As I was growing up I was happy when school was out, but always ready to start again when September came. The year of 1948 was no exception. That was when I started in Hedrick High School.

Hedrick Consolidated school had 12 grades. The auditorium hadn't been built yet. The two-story red brick schoolhouse that sat on the corner opened on January 10th of 1921.

The old tattered scrapbook I kept in that day holds a picture of my class. I look at it and wonder why I am the only girl who didn't wear a black skirt and white blouse. I don't know why I didn't have on dark dress shoes. Maybe I didn't own a black skirt or dark shoes, but it could have been that my memory wasn't so good in that day either and I forgot the pictures were going to be taken.

My scrapbook tells the story of the history of the graduating class of 1950. It began in 1938 when 14 small boys and girls climbed the steps of the Hedrick school. Six of them were still there when I entered, Kenneth Breon, Hubert Gambell, Martha Hanson, Junior Long, Max Meier and Roger Perkins.

The year they went into Junior High School the class put on a play called "Fiesta for Juanita" and it was broadcast over radio station KBIZ in Ottumwa.

High school in the Hedrick Consolidated School was held upstairs. There was a big study hall in the middle of the second floor with rooms around it. In September of 1946 the future class of 1950 were seated in the first two rows of that high school study hall.

There were 23 juniors in Hedrick High School that year of 1948, when I joined them. Nine were girls. For the first time in my life I was going to a school where all the girls in one class were friends and I was welcomed into the group.

I've forgotten some of the teachers but I'll never forget Miss Foster. She was our English-literature teacher and I liked her a lot. She encouraged me to pursue a favorite hobby that would last all my life - writing.

I remember that some of the boys hated typing but from the very first day I loved it and had found another favorite hobby. Our teacher, Miss Quaintance played marching music as we practiced for speed tests. I discovered that I was a fast typist and so was Florence Taylor. I started competing against her. Florence sat across the aisle from me where I could watch her out of the corner of my eye and see when she turned the page of her typing book. I started trying to beat her. I don't know if she realized that we were in a race, but we stayed about the same speed that first year.

David Barcus sat behind me in school. He had a wonderful sense of humor. David had a physical problem but it didn't slow him down and he succeeded in his lifetime. He became a disk jockey for a radio station in Colorado Springs.

Now 50 years have passed since I was a junior in Hedrick High School. Some of the class of 1950 are gone now. I didn't know him but in 1948 his friends said a sad farewell to Jack Baker who passed away at a young age.

Hubert Gambell and Roger Perkins, the son of Dr. Perkins in Hedrick, died as young men after our graduation. David Barcus was a disk jockey for a radio station in Colorado Springs before his death a few years ago. Vernon Gullet passed away. Because I have never been able to attend the school reunions I don't know if we have lost others.

Hedrick Consolidated School no longer stands. It was demolished in 1991. I grieved because I felt I had lost an old friend. Before it was torn down I had one last chance to take a tour and to look at that study hall room.

But in my memories the little two-story red brick schoolhouse still stands on that corner and as I look at the picture of my class, all of the boys and girls are still young and alive. I'll never forget the two happy years that I spent at Hedrick High School.