Class Grumbler

Senior classes over the decades have had traditions of bestowing pet labels for specific individual members, as well as their official mascots and class insignia.

It was fun to find this tear sheet, a reprint of the graduation program on May 2, 1919, of the Fort Meade, Florida, High School. While some schools in more recent years saw their senior class designate members who were “class clown” or “most likely to succeed,” for their program, the class of 1919 chose someone to read the Class Will and the Class Prophecy.

I found the reprinted page from the original graduation ceremony among my grandmother’s personal papers. It took a while to piece together the story of the event, as it was saved in the same general place as the items I’ve just shared with you over the last few days on the special commemoration of the student body of 1912.

A little explanation is in order here, once you realize that we are talking about the Class of 1919 instead of the Student Body of 1912. The program I’ve posted below comes from an earlier event, which my grandmother, Rubie McClellan Davis, was able to attend. This event, too, came with its own set of memorabilia—not sent by mail from a dear friend as the later event had been, but brought back home to Columbus, Ohio, after a wonderful trip down memory lane in Rubie’s childhood home in Florida.

The event I detailed in previous posts seemed to be all-inclusive in its reach, hoping to bring in anybody who had attended the Junior-Senior High School in the year 1912. This reunion I’m describing now occurred on Wednesday, October 5, 1977, specifically for the graduates of the class of 1919.

You might be—as I was—tickled to see the official designation for Rubie’s good friend who had shared letters with her of so many mementos of the Student Body of 1912 event. Zemla Doke was listed on the graduation program of May 2, 1919, as the Class Grumbler.

Wonder what she grumbled about…

FORT    MEADE    HIGH    SCHOOL

GRADUATING  EXERCISES

May 2, 1919

HIGH  SCHOOL  AUDITORIUM

P R O G R A M

March…………………….Miss Florence Ley

Invocation……………………..Rev. E. F. Ley

Piano Duet…………….Evelyn Keen and Inez Prine

Class History…………….Nolie Bryan

Class Grumbler……………Zemla Doke

Class Will…………………..Lottie Hollingsworth

Vocal Solo……………….Miss Theresa Yearwood

Class Declaimer……………….Lucile Brice

Class Oration………………….Bernard Meek

Class Prophecy……………Elizabeth Morgan