9/12/07 8:45 AM
kentsclark wrote in topic Article: They've Got Spirit:
In 1958, a new, as yet unnamed, High School was being built on 182nd avenue in the unincorporated county area between Portland, Oregon (to the west) and Gresham, Oregon to the east. There is an apocryphal story that several Portland State College (now University) students got together and started a petition drive to name the new High School after the first teacher of a "free" school in Oregon. That school was in Portland, Oregon, the beginning of free education in the state.
As the story goes, they pooled resources and came up with enough money to file the petition with the Secretary of State and then set out to collect enough signatures to have it placed on the next ballot. The petition read something like: "Shall the new High School being built in east county be named after the First teacher of a free school in the State of Oregon?"
They (according to the story) easily collected more than the required number of valid signatures to have the initiative placed on the ballot, to be voted on in the next election.
As related to me by many who repeated the story, shortly (or some said "one day!") before the ballots were to be printed all Hell broke loose in the Secretary of State's Office. The Secretary of State had discovered the teacher's name. His (the teacher's) name was NOT on the initiative petition. So, he (the Secretary of State) invalidated ALL signatures AND the petition.
Purportedly, the teacher's name was John Outhouse. I laughed when I heard it told over and over since I WENT to that High School for four years and graduated from Portland State University some years later, hearing the same story there. I stopped laughing one day when I picked up a book on Oregon history and casually read the that the first teacher of a free education school in Oregon WAS John Outhouse! This can be confirmed by going to the History of Oregon website at:
http://www.oregoned.org/site/pp.asp?c=9dKKKYMDH&b=139662
Think about it! "Outhouse High" isn't much worse than "John High". Obviously, their mascot HAD to have been "Sewer Rats"! And their cheer?: Why it would be:
"Diarrhea, DIARRHEA! go, Go , GO!!! "
I was on the Ralley Squad my senior year, and that "Yell" didn't quite pass muster with the administration.
Kent S Clark
