Whiting High School - Reflector Yearbook (Whiting, IN)

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a central assembly room, large enough to accommodate athletic games, play, and public meetings of four or five hundred people. Fortunately the site of this building is ample to provide play space for much equipment as well as free play, which will count for so much in the lives of the children of that community. Wo k has already begun on all of these projects and is moving forward with rapidity. The heating plant and grade buildings are both scheduled to be complete and ready for use when the schools open September 5. The large building, or Junior High School, will be complete and ready to occupy entirely with the opening of the new year, January, 1923. We are promised the ground floor with its gymnasium, etc., complete and ready for use December 1, 1922. This will safeguard our athletic interest for next year, since the out-door work and the old gymnasium floor will fill the time and meet our demands till the new gymnasium is open. The accomplishment of the program described above is the fulfillment of our hopes and plans for the schools of Whiting of years standing. For the past six years and more this has been an outstanding enterprise toward the completion of which we have constantly looked and worked. Early in the year 1916, the Board of Education began to look about for a suitable site for the large building, which finally fell on New York Avenue, facing directly east from the High School. N. S. Spencer Son. Architects of Chicago, were chosen to design the buildings and how well they did their work is evidenced by the fact that they were retained as the architects of the complete budding program. The subsequent history of the movement could be written, 1 suspect, by almost anyone in Whiting, so familiar was it to every one and so filled with common interest. How we were delayed two years by the Great War, just as our plans were rapidly taking definite form, another two years by an arbitrary Tax Board and high prices, are facts known to all. Three successive years bids were received before satisfactory prices and contracts could be made. Finally on February 11, 1922, the contract for all general construction was awarded to English Brothers, of Champaign, Illinois, who began work on April 3, following. To the credit of our people who must bear the financial burden I might add that I have never seen a public enterprise projected anywhere which received such loyal and undivided support as this has. From the day a new building was suggested to this good hour if a single voice in the city of Whiting has been raised against it I have not heard of it, although a period of more than six years has elapsed and the expenditure of more than a half million dollars of public money was involved. The fixed purpose of the Board of Education to see the program complete and the patience of teachers and people through repeated delays should be commended. I am sure that the successful accomplishment of the task is sufficient reward for all who have been connected with it and will abundantly compensate for all inconveniences and delays of the past.

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0. M. MERRIMAN Manual Training ETHEL SOMERS Domestic Science ROYETTA TRAN SEAL Bookkeeping E. L. RIORDAN Science JEAN B. HURST English CATHERINE O’ROURKE Shorthand MARGARET CANINE Mathematics O. R. SPITLER Mathematics G. T. FRANKLIN Biology META WILHELM Latin