Horace Mann graduates hold final reunion

By Phil Cobb | November 21, 2023 |

NODAWAY COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Herb Dieterich is shown in this undated photo that was published in Brandon Falcone’s “Transitions.”

MARYVILLE, Mo. — For more than 60 years, graduates of Horace Mann High School in Maryville have met each year, keeping the memory of the old school alive. But this year was the last, the group decided.

According to a news release from the organizers, 16 graduates of the school, which shut down after 1960, and six guests attended the reunion at the Eagles Aerie south of Maryville.

According to a history provided by the group, the laboratory school originally known as College High School was established in 1910 to give students at the Fifth District Normal School, now Northwest Missouri State University, experience teaching older students.

By 1928, the school had 85 students enrolled, who made their way to the school however they could from outlying areas around Maryville — some boarding in private homes and other riding to class on horseback.

Key to the school’s success, the group said, was longtime principal Herb R. Dieterich, who was beloved by students during his entire tenure as principal from 1928 until the school’s closure. The high school’s first yearbook, titled “Memories,” was dedicated to Dieterich, who was described as a principal, adviser and friend.

“He was a just and fair principal, never played favorites,” the group of graduates noted.

In the early 1930s, the university began providing free bus transportation, and enrollment skyrocketed to 235.

In 1939, the Horace Mann building and the Wells Library were built using funds from the Works Progress Administration. A year later, students moved from the bottom floor of the Administration Building into the new facilities at what is now Everett W. Brown Education Hall.

Students at Horace Mann had access to privileges that other students around the county did not, with the chance to attend weekly college assembly programs and access to the university’s swimming pool, track, tennis courts, industrial building and other facilities while under the supervision of prospective teachers.

“I often wondered why our swimming classes were always in the dead of winter,” said Jacqueline K. (Bosch) Wardrobe in a remembrance accompanying the news release announcing the alumni group’s last reunion. “We would walk from the pool to the Horace Mann building with icicles in our hair.”

The Navy had training programs on the campus; they were boarded in the ladies’ residence hall.

“They were quite impressive as they marched from classroom to classroom, usually calling out ‘one, two, three, four,’ in lines of two or three, whatever sidewalk (accommodated) their formation,” Wardrobe wrote.

Then in the ’50s, veterans returned to campus. On April 28, 1951, there was an explosion in the residence hall and Navy students helped with the evacuation. One girl died in the explosion, the alumni group’s history detailed.

The Horace Mann basketball team went to state in 1953 and a year later the school saw 72 student teachers. Coach Burton Richey was able to get his basketball team to the state tournament where they took second place. He had been a student at the school before becoming a teacher there.

In 1959, Eleanor Roosevelt was a guest speaker at an assembly.

“It was quite an honor,” Wardrobe wrote.

On April 11, 1960, the school announced Horace Mann High School would not open again the following fall. A 1959 reorganization and consolidation of school districts across the county had helped to drive down enrollment to only 100 for the 1961 year. Current students were then moved to other high schools in their respective areas to finish their education.

Scholarship funds collected by the alumni group were transferred to a larger Dieterich Scholarship Fund, named after the principal who had had such a large impact on decades of the school’s graduates. The group gave two juniors and three seniors interested in pursuing education scholarships from the funds. No students were selected for the foreseeable future.

“Thus we wish all who attended Horace Mann High School and the annual dinners and meetings in the past years, our ‘Best Blessings,’” Wardrobe wrote. “Those of us who were chairman of the dinners are grateful for the honor. Time waits for no one, so we all have to move along to our appointed fates. Here’s hoping there are many more years to come. It was an adventure, one that will live long in our memories.”