05/29/2026
100 Years Ago:
High Schools’ Growth Shown
Number of Graduates Rises from 3 to 74 in 18 Years
In the spring if 1909 the first high school class to graduate in Wallowa county left the county high school, then newly established. The class had three members. In this present spring of 1926 the five high schools of the county gave diplomas to 74 graduates. The astonishing growth of high school, education in the eighteen years explains much of the increase in the cost of public schools during the period.
High school graduates in the county for each year since 1909 have numbered thus:
1909…….. 3
1910…….. 5
1911……..16
1912……..29
1913……..18
1914……..32
1915……..33
1916……..35
1917……..52
1918……..44
1919……..21
1920……..47
1921 ……..42
1922……..55
1923……..53
1924……..59
1925……..67
1926……..74
The great drop in 1919 was due to the world war which took so many young men out of school. A couple of years after the county high school was established, other districts established high schools of their own and the county abolished its central high school in 1913.
It is not so long since the first eight grade graduates in the county received their diplomas, and all five in this original class are still living. Supt. J. C. Conley was then head of the county schools and gave out the diplomas. Five pupils of the Enterprise school, of which J. W. Kerns was principal, received the diplomas: Lester Imbler, Warren Forsythe, Alfred Gardner, Lesta Wagner and Jeanne Maris. That was in the year 1902, it is believed.
A small army of eight grade students took the state examination this month and their papers have not all been marked by the teachers who passed on them. The results thus far have been good and the majority of the pupils have earned their diplomas, which will be issued to them in a few days, when they will be informed by the superintendent of their grades.
Enterprise Record Chieftain
May 27, 1926
Images: E.H.S. Hi Life Senior Class 1926
Anna Collinsworth, Franciel Cummings, Hellen Lindley, Gena Ashley, Glen Payne, Edna Otto, Myrnie Clayton, Morgan Brace, Helen Scott, Grant Rinehart, Lydia Bue, Alice Amey, John Zurcher, George Bornstedt, Marie Reavis, Raymond Cannon, Grace Astwood, Ellen Beecher, Maurice Hartshorn, Margaret Baker, Anna Freels, Edward Davis, Violet Beecher, Theodore Juve, Calista Miller, Selma Lowick, George Cheney, Truman Day
