Winnacunnet High School - Sachem Yearbook (Hampton, NH)

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The year 1958 was a great milestone for the town of Hampton. This year marked the opening of Winnacunnet High School, although it offered fewer courses than we have today, it was a great beginning. Through the years the school gradually grew, in the 1970's there was a new math English wing added. Now, in 1986, we have a beautiful new wing with a huge computer room, audio visual work center, and a new library. We have a separate industrial arts building, an alternative school and much, much more. Progress is a word to describe our school, which is continually growing and changing all together.

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A student once said to Mr. Piepgrass, You did something my parents said could never be done, you taught me to think.” DEDICATION Out of Africa. Much like the movie, Mr. Piepgrass was born in Jima, Ethiopa, East Africa. With his mis- sionary parents he spent his first five years there. Driven out by the Italian Army during World War II, the family returned to America for over a year only to return to Africa to stay in Nigeria, West Africa for five years. Mr. Piepgrass had his school books sent to him by boat, but his schooling was disturbed because the ships carrying his books were sunk by the Germans. His parents were forced to send him back to America to attend a school for missionaries’ children in South Carolina. When the school was closed, he went to Ben Lippen High School in Ashville, North Carolina and graduated in 1950. Mr. Piepgrass studied at King’s College, Delaware for one year and completed his last three years at Wheaton College, Illinois. Mr. Piepgrass always expected to become a missionary because of his family. To others he was a natural born teacher. Graduating from the Gordon Theological Seminary in Massachusetts in 1957, he spent the next nine years in a minestry-four of those years teaching in Maine. Receiving his M.E.D. in 1957 from the University of Maine at Oreno, he then moved to Hampton where he has lived ever since. He has raised three daughters in Hampton and is happily married to Jan Piepgrass. Mr. Piepgrass has devoted his time and energy to teaching and to the church. Although he has written hundreds of poems, he has never published any. He is a witty man who has shown his humor by “smoking chalk” and by telling bad jokes. This is Mr. Piepgrass' last year at Winnacunnet, because he is going into financial management with a company called A.O. Williams. When I asked Mrs. Piepgrass what she thought Mr. Piepgrass’ feelings were about W.H.S., she told me the straight out, honest truth. She said that he enjoyed teaching here, but there was a strong lack of interest from the students in re- cent years. This hurt Mr. Piepgrass, and he became tired of forcing students to do work; he felt he was banging his head against the wall”. Noticing the change in the kids, he looked back on a time when people learned just for the sake of learning. The loss of Mr. Piepgrass will be a great one for Winnacunnet. We will miss him dearly. Heidi Emmons, Editor

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Two views of Winnacunnet 7