123. Randolph County Misc.

Ridgeville High School Closes. 1966.

  Twenty-six Ridgeville seniors completed graduation ceremonies this year. They were the last class to graduate from Franklin school. Next years seniors will graduate with those from Deerfield, Saratoga and Winchester at the newly consolidated Winchester school.
  What were the thoughts of this, the last senior class, as they completed the closing rituals? What thoughts passed through the minds of the relatives, friends and teachers as they observed the closing of an era.
  Were they remembering those proud days in 1892 when the first Ridgeville school was completed? The brick school was the envy of the county, with two stories, basement, a tall bell tower and a revolutionary new furnace system, which may have caused its ruin.
  The pride of the Ridgeville community, the school with the revolutionary furnace burned to the ground in October of 1893. Many people felt that arson was involved and rumors circulated that the fire had been started by a rival furnace company. However the rumors were never validated.
  School continued throughout that dismal winter after the fire in various store rooms. One class met in a building called the Eagle House, which stood where Sadie's Restaurant is now located. One of those pupils recalls, "That was the worst winter of my life - a wood stove with green wood and a woman teacher!"
  Even worse than the shock of the fire was the realization that the building had not been insured. One school board member reportedly did not believe in that new-fangled idea.
  Still paying for the building which burned, the town next year began constructing a new school. Pupils moved into the partially completed building the following year. However, a real hardship had been placed on the Ridgeville townspeople.
  This financial burden was felt intensely a few years later. Funds were so scarce that elementary teachers were paid as little as $20 per month. To alleviate the situation, an agreement was made between the school board and Ridgeville College whereby the college would offer high school courses to the Ridgeville students for $9 per year per student.
  This was most agreeable to Ridgeville College, a Congregational Church school founded in 1867 and supported by money from the East. The college was having difficulty meeting the enrollment required to obtain the financial support.
  Thus the high school was disbanded in  Another1900. But instead of solving the problems of the Ridgeville residents, the use of the college created a bitter feud which divided the community. Those parents favoring the action were opposed by parents who felt their children would be "ruined" by attending a denominational school. The dissidents sent their offspring to Winchester, Redkey or elsewhere, but not to the college.
  The feud continued for several years. One long-time resident comments, "Neighbor refused to speak to neighbor." Another goes so far as to say that those favoring the college were taking the risk of being insulted and even manhandled when they walked down the street.
  The hard feelings existing in the community against the college caused the eastern backers to withdraw their support, closing the college. The last class graduated May 30, 1901. Among the members of that class is Gail Bailey, who still lives in Ridgeville today.
  The college building housed the Just Chair Factory for four or five years, then the Lay Broom Factory until the Depression years. Now all that remains of Ridgeville College is the cornerstone mounted in a limestone pillar before the state highway department The school erected to replace the one which burned was torn down to make way for the present school, built in 1922.
  But the history of Ridgeville High School concerns more than a succession of buildings. It involves people.
  The lore of the Ridgeville school includes the first basketball team, formed in 1913. The boys practiced in baseball suits above the old brewery, now Cope's Feed Mill. The team played its first game against Farmland in the opera house above the drug store. Unfortunately the team lost by a score of 33 to 11.
  The 1920 team, coached by Ray Addington, made up for this first defeat by trouncing the Muncie Bearcats. Team members were Melvin Lafollette, Jack Carpenter, Herchill Rinker, Harold Pettyjohn, Francis McCartney, Kenneth Collins, Daryl Lemaux, Donald Nurname, Charles Allen and Glenn Carpenter.
  Ridgeville's team won its first sectional tourney in 1921 by defeating Jefferson with a score of 36 to 17. They also won in 1926, defeating Winchester 30 to 15, and in 1936 and 1938 at Hartford City. Stanton Cope, now a doctor in Huntington, was a member of this squad. He later became a college All-American.
  School secretary Eleanor Fisk recalls she was a student when the team won the sectional in 1936. The news of the victory had reached Ridgeville before the returning team and fans. As they approached Ridgeville the sky was glowing "as though the town were on fire."
  The townspeople had built a great bonfire in the center of town to celebrate. The firetruck met the layers at the edge of town and they rode into town atop the truck.
  This happiness was brief, however. At the regional the "Cossacks" lost their first game, against a Fort Wayne school.
  In 1927 a contest to select a name for the teams was won by Martha Lay Mendenhall who submitted "Cossacks."
  There have been many good years at the school, but like all good things this chapter in the town's history has come to an end. Next years students will have the opportunity to attend a modern, comprehensive high school more adequate for today's needs...and they will also have the chance to start a new tradition of their own.



Spartanburg, 1939. New Gym.

  Without a gymnasium for the past two years, during which time the Spartanburg basketball team played its home games at Whitewater and Lynn, the 1939 Spartans will play their first game in their new gym tonight. The McKinley Presidents will furnish the opposition.
  The new playing floor is 42 x 68 feet while the old one was seven feet narrower. The old stage was located at the south end of the playing floor and was about 20 feet wide and 15 feet deep while the new one is 40 feet wide and 20 feet deep. A heavy curtain has been put in place at the front of the stage.
  The new construction-remodeling program included the addition of a building to house the stage, which permitted the tearing down of the old ones and use of that space for bleachers. In the old gymnasium spectators were seated in a balcony almost 25 feet above the playing floor. This has been removed, the space below the balcony now forming a part of the playing floor. The new flooring was placed over the top of the old one after the latter had been treated. An electric timer has been placed and bleacher seats purchased for placing on the stage for basketball games. At stage shows, seats are placed upon the playing floor. Rubber tired trucks will be used to move chairs from the playing floor to storage compartments located beneath the stage.   Winchester Journal-Herald, Dec., 1939.



Farmland Census, 1887.

  The following is the census of Farmland as given in by the town clerk, H.T. Good, and published in the Times:

Whole number of souls.....825
Male.....407
Female.....409
Married.....130
Unmarried males.....188
Unmarried females.....204
Widows keeping house.....12
Widows living with others.....4
Widowers.....14
Domestics and boarders.....44
Number of dwellings.....185


Winchester, Best Grocery Adv., 1968.

  Our grocery is one of the oldest continuous business establishments in the county. Randolph county was a mere 49 years old when our grocery was started by Ed. Best, grandfather of Thomas as Thomas Best & Son, son being Ed. Best, father of James Best, later J.M. Best & Son. Though the grocery had to move several times in its 101 years, it is now in the same location that it started in.
  In 1944 Eddie and Ruby Henizer became partners with Ed. Best. After the death of Eddie, June 1963, Mary Shoopman, Conrad Shoopman and Ruby Henizer purchased Mr. Best's interest in the grocery and it is now known as Henizer & Shoopman, Grocery and Garden Center.
  The store has been modernized into a semi-super market, you may wait on yourself or we are glad to wait on you.
  We still have in stock a lot of the old time items, and in the bulk; however, they are getting fewer as most items now are pre-packaged.
  We stock- Groceries-Frozen Foods-Holland Bulbs-Fertilizer-Grass Seeds-Plants-Sprays and Equipment-Gold Fish and Supplies-Dozens of Old Time Items.

Henizer & Shoopman Grocery-108 W. Washington-Phone 21841-Winchester


Maxville, 1892.

  Last Friday there was a dinner and reunion of some of our oldest settlers at the residence of John W. Clayton, near Maxville. There were only ten people present and their combined ages amounted to 655 years. Their names and ages are as follows: Mrs. Solomon Semans, 78; Mrs. Mary Jane McIntyre, 72; Mrs. Henry McIntyre, 58; Simeon Brickley, 70; Samuel Clayton, 58; Mrs. Samuel Clayton, 62. Some of the reminiscences of the crowd may be interesting to our readers. Four of the number, viz; Mrs. Semans, Mrs Mary J. McIntyre, Henry McIntyre and Mrs. Brickley are brothers and sisters and children of Robinson McIntyre, who settled in this county in 1819, and moved with his family to Maxville in 1825 and laid out that village, living there until his death at the age of 86 years. Solomon Semans and wife were married and settled in Maxville about 1835; built the first store in the place; kept store and hotel there about twenty years, and the farm west of there until they sold it to Ira Branson in the year 1880. Mary Jane McIntyre is the widow of Alexander McIntyre. They were married and settled in Maxville in 1837 on the farm now owned by Robert Addington. They lived there until their removal, in 1862, to Farmland, where he died in 1885. Henry McIntyre has the distinction of being the oldest resident born and now living the county, having been born in 1820, on what is known as the old Stephen Huffman farm, three miles west of Winchester. He moved with his father to the farm on which he now lives in 1825, and has lived there continuously to this time, having been married in 1855. Simeon Brickley came to this county in 1843, married in 1846 and has lived in and near Maxville ever since. John W. Clayton was born in 1831, on the same spot where he now resides, and has lived there continuously ever since. Probably no other person in the county has such a record for "staying qualities" as Mr. Clayton. Samuel Clayton was born on the farm now occupied by his brother John; was married in 1856 and has lived on his present farm ever since. It is seldom a crowd of ten of our old settlers get together at a reunion who have lived so near to each other so long a time.   Farmland Enterprise, August 10, 1892.



Lee L. Driver New School Name. 1959

  Both senior and junior high schools of the Winchester - White River Metropolitan school district have been named after a former Randolph County superintendent. Decision on the name was made this week by the district school board, members of which also made the following "acting" administrative appointments for the 1959-60 school year.

High school principal - Robert G. Jones.
Junior high principal - John Robert Smith. Junior high students will be housed in the former White River high school building.
White River elementary principal - Thomas Johnson.
Oscar R. Baker principal - Dale Braun.
Morton principal - John Kidder.
Willard principal - Wayne Hinchman
Merritt H. Beck previously had been designated as acting superintendent of the new system.
In honoring Lee Driver, the board is paying tribute to a long-time educator oftentimes referred to as the "father" of rural school consolidation. It was early in his tenure as county superintendent that Driver was credited with the county's first consolidated school Lincoln, west of Winchester on St. Rd. 32.
  Dr. Driver was born in Stoney Creek Township and was educated in the Farmland school. He was graduated from Central Normal college at Danville in 1883, received his A.B. degree from Indiana University in 1919, his master's degree the same year from Earlham college and the degree of doctor from Wabash in 1921.
  Dr. Driver taught the Winchester eighth grade from 1895 to 1897, served as Winchester high school principal from 1901 to 1907, then became county superintendent, serving until 1920.   Winchester Journal-Herald, July, 1959.



Modoc Youth Dies At Maxville Pool. 1959.

  A coroner's inquest will be held next week to determine the exact cause of death of 16-year-old Ralph Duane Oxley Jr. of Modoc who was injured fatally in an accident late Thursday afternoon at the Maxville swimming pool.
  Randolph county deputy coroner Robert Elliott said Thursday night X-rays taken at the Randolph County hospital in Winchester revealed that Oxley suffered a fractured neck. Elliott said Oxley apparently died of the neck injury.
  The son of Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Oxley Sr. of Modoc route 1 was found in six feet of water a short time after being reported missing by his brother, Timmy, 13, who accompanied him to the pool, located about six miles west of Winchester on Ind. 32.
  Authorities Friday were still puzzled as to exactly how the tragedy occurred.
  Authorities first believed that the youth had drowned. A resuscitator from the Goodrich Park swimming pool in Winchester was rushed to the scene by the Winchester city police department.
  The youth was pulled from the Maxville pool at 4:45 p.m. Officials on the scene worked for nearly two hours, employing the resuscitator and artificial respiration in efforts to revive him.
  The Maxville pool is operated as the Maxville Recreation Club by owner Harold Hartley who acts as lifeguard when the pool is occupied.
  Farmland town marshal Ed Huddleston was one of the first to arrive at the scene. He said not more than a dozen persons were swimming at the time of the accident. No one reported seeing the accident occur.  It was reported that young Oxley had picked up a swimming mask about five to ten minutes before his body was found. No one saw the boy go into the pool after getting the mask.
  He would have been a junior at Union High School this autumn.   Winchester Journal Herald, Aug., 1959.