Extracurricular Activities

Entrance in high school was accompanied by an “initiation” that was administered buy the sophomore class. The initiation was held one evening in the school gym, and included for the boys running through a gauntlet of the sophomore boys, each armed with a large flat wooden paddle. This mild hazing must have been discontinued at about that time — I have no recollection of being one of the sophomores who administered the initiation to the class after mine.

The principal extra-curricular activity in the highs school was boys’ basketball. I did not participate in this activity; not only was I not very good at this kind of sport but our living out in the country (plus my farm duties such as milking, etc.) mitigated against nay participating.

Clarice and I did attend the basketball games when at Gowrie; I suppose we rode into town with my father when he sent to his second job as bookkeeper at the Johnson lumber company. The games were usually on Friday evenings and sometimes there would be“pep” rallies at school in the last period of the school day — typically these would be held in the general assembly hall for the high school.

Gowrie had one of its better basketball teams the year I was a freshman. The center was Vernon Telleen in my class, three members were seniors and one was a sophomore, in addition there was a sixth player, a sophomore who was almost the equal of the others. They won the sectional tournament, but not the district so they did not compete in the state tourney. The fortunes of the team declined with the graduation the following year of the three senior members of the team. In subsequent years Gowrie also had a girls’ basketball team but this was after I graduated, maybe after I’d left for California.

There were a few other extracurricular activities; two I recall were glee club and the declamatory contests. I started out in the glee club but I was never much for singing so I dropped out after a few months. I seem to recall that I participated in the declamatory activity. The participants would choose whether their presentation would be oratorical, dramatic or humorous. The speech or presentation would be memorized and presented before the assemblage of judges, family members and others. A winner would be adjudged in each of the three categories, but I don’t remember whether the competition was carried beyond this point to involve other schools.

The junior and senior classes would each present a class play. Typically this would be a somewhat humorous presentation. I never was in the cast for any of these though I sort of recall witnessing the performances. The performances were held in the school gym — the far end of which was a stage for this purpose (as well for the declamatory contests). At the time I considered these plays as quite significant dramatic productions; in retrospect they appear to be amateurish efforts as they doubtless were.

During our early days in Gowrie, family members virtually never went to the “movies.” My earliest recollections of seeing a movie was in connection with one of the junior/senior banquets that were held each year. These banquets were prepared by the juniors (or more correctly by their mothers) and were held in the room in the basement of the school building that was used as a lunch room at noon for those students who brought their lunches. After the meal at the banquet there might be some sort of program or talk, but as to this my recollection is rather vague.