School carnivals once provided community entertainment

Of all the events once enjoyed in Cassville, older generations could rate the school carnivals at the top of the list.

Always an event in the fall of the year, carnivals involved the entire school, and much of the community would automatically become a part of the activities.

The Rock Gym was one location for the event, and it would be packed and jammed with displays during the day. The evening program displayed the talent learning retained by the children during the first part of the school year. To finish an event there was always the all-important crowning of royalty chosen from the class producing the most revenue for the district.

This was the one event that initially was located in the downtown community building and later in the stone gymnasium. That first facility was on the west side of the public square. Both locations provided a stage, which was an ideal location for the finale of the event, crowing of royalty from each and every class. Throughout the length of the carnival, which usually lasted a week, entertainment events bought out the best talent that existed on the campus.

After points

Prior to the carnival, classes would choose royalty candidates and then begin their strategy of gaining points toward seating their candidates in the closing program of the carnival in the throne seats.

There were a number of ways to gain points, but the most popular (this being toward the end of the gardening season) were canned goods most usually provided by family members of those running for the throne seats.

Reputations

Many a reputation was established for canning vegetables or fruits once they were purchased at the carnival. Year after year, those on the most popular list discovered their contributions to a particular cause would disappear from the tables set up around the gym floor at either location.

Bakery items lasted only minutes after they were placed on display and here again goods from many ladies of the community were first to go as eager shoppers went around the tables. One that comes to immediate memory was the bread that came from the oven of Mrs. Gladys Salyer. That was when the Salyer family resided in what is now known as the Bayless House.

Her breads and other baked goods were something, in those days that might have been remembered as “to die for.”

(As a side note, her son Ben was the quarterback of Cassville’s Marble Bowl Championship football team back in the late 1940s.)

Financial View

During the carnival years, it was the track record of some canners that not only disappeared from tables first, but they also became the goods that cornered the most points.

Before freezing

Those canned goods were the only way to provide some fruits and vegetables for the family since there was no freezing or otherwise preserving the best out of the garden or the orchard. For this reason, more than anything else made the school carnival an event marked on virtually every calendar in the community.

So popular were some items, carnival organizers would often ration items going on display to give more people an opportunity to put some of the better items on their shelves at home or on the tables that evening.

Entertainment

Activities long gone from the list of those enjoyed decades ago were a welcome schedule for the community. Games, which also garnered points for the program, were on a nightly schedule. There was no TV screen to interfere with schedules in those days.

Music for most of the program was under the direction of the late Lanola Hodge, who headed that department for the school. In the days of the school being atop the Seventh Street Hill, her classroom was on the second floor, in the southwest corner of the building.

When things would go well in a rehearsal for a carnival presentation, Mrs. Hodge would some- times permit the boys to leave the class through the cloakroom, which accessed the slide fire escape on the building. This wasn’t a constant experience, but one that was enjoyed by the boys, but not by the girls, when permitted.

Scrap later

During World War II war years, an item that brought bonus points to the classes was scrap metal. This provided an opportunity for youngsters to scour the area for items that had been discarded by farmers or other residents.

Since none of the lower grades had access to vehicles in those days, transportation was usually provided by horse and wagon. Sanitary Market’s grocery deliveries in those days were accomplished by this method, so Bill Barber had access to this equipment to add points to our class.

Actually, there were probably some items secured that might have been valuable had the owners taken them to a salvage location, but frankly, they probably weren’t asked for permission to load the items.

DST Sunday

This Sunday begins Daylight Saving Time. Spring forward one hour Saturday night, and you won’t be late for church.

Bob Mitchell is the former editor and publisher of the Cassville Democrat. He is a 2017 inductee to both the Missouri Press Association Hall of Fame and Missouri Southern State University’s Regional Media Hall of Fame.