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Show Centennial Quarterly offers residents a look at history CENTERVILLE Bryan Gray and Gary Blodgett spoke at the February meeting of the Centerville Historical Society on the development of Bountiful 's Centennial Quarterly magazine. To emphasize the importance of making history interesting, in-teresting, Gray talked about how children learn history. History, he said, is not taught well in American schools today. When asked to name Presidents of the United States and the brands of beer or liquor, students in Washington, D.C. could name, on the average, 4.8 Presidents and 7.2 names of alcoholic beverages. In another area of the country, students could not put in chronological order World War I, World War U., the Korean War and the Vietnam War. Then there is the story of the 10 percent of the University of Miami students who could not locate Miami on the map. Gray pointed out that there is also a bill before the Utah Legislature to mandate the study of the Constitution. Constitu-tion. He went on to say that history is usually at the bottom of the list of classes that students like. He said he is fascinated by the way we take an interesting inter-esting subject like history and make it bland. Perhaps that is because history focuses on dates instead of the lives of the leaders, the political and not the social side of the story. "All history is biography according to Emerson," Gray said. Gray, who taught history, believes part of the problem is that in history class the students have to study the wrong things. For example, for the decade of the 1950's, the classes ;tudy McCarthyism and Eisenhower, but a case could be made that Elvis Presley had a greater impact on life as we know it than Eisenhower did. The first subdivision subdivi-sion was built at Levittown, N.Y. during the '50s and has had a far reaching impact, but that is not mentioned. The role television, which got its start in the 50s, is also not brought out. Gray pointed out that in the Bountiful Centennial Quarterly, they are trying to touch on many of the people peo-ple who have had an impact on Bountiful, both in the past and the present. "This is what makes history interesting' Gray said. He said the Bountiful Centennial Committee was also working to get the magazine into the hands of the students so they can enjoy learning about BountifuPs history. Blodgett described how he and Brian Gray met with the Bountiful Centennial Committee. The quarterly magazine was proposed because something was needed to publicize the history of Bountiful and make people aware of its history. The quarterly will consist of nine issues before the actual Centennial celebration. The Centerville Historical Society was also offered the opportunity to sell advertising and share in the story space and the sale of the quarterly. The Centerville Historical Society is now considering whether they should join with Bountiful Boun-tiful in this project If they do wish to work on the project, pro-ject, the name of the quarterly could be changed to better include the Centerville area. Blodgett said that while the first issue was only eight pages, following issues will have 12 to 16 pages. F The March 6 meeting of the Centerville Historical Society will feature Becky, Bill and Seymour Rigby reliving and relating their memories of the original Centerville 2nd LDS Ward with stories and pictures. Those people who lived in the original Centerville 2nd Ward are especially invited to attend to share in the memories. |