High School Classes

The school day was divided into six one-hour periods, three in the morning, and three in the afternoon with an hour off for lunch. The morning schedule was for two hours of classroom attendance with one hour as a study period (either the second or the third hour).

In the afternoon the first two hours were for classes and the last period of the day was either a study hour or wholly or partly some general meeting of all the high school students in the assembly hall. This might be a pep rally for a basketball game in the evening, a performance by the high school glee clubs, or am information talk by the principal or the superintendent.

Students took four subjects normally and this led to enough credits for graduation. For a couple of the years I was in high school I was permitted to take five subjects. In this way I was able to take all the classes offered in the Gowrie high school (except for agriculture which was designed for boys intending to be farmers or home economics which was virtually dominated by the girls).

Thinking back I believe that I would have been interested in the ag classes, but attending them would have conflicted with the other offerings which interested me more at the time. I believe that I would have been happy as a farmer, but for whatever reasons I didn’t consider it at the time.

As a matter of fact my ending up as an engineer was largely a matter of drift and happenstance. There were few discussions related to vocational possibilities except in one of the senior classes and it was there that the subject of engineering came up. For some reason I had become intrigued with the subject of chemistry, though the study was not included in the Gowrie list of subjects.

In some way I obtained a sample chemistry text (also a second physics text beyond the edition actually used) from the superintendent. I guess I read enough in these to steer me in the direction of engineering when I went to junior college.

The third vocation in which I would have been happy and done well was accounting I took a class in bookkeeping in high school and I liked it. But I did not even consider this when I was in high school — certainly my life would have been different had I gone in that direction. Actually the example was just before my eyes in the work that my father did. And I had assisted him in some of the work he did at the Johnson lumber company.

I was acquainted with two students at junior college who went to Iowa at the same time I did who took courses in the College of Commerce, which I suppose involved accounting as a major part. I seem to recall that there was one boy who took home ec for some reason. His name was Marvin Sells and I believe he was either an orphan or otherwise sort of “one his own.” Perhaps it was that he needed to fend for himself that he wanted instruction in cooking. Though physically well formed his face was marked by a very large birthmark which perhaps stamped him indelibly in my memory.