by Joe Stout
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Visions of the 1960’s protestors.
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The late 1940\u2019s and1950’s have been portrayed on TV as the age of innocence.\u00a0 The age of family, apple pie, and \u201cFather Knows Best.\u201d It was the spring of 1947 and my Junior year at Greenfield High School was drawing to an end.
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Mrs. Mildred Payne was the English and Latin teacher during my high school years.\u00a0 She was the wife of Rev. S. O. Payne, the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church U.S.A here in Greenfield for several years.\u00a0 Bro. Payne was my pastor and also my Scoutmaster during my scouting years.
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Mrs. Payne was one of the best teachers that ever taught at Greenfield, in my opinion.\u00a0 She was the type teacher that would allow everyday life subjects be discussed.\u00a0 She was also adored by all the students and one that we could take our problems to for advice.\u00a0 This was in the days prior to the use of counselors in schools, therefore she would also fit that description in today\u2019s world.
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The Principal in 1947 was Mr. Russell Tuck.\u00a0 Mr. Tuck, as most Principals have always been, was somewhat feared by many students because it was his duty to mete out punishment.\u00a0 Mr. Tuck had a habit of using Listerine very frequently.\u00a0 Many times he would be seen at the water fountain rinsing his mouth with Listerine.\u00a0 It also became apparent to many of us that many times he turned up the bottle when he was not at the water fountain.
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The school board in those days was not county wide but consisted of citizens of Greenfield.\u00a0 It was customary for school boards to elect teachers for the coming school year just prior to the end of the present school year.\u00a0\u00a0 We learned that Mrs. Payne had not been elected to teach for the school year of 1947-1948.\u00a0 This in essence meant that she was fired.\u00a0 No reason was given for this and of course this was a great disappointment to all the students.
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Rumors spread throughout the school and community and a growing protest of dissatisfaction became evident among all the students.\u00a0 A large group of us went to the homes of some of the school board members in hopes of getting some answers as to why Mrs. Payne was not going to be our teacher for the next year without any success.
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Jack Gill who was a senior graduating that year was the school clown as well as a good artist and caricaturist.\u00a0 Jack came up with the idea of a strike by the students to hopefully get the school board to change their decision.\u00a0 In subsequent years I have been accused of being the originator of this protest, but as readers of any of my writings can attest, I would have NEVER done such a thing.\u00a0 Jack was also responsible for giving most of us our nicknames.\u00a0 He tagged\u00a0 me with \u201cMoedini\u201d because I had become and amateur magician.\u00a0 Many of my classmates still call me that today.
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The idea of the strike in protest began to spread among the students like a brush-fire and plans were made to set up a picket line on the street in front of the High School to encourage all the students to participate in the strike.
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When Mr. Tuck learned of this plan the seniors, who were just a few days away from graduation, were told that if they participated\u00a0 they would not be allowed to graduate.
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The day of the \u201cstrike\u201d many of us arrived early with signs and set up on the street in front of the school.\u00a0 Most of the seniors were in support but with the threat of not being allowed to graduate they did attend classes that day. I recall Mr. Gulley\u2019s (Silent John) comment as he walked by, \u201cDo ya\u2019ll know what you\u2019re doing?\u201d
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With the exception of the seniors and two or three other students, the entire student body remained out of classes.\u00a0 We then marched down Main Street toward town carrying our signs of protest.\u00a0 Upon reaching Front Street we paraded up and down the main business district. Of course this caused quite a stir among the townspeople.
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We ended up at Dale Wright\u2019s Cafe, the local teen hangout resembling \u201cArnold\u2019s\u201d of the Happy Days TV sitcom. Dale’s Cafe was located in the lower floor of the old “Opera House” building on Soup St.\u00a0 Dale urged us to return to school and the consensus was that we would return the next day but we did get a one day \u201cunscheduled\u201d holiday.
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For all of the succeeding GHS students and our children and grandchildren, just keep in mind that we are not as \u201cstraight-laced\u201d as we might appear to be.
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I sometimes wonder if we might have been the seed planted that brought about the turbulent times of the 1960\u2019s on campuses all over America.
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54 years later, the reason for Mrs. Payne\u2019s firing is still unknown by us, so I guess we\u2019ll never know……..
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by Joe Stout\u00a0Visions of the 1960’s protestors.\u00a0The late 1940\u2019s and1950’s have been portrayed on TV as the age of innocence.\u00a0 The age of family, apple pie, and \u201cFather Knows Best.\u201d It was the spring of 1947 and my Junior year at Greenfield High School was drawing to an end.\u00a0Mrs. Mildred Payne was the English and Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"template-gutenberg.php","format":"standard","meta":{"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"full","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"author_meta":{"display_name":"MaryCarol","author_link":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/author\/marycarol\/"},"featured_img":null,"coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Uncategorized<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Uncategorized<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 6 years ago","modified":"Updated 6 years ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on September 18, 2020","modified":"Updated on September 18, 2020"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on September 18, 2020 6:57 am","modified":"Updated on September 18, 2020 6:57 am"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1104"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1105,"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1104\/revisions\/1105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}