Otto’s Column

LOCAL HISTORY Freshman year at OHS looked different in 1949

Editor’s note: Otto Dick, Oregon has researched the people, places and events important in the Oregon area’s history for the Ogle County Historical Society. The following is one of a series of the articles he has written.

BY OTTO DICK

Thinking back things sure changed during our lifetime.

My Freshman year (1949), I attended Oregon Community High School located at 10 th and Madison Streets.

This school was built in 1936 at a cost of $158,182. This is the approximate cost of building a home today.

In 1935 the Works Progress Administration (WPA) was created by Franklin D. Roosevelt.

This agency was a New Deal relief program to employ millions of jobless Americans to carry out projects like constructing bridges and buildings. The high school buildings at Oregon and Dixon were part of this program.

In 1968, Oregon High School District #218, Oregon Elementary District #88 and the Chana School District combined into the Oregon Community High School District #218.

In 1953, my Senior year, Mr. Kiest was our principal and Betty Brunner our secretary. The teaching staff consisted of 16 teachers and two custodians.

Our graduating class consisted of 51 students (25 boys and 26 girls).

This was of course before computers, guidance instructors, driver education, cell phones etc.

My parents purchased our clothes for the school year from the Montgomery Ward’s Catalog. We purchased our school books from Fischer’s Book Store. We brought our lunch to school in paper sacks. There was no lunch room or cafeteria.

Sports were limited compared to today. Of course there were no girl’s athletics and no athletic director.

Sports consisted of football, basketball, track and field and golf. Our football schedule consisted of 6 games against South Beloit, Mt. Carroll, Mt. Morris, Polo, Lanark and Earlville.

Our track and field course was a dirt track around the football field. Seating for football games was a wood bleacher built into a hill located on the east side of the field.

No room was dedicated as a library. Mrs. Donaldson taught Latin and English and sponsored the Library Club.

Library books were stored on the west wall of the study hall. We

Mr. Kiest was the principal of Oregon High School in 1949 and Betty Brunner was the secretary. Photo supplied by Otto Dick

checked outs books from the library in an alcove located at the front of the library manned by a student.

I had study hall the last period of the day with Mrs. Kloster as our monitor. No student wanted to cross Mrs. Kloster. She was a tremendous and respected teacher.

Miss Holmes was our chorus and orchestra instructor. Most students participated in one of the choruses

LEFT: Lauren Wiseman Kloster taught English at Oregon High School. ABOVE: The main

building of the Oregon High School is pictured on this post card. The school has since had several additions. Photos supplied by Otto Dick

(Boys, Girls and mixed choruses).

The Girls’ choruses consisted of 88 members. The storage room for our band instruments was a small room located beside the stage area in the gymnasium.

The stage was our band practice area, in other words no band room.

I mentioned above what Oregon High School was like when I attended from 1948 to 53. At that time we had no idea how Oregon High School and education would develop.

We looked forward to attending High School in this new building. We were excited about a gymnasium with a stage area, a football field and track facility. Industrial Arts and Agriculture programs were popular with those of us not interested in the academic curriculum.

My interests during High School were all three sports, Industrial Arts and Typing. My interests centered on work before and after school.

I delivered the Rockford Morning Star before school and worked evenings and weekends at Fischer’s book store and ushered at the theatre.

SPORTS COLUMN Sporting world craziness continues in August

The sporting world continues to get crazier and crazier.

Greatly influenced by Northern Illinois University athletic director Sean Frazier, the Mid American Conference has decided to cancel all fall sports.

With the announcement last week, the MAC becomes the biggest conference to date that is postponing football to spring, or possibly cancelling the entire year. Who knows anymore?

What is significant is that a precedent has been set and larger and more prestigious leagues, such as the Big 10, may follow suit.

If that is the case, NIU will be known nationwide for pioneering such change. •••

Speaking of pioneers, Polo was the school that gave credence to 8-man football. Everyone is excited that Aquin, AFC, Amboy, Milledgeville and Orangeville will be joining Polo and River Ridge as 8-man teams for the 2021 season.

Here’s a suggestion to the NUIC. Since the upcoming football schedule has so many uncertainties, what would be wrong with letting all of the above-mentioned schools start 8-man this spring instead of waiting until next fall.

The way it looks, teams may only play 6-7 regular season games anyway, with hopes of some kind of area-wide post season.

The remaining NUIC 11-man teams are For

COMMENTARY Andy Colbert

reston, Le-Win, Dakota, EPC, Stockton, East Dubuque, Galena, Du-Pec and West Carroll. No doubt, Le-Win will be the consensus No. 1 team in the pre-season rankings.

•••

Congratulations to Sean Considine of Byron for being named the greatest player to come out of the Rockford area in the past 75 years by the Register Star newspaper.

Sports Editor Matt Trowbridge did the rankings based upon how players did in high school, college and the pros.

Of his top 25, Adam Dach of Byron was 18 th and Troy Drake, another Tiger, was No. 10. Bucky Babcok was 23 rd for Stillman Valley and Winnebago had two top 25s in Larry Clark and the Boeke twins. The other BNC pick was James Robinson of Lutheran at 15 th .

The rest were all from the NIC-10, other than No. 3 Stan Campbell, a 1948 Rochelle grad who sandwiched a standout pro career around serving in the Korean War.

Trowbridge did an excellent job of feature stories on all 25 selections, with tons of interesting grid history. Earlier, he had a series on the 10 greatest games played.

He also did the same for the Freeport paper, with Jake Coffman and AJ Christensen of Forreston making the cut among the greatest 25 from that area. •••

Cross country, golf, tennis and swimming/diving can begin practicing this week, with the first competitions on Aug. 24.

There are extremely detailed guidelines these sports must follow, per the IHSA. The biggest issue is limiting the competitions to 50.

Considering Oregon has over 1,000 runners show up for its first cross-country meet of the year, that is going to drastically impact things.

The beauty of a cross-country meet, is that regardless of ability level, everyone gets to run. Anyone that didn’t run in the main varsity meet, would have the chance in the open meet.

Another detail to consider is the loss of economic revenue businesses in town had derived from all the big sporting events Oregon hosted.

There is not another school the size of Oregon the state that hosts as many functions

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