Fair Grove Paddling Controversy

    During the school year 1960-1961, an incident happened at Fair Grove High School, where I was a freshman, that, in the words of school superintendent John Ewing "put Fair Grove on the map, but not in a good way." As I'm sure any of my classmates who might read this (or any of my schoolmates slightly older than me) can probably guess, I'm talking about the time that 27 high school boys were paddled (some said beaten) for disobeying a school rule en masse.
    Prior to the 60-61 school year, Fair Grove had an open campus policy for high school students, meaning they could leave the school at noon and go to the stores and cafes in downtown Fair Grove, a quarter-mile away, to buy snacks and lunch items. At the beginning of the new year, the school administration instituted a new rule closing the campus with the exception that we were still allowed to go to the service station at the foot of the hill directly across the street from campus. There was considerable grumbling about this new change when it was first announced, but few, if any, students chose to defy the rule at that time.
    However, it was one of those things that more or less built up over time. There was a lot of dissatisfaction among certain students and a lot of friction between them and teachers over a number of occurrences throughout the school year. Fair Grove had a poor basketball team, partly because a couple of its star players had been declared scholastically ineligible. Certain other players, along with their parents, thought they should be getting to play more than they were. Then in late January or early February, two cheerleaders got kicked off the cheerleading squad for riding home from an away game with their boyfriends instead of riding the bus as they were supposed to do.
    After a stretch of cold, winter weather, Wednesday, February 15, 1961, dawned clear and fair. A perfect day to skip school! Or at least to ditch school during the noon hour and go to Fair Grove. And that's exactly what about 40 students, among a student body of less than 200, did. They were mostly boys, although rumor has it that at least a couple of girls also skipped out. Only 27 boys were caught, and later that day, the 27 were given spankings by four teachers: principal Elbert Proctor, agriculture teacher Glen Cochran, shop teacher Gilbert Barclay, and Adren McKinley, who taught various subjects. The boys were taken one at a time into a room, with the teachers presumably alternating on which one administered the paddling. The paddles used were about one-half inch thick, four inches wide, and 24 inches long, and each boy received six licks. Some of the spankings were administered so hard that at least one of the paddles broke in two. The offending students were also suspended from school for three days.
    The punishments caused an immediate uproar, because they were viewed as overly harsh by many school patrons, mainly by the parents of the boys who received the spankings but also by good number of parents who had no children in high school or whose children were not spanked. For instance, Mrs. R. D. Talmadge, who had two kids who went to school at Fair Grove but were not involved in the spanking incident, spoke out against the severity of the discipline. "The boys were whipped pretty hard," she said. "It was not what I would call a 'spanking.' I do not think this is the proper way to correct our teenagers." Some of the parents whose sons had been spanked threatened to sue the school, and at least one or two took the initial step of contacting a lawyer.
    The controversy made front-page headlines in Springfield newspapers for the next two days. The school board called a special meeting Wednesday evening to meet with a handful of parents whose boys had been spanked. Apparently some sort of tentative understanding was reached, but this meeting involved only a few parents. On Thursday morning, the day after the spankings, superintendent Ewing, who was not at school the previous day, called an all-school assembly and addressed the student body. With the county superintendent of schools present as well, Ewing defended the paddlings as "proper, legal and necessary." He told the students that most of their fellow students supported the teachers and the administration. He complimented those who had abided by the rules on Wednesday and especially those few who had tried to talk their friends out of going to town. Van Ricketts, student body president, also addressed the assembly, saying that the student council supported the teachers.
    But neither the hastily called board meeting nor the school assembly did much to calm the storm that was still brewing at Fair Grove, and the school faculty requested an emergency meeting with the school board and school patrons for the purpose of receiving their assurances that they, the teachers, would be supported in meting out future discipline or else they were prepared to walk off the job. A few teachers had received anonymous, threatening calls. Superintendent Ewing didn't help matters when he told reporters that several of the boys involved in the spanking incident were "constant troublemakers" and that the school would be fine if the parents didn't "interfere." It was this bad publicity that many parents objected to almost as much as the spankings themselves. "It makes the students appear to be juvenile delinquents," said Mrs. Talmadge, "and this is not the truth."
    On Friday morning, a carload of boys who had been suspended drove to the school and parked on the grounds. School officials called Greene County deputies, but the boys were gone by the time the lawmen arrived. School was dismissed early Friday afternoon so that the faculty could meet in private before the special board meeting they had requested was scheduled to take place at 3:30 p.m.
    At the 3:30 meeting, all but two of the parents of the boys who had been spanked showed up, and those two had previously sent word that they did, indeed, support the board and the teachers. About 300 people in total attended the meeting, held in the elementary auditorium. Board president Boyd Holladay and his freshman son, Steve, who was one of the boys spanked, were the first to "parade' before the teachers and other board members and offer their assurances that they would support the school administration and teachers. Another board member, Burnie Huff, and his son Howard, another of the truants, also assured the assembly that "it wouldn't happen again." Emory Moore and his son, Jerry, also appeared before the group. Moore, who had been one of the parents most angered by the harsh punishments, admitted that he'd been "somewhat agitated" earlier. He wasn't upset by the fact that the boys had been disciplined, Moore said, but by the way they were punished. "We agree with the teachers and the school board that the boys needed to be punished, but not beat. The boys took their punishment and were more men than the teachers to take a whipping like that." Moore displayed a broken paddle and indicated that others had been found hidden in a bin near the room where the spankings took place. By the time the meeting was over, though, Moore said he and his son were ready to support the board and the teachers. "Maybe there'll be better harmony than we had before."
    Toward the end of the meeting, the school board unanimously passed a resolution expressing support for the administration and teachers and specifying that any student whose parents did not support the resolution would be expelled for the rest of the school year. Any student involved in the recent spanking episode who got into serious trouble again during the current school year would also be expelled.
    For those of you who are wondering, no, I was not one of the students who was spanked, because I didn't leave campus on that fateful day. I guess it was partly because I had never had the privilege of an open campus prior to that year anyway. At least I'd never taken advantage of the privilege. So, I didn't miss not having it. But Steve Holladay wasn't the only one of my classmates who did get in trouble. I think there were at least a couple of other freshmen besides Steve, but it was mostly upperclassmen.
    The photo below from a Springfield newspaper shows Mrs. Wade Kepley, Emory Moore, Mrs. Kepley's son Adrian, and George Shaffer III examining a paddle that broke into pieces as it was being used to administer spankings to 27 Fair Grove students.