BUCHANAN HIGH SCHOOL 1910-1919

Buchanan High School from 1871-1922 on West Chicago Street, Buchanan, Michigan
  • As early as 1911, the University of Michigan recommended a better building and improved salaries for teachers. It would take another decade before Buchanan built the second high school in 1922.
  • In 1914, Mrs. Ida Rice was elected to the Board of Education, perhaps the first woman to be elected to such a position.  Michigan did not allow women to vote in state elections until 1918, however. It should be noted that Mrs. Rice served as a Board of Education member until 1947, a third of a century. Buchanan Board of Education members included at least one female member from 1914 to the present. Mr. Al Flenar was the chief engineer [custodian] at Buchanan Schools and continued in that position until 1946—31 years. Mr. Flenar knew all who entered the building and kept both the old school and the new school humming. By 1954 it took eight custodians to keep the school in such tip top shape.
  • Boys basketball played on top floor of Rough Opera House at first until 1917 in downtown Buchanan. In 1917, basketball games and other activities moved to the Clark Equipment Auditorium.
  • Once again in 1918 the University of Michigan recommended to the Buchanan Board of Education a new and adequate building for 1919-1920 school year. In addition, the university recommended more vocational opportunities for students.
  • Buchanan High School experienced World War I in 1918, which left only one young man and eight girls to graduate.  Five young men left school early to serve yet several returned to graduate after the war.  Those who served were Arthur Mann, George Murphy, Arthur Morley, and Roscoe Snyder.  The fifth to serve and later to graduate, Donald Pears, became the Berrien County Juvenile Probation Officer by 1940.  He later served as the Speaker of the Michigan House of Representatives, an honor few communities can say about their graduate.  
  • In 1919, the Agriculture Club organized for the purpose of promoting agriculture and agricultural conditions.  All students could join the high school organization.

Classes offered [partial list]

  • Advanced U.S. History
  • Agriculture
  • Algebra
  • American History
  • American Literature
  • Ancient History
  • Arithmetic
  • Business English
  • Botany
  • Caesar
  • Chemistry
  • Civics
  • Commercial Arithmetic
  • Commercial English
  • Commercial Geography
  • Commercial Law
  • Community Civics
  • Composition
  • English Grammar
  • English Literature
  • French
  • General History
  • General Science
  • Latin 1
  • Latin Grammar
  • Literature
  • Modern History
  • Music
  • Pedagogy  
  • Penmanship and Spelling
  • Physical Geography
  • Physics
  • Physiology
  • Plain Geometry
  • Rhetoric
  • Sewing
  • Shorthand
  • Solid Geometry  
  • Spelling
  • Trigonometry
  • Typewriting
  • U.S. History and Civics
  • Virgil
  • Zoology
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