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Show Sun Advocate Wednesday, February B, 1BSB Only eight survive Last Squad Club to disband next month By ARVA SMITH Staff writer The day no one HELPER thought would ever actually come will arrive on Mar. 1 when the Last Squad Club, organized in 1941 by veterans of World War I who were also the American Legion, will meet to disband. F. W. Voll, company clerk, will call the group to order for the last time at a meeting at 2 members of Voll said that several people have told him that the whiskey in the metal box, which has been kept locked in the Helper City vault for 45 years, will have evaporated into fumes. members to sign the charter designed by Voll, close it and to never again open the charter. The charter, designed by Voll using as a model the masthead of the old Salt Lake Telegram, for Voll recalls that George Jackson had indicated that he wanted to sign but by a late hour on March 31 had not. I called him at his home at 20 minutes to 12, Voll said. Jackson replied that he was in bed. We will find out on Mar. 1, Voll said. He recalls that the was whiskey purchased $3.80. Besides the whiskey, Voll thinks there are some writings of Ernest Crocker, a former p.m. in the LaSalle Club. Contrary to practices of earlier times when the group adhered strictly to membership only rules and indulged in late hours and anyone interested is invited to attend. A reservation for the dinner may be made by calling the LaSalle Club, Cant hi-jin- 472-332- 7. Focus of interest at the last meeting will be the opening of a steel strong box or casket in which members and others placed items upon the clubs organization in i941. Although no one knows exactly what is in the box, and some of the items are willed to the families of those who put them inside, Voll knows a few of the things that will be there. First and foremost will be a quart of Irish whiskey and eight glasses. The charter of the club, printed on a small card which Voll carries in his pocket, stipulates that when there are only eight members left out of the original 101, the metal box will be opened. The eight survivors, the number of a squad in World War 1, will drink a toast to those departed and smash the glasses on the floor, then disband forever. closed March night. county resident who wrote a couple of books. Lizzie Patterson, who wrote poems about Helper and Scotland, put a poem in the box, he said. There is also a gavel which Voll made. The Utah State Historical Society has expressed an interest in the contents of the box, he said. The idea for the Last Squad Club came from E.R. Crissman, one of the five original organizers of the club. While visiting Pueblo, Colo., Crissman had joined a similar group there. He brought home his membership, pin and the idea. The rules called for 101 31, 1941 at it wait mid- until tomorrow? Jackson asked. I told him that it would close forever at midnight. He got out of bed and signed just before the midnight deadline, Voll said. We had taken the charter to Price and to Hiawatha to get some of the signatures, Voll said. E.R. Shaw, Springville, held the distinction of being he only member who never attended a meeting. Later the organizers from Carbon County helped to form a similar group in Provo. It may have already disbanded, Voll said. Although the club was organized early in the year of 1941 by the five original members, Crissman, Voll, G.W. Truscott, August Litizzette, and J.A. (Tad) Greener, and signed by a total of the 101, the first meeting of the entire membership was not held until the first Wednesday following Armistice Day. everyone who Although the charter thought that signed he would live to see the strong box opened, by the time the first membership meeting arrived that fall two of the 101 had died, Voll said. August Litizzette died in the At Green River school New concepts being used - If the GREEN RIVER attitudes of teachers at Book Cliffs Elementary School are any indication, outcome based education and mastery learning concepts are going to be successful at the school. The teachers are im- plementing the mastery learning philosophy in math and reading during the 1985-8- 6 school year after a year of planning, meeting and working on objectives. The process was begun in the fall of 1984 with the help of a $20,000 grant from the Utah State Office of Education. The money was to be used to develop outcome based education programs in math and reading and to visit the Johnson City, New York, school district where OBE and mastery learning have been used for 14 years. After the visit to New York, workshops were held with Barber, an authority in who has presented workshops elsewhere in and the nation. Carol OBE such Utah Book Cliff teachers and administrators focused on the math units first, spending many hours after school developing formats for lesson plans which would meet the OBE philsophy. examined the Teachers current math curriculum for grades K-- 6 and ultimately developed 89 major objectives were for the grades. designed to teach the objectives. Tests were then found or written to fit the needs of the objectives being taught. Teachers also worked to Mini-uni- ts develop enrichment and corrective materials, along with different teaching techniques each of the minifor units. The mastery level was set at 80 percent. The math project was completed by April 1985 with 89 objectives for the elementary grades and four to ten mini-unidesigned to teach each of the objectives. The next project was the development of the reading objectives. That project ended major ts up taking most of the summer to complete. The same process used in formulating the math objectives was used in formulating the reading objectives. However, teachers said they found that the knowledge gained in writing the math units was useful in developing more concise overall objectives and a better method in the miniunits. step-by-st- ep The reading units were finished and turned over to the district office for review only a couple of weeks prior to the starting of school. The staff at the elementary school expressed thanks to present and former officials of the Emery County School Lyle Wright, Ken District; Lindsay and Kerry Nelson of the Utah State Office of Education; workshop director Carol Barber; and the administration and faculty of Harry L. Johnson Elementary School in Johnson City, N.Y. Fred Voll displays the charter signed by the 101 members pf the Last Squad Club when it was organized in 1941. The club will be disbanded Mar. 1 because mem spring as the result of illness and in the summer of 1941 Jack Vignetto died, the victim of an accidental drowning in a lake in the Uinta Mountains. In spite of these sad events, the first meeting of the group was spirited and entertaining. In fact it almost caused a few divorces, Voll said. The meeting began at 7 p.m. in the Helper Civic Auditorium and lasted until 7 a.m. the following morning, he said. A good amount of liquor was consumed. After all we were old soldiers, Voll said. The entertainment included some dancing girls from Salt Lake City. Voll recalls one of the entertainment acts was performed in a complete blackout. The dancing girls were wearing clothing dyed with fluorescent colors. Although the girls were If youre hoping that fabulous romance youre involved in will marriage, a Utah professor University has some advice. Learn to argue blossom into of successfully. Dr. Sally A. Lloyd, assistant professor of family and consumer studies, and Dr. Rodney M. Cate, a colleague from Washington State University, studied 100 people who fell in love but broke up rather than getting married. Results showed the ability to handle conflict was the key factor determining relationship outcomes. The trick is not to avoid conflict, but to deal with it said Lloyd. A successfully, conflict can actually improve the relationship because partners end up understanding each other better ed brought their the open and feelings reached a mutual solution. after theyve into Elementary teachers have just begun using outcome based education this school year and find it working well. The teachers are Dr. Art Fogelberg, special education; Judy Evans, kindergarten; Sharyn Hughes, first grade; Pat Quarn- - berg, second grade; Bruce Nelson, fourth grade; Carol Durrant, fifth grade and Patricia Zwahlen, sixth grade. Fourth grade teacher Olive Anderson was not present for the picture. filled World War squadron. A strong-bowith momentos will be opened during the last meeting. x not visible, the clothing they removed, including un- mentionables, was clearly seen by the audience. Vem Davis spent his life introducing a motion to allow wives to attend the meetings, but we always voted him down, Voll said. But time began catching up, little by little, with the old soldiers. Because the weather was often bad in November, and several of our members lived in Salt Lake City and other points outside the county, we began holding the meetings earlier in the year, Voll said. Our most recent meeting date has been the first week in September. Not only were the meetings held earlier in the year, but as the years moved on they were earlier in the day, Voll said. During all those years, Voll faithfully followed the instructions in the charter. Whenever a member has passed on Voll has placed a gold star by the mans name and entered the date of his death. Some years there have been several gold stars to place and sometimes none at all. The death of Fritz Nyman, late last year, brought the membership to the eight and the time for dissolution. L. Dow Young died earlier the same year. The surviving eight are Voll and J. A. Greener, both of Helper; William Grogan, Ben Ward, Theodore Thomas and Elmer Bertot, all of Price; V.L. Walkington, Spring Glen; and J. Bracken Lee, former mayor of Price and Salt Lake City and governor of Utah. Lee lives in Salt Lake City. Argue to perfect love well-handl- Book Cliff bership has Ireached eight, the number in a Lloyd and Cates objective was to enlarge on Cates earlier study of 50 married couples. They wanted to find out how the dating experience for couples who broke up differed from the experience of couples who married. The original study found that J relationships that led to marriage started with low levels of conflict during the casual dating stage. As the relationships became more involved and exclusive, the amount of conflict increased significantly. The amount of conflict then leveled off through the stages of commitment and marriage. In their study of breakups, Lloyd and Cate found that during the early stages, relationships that crashed looked just like relationships that led to marriage. That is, the amounts of conflict and love during casual and exclusive dating were similar. However, as the relationships that later broke up moved into the commitment stage, conflict did not level off; rather, it increased sharply. And as these began to deteriorate and head towards a breakup, the level of conflict relationships jumped even higher. Lloyd speculates that the jumps in conflict in the broken relationships stemmed from an inability to successfully resolve disagreements. Virtually all romantic relationships involve conflict misunderstandings are part of being in love and mutually dependent, she said. If partners try to ignore their differences or if they dont reach compromises when arguments occur, the amount of conflict in the relationship may actually in- crease because misunderstandings have never been worked out. The same old problems keep coming up over and over again, she said. And eventually these problems erode the relationship. One of the most interesting findings was that as these relationships were developing, feelings of love and conflict coexisted that is, the presence of disagreements, negative feelings or desires to change ones partner did not detract from the intensity of love felt for the romantic partner, said Lloyd. However, as the relationships began to break apart, as partners began to feel uncertain about the future of the romance, higher levels of conflict between the partners were coupled with lower levels of love. What can partners do to improve their fights? Lloyd offers a variety of suggestions. (Continued on Page 5B) |