Memories Of Hawthorne

By Randy Picking

The other night while checking out facebook, I saw a friend had posted a picture that show the beginning of the demolition of Hawthorne Elementary School in north Salina.

I went out the following day and shot some video for my Facebook page and Salina Post. While driving away , I was flooded with memories of my days as a student at Hawthorne back in the 1960s.

I remember going to what was back then the Kindergarten Roundup and meeting my first school friend Curtis Crough. That also reminded me that  I started a chicken pox outbreak in Kindergarten because I wanted to go to the Easter Party. I was sent home, I cried all the way home while hanging on to my basket of candy and a bottle of Orange Nesbit pop.

In third grade Mrs. Ethel Ganes was the teacher who knew Laura Ingalls Wilder and we read all of her books and even had a Pioneer Day lunch, that the school superintendent attended.

I remember how proud I was when I was a crossing guard, had a strap with a badge on it and also the stop sign that was on a pole that I held out to stop traffic and allow students to cross the street.

I remember we went home for lunch and watching the “Little Rascals” and Captain Bill on channel 10.

I remember when the worlds attention was on Abilene following the death of President Eisenhower, and how Marine One carrying President Nixon and former President Johnson flew over the blacktop while enroute to Abilene for the funeral.

And I remember the day the school closed and I had the honor to speak to students and others who came to say goodbye to the school.  I treasure now even more that I took the chance to walk around in the empty building by myself one more time.

So while the bricks and motar of Hawthorne are coming down, the memories that each of us who are proud to say ” I WENT TO HAWTHORNE” will live on until each of us are no more.

Randy is a Salina native and has part of Salina area radio since 1976. He is currently co-host of 910 KINA’s Coffee Talk program that airs Monday-Friday from 6-9am.