50 Years Ago

Fifty years ago, we were just completing our 8th grade year at the junior high school.  The ones that taught our section were Mr. Paul Johnson (math), Mrs. Doris Larson (English and SRA reading, I believe), Mr. Duane Rykhus (science), Mrs. Etta Olson (history), Mr. Wesche (art), Mr. Leslie Peterson (industrial arts), and Mr. Jim Klassen (speech).   One of the new teachers was Mrs. Eleanor Cochrane, who taught Home Economics.  She later began teaching at the high school our senior year, and was rather innovative, perhaps because her husband was an education professor at SDSU.  She offered a boys' home ec class for the school year 1968-69.  The 1969 Bobcat stated that "Although it may seem impossible, BHS's Boys' Homemaking classes prepared a complete Thanksgiving dinner.  Each boy prepared one dish for the meals and all helped pay for the 14 pound turkey.  All boys agreed that the best part of the project was eating the dinner.  Boys also had an opportunity to sew in Homemaking.  Homemaking III girls were allowed to work independently.  The only requirement was that a certain number of capsules had to be completed to earn each grade.  Each capsule is a separate project.  All Homemaking classes were conducted on a liberal basis, although the lower classes were operated on a more traditional basis."

A picture of the boys feasting on their culinary delights is shown on page 16 of our senior annual.  From our class are Jim Egeberg, Jin Antonides, Alan Otteson, Mark Denton, Dan Holm, Bob Kallemeyn, Lee Colburn, and Tom Bozied.  

We may have thought Mrs. Cochrane was somewhat old at the time, but she was only  in her early 50's.  After retiring in 1975, she and her husband Maynard retired to Lake Cochrane near Gary, South Dakota, about 40 miles north of Brookings.     She remained very active until her passing on Saint Patrick's Day of this year, shortly after celebrating her 98th birthday (http://www.housemanfuneralhome.com/obituaries/obituary-listings?obId=445187#/obituaryInfo).

Her children were older than we were, so we probably were not acquainted with most of them.  Their youngest son Gene was a senior when we were sophomores, so some of us may have gotten to know him somewhat, as he was on the varsity basketball and track and field teams.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to Mrs. Cochrane and her family.