My “Senior Year” at Snowflake Union High School was 1965‑66. Not too many things stand out as memorable in my senior year. Maybe my most memorable class that year was English. It was taught by a lady named “Miss Jones.” It was unusual to have a female teach English and even more unusual to have a “Miss” teach it. She was relatively fresh out of college herself and I think Snowflake was one of her first teaching positions. She actually tried to prepare us for the English we would take in college. We learned to write essays and research papers and we even learned some “Public Speaking” in her class. She played soft music during the time we were writing essays and that was also very unusual. I was glad she taught us something before I went off to college.
I also took German as an elective my senior year and enjoyed that. The teacher was Mr. Bates (Herr Bates). We learned little dialogues and practiced talking to each other and we had a lab with small cubicles with ear phones and microphones where Herr Bates could talk to us individually to help us practice or listen in while we were practicing with each other. I was an officer in FFA and I think also in Key Club that year.
One incident I remember from my senior year is seminary graduation. Our seminary teacher decided that for graduation we should learn the Tabernacle Choir version of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” We practiced and practiced and got pretty good at singing it with all the different parts: soprano, alto, tenor and bass. The seminary graduation was held in the Snowflake Stake Center and one of my good buddies was the organist who accompanied us on the large church organ. He was very good on the organ. I don’t remember exactly what happened, but about half way through the song, the lights went out, including the light on the organ. He never missed a beat and we kept right on singing to the end. He had memorized the music. It was pretty impressive to me. I still remember the bass part to “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” I wonder if the Tabernacle Choir would sound as good as we did that night if they had to sing in the dark?
I don’t remember too much about High School Graduation. At that time the graduates and their families attended a religious meeting called a “Baccalaureate Exercise” the Sunday evening before graduation. It was a routine part of the graduation activities. Some of the church leaders would give motivational talks. The regular graduation was held in the gym.
I look back on my high school years with good memories. I was glad to be finished with high school and move on to college, but I had a lot of good experiences in high school. I enjoyed the group I was with and I learned a lot from many of the teachers. They tried their best to teach us.