Tell School Reunions
Submitted byHelen Barley-Baros
Steve & Mary Rucker-Barley (10 children) were early residents of the SHORES CREEK
Community, which consolidated with the HIGH POINT School where Zada graduated. For
10th grade, students were moved to the TELL High School. J.D., Donald, Helen &
Clarence graduated from TELL School - J.D. who was older than Zada was given a chance
to play basketball at TELL which was his choice. Donald, Helen & Clarence had the
choice of going to CHILDRESS or TELL and never regretted their choice - Memories
survived "WWII" and the Reunion brought us back together. It has been a pleasure to
attend the TELL Reunions from 1979 to the closing in 2007. TELL was an exceptional
School -we knew everyone in school not "just our classmates" we were friends with the
first graders as well as the upper classes.
At one reunion - James Richardson asked people to relate stories of their school days
- in 1937 we did not have handicap ramps - Claude Cheatham had Polio and was on
crutches - the school had stairs to get into the upper classes. Asked how he managed
to get up the stairs for classes - he said he stood at the bottom of the stairs and
when the bell rang - a boy emerged on each side of him and put their arms under his
and carried him to class. Each time he had to use the stairs - the same was done to
enable him to go to the playground and was helped to get on the bus to go home. He
very seldom missed a Reunion.
My Class of 1939 celebrated their 50th Class Reunion arranged by Laura Smith (Plano,
TX), R.T. Spinks (Corpus Christi,TX) Wayne Pistole (Midwest City, OK) and Helen
Barley-Baros (San Diego, CA) with 11 of 21 students attending along with 3 teachers.
We continued attending and 6 of our class attending the Reunion of 2005 are still
keeping in touch with each other by phone in 2009. Also, I talk to 3 friends from 1st
grade at SHORES CREEK who chose to go from HIGH POINT to CHILDRESS to attend school.
Our family had - 5 brothers in US Service, 3 ARMY, 2 NAVY, however, 1 killed in the
Battle of the Bulge.
Our Education and Basketball was very important to kids on a farm in TEXAS.
Helen Barley-Baros 3560 Ottawa Ave. San Diego, CA 92117-5709 858-273-4554