Gateway North off to a great start
Gateway North is off to an amazing year as a welcoming safe school. Our students are earning SOAR awards for Staying Safe, Offering Help, Acting Responsibly, and Respecting Everyone.
Our school gardens are producing an abundance of green beans, and the kindergarten classes are studying them as our commodity of the month. We have searched the gardens to harvest them and explored them with our five senses.
Our Ag-STEM focus is becoming more defined and we are in the process of expanding our opportunities through grants and in kind donations. Our Classroom Farmer program is up and running for the second year and we are looking forward to using Skype to tour some of the facilities that we cannot physically visit.
Athletic Hall of Fame induction ceremony held September 9
with videos courtesy of Guven Witteveen and St. Johns Athletic Dept.
This week’s Mystery Photo
Where is this?
Can you tell us where this is located? Drop us a line at mail@sjindy.com.
206 E. Gibbs St.
Trefil wrote: In the late forties and early fiftys it was owned by Harold and Dorothy Whitaker. They had two daughters Betty Jean and Helen. Then it owned by Joe and Trudy VaRrooyen.
The current owners are Brian and Sammy Karsten. Previous owners include Dorothy Whittaker, Joe and Carolyn VanRooyen, Gregory Argersinger, and Kevin and Michelle Hafner.
A Look Back – 1968 Soap Box Derby Winner
Barry Clark Bauer
Soap Box Derby winner Kris Patterson proudly holds the John Lynam Memorial trophies, while Marv Streit, Chevrolet regional derby director, and St. Johns derby Director Bill McCarthy hold Kris’ big trophy and $500 savings bond.
Kris Patterson, 13, of St. Johns is probably still floating on cloud nine today, reliving his five races downhill on the way to the Clinton County Soap Box Derby championship Sunday evening. The 13-year-old son of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Patterson of 605 W. Cass won the derby by edging out Ron Droste of Westphalia by about two feet in the final heat of Sunday’s sixth annual derby.
As winner, he received a $500 U.S. savings bond, a handsome trophy, and a trip Aug. 24 to Akron, Ohio, to participate in the All-American Soap Box Derby sponsored by Chevrolet.
The 86 heats of racing Sunday afternoon and evening were run in about three hours, and the derby awards program was concluded before dark. Temperatures downtown during the late afternoon and early evening ranged between 92 and 97 degrees, according to the bank clock.
Fifteen of the 85 boys participating shared in prizes offered by the sponsoring St. Johns Jaycees and Bee’s Chevrolet-Olds. Nine of the boys were from St. Johns, five from Westphalia and one from Fowler.
Runner-up Ron Droste of Westphalia received a portable television set as second prize, and Ron’s brother, Ken, was third and won a Polaroid 220 Land camera. Another Westphalia lad, Dan Schueller, was fourth and got a Sting-Ray bicycle.
Other prize winners were:
Kim Patterson, brother of the winner, fifth place, a Wyler wrist watch.
Bruce Kieffer of St. Johns, sixth place, a portable radio.
Bruce Eisler of St. Johns, seventh place, a Polaroid Swinger camera.
Bruce Schomisch of Fowler, eighth place, a Caravelle wrist watch.
Tom Hattis of Westphalia, ninth place, a Johnson rod and reel.
Gary Rademacher of St. Johns, tenth place, a baseball glove.
Roger Harris of St. Johns eleventh place, a model airplane.
Mike Paradise of St., Johns, twelfth place, a portable radio.
Drew Carpenter of St. Johns, thirteenth place, a Zebco rod and reel.
Steve Martin of St. Johns, fourteenth place, a slot car.
Kevin Thelen of Westphalia, fifthteenth place, a football.
An estimated 5,000 persons braved the heat of Sunday to witness at least parts of the derby day program. It included a 43-unit parade, a powder puff derby, crowning of queens, and of course, the races.
The derby winner, Kris Patterson, was participating in his third Soap Box Derby. In the previous two years he didn’t place in the top 15. This year, driving a car sponsored by Woodbury’s Flower Shop, with psychedelic lettering, he won all five heats he participated in. Kris has been working on his car for about three months. He said he changed the wheel base, put on a new front, side and back. He was proud of the fact he built the car himself with no special help from his father. “And I had a good pit crew helping me spin my wheels,” he commented.
Kris also received the John Lynam Memorial traveling plaque as an award for sportsmanship and adherence to the Soap Box Derby ideals. The plaque, and a personal trophy, was presented by Ralph Lynam; it’s a memorial to his son, John, who was struck and killed by a car in Akron, Ohio, after watching the All-American derby the first year of the racing here.