First FHS Yearbook, 1910

The Frederick High Class of 1910 - Powell Hayes (4); Roxye Holloman (9); Robert Howard (10); Espar Watkins (5); Ethel Drumm (11); Rena Threlkeld (6); Ruth Gosnell (1); Mamie Lee Carter (7); Gilbert Caudill (2); Elnor Moorhead (3); Chas McMillan (8).

Sent to The Frederick Leader and The Frederick Press, October 25, 2011

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“Megaphone” was 1910 Frederick Yearbook

It is likely that Frederick High School’s first yearbook was “The Megaphone”, printed in 1910.

Roster, FHS Class of 1908

The 60-page book contained information about teachers and administrators; names and background of seniors, as well as a senior “humor” section; basic information from each of the ninth, tenth, and eleventh grade classes; a few photos of sports groups and other activities; and a large section of advertisements from Frederick businesses.

The 1910 yearbook opened with a two-page tribute to the six-member class of 1908 – Bernice Jackson, Lelah Nabors, Walter McPherson, Mildred Winsor, Clay Kerr, and Gladys Carter.There was no Frederick High School graduating class of 1909 because school officials deemed that no students had completed work sufficiently to earn the high school diploma that year.

The senior class of 1910 included 11 students: Powell Hayes, Roxye Holloman, Robert Howard, Espar Watkins, Ethel Drumm, Rena Thelkeld, Ruth Gosnell, Mamie Lee Carter, Gilbert Caudill, Elnore Moorhead, and Chas McMillian.

Frederick Schools served more than 1,000 students in 1910, but the number of high school students was relatively few because most ended their education at grade 8.

W.T. Dodson was superintendent of Frederick City Schools in 1910. It was a position that he had held since 1906. Dodson was born in 1871 in Wright County, Missouri.

W.T. Dodson, Frederick superintendent, 1910

Prof. E.B. Nelms was principal of Frederick High School, a position that he had held for three years. He had been born in Pittsburg, Texas, in 1880, but raised in Greer County, Oklahoma. He had studied at Jeff Davis College and the Oklahoma University.

Teachers included Miss Lela Mitchell, instructor of Latin and German; Miss Loula Elder, mathematics; Miss Lee O. Plemmons, English; Miss Ruth Gamble, history.

Regarding members of the 1910, the book said the following: “The Senior Class of 1910 entered the Freshman year in 1906 with an enrollment of twenty-nine. The class now has an enrollment of eleven, seven of the original Freshmen class and two who entered in the Sophomore year, and two in the junior.”

The city of Frederick and Frederick City Schools were organized in 1902, so had existed for only eight years in 1910. All Frederick residents were recent settlers in the area.

Backgrounds of the eleven senior students were described, complete with comments intended to be humorous, as follows:

Gilbert Caudill, Class President, was born in 1892, in Kentucky. He came to Oklahoma in 1907, and entered the class in the Sophomore year, and has since spent most of his time keeping at the head of the Mathematics class.

Espar Watkins, Class secretary, was born February 21, 1892, in Kansas. She came to Oklahoma in 1901, when there was nothing of the beautiful little City of Frederick but a promising outlook. She is the High school pianist, and is the most dignified member of the class.

Robert Howard is a native of Texas. He was born in T.C.U. in 1893. He has been in the class since the Junior year. He is the “Class Baby.”

Roxye Holloman, born in Texas in 1892, has been an “elephant” on our hands for two years. Her early days were spent in growing good-naturedly fat.

Nora Moorhead, another Texan, came to Frederick in time to go through the miseries of being a Freshman on the simple diet of “pie.” She is the Captain of the Basket Ball Team.

Powell Hays is a native of Illinois, and came to Oklahoma in 1902. He is the Shakespeare of the Senior class and is also a football shark. He was one of the F.H.S. delegates to the High School meet at Norman this year.

Charles McMillan, the physicist of the class, is a Virginian. He has spent most of his life “grinning,” but we fear he will some day stop it, and startle the world into sitting up and taking notice, by the unraveling of some principle in physics which is now very vague.

Mamie Lee Carter is another fair representative of Texas. She was born in 1893, and is the smallest, but by no means the quietest, member of the class. She is properly called the “classflirt.”

Ethel Drumm “blew into” our midst from Iowa in the wake of an Oklahoma “norther,” during our Sophomore year. She is gradually loosing some of her Northern characteristics along with her “peaches and cream” complexion.

Next week… More from the 1910 Frederick High School “Megaphone”.

Frederick High faculty members, 1910

Prof. E.B. Nelms, Frederick High School principal, 1910

 

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Joe Wynn is a member of the Tillman County Historical Society’s board of directors. He can be contacted by e-mail at jawynn@cableone.net.