Senioritis

Perhaps the senior philosophy printed in the May 7, 1947 edition of Old Gold and Blue, our high school newspaper, says more about the perception held by my classmates with regard to me than anything else.

To quote: “Oh lookie, here’s weary Kenny, our senior class president, and surely his advice will seem as though ‘twere heaven sent. Says Ken, To succeed you gotta hypen the Zambe, Rondudi el pitcotish -- as any fool can plainly see! Clear?”

The same issue announced the election of those seniors to the most category -- most charming, most likely to succeed, et cetera. My status was Most Cooperative, a designation I was happy to receive.

There were many other memorable moments in my high school career but listing them seems terribly self-serving but I guess that’s what memoirs are for.

Some highlights: Being selected to a mass band at Sac City which was conducted by Karl King, who was the successor to the renowned John Philip Sousa, The March King; being named to the National Best Thespians Honor Roll for 1946-47 by Dramatics magazine; being selected as a waiter at the Junior-Senior prom of 1945, which was considered one of the highest honors a sophomore could receive; sports editor of the Old Gold and Blue; making the honor roll all but one quarter; taking part in two different national tests -- one conducted by Pepsi Cola and the other by Westinghouse -- to select scholarship winners (only four seniors took the tests); transcribing a radio show for WNAX in Yankton, South Dakota in which I gave a three-minute talk on Evaluation of High School Extra-curricular Activities; becoming a member of DeMolay, an organization for young people sponsored by Masons.

Although I did not qualify for any of the major scholarships in the contests mentioned above, I did win $100 stipend to Iowa State University based on a paper I did concerning county government. I interviewed every county official to see what they felt would be the one most important improvement in that level of administration. Most prominent in the comments was the suggestion that the office of county assessor should be eliminated since the work was only seasonal. I based my paper on that premise. Some years later, Iowa counties eliminated the assessor as a full-time elected official.

I did accept a scholarship to Simpson college at Indianola, Iowa. It was an athletic/academic scholarship and provided half my first year tuition. My high school guidance counselor, Lilah Simmers, was instrumental in getting me that scholarship.

I was never asked to go out for any sport at Simpson so I don’t know where the athletic part of the scholarship came from. The academic part was not that great, either.

Even though I was on the honor roll throughout high school, I did not end up in the top ten per cent of my class of 50 students. That was partly my own fault. As the class president, I had free access to the administration’s office for various reasons so I thought I had inside knowledge.

As in most schools, seniors don’t have to take final exams if their grades are up to par. Consequently, when I saw the secretaries posting grades in the office late in the semester I figured no changes would be made. I informed my friends of this fact and intimated doing any serious studying the last few weeks would be an exercise in futility. I dropped two places in class standings those last weeks. I’ll never know what I saw in the office to make me think grades would not be submitted for seniors. As in the case of most guardhouse lawyers, my advice was just about as valuable as what it cost the recipients.