Winnacunnet High School - Sachem Yearbook (Hampton, NH)

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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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4 MUSINGS ON A LION RELIEF FROM THE WALLS OF BABYLON (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) “Is not this great Babylon which I have built?” (Daniel 4:30) Daniel, this kiln-fired beast that strides in tawny glaze upon these ancient bricks still roars Babylon, the magnificent Nebuchadnezzar, the den where his models met their Sovereign, the hot breath of the man-devouring furnace where Judah’s Lion in three sons’ faith consumed the pagan pride of a demi god and recast him a humbled man. — Stan Piepgrass PREPARATION ... in the fullness of time, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman ... ” (Galatians 4:4 AV) The flax wick flamed and guttered in the hillside cave where the inn’s guests quartered their beasts, where a woman labored in the painful gloom. Few glimpsed the light that flared at the birth, or heard the first Life cry of the child man, or the woman’s long-pent sigh. In the half-light before dawn four boys would study to fish; a young scholar in Tarsus would learn to make goat-hair tents; a wealthy scribe would commis- sion a cave in a garden to entomb his dead; an emperor would assign an am- bitious soldier to govern an obscure province; by the sabbath's waning light a carpenter’s son would trace in synagogue scrolls the words spelling death and life; and a voice would be heard crying in the wilderness. Where dawns would still be steel, and death still stalk the darkness where despair throttled hope, and light had risen from eastern night, a king had been born in poverty’s palace. Time, measured in bloody suns and blacken- ed moons, had cradled eternity. Where men played at god, God had become man. — Stan Piepgrass Daniel inspired by the Relief from the M.F.A. Stanley Piepgrass at age two, gather- ing flowers in Africa. Mother, Father, and Mr. Piepgrass. Mr. P. paused from his studies for a quick Atop Westgate, Wheaton College photograph. Wheaton lllinios. October, 1952. IN HONOR AND

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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.