100 years ago: Art and music added to O’Fallon High School curriculum

100 years ago, June 17, 1926

At a special meeting of the Board of Education, which was held Saturday evening, it was decided that a music and art department be added to the curriculum of studies now taught in the grade schools.

The annexation of the new department will afford the school children a greater opportunity to acquaint themselves with the subjects of music and art.

Miss Gladys Crosby, of Pana, Ill., a graduate of the Illinois Wesleyan College, of Bloomington, Ill., was employed by the Board to teach this new department. Miss Crosby will give daily lessons in music and art in each grade, and this instruction should better fit the children for literary activities and various kinds of musical entertainments.

75 years ago, June 14, 1951

Members of the O’Fallon Rotary Club experienced a trip into a coal mine Monday afternoon, the guests of the St. Ellen Mine when some 26 of them rode down the slope on the coal conveyor belt.

The club members rode the belt to the working level of the mine and walked to the pit where the motor cars dump the coal for its trip to the surface. John Harvey, mine superintendent, and Al Kingsbury, paymaster at the mine, accompanied the Rotarians on their trip.

The St. Ellen mine is equipped with the most modern mining facilities and is now producing 3,400 tons of coal a day. The goal is 4,000 tons daily.

50 years ago, June 17, 1976

The continuing saga of the O’Fallon Jaycees kittenball team continues with news of their loss to New Athens Sunday afternoon 18-15.

In the game, the local Jaycees played with only nine out of a possible 10 players. Included in the starting line-up was JC president Sparky Allen who played the game with a broken leg. Allen was three for four from the plate and played catcher.

The opposition allowed Allen to have a pitch-runner for himself if he reached first base on his own. He hopped to first three times with a cast on his right leg. Allen was one of three Jaycees who were injured last week in a kittenball game against Collinsville.

“Kittenball” is another name for softball.