Thursday, March 25, 2010

Four score and two years ago...

Browsing through the 1928 Milestone yearbook from Chadron High School has been been a delight!

The hair styles and dapper attire of these pre-Depression-era students at CHS were definitely from another era. But reading the "farewell messages" offered by the graduates of that year seemed remarkably contemporary. We remember similar quotations inscribed in yearbooks from the 1950s and '60s. It seems that some things just don't change.

Love is too simple a game for brainy men to indulge in,” wrote Harold Thompson.

Ann McDaniels, whose extracurricular activities included a role in the Class Play of 1928, offered “Sometimes I sit and think, and sometimes I just sit.”

But our favorite – and one often likely repeated in yearbooks over the years – was from football player Roscoe Godden. “The reason I don’t study is that my questions baffle the teachers."

Baffled and otherwise, teachers at CHS had to not only ride heard on their students, they also had to toe the line for superintendent James Skinkle, a graduate of the University of Chicago and long-time CHS superintendent. We suspect Mr. Skinkle was long gone from this earth before most of us roamed the streets of Chadron, but many of you may recall his widow, Ethel, a longtime housemother at Crites Hall at Chadron State College.

Mr. Skinkle and all the faculty were beholden to the folks shown here: the elected members of the school board. Click on the image at right from the 1928 Milestone, and you'll get a closer look at them.

Perhaps some of you recall these community leaders. We recognize only attorney F.A. Crites (top left) and businessman F.A. Hood (bottom right). And it's not surprising that David A. Hood – whom we remember as a 1952 grad of Chadron High School – looked exactly like his father, Fred, who ran an insurance company from his home at 3rd and Main Street for many years.

Please e-mail us or leave a Comment below if you can offer additional information about these or other school board members from 1928.