The football team was revving up for the new school, the new field and some new opponents. Coach Aldrich had wisely not scheduled an opponent for the opening Friday. On that particular Friday, Father Dan Kealy, Coach Aldrich, Bill Inbody (volunteer coach) and I headed to Columbus to scout the St. Bonaventure (now Scotus High) team since they were on the schedule for the new football field. As we headed to the north-west it was very evident that we were in for a late summer/early fall thunderstorm with clouds beginning to grow to darken the sky.

Our school still had not been given a proper “nickname” or mascot. Every creature under the sea, on the land or in the air was proposed by faculty, pep club officers, athletes and the general public. None had seemed appropriate for Pius X High School, so the search continued and that was the subject of our conversation in the car as we headed into what was surely to be a rainy evening.

Father Kealy was an accomplished pilot, among his many other abilities. I was in the process of working toward a pilot license and was in the “ground school” meteorological portion of those studies, so the turn of conversation to that stormy sky was just a normal thing to do. Father Kealy talked about the tremendous force of nature that was in a thunderhead, rising thousands of feet into the sky.

All of a sudden all of us in the car focused in on a force of nature to properly let everybody know the force of the student body of this new school. No, not “thunderhead,” that just did not sound right – but, THUNDERBOLT – that had a great sound to it. And then the student newspaper could be THE FORECASTER, the annual THE THUNDERER, other aspects of the school life could carry through the theme from there.

We encamped on the twenty-seventh opposite to "Scott's Bluffs," so called in respect to the memory of a young man who was left here alone to die a few years previous. He was a clerk in a company returning from the mountains, the leader of which found it necessary to leave him behind at a place some distance above this point, in consequence of a severe illness which rendered him unable to ride. He was consequently placed in a bullhide boat, in charge of two men, who had orders to convey him by water down to these bluffs, where the leader of the party promised to await their coming. After a weary and hazardous voyage, they reached the appointed rendezvous, and found to their surprise and bitter disappointment, that the company had continued on down the river without stopping for them to overtake and join it.

Left thus in the heart of a wild wilderness, hundreds of miles from any point where assistance or succour could be obtained, and surrounded by predatory bands of savages thirsting for blood and plunder, could any condition be deemed more hopeless or deplorable? They had, moreover, in descending the river, met with some accident, either the loss of their arms or powder, by the upsetting of their boat, which deprived them of the means of procuring subsistence or defending their lives in case of discovery and attack. This unhappy circumstance, added to the fact that the river was filled with innumerable shoals and sand-bars, by which its navigation was rendered almost impracticable, determined them to forsake their charge and boat together, and push on night and day until they should overtake the company, which they did on the second or third day afterward.

The reason given by the leader of the company for not fulfilling his promise, was that his men were starving, no game could be found, and he was compelled to proceed in quest of buffalo. Poor Scott! We will not attempt to picture what his thoughts must have been after this cruel abandonment, nor harrow up the feelings of the reader, by a recital of what agonies he must have suffered before death put an end to his misery.

The bones of a human being were found the spring following, on the opposite side of the river, which were supposed to be the remains of Scott. It was conjectured that in the energy of a dying despair, he had found strength to carry him across the stream, and then had staggered about the prairie, till God in pity took him to himself.

Such are among the sad chances to which the life of the Rocky Mountain adventurer is exposed.

Dear Boys and Girls:

Now that I find that I shall not return to the High School next fall, I have a word to say to you. A number of my pupils in various classes, and especially in my Reporting Class, asked me, when I came away, whether I should be with you next year. At that time I fully expected to be. The changes in my plans which will prevent my doing so have been sudden and unforeseen. I should hate to have you think that I had not answered you squarely when you were good enough to ask whether I should return, or to have you think that I put you off with an excuse.

I had made many plans for your Senior work next year and had hoped that we should enjoy that work together. I must now leave you to enjoy it alone. One always has to choose between good things it seems. So I turn to a work I love with very real regret that I must leave behind, for the time at least, a work I had come to love almost as well. But I much more regret having to take leave of so many students whom I feel are good friends of mine. As long as I stay in New York, I shall always be glad to see any of my students when they come to the city.

I wish you every success in your coming examinations and in your senior work next year.

Faithfully yours,

Willa Cather