Third Graders Measure Up

On the same Missourian Youth Page as the Tucker Lamkin kindergarten aide story, I had two photos of Campus School third graders “measuring up.” They were applying arithmetic facts to everyday life.

Here’s the caption that appeared under the May 6, 1967, photo: At left, working with measures of liquid capacity, are: John, son of Mr. and Mrs. John Schneider, 2522 Meadow Lane, and Susan, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. James McHaney, 1425 Bessie; time, Elizabeth, daughter of Mrs. Bobbie Henderson, 1453 Howell, and Melinda, daughter of  Mrs. Morley Swingle; and, solid volume, Debra, daughter of  Mr. and Mrs. L. Edgar Massey, 564 North Boulevard, and Lyn, daughter of Dr. and Mrs. W. A. Williams, 1235 Normal.

I hated shooting school feature photos (except for the five bucks). You can see what a hassle it was to get not just the names of the kids, but their parents and their addresses, too. Can you imagine what that would be like in today’s blended family environment?

At least this assignment had some neat props. The killers were ones where all the class did was make a poster or a bulletin board. Deadly dull.

Rulers, yardsticks and scales

The photo caption read: Learning about rulers, yardsticks and scales are Stuart, son of Mr. and Mrs. Don Caldwell, 372 North Park; Kathleen, daughter of Dr. and Mrs. C. E. Williams, 336 North Lorimier; Susan, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Donald Barklage, 2427 Brookwood; Martha, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Glenn Walker, 1235 Sailer Circle; Scott, son of Mr. and Mrs. Fred Friedricksen, 535 North Sprigg; and Stephen, son of Dr. and Mrs. Bryce D. March, Kage Road.

Judy Crow captured good quotes

Staff Writer Judy Crow captured some good quotes from the children. You can find her story about the third graders at this link.

Some Missourian reporters resented having to do school features and asked me to leave their bylines off them. I have a testy memo from Judy where she wrote that she took the school assignments seriously and lobbied me to keep putting the bylines on the stories to shame the others into doing a good job.

I sure didn’t want to get on Judy’s bad side, so I heeded her wishes.

7 Replies to “Third Graders Measure Up”

    1. You don’t see as many kid pictures, period. I ran into one of my former staffers who was a master at shooting great feature candid shots of kids.

      He’s pretty much stopped. It wasn’t worth the hassle when the kids would run away screaming when he’d approach them for their names.

      Come on, folks, there are some scary people out there, but it’s not as bad as you would believe from watching sensationalized TV news.

  1. Small town papers seem to still do pictures of kids, but you don’t see them in larger papers. My daughter has made the little local paper from the little town my parents moved to a few months ago.

  2. Kids pictures are rare these days…STRANGER DANGER is drilled into them from K-12. I told all my 5 the same thing…”Never take a ride with a stranger unless they give you candy!” All my troops were given this advice with a wink and nod and it served them well…It usually took until the 3rd grade that is when I would get “THE CALL”. I usually got to meet all my kids grade school teachers that same way. The conversation always started with the same…”Do you know what your child told me this morning?” I would smile and say…”No, please, do tell!”
    The kids go it….Teachers never did.

  3. Wow! I’ve never seen an address used in a caption, and I would never think to include that…might be nice to live in a world where you could hand your address out to the public and not think twice about it! 🙂

  4. Ken,

    Your pictures here jogged my memory about a story The Missourian did on my class at Alma Schrader. I’m guessing it was 1969 or 1970 when I was in the third grade. Apparently the IRS had made some changes to the short form and were claiming it was so easy a third grader could fill it out. So The Missourian brought a bunch of tax forms and hypothetical numbers to our third class to test it out. If I remember correctly, only one kid in the class got it right!

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