Category: Howe News Bulletin

Howe Messenger, Nov. 3, 1939

Five Students Hurt as Science Room Wrecked

TWENTY-FIVE STUDENTS AND TEACHER SCATTERED AS BLAST COMES

Jack Calloway, the most seriously injured of the five students was returned to the hospital Wednesday morning where he is being fed through his nose.  His condition was reported showing improvement as we went to press. The other four injured are rapidly recovering. 

Twenty-five members of the Howe freshman class miraculously escaped death or serious injury about 9:30 Tuesday morning when a gas explosion rocked the science room in the northeast corner of the school building.  Jack Calloway was the most seriously injured suffering a fractured chin, dislocated jaw and cuts and bruises.  Three others, Mary Jane Boozer, Hanzel Smith and John Robert Coleman received cuts and bruises about the face and Charles Rose was cut on the legs.

Calloway, Smith and Coleman were taken to Sherman for treatment, X-rays being made of Calloway’s injuries.  They were returned to their homes about noon.  The Boozer girl and Rose were given treatment by Howe physicians.  The room in which the students were assembled was a shambles with chairs, tables and laboratory equipment scattered all over the floor.  All windows on the north side were blown out, even the frames being splintered by the blast.  The floor was buckled in the center of the room and an built-in cabinet along the east wall was badly wrecked.  The south wall, a plaster partition was blown outward, the top being seven or eight inches out of line.  The explosion evidently raised the ceiling off this wall before it was pushed out as nails from ceiling joists were not bent by the movement of the wall.  More than half of the composition paneled ceiling fell to the floor.  The door leading into the hall was blown from the hinges. 

Students seated in the rear of the room stated that the blast came without warning and that those in the front of the room including the teacher, Chas. R. Thompson, were thrown to the ceiling, together with tables and chairs.  There was no flash of fire reported. 

A desk and safe in the principal’s office, just west of the room in which the blast occurred, were shifted about and a typewriter was hurled from the top of the desk to the floor and broken.  The door of the safe was opened by the concussion. 

The commercial room in the northwest corner of the building was also damaged, the floor buckled upward in the center, several window paned were broken out and the south partition wall slightly forced outward.  Typewriters were thrown to the floor and desks overturned and all but one or two of the machines were broken. No one was in this room at the time of the explosion. 

One class had already been held in the science room and the second had been in progress about ten minutes.  W.B. Montgomery was in charge of the first class and stated that the odor of gas was noticed and that he ordered the windows raised.  A fire had been burning in the room heater since early in the morning, Chas. Sollis, building caretaker said.  The heaters are a radiant type.

An investigation to determine cause of the gas accumulation under the floor was started immediately and a break was found in the gas line feeding this room.  The break in the line was outside the building, the leaking gas sifting through cracks in the ground caused by extremely dry weather.  The leak was small, a meter reading showing that only 23,000 feet of gas including that burned by about 20 stoves, had gone into the building lines since the last meter reading on October 10.  It was presumed that the gas was ignited by the room heater, the accumulation gradually spreading until it came in contact with the flame. 

Cause of the break in the line has not yet been definitely determined, although school officials are inclined to believe that there may have been some faulty workmanship in the laying of the lines.  It was first thought that the line may have been broken by settling of the building but an inspection of the corner at which the break occurred failed to show any drop in the building.  That shifting of the ground during the drouth, a characteristic of Texas blackland may have twisted the pipe sufficiently to cause the break is also a possibility.  Plumbing for the building which was completed just about a year ago at the cost of $56,000 was done by a Dallas plumber, school officials state.  A thorough inspection of all connections in the heating system is to be made. 

$56,000 Building One Year Old

The Howe school building which was badly damaged by an explosion Tuesday morning was completed in September 1938 at a cost of more than $56,000.  Of this amount, $25,000 was furnished by the district through sales of bonds, the remainder being supplied by WPA.  The building is considered a model for WPA construction and is referred to as being the pride of the WPA office of district. 

Although school officials were inclined to believe the damage to be slight, and probably more to equipment than to the building, Hoke Smith, a Dallas architect who designed the building, told them late Tuesday he feared they had more damage to the building than surface appearances might indicate.  No effort was made Tuesday to estimate the damages.

C.E. Wheat said Friday that damage to the typewriters had been established at $500.  An estimate of the building damage is to be made Monday, he said. 

No explosion insurance was carried on the building, C.E. Wheat chairman of the board said.  Faith in the efficiency in the gas installation was believed to have precluded the need for such insurance, although, ironically enough the building was protected against damage war insurrection or rioting.  

The board discussed the possibility of obtaining WPA assistance in making repairs but were inclined to believe there might be considerable delay until informed by the architect that approximately $2,000 of the original WPA grant for the building and athletic field was unexpended. 

The board of trustees decided Tuesday afternoon that school will not be resumed until Monday, in order that a thorough inspection of the remainder of the building might be made, and repairs to the damaged portion be nearly complete as possible.

From the Nocona News

Oct. 25, 1918

What is Spanish Influenza?  Is it something new?  Does it come from Spain?

The disease now occurring in this country and called “Spanish Influenza” resembled a very contagious kind of “cold” accompanied by fever, pains in the head, eyes, ears, back, or other parts of the body, and a feeling of severe sickness.  In most cases, the symptoms disappear after three or four days, the patient then rapidly recovering; some of the patients, however, develop pneumonia, or inflammation of the ear, or meningitis, and many of these complicated cases die. Whether this so-called “Spanish Influenza” is identical with the epidemics of influenza of earlier years is not yet known.

Epidemics of influenza have visited this country since 1647.  It is interesting to know that this first epidemic was brought here from Valencia, Spain.  Since that time, there have been numerous epidemics of the disease.  In 1889 and 1890 an epidemic of influenza, starting somewhere in the Orient, spread first to Russia, and thence over practically the entire civilized world.  Three years later there was another flare-up of the disease.  Both times, the epidemic spread widely over the United States.

Although the present epidemic is called “Spanish Influenza,” there is no reason to believe it originated in Spain.  Some writers who have studied the question believe that the epidemic came from the Orient and they call attention to the fact that the Germans mention the disease as occurring along the eastern front in the summer and fall of 1917. 

How can “Spanish Influenza” be recognized?

There is as yet no certain way in which a single case of “Spanish Influenza” can be recognized; on the other hand, recognition is easy where there is a group of cases.  In contrast to the outbreaks of ordinary colds, which usually occur in the cold months, epidemics of influenza may occur may occur at any season of the year, thus the present epidemic raged most intensely in Europe in May, June, and July.  Moreover, in the case of ordinary colds, the general symptoms (fever, pain, depression) are by no means as severe or as sudden in their onset as they are in influenza.  Finally, ordinary colds do not spread through the community so rapidly or so extensively as does influenza. 

In most cases a person taken sick with influenza feels sick rather suddenly.  He feels weak, has pains in the eyes, ears, head, or back and may be sore all over.  Many patients feel dizzy, some vomit.  Most of the patients complain of feeling chilly, and with this comes a fever in which the temperature rises to 100 to 104.  In most cases, the pulse remains relatively slow. 

In appearance one is struck by the fact that the patient looks sick.  His eyes and the inner side of his eyelids may be slightly “blood-shot” or “congested,” as the doctors say.  There may be some running of the nose, or there may be some cough.  These signs of a cold may not be marked; nevertheless, the patient looks and feels very sick.

In addition to the appearance and the symptoms already described, examination of the patient’s blood may aid the physician in recognizing “Spanish Influenza,” for it has been found that in this disease the number of white corpuscles show little or no increase above the normal.  It is possible that the laboratory investigations now being made through the National Research Council and the United States Hygienic Laboratory will furnish a more certain way in which the individual cases of this disease can be recognized. 

What is the course of the disease?  Do people die from it?

Ordinarily, the fever lasts three or four days and the patient recovers.  But while the proportion of deaths in the present epidemic has generally been low, in some places the outbreak has been severe and deaths have been numerous.  When death occurs, it is usually a result of a complication. 

What causes the disease and how is it spread?

Bacteriologists who have studied influenza epidemics in the past have found in many cases a very small rod-shaped germ called, after its discoverer, Pfeiffer’s bacillus.  In other cases of apparently the same kind of disease there were found pneumococci, the germs of lobar pneumonia.  Still others have been caused by streptococci, and by other germs with long names.

No matter what particular kind of germ causes the epidemic, it is now believed that influenza is always spread from person to person, the germs being carried with the air along with very small droplets of mucus, expelled by coughing or sneezing, or forceful talking, and the like by one who already has the germs of the disease.  They may also be carried about in the air in the form of dust coming from dried mucus, from coughing or sneezing, or from careless people who spit on the floor and on the sidewalk.  As in most other catching the diseases, a person who has only a mild attack of the disease himself may give a very severe attack to others.

What should be done by those who catch the disease?

It is very important that everyone that becomes sick with influenza should go home at once and go to bed.  This will help keep away dangerous complications and will, at the same time, keep the patient from scattering the disease far and wide.  It is highly desirable that no one be allowed to sleep in the same room with the patient.  In fact, no one but the nurse should be allowed in the room. 

If there is a cough and sputum or running of the eyes and nose, care should be taken that all such discharges are collected on bits gauze or rag or paper napkins and burned.  If the patient complains of fever and headache, he should be given water to drink, a cold compress to the forehead, and a light sponge.  Only such medicine should be given as prescribed by a doctor.  It is foolish to ask the druggist to prescribe, and may be dangerous to take so-called “safe, sure and harmless” remedies advertised by patent medicine manufacturers. 

If the patient is so situated that he can be attended only by some who must also look after others in the family, it is advisable that such an attendant wear a wrapper, apron, or gown over the ordinary house clothes while in the sick room, and slip this off when leaving to look after the others. 

Nurses and attendants will do well to guard against breathing in dangerous disease germs by wearing a simple fold of gauze or mask while near the patient. 

Will a person who has had influenza before catch the disease again?

It is well known that the attack of measles or scarlet fever or smallpox usually protects a person against another attack of the same disease.  This appears to not be true of the “Spanish Influenza.”  According to newspaper reports the King of Spain suffered an attack of influenza during the epidemic thirty years ago, and was again stricken during the recent outbreak in Spain. 

How does one guard against influenza?

In guarding against disease of all kinds, it is important that the body be kept strong and able to fight off disease germs.  This can be done by having a proper portion of work, play, and rest, by keeping the body well clothed, and by eating sufficient, wholesome, and properly selected food.  In connection with diet, it is well to remember that milk is one of the best all-around foods obtainable for adults as well as for children.  So far as a disease influenza is concerned health authorities everywhere recognize the very close relation between its spread and overcrowded homes.  While it is not always possible, especially in the times like the present, to avoid such overcrowding, people should consider the health danger and make every effort to reduce the home overcrowding to a minimum.  The value of fresh air through open windows can not be over emphasized. 

It is especially important to beware of the person who coughs or sneezes without covering his mouth or nose.  It also follows that one should keep out of crowds and stuffy places as much as possible, keep homes, offices, and workshops well aired, spend some time out of doors each day, walk to work if at all practicable, in short make every possible effort to breathe as much pure air as possible. 

Cover up each cough and sneeze.  If you don’t you’ll spread the disease. 

Note—The above is the complete text of the “Bulletin on Spanish Influenza,” that Surgeon General of the U.S. Public Health Service has just issued, and our readers may obtain copies of this pamphlet free of charge by writing to the “Surgeon General U.S. Public Health Service, Washington D.C.”

Today’s giveaway is a $25 gift certificate to Abby’s Restaurant. It is sponsored by Howe Mercantile. Clues are below.

Clue: Run, lift, cycle, like you did when you used to be number one.

Update: We have a winner! It was found at Core Fit Gym on Haning Street.

The Texas High School Coaches Association released the Academic All-State Team last week and Howe landed eight athletes to the list. 

In the category of seniors with a 3.5 GPA or higher were Jamie Taylor and Kasie Segleski.

The category of all age levels with a GPA of 3.3 or more were Taylor, Segleski, Marissa Agee, Ally Harvey, Jessica Bastida, Hannah Dwyer, Carley Fife, Julie Miranda, Teagan Stubblefield, Jake Fabacher, Colton Thurman, and Noah Campbell.

District 10-3A coaches have released their all-district awards and Howe landed one player on the first team squad which was infielder Layton Elvington. 

The Bulldogs placed six on the second team which included pitchers Kolby Windon, Derek Kirschner, infielder Arturo Lowder, catcher Kolbe Lappin, outfielder Ayden Norton, and designated hitter Garrett Grigg.

1st Team All-District
Pitcher
Zach Smith	Van Alstyne
Dalton Tonubbee	Leonard
Austin Testerman	Whitewright
Infield
Drew Abate	Bonham
Tyler Hall	Blue Ridge
Layton Elvington	Howe
Samuel Tormos	Van Alstyne
Marshall Mangrum	Whitewright
Catcher
Ryan Godbey	Whitewright
David Terrell	Van Alstyne
Outfield
Jake Spiller	Bonham
Bubba Hulsey	Blue Ridge
Dylan Cordell	Whitewright
Jake Carroll	Van Alstyne
Designated Hitter
Cade Morgan	Van Alstyne
Utility Player
Cam Montgomery	Van Alstyne

2nd Team All-District
Pitcher
Kolby Windon	Howe
Jake Claburn	Whitewright
Derek Kirschner	Howe
Infield
Jaret Wallace	Blue Ridge
Blake Schur	Leonard
Grant Dennis	Bonham
Arturo Lowder	Howe
Catcher
Lane Brown	Bells
Kolbe Lappin	Howe
Randy Arris	Bonham
Outfield
Jake Hill	Whitewright
Ethan Litzkow	Van Alstyne
Garrett Mathers	Blue Ridge
Kaden Sadler	Leonard
Ayden Norton	Howe
Designated Hitter
Garrett Grigg	Howe
Utility Player
James Tankersley	Blue Ridge

Today’s gift card giveaway is for a $25 gift certificate to Street Tacos in Howe sponsored by Sheryl Bentley of REMAX. Clues to find the hidden egg are below.

Clues: [F]ellowship, Don’t look [B]ack, [C]ould be close to tires and tracks.

Update! We have a winner! It was found at First Baptist Church of Howe.