Were you involved in any organizations in high school?

by Jim Stamp on February 22, 2021.

During High School I tried to keep busy. Actually, keeping
busy was not a huge endeavor. We had cows to milk, ponies
to feed and ride, pigs to feed, chickens to feed and eggs to
gather. Those were chores that had to take place two times every day!

In the spring the fields had to be plowed, disked and then pick up
the stones. Every year there were stones. I know for a fact that
we never planted gravels to see how big they would grow. But,
every year there were big, sometimes HUGE stones to pick up.
An eternal question is: Where did they come from? Year after year?

Then there was the planting which was followed by the harvest. I
got to spend a lot of time with my Grandpa Stamp when it was
time to combine the wheat and/or oats. In the chapter about Dad,
it always astounded us how he was able to get so much done. Up
in the morning to milk the cows, come in and get cleaned up, eat
breakfast, go to Salem and work a full day. He came home,
changed clothes, we went to the barn to do all the chores, eat
supper, and he usually had a School Board meeting, a church
meeting, choir practice, etal. Then when he got home, he
plowed, he mowed, went to bed and got up a few hours later
and did it all over again. When I was young, my Dad would cut
the hay or straw and I raked the hay or straw to get ready for
baling. He didn’t want me use the mower when I was under 12.
When he thought I was old enough to mow, I had a traumatic
experience. I cut the legs off a rabbit. I picked the rabbit up
and carried it to the house. Dad would not let the animals suffer.
He took the rabbit and broke its neck. I should have done that
myself in the field to stop the suffering, but, I could not do it.

Grandpa would come to our farm and hook up the bailer and
wagon. He drove the tractor while I worked the wagon – pulling
the bales out of the bailer and stacking them on the wagon. My
brothers, Lee and Jay were usually on the wagon as well to help
drag the bales to the back of the wagon. When the hay was dry,
it was fun. When the bales had moisture, they were almost too
heavy for us to stack up 6 or 7 bales high.

Then I would take our tractor up Whinnery Rd and Route 9 to
Grandpa’s farm and help him bale. By the time we filled a
couple of wagons, Dad and sometimes Uncle Bob Miller would
be there to unload into the hay mows.

There were church activities. Sunday School. MYF (Methodist
Youth Fellowship). I had been a member of LTL since first grade
(Loyal Temperance Legion). When I got to eighth grade I moved
to YTC (Youth Temperance Council). I sang (?) in the Church
Choir and we practiced every Wednesday night. I need all the
practice I could get. I did sing in a quartet in school and the song
that remains in my memory is The Whiffenpoof Song. Chet
Mellinger, my Grandpa Stamp, my Dad and I sang a few times
in a Barbershop Quartet. (I was 12!)

I was active in the Just-Rite 4-H club. And then there was 4H
Tractor Club, 4H County Band. I was on the Columbiana
County Junior Fair Board. Part of my duties as a Junior Fair
Board member were to help organize the annual square dance
(somewhat easy because Uncle Gil was a caller and Aunt Mary
played the piano. She was really something. She played like Jo
Ann Castle on Lawrence Welk.) HTTPS://WWW.YOUTUBE.COM/
embed/scZlYeU3gsE 

I also organized the 4H day parade at the fair and I was in charge
of “security” in the pony barns. Security meant telling people
that there was NO smoking in the barns and keeping the
“townies” from throwing gravel at the ponies. On 4H day we
had two parades, led by a band and followed by a convertible
transporting the 4H Queen. (I drove the Queen in a 1959 Chevy
Impala Red Convertible, provided by LeRoy Baker) After that
were floats and animals. The band on that day was from United
High School and the Head Majorette was my girlfriend.

In the summers we had church camp. FFA camp. 4H camp. Camp
is where we learned to make “buddy burners”. That was making
a heat source by taking a small can, something the size of a tuna
can, rolling corrugated cardboard around the inside of the can,
pouring wax over the cardboard and inserting a “wick” before
the wax got hard. Then we had gallon cans that peaches or
something came in and we cut a little door in it. Out to the
woods for breakfast with our buddy burners. It was sometimes
impossible to find a level place in the woods where you stopped
to make breakfast…so we learned to make eggs in a basket. If
you tried to crack and egg and cook it on the flat surface of the
can, chances were very high that it would slide right off onto
the ground. So, we took a slice of bread, used a juice glass to
make a hole in the center of the bread. Then you put the bread
on the top of the can, crack the egg and drop it in the hole in
the bread…egg in the basket! I made that later for my own kids
many times. Today, that is one of my favorite breakfasts at Cracker Barrel.

I was President of the United High School FFA for two years. I
also participated in the district extemporaneous FFA speaking
competition. (at the insistence of Paul Gipp, the teacher) One of
our HUGE days in FFA was our scrap drive. We hooked up our
Dad’s tractors to hay wagons and visited area farms to pick up
scrap equipment, old tools, and anything that they had thrown
out in a pile in the pasture. It was a great fund raiser in addition
to spending the day outside of the school building with your buddies!

I was President of the French Club which is really surprising
since I can’t remember more than a couple phrases today! Parle vous???

I think I was on the track team one year, but, I wasn’t athletically
inclined at all. For one thing I would get shin splints. Another
thing was my double vision. But that is another story! I was
decent at pole vaulting until I sprained my arm and shoulder. I
can testify that pole vaulting with one arm is literally impossible.

The one thing I excelled at was stalking the Head Majorette.
Between classes periods I walked her to all of her classes.
Sometimes it meant being a few seconds late to my own class,
but, somehow, I slid by. Not only did we go to school together,
but we went to the same church, were in the same Sunday
School Class, went to Jr. MYF together, sang in the Junior
Choir (and, in a quartet for a special program) and in Sr MYF
together. She was my best friend and I claimed her as my
girlfriend from the time she was in the 6th grade.

Then we went to my Junior Prom…

    Spring – 1959

    1960