. You all will be helping to make the world a little less difficult for those who come after you. I, as your teacher and your friend, sincerely wish you all suc- cess and happiness, and smooth sailing as you go forth into the channels. Elizabeth Davies. PAGI? SIX

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From Our Sponsor Dear Seniors: For you I’ve always had a very special feeling because when I came to Orleans as a beginning teacher you were also beginning, mere lonely and unimportant freshmen. I didn’t see very much of you that first year. Some of you I didn’t even know; in fact I became acquainted only with the braver souls who took Latin I with me. The next year, though, I knew all of you when we made life miserable for each other in English class. As your sponsor during former presi- dent and belov- ed classmate, Bucket” Hil- liard. And yet, though the war has come close to us, and some of our members have already enlisted in the Navy and are awaiting their call, we have had good times together. While all of you at times have exasperat- ed me almost beyond endur- ance, you have a 1 1 been so sweet I could hardly refrain from telling your junior year, I began to see a 11 of you at your best, during the five-minute pe- riod, working on the one-act play or getting ready for Prom and helping the seniors grad- uate. This last year has been the best one though. In many ways it has not been an easy one, and some of have had ELIZABETH B. DAVIES you to grow up too fast. Sorrow struck all of us very keenly in the loss of our you so. Sometimes you’d be surprised to know what your teacher is thinking about each one of you when you are supposedly busy studying or concentrating on a test. She doesn’t always wonder whether you are chewing gum or decide that if you do that just once more she’ll send you to the office! Sometimes she is thinking how young you are, and how vulnerable, and still how responsible you can be and what good judgment you have underneath your surface coat of joking and silliness. PAGE FIVE

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3n Jfflemoriam It was with pride that two years ago we hung a service flag in our home room window for two of the members of our class—the first class to lose two of its members to the armed forces before grad- uation. With mingled feelings of sadness and pride we took down this service flag with the two blue stars last February, because one of those blue stars had changed to gold. Staff Sergeant Marvin Hilliard, more familiarly known to his classmates as Bucket,” was sworn into the Army of the United States on December 15, 1943. He received his basic training at Camp Blanding, Florida, ca to Fort Meade, Md. In July last year he was shipped to Eu- rope in the 359th Infantry Regiment, 90th Division of the Third Army, as a private. He was pro- moted to private first class in September, 1 9 4 4. In October he participated in the battle of Metz, France, which was one of the major battles of this war. From private first class, Bucket was home for a short fui Staff Sergeant MARVIN HILLIARD lough, and returned raised to a staff ser- geant sometime be- tween December 15 and January 1. The jump from private to staff sergeant has been left unexplain- ed by either Bucket or the Army, but we can surely conclude this indicated a qual- ity of leadership needed by his outfit. On January 16, 1945, Staff Sergeant Marvin Hilliard gave the supreme sacrifice for his country dur- ing the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium. News of his death and the Purple Heart, along with a letter of commendation for bravery from his commanding officer, reached his parents in February. Memorial services were held in his honor on February 25 at the Congregational church in Orleans. We, the class of 1945, will always remember the meritorious conduct of Bucket as a soldier, and as each of us graduate from high school this year, we will strive, with him as our example, to fulfill in the best possible way our part in bringing a lasting peace to the world—the peace for which Marvin Hilliard died. PAGE SEVEN