Valparaiso Schools

May 19, 1956: First Elementary Band Formed

Originally published in The Vidette-Messenger of Porter County on May 19, 1956.

First Elementary Band Formed

Twenty-three musicians comprise the roster of the Valparaiso city schools’ first elementary band.

Miss Marianne Harken Directs New musical GroupDIRECTOR MARIANNE HARKEN, seated at piano is shown with several members of the city’s first elementary school band, during a practice session. Left to right, Don Arnold, Jane Lamb and Nancy Fisher. The band was organized during the second semester and practiced once a week before and after school hours(V-M Staff Photo)

Miss Marianne Harken Directs New musical Group

DIRECTOR MARIANNE HARKEN, seated at piano is shown with several members of the city’s first elementary school band, during a practice session. Left to right, Don Arnold, Jane Lamb and Nancy Fisher. The band was organized during the second semester and practiced once a week before and after school hours

(V-M Staff Photo)

Under the direction of Miss Marianne Harken, the band was organized at the start of the second semester.

All instruction to its members was given before or after school hours. The group is from the various schools. Practice sessions were held once a week.

Specific standards of playing ability were required for eligibility as a member.

The group performed during the recent musical presentations on successive evenings by the five city elementary schools at the junior high schools at the junior high school gym.

Comprising the roster are: Rusty Sievers, Vendo Toming, Jom Eckert, Martin Seelig, Jolene Eick, Freddie Morphis, Richard maudlin, Johnny Bevan, Nancy Fisher, Mike Decker, Don Arnold, Jane Lamb, David Flesner, C. Sue Lamberson, Sharon Jankowski, Betty Robbins, Marcia Guilford, Susann Villiaume, David Perry, James Bernhart, Mary Green, Kim Froberg and Tom Topper.

April 22, 1961: Teaching Offers Many Rewarding Experiences

Originally published in The Vidette-Messenger of Porter County on April 22, 1961.

Teaching Offers Many Rewarding Experiences

(EDITOR’S NOTEーApril is Teacher Career Month. In observance The Vidette-Messenger presents the fourth in a series of weekly articles on that subject by teachersーpast, present and to-be.)

By DOROTHY LANDING

(1st Grade Teacher, Northview)

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Do you enjoy being with children? Do you like to help them? Do you have a moderate amount of patience? Are you considering college?

If you can answer “yes” to these questions, you should seriously consider entering the teaching profession.

It seems like only yesterday that I was a senior at Valparaiso High school doing my cadet teaching. But I must admit it has been six years.

During this time I have received my B.A. from Valparaiso university and I have had two years of delightful experience teaching the first grade at Northview school.

I became interested in the first grade particularly because this is where the reading program begins. I have found that the satisfaction one gets from teaching a child to read, and to love reading is one of the greatest rewards of teaching. Also at this age they are extremely eager to learn.

Not a “Job”

Teaching can not be regarded as just a job. It is one rewarding experience after another.

These rewards cannot be measured in money, for a teacher is blessed with the satisfaction of seeing her children progress; and in knowing she has done her best to help prepare them for the future.

Of course there is work involved such as grading papers, preparing lessons, etc., but anything worth-while involves work.

There is never a dull moment; and each day brings many humorous episodes such as the time a child hurried into the room to give me a Hershey bar but with a sorrowful look on her face whispered, “I accidentally dropped it in a mud puddle.” we carefully dried it off and I gratefully thanked her for such a nice gift.

Then there’s the little boy who happily brought me a worm. What could I do but show my delight?

These little things are so important to a child and must be handled with tact and a big smile. I could go on and on with my experiences as every teacher could.


Fine Program

I think the cadet program is extremely worth-while. This program places the cadets in the classroom as prospective teachers instead of students. It gives them an excellent opportunity to examine the elementary school program.

The children welcome the cadets wholeheartedly; and have the greatest respect for them. I find the cadets to be a great help and inspiration in the classroom.

The high school students here are especially fortunate to have a fine teaching program offered at Valparaiso university. College can be a wonderful experience, whether at home or away from home.

The teaching profession offers you immeasurable satisfaction, room for advancement, security, and a valued place in your community. If you enter the teaching profession I know you will love teaching just as I do.

April 15, 1961: Four Decades of Teaching Recalled By Ralph Schenck

Originally published in The Vidette-Messenger of Porter County on April 15, 1961.

Four Decades of Teaching Recalled By Ralph Schenck

(EDITOR’s NOTEーApril is Teacher Career Month. In observance The Vidette-Messenger presents third in series of weekly articles on that subject by teachersー past, present and to-be.)

By RALPH SCHENCK

(Retired VHS Teacher)

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As a public school teacher for over four decades (just retired), and now draping myself bulkily into an upholstered capsule, the thoughts of writing a short article about school teaching as a career is rather baffling.

Incidentally, there have been a lot of changes in this teaching business since the giddy and exotic Twenties when Fatty Arbuckle and Mabel Normand were the inspiration of the then juvenile delinquents.

Too, then, the dazzling Valentino was the pinnacle of female infatuation and the flaming Clara Bow was the “IT” of all the male juveniles.

Now, of course, I could camouflage this teaching career with a splatter of educational jargon, spiced with some quibbling semantics. It might be a better and more conventional therapy for you youngsters that should accept teaching as a career.

Obviously, by this time, you should be saturated with the vice, violence, and vulgarity that you get on your TVs. You’d better wander back into the monotony of virtue, veneration and the verities and you don’t need bulging horn-rimmed glasses to see through this.

Maybe in the early Twenties we did have too many Mrs. Grundys and too few Mr. Micawbers on the educational firing line, but changes are inevitable.

If you contemporaries are seeking glamor and glory instead of grammar and grace, you’d better dodge the pedagogical arena.

Many of you moderns have been maturing in the shallow, but glittering filigree of neon-lighted “joints” and all of you know more about the facts of life than you teachers. So I should apologize instead of advise you about a teaching career.

Old Casey (me) has finally struck out, but I wish I could go back to bat again. Paradoxically, I suspect there is a lot of joy in Mudville, however, for Old Casey could easily remind this present generation of “delinquents” about their parental “delinquents” of the ‘20s and ‘30s.

Just to list a VERY FEW there were Mayor Will; Sheriff Buchanan; Chief Gott; Councilman Miller, Beach, and Billings; Drs. Makovsky, White, and the DeGrazias; Attys. Chester, Douglas, and Nixon; Bankers Hildreth, Stephens, and Durand; Insurance Agents Sievers, Bartholomew, and Nuppnau; Federal Servicemen Linholm, Lembke, and Doud; Car Agents Marimon, Lightcap and Stanton; “Feeder” Wellman, Take and Merrill; academic Luminaries Miss Joanne Phillips, Swarner, Buffington; Merchants Lowenstine, Linkimer, and Salberg; and Pedagogues Phillips, Crisman, and Ellis

Then there were Col Dy, Maj. Williamson, and Chaplain Justice. And too, there was that courtesy winner, policeman (pardon me, captain), Black, who handcuffed me as a driving delinquent and scuttled me up before His Honor, Judge Ruge, the shyest student in all that decade of classes. Here I copiously apologized to both for goose-stepping them into those omniscient final exams of their school days.

Then there was that “delinquent” Bartholomew, who “ambulanced” me to the hospital where a covey of those “angels of mercy: gleefully exclaimed, “just what we’ve been waiting for”. Here I had to explain to them why I was late, but they graciously pardoned me as a pedagogical “delinquent.”

If the editor weren’t throttling me, I’d list another column of names. That list was just a sampling of the successful “delinquents” that are now holding positions of trust and responsibility and this is all so typical over these United States.

Yes, these “boys” and “girls” are skilled in the democratic procedures, and in creating and guiding this age of technological plenty.

A long time ago, I recall that lasting impression of my uncle as he stood on the spacious porch of his huge country home, late one summer evening looking over the undulating waves of golden wheat, the verdant crop of corn beginning to tassel, and the fat and healthy stock grazing on the luscious pasture lands. His was an etching of pride and joy in successful attainment that had come about as a result of planning, experimentation, effort and thought.

So, my prospective teaching neophytes, we, (“us” retirees), who have had just a small part in this abundant harvest of youth in our community, experience the intangible contentment which comes over us as we see the constant emergence of these successful “delinquents”. Now, you go forth, sow the deed, cultivate the crop, nourish the wavering, and your harvest will be beyond verbal description.

These fine folks and the many others like them, are the trademarks of our profession and “us” retired teachers are more than pleased because we had just a little to do with guiding them. We recommend to you present day “delinquents” to give some thought to school teaching as a career. It is the cause for precious rejoicing.

Feb. 21, 1961: TV Plan Discussed By Board 11 Schools In City System Are Considered

Originally published in The Vidette-Messenger of Porter County on February 21, 1961.

TV Plan Discussed By Board

11 Schools In City System Are Considered

An airborne television equipment decision, 1960-61 teacher’s salary study, and other business occupied members of the Valparaiso Community schools Board of Finance Monday evening.

Primarily the board was concerned with the question of whether or not to make airborne television classroom plans which would place at least one unit in each of the system’s 11 buildings next fall.

Units are now in process of installation at Cooks Corners elementary and in the senior high school. Another unit, presented as a gift, has been set up in the Benjamin Franklin Junior High school, Supt. G. Warren Phillips reported to the board.

Cost $250 Each

Phillips noted that the receivers and aerials can be procured through the National Defense Act as a minimum cost of $230 each.

However, after consulting with numerous educators, consensus pointed toward “proceeding slowly” with the experimental classroom broadcasting plan for which the Ford Foundation has granted about $7 million, the school administrator told the board.

President Morris Groverman, Jr., felt that it would be wise to take advantage of a purchase from the NDA “but we don’t have the money to go whole hog. This idea may or may not prove to be a ‘Frontier of Education’ as has been noted in promotions,” he added.

After much discussion, the board decided to make an application to the NDA for 11 units, but included a reservation that eventual purchase may or not  be made even though approved by the federal agency. Future approval of the purchase by the board will be dependent upon success of the venture, it was noted in the motion.

According to Phillips, there have been two delays to date in the proposed airborne television classroom instruction schedule. Original plans call for instruction to be imparted from an airplane flying about 23,000 feet above Montpelier, Ind.

Nov. 18, 1955: Students Help Defoliate Trees and European Refugee To Live Here

Originally published in The Vidette-Messenger of Porter County on November 18, 1955.

Its Class Project

Students Help Defoliate Trees

By KAREN ANGLE

As winter arrives and the snow falls, the trees become barren. But this condition is due not only to the onslaught of the some 275 Valparaiso High school biology students.

Comprising nine different classes, these freshmen were required at the beginning of the year by their teachers, Miss Pat Bushong and Paul W. Miller, to collect, press, mount, and identify at least the 25 most common leaves in the state of Indiana. These collections were due today. Both the common and scientific names were to be given.

Some of the students turned in more than 100 leaves. The time collecting their material was spent entirely out of class. Many of the freshmen parents, in helping to collect, mount, and identify the leaves, claim to have learned almost as much as the students.

Slides of the 25 most common leaves have been made by Miller, and will be used during the coming week to test the students to see how much they have learned from their collections. After they have been graded, if there are enough outstanding collections, they will be displayed in the window of a local merchant, as has been done in the past.

Next semester the biology students can have their choice of writing a term paper or submitting a project having to do with any phase of life or living things.

Sponsored By Kazlauski

European Refugee To Live Here


A 29-year-old European refugee, sponsored by a RFD 2 couple, is expected to arrive in Valparaiso the latter part of next week, where she will find a home and a job awaiting her.

She is Miss Herta Deringas of Lithuania, and is being sponsored by Mr. and Mrs. Alex Kazlauski.

Mrs. Kazlauski met Miss Deringas at a refugee camp in Germany while she was on a trip to Europe in September of 1954 to visit with her son, Albert, who is a dentist in the Armed Forces.

Since Mrs. Kazlauski is a native of Lithuania, she was able to converse with the girl in her native tongue and found that the refugee was acquainted with August Pupelis, another Lithuanian, who was sponsored by the Kazlauskis more than five years ago. Pupelis now works for the Kazlauskis. When she returned to the states Mrs. Kazlauski and her husband started proceedings to have Miss Deringas come to the United States.

Mrs. Kazlauski came to the United States when she was 3 years old and her husband. Alex came to the states when he was 19 years old. Both are now American citizens.

Miss Deringas will live in the Kazlauski home and will work in the Vale City Packing company which is owned by the Kazlauskis, it was stated.

The Lithuanian woman is one of the 15 European refugees ― headed for Indiana homes ― that will arrive in New York Monday aboard the Navy Transport General Langfitt, it was announced today by the State department.

Nov. 12, 1955: Pupils Show Varied Forms Of Education

Originally published in The Vidette-Messenger of Porter County on November 12, 1955.

Pupils Show Varied Forms Of Education

By ROLLIE BERNHART

Many of the grades throughout the schools in Valparaiso were actively engaged this week in producing some form of pictorial instruction in conformance with National Education Week which officially closed today.

During the week of observance of the national event, which opened on Nov. 6, classes throughout the schools in the city contributed various types of educational endeavor which aided materially in giving the pupil a better understanding of the subjects.

During the current week, The Vidette-Messenger published photos of several of these activities which graphically depicted pupils in action during actual class instruction.

Photos shown in today’s series are the remainder of contributions of Education Week class instruction as snapped by a V-M photographer.

Bulletin Board Project

In the top photo, second grade  pupils at Banta school are shown combining a science lesson, art and social studies in a bulletin board project.

After a study of leaves, the pupils organized into committees to make the fall bulletin board showing a life-sized boy raking leaves. In the photo, left to right, are: Peni Coon, Kenneth Barber and Terry Giesler.

In the second photo, a typical Valparaiso Junior High school scene is shown, placing primary stress on the use of the library for reference purposes.

The number of the students in the library each period ranges up to approximately 100 students. All students, except those who must leave early on the bus, are assigned six periods of 55 minutes each in the library, thereby providing time for work on class preparation, reference, and perusing of various fictional books and magazines to which the library subscribers.

Depict Luther’s Life

In photo three (from top to bottom), members of the fifth and sixth grades at the Immanuel Lutheran school are shown during an act of the play “Life of Martin Luther,” produced by the combined classes for Education Week and Christian Education Week. The play was shown to parents and teachers of the LaPorte avenue school Thursday.

Characters in the play as shown in the photo are: Jackie Peck, Jeannette Binder, Linda Rechlin, Bruce Martin, seated right; and Norman Dygert, center, as Luther.

At the Central school fourth grade, photo four shows three pupils using their word attack skills (phonics) in their geography lesson. Together with the use of the vowel sounds, they are able to learn the use of the vowel marks. Left to right in photo are: Jimmy Shinabarger, Kay Nielsen and Lois Flesner.

At Northview, the sixth grade instructor Mel Crisman, employed the use of clay to depict the country of Egypt as a history lesson. The girls shown examining the clay exhibit in the bottom photo are Sarah Brown and Judy Jones.

It was found that both teachers and pupils in the schools visited during Education Week exhibited considerable enthusiasm and unusual thought in presenting their instructional projects.

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