Temple Museum Update

Below is a letter we sent to Temple Museum Association members and to past Temple Tribune subscribers.

We’ve made headway towards repairing and improving the building to serve as an archive. I believe it will be a facility to preserve the story of the community’s people from the pioneer to the present. We welcome donations and new memberships. --Harold

 

TEMPLE MUSEUM ASSOCIATION

P. O. Box 234, Temple, OK 73568

September 2008

Dear Friend,

The purpose of this letter is to ask you to renew or take a membership in the Temple Museum Association.  Plans for the Museum have moved ahead with Jay Driskill’s gift of the old cleaners building.  We are repairing and improving it to become an archive for storage and display of written and photographic community history.  Funds for this are about depleted.  We need your membership and donations.  Annual memberships remain $25 for individual and $35 for family.  Contributions are tax deductible.

The archive will consist of a timeline of photographs, files of family histories, genealogy and communications.  When funding permits we will have a microfilm reader and microfilms of all issues of the Temple Tribune and Walters Herald available from Oklahoma Historical Society. 

I have shown the old blacksmith shop to the administrator of Lawton’s Great Plains Museum.  He said, “I wish I had that at Lawton.”  He has offered advice and assistance from himself and his staff.  Restoring the shop will require a much larger investment than the archive building.  We think that the archive will give the Association credibility for a grant.

Temple Tribune, Inc. stockholders (Bob Hale, Bobby Waller, Bill & Merlene Bean, Harold & Lois Powell, Max Edwards, Edward & Claudine Northcutt, Roger Norman, Jerry & Sylvia Fetters) donated their Tribune stock to the Temple Museum Association. Computer equipment, knowledge and contacts are available at a bargain price to anyone wishing to restart the Tribune. Could be a retirement job for a couple wishing to return to their roots.  Housing is economical in Temple.

We have started a blog to share information with residents and former residents. It also includes occasional updates on the museum. Visit the blog at www.templetribune.blogspot.com

Harold Powell, President

 

 

 

Bad Decisions Remembered From the Class of '52?

Jerry Bowles, THS class of 1952 writes from his home on Lake Martin, Eclectic, Alabama. He was my neighbor and buddy about from birth on. --Harold Powell

Every thing is going well here. I stay busy doing flowers, yard, and working on things. I have pretty much finished remodeling the inside and out side of my lake house. I am taking some time off to enjoy the fruits of my labor. I have had several groups here for parties this summer and that helps to keep me motivated. Otherwise being that I am 75 years young now, it is much easier to put things off. I was sorry to hear that Alfred Poemoceah died. I remember his playing basketball so well. He was quick as a cat and was always stealing basketballs from the other teams. When he was a senior, in the state playoffs, we lost to Mangum by 2 points and they won the state championship.

I remember Sue Wilson being in the band. The things that I remember about being in the band go way past the things that she told about.

The highlight of my band experience was as senior and finally having the seniority to sit on the back two rows of the band bus. A lot of stuff went on back there. We took a lot of teasing from the football studs about being sissies and being in the band. I told them that while they were on the football bus holding their helmets, we were on the band bus holding their girls.

My strongest memory and lesson well learned was when we were in the band room waiting to go out and play for a football game. Norma Jean Reece played the snare drums. She was standing with her back to me and I poked her in the butt. Bad decision. I didn't know that she had a drum stick in her hand. I soon found out as she turned and whacked me on top of the head.

The two band directors that I remember are Mr. Neaderhiser and Mr. Powell. Mr. Neaderhiser was tough on us and would carry a clipboard around and scream, holler, and shout 4 letter words at us. We did end up having a pretty good band. Mr. Neaderhiser went to Midwest City and the School hired Mr. Powell.

Mr. Powell was sort of a wimp and we took advantage of him. Our senior year he was having us play some slow arrangement. Vonden Richardson played the bass tuba and I played the trombone. We decided to liven things up and started playing Bartlesville Boogie underneath the rest of the band. Yes, Mr. Powell did get upset and said if you can't play right go to study hall. Vonden got up and put his horn in the storage room and I did also. We didn't go to study hall; we went to the drug store down town. Bad decision. We both got our butts chew out and whipped. That was the only whipping that I ever got in school.

Being in the band was a good experience and a lot of fun. We went to a many band festivals and got to march at Norman and see OU play football, MSU at Wichita Falls, and Cameron in Lawton. Later on in life, I became involved in ballroom dancing. Being in the band and knowing the basic of music and how to count music really made learning to dance much easier. I'm still dancing today because “my song is not sung, my bell is not rung and my dancing is not done”. I'll have to admit that my fling is pretty much done.

-Jerry Bowles, THS Class 1952

Groundbreaking for First Baptist Church Building

The First Baptist Church education building and the old parsonage, built in 1921, met the wrecking ball a few weeks ago. Pastor Jay Driskill says an education building will cover the site soon. A fire from a lightening storm June 13, 2007, rendered the old building unusable. Insurance proceeds will cover the cost of the new building. A groundbreaking ceremony was held August 31.

Football Queen of 1956

Vickie's memories of Temple High School band brought back fond memories for another Temple alum, Vera Sue Wilson Golden.

Thanks, Sue for sharing your fascinating story of the life of a high school band member and football queen. I bet that D.T. Stogner and Clinton Hart were thrilled to escort and crown you – the lovely football queen. I'm sharing your comment below:

The piece about “The Secret Life of Temple Bank Member brought back some memories. I too was a Temple Tiger Marching Bank member. I started very early and stayed with it until I graduated in 1956. My instrument was the flute. I enjoyed playing but I never did achieve ‘greatness’ on that instrument. The flute could be twirled, lake a baton, and I spent as much time doing that as I did playing the thing. My Mom and Dad gave up hard earned money for that instrument and I should have put my heart and soul into learning how to play as well as possible. I don’t have many regrets, but that is one of them.

We had several directors through those years and I cannot recall all their names. One left in the middle of the year to join the army I believe. I guess we were a challenge that he didn’t want to deal with.

Vickie mentioned football queens in her article. In 1956 I was the Temple Tiger football queen. It was an honor that I didn’t expect but certainly enjoyed receiving. Usually the queen is escorted by one guy. For some reason that year two escorts were chosen. D.T. Stogner and Clinton Hart were my escorts and we didn’t ride in a convertible. We went in an enclosed car.
In those days football players were the escorts for the queen and her court. If the field happened to be muddy that night the buys would be covered in mud, grass and sometimes a bit of blood. Getting a kiss from your escort was a thrill, even if he had mud on his mouth.

When I was growing up I thought Temple, Oklahoma was probably the only place on earth that really mattered. Time took care of that particular feeling but I still have fond memories of those years spent living in that “Quiaint Town in Southern Oklahoma”
--Vera Sue Wilson Golden

Glen Norman Turns 90

Many Normans and others of the Temple community celebrated Glen Norman's 90th birthday Saturday, August 30. Brother Floyd came down from Muskogee to help celebrate. Floyd graduated Temple High in 1936 and Glen in 1937.

Universal Band Experience

I wasn't surprised Vickie Nowlin received strong response to her memories of Temple High School band and cheerleading. Here's a message from Nowlin's friend, Sherri, Martinez Logan, who went to school in Carnegie, Oklahoma, and now teaches music in Norman schools. It seems these are universal experiences:

Wow! Vickie that was just great! I think most schools in S.W. Oklahoma must have had a similar routine and protocol of "game night" and "the pep rally". We did. As I read it, I could visualize our Carnegie High School Wildcat band and our game format exactly as you wrote. The only difference for me was that I was one of those drummers and we KNEW we had the power to turn the air electric with our cadences and throbbing beat. Doesn't it make perfect sense that I was a percussionist?

And we in the drum core marched with a smug confidence that the rim cadence was only a foreshadow of what we were going to unleash when we went into full drum cadence. Also, remember "the round off"? That was the drum cadence introduction that followed the Drum Major's whistle for "horns up" and set the tempo to almost every march we played. (As I remember it now I still get chills.) lol And.....I can still play it and our marching cadences. lol What a silly but important memory.