Chetopa and Oswego High School prom pictures are on the taylornews.org website.

DARE day was held Friday, May 2 at the Oswego Fairgrounds for area fifth graders. Ten stations were visited.

See the next Labette Avenue for the complete story.

Saturday, May 3, will mark the first reunion of the 1952 Kansas State Ban Johnson baseball team, the Oswego Rotarians. The group will meet at 1:30 p.m. at the Oswego Community Center. Special guests in addition to the champions will include Paul Hemphill, famous author, who played for Oswego in 1954 and 1955, and Tim Kurkjian, ESPN Baseball Analyst and son-in-law of player Jerry Patrick.

The 1952 game against the semi-pro Great Bend Golden Belters was attended by approximately 1,000 fans, a city record for a baseball game. The Rotarians won the game 5-0 to capture the championship in two hours and 32 minutes. The team was managed by Ray Gifford of Oswego, who took the team from last place in 1951 to state champions the next season.

Team members were from Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri, as well as Kansas. Three of the players went on to play minor league baseball and another played for the Boston Red Sox. A fifth team member joined the NFL, playing for the Cleveland Browns and the Pittsburg Steelers.

See this week’s Labette Avenue for the complete story, team picture and championship roster.

It hit so hard and fast that it ripped barbed wire fences out of the ground, leveled farm homes and barns, killed or injured livestock and left behind an ugly trail that today resembles a war zone.
Residents living along the southern edge of Labette County and across the state line in Craig County, Okla., lived through an EF4 tornado Sunday evening, and the damaged terrain is still strewn with debris.
The wedge-shaped funnel cloud formed over Chetopa around 3:30 p.m. and grew to a mile wide at times staying on the ground for some 90 miles as it blasted toward the east, killing seven people in Picher, Okla., and another 14 people in Newton County Missouri from the same storm system.
The Chetopa community missed the major part of the tornado damage but tennis ball size hail pelted the town and strong winds left no doubt that the funnel had barely missed the town that only hours earlier had held its annual Spring Fling celebration.
Chetopa City Clerk Toni Crumrine and Labette County Sheriff William Blundell both confirmed that no major damage was reported in Chetopa or in Labette County.
But south of Chetopa, just across the Kansas/Oklahoma line, was quite another story. The funnel followed an improbable southeasterly line and created havoc wherever it chose to go. Tornado sirens wailed in Chetopa and Oswego giving residents within earshot a few minutes warning of impending funnel activity.
Many rural residents sought shelter in cellars. Others tried to outrun the tornado in vehicles. But all were victims of a phenomenon quite common in this region which is known as “tornado alley.”
Don and Mary Stewart have lived at their farm for 56 years. The tornado took the roof off the house, destroyed two outbuildings and barn. Mary said they watched the storm warning on the television, looked outside and saw it coming. Mary and her husband, Don, headed to their storm cellar and were joined by their son and wife, Steve and Kathy, who lived just a half mile down the road from them. Mary said they heard it go over — a sound like a train and then it was dead quiet. They knew it had hit. “It was over in an instant,” she said. There was no rain, just lots of wind.
Mary Beth Hartley said her daughter had called and told her it was coming toward her area and she ran down to her basement. She stayed there five minutes and then went out. She had damage to a front porch and two outbuildings were completely gone.
Across highway 59 about three miles to the east, a trailer house was picked up and thrown into another house, demolishing the trailer and causing extensive damage to the second home. East of Chetopa, another house was also destroyed.
Dustin Wilson and his 6-year old son, were also helping with the cattle and they decided to head for home and take a nap. As they looked out they could see it coming and they got into their pickup truck and drove away from it.
When they came back later the tornado had completely taken their home and all that was left was the cement slab foundation. Dustin works at Boss Tank in Oswego and his wife Tammy works at the Labette Bank in Oswego.
At the home of Raymond George, just up the road from the Wilson’s, there was a tree on the corner of his roof, one shed destroyed, his motor home turned on its side.
Jim and Martha Buttram, Quapaw, Okla., lost their home and barn in the same tornado. Jim is a former third grade teacher and elementary principal at Chetopa and also former elementary principal at Caney.
The Buttrams were in Tulsa at the time of the storm. Jim’s parents, John and Mary Buttram, live across the pasture southeast of Jim. Jim’s brother, Jack, was able to get them to shelter before the storm hit. Their house suffered heavy damage with the windows blown out and portions of the roof gone. Jim’s house and barn were completely gone. One of their dogs was killed and the other was still missing as of Sunday afternoon.
Ronnie and Sharon Johnson, who live south of Keelville, had several pieces of farm equipment damaged. The equipment was at the home of Alvene Darnell, just across the Oklahoma line. Ronnie was in his truck outside Alvene’s house when the tornado hit. He jumped out of the truck, leaving it running and in neutral, and ran toward the house. The truck was pushed through a fence and Ronnie was forced against the garage door of the house by the wind. He was able to get down and cover his head while the tornado passed over. Sharon Johnson is the sister of Esther Dunn, owner of the Hornet’s Nest in Chetopa.
Toby Fry, son of Pat Fry who had a beauty shop in Chetopa several years ago, lost his home to the storm. Toby, his wife and daughter, were not at home. There is nothing left of the Fry home except rubble strewn across the nearby fields.

All four area high schools and several elementary schools will be presenting graduation programs in this coming weekend.
Senior classes are being honored in special pages which can be found elsewhere in today’s edition of Labette Avenue.
USD 506 Labette County High School graduation will be held Saturday, May 17, at 8 p.m. in the Harrison Auditorium
There will be seven co-valedictorians: Alicia Burris, Sarah Cooper, Tiffany Farrow, Kendra Frazier, Joey Hambleton, Shaun Kelsey and Lindsay Powers.
There are 134 graduates.
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Eighth grade graduation in USD 506 will be held Tuesday, May 20, at 8 p.m.
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USD 505 Chetopa High School graduation is set for Sunday, May 18 at 4 p.m.
The valedictorian will be Jennifer Carrell and the salutatorian will be Kendra Rice.
Nine seniors will graduate from Chetopa High School.
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Chetopa eighth grade graduation will be held Sunday, May 18 at 6 p.m.
The valedictorian will be Shy-la Smith and the salutatorian will be Whitney Hillis.
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Welch High School graduation will be held Sunday, May 18, at 2 p.m.
The valedictorian will be Paige Sutton and the salutatorian will be Kalleigh Chrz.
There are 32 seniors graduating.
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At Oswego High School, the senior class of 2008 will receive diplomas during commencement exercises on Saturday, May 17, at 2 pm..
There are two co-valedictorians:Caleb Hays and Eden Tullis.
The salutatorian is Jacob Hine.
There are 33 graduating.
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Oswego Middle School and Service Valley eighth grade graduation will be held Tuesday, May 20, at 7p.m., at the Oswego High School.

The Chetopa FFA traveled to Herington, Kan., on Saturday, May, 3, to compete at the Centre FFA prospect show. Everyone came home with an award.
In Showmanship, Kyle Darnell won Grand Champion Senior Showman and Tait Johnson of Chetopa Pacers won Grand Junior Showman.
In the market show, Andrew Porter won first place in class two and Tait Johnson received second.
In class four, Kyle Darnell placed first and Lindsey Pease received third. Class five was won by Lindsey Pease, class six Kyle Darnell won second and Andrew Porter received third.
All students who placed first, second, or third received cash prizes. In the grand drive Kyle Darnell won top honors as Grand Champion Market goat and received one hundred dollars and a belt buckle. Reserve Grand was won by Lindsey Pease who received a $50 cash award and a belt buckle.
On Sunday, May 4, we showed in Hutchinson at the State Fairgrounds in two different shows.
In the first show Tait Johnson started off by winning class one and Andrew Porter placed second. In class two Lindsey Pease placed first. Tait and Lindsey had to compete for Division One Champion. Lindsey was Champion and Tait received Reserve. In the Middle Weight Division Kyle Darnell was in Class 4 and placed second. In the Heavy Weight Division Lindsey Pease placed third and Kyle Darnell placed fourth. In Showmanship Lindsay Pease was Reserve Champion Senior Showman.
In the second show on Sunday Tait Johnson won Class 1 and Andrew placed second. In class two, Lindsey received first and second. Then again competing for Division one champion Lindsey Pease was champion and Tait Johnson received Reserve. In the Middle Weight Division Class 4 Kyle Darnell placed second again. In the Heavy Weight Division Class 6 Lindsey placed third and Kyle Darnell recieved fourth.

Marie Horner presented the following information during Nursing Home Week at the Oswego Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. Eleanor Monroe also displayed some Indian arrowheads for the residents to see:
A tribe of North American Indians held an extensive territory between the Missouri and Arkansas Rivers. Their culture was typical of the Plains Indians, and the first contact with white men occurred when they met the French explorers near the Osage River in present day Missouri and became friends with them. Together, they found against other tribes. This movement began in the year of 1810 and the territory gradually moved westward as the land was sold to the United States government.
At one point in time, the current Chief of the tribe was on a scalping mission, chasing an intruder that he was about to scalp who appeared to have white hair. However, one swipe of his sharp knife and of came the truth. . . . the man was wearing a wig. Having never seen a wig before, the chief was amazed, and turned it around in his hands, but proudly and quickly he tried it on his own head. It fit. The chief wore the hairpiece from that time on and became known as Chief White Hair. As generations passed, the tradition continued. There were several chiefs with the name of White Hair as they became the Chief of that tribe.
The year of 1841 found the current Chief White Hair and his tribe of Osage dwelling below the bluff that overlooked the Neosho River close to the Horseshoe Lake near present-day Oswego. The United States Government had established a trading post and blacksmith shop nearby for the benefit of the settlers and Indians. A settler, John Mathews was assigned to that position until his tragic death at the beginning of the Civil War. Mathews was considered a wealthy man of good character who did business with the Indians on a fair and honest basis, a trait that rarely existed in those times. His large home on the bluff often extended a welcome to strangers, and many enjoyed the race track that encircled the area. Mathews had a large family, married a woman who was half-Welch, and when she died he married her sister, both daughters of a western settler, named Bill Williams. Also, part of the family clan owned several slaves, each having their own place in daily life.
The town of White Hair below the bluff was know as Keeitonwa and the house of Mathews was located about 1000 feet east of the Little Town Well located on the slope.
All the dwellings in the village of White Hair were huts with rounded roofs and only one door, which was on the east. The hut of White Hair was set in the center of the village and easily recognized because of two doors, one on the east and one on the west. As with Osage culture, if peace prevailed, White Hair stood outside his east door upon rising each morning and chanted to Grandfather, the Sun. However, if war was the order of the day, he stood outside the west door of his hut and chanted.
The Indians lived off the land. They were busy with the storing of foods, growing of crops, drying of meats, weaving of cloths and curing of hides.
For twenty years this was a contented little village . . . . until the stir of slavery began. And even then Mathews was not concerned, because his operation was a peaceful one, and under the protection of the government–he thought.
But then came the time when the Northern cause for Freedom came looking for Mathews, removing the few slaves who lived there, calling it home. They found Mathews visiting in a friend’s home near Chetopa, where he was killed.
The Osage who lived over the bluff abandoned the site, beginning a move to the west further into Indian Territory for protection. The Mathews property on the bluff was also abandoned. And would remain so for the war years until 1862. And during those years the weeds grew, the wilderness took over. It was as though civilization had never attempted to be part of the area, the place we now call Oswego.