Roger’s Remembrances

In the late ’30s Hutchinson had just one high school. It was an easy five-block walk from 506. The total enrollment was about 1100. In the late ’20s (about?) the building had been enlarged to accommodate junior college classes, a new auditorium, and a new gymnasium(1). There was noswimming pool nor cafeteria. Junior high school was grades 7, 8, and 9, so the first year of high school was the Sophomore year. You were a “green Sophie”, not a “Freshie”.

. . . . 1 In May of 1992 Mary and I drove through Hutch on the way to Plano (Peggy’s) and stopped by the old high school/junior college building. The high school portion was in the process of major revision. The auditorium and gymnasium were gone, clear to the ground. The north side of the original building was again exposed, the side that had the entrance I went in to practice for the May Fete nearly 70 years earlier. Time does go by!!

Classes were from 8:00 a.m. until 3:18 p.m. with 75 minutes for lunch. I walked home for lunch. Kids gathered on the south, east, and north sides of the building. Most of the Liberty Junior High bunch were north-door folks. Buford Hayden, my friend since early grade school days, was mylocker mate for the three high school years.

Teachers
Mr. Falkenrich was my most “interesting” teacher. He taught Latin, in which I was not much good. He looked OLD — but I suppose he was less than 65. I don’t know what the retirement restrictions as to age were at that time. He looked as if a stiff breeze would blow him away, but he did have a knack for pouring Latin into unwilling heads. He had a childish grin that I can see right now. I liked him. “Falky” is the one on our right.

“Chop” Cairns (on the left) was the head football and basketball coach and taught American History. I didn’t think that as a class room teacher he should have been foisting his Democratic party views off on us. He didn’t see how a working man could possibly be a Republican. Maybe he was just trying to get us to react.

And then there was soft-spoken Miss Douglas. I had her for a literature class immediately following lunch. It was AWFUL trying to stay awake while she droned on in her quiet, smooth, soothing tones.

And my journalism teacher, Catherine Wrenchy — she had pep. (I’m not quite sure why I took journalism.) The class’s main project was to put out the weekly high school paper, The Buzz. I had two assignments on the paper — sports writer and “Uncle Jack’s Advice Column”. After a football or basketball game in which I had done well, it was quite a challenge to write up the game and give just the right amount of credit to Ghormley — if I mentioned him at all. I was glad we did not use by-lines.

Carl Malmberg directed the senior high school band and orchestra as well as those in the junior highs. He had us playing the old “standard” marches and classical music. While today I may not know if its Tschaikowski — some use Tchaikovsky — or Mozart or Strauss or Other, it is good to hear an old familiar phrase from high school orchestra days. Thank you, Carl.

Carl had health problems, and we had a new director in my senior year, Alan Watrous. He spoiled my senior year of band and orchestra. That nut selected music for both groups that I had never heard of before nor since. They were neither fun to play nor enjoyable to the ears. He must have had some idea that the old standbys were trite. He did however, get the band to march well, and we won first place in a band marching day over in Wichita. I would gladly have traded the marching honors for enjoyable music.

Sports
I loved to play football and basketball, though I got off to a bad start in my sophomore year. It was about the third week of football practice, and my squad was running offensive plays. I had carried the ball for a good gain (I admit modestly) and after being tackled had my left arm sticking out where it had no business being. Someone landed on it. They said they could hear the “crack” clear over on the sidelines. The forearm had a peculiar 45 degree bend midway between the elbow and the wrist. It didn’t hurt — I just couldn’t feel my fingers pushing against the ground. They took me down town (in football togs) to the team doctor, and he set it and put a cast on it.

That was the end of sophomore football, except that Dad did take me to watch the team play against some of the small surrounding high school teams. I sure wanted to be out there with them.

The arm had healed by basketball season, but had (and still does have) a little crook in it. For a while it was not quite as strong as the right. Even so I was on the first team of the Sophomore squad. The sophomore team played some of the smaller towns in the area. We even won sometimes. I played guard. Bill Olson was sophomore coach and helped with the varsity some. Olson had been my gym teacher at Liberty. He was very serious and would not tolerate any horseplay.

In Spring of my sophomore year I thought I’d give “track” a try. I went out for about a week, but for some reason it just did not appeal to me. I decided to quit and start earning a little money by taking over paper route 21B from my substitute. I don’t recall why I didn’t give tennis a try instead of track.

During my junior and senior years, football and basketball were LOTS of fun — even with the jolts and bruises. Coach “Chop” Cairns had not seen me play as a sophomore, and I was initially assigned to the second-team squad. After a week or so of “conditioning”, we started learning plays. The first and second teams would run plays against each other, though the defense of course knew pretty much what the offense was going to do. I was playing half back.

I still remember the morning a couple of weeks into the season when Chop “borrowed” me from a class, took me to the locker room, and issued me first-team practice gear!! He made some comment to the effect “We can use you, Ghormley” that sure set me up for the day!

During my junior year in both football and basketball I was not a starter but did get into games regularly as a substitute. The seniors pretty much had the starting spots sewed up. Except for Buford Hayden, who had seen action in a varsity game as a sophomore and was a starter as a junior.

At that time in high school football, you could not leave the game and come back in in the same half. You played both offense and defense. The calling of plays was strictly up to the quarterback. You were penalized 5 yards if you had two incomplete forward passes. (Don’t know when that dumb rule was eliminated.) This was also a time when it was considered bad practice to drink liquids when you were hot and sweaty. All we could do at a “time out” was rinse out our mouth and spit it out. How I often wished for some nice long swallows!!

Most high school football teams used an offensive formation with the quarterback just behind the tackle or end, two halfbacks a few feet back, and the fullback farther back yet. The fullback took the snap directly from the center and carried the ball, although the signal caller would regularly rotate us halfbacks to fullback to give us a chance at ball carrying. All other backs blocked. There was very little “deception” in the game. So in the huddle the signal caller (Buford Hayden) would say “Ghormley back, number one to the right on three”. Cliff Parmley (see photo) was center and was nearly always on target with a nice “lead” so that the ball carrier could gather in the ball at full stride. In fact, I don’t remember that he ever led to the right when the play was supposed to go left. Or vice versa. Cliff became a doctor in Wichita and passed away a number of years ago. I never saw him after I left Hutch in 1941.

Hutchinson was part of the Ark Valley conference which included Wichita East, Wichita North, Newton, Winfield, Wellington, Ark City, and Eldorado. We also played non-conference games against Dodge City, Pratt, and Topeka. There may have been others. In my junior year, out-of-town trips were made using cars of the staff. The next year we started using a bus, which was more fun.

In practice Chop would often say “Parmley” when he meant “Ghormley”. I was given the nickname “Mush” to help the situation, but it never got much use.

During football season I drove “Lizzie” (see FAMILY CARS) to school for later transportation to football practice. There were times when Lizzie’s body was strained from the 6 or 7 guys that rode with me out to 15th and Monroe. The football field occupied a square city block from 15th to 16th between Monroe and Jefferson. The west side of the field had permanent wooden bleachers. Temporary bleachers were installed on the east side during the season. There was a small brick building which housed locker and shower room facilities for the home and visiting teams. Alas, that city block has long ago succumbed to progress. On a recent (1991) trip through Hutch I found no remaining vestige of the late 30s stuff — just houses.

Other than the broken arm as a sophomore, I was fortunate in receiving no injuries of consequence during high school or junior college athletic endeavors. I had a recurring “charley horse” that took some heat treatment occasionally. (Also see the junior college game against Sterling.) I weighed about 170 pounds and was six feet tall, pretty good size for those days.

As a grade schooler I used to pretend I was Red Grange, a fantastic college ball carrier in the ’20s (and deceased in 1991). I turned out to be considerably less than Red, but I doubt if he ever had more fun at football than I. Years later during a coffee break at L.T.& T., I was reciting a recently-learned statistic that Red had averaged nearly 7 yards per carry throughout his college career. President Tom Woods, Jr. often called me “Red” after that. After one of my talks at a Lincoln group Hale got a letter complimenting me. Tom Woods had seen a copy on which he noted “Nice going, Red.” Pleased me no end.

In basketball I played guard. Up through my junior year, high school basketball used the center jump after each field goal. This gave quite an advantage to teams having tall centers, so starting in the fall of 1935 the team who was scored against was given the ball out of bounds. Timing restrictions on getting the ball across the center line were also instituted, but once across the line there was no restriction on how long you waited before taking a shot. As a consequence a team who was ahead just a few points with time running short would “stall”, that is, pass the ball from player to player until someone got free for a sure shot. A later rule change requires an early shot at the basket and improved the game.

Another rule change in 1935 limited a player to three seconds in the free throw lane. This was to reduce the use of the “pivot shot” made by a player stationed in the free throw zone.

Early on, Chop concentrated on our ability to make free throws, citing the number of times that free throws are the difference between winning and losing. ( The game has not changed in that respect.) Chop insisted that we use two hands with an underhand scoop shot, a technique which gives great control over where that ball goes. It would probably be laughed off the floor if used today. The idea was to settle the ball just slightly beyond the rim, so that a shot a bit either short or long would still go in. Most of us could regularly hit 8 or 9 out of 10. With some degree of modesty, I admit to hitting 6 out of 6 during District playoffs my senior year. (However, we got beat in the finals and did not get to go to State.)

Other
There were a dozen or so negroes (the term used then — refined people did not call them “niggers”) in high school. The blacks were pretty well accepted by the high school kids, though Hutch had a separate (but very tiny) swimming pool for them. The football and basketball teams had one or two, who were excellent athletes. Arkansas City is just north of the Oklahoma border, and is pretty far “south”. Chop would check with the restaurant owner to see that Ralph “Ike” Brady, our negro, could eat with us. I recall just once that Chop took us to a second restaurant. Chop said the first place wanted Ike to eat in the kitchen, but Chop said nothing doing — Ike would eat with the rest of us. We all liked Ike.

In my junior year the basketball team went to the State tournament. That year Ralph Miller from Chanute was a spectacular player. Hutch was beaten by Chanute in the semi finals, and I got to play against Miller briefly. (In the playoff for third we beat arch rival Newton.) Several years ago when Mary and I were attending (what else?) a quilt show in Lawrence, Kansas, I found a Kansas Sports Hall of Fame in the basement of the building. It included a display on Ralph Miller, who had gone on to a distinguished career in sports. It was quite a nostalgia trip for me on “I played against him once”.

My high school grades were not spectacular, but I did make the National Honor Society. My social life was pretty low key. Most of my friends had learned to dance back in junior high. Cousin Joan Murphy took pity and taught me a few of the basics when I was a Sophomore. I was never much good at it but did take dates to the main dance events. (On “Apron and Overall” day — in photo from left: Buford Hayden, Anna Mae Carey, Ruth Peters, Ruth Sprinkle, Tom Arbuckle.)

Senior high had a “Hi-Y” club, which would not be allowed today, since it was pretty “religious”. It met during school hours, monthly I think. Other than a girls quartette singing “Blue Moon” I can’t recall the content of a single program.

(End of Chapter)