Dunseith High School Class of 1966 history
Posted by Larry Hackman (’66): Bismarck, ND
Feeling a little nostalgic lately, I thought why not dig this history out of the archives for all to see. I think with a little embellishment, it makes for some good reading about a time gone by. What do you think? Thank You, Larry Hackman
- H. S. CLASS OF 1966 HISTORY
September 6, 1954, will always be a date that will be remembered by the “Dunseith High School Class of 1966” because of the fact that the nucleus of the 1966 Class, started school on this date. That is the day Miss Fern Strouse took her station at the door of the first grade room of the Dunseith Public School to welcome 33 frightened little toddlers into the warmth and shelter of that school that was to be ours for the next twelve years.
Corliss Allard Rodney Guderjohn Gerald LaRocque Richard Slyter
Ella Boucher Dana Henriksen Terry Martinsen James Tooke
Linda Boucher Lawrence Hetle Debbie Mongeon Barbara Vandal
Darrell Delorme Lynette Honsey Jean Nicholas Gerald Walette
July Dusheneau Marlene Kalk Alfreda Patenaude Shirley Bercier
Tom Evans Marvin Kalk Vincent Peltier Margaret Faine
Carrole Fauske Gregory LaCroix Leroy Richard Judy Arends
Maurice Gouin Joan LaCroix Samuel Richard Jay Vanorny
The next year we had Miss Strouse again for a teacher. We must have been a lovable bunch as our history demonstrates that a few teachers could not bear to teach without us and followed us as we advanced from grade to grade. Somewhere in the hallway between 1st and 2nd grades we lost 7 pupils while we gained 6 pupils. I don’t know which students didn’t get replaced but I replaced someone as I joined the 2nd grade class in 1955. I never have written more sentences in my life, that said the same thing over and over again, that said,I wouldn’t do this or I won’t do whatever. I don’t know why Miss. Strouse had us doing all that writing. Do you think it was just to improve our penmanship as we were just starting to learn to write cursive? Than it always seemed to be just us boys sitting in the class room during recess, doing all this writing? I never thought my penmanship was that bad. But, what did I know. I just remember it being a fun year.
Miss Lavonne Rhode was our third grade teacher. We were as thrilled as we good be as we finally got to go upstairs to where the big kids (the third and fourth graders) were of the old white two and ½ story school house. Where, when they had a fire drill we got to go down the shaky wobbly steel fire escape. Some were so chicken? However as thrilled as most of us were to be able to climb them stairs to new heights, eight of our fellow classmates decided they could not leave Miss Strouse behind. Aside from Miss Rhodes regular teaching duties, she taught us many good manners which most of us still live up to today. She always told us that she wanted to hear from everyone including other teachers, other students and parents on how well mannered her class is, and we as her students did not want to disappoint her. It’s too bad many students now days don’t have a teacher like her.
WOW, Fourth grade who would of thought. We were getting so big, the biggest kids in the old white two and half story school house with lunch rooms in the basement. Remember how good it smelled and how are stomachs started growling because it made us so hungry when the cooks were making our lunch. But in the trek across what is known as “No Man’s Land” the hallway between the third and fourth grade rooms, we lost 5 students and gained 5 students. This left us with a class total of 24 students. But, we were so thrilled to be in Mrs. Conroy’s room, as this room had a small room attached to it with a cot for the kid who got sick during the day. I think every student planned on being sick at least once during the year so that they could stay on the cot in that room.
This was also the first year we made posters for Memorial Day, and put on a program for Memorial Day on the stage of the old City Hall. The first year we elected class officers and sold items from house to house and worked at basketball games selling pop and candy that took place at the City Hall Building to make money for our class. I guess that money went to pay for the prom that we put on for the 65’rs. Anyway we thought we were big time.
Fifth Grade, we migrated back down to the first floor, out of the old white wood building into the old brick and mortar building, and back to being the youngest kids on the block. However, there were benefits to this location. We were in the closest class room to the bathrooms and to the old gym. Getting to school early meant you could hang out in the old gym. Basketball was fun but if I remember right, it seems like arm wrestling was the in thing at the time.
During the migration from fourth to fifth we lost four students and five others, joined our happy throng. Our new teacher was Mrs. Jessylyn Hosmer. Mrs. Hosmer gave us the most thorough instruction in Health that we have ever received.
Sixth Grade, believe it or not we went from the closest room to the bath rooms to the room farthest away from the bathrooms. That year we gained six new students and we lost three and I don’t know if our classroom location to the vicinity of the bathrooms had anything to do with the increase or not.
Mr. Dennis Espe a DHS graduate himself became our teacher. He had his hands full with a bunch of young fellows wanting to show how strong they were and also with trying to keep the high school boys down at the other end of the hallway. He must have enjoyed us, as he stuck with our class for the next three years.
Seventh Grade, Yes we had wheeled and dealed our way into the seventh grade where two more men teachers Mr. Art Rude and Mr. Perry Aus joined Mr. Dennis Espe in trying their luck at trying to educate us. Now I don’t know what happened but it must have been decided somewhere along the line that more teachers were needed to control them junior high students. I don’t know if it was because of us or because of the classes that preceded us? It couldn’t have been because of us? It must have been because of them new 6th graders. However some said that if we didn’t drive them teachers to getting ulcers the other classes pulled them over the edge. There were 25 students in that seventh grade class with everyone was learning how to hold hands out behind the outhouse, and the boys playing basketball. Everybody was staying busy. The fragrance behind them outhouses must have been dizzying. Didn’t we have indoor plumbing yet? We were really growing up, becoming ladies and gentlemen.
Eighth Grade. Yes, we had the same teachers as we had in the seventh grade. I think them teachers, Mr. Art Rude, Mr. Perry Aus, and Mr. Dennis Espe were expecting us to pull some hanky panky business, like knocking down partitions between class rooms, and also putting stick pins in the noses of them paper air planes and wallpapering the classroom ceilings and other students with them. I remember wearing a paper airplane for an ear-ring because of some of these shenanigans. It did hurt to remove it and it did leave a scar, Kenny.
It was also the last year for us to picnic at the International Peace Gardens as a class. Every year near the end of the school year, each grade would transport there students up to the gardens for a picnic. This year a fellow student gave me a pint of spirits (Seagrms 7) I think. I put it in front of my pants under my shirt for the trip. Who knew the Chief of Police, Virgil Vanorny would end up hauling about five of us in his car. I never in my life sat more still and quiet for an entire trip. After getting to the gardens, several of us each grabbed a can of coke, and headed off into the brush. It was a bad deal. I spent the remainder of the day laying on a picnic table that I pulled over into the shade trying to recover. It was no fun! I don’t know why.
I think them teachers were completely surprised by our manners and our actions after the 65’rs left and we the 66’rs were in control. We actually left an impression on them teachers that they have never been able to shake. I just felt sorry for the grade school classes that had to follow us and tried but were unable to live up to the example that we set. We are the class that will never be matched but envied by all. Except for maybe the class of 64? Mr. Art Rude senior always said that they were his favorite class. I don’t know why. This year we lost three students and we gained 15 student which brought our class enrollment to 38. Does anyone remember the names of all these students?
I think it was the last year (1962) for a formal eighth grade graduation ceremony at Dunseith. Remember how exciting it was. I think it was more exciting than any other graduation ceremony I ever participated. Remember how we were lined up in the basement of the old Dunseith City Hall. We were ready to march into the hall from the back entrance up to the front into a full house of friends and family. It was so exciting waiting to be called up onto the stage and to receive your eighth grade graduation diploma. Kids now days don’t know what they are missing. Than we sat and watched the DHS Class of 62 receive their diplomas. What an exciting night.
Freshmen, the year we made the long haul from the eighth grade to high school and in the process we gained eighteen students and lost six that brought our enrollment up to 50 students. Who were all these students and what happened to them? Can anybody remember who they were and what were their names? As far as we were concerned we gained in number, but lost in prestige. We were poor green freshmen, and nobody let us forget it. Remember we started at the beginning of the dictionary in science class writing down the first twenty words and memorizing their definitions and that continued for the remainder of the class with a test every other day on the next twenty words. Did we ever get to the end of the dictionary? We also were the 1st freshmen class in the bran new high school that actually was still under construction. So there was a little glory to being a freshman that glorious year of 1962-63.
Sophomore, this year for us, seemed to be the year for dropouts, being we lost nine students and only gained three. However, we gained in prestige this great year, mainly because we were able to hold our own in the hallways during the mad dash to our lockers between periods, and during the eraser, and spit wad fights, as we were a little bigger but mostly because our attitudes were a little bigger. We had earned our stripes and we weren’t going to be pushed around anymore. We were good kids but for some reason Mr. Corbin our Biology teacher must have figured his nerves could not hold up another year at D. H. S. Because after that year he moved onto White Shield to teach there. What was wrong with throwing frog and worm and starfish parts around the room? Wasn’t that the point , to get us use to handling these critters, oh but the smell of that preservative that they drowned them poor critters in was unbelievable. Still makes me sick to this day. Does that smell ever leave your nose?
Junior year, we definitely were getting to be the big dog in the yard. Why, we could really walk down the halls without getting any lip from anybody. One of the memorable events that happened this year has people still laughing. We had all decorations set up for the prom and along comes this little tornado or otherwise known as Gerald Casavant. For some reason he decided the gym needed airing out, because he turned on the blowers and away went the crape paper decorations. Boy, you never saw a little Frenchman make tracks for cover like Gerald did that day. I guess he thought that he would make a memory.
Senior year, take a breath, what a marathon, huh? After twelve years of blood, sweat, toil, and midnight oil, we can finally say that we have reached the most memorable year of all the 12 years of our school lives. Our number was diminished down to 28 strong, but mighty seniors that walked the halls and filled the classrooms of good old D.H.S. We are now gone but hope we are not forgotten. Together we made a lot of memories, some good, some not so good but we were all there together and we marched through that school into our future without fear and with all the hope and strength our parents, teachers and friends good give us. We the senior class, “The Dunseith High School Class of 1966” the greatest class that ever roared through the halls of D. H. S. We the Dragons, The Senior Class of 1966 won’t forget you, our parents, teachers, classmates, and all our friends. From our hearts, THANK YOU ALL,
THE DUNSEITH HIGH SCHOOL CLASS OF 1966
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Blog (428) posted on April 15, 2009
04/15/2009
Posted on April 15, 2009
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Pat Myer passed away: Posted by LeaRae Parrill Espe (67): Bottineau, ND
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Gary, I received word from Holly Myer Wheeler this afternoon that her mother, Pat Myer, passed away this morning in Rugby. Pat celebrated her 90th birthday on March 17, 2009. Holly said that she and her husband Jim as well as Garrett and his wife Audrey had enjoyed Easter dinner with her in Rugby.
Her funeral has been set for Monday at 10AM at Peace Lutheran Church in Dunseith. Visitation will be on Sunday starting at 4PM, also at the church.
My sympathy to the family. Her three children are Dunseith graduates Garrett ’63 Carmen ’67 and Holly ’68.
LeaRae Parrill Espe ’67 Garrett Carmen & Holly, Our condolences are with you with the passing of your mother. She is well remembered. She was a wonderful person. Most everyone knew your mother, your dad Johnnie and your family. Dunseith & Rolette county as far as that goes, would not have been what it was in their day without them. Your family brings back many good memories for a lot of folks. Gary
Reply from Bill Grimme (65): Birmingham, AL
Larry,
Thanks for the shout out to the old man in Alabama.
I enjoy reading your stories a lot. You have a great memory. I guess the statute of limitations has run out on stealing crabapples, so I can say that I spent several warm evenings crawling up to that tree, usually after midnight, I think. Those were great apples, but, everyone knew there was hell to pay if you got caught stealing them. I picked up a few crabapples in the store a few years ago and the taste brought back the memory. Talk about forbidden fruit!.
Keep up the great stories. You bring great memories to me and I’m sure to a lot of folks.
Bill
Message/Pictures from Sharron Gottbreht Shen (56): Everett, WA
Hi Gary, I see a promising new generation of children soon to make their first communion here at St. Brendan Parish and thought the “old” pictures I treasure might interest several of your readers. The first picture is of Mary Fontaine [1941-1949] and I. We had been selected as guardians for the group of 1947. Naturally it was a happy day for me when the Joe and Theresa Fontaine moved into Grandma Masse’s home about 1945, diagonal from the Gottbrehts. Victor and Mary became close playmates and Granmere Masse looked after us. Mary taught me “London Bridge” and “Ring Around the Rosie” in French, the only language Grandma Masse spoke. I had my first french fry there which I think Theresa must have sent from Rosie’s Cafe. Mary liked them with mustard and I can still hear her requesting “avec mutard, Granmere”. We may look angelic in our picture together, but Emma Masse knew better. We were fascinated by the Masse rabbit warren in the barn out back and often chased the poor critters to exhaustion; Joe had to make the barn off limits. We made our first communion the following year, and you will notice that Ernestine Dailly and maybe Linda Evans were our guardians. Wish I could identify everyone. Maybe Ron Link and James Robillard; a Picard? I can see the top of Connie Bedard head and Helen Boguslawski is another tall one in back. Mary Fontaine an unknown, Sharron, more blonds, then the poised Shirley LaRocque up front. Great of Shirley and she is most welcome to a copy. I hope Shirley and Connie sign up for the Seattle reunion, I plan to be there. Mom had taken us to pick raspberries at her brother, Hector Boucher’s farm the Sunday Mary and Victor Fontaine died. We heard the explosion there some three miles away. Mom hurried us home passing the small plane wreck just east of hwy 3 opposite the air field. I wonder if my next school year of confusion at the academy in Willow City was not arranged in view of the Fontaine tragedy. Some scars remain for certain. I had the good fortune of working with the talented Theresa Fontaine countless times at Dale’s for at least 4 years and use her Sour Cream Raisin Pie recipe today. Sharron
Reposting of the Old Time Music Jamboree with attachment: Posted by Dick Johnson (68): Dunseith, ND Folks, There was an attachment with Dicks message that I missed yesterday. This will be a good event for all that enjoy this kind of music. Gary Gary and Friends, It’s again that time of year when the Rolette County Historical Society Dick |
