Graduation
~ by Jeff Tryon photo by Cindy Steele
On June 7, 2019, when about 140 Brown County High School seniors walk across the stage at Larry C. Banks Memorial gymnasium to receive their diplomas, they will be carrying on a tradition that has been going on here for well over a century.
It is not known when the earliest commencement ceremony took place in Brown County, but local historian Dorothy Bailey tells us that by 1872 one-room frame schoolhouses dotted the county, and by 1900 there were 73 of them.
It’ s not clear what, if any graduation exercises these early pioneer schools undertook, but the Brown County Historical Society has a copy of a program for the“ fifth annual” commencement exercises held at Jackson Township or Needmore“ Common School” on June 24, 1908.
Thirty graduates received their diplomas from county school superintendent William Coffey, an address was given by Professor R. Alley and the school band provided music.
By 1933, Nashville High School had been established, graduating 17 seniors in an April 21 ceremony held at the Nashville Christian church. The school superintendent was James Clements. Throughout the 1940s and 50s, seniors continued to graduate from individual county high schools— Nashville, Helmsburg High, and Van Buren High School.
Mary Meadows and Ruth Beach graduated from Helmsburg High in 1946.
Meadows recalls the boys wore blue gowns and the girls
wore white gowns trimmed in royal blue, the school colors.“ It wasn’ t hot, it was a nice day in April,” she said.“ We always got out in April because the kids had to help with the farm work and gardens.”
Ruth Beach remembers the ceremony was held in the gym of the old Helmsburg High School, and the Class of 1946, all 18 of them, filed in to“ Pomp and Circumstance.”
“ We weren’ t a big school” she said.“ There were usually about 15 or 20 in each class.”
“ There’ s still four of us left from that class of 1946, three girls and one boy.”
In May 1955, 26 seniors from Nashville High received their diplomas from Superintendent Claude Neidigh after being“ certified” by Principal H. E. Fields in a ceremony held in the NHS gym.
According to the program, the Nashville Band rendered“ March Number One‘ Land of Hope and Glory’ from‘ Pomp and Circumstance’ by Edward Elgar” and Indiana poet and humorist Barton Reese Pogue spoke.
In 1958, the Nashville High School commencement was held at the Nashville Christian Church. Superintendent Ira L. Huntington presented the diplomas after the senior class was presented by Principal Douglas Lowry. Eugene DeWees, later the long-time band director for Brown County Schools, provided organ music.
Jim Gredy was in one of the last classes to graduate from Nashville High, in 1959. Just the year before, he had been attending the old Van Buren High School before it was
62 Our Brown County • May / June 2019