Powder Valley High School - Badger Yearbook (North Powder, OR)

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CLASS PROPHECY Exactly one hundred years after the gold rush days. I was confronted with a mirage that fascinated me. It was an old prospector standing by a stream, panning gold. He seemed to see me as well as I could see him, for he asked me to come over and talk with him. He said people hadn’t been along here much since the days of the gold rush. He told me that he kept seeing a mirage of a class of fourteen graduating from a school by the name of Powder Valley High, and that he kept seeing what each graduate’s future was to be like ten years from now. I didn’t tell him I was one of those grads, but asked him to tell me what the future of each was to be like. He said he could see Pat Johnson as a very famous pianist at the Metropolitan opera house in New York City. She had made her first debut the year after her graduation and had been at the opera house since. Several of her own compositions were now world famous. She was not married yet but was engaged to an old boy friend of her high school days. I definitely knew who he meant. The old-timer said he could see a cloud of dust and a streak of yellow, and we came to know that Ronald Young was around. Ronald is now a manufacturer of “hot-rod” cars. He has converted the old yellow Kaiser he had in high school into a hot-rod for his own personal use. He is married, by the way, and has five children—all boys. He said that he was beginning to see something—another mirage. Suddenly his face lit up as he said he saw headlines on the national sports papers. Guy Pritch- ard was going to fight at Madison Square Garden for the world championship on June 21, 1959. He could see John Lawrence as his first-class promoter. It seems Guy and John have risen from amateur boxer and promoter, the night Guy knocked out his first opponent while in high school, to the professionals—they are on this, the big night at the Garden. The old fellow said that working for John D. Rockefeller was none other than Carol Brad field. She was his private and right-hand secretary and was married to a close associate of Rockefeller. She really isn’t doing so bad for herself as she owns quite a lavish mansion and has twin daughters. Again the old miner shaded his eyes and said he could see Madame Pat Anne Shaw in Paris, France. She has a most fashionable dress shoppe which she owns exclusively. She also has her own original dress designs. Madame Pat Anne is no longer married to a Monsieur Lewis as was said in last year’s annual, but is married to a French monsieur that owns a large portion of down-town Paris. Wait! He could see something else. The latest news cast. Edgar Newman had just made history with the newest in flight records. He had flown to the moon and back in 59 seconds flat. The record flight prior to “Doc’s” was made in 7 minutes and 2 seconds in 1955. Doc” flew an atomic propelled plane on this mission. He has also set several other records through the years, including flying around the world in 7 seconds in one of his own modeled planes. Edgar is still a bachelor, as it seems the girl he was interested in was determined to remain an old maid. A new planet. Planet X. has just been discovered, and Willis Marsing has found a great pleasure in planning a new rocket flown by combination jot and atomic pwoer. His trip is planned for the coming year. Willis has made quite a fortune on his scientific inventions, but has made more still on disks. He sings for Decca, with that beautiful bass voice he was developing while in high school. Tears came to the old prospector’s eyes as he told me than one out of that whole group of seniors that graduated from Powder Valley had been faithful to the begin- ning of mining—that of the great gold rush of a hundred years prior to our gradua- tion. Seems as if Stanley Hansen is a uranium miner on a newly arisen island off the coast of Alaska. He has married a cute little Eskimo girl and they turned hermits for two years when they first discovered this ever increasingly important metal. They later told the government of their claims and after making a fortune, retired and he became warden at Sing Sing prison. He seemed to detect another mirage and told me that he could see Keith Lewis as the father of twelve children, and all girls. He read the book “Cheaper By The

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Front row, left to right: Evelync Stephens, Carol Bradfield. Pat Shaw, Pat Johnson, Elsie Loonnig, Norma Thompson, Miss Lankins. Back row: Willis Marsing, Edgar Newman, Keith Lewis, Ronald Young, John Lawrence, Guy Pritchard, Larry Toney. Front row, left to right: Carol Bradfield, Elsie Loonnig, Norma Thompson. Back row: Keith Lewis, Guy Pritchard.

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CLASS PROPHECY (continued) Dozen” while in high school, and 1 guess that is where he obtained the idea. He and his wife have had four sets of triplets. He had gotten married just after graduation and has lived in Key West, Florida, since. He told me that next was a girl who had done very well in teaching. None other than Norma Thompson had been made dean of women at Vassar for several years when she resigned to get married. She married the dean of men at Yale and they moved to England where she was now teaching social studies. This had been her sole ambition since graduation. Suddenly the old fellow said he could see a big puff of smoke. As it cleared he saw Elsie Loennig standing behind a burnt cake. She was now a home economic teacher and in all her years of cooking, that was the first cake she had ruined. She was not married yet, and she was planning to continue her career in the field of home economics. Next the old man said he could see Monsieur Larry Toney in Paris, France. He lived in a very exquisite suite that his rich uncle had willed him. Larry was still a bachelor, although still quite a lady killer. 1 simply couldn’t wait any longer, so I asked him what I was doing since my graduation ten years ago. He said I was star reporter for the New York Times daily paper and was married to the editor and had one little boy, Charles IV. The old prospector seemed to start to fade out just as he had come in, and 1 remembered I was talking to the mirage I had seen on the desert. Before he com- pletely disappeared, I asked him who he was. As he faded from sight, he said: I am the spirit of ’49”. He went on to explain that he came back every one hundred years, and that he always found a good listener, then told him the future and happenings of the ’49 preceding the present time. Your New York Times Reporter.