Five Iola High students have been chosen, based on their class ranking, to begin a six-week Kansas Honors Symposium, according to Harry Lee Jr., assistant principal. These seniors are Nolen Hodges, Bruce Mentzer, Jay Miller, Lisa Specht and Kerri Willis. The five, along with other high school students across the state, will listen to closed-circuit television lectures by authorities in widely varying fields. They can then ask the authorities questions via the TV network. The Iola five will take the course at the Neosho County Community Junior College.
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Iola High School seniors Debra Conger and Vicky Ritter spent last week living at Osawatomie State Hospital, attending therapy sessions, talking to staff psychologists and working with patients. The program is run every year, but Iola is one of the few high schools in the state that participates, IHS psychology teacher Norman Shire said. Most of the other live-in student volunteers are college students.
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Ulrich Furniture, on the west side of the square, is a chaotic tangle of machinery and men, and will continue to be for as much as a month more. The building is getting a facelift, with tin sheeting to cover the aging brick on the east and north sides. On Valentine’s Day, the Ulriches will have been in business 40 years.
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Merle Smith, a native of Colony who amazed neighbors with his barnstorming feats in the early days of the airplane, has been named to the Aviation Pioneers Hall of Fame. Smith built his first plane in a Colony field in 1923 and was an airplane mechanic until 1932, when he joined the Inman Brothers Flying Circus. In 1937, he went to Cordova, Alaska, and formed Cordova Airlines. He was president of the airline until 1967, when it merged with Alaska Airlines.
