Posters and Paintless Brushes

Al Spradling Jr, Ron Marshall, Carolyn Penze with safety billboard in 1963The negative sleeve says 1963 Safety Campaign, but the billboard has 1964 stats, so, who knows?

Hokey set-up photos were standard at small papers. So, what’s a tip-off that this is a fake? First off, I never saw Al Spradling III, left, that interested in anything before in his life. Secondly, we have Ron Marshall and Carolyn Penzel diligently painting a sign without looking at it and with nary a paint can in sight.

I cringe to think I shot this photo and the one that follows. I may not have sold my soul for $5, but I sure rented it out a lot of times.

Billboard features my pictures

Carolyn Penzel and Ron Marshall with safety exhibit 1963

Looks like my wreck photos (including the ones that got me started in the news biz) were big during Safety Week. A picture of Joanne Bone in front of another bulletin board featured a bunch of my crash pictures.

Notice how Ron is carefully applying paint to something that had been created with a stencil (and without looking at it). I knew Ron was slim, but he’s so thin he hardly shows up from the side. He, unfortunately, is another of our classmates who is no longer with us.

Coming events

Sometimes the stuff in the background is as interesting as the primary subject. The Coming Events board is cut off, but I can see there is going to be a basketball tournament; an 8 a.m. meeting with [someone] Robert Edgar; the district teacher meeting, the Red Dagger Play, Safety Week, Senior Class Party, the end of the quarter and what I assume to be Easter (not Spring) break.

The motivational poster on the right assures students that “This may sound like ‘OLD STUFF’ When the Great Scorer comes To mark against your name, He’ll write not ‘won’ or ‘lost,’ But how you played the game.” The Great Scorer might do that, but I don’t recall Coach Goodwin ever saying that.

Mad Men of CHS

Folsom Spradling Mueller Sommers CHS 8For better or worse, for once I can identify all of the people in a photo.

Steve Folsom, son of journalism teacher Betty Folsom, is reading Mad Magazine. He possessed the most unique set of eyebrows at Central High School.

I dated one of his twin sisters, Linda, briefly. (The briefly part was her choice, as I recall.) She and sister Laura weren’t THAT hard to tell apart once you got to know them, but they played the Twin Game the first night I went to pick up my date. Her grandfather, standing behind them, took pity on me and quietly pointed to the right one.

Al Spradling III is next. He was a Tiger business manager.

The next two characters were my debate partners at one time or another. John Mueller and I had an undefeated season my freshman year.You can see other photos of John here.

Pat Sommers, at far right, had a propensity to declare himself Number One in almost every photo I took of him. He is a little more dignified these days. Actually, now that I think of it, I DID shoot a picture of him wearing a tie at a basketball game.

You can click on the photo to make it larger, but that’ll just show up all the dust spots I didn’t bother to retouch out.

William Henry and Lilla Luce Harrison House

William Henry and Lilla Luce Harrison House 313 Themis 04-16-2011The William Henry and Lilla Luce Harrison House at 313 Themis Street was built in 1897 by the architect who designed Academic Hall.

You can read the history of the house in the National Register of Historic Places registration form.

A 2003 Missourian story tells how Dr. Robert Hamblin and his wife, Kaye, bought the house in 2003 and set about restoring it., which is why the paper is currently referring to it as the “Hamblin House.”

The story summarized the history: “The mansion once was one of the finest houses in Cape Girardeau. William Harrison, who became known for his timber business and investments, including the H&H Building on Broadway, bought the house in 1990 [that’s a typo, it should be 1890], three years after its completion. It remained in the Harrison family until the mid-1980s, when Mayor Al Spradling III’s family sold it to Dr. Jesse Ramsey. Spradling’s wife, Pam, is a Harrison descendent. The house sat vacant for a few years at the end of the 1990s”.

I’m glad to see this landmark restored. Too bad the university plans to tear down an even older Cape Girardeau landmark at the River Campus.

Tiger Business Managers

This photo of Tiger business managers ran in the 1965 Girardot. They are, from left to right, Steve Crowe, Al Spradling III., and Lee Dahringer. I mentioned them back when I was looking for someone to help me sell ads for this blog.

Mr. Wilferth caught us

I don’t know the exact circumstances of this photo. The guys are wearing the same clothes, so I suspect that we thought to ourselves, “Well, that didn’t take too long to shoot. We’re excused from class, so let’s jet out of here for the rest of the period.”(I apologize for the quality of the negative. Years of improper storage has not been kind to it.)

That’s probably when we ran into principal Fred Wilferth. He could have busted us, but his style was to clown around, standing on his tiptoes to show the disparity between his height and Al’s. Sort of, “I’ve got my eyes on you boys, but nothing’s going to come of it if you head on to your next class.”

Wayne Goddard, assistant principal, played “bad cop” to Mr. Wilferth’s “good cop.” Even though Mr. Goddard was the school’s disciplinarian, I never heard anyone speak ill of him.

Stories about Al, Steve and Lee

I had forgotten how many stories mentioned these guys