Readers respond to previous newsletter
To the Editor:
Thank you for sending the complimentary April 28 issue of the Peabody Gazette-Bulletin. The picture of the original high school building on Elm Street intrigued me the most. I have checked with my siblings and none of us knew it served as the high school in earlier years.
Five of us Bullers: Raymond (eighth), Harold (seventh), Elizabeth (sixth), myself (third), and Pearl (second) entered the building in the fall of 1937. To us the grade school was a fantastic facility after attending a one-room country school seven miles northwest of Goessel (barely in McPherson County).
We loved telling our cousins, "We are attending the city school in Peabody."
I have a couple questions: Did the high school basketball team play league games on the upstairs gym floor? If so, where did the fans sit?
A memorable moment for me and others was Dec. 8, 1941, the day after Pearl Harbor. Near noon while the junior high student body was in the study hall, the principal, Mr. Bradshaw, turned on the radio in front of his microphone in the office. All of us heard Secretary of State Cordell Hull announce that Congress had declared war on the Japanese empire. This changed everyone's lifestyle as America mobilized for the war effort.
I recall as a freshman when our football team left Peabody to play an opponent, superintendent Mr. Brown drove the lead car to make sure everyone drove 35 mph to save gas and rubber. I also recall a stranger speeding around us and Mr. Brown honked at him and rolled down his window, waving his arm to slow down. He was a great role model.
Back to the junior high, I think we were fortunate when Gene Ferguson replaced a coach who whipped us with his belt when we weren't in a perfect football stance in the line. Gene was a great teacher and motivated us to give our best effort.
I will never forget the day he brought a cane pole that he found at Baker Furniture Store to teach us the art of pole vaulting. Fortunately I caught on to the techniques and it served me well. My highlight was clearing the bar at 10 feet nine inches at the Kansas Relays at KU which awarded me a second place medal in Class B competition.
Last month I attended the Kansas Relays and observed the pole vault. The event has changed significantly because today they use flexible poles. In the earlier days, with a rigid pole, vaulters did a hand-stand near the top of the pole and then jack-knifed over the bar and landed in a sand pit.
At the relays I observed a slender woman with great speed, plant her pole into the box, lean back to get maximum bend in the pole and then shoot her legs up into the air as the pole snapped back and propelled her over the bar set at 14-3. That was very exciting to see. My vault of l0-9 is of no significance today. But it was fun back in my day.
Wes Buller
wdbuller@sunflower.com
To the Editor:
We found, in our mail box, a copy of the Peabody Gazette-Bulletin, April 28, 2004, bringing back in memory, some of the "good old days of long ago."
Actually, I never spent much time in Peabody, except for the four years in high school. I think from my first day in grade school I have always loved the schoolroom, both as student and teacher.
My first eight grades were at Pleasant Hill, a rural district with the school house about five miles northeast of Peabody. Many school days began with the "Pledge of Allegiance" and a prayer.
In those days we were still a Christian nation with required attendance at weekly chapel assembly. And such very good teachers!!
Paul B. Johnson, my high school woodshop teacher, helped develop my love of woodworking.
In those Depression days of the 1930s we just didn't have much on the farm. But Mr. Johnson helped us learn woodworking.
Years after graduation (1933), visiting my sister, Esther White of rural Peabody, she asked me, "Is there anyone you would like to see while you are here?"
And I said, "Yes, I'd like to visit Paul B. Johnson." She telephoned and made arrangements. We visited. I mentioned I'm sure, that I'd done a variety of risky woodwork projects, and when they are done I look at my hands and think, "Thank the Lord and Paul B. Johnson that I have all my fingers."
He helped us learn with diligent precaution to work with the woodshop machinery.
Frank Horst
PHS Class of 1933
P.S. I'm 91 years of age and would love to hear from any of the class of '33. And perhaps some of these times soon I'll meet many of them around God's throne in Heaven.
I'm in good health with no medication. My wife, LaVerne, prepares wholesome foods and every morning I take my "Good Health" tonic: a teaspoon of cold-pressed apple cider vinegar sweetened with honey in a cup of warm distilled water. We have our own distiller.
And "A merry heart doeth good like a medicine." (Proverbs 17:22)
