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Old Glory exes still flying, despite town's
flagging days
By BILL WHITAKER
If Old Glory High School ever had a heyday, it's long gone
now.
But that does not keep former pupils from returning to this
lonely stretch of Stonewall County every three years, just to
relive and remember whatever glory they once had.
They don't give a hoot if no one else remembers them, either.
"I was on a Navy carrier in World War II and they were
always asking me where Old Glory was," remembered 73-year-old
Herbert Vahlenkamp, one of the organizers of this year's reunion.
"But then, I could go to Abilene and they'd ask the very
same thing.
"I always tell 'em it's 55 miles north of Abilene."
Although the population of Old Glory is officially listed as
125, some locals say you have to include scarecrows in area cotton
fields to make up that many people. Herbert likes telling folks
Old Glory has "more stop signs than people."
He's close to right.
"There's nothing really left here," said Malcolm
Herttenberger, 73 and now mayor of nearby Rule. "Used to
be you could go into town and have a fight, and I don't mean maybe.
But eventually the younger ones grew up and moved away."
Now, little goes on in Old Glory except for some boot-scooting
at the nearby Sons of Hermann outpost. There's nary even a good
fight.
A TOWN BY ANY NAME
If the town has any claim to fame, it was the telling decision
by townfolks - many from German stock - to change the town name
from New Brandenburg to Old Glory in 1918. At the time World War
I was raging and townfolks didn't want anyone thinking their ancestry
interferred with their fierce loyalty to America. Other than that,
Old Glory residents say little else rates mention in the history
books. Some say the most famous person to live around these parts
was a fellow who played the Marlboro Man on TV and drowned in
a stock tank while trying to break a horse. Others insist it was
area jack-of-all-trades "Bunion" Johnson.
As far as the now-closed school goes, nobody I ran into seemed
sure why its students became known as the "Old Glory Pirates."
And the biggest thing to happen at the high school was its burning
in 1935, an episode still clouded in mystery.
Despite this, townfolks not only gather once every three years
to pay homage to the good old days of Old Glory but also to remember
other long-gone county schools, including Davidson, New Hope,
Tonk Creek and, northeast of Old Glory, Hooker.
Folks from Old Glory like to tell astonished visitors - in
this case, me - how there's a "hooker cemetery just north
of here."
"You haven't asked," Billie Jo Baitz Freeman added,
"how <I>full<I> it is!"
EVERYBODY'S RELATED
okes about nearby Hooker were just the tip of the cotton boll
with this spirited bunch. During the so-called business meeting
overseen by Herbert Vahlenkamp, a fashion show was mounted - complete
with some of Old Glory's most prominent men in drag.
"We were talking when we should have been listening, and
we got volunteered," 67-year-old Gus Vahlenkamp said, explaining
his appearance in dress and wig.
And when Herbert, trying to restore order, asked if there was
any old business to be handled, Joe Clark shouted (and to the
embarrassment of spouse Dorothy): "I got my wife here!"
The women are used to this. Lord knows, when the ladies of Old
Glory were mere lasses worthy of wooing, they had to go some distance
to find a man who could properly do such wooing. The reason finally
came out when I saw Jerry Marshall of Abilene, who's married to
an Old Glory gal.
"Yeah, I know, it looks like a lot of people," Jerry
said when I saw how jam-packed the school auditorium was. "But,
remember, most of 'em are cousins!"
Several women later confirmed the challenges facing Old Glory
girls.
"You just didn't date anybody from Old Glory - you just
didn't - because, well, we're all in-bred over here," 40-year-old
Beverly Neumann Davis said. "I mean, my cousin and I had
to go to Rule to find boys, and we were lucky.
"They were both from different lines."
<I>Bill Whitaker, who understands the 4-H Club of Old
Glory now stands for "hernias, hiccups, heartburn and hemorrhoids,"
can be reached at 676-6732.
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Copyright ©1996 or
1997, Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps. Publications
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