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Show John IF. Condie To Retire As State Supt. Of Schools Jan. 6 John W. Condie of Preston and the first man ever to hold the j office of Idaho superintendent of Public instruction, retires Monday, January 6, from his office and steps into the position of state high school inspector succeeding Philip Soulen. Succeeding tlie famed Idaho educator will be his assistant C. E. Roberts who ran for and gained the position after Condie gave it up. Supt. Condie's record did not start out auspiciously but it nevertheless never-theless is one of outstanding achievements. In 1932 the Demo-ratic Demo-ratic party picked him to fill a vacancy on the ticket caused Dy che death of Miss Retta Martin of Boise,' party nominee, who was killed in an automobile accident at Pocatello. He had just ten cays lo make his campaign but . he won with the largest vote of any candidate candi-date on either ticket with the exception ex-ception oE C. Ben Ross and George E. Hill, elected governor and lieutenant-governor, respectively. Condie. has always been a strong vote-getter and has carried the highest ballot since, except when the late William E. Borah led him. During his tenure in office the state, school equalization law of 1933 was passed, a measure of which he is especially proud. Ex-cise tax revenue measures, to provide funds for carrying out the j state's part of the minimum education edu-cation program, were enacted in 1 1933, 1935, and 1937. An adult education edu-cation program has been promoted, through cooperation with the work projects administration, and prison inmates have been given, vocational vocation-al and academic courses. Condie was Idaho's representative representa-tive to a special, conference, sponsored spon-sored by the Rockefeller foundation founda-tion in 1938 at New York City, which formulated standards for transportation of school children now almost universally adopted. The equalization law, which Condie Con-die terms as his outstanding achievement of the eight years he I has been in office, provides that state and county; funds be distributed distrib-uted to; a minimum standard of $120 per month for a grade cmss-room cmss-room and $1G0 for a high school ulassroom unit. Besides being the first man to hold the office of state superintendent) superinten-dent) he has held office longer than any other superintendent. His closest rival in point of service is Ethel E. Redfielcl, who held the post from 1917 to 1922. |