Familiar names in 1931 Bison newspaper

Loving books started at home, my parents both loved to read and therefore, out on the acreage I also found books to be the best of entertainment! Writing came a bit later. When I was in sixth grade, my teacher was Mrs. Jenkins. Now Mrs. Jenkins loved to read also and the first of the year she challenged us with a reading requirement that we had to fill in the name of each book we had read over the year. Easy assignment! Next, she assigned writing poetry and illustrating the poems we wrote. That was not such a slam dunk as reading, not even close! She taught us the basics of poems, the different styles of which were like a foreign language, but I struggled on. So began a long lifetime of writing bad poetry!

When I was a junior in high school, still proficient in bad poetry, I was assigned Mrs. Reese’s English class and that is when I discovered writing and journalism were actually fun. Fast forward to my senior year and I shared the Editor’s position for the Bison Newspaper with Bob Norman. We as editors got to lay out the pages down at the McCook Daily Gazette, write editorials, news items and insert some humor into the high school rag when possible. Mrs. Reese was the supervisor and teacher and she was a stickler for professionalism. I’ve often said she is probably shaking her head over how I write today but I’m quite sure that’s not the only thing she would find off center in this world.

Southwest Nebraska Genealogical society has the incredible gift of the Bison Newspaper from 1931, 1932, and 1933. The first article I found when I opened the binder was an article about the girls starting a Pep Organization, perhaps the first pep club? It mentions that they led the yells at the McCook-Oberlin football game which strange as it seems, McCook lost to Oberlin in a “Scrappy Fray” according to the article by 14-6. McCook’s lineup contained some remarkably familiar names: Batty, DeLong, Hoyt, McClury, Walters, Maynard, Adams, McMIllin, Schneider, Reynolds and Wilcott. McCook’s schedule that year had them matched up against Culbertson, Oberlin, Minden, Lexington, Holdrege, North Platte, Gothenburg, Curtis and Imperial.

If you’ve ever wondered when the “On McCook High” song was created, quite obviously it was in 1931 as printed in the Bison Newspaper! Sung to the tune of “On Wisconsin”, the full version is printed under the heading, “ New Songs and Yells”.

In an outlined column named, Bison Breezes, the writer had some fun at other people’s expense: “Sammy DeLong and Veda McIntosh are still going together-Howard Harts has already earned Roy Schneider’s title as the high school’s laziest boy- the writer (of the column) has been asked to request, on the behalf of the Temple theater, that Bob Bash and Dorothy Marsh carry on their negotiations somewhere other than the balcony of the theater.”

Enrollment was touted as the highest ever seen at MHS when: “Two hundred and eighty-one pupils entered Senior High this year.” The article goes on to list all the new students and where they had transferred from, the farthest being Leslie Kidd of Bristow, Oklahoma.

In 1931, Gayle Hodges was the Editor-in-Chief and the very recognizable name of John Batty is listed as Feature writer. The Junior High had its part in the paper also with Adelene Stennett as the Editor. She mentions that the Junior High enrollment topped records also with 414 students of which around 60 were rural students the year before.

Our library is moved and being put back into order. Chris Christensen and Sherrie Dack have spear-headed this whole move, done 99% of the packing and unpacking but we were so fortunate to have the Work Ethic Camp men help do the heavy moving! We couldn’t have asked for better assistance as they toted all those precious historical records, bookcases, and furniture down from the mezzanine and then back up to a second story suite of rooms. Thank you so much WEC!

Thanks also to MNB for the years our library was housed in the Merit building and many thanks to Karen Lyne and the Masonic Temple for having such a beautiful suite of rooms available for us! Until we are back in full operation, you can still do research at www.swngs.org.