Welcome! Imaginary Shirt is a project where I research visual elements from high schools’ histories and then use them to make new t-shirt concepts. If you’re associated with one of these schools and would like to make any of these imaginary shirts a reality, let me know! I’d love to help you accomplish that. This companion newsletter gives some more details on process and on the schools featured. Enjoy!

Instagram Week in Review

Monday, 25 December 2023—Newell Irrigators, Newell, SD

The April 8, 1924 Deadwood Daily Pioneer-Times reported on an athletic banquet held at Newell High:

Last Friday evening the athletes of the Newell High school were the guests at a banquet in their honor by the business men of the city of Newell. The elaborated feast arranged had been prepared by the ladies of the Civil League and was indeed a credit to the ability of the Newell ladies as culinary artists. The banquet had been planned for some time by the men of the city who had participated in athletics during the past year both on the football gridiron and basketball floor—Newell has the distinction of being one the few towns in the state to boast of a town football team and six men’s basketball teams. During the season that recently closed the Fats, Leans, Bachelors, Married men all boasted of fast basketball quints and in additions the town team and high school team played a full season and always furnished plenty of opposition to their opponents.

I’m not sure I would have wanted to be on the Fats team. The January 12 Daily Pioneer-Times had relayed news from Belle Fourche, South Dakota, whose teams had squared off against Newell’s Fats, Leans, and town team:

The return games of basket ball between the Belle Fourche “Fats” and “Leans” and the Newell “Fats” and “Leans” were played at Newell last Tuesday evening, resulting in another fifty-fifty split with these modern gladiators. In the games played in this city New Year’s night, the Belle Fourche “Leans” defeated the skinny visitors, while the local “Fat” aggregation went down to defeat. This order was reversed Tuesday night, as our “Leans” sustained an awful drubbing losing to Newell by a score of 20 to 8, while the Belle Fourche “Fats” trimmed Newell’s corpulent squad to the tune of 7 to 5—not much of a margin, but sufficient. The third game of the evening was between the Belle Fourche legion team and Newell town team, resulting in a victory for the latter by the score of 16 to 13.

See more designs from the Newell set here.

Tuesday, 26 December 2023—Riggs Governors, Pierre, SD

The high school in Pierre is named for Dr. Theodore Foster Riggs, who was born in South Dakota to missionary parents, and after being educated in Europe and at Johns Hopkins, returned home to serve the community there.

His description on the website of the South Dakota Hall of Fame (to which he was inducted in 1978) notes that:

Dr. Riggs returned to Pierre, refusing several offers to practice in the East. He wanted to follow in the footsteps of his grandfather, Stephen Riggs, his uncle, Alfred Riggs, and his father, Thomas Riggs, who had given their lives as missionaries to the Dakota Indians. He hoped, as a doctor, he might find similar opportunities. He found there were such opportunities and created no racial distinctions in his practice of medicine. He was able to speak Sioux and this helped him with his Indian patients. He was a "horse and buggy" doctor, driving long distances to ranch homes in even the most severe winter weather performing emergency surgery on Kitchen tables if necessary.

See more designs from the Pierre set here.

Wednesday, 27 December 2023—Redfield Pheasants, Redfield, SD

The January 23, 1896 Turner County Herald included this corker:

Bro. Doty of the Doland Times-Record is responsible for the following: A young lady in the Redfield high school parsed the word “kiss” as follows: “Kiss is a noun though generally used as a conjunction. It is more common than proper. It is not very singular and generally used in the plural number, and it agrees with me.”

See more designs from the Redfield set here.

Thursday, 28 December 2023—Rapid City Central Cobblers, Rapid City, SD

In the summer of 1927, President Calvin Coolidge relocated to Rapid City, South Dakota, doing business out of the State Game Lodge and Rapid City Central High School, which would for a while thereafter sometimes be referred to as Coolidge High. The Library of Congress holds this photograph of Coolidge, thought to have been taken on or around July 12, 1927 (He’s the one in the middle with “CAL” on his pants):

The July 11, 1927 Sioux Falls Daily Argus-Leader described a sad day for the president on the prior day:

A stillness from a poignant memory settled over the summer white house yesterday as President and Mrs. Coolidge alone in their quiet retreat in the mountains, contemplated the sorrow that came to them three years ago in the death of their young son, Calvin.

They went to church as usual at Hermosa and listened to a sermon from the youthful Rolf Lium on “God Speaks a Lesson Through Nature,” and must have been reminded that had their son lived he would have been both in years and stature not unlike the boy who spoke to them.

When the services were over Mr. and Mrs. Coolidge hurried back to the state game lodge and after luncheon spent the greater portion of the day in seclusion.

God’s beauty in nature, of which they had been told earlier in the day by the youthful Lium, cast its solitude about them. Into the valley of the summer white house a breeze fragrant with pine tempered a rising thermometer. It rustled drying needles and beech leaves which carpet the mountain trails from the lodge and it shook the tops of the trees into dropping a pine cone or two over the shingled roof of the summer white house.

Lium, the Coolidge’s summer pastor, was twenty years old. The December 18, 1927 Des Moines Register included this item about the young minister:

A preacher that can play the saxophone and dance the Charleston is indeed versatile, yet Rolf Lium, who directed the Sunday worship for President and Mrs. Coolidge at the little frame church in Hermosa, S.D., last summer, does both and creditably, according to Winefred Nervig and Lucille DeSmidt of Humboldt, students at Carleton college, where Lium is preparing for the ministry.

“Lium distinguished himself as an entertainer at a party given recently at the college,” the girls have written their parents here.

Each guest was called upon to perform some stunt, they said, and Lium performed on the saxophone, giving a fast stepping Charleston number as an encore.

See more designs from the Rapid City Central set here.

Friday, 29 December 2023—Edgemont Moguls, Edgemont, SD

The July 13, 1880 Black Hills Daily-Times reported on the origins of Edgemont, South Dakota:

Surveying was commenced on the new town site last week, and we expect to see a large amount of building material on the ground ere many days. Already a large amount of stone to be used in the construction of a round house has arrived, and we understand stakes are set and ground plans laid for thirteen stalls. A large depot and an eating house will be erected soon. The new division will be called Edgemont, and those of our citizens who wish to change locations have only to cross the peaceful waters of the Cheyenne to become residents of a city whose inhabitants will soon be numbered by the thousands.

The August 1 Hot Springs Weekly Star reported on the first family to make that choice:

Mr. and Mrs. A.C. Gaylord are the first family to move to Edgemont, having moved their effects across the river to the bottoms last week in order to better care for his teams working on the new grade in the new town. But the river suddenly rose, surrounding the little knoll on which their house was situated, and for twenty-four hours they were completely surrounded by water.

See more designs from the Edgemont set here.

Saturday, 30 December 2023—Vermillion Tanagers, Vermillion, SD

Vermillion was involved in a controversial Thanksgiving Day game against Yankton in 1913. The November 28 Sioux Falls Daily Argus-Leader had the details:

The football game at Yankton yesterday between the high school teams of that place and Vermillion broke up in a row in the final period with the score 7 to 0 in favor of Yankton. A Vermillion man was officiating and some of his decisions were not liked by the Yankton boys which started the trouble. The game is claimed by Vermillion through the forfeit route by a score of 1 to 0.

Vermillion wouldn’t hold on to that win, though, as reported in the April 24, 1914 Argus-Leader:

The state board of control of high school athletics of South Dakota in a decision announced today, suspended the Vermillion high school for one year, made Potts, of the state university, ineligible for official duties for three years, and forfeits the famous football game played at Yankton last Thanksgiving to Yankton.

Potts’ unfair decision and the coaching of his brother on the Vermillion team was the cause of the game ending in a row when the play was stopped.

See more designs from the Vermillion set here.

Sunday, 24 December 2023—Central Bobcats, Knoxville, TN

At the beginning of the 1994 football season, the Tennessee Volunteers were in a rough spot. Their starting quarterback was injured in their first game, and they lost two out of their first three games (including a 31-0 loss to Florida.) Headed in to a September 24 matchup with Mississippi State, the Volunteers were being led by their backup quarterback, a Central High alum.

Things didn’t seem to improve that day, with the Vols losing their backup quarterback against the Bulldogs and losing 24-21. But maybe things didn’t end up so badly.

The Central High graduate who was injured would focus on his other sport—baseball. On August 17, 2014, Todd Helton’s number became the first one retired by the Colorado Rockies after a seventeen year career with the team in which he hit .316.

The September 26, 1994 Knoxville News-Sentinel included a quote from the freshman third-string quarterback who took over from Helton. “I felt comfortable,” he said of his fill-in performance against Mississippi State. “I felt poised out there. I think I could do the job.” It turned out that he could do the job; with Peyton Manning as their quarterback, Tennessee only lost one more time that year, and Manning finished his Tennessee career with a 39-6 record as a starter.

See more designs from the Central set here.

See you next week! Tell your friends!

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