JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL

KATE GRIFFIN JR HIGH SCHOL

The Meridian Junior High School where I attended was located about two miles from our home. Occasionally I walked to school, but I usually rode the city bus or rode my bicycle to school.  To catch the bus home we had to walk a couple of blocks to the bus stop.  If it was raining we sometimes sought shelter on the porch of a residence at that corner, not always to the delight of the resident.

A rough day occurred  when I was riding my bicycle to school and ran into the back of a parked car when my attention was distracted from the street in front of me.  That crash loosened two of my front teeth and tore my bicycle apart.  I had to carry the parts of the bicycle to school where I was allowed to call a taxi to take me and the bicycle home.  The teeth stayed with me until I was in the Army years later when one of the teeth abscessed and had to be pulled.  Because I was a company clerk at that time and needed to talk plainly the Army put in a bridge which lasted me for many years, but had to be replaced later while we were living in Cortez, CO. It was not until  we moved to Covenant Village that the bridge and two more front teeth had to be removed and replaced with a partial plate. This experience reminded me that seemingly small events can make a lasting effect on life.

Miss Maude Smith taught me English and was a super teacher. Many years later I learned that she was the great aunt of Bob Beard's wife, Jean. Unfortunately, I did not have a good experience with my History teachers. It seemed that they were usually coaches more interested in football than in history. I remember one of them who had a habit of leaving the classroom and talking to someone in the hall about sports.  When he returned he would scold the class for making noise. This became my excuse for disliking History which stayed with me through High School. I always preferred Geography, Arithmetic, Algebra, Bookkeeping and Accounting. I never could master penmanship but fortunately learned typing which served me well throughout the rest of my life and made it much easier for  me to adapt to the personal computer.

I remember  an embarrassing experience one day when I was changing my clothes in the Boys' Locker Room and some of the boys were causing a ruckus when one of the women teachers barged in to settle the dispute without warning. I just could not imagine a lady coming into a boy's dressing room!

The name of the school was later changed to the Kate Griffin Junior High School in honor of the principal of the school who served  the school for many years including the time  when I was a student there.  Meridian High School was located right next to the Junior High School.  A big change came when a new Senior High School-Junior College was built in another part of the city.  At that time the old High School buildings were renamed the Upper Division of Junior High School , and housed what had been ninth and tenth grades and the Junior High School building became the Lower Division housing the seventh and eight grades.

One of the courses I took was Manual Training. The course required us to plan and build a piece of furniture. My brothers David and Donnell had made cedar chests. I chose to build a small table which was much smaller than I expected and turned out to be a disappointment. I have no idea what ever happened to the table, but I know I didn't move it out of the home place.  I didn't do well in the course, but it helped me in my projects as an adult.