B.A.'s gonna quit
A good man will leave the music department at Syracuse - Dunbar - Avoca at the close of the 1977-78 school year, but he leaves behind a highly successful program.
B.A. Johnson, bandmaster at Syracuse for 26 years, will retire. Mr. Johnson has been a true "fixture" of the music program at the school and has guided his students through many performances which have won firsts a whole lot of times.
Dale Duensing took over as instrumental director of the high schoolers while Mr. Johnson worked with the Junior High group in recent years.
Although he is retiring from daily music duties at the school, he won't be out of a job. His stature among the music professionals is well known and he is called upon many times as a judge. Betcha he really gets a busy schedule now.
He also has a piano and organ business and for many years has been tuning pianos. That business alone will keep him busy, so he actually isn't going to be very idle.
His basement recreation room is music-oriented and B.A. won't let your glass get empty while you're looking and reading.
We regret his retirement, but we wish him and wife, Sue, the very best. She has been "trucking" a school bus for 14 years, never had an accident, never been late and has never gotten stuck. (That's about the best woman driver I ever did know!)
The Rotator
On November 11, 1925, the first issue of the Rotator, Volume I, No. 1, was published by the Nebraska City Rotary Club. We came across the hardbound copy of the club's newsletters for the first couple of years and thought we'd share some of the news items:
The club had $1 in its treasury.
Under the heading "foreign news," the Rotator reported that Mark Kerns went to Dunbar and Fred Witt went to New Orleans. For the local news it was suggested that [illegible] the News-Press, owned by J.H. Sweet (a Rotarian, of course).
Committee assignments were explained this way:
"From time to time it will be the policy of this paper to print suggestions and comments on the work of various committees and it rather seems to us (whew . . . this musta been written by Dr. Stonecypher) that it behooves each Rotarian to read these because they will never know when they will have a committee job wished on them."
And then there was the conversation between Grove Porter and Dr. Charles Zimmerer.
"When he arrived Grove was pacing up and down the porch, apparently very anxious and nervous. Doc told him to control himself or take a walk through his orchard.
"But I'm scared to death," Grove said.
"You needn't be," replied Rotarian Zimmerer, "I've brought more than 2,000 babies into the world and I haven't yet lost a father."
Well, hello there
A belated welcome to new business goes to Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Hermann, owners of Arbor Liquor at 615 Central Avenue.
Gene and his wife meet each other coming and going these days. He operates the Woerner Oil Co. north of town and she runs the Central Avenue business.
Although the service station business is enough to keep them busy, the energetic family wanted to stretch, "go into business for ourselves."
They're blessed with three children; Jody, 16; Julie, 14 and Jill, 12. They are helped with the business operation by Mr. and Mrs. Dean Duncan who operated Dean's cafe for so many years.
We wish you much success.
The Grand Champeen
A number of years ago Bill Berger claimed his Black Walnut tree at 523 No. 16th St., was the largest tree in the state and anyone who claimed otherwise was "nuts."
Well, Bill ole' buddy-buddy, it seems-you've been topped.
The Nebraska Tree Champion award went to a man in Glenville, Nebr., for the biggest Black Walnut in the state, measuring 14 feet, three inches in circumference, 77 feet tall and a 91 foot crown.
I argued in your defense, ole' hoss, charging that when we measured your tree, your three sons were little fellers, and they've grown two or three feet and surely the tree grew just as much in that short span of time.
No one ever pays attention to my suggestions.