Carrie's quilt "Lexington Public Schools and Oklahoma University"

 

                                                               Victor and Mabel's class

 
 

Lexington Public School
 

 

 

Elsie and Christine Olson were two of three in the first graduating class of Lexington High School

 
 
 
John Olson's class 

Lexington Public School used to be all in one building.  It was a red brick two story building holding grade school up to high school.  Mr. Rice, one of the most famous superintendents of Lexington, he was on the original faculty at Oklahoma University.  When they first started the University they had to have the children begin at the High School level because most of the young adults were not ready for college work.  

Around the red brick school in Lexington, farmers and neighbors let their cows graze around the school building.  Carrie's says they didn't have lawn mowers at that time.  Some people wanted to plant some trees around the school so they could tie their cattle to them and before you knew it the trees were lopsided, but several cows got their fill of grass!  

I was curious if she remembered the name of Mr. Rice correctly and sure enough Mr. William N. Rice was the one of the four original faculty members of the University of Oklahoma and it was also true that they started the kids off at the high school level.  I found the information from the "Sooner Magazine" published in September of 1942.  Here is the website for the magazine.   https://digital.libraries.ou.edu/sooner/articles/p5-8,50_1942v15n1_OCR.pdf 

 Here is a picture of the first four faculty members of Oklahoma University from that Sept. 1942 magazine, "Sooner Magazine".   Mr. Rice is the first person on the left in the photo.   Mr. Rice was the professor of ancient languages.  I am sure that meant Latin and Greek.  

Picture from the Sooner Magazine, September 1942  


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