154. Randolph County Misc.

1961. Randolph County Has More TV's Than Bathtubs.

  It now has been statistically established thet residents of Randolph County have more television sets than bathtubs.
  This may begin the decline of the proud claim that Americans prefer cleanliness to everything else.
  The occasional citizen may jeer at the "boob-tube" and "idiot-box" but a short look at the figures will show that regardless of his words, the American in these parts prefers his home screen entertainment to bathtubs or showers. The margin is narrow, but the fact is plain.
  This somewhat surprising statistic is one of a group concerning Randolph county households just released by the U.S. Department of Commerce following it's housing census.
  In scanning these figures for items which contribute to better living, you are promptly impressed with the total triumph of television over all other things except flush toilets of which occupied housing units have 302 more than TV sets and automobiles which win by one more car owning household than units with televisions.
  There are 116 more living units with television than with radio and 689 more with television than with telephones.
  The survey finds that there are 9,752 dwelling units in the county, of which 9,082 are occupied. This leaves 670 unoccupied units. Of the occupied living units, to look at the negative side, 690 have no hot and cold running water, 702 have no flush toilets, 1,000 have no television and 999 have no automobiles.
  On the luxury side, however, of the 9,082 occupied units, 6,122 own one auto per unit, 1816 own two and 145 tycoons are the owners of three or more cars per housing unit. Of the total of 9,752, 7,057 living units were found in sound condition with all plumbing, and 460 are enjoying the hot weather luxury of air conditioning.
  Basements, once a must for every home, have declined in popularity, figures show. Of the total housing units, only 4,761 had basements.
  The Department of Commerce census takers found 187 families in Randolph county living in trailer homes.
  Home appliances to aid the housewife were found to be fairly numerous in the county, but the 7,541 units with washing machines were still far behind those with televisions. Of the total, 2,917 homes have clothes dryers, and a large number, 3,492, had one or more home freezers.
  Randolph county residents tend to be homeowners, as the statistics reveal, with 6,457 units occupied by owners and only 2,625 by renters. But rentals locally are not high, $64 per month being the median gross rent. Nor is the median value of properties high, the average being $7,800.
  The overall pivture, quickly scanned, appears to be that of a people who slightly prefer home entertainment to baths, who somewhat prefer the comfort of indoor toilets to entertainment, and just barely put transportation ahead of the evening TV show. It appears to indicate that Randolph county residents are a fairly solid lot who like to be homeowners and, with rare exception, live on a modest scale, both as owners and renters, with a good number of housewives doing their own washings and many thrifty wives making use of the deep-freeze.
  It would have been convenient if the Department of Commerce had gathered figures while it was at it, on the several trends, both local and national. For instance, how many homes own barbecue grills? How many power, as opposed to hand powered, lawnmowers are there? Are there more speedboats than there are two car families? But no matter how many statistics are available, it is quite apparent that the forest of television aerials is the new skyline of the United States, including Randolph county. The only question remaining is, what do those unfortunates living in the 1,000 homes with no television do in their spare time?   Winchester Journal-Herald, by Anna Marie Gibbons.
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1963.  Early McKinley School.

  A unique occasion will be observed on Saturday evening when the alumni of the old McKinley school holds their annual banquet.
  Scheduled for their fiftieth reunion will be the class of 1913, which is the first graduating class from a rural consolidated school in Randolph county and possibly the first from a rural consolidated school ever graduated in Indiana.
  Moreover, every single member of McKinley's class of 1913 is living and healthy and plans to be present at the reunion. Of course, the total class membership was only three to begin with, but all three are still very much in evidence.
  Members are David KABEL, Ethel MANN BALDWIN and Florence BECK, all in their late 60's.
  Possibly the rigors of getting to high school in the first place developed strong constitutions in the class of 1913. Two members walked at least a mile and a half daily to get to school; one Mrs. Baldwin, walked a total of three miles daily. "We really wanted an education in those days," Mrs. Baldwin recalls. "We were willing to walk a long way to get it."
  Mrs. Baldwin should know. In order to get to McKinley to complete her high school training she walked daily from the family farm four miles northwest of Winchester, to the east-west Interurban line, where she took the car east through Winchester. Getting off at White River station she then walked a mile to McKinley. Florence Beck, who lived a mile and a half south of Lincoln school and four miles west of Winchester, drove a buggy two miles to the Interurban line but the mile from White River crossing was covered on foot.
  Kabel, the tycoon of the trio, rode a bicycle when it was possible, and otherwise drove a buggy from the family farm a mile south of Winchester. As a break for gaining points with the faculty, he had as passengers in the buggy two teachers, Bessie STEVENSON and Minnie MERCHANT.
  Lincoln was the first rural consolidated school built in Randolph county, under a program sparked by the late Lee Driver, a program which became nationally, and even internationally, famous as a model for rural school consolidation at the time.
  However, Lincoln, built in 1908-09 did not graduate a senior class in 1913. Two of the 1913 class, Florence Beck and Ethel Mann, came from Lincoln on transfer to McKinley. Kabel first attended Winchester high school, then McKinley. (Until the rural consolidated high schools were complete, any county student within the area who wanted a high school education had to attend Winchester high school. Some boarded temporarily in town to do so.)
  Once at the new school, the students did not find any fewer rigors, or so it might seem to a modern-day student. Until McKinley was completed, the three classmates, who entered after two years in high school in their other schools, attended classes in the barn. "It was like a one-room," they recall. Was it cold in winter? Why, no. They had a stove and it was quite comfortable. McKinley was completed in December, 1911, they recall after which the class of 1913 moved from the barn to the new building.
  Although there will be other reunion classes at the McKinley alumni banquet, the class of 1913 will hold the place of honor. Florence Beck, who maintains a home in Winchester and is now engaged in sales work, also taught after high school graduation in one of the remaining county one-room schools, a tradition carried on by her nephew, the present Randolph-Central superintendent, Merritt BECK.
  She then attended Madam BLAKER's school at Indianapolis for a year's training, returning here to serve as Lincoln first grade teacher for four years.
  Ethel Mann Baldwin also taught in a one room school in White River township after graduation. Mrs. Baldwin is married to Russell R. Baldwin, and now lives four miles southeast of Winchester on the Greenville Road. Mrs. Baldwin is the only one of the class who has graduates of her own-her youngest son, Russell, is a Lincoln graduate. Another son, George jr., is a 25 year alumnus of McKinley. Two other children Louise Baldwin BARTLETT and Warren Baldwin are graduates of Green township high school.
  Kabel, who now lives in Winchester is a retired farm implement dealer.
  The 1913 graduates are not inveterate alumni banquet attendees, but feel that this is an occasion on which they must be present. They plan to reminisce about school days and brief younger alumni on how things were 50 years ago at the new McKinley school. With McKinley closed after the new White River school was built and the Winchester-White River merger, the 1913 trio form the first class of a limited group. It is bracketed by the lifetime of McKinley high school, first rural consolidated school to graduate a class, one of the first rural schools in the county to merge with other schools in the new, still incomplete school building and reorganization program aimed at again bringing this county up-to-date in the expanding school program of the state.
Randolph County Enterprise, May 16, 1963.
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1927.  Carlos Church Quilt Sells.

  The entertainment at the school building, Friday evening, was enjoyed by a crowded house. The Liberty orchestra furnished excellent music. Dora Francis CONWELL. Ina Mae MURRAY, Miss Naomi COX, Miss Marion WHITEHEAD and Miss Ruth NEWMAN gave readings and Misses Idona COX and Mary SWINDELL, and Ina MAE and Catherine MURRAY sang duets and Miss Esther OREN sang two beautiful solos accompanied at the piano by Miss Helen WHITEHEAD. Rev. N.H. THORNBURG, of Farmland, the pastor, gave a talk on the home, school and the church, after which the quilt sold at auction to Clyde CATEY for $76. Mr. Frank METZ of Winchester, who had given ten dollars to have his name in the center block, bid seventy-five dollars. Over sixty dollars had been realized for the names of church members and area folks that were sewn onto the quilt, making of over $135 which will be used for the church which is to be erected this summer. Home-made candy and pop-corn sold amounted to about eleven dollars. Those attending from a distance were Mr. and Mrs. Troy PUCKETT and W.F. Metz of Winchester; Mr. and Mrs. Carl MOORE, of Fountain City; Mr. and Mrs. Orville Miller and son Irvin, Mr. and Mrs. Earl ADAMSON and daughter, Frances, of Hagerstown; and Mr. and Mrs. Ray VANDERBURG, of Seattle, Washington.

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1962. Founders Day Preparation.

  Winchester will celebrate Founders Day July 17 through July 22. That much is an established fact.  How well the program is carried out and how beneficial it is to us as a community and as individuals, depends on us.
  There can be many advantages to the Founders Day celebration. It promises to be profitable financially, and if it is, the profits will be used for community betterment. It should stimulate local business.
  And it should give us all a more vivid impression of our beginnings as a city, and civic growth and change. Perhaps most significant of all, it will offer the best opportunity the community has ever had to work together for a successful enterprise of benefit to everyone.
  The committees, non-partisan, have the ball rolling; experienced professional help has been brought in to help guarantee success.
  Founders Day will be more than a street-fair, it will be a dramatization of history, but with plenty of fun on the side. The more people that pitch in and help, the bigger and better it will be, and the more fun.
  So let's get together, and really CELEBRATE!

March 12.   A $75 prize will be awarded to the man with the best beard at the Founders Day celebration in July.
  The announcement was made today by Bill BERTRAM, chairman of the celebration, who added that the barber's union will appoint a committee to judge beards.
  Barbers will also offer a long discontinued service, beard trimming and styling before the celebration. Men who have always had a secret yen to ornament their faces with whiskers can come into their own in the weeks leading up to the Founders Day week, the barbers point out.
  Further, those who plan to raise a crop of facial oenament are urged to begin soon, so that they will have ample time to work out the most becoming growth. It is the hope of the committee that weird beards, bushy beards and handsome beards will be among the varieties displayed.
  Also up for a $75 prize will be ladies costumes, the most appropriate historically, to be the winner. These costumes will be judged by a panel from women's dress shops it is understood.

May 26.   Winchester women have taken up the challenge offered by their menfolk and are preparing to spend Founders Day week in special costumes of their own. In answer to the men's fancy mustaches and beards, women of the community will appear in bonnets and gowns reminiscent of the pioneer women who first came to this area.
  Although their dainty gingham checks, sprigged cotton and frilled bonnets may be a bit fancier than those worn by their ancestors in these parts, women who have tried on the costumes look believably 19th century.
  Mrs. Helen MILLS, chairman of the women's costume committee, reports that there will be mother-and-daughter costumes available in matching colors, too. The dresses are made to be worn with hoops if preferred, although certainly pioneer women of Randolph county had to set aside their hoops for the hard farm work that filled their days.
  However, since Founders Day may be considered a state occasion, even the backwoods mothers would probably hunt up a set of hoops to wear with their Sunday homespun.
  Official title of the costumed ladies will be "Jubilee Belles," and each woman who buys a costume will be given a badge and certificate.


June 14.  The first session of Kangaroo Court in connection with the July Founders Day celebration will be held on the court house square.
  Men of the community are urged to wear their Founders Day hats, ties and Brothers of the Brush badges and attend the court.
  A vigilante committee will round up offenders and Bob HEASTON, as "Badlands Bean" will mete out justice.
  Later Friday evening, a street dance including both round and square dancing, will be held in the downtown area, beginning at 9 p.m. Live music will be featured.
  On Saturday morning, a special ceremony to "bury the razor" will be held in downtown Winchester, during which the Brothers of the Brush will hold an old-fashioned funeral complete with band and mourners. Heaston reported "After Saturday, he warned, "all smoothies" will be fair game.

























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