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I’m back after an extensive bout of eye surgery—and glad it’s behind me. I apologize for a lengthy hiatus in the journal.

The 2008 PJC homecoming has come and gone. This season of the year usually brings Bat reporters to the archives to research the naming of the PJC newspaper, which is clearly stated in our fiftieth anniversary history book, page 8, copies of which are still available. Believe me, this book contains everything you ever wanted to know about Paris Junior College—and then some. Working on the “book committee” will remain one of my most enduring memories of my time at PJC, but it was great fun, also, working with the other committee members: Bobby R. Walters, Dwight Chaney, Jo Ann Parkman, Paul Bailey, Marilee Miller, Marvin Gorley, and Rita Tapp. We were pleasantly immersed in nostalgia for many weeks.

I also received a request from Jeanne Kraft concerning how the Paris High School Owl got its name, and believe it or not, I found it in a Paris News article dated Oct. 19, 1955. In 1908 the PHS building burned to the ground. Classes had to be held in temporary quarters east of the school ground. One day Miss Sallie (Seckel) went to one of these buildings to teach her Latin classes. As she walked inside, she saw an owl hovering near the ceiling. Suddenly it swooped down and lighted on her arm. The boys in the class carried the owl outside and took its picture. Then, in 1913, when the first yearbook came out, the picture of the owl and the bird’s name was on the cover, and “The Owl” it’s been, ever since. And if you believe that one, you’re more gullible than I thought. The legend of how the Bat got its name is more believable. The early college was housed in a “dark, out-of-the-way, backdoor part of the high school building,” and someone dubbed PJC students as the “Junior College Bats.”

I didn’t have the honor of knowing Miss Sallie Seckel—I’m not “that” old—but I’m sure she was an outstanding teacher. She held out for 46 years! At her last commencement program, she said she wanted no weeping and wailing. She had just decided to get around to some of the things she had never had time to do while tending to her classroom duties. I love it—her retirement gift in 1948 was a radio! How times have changed.

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