Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
When Milford had The Bomb, Claypool had an Aurora and the Beacon was in Beaver Dam.
The Bomb, The Aurora and The Beacon as well as Greyhound, Echo, Knight-Lites and The Blazer are names of local small school yearbooks.
The Research Library and Archives of the Historical Society has a number of yearbooks featuring Syracuse Yellow Jackets, Pierceton Cubs and Bourbon Comets and librarian Doug Mayer would like to have more.
"I'd like to fill in the blanks," Mayer said, "recapture those years and make them available for research."
A little reorganizing has placed all the yearbooks on two shelves in the library, on the west side of the Old Jail Museum. The books used to be shelved throughout various school records.
Accompanying the yearbooks is a card file with every senior indexed.
On special occasions. Mayer and others take advantage of the card file by surprising associates with their yearbook photos.
Donations of yearbooks are preferred, although there are some funds to make reasonable purchases. Donations are tax deductible. If a former Claypool Knight doesn't want to give up their edition, the librarian can make a good quality copy of the publication.
Mayer said the library has a few issues of school newspapers that add to the life and color of Kosciusko County when classes were small and communities rallied around the local school.
For example, "back in the day", seniors made predictions about each other in a humorous way, they listed their virtues and ambitions as well as their club affiliations. In the 1955 Atwood Greyhound, photographs of the senior class took up two pages for all nine members of the class.
Here's a list of yearbooks needed from each community: Atwood's Greyhound - 1938, 1942, 1951-54, 1958, 1959; Burket - anything; Beaver Dam's Beaver Beacon - all years prior to 1952; Claypool's Aurora and Knight-Lites - all years between 1919 and 1958, 1962 and 1963; Etna Green's Etna Echo - all years prior to 1947, plus 1949-1951, and 1953 onward; Leesburg's Ravelings of L.H.S., L.H.S. Hi-Lites and The Blazer - 1926, 1928, 1930-1947 and 1958; Mentone's Mentonette and Bulldog - all years prior to 1938, 1939-1955, 1956-1964, 1969 and 1971; Milford's The Bomb and Trojanette - all years prior to 1921 and 1922-1940, 1942-1946, 1948-1966; North Webster's Troy - all years prior to 1960, 1962 and 1964 onward; Pierceton's The Echoes - all years except 1957; Sidney - anything; Silver Lake's Vox Schola and The Rambler - 1948, 1950, 1953-1955, 1957-1959, 1961-1965; Syracuse's Junior High School Yellow Jacket and Kaleidoscope and Senior High School Pottawattamie and The Echo - all years from 1909 through 1960, 1962 and anything after 1963; Tippecanoe Valley School Corp.'s The Saga - all years after 1979; Warsaw's The Tiger - 1913-1916, 1918, 1964, 1976-1980, 1982 onward; Wawasee - 1977, 1978, 1980 onward; Whitko - all years from 1972 to present.
The Old Jail Museum and research library is at 121 Indiana St., Warsaw. For more information, call 574-269-1078.
