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VERONA HIGH SCHOOL — CLASS OF 1922
VERONA, OHIO
PICTURES AND ARTIFACTS
For: Rasor, Brown, Hunt Collection from Carolyn Ruth Hunt, Cincinnati, Ohio
August 7, 2016
In the school year of 1921-22, Ennis Benjamin (E.B.) Hunt was Principal of Verona
High School. He was 31 years old. His life during his teens and 20’s is not clearly documented;more apocryphal. He completed grammar school through the 8th grade, c1904. Then he droppedout of school because he was going to be a farmer—and who needed ‘school’ to be a farmer?
After 4 years of hard labor on a farm, and a little maturity, Ennis began to realize the value of aneducation and the joy of learning new things. (1)
The joy of learning new things was a value he followed his entire life. He had his firstcar by 1918, right after he got out of the army. He had a camera, did photography and had his owndarkroom. He learned music and played the cornet before he went into the army and thus became thecompany bugler. Rather than train for trench warfare, he spent the day out under a tree practicingbugle calls. (2) He joined in sports, like baseball, & especially basketball as a player and as a coach.
He was an active member of the Masons, Lewisburg Libanos Lodge.(3)
About 1908, Ennis went back and enrolled in high school, even though he was 4 years older thanthe other students. After 2 years study, by his junior year, he was beginning to help the teacher teachsome of the beginning classes and also enrolled in education courses at Miami University during thesummer. He thus graduated high school and soon after completed the course work from Miami Univ.to receive his Ohio Teaching Certificate, morphing seamlessly from high school student to full timehigh school teacher. He subsequently completed the course work and teaching experience to receive a Permanent Ohio Teaching Certificate. (4)
He met his wife, Ruth Lucille Brown, when he went to her father’s house to try and convince Norman Brown to let his daughter, Ruth, go to high school. He was unsuccessful. Norman adamantly refused to let Ruth continue her education formally in high school. Instead, Ruth got her high school education second hand by dating Ennis for 5 years before marrying him at age 19. (3)
After returning from Army duty at Camp Sherman near Columbus, and marrying Ruth in 1921,
Ennis continued teaching and studying. It is not clear when he became Principal of Verona High School.He probably also taught some of the classes. Math courses were among his favorite subjects.But it is clear that the small class of 14 students graduating in the Class of 1922 thought a great deal oftheir principal, Ennis Benjamin Hunt.
The Class of 1922 presented a tiffany style lamp to E.B. Hunt. On the base of the lamp is engraved: “V.H.S. CLASS OF 1922”
That lamp became a part of his home, fully used and on display until his death, August 2, 1990. It thenbecame a part of his daughter’s home until it was presented to the Brookville Historical Society by Carolyn Ruth Hunt on August 7, 2016.
As Carolyn Ruth completely broke down her house to move to Twin Towers Retirement Community, she discovered a framed picture of the Class of 1922. On the back, in his own handwriting, Ennis (now going by the nickname “Abe”) had written down the name of each of the class members.
Top Row: L to R: Adolph Studebaker Bottom Row: L to R: Glenn Somers
Byron Shields Delia Studebaker
Mabel Selby Helen Longenecker
Bessie Flory Edna Sensenbaugh
Nell Kress Center Bottom Grace Besecker
Donald Boliess E. B. Hunt Harold Albright
Sanford Overholser Principal Walter Bliss
Verona High School, Class of 1922 — Page 2
There is one final chapter to this story of E. B. Hunt and Verona High school. Sometime in the early 1960’s, Verona High School was torn down. When Abe heard about that, he drove up to the auction and purchased 2 of the large slate blackboard squares. He installed 1 ½ of the squares on the basement wall of his Dayton, Ohio home, fully custom framed with his own woodworking. While that blackboard may or may not still be at the house 513 Oakwood Drive, Kettering, OH, He took another 12” slate square and constructed a small, portable 26” x 18” Blackboard/bulletin board to hang on any wall and gave it to his daughter Carolyn. Carolyn kept this blackboard on the wall of her home for 50 years, until she moved to Twin Towers Retirement Community in 2016.
It is fitting that the picture of the Verona High School Class of 1922, the tiffany lamp they presented to their principal and teacher, E. B. Hunt, and a piece of the blackboard from Verona High School in a frame constructed by Abe Hunt in the 1960’s be kept together in the museum of the Brookville Historical Society, preserving the history of this area.
Addenda Footnotes:
(1). See: “The Brick Mansions” Author (E.B.Hunt) and his Early Life & Education, July 2011
(2) See: BHS-Accession List of 5/5/2013, Trumpet story
(3) See: BHS-Accession List of 10/2/2011 gifts from CRH for Brown-Rasor-Hunt Collection.
(4) See: BHS-Accession List of 4/1/2012; Certificates & diplomas for E.B. Hunt & Ruth L. Hunt