Tracks of the Richwood Tiger, 2 of 12

Above, members of the Richwood High School Class of 1964 pose at the main entrance.

Richwood was a relatively small school, which meant that each of us had many opportunities for extracurricular activities. For example, below we see Principal Dean Cochran with the Annual Staff that published the 1963 yearbook.

And below is the principal with the Student Council in the yearbook for 1964, when I was a junior.

The following September, Ed Olson ran against Kelly Drake (second and third from the right in the back row) for senior class president. I’ve written elsewhere about that campaign. I was an Olson supporter, but I couldn’t help noticing that in this picture, Drake was much more photogenic.

As a joke, I highlighted the difference with a typed paper overlay. This version hasn’t been publicly displayed until now.

Below, Kelly stood out when the National Honor Society posed for a portrait. (Was he really that tall?) The shorter guy at his right shoulder was yours truly. I would be the president of the NHS as a senior.

The previous two groups hosted a banquet in May of 1964 to honor the members of yet another group. The Scholarship Team (below) competed in statewide tests given in various subjects each spring.

At the banquet, I made the following short speech.

Speaking for the Scholarship Team, I want to thank the Student Council and the National Honor Society for this banquet.

The Scholarship Team needs a little recognition. It's the one "team" in the school whose activities are closely connected with the purpose of the school. And yet, we don't have any cheerleaders. And there is no "scholarship page" in the newspaper to report what we've been doing.

Of course, the team doesn't attract many spectators. It's not too interesting to watch students taking a test, you know. And we only play one "game" a year. On top of that, we never know whether we won. The only results we get are a set of individual scores and rankings.

Now, this year several of these scores were quite good. (Maybe we did win.) A number of them weren't bad at all.

Then we had the freshmen.

Kids, maybe you got the directions wrong. On the answer sheet you're supposed to mark the correct answer, not cross out the four incorrect ones! You get these computers that grade the tests all confused. It's enough to make a fellow forget what tests he took in the preliminary.

But maybe next year you'll get it straightened out and bring back some places in the district, huh? Because if you don't, we'll have to start recruiting some Scholarship Team cheerleaders.

Deb Hoffman (right), a freshman member of the team, advanced upon me in mock anger after the speech, causing me to retreat in mock fright. Although at one point I had poked fun at myself, I was still an adolescent who had not yet mastered the delicate comedic technique of kidding others without seeming snide about it.

1964, page 88

1963, page 46

Yet another way to recognize good students was the honor roll, prominently displayed on the wall of the second-floor hallway.

The honor roll was updated after each six-week grading period. This photo was taken after the fourth of six such periods in the 1962-63 school year, which ended in early March.

We tenth-graders had ten students on the Distinction Roll, which meant we had a grade point average of at least 3.6 in academic subjects and our citizenship or "deportment" grades were "comparably high." The students on the Merit Roll had at least 3.2 GPA's.