It was the good ship Stivers High,

That sailed upon life’s churning seas.

Her sails were set,

Her spirits high-

A gallant crew had she.

Her port was for a distant shore,

Her goal ideals attained.

And every year that she had sailed:

New laurels she had gained.

Sail on, sail on Stivers high:

Heave ho! Lads with a joyous cry.

Good luck! Good luck Stives High-

Sail on Stivers High.

jtr

I hope you could almost feel the rhyming coming through that almost makes you feel like busting into song because this is what I remember of what we learned as our school song back in the 1950s. No I was not in the school choir, but we did sing the song often enough at assemblies that it stuck in my head. If I have a faulty memory for that, Maybe one of two classmates from My Dayton, Ohio alma mater who live close by me here in Minnesota will happen to catch this publication and make corrections to it.

The two classmates were not only fellow high school graduates, but they were also elementary school classmates. One lives in Isanti, Minnesota and the other lives in North Dakota and I keep in touch with them a couple of times a year — It is a small world!

Last Weekender’s Independent had the heading, ‘Forever be Tigers” quoting Danielle Ewing from this year’s commencement address even though she also mentioned it would be strange to think about it being her last day as a Marshall Tiger.

Let me assure you, Danielle, you have the right to call yourself a tiger forever. I also am a tiger though it is not mentioned in the poem of the beginning of this column. In an earlier column, I mentioned that when I went to Stivers in the 1950s, I was a member with about ten other guys in the Royal Bengals. A competing club was the Ten Tigers and I usually don’t admit that in the four years we competed in basketball, that I don’t remember ever beating them. I think, however, that we did a little better at flag football. At the time (as a freshman), I was well over 200 lbs and a bit slower at running, but often positioned myself to trap an open player.

jtr

One of the organizations that was big in later elementary school was that of cub scouts and leading to boy scouts at age 11.5. Most of you probably recall that there were animal mascots to signify moving up in rank after the rank of tenderfoot. There were wolves, bears, and lions each with different requirements to determine progression and there were certain requirements to pass from one designation to the next so that when becoming a full fledged boy scout you could become a second class scout and then a first class scout before the higher ranks of star, life and eventually eagle scout considered the top rank.

jtr

Most mascots for high school sports teams seem to be named after animals. I was unable to find a definitive list of the most popular names, but I did find several lists that seemed to make a case for possibilities. One such list is:

Eagles

Bull dogs

Tigers (hey, we’re up there someplace!)

Vikings (hey, are vikings animals?)

Wildcats

Cougars

Panthers

Then there are other classifications that seem to encompass various human groups:

Broncos

Captains

Pilots

Conquerors

Monarchs

Knights

Buccaneers

Until next time: Oh, Fiddlesticks!