On Thursday June 3, 1926, nineteen students received their diplomas from Mendocino High School during the annual commencement ceremony. This was one of the largest classes MHS had seen to date, consisting of nine women and ten men. In 1916, nine students had walked across the stage, and in 1906, five students.
The 1926 edition of The Boom yearbook gives more detail on the graduating class. Their class motto was “Keep Clean and Keep Going.” Their class colors were green and white, and their class flower was the azalea.
One chapter of the yearbook, titled “Senior Class Reunion,” was dedicated to a short story depicting what they imagined as their 20-year class reunion. Presumably written by each of the students and edited together, the pages detail the class reuniting on June 4, 1946 to tell one another about their lives.
Some of the students appear to be telling the readers about their dreams. In the story, Edward Cooney says, “On leaving M.H.S., I took my saxophone in one hand and my coat in the other and started out into the big world. I began my career as a saxophone soloist by playing for the children on the streets … Now I play my own compositions in the big theatres.”
David Paoli, who was surely the class clown, writes that his future self “finally hit upon my life work when a small circus came to town. You remember how I used to make you all laugh—well, with this in mind. I joined the circus as a clown. I now am manager of that circus and am still a clown.”
Others took Paoli’s comedic route, with Alma Johnson writing that her future self “took up hair dressing, shampooing, marcelling [a hair-styling technique using hot curling tongs] and make a specialty of bald heads.”
Everett Silvia writes that he earned his PhD by “succeeding to find the fourth dimension.” The group certainly had a good sense of humor.
The 1926 commencement program shows that the ceremony had several musical sections, opening with an orchestra, followed by the boys’ glee club singing two songs, and later the girls’ glee club singing three. The presentation of the class was led by Mr. Coale and was surely one of the shorter sections of the ceremony with only 19 students. The graduation closed out with another orchestra selection and the combined glee clubs performing the school song.
Averee McNear is the curator at the Kelley House Museum in Mendocino, Calif.
