Jim Anderson ’63

At age 10, about 5th grade, I was the smallest, scrawniest boy in the class and may have volunteered for this event because I lived next to the Texico Station and had access to their pile of used tires.

Anyway, I’m at the starting line (in the area where the new school stands) with my tire. (I wonder if the rules said anything about tire size) and standing next to me is a giant by the name of Clifford Kinsley. This is the same guy who just a few days earlier got a big chuckle as his pet hog took a liking to me and who 70 years later loves telling anyone who will listen just how fast Jimmy Anderson got out of that hog yard and by how many feet he cleared the fence getting to safety. Could this be the same rally day where in the morning spelling competition I could not spell the word “above” correctly? My excuse to this day: maybe my hearing was already headed south at age 10, because I had never heard of that word! So, after spelling it “abofs” I was looking for any rock to crawl under. Now I was about to be humiliated a second time by someone I thought was my friend.

When we heard the word “GO” to start the “roll” Clifford planted his size 12 boot on his tire which sent it half way to the finish line, while I just stood there in awe at this flagrant violation of the rules. But the officials let the game continue and the big guy got the blue ribbon (I don’t recall if there were participation ribbons then) while I started looking for that rock.

Some 70 years later, Dr. Kinsley and I discussed this life altering event over coffee. He claims that he was not at the starting line next to me that day because he was a grade ahead of me. The more I think about it, that giant next to me was Paul Thomas who was in the same grade. Man, those country kids were big!!

Jo Anna Poppe Warder ’56

I am not sure of the year, but I think it was 1955 when the Auditorium was built adjacent to the high school. I was a junior then and my class raised enough money to buy the popcorn machine purchased the year of the opening. To raise funds my class members sold magazine subscriptions and Christmas cards and accepted monetary donations. I have been informed that the machine is still being used and is operative after 70 + years. It might have had a few parts replaced and retired, but is basically the same machine.

Aka Valerie Halla

Jim Anderson ’63

The Murdo Auditorium which later would be called the Harold Thune Auditorium, saw its first game in November of 1954. As a result, the grade basketball teams inherited the old gym along with the boys’ and men’s locker rooms. Now anyone who had the opportunity or misfortune to visit or use that locker room or gym came away knowing they had walked on sacred ground where Murdo legends had dressed, showered, and perfected their athletic skills.

Bill Sorensen, classmate 1953-1961

Dingy, dark, and dank is an apt description. A single bench for seating was separated from the tiny dark green wooden lockers by what seemed like a foot and a half wide space. The one exit guaranteed a traffic jam that had kids moving sideways attempting to pass from one end to the other. A couple of light bulbs with very low wattage extending from the ceiling provided poor illumination. The shower at the far end had one dim light and two shower heads. Wooden slats separated your feet from the cement and the water drained into a simple pit. With no ventilation the humidity from sweat, showers, and wet towels combined combined to provide a distinct unpleasant odor. Although it was a perfect petri dish for mold growth, I think the only sickness was caused by inhalation of bacteria and viruses we spread among ourselves. It may not have been optimal, but I don’t recall many complaints. In retrospect, it is fun to reminisce knowing parents today would sue over those conditions we accepted as normal.

By Billy Francis ’62

When I was a senior in 1962, Murdo had an outstanding Basketball team. We won the district championship and the regional tournament before going on to the State B in Sioux Falls. Our top 5 players were Obie Brunskill, Willard Bordeaux, Roger Strait, Gordon Niedan, and Chris Anderson.

Our star defensive players and top scorers all year were Obie and Willard. I had the job of guarding Willard in practice and he kept me on my heels. If he wanted to make a basket, he found a way.

We went into our first game with Pine Ridge handicapped. Willard had injured his ankle during the Regionals and it wasn’t doing well. Obie had to take up the slack which was exhausting. Often times, you could count on one of them to steal the ball before the other team made it back down the court. They were good.

Nevertheless, Murdo hung on thanks to Chris, Roger, and Gordon. Though he didn’t score much, Obie had a brilliant defensive game. Murdo managed an 11 point lead at the end of the 3rd quarter. Some of the Pine Ridge fans admitted defeat early and started to leave.

And then Pine Ridge had a 16 point outburst in the 4th quarter. At the end of regulation time, the game was tied 47-47 so it went into overtime. Willard who only made an unheard of 2 points the whole game, fouled out in the 4th quarter. His injury was a huge factor in the overall scheme of things.

Pine Ridge dominated in the overtime. Obie fouled out when our only hope was to send  Pine Ridge to the free throw line in an attempt to get the ball back. He told me he was so exhausted he couldn’t see the difference in the colors of the uniforms and therefore, made some bad passes. It didn’t help that Pine Ridge made 8 of 10 free throws. The game ended Pine Ridge 55 and Murdo 51.

It was a tough loss for the Murdo Coyotes. Pine Ridge went on to win the tournament.

Jim Anderson, ’63

Mrs. Sorensen taught English at MHS for several years beginning in 1937, with a few years off to raise 2 children. Superintendent Gordon Diedtrich convinced her to come back to MHS in the fall of 1957 where she taught until moving to Presho after the 1961 school year.

It was early in my freshman year (1959) when Mrs. Sorensen stopped by my study hall desk shortly before school dismissed for the day. “Jimmy,” she said. “I think you would find this book interesting. She handed me Jim Bridger, Mountain Man by Stanley Vestal. I did find the book to my liking and thanks to Mrs. Sorensen and my mother, who when I had the mumps, had me read the condensed version of The Day Lincoln was shot, by Jim Bishop, I have been an avid reader ever since.

Maybe she saw some potential in the scrawny kid who lived across the alley from her home on Main Street, and who played with her son, Billy. I still recall visiting with her in the fall of 1963 as I was headed to college. I can still see that “You’ll find out soon enough smile on her face” as I told her I had everything all figured out-there was not much more anyone could teach me.

I recall a few of the highlights of the 2 years our class had Mrs. Sorensen for English. One “pop quiz” stands out because it was given the morning after we played basketball at Martin, which required us to leave immediately after school and arrive back in Murdo late. We had been assigned to read the first 25 pages of Ivanhoe. It was after midnight when I quickly read these pages. Our English class was the first class of the morning of the same day. We heard these dreaded instructions as soon as we walked into the classroom that morning. “Put your books away, take out a piece of paper, your name at the top-question number one. I got a few points that day but I could never catch up with those 2 Kinsley girls who also happened to be in my class. Mrs. Sorensen had us memorize Portia’s “Quality of Mercy” speech from Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice and Marc Antony’s “Friends, Romans, countryman, lend me your ears” speech from  Julius Ceasar. I can still recite the last few lines of Thanatopsis, but I think it was where to put those commas in those compound sentences that gave me nightmares. And let’s not even talk about conjugating verbs or diagramming sentences. And I still remember my research paper on South Dakota’s ring necked pheasant.

Charles Francis’42 from Murdo Man, the memories of Charles Gordon Francis

An extremely important teacher in my high school years was Marge Swanson (later Sorensen). She pounded away teaching Shakespeare to a mostly unresponsive class and was equally energetic in all her English classes. She talked me into writing a sports column for the student section of the MURDO COYOTE (The town’s weekly newspaper) and she forced me to enter the school’s annual declamatory (oratorty) contest. I memorized a speech by Wendell Wilkie, a Republican presidential candidate, titled “Men Like War.” Compared to the piano concert debacle many years earlier, my rendition of Wilkie’s speech was an even greater disaster. I got stage fright, forgot line after line, and had to be constantly prompted from off stage by Miss Swanson. Who ever would have guessed that I would spend the later part of my life helping professional speech writers prepare material for their bosses. And to think it all started with a Murdo English teacher named Marge Swanson.

Walt Anderson ’62

With Murdo’s impressive runner-up showing in the 1937 State “B” basketball tournament an easy remembrance for many hoop fans, many of the alumni may have forgotten that Murdo qualified for the State Tournament held in Mitchell, SD in 1935. Unlike 1937 though, the old “one class” system was in effect, and Murdo’s competition included Mitchell (eventual champion), Sioux Falls Washington, Yankton (consolation), Webster, McBride, Miller (runner up), and Lake Preston. Murdo’s team during the year included Seniors Greg “Pete” Brunskill, Gib Thune, Keith Lange, “Speck” Muck, Ken Karns, and Les Lange, Juniors, Curt England and Walt Anderson, and Sophomores, Bill Francis, Harold Thune, Roland Myers, Ellis Beckwith, Hugh Guthrie, and Bert Wendt. The Coyotes of 1935 finished the State Tournament in sixth place winning one game and losing two.

GLORIOUS Mud, Gregg Brunskill ’59

During my father’s and mother’s time at Murdo High School, basketball was the main sport and the gymnasium was located in the high school basement. There was little room for spectators so the local town fathers decided to build a big auditorium. I suspect this was done with local labor and goods and services donated by town businesses. My father brought his John Deere tractor with the farmland hay fork to help lift packets of asbestos shingles up on the huge curved roof. And of course the local ladies groups would organize lunch for the working men, served in the hot sun on the gravel pad beside the new auditorium grounds, served on 4×8 sheets of plywood supported by alfalfa hay bales. These ladies groups were pretty dawned fierce once they figured out a project. They helped put on dramatic plays and musical productions in the schools, expanded and stocked the high school library and raised money for uniforms for the high school band. It was the sort of town where your first grade teacher could stand at the exit of our high school graduation, greet us by name and give us a pencil kit present in a zippered plastic bag.

The typing classroom had dozens of ancient typewriters that went “ding” at the carriage return and on the classroom walls were formal photographs of Murdo High School graduation classes back to the 1920s, including my father and mother, aunts and uncles. Whenever I had a term paper to write, my mother would drive to the biggest nearby library in Pierre and return with a trunk full of books on the subject; for example, C. W. Ceram’s book on archeology, which I read more than once.

Harold Peck ’34

One year dad (Otto Peck) took the local bakery in for a debt on the flour bill, so we operated it for about a year before we could sell it. That was my first year in high school (1930) so I could not participate in athletics that year. I had to deliver bread before and after school.

Athletically, I played football and basketball in high school. As to football, I had been practicing with the backfield, but in the first game I played in, we were playing Pierre and I had to play in the line. I was much smaller than the opposing lineman so the only way I could stop him was to lie down and trip him as he went by. After that I became a regular lineman. Presto was our big rival. There were usually more fights on the sidelines by the spectators than there were on the field.

Murdo was always basketball town. In 1933 the boy’s BB team had won the district tournament and was scheduled to go to Rapid City the the regional when Roosevelt closed all the banks. Dad (Otto Peck) always carried a lot of money in cash, so he financed the team to the tourney. Earlier in the season we were scheduled to play Pine Ridge Indian School which was also undefeated. Since most of the area wanted Murdo to lose, it was agreed to play the game on a neutral floor. The game was held at the Philip auditorium. Most of the people at the game wanted Murdo to be defeated. At that time Les Lange and Carl Lathrop were the best shots. We surprised everyone and won the game easily.

Bill Sorensen grades ’53 to ’61

I completed elementary school in Murdo and vividly remember my first day. Mrs. Sandy was my teacher and by morning recess, I was the only student unable to complete the assignment to draw a butterfly from the picture provided. Consequently, I was not allowed to participate in recess. I remember the frustration but much to my relief Mrs. Sandy left the room.  Immediately I moved to one of the large windows illuminated brightly by the sun and traced the damn butterfly. At noon Sheila Penticoff and I were walking home and I happily commented that the day had passed so fast but was devastated when she informed me school would continue in the afternoon. I was almost in denial until my mother, who could not contain her laughter told me the awful truth. At 1 p.m. Mrs. Sandy was reading On the Banks of Plum Creek. It was inevitable that the word “but” would be read and upon it happening, Sheila and I burst out laughing. It seemed extremely odd to me that the other classmates were not joining us. Mrs. Sandy made it abundantly clear that this type of behavior would not be tolerated. Her tone of voice totally convinced me of her sincerity. Better days were ahead.