Waverly High School - Novel Yearbook (Waverly, OH)

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Class Prophecy It felt good to get back to the earth after that long space voyage of eighteen years. As I stepped from my spaceship, owned by the Barry Downing Transport Company, I noticed a man standing on my foot, jabbing a message into my eye. Something about him seemed familiar; it was Wayne Burdett, former track star of 58. He was now head runner for the Gil Willis Telegraph Company. The message ordered my immediate return to Waverly, my old home town. I spent the night at a modern hotel near the spaceport. The owner's name sounded familiar--why, it was Mary Kay Landrum. In the morning I departed for Waverly. When I reached the thriving metropolis, 1 was greeted by the Chief of Police, Mac Wright. He escorted me to the office of Special Investigator Benny Stephens. There he told me a story that was to become the greatest mystery of my career. (Although not normally a detective, I had dabbled in the art of sleuthing from time to time.) It seems that Inspector Stephens was on the trial of the most cunning bulb snatcher to darken the streets of Waverly. The first missing bulbs were reported stolen from the Foreign Car Import Company, owned and operated by Gene Stouder. Mr. Stephens and I spoke to Mr. Stouder's secretary, Jean Musick; but she told us that Mr. Stouder was away on a business trip and that we could talk to his treasurer, Nancy Deacon. Miss Deacon said that there had been 500 bulbs snatched in one night, but the loss had not been immediately noticed because there had been 520 bulbs in the building at the time. Most of the workers wore hats anyway, and they couldn't see the bulbs above their heads. We were escorted by the chief escorter, Jim Nelson, to the large, well-lighted recreation room next door. It was very strange that the recreation room was well lighted when the rest of the factory was in darkness. We began to think that this was an inside job--possibly done by the workers. We spoke with head recreational directors Robert Chambers and Richard Sims. Chambers and Sims were still the honest classmates I had known them to be back in ”58. They knew nothing about the incident. It began to look as if the inside job had been pulled not by the employees of this industry, but by those of their competitor, the Robin Washburn Foreign Car Distributors. We talked with Mr. Washburn's secretary, Sandra Massie. She did her best to talk to us through the gag in her mouth. After we had untied her, she told us that a tall, dark stranger had kidnapped Mr. Washburn. The case was becoming more complicated with every step. Our next visit was to the Waverly Bureau of Missing Persons, where we spoke to the most powerful person ever to hold the position of Chief Inspector, Johnny Caldwell. He said he would lend us his most experienced men, Frank G. Price and Herman Dement, to help us locate the kidnapping-bulbsnatcher, Mr. X. We checked the bureau's files and found that Mr. Washburn's last known address was a large riverside mansion on Beverly Avenue. We questioned the gardener, John Ferguson, who informed us that Mr. Washburn had driven to work in his new sports car and hadn't been heard of since. All at once I had a brilliant idea--Mr. Washburn had not been kidnapped! He had driven to Piketonia to visit the grand opening of the Henix Rader Kitchen, the largest new restaurant to open in this vicinity in twenty years. The tall dark stranger who had bound and gagged the secretary was not really a kidnapper, but in reality was Jo Ed Killer Jordan. Henix's right arm advertisement man. He had gagged the secretary so that he wouldn't have to pay her bill at the grand opening! We called the Walt Rider Taxi Company for a car to take us to Piketonia. The driver, John Shawkey, made a gallant effort to follow the narrow twelve-lane back road we used to know as Rt. 23 to Piketonia; but he missed the town four times because the Oyer Electric Company, owned by Barbara Oyer, had shut off the electricity. The company's loss in profit was high because the bulb snatching had been so great. Also, because of the lack of electricity, all the inhabitants of Piketonia had moved, deserting the town. Thus, there was no one on the streets and Shawkey didn't recognize the place. By the time we reached Rader's Kitchen, most of the crowd that came for the opening had disappeared. We talked to Miss Rader's cook, Loretta Burdett, and she said that Mr. Washburn and the Killer had been there. She also said that Gibby the Tank Breitenbach and his boys from the syndicate had dragged off die Killer and Washburn and had vanished. We had another brilliant idea!! We decided to search Rader's Kitchen (besides, we were hungry). Two hours and three steaks later we found in the food locker three dozen light bulbs--frozen. This could mean only one thing! There were three dozen frozen light bulbs in the locker. We naturally assumed that they had been stolen. 22

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ROW 1: Linda Annis, Henix Rader, Jerry Annis, Gibby Breitenbach, David Moats. ROW 2: Sandra Massie, Alta Mae Stulley, Mary Kay Landrum, Paul Jordan, Gene Stouder, Barry Downing, Wayne Burdett, Cecil Murray, Jimmy Lipsey, Barbara Oyer, Patty Kuhn. Class History These few seniors, out of the total of fifty-nine, have attended the Waverly schools since their first-grade year--all the way back in 1946. They have been associated as classmates since that first meeting twelve years ago. Their grade-school years seemed to drag on and on, and they thought they would never get to be those big shots in the high school. However, they finally made it; and those four years at WHS flew by like a snap of the fingers. Now it’s all over; and all the pleasant, and even the not-so-pleasant, memories will linger in their minds and hearts for years and years and years. 21

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Ho-ha--we had a lead. We traced the light bulbs to the Stouder Company, and through simple deduction, we found that Henix wasn’t guilty--but the Killer was. Now to find the Killer! We talked with his mother, and she told us that he was probably at his fiancee’s house and that his fiancee was none other than Barbara Hibben. We spoke to Miss Hibben as she plowed Jordan’s field of marijuana, and she said she knew nothing of the Killer's whereabouts. This left us from whence we had preceded previously to commence. . .what? Meanwhile, back on the trail of the Killer. We stopped at Shirley Alexander’s Truck Shop and asked her cashier, Gracie Mae Altman, if she knew anything of the Killer’s whereabouts. After her blunt negative reply, we decided to look elsewhere. We went to the Jerry Annis Auto Shop where we asked Chief Mechanic Ronnie Ramsey if he knew the whereabouts of his roommate from the boarding house run by Jeannine Bond. Mechanic Ramsey knew nothing of the incident. We then went to the Cool Malt Shop, owned by John Cool, and spoke with the milk-mixer and malt-masher, Marcia Parsley. She said that the last time Killer had been in the malt shop she had to refuse credit to him, and she told him that he couldn’t have any more double chocolates on the rocks. He had been greatly disturbed, and she hated to see a grown man cry. As he ran from the shop, it seems that the Killer had run over and mutilated Jimmy Lipsey, who was carrying a large bag of light bulbs. We went to the hospital and talked with the receptionist, Janet Wood, who showed us to Mr. Lipsey’s room. Dr. David Moats and Nurse Barbara Chase were just leaving. They said we could stay only a few moments for Lipsey was in bad shape. He had a fractured left big toe and an amputated fingernail. He was in excruciating pain, so we made our visit brief and to the point. When we placed the question, Where did you get the light bulbs?,” he replied in a barely audible voice, From the syndicate, and then lapsed into a coma. This excluded Killer Jordan from the bulb-snatching incident. We had finally found the bulb snatcher. Jimmy Lipsey confessed and was sentenced to thirty lashes with a wet noodle. After admitting his guilt, he did promise never to steal bulbs or walk in front of malt shops again. As I was congratulated by Inspector Stephens, I suddenly remembered that Washburn was still missing. I immediately rushed to Washburn’s home to find that he had returned the night before after taking an unscheduled fishing trip into the lower regions of the Scioto River with Gibby the Tank and his boys from the syndicate. Now that the case was officially closed, I returned to the rocket base and prepared for my return trip to Saturn, the brownie planet with the ring around its nose. I spoke with the flight dispatcher, Linda Palmer, who told me that weather on Saturn was quite turbulent and that the trip would be extremely hazardous. As I climbed into my huge passenger rocket, my stewardesses, Kay Piatt and Joan Stevenson, said that we had a passenger who had to be taken care of extremely well. It seems that Cecil Murray, the passenger, had just had his appendix taken out and was still quite ill. I reassured Mr. Murray, and we blasted off for Saturn!!! The trip was quite uneventful; and, if it hadn't been for the large meteor that ripped the frannistan from the inverted musterdmill, the trip would not have been exciting at all. As I fought my way through the turbulent weather of Saturn, my engineer, Dick Bauer, said we had just enough fuel left for two more light years of flight. Luckily, we made it safe and sound to the Axolotl Space Station. The tower operators, Alta Stulley and Judith Pearson, closed down the field for further flights because of the adverse weather conditions. I went into the snack bar, and waitress Vivian Howerton served me my dinner. As I saw a young lady cleaning light bulbs in the waiting room, it brought back memories of the great bulb-snatching incident. 1 walked over to speak to the young lady, Regina Kohut. She said that there had been so many bulbs stolen from the spaceport that the company was going out of business. Ho-ha—another mystery!! ! However, not wanting to become involved in another incident, I ran from the station screaming and ran into the only woman chief of police of Axolotl, Linda Annis, who was glad to see me back. I explained the situation to her, and she agreed to have her best detectives, Pat McAllister and Patty Kuhn, get right on the case. I attended late that evening the Axolotl Symphony Orchestra where the tickets were taken up by Leona Detillion, and I was ushered to my seat by two beautiful usherettes, Betty Wogan and Carol Puckett. As the curtain dosed on the concert featuring Diane Neal on the bassoon, Pat Mathews on the piano, and Joyce Howell on the bass drum playing the Yugoslavian Wine Polka, my mind once again played over the memories of my school days with all my old friends that I had possibly left for the last time. I had but one thing to say, It’s too bad I didn’t graduate until 1962! 23 By Errol Wells