Many of you readers have expressed interest in reading names and events from years ago, sometimes, many years ago. I’m going to share some of the stories in the Fall 1945 edition of the Cardington School newspaper, The Searchlight, which had begun production just three years earlier.
The paper states that for the first time in many years the school was planning to issue an annual (yearbook) the following spring. It was to be titled, “The Pirateer.”
Another article describes the wedding of Kay Sleeman, senior home room teacher and Pete Williams. Attending them were Mr.and Mrs.Heber Schellenger. Mr. Schellenger was an industrial arts teacher.
An editorial was written by Lyman Hert titled, “Sissies,” a tribute to the success the students had in many areas, including football and FFA.
He was responding to statements calling people who studied or worked “sissies.” He was quite blunt in his statement. At one point he referenced the death of Colonel Ralph Lowther who spent his boyhood days here and graduated from this high school. Later, he was appointed to West Point and graduated from there. “Since one does not have high rank places handed to them he worked and therefore was a sissy,” stated Hert’s sarcasm. Winding up he said, “I’m going to utter a prayer for my fellow teachers and myself that we may have more and more sissies.”
News from the lower grades: Third and fourth grade: Elaine Cahoon, Norita Fricke, Mills Poorman, Marlene Bean and Doris Hennessee were leading on the spelling chart with 100 on every spelling test.
In the sixth grade it was noted that since school began Marjorie Mosher, Melvin Maceyko and Robert Coleman had read 12 library books; Robert Miller and Martha Mosher, eleven, Juanita McClaskey and Franklin Himler, ten books.
Some of the local businesses advertising in the paper were Hart the Barber, Mac’s and Margaret’s Restaurant, Bailey’s Confectionery, Miller Hardware Koon’s Grocery, Snider’s Store, Hogan’s Grill, Stone’s Drug Store, John Kientz and People’s Food Shoppe.
Looking back to past Octobers: 1942: Cardington Mayor Frank Aliga fined one young man $10 and court costs on a charge of disturbing the peace in the guise of a Halloween prank. The young man’s prank also sent him to jail for one night.
1972: A Mansfield man, Walter Stevens, purchased Cardington’s 1942 fire truck for $891. He would retain the Cardington Fire Department lettering on the truck’s doors.
Clair and Georgia Vance, owners of the Vance Arabian Ranch on North Marion Street, won several awards at an Ashland Horse Show with their half Arabian Gelding, Zipzur.