Proviso East High School - Provi Yearbook (Maywood, IL)

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war materials. Each homeroom had a large paste- board box into which students tossed any scrap that they had. The main pile of scrap was located on the north field next to the automobile driveway. It was an unusual sight, containing pipes, hooks, locks, hammers, grinders, flat-irons, and tin pans. The whole collection was crowned by an old, bare, and sadly worn automobile body. At the end of the six-week drive, more than ten thousand pounds of scrap had been collected. NOTHER feature of the school's campaign was the emphasis placed on nutritional foods and proper eating. The cafeteria set the pace with its Nutrition week, during which special economical Victory lunches were sold to students. The menus for these lunches included beef stew, bread and butter, apple sauce, salads, baked beans, and bran muffins. Special literature was read in the homerooms, lifelike model lunches were placed in the display cases, posters were mounted on the bulletin boards. Later in the year, the cafeteria, in collaboration with the federal government, began the sale of milk at the price of one cent per half pint, making the healthful beverage available to a large number of students. This project was an enormous success, more than two thousand bottles were sold daily. Proviso has always had fire drills, but fire-drill procedure could not be used for air raids. To have some measure of protection in case of air raids, students were assigned to posts within the building, away from windows, and from doors with glass panels. Several air-raid drills were held. Emergency fire axes, stirrup pumps, and red buckets filled with sand were placed at strategic points. CHOOL life took on a war atmosphere. A large wall map placed near the main office kept students informed of the trend of events by indicating air routes, army movements, and battle areas. Globes were used in some of the history classes to point out pole routes to foreign lands. Assemblies presented A Letter from the Solomons and They Burned the Books. Concerts were flavored with the music of the United Nations. Art students made posters for countless occasions. Books were contributed to the Victory Book campaign. Senior homerooms sent their Thanksgiving baskets to the service centers. The Girls' League filled red crinoline stockings with Christmas gifts. The Proviso Players presented Rich Man, Poor Man, and turned over the proceeds, 313305, to the Army-Navy Relief fund. Hundreds of pounds of cookies for the rookies were sent by the Girls' League to the Maywood canteen to be forwarded to the USO. Self-denial day called upon every one to refrain from luxuries, the money that might have been spent on them was collected throughout the school, and turned over to the Red Cross to be used for its war activities-SB16750. 16000-

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cation as essential to the war effort. The social studies department rounded its program to emphasize political science and current events more than the regular textbook history. In many cases, students were allowed to drop one or two of the courses they had taken the first semester in order to take one of the pre-induction courses. Boys who wanted to get into the air corps were encouraged to study aeronautics, physics, and mathematics. Others who had a natural tendency toward mechanics were trained in machine shop classes for war industries. In this way, every one was given a chance to study the subjects he was best suited to. HE school increased its outstanding work in the physical education department. The first semes- ter had harly begun before L. W. Remley announced that senior boys would take two hours of First Aid classes per week in addition to the regular two hours of gym. Girls were also given First Aid classes at the same time, so that each student would know what to do and how to do it in case of emergencies. At the beginning of the second semester all senior boys were required to take gym work live hours per week. The purpose of this arrangement was to prepare boys for the tremendous physical requirements of modern war. Wrestling was given emphasis, so that prospective soldiers might be versed in the fundamentals of hand-to-hand combat. They were not taught any trick holds or commando tactics, since the Army would teach these, and the school could not be re- sponsible for accidents. Calisthenics, such as the arm- tiring push-up, were utilized to bring all the muscles of the body into action. The most difficult part of the training was the obstacle course, similar to the ones in use in Army and Marine camps. It involved a series of hurdles, parallel bars, and ladders. One obstacle consisted of climbing hand over hand up a rope and then swinging along a series of bars, parallel to the ground, and some twelve feet above it. At another place boys had to scale a smooth, eight-foot wall with only the use of hands and feet. Any one who has run the course will testify as to the amount of energy it requires. At the beginning of the second semester, classes in home nursing were offered to senior girls. In response, some one hundred seventy girls enrolled. Classes were held during school two days a week, no school credit was given for taking the course. It was taught by registered nurses, and girls learned how to prevent and treat diseases, and how to avoid accidents. N addition to all of the new courses offered, Proviso went even farther in helping those stu- dents who faced induction. All of the bulletins issued by the Army, Navy, Marine corps, and Air corps were posted on bulletin boards, Students were given help in deciding which branch of the service they wanted to enter by information obtained from the members of the faculty. On April 2, 1945, special examina- tions were given in Proviso to determine what boys should be sent to colleges for special training. One of the hrst of Proviso's war activities was the promotion of weekly sales of War bonds and stamps. This was begun in the spring of 1942, and although interrupted by summer vacation, has con- tinued since that time. The work was done mainly by the members of the Student Council, who took orders, collected the money, and made deliveries in the homerooms. By their untiring efforts to increase the amount of purchases from one week to the next, they set the pace for the rest of the school. The first week's sales for this school year on September 29 amounted to 3420, purchases increased steadily until the weekly average bordered on the 351,000 mark. The numbers of homerooms having the highest sales for a week were posted on the bulletin board outside of the main office, and those homerooms were given a banner which they held until the sales in another homeroom surpassed those in their own. Near the office there was also a sales thermometer, its red tube indicated what percentage of students had purchased stamps. Special recognition was also made to home- rooms having one hundred per cent sales. Additional purchases could be made after school. A second cooperative effort was made in the scrap salvage drive to help relieve the shortage of critical OOO-15

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Wm ROVISOS Wzir college was opened to adults on Sep- tember 22 to meet the shortage of trained engineers. Under the direction of E. W. Stubbs, 29 separate courses were offered. Tuition free, the trainees were offered a selec- tion of fifteen engineering courses plus seven in manage- ment and seven in science. Classes were conducted from 7 to 10 o'clock every Monday and Thursday evening. Upon graduation, certificates of completion were issued by the University of lllinois. Approximately 1100 men and women enrolled. The majority of them finished. LL 't -,aa OOO--'I7