Today I have some interesting facts about the history of the Tonkawa High School and our Buccaneers!Tonkawa High School began in 1921 in a two story brick building on 7th street that served as Central grade school. The building originally boasted ten classrooms, three teacher’s rooms, toilets and drinking fountains. It replaced the wooden structure that had served elementary students since 1896.According to an article found at the McCarter Museum, Tonkawa had nineteen boys play football in 1929. Games were played in the afternoon and there were no school buses so the teams traveled in private cars. Since the roads were not paved, extra time was always allowed in the event of getting stuck in the mud during a rain storm.Approximately twenty girls participated in “Pepperettes” and there was only one cheerleader, Mayme Perry. (Which I find interesting)They all wore plain identical black dresses with an orange scarf.The student body selected a candidate for queen and the class that sold the most tickets for the school carnival won the title for their candidate. Cheerleader Mayme Perry was presented with an athletes T to wear on her orange sweater. There was no homecoming celebration since the school began in 1921 there were not enough people to “come home”.The high school did not have a cafeteria so everyone had an hour to go home for lunch. Vacation days were one week at Christmas and Thanksgiving.What memories do you have from Tonkawa High School? How far back does your “Buccaneer generation” go? #gobucs!
