This is a reprint of a “From the Local History Room” column that first appeared in Dec. 2013, before the launch of this weblog.
Tributes to Pekin’s high school graduates
Jared Olar
Library Assistant
This week’s edition of “From the History Room” will showcase some old Pekin Community High School publications that enable us to look back on graduating classes from eight or nine decades ago.
The Pekin Public Library’s Local History Room collection includes the complete series of Pekinian yearbooks. Besides the annual yearbooks, however, the high school also occasionally produced special editions, such as the old Red and White Pictorials which may be found in the Local History Room.
In addition, PCHS publishes a school newspaper, the Pekinois. Our library has a selection of some of the old Pekinois issues, and among them are the special Pekinois Senior Editions.
As the name indicates, these were companions or supplements to the regular Pekinian yearbooks, printed as tributes to the graduating class. These tribute editions were produced during the 1930s and 1940s, the decades of the Great Depression and World War II. Included in our collection are the Pekinois Senior Editions for the Classes of 1934, 1939, 1940, 1941, 1942, 1943, 1944, 1945 and 1946.
Another old PCHS publication in honor of graduating seniors was called simply “To the Graduates.” But in fact, this wasn’t “another” publication – it was the Pekinois Senior Edition under a different name. The Pekin Public Library has long had a copy of the 1938 edition of “To the Graduates,” but recently a patron donated a copy of the 1937 edition to the library.
The 1937 edition of “To the Graduates” bears a publication date of May 21, 1937. On the cover page it presents the Student Council and graduating senior office of the Class of 1937: Fred Hellyer, student council president; Ruth Tobie, class co-vice president; Charles Black, class president; Robert Maus, student council secretary; Betty Newman, class secretary-treasurer; and Donald Ramey, class co-vice president.
The Class of 1937 was the largest graduating class PCHS had ever had – 173 graduating seniors, who are grandparents to many present and former Pekin residents today. However, as this tribute edition says in a story on page 16, that record was to be broken in the following years, since approximately 230 freshmen were expected to enroll in the high school that fall.
The pages of 1937’s “To the Graduates” are filled with stories and individual memories from the final year of the senior class, such as a list of secret ambitions of Pekin High’s senior athletes (“I wanted to be a dirigible pilot – that is, until the ‘Hindenberg’ exploded”), or students’ opinions on their favorite movie stars (“Rex Lawrence and Joe Rarick both agree that Robert Taylor is best, while Shirley Zehr holds out for Gary Cooper. Lucy Ann Solterman confesses her favorite as ‘Spanky’ of Our Gang”).
On page 15, PCHS Principal R. V. Lindsey offered his advice to the Class of 1937, saying:
“The value derived from your stay with us is not measured in terms of the mass of facts you may or may not have accumulated. Your probability of success from now on depends rather upon your attitudes, your sense of values, and your ability to adjust to life situations . . .
“As you go along the way, treat life not too seriously, yet be sufficiently discriminating to give a proper respect for these things which make for true and lasting happiness.”
