According to this alumni site, H.A. '“Pop” Lynn came to to Newton High as a coach and teacher in 1924. He took over as principal in 1928, when he suggested that Newton be the Cardinals instead of the Lil Washers. Pop Lynn served as principal until 1967, when he wrote this charming goodbye in the Newtonia yearbook.

See more designs from the Newton set here.

The Southeast Polk Community School District notes that Southeast Polk’s “Rams” nickname stands for the communities it serves: Runnels, Altoona, Mitchellville, and Surrounding Areas. “Surrounding Areas” seems like a bit of a stretch, but you do you, Southeast Polk.

See more designs from the Southeast Polk set here.

Until the 1970s, Urbandale was the Blue Jays, and many of the designs in this set came from that era. In a section on their website, the University of Kansas has a helpful page to answer the question, “Are there other schools whose mascot is the Jayhawk?” The answer is yes, and they have included Urbandale, even though their mascot is, in fact, the J-Hawk.

See more designs from the Urbandale set here.

This impressive history of Winterset’s Iowa Theatre inlcudes a 1966 advertisement for “October National Movietime Jubilee.” This sounds great to me, so I wondered—was that for real?

The October 2, 1966 Cincinnati Enquirer was there to assuage my doubts with an article entitled “National Movie Month is For Real.” It seems as if the Iowa Theater maybe took some liberties with the name of the event, but the theater chains in 1966 decided to agree to push up some of their big releases that may have been held back for Thanksgiving or Christmas.

It appears that the following movies were released as part of the celebration: Alvarez Kelly; Fantastic Voyage; The Fighting Prince of Donegal; Gypsy Girl; Kaleidescope; Khartoum; The Pad; Run for Your Wife; Seconds; Way…Way Out; Mister Buddwing; What’s Up, Tiger Lily?; and Return of the Seven. I have seen two of those (Seconds and Tiger Lily), and have never heard of most of the rest of them.

Theaters pulled out all the stops, including The Capri Village theater in Charlotte advertising in the Charlotte Observer that “WRPL’s ‘Miss Movie Month’ will be in our lobby tonight with free kisses for our male patrons: no ‘seconds’ please!” But despite such thrilling promotions, it doesn’t seem like National Movie Month was ever celebrated in an organized way after that first year.

See more designs from the Winterset set here.

Bunnies is a pretty awesome mascot, but where did it come from? If you google around, there seems to be a few prevailing theories: that a writer for the Omaha World-Herald coined the term in 1927; that an opposing football coach said that the Benson field was so full of holes that it felt like they were playing against the bunnies; or that Benson’s principal had seen bunnies when the school was being constructed and went with it.

I don’t think that I can explain where the name came from, but I do think I can rule out much of that particular speculation.

During the 1925-26 school year, I can’t find any reference in the Omaha newspapers to Benson as the Bunnies. That to me likely rules out that principal/bunny story, since there’s a gap between when the school opened and when they became the Bunnies.

The first reference I could find in a newspaper to the Benson Bunnies was from December 10, 1926, and it referred to the school’s basketball team: “Ernie Adams, now coaching at Benson High School, Thursday evening turned his suburbanite Bunnies loose against the Omaha university basketeers, which aggregation he coached for several years.”

That reference was not from the Omaha World-Herald, but, in fact, the Omaha Daily News. It is (of course) possible that I missed a preceding reference in the World-Herald, but the Daily News and the paper it would soon merge with, the Omaha Daily Bee, were far more likely to call Benson the Bunnies than the World-Herald during the 1926-27 basketball season. The World-Herald, as they had in the previous season, was much more likely to call Benson “the suburbanites.” They did so on December 15, 16, 18, 29 (“Suburban tossers,” actually, on that day); and January 7; February 3, 23; and March 2. I found the World-Herald saying “Bunnies” only on January 9 and February 25, with a “Rabbits” mixed in on February 3.

A Daily News article from January 15, 1927 that said, “The score never was in doubt, for Coach Ernie Adams’ Bunnies went into the lead with the strides of jackrabbits” seems like a great origin story, had people not been referring to Benson as the Bunnies in print since at least December 10, 1926.

As for the story about the football field being full of holes, it can be ruled out straightaway; Benson had never fielded a football team before the basketball team started being called the Bunnies in 1926.

So where did Bunnies come from? I don’t know. But it probably didn’t have to do with bunnies when the school was being built; likely did not originate in the Omaha World-Herald (and originated before 1927); and almost certainly didn’t have anything to do with a football game. The more you know…

See more designs from the Benson set here.

In 1938, a film was made about Boys Town (appropriately titled—you guessed it!—Boys Town) starring Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney. The film’s premiere was held in Omaha, and the September 8 Omaha World-Herald estimated that 30,000 people came to see the proceedings, noting that the sidewalks were “swarming with people who could neither see nor hear, so far were they from the platform where Spencer Tracy, Maureen O’Sullivan, and Mickey Rooney were introduced.”

Bonus! Beneath a September 7, 1938 article in the World-Herald (“Movie Folk Here for Premiere”—the most Nebraska headline ever?) about the Boys Town stars coming to town was this concise item, entitled “Who’s the Chump?”

See more designs from the Boys Town set here.

Later in life, three-time Democratic presidential nominee, zero time American president, and Bryan High School namesake William Jennings Bryan was paid by the developers of Coral Gables, Florida, to give speeches to drum up interest in the area. Here are a couple pictures I liked of him doing so:

See more designs from the Bryan set here.

Pius XI High School graduate and one-time newsletter subject Adam Stockhausen has a great new video on his work with Wes Anderson.

See you next week! Tell your friends!