Sparks College - Yearbook (Shelbyville, IL)

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MR. BOLING NA orld Honors Received During these first six years, one of the greatest events in business-college history took place. Mr. Clem Doling, a lad of nineteen, in competition with reporters with twenty and thirty years ' experience, won the International Shorthand Contest for speed and accuracy, and received the title The Fastest Reporter of Human Speech in the World. He was the first winner for machine shorthand of this international contest - A World Champion. Some years later, Miss Gladys Pundt, after finishing the Short- hand Course, took up the Stenotype. Believe it or not, she finished the Stenotype Course in sixty days, and went directly to a position with a convention-reporting agency. She made good on the job, too.

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A Product Of The Era In the early nineteen hundreds, Mr. Uard Stone Ireland invented the Stenotype, a machine to be used for taking dictation. Mr. Sparks, on hearing of the invention of this machine, was very doubtful about its efficiency. He said the machine would always be falling down, it would make a lot of racket, it wouldn ' t be practical, it would have to be lugged around, and somebody would have to buy it. But upon investigation, Mr. Sparks found, to his delight, that he was dead wrong. Machine shorthand had a future. He went to work to see what could be done about it. The machine was being manufactured in Owensboro, Kentucky, and people who wanted to find out about the machine went there, since the company did not send representatives to the schools. Mr. Sparks found his way down to this Kentucky city. There he met Mr. Ireland, the inventor, and the Bowen brothers, one of whom was the president, and the other the treasurer of the Stenotype Company. A funny motto, which Mr. Sparks never forgot, was on the office wall of the treasurer, Don ' t swear, not that I give a damn, but it sounds like hell before strangers. Mr. Ireland was one of the biggest eaters who ever sat at a table. He was a big man physically. Many times he worked all night. Sometimes he would work up to the middle of the afternoon, straighten himself around, throw his head back, sleep for an hour, and then go back to work with renewed fervor. Sparks College had one of the first thirty teachers of machine stenography in the United States. The school sent Mr. Harmon L. Ruff, a native of She Ibyville, to Owensboro, Kentucky, where he stayed for several weeks, learning how to operate and teach the machine. For many years Sparks College had one of the first handmade models. Mr. Ruff came back to the school and found a lot of skeptics. Had they been on the banks of the Hudson River when Mr. Fulton was trying to make his steamboat run, they would have said, It won ' t work. But the company worked on the machine, and many schools in the United States finally taught it. A prominent business educator who knew well about machine shorthand said, We think of Sparks College as the school which had trained more expert machine-shorthand writers than any other anything like its size. This school has a great many machine-shorthand writers all over the country. .Another word-writing machine, the Stenograph, appeared about 1939. This machine was, and is, promoted by anew company known as Stenographic Machines, Inc. This company, founded by Mr. M. H„ Wright, has made rapid progress. Many say the Stenograph is a better machine. It is widely used. Mrs. Mamie Frances Hill Cleary with Stenograph

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Further Recognition It is reported that the Russian Government, soon after World War I, canceled a $3,000,000. war contract with the Stenotj pe Company of Indianapolis, Indiana. This cancellation caused the failure of the Stenotype Company. Indianapolis bankers held the patents for several years, when finally LaSalle Extension University of Chicago, Illinois, secured these patents and started manufacture and promotion of the machine. Miss Madge Sparks, then a young woman of seventeen years, was trained to teach the machine. Two of her pupils. Miss Edith Pitzer and Miss Marguerite Griffin, went all out to make a record. They wanted to be the first under the LaSalle regime to finish Stenotypy. Edith and Marguerite, with Madge ' s help, made the grade. They were the first graduates under LaSalle management of the Stenotype. The LaSalle Company rewarded these girls by sending them on a trip to Kansas City, Missouri, to attend the convention of the National Business Teachers ' Association, which was held during the Christmas holidays. MRS. EDITH PITZER LANE MRS. M. RGUERITE GRIFFIN IGO Miss Lovetta Beck, a Gregg Writer, receives the acclaim of the business world as a secretary. Miss Beck has worked for Judge I. H. Streeper in Alton, Illinois, since 1929. At present she is his personal secretary and office manager. She is the court reporter of the City Court of Alton. In 1954, Lovetta passed the twelve-hour examination for the title of Certified Professional Secretary. CPS is to the secretarial profession what CPA is to that of accounting. In 1956, Lovetta was named Secretary of the Year by the Alton Chapter, National Secretaries Association (International), and participated in the national contest. Mr. Roy E. Burke comes in for recognition as a CPA. He is the manager for Price-Waterhouse Company, a firm of CP. ' ' s in Houston, Texas - No picture available. There are many bankers, auditors, cost accountants. Civil Service workers, and general accountants, among whom the name of Richard Carruthers shows well. He is an accountant in Decatur. MISS LOVETTA BECK MR. RICHARD CARRUTHERS