St Johns High School - Blue Devil Yearbook (Darlington, SC)

Page 25 text:

r St. J oh n's Echoes, 1.9 H 0 23 TALL OAKS S |EE YONDER TREE—It is hard to realize that it was once only a little sapling. Even so it is hard to believe that these brawny men and pretty ladies were once the bare-footed boys and curly-haired girls who entered the first grade eleven years ago as saplings of the trees that they now are. The teachers all admitted that we certainly represented that first syllable at least—the three letters S-A-P. But try to think of our Lawrence being the class husky, and see if you can remember the time when our bold, bad Crayton was not even timid. Also when James Mozingo would blush when the girls so much as looked at him. The boys all collected at one side of the room and appeared to be afraid of girls. But the girls—oh—they collected on the other side and slyly made “eyes” at the timid boys. Then came our first lessons. Practically all of us knew the alphabet but we were generous enough to allow someone else to repeat it. As we passed from one grade to another, however, we lost our stage-fright and tried to really get something out of school. All of us were afraid of Mr. Daniel and his “strap” and were therefore very good. Our teachers gave us little trouble but they annoyed us sometimes with what they called “home-work.” They never studied their lessons, but always asked us what was in the book. They were terribly dumb and I sincerely hope that we taught them something. But I believe that if all the teachers would only study the books which they have, the pupils would not have to teach them so much. When we got to the fifth, sixth and seventh grades, we found out that our teachers in these grades really knew a little, but even then they liked to find out what we knew by playing the game of asking us questions. While we were in these grades the teachers thought that it would be quite wise to attempt to educate our parents and the other pupils and teachers of the school, besides Mr. Daniel. So we prepared some projects. In these we tried to show, in the simplest ways possible, what we knew about Geography, Arithmetic and English. We certainly hope that they profited by our knowledge. When we had completed seven years of grammar school, our missionary spirit ran so high that we were eager to see what improvement we could make in the high school. However, before leaving the grammar school for good, we presented an entertainment

Page 24 text:

St. John's Echoes, 1930 22 besides mischief underneath that curly head. There’s plenty of gray matter and with it an art of making friends among the opposite sex. And who so timidly trips before the eyes of the modest onlookers? Tis Red, our bashful boy. Is he bashful, we ask again? Yes—everywhere except the gridiron— and there, oh, boy! Red has led his team mates to victory many times, and proved his own splendid worth. Hail, hail! Man of many traits: The class flirt—proven; 1930’s laziest product; and—last, an honor rigidly fought for, the class clown. See, there he is—the lazy thing—but not too lazy to be a clown and a very fascinating flirt. It’s James Mozingo, of course. Modesty, thy name is Mildred—so modest, so courteous, so dependable. We’ll miss our Mildred many times but we’ll know that wherever she is—and whatever she’s doing—she will be sweet tempered and she will be reliable. But Mildred is not alone in this honor. Ned Dargan, with his manly form, quiet, reserved manner and winning smile comes in, too, under this head. To Ned goes this honor, well deserved. Classmates, readers, behold a gentleman! “That’s Jack Byrd.” “No—t’sn’t.” “Yes—it is.” He is the most argumentative of the class of 1930. How proudly he struts, how boldly he argues, how nobly he takes defeat. And this is no small honor in a class of 41 argumenta tors! And thus, gentle readers, we have presented to you the Class of 1930 in Silhouette. DOT PARKER and EDITH REGISTER.

Page 26 text:

21 St. John's Echoes, 19 3 0 to the public. We also had commencement exercises and were graduated with honor from the graded school. I suppose that all of you know that the greenness of freshmen is proverbial. We were not only green but verdant. One of our number. I’ll call no names, when he saw the water fountain running, ran to tell Miss Brunson that the water was all leaking away. Still another thought that there was a tree called a palmolive, and said as much in class. Although we took our class troubles lightly, we found others of a more serious nature in the sophomores. Nevertheless, their effect was good, for we soon lost our greenness. It was often SUPPLANTED by different colors—most of the time, black and blue, and we found ourselves steadily becoming sober and serious citizens. However, our little forest of saplings had grown in strength and stature, and had begun to show the characteristics for which we were later noted. Th? following year we entered the ninth grade. And we, like all other sopho- mores, were called “wise fools.” Taking no stock in the adjective “wise” I shall tell you that we certainly fitted the latter part of this name. As a class we probably had enough brains to go around but it did not seem to be evenly divided. Especially among the boys there was a serious lack of common “horse” sense. In spite of this though, we proved ourselves to be one of the best sophomore classes St. John’s had ever had. We put the freshmen in their places, and attempted to put the juniors, seniors, and teachers in theirs, but to no avail. Then the next year found us juniors. This year we nearly put the seniors out of “business.” We had grown so much that the shadows of our success practically eclipsed the efforts of the poor seniors. Oftentimes, too, we were mistaken for them, which we thought was quite a compliment to our friends, the seniors. To sum all of this up, we just out-seniored the seniors. But we still thought of the time when we would attain that dignified estate and could show the others how to be super seniors. During this year, however, we thought much of the seniors and ourselves too, for that matter, which was shown by the Junior-Senior Banquet of 1929. We were the first class to give one, but we sincerely hoped that the succeeding classes would follow our noble example. This banquet was quite a triumph, the meal proper proving to be of the most interest to all, which is more than can be said of some speeches made by the teachers. Following the meal came some “stunts” by the juniors which showed the seniors up. This time we were certainly successful in putting them in their places. Then came the crowning event of our career. We became seniors in September of the year ’29. But alas—our junior experiences had been so much like senior experi- ences, that nearly all of the thrill of being a senior was taken away. But we got along as best we could in spite of this. Our teachers all thought that we placed ourselves almost on a par with them, but they were sadly mistaken for we considered ourselves greatly their superiors. The faculty was everywhere looked down upon as only an abominable pest in our classes. They even went so far as to forbid us to talk to each other during lessons. This was the gala year of our school days. Here we were seniors, but we were still considerate of the outside world. We gave a Senior Follies and Minstrel for the