Dallas Morning News, 6/3/1909, p.9

Sweetwater High School

  Special To the News.

            Sweetwater, Tex. June 2 – The closing exercises of the Sweetwater High School was the nit of the season.  The commencement sermon was preached in the Christian Church Sunday morning at 11 o’clock by Dr. Harris, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Texarkana, the graduating exercises being held in the opera house last evening, where a vast crowd of people assembled to witness them.

            Dr. Harris’ logic was unsurpassed, his flights of oratory and literary eloquence are seldom surpassed in the pulpit.  He has won the hearts and affections of our people.

            The program for the graduating exercises Monday night was a s follows: 

Invocation, Rev. M.S. Dunning; chorus, High School; salutory, “The Glorious Past and the Golden Future,” Josephine Sanders; violin Solo, Miss Harrison; oration, “Whither Are We Tending” Herman Harp; (a) “Venetian Love Song,” (b) “Gondollers” (Ethelbert Novein), Lilla May Dunning; “Il Trovatore” (Dorn), Ruth Bertram; essay, “The Influence of Music,” Ruth Elliott; Andante and Rondo from “Sonata in E” (Beethoven), Eula Kimbrough:  Class Prophecy, “Twenty Years Hence,” Leon Maner: valedictory, “Power of Literature,” Nell Eidson: annual address, S. Shaw: class song, High School: presentation of diplomas, scholarships and medals.

            There were six graduates from the High School this year: Gladys Nell Eidson, Josephine Lynette Sanders, Leon Hrady Maner, Ruth Lenore Elliott, Lilla May Dunning and Herman Houston Harp.

            It is safe to say that a finer set of young people hardly ever appeared before an audience on an occasion like this from any High School.  They showed that they had diligently applied themselves and that they had done splendid research on their subjects.  They seemed perfectly at home on the stage, and their manner of delivery was simply fine.  Their use of language is seldom equaled by High School pupils, and their articulation and pronunciation, coupled with the grace and ease with which they delivered their pieces, showed most excellent training.

            When the class filed up the aisle, led by Superintendent Johnson, the entire High School of undergraduates simply *made the welking ring* with High School college yells.  This was followed by yell after yell until the graduates were seated on the stange, and then climaxed with one of the finest yells the writer ever heard.  The whole audience seemed to catch the spirit and applause after applause went up.  It is safe to say that such a school spirit seldom possesses a set of students.

            After the address, Superintendent Johnson, in a few well-chosen words of thanks to the people and the board, was about to call for the class song which closed the program, when S. Shaw came forward and in a few words presented to the superintendent a fine solid gold watch charm, a present from the graduating class, as a token of their appreciation to him for his faithful and earnest work with them during the past years.  The token was too overwhelming to allow but a few remarks from Superintendent Johnson, but between him and them in their parting hour there showed a spirit of affection and friendship, which was real and true.

            This closed the third year of Superintendent Johnson’s administration as superintendent of our schools, but our people are to be congratulated on the fact that the School Board has elected him for a term of two years, and at a raise in salary.  This means that our school is in safe hands and that the curriculum will be raised until we shall rank among the best in the State.  As we now stand our school is affiliated with the University of Texas for121-2 units.  Our enrollment has more than doubled in three years.  We now have 137 scholastics enrolled for 1909-1910.  Our people are voting bonds to erect ward buildings, that we may accommodate the children.  And if the straws indicate the direction of the wind, Sweetwater is destined to be the great center of the great West.  With her splendid railroad facilities and her magnificent schools she is attracting people from far and wide.


* The word WELKIN means: The sky; heaven; the firmament.

We don’t use this much nowadays—dictionaries usually tag it as archaic or literary—except in the set phrase make the welkin ring, meaning to make a very loud sound. What supposedly rings in this situation is the vault of heaven, the bowl of the sky. In older cosmology this was thought to be one of a set of real crystal spheres that enclosed the Earth, to which the planets and stars were attached, so it would have been capable of ringing like a bell if you made enough noise. The word comes from the Old English wolcen, a cloud, related to the Dutch wolk and German Wolke. Very early on, for example in the epic poem Beowulf of about the eighth century AD, the phrase under wolcen meant under the sky or under heaven (the bard used the plural, wolcnum, but it’s the same word). Ever since, it has had a strong literary or poetic connection. It appears often in Shakespeare and also in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales: “This day in mirth and revel to dispend, / Till on the welkin shone the starres bright”. In 1739, a book with the title Hymns and Sacred Poems introduced one for Christmas written by Charles Wesley that began: “Hark! how all the welkin rings, / Glory to the King of kings”. If that seems a little familiar, it is because 15 years later it reappeared as “Hark! the herald-angels sing / Glory to the new born king”.

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The things you learn in genealogy.

  Submitted by:  Michael Lucks