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Granville Newspapers Provide Samples of A+ Student Comedy

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A cartoon of two students talking

A cartoon from the March 13, 1941 The Owl

Some say that high school student humor is a bit sophomoric; as evidence to the contrary, we’ve uploaded several student newspapers (thanks to our partner, the Granville County Public Library) that will at least make you smile.

First up are a couple of jokes from the Oxford High School Student Paper, The Owl. These jokes are from their “This n’ That” section of the March 13, 1941 issue.

A joke from the student newspaper       A joke from the student newspaper

 

This section also includes some stellar student profiles. One “Sophisticated Senior” lists her favorite pastime as “flirting” and her hobby as “catching beau.” A “Silly Sophomore” prefers to spend her time “eating” and aspires to be a “Bulls’ Eye Egg thrower.”

Excerpt from a newspaper articleFor a bit of darker humor, the 1967 senior class of J. F. Webb High School ran an extended graduation joke in the form of a “Last Will and Testament,” describing what each person left behind to an underclassman. 

Items I and II leave “appreciation,” “respect,” and “esteem” to the principal and teachers. Item III leaves “old books,” “battered lockers,” and some hangout spot called “The Cave” to the student body in general. Item IV is where things start to get personal.

 

Many students opted for the “I leave my book, ‘How to Get Girls to Like You,’ to my friend Tommy” joke. A few, like Ellen Franklin and Wayne White, left treasured spots. Ronnie Daniel seems to be the only one who bequeathed a “kiss, bear hug, and a love lick on the top of his head.”A letter published in the Stovall High School student newspaper

In Stovall High School’s paper, The Breeze, the back page is covered in  miscellany briefs, including “A Second Grade Letter” by Margaret Gill. Even though Margaret didn’t seem to find it funny that her ducks drink so much water, it’s certainly entertaining to read.

An excerpt from a 1958 Proconian

This 1958 issue of Chapel Hill High School’s Proconian didn’t have the established humor section of some previous issues, though it did have a sassy note commenting on current affairs.

 

The full list of added newspapers (some by students and some for the community) includes:

  • The Owl (Oxford, N.C.) – 1941-1959
  • The Spectator (Oxford, N.C.) – 1967-1971
  • Berea Gazette (Berea, N.C.) – 1923
  • The Breeze (Stovall, N.C.) – 1923
  • Proconian (Chapel Hill, N.C.) – 1958
  • The Granville Enterprise (Oxford, N.C.) – 1914
  • Granville County News (Oxford, N.C.) – 1929
  • Oxford Mercury (Oxford, N.C.) – 1842

To see more materials from the Granville County Public Library, visit their partner page or their website. You can browse all newspapers in our North Carolina Newspapers collection.

60 Newspaper titles from Fayetteville, Lincolnton, Elizabeth City, and more!

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Header from the November 4, 1813 issue of The Hornets' Nest from Murfreesboro, N.C.

This week we have another 60 titles from all over the state up on DigitalNC, including a little piece of North Carolina railroad history!

On the second page of the January 15th, 1833 issue of the Fayetteville Observer, you’ll find a list of all the legislation enacted by the North Carolina General Assembly during the 1832-1833 session. One of these acts is the incorporation of the company that built North Carolina’s first functional railroad: The Experimental Rail Road Company of Raleigh.

Clipping detailing the incorporation of the Experimental Rail Road Company in Raleigh from January 15, 1833 issue of the Fayetteville Observer

Fayetteville Observer, January 15, 1833

The one and one-quarter mile rail line extended from the Capitol Building, which had burned in 1831, to a quarry just east of Raleigh. When the horse-drawn rail carts weren’t transporting the stone used to rebuild the Capitol, people could ride the line in “pleasure cars” for a 25 cent fare. The line cost $2,700 to construct, which would be roughly $91,000 in 2022.

Over the next year, we’ll be adding millions of newspaper images to DigitalNC. These images were originally digitized a number of years ago in a partnership with Newspapers.com. That project focused on scanning microfilmed papers published before 1923 held by the North Carolina Collection in Wilson Special Collections Library. While you can currently search all of those pre-1923 issues on Newspapers.com, over the next year we will also make them available in our newspaper database as well. This will allow you to search that content alongside the 2 million pages already on our site – all completely open access and free to use.

This week’s additions include:

If you want to see all of the newspapers we have available on DigitalNC, you can find them here. Thanks to UNC-Chapel Hill Libraries for permission to and support for adding all of this content as well as the content to come. We also thank the North Caroliniana Society for providing funding to support staff working on this project.

 

Early 20th Century Winston-Salem Maps Now Available

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Title page for the 1912 Sanborn insurance map of Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Thanks to our partner, Forsyth County Public Library, a batch containing five Sanborn insurance maps of Winston-Salem, N.C. from 1907 to 1928 are now available on our website. These beautifully colored and meticulously marked maps are a fantastic resource for those looking to research the urban development of Winston-Salem.

To learn more about Forsyth County Public Library, please visit their website.

To view more maps from around North Carolina, please click here.

283 Issues of Our Newest Newspaper—The Highlander—Added to DigitalNC

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Header for The Highlander. Under the title it reads: Highlands, North Carolina--The Highest Incorporated Town in Eastern America

Thanks to funding from the State Library of North Carolina’s LSTA Grant and our partners, Highlands Historical Society and Fontana Regional Library, a batch containing 283 issues of The Highlander are now available on our website. The paper was published weekly beginning August 6, 1937 in Highlands, North Carolina and continues to be published today under the same title in Highlands, North Carolina.

The paper’s original aim was to “give unstintingly to the best interested of the community and city. To publicize Highlands as much as possible. To make our city [Highlands, N.C.] more attractive to our many and pleasant summer visitors.” Following their aim, these issues of The Highlander cover general community news topics such as fun events, big announcements for community members, town meetings, construction information, vaccine reminders, and more.

A prominent feature in The Highlander is photographs and articles highlighting the beauty of the region. Many of the photographs included in the newspaper focus on the waterfalls, mountain scenes, and native flowers such as the rhododendron. An article from the January 20, 1966 issue of The Highlander discusses the North Carolina mountain’s infamous “peak week” which occurs every autumn. During this week, the mountains are transformed from their summer green to a beautiful array of reds, oranges, and yellows as the leaves of the trees change as a result of the cooler weather. As the article notes, many people from all over come to experience peak week, resulting in bumper to bumper traffic and increased business for local merchants.

To learn more about the Highlands Historical Society, please visit their website.

To learn more about the Fontana Regional Library, please visit their website.

To view more newspapers from across North Carolina, please click here.

Clear Run High School Newsletters and Class Reunion Photographs Now Available on DigitalNC

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Thanks to our partner, Clear Run High School Alumni Association, a batch containing 25 issues of the association’s newsletter The Hornet Review from 2001 to 2021 and photographs of winners from various class reunions are now available on our website. The newsletters feature information on upcoming meetings, membership updates, class reunion planning information, and class reunion recaps. 

To learn more about the Clear Run High School Alumni Association, please visit their website.

To view more materials from the Clear Run High School Alumni Association, please click here.

To view more materials from North Carolina African American High Schools, please view our collection.

Tobacco Road and the Final Four – Duke vs. UNC – 102 years later will there be another “jinx”?

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newspapers yearbooks

Tonight (Saturday, April 2, 2022), for the first time ever, Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill’s storied basketball teams will meet in the NCAA Final Four.  It is being heralded as one of the most exciting games in sports…ever.  And the Governor of North Carolina, Roy Cooper, an avid basketball fan himself (and UNC grad), has declared North Carolina to be the center of the college basketball universe.  Those of us who live and work on Tobacco Road already knew that to be true, but it’s nice to have an official proclamation.  

In light of all this, as one of the few places where Duke and UNC [materials] come together, we thought we’d take a look back at the first game between these two great basketball programs as described by the teams’ fellow students on the newspaper and yearbook staffs.  On January 24, 1920, Duke (then Trinity College), took on UNC at Trinity in Durham and UNC won, 36-25.

The Daily Tar Heel  and the Chronicle both published articles detailing the game (and both note a game that may have happened in 1898 but we can’t find any articles about it – it was in 1898 that UNC introduced features of a new game known as basketball to their gym)

"Carolina Defeats Trinity by a Score Thirty-Six to Twenty-five" headline

Trinity College’s Chronicle staff had a bit of a different take on that particular game; the staff felt very strongly that it was a result of a “jinx” that Carolina won, not a better team.  After all, they then went on to beat State College (NCSU).

Trinity College headline about their basketball games

The yearbooks from each school also comment on the first matchup in their basketball features. Trinity’s yearbook added a note that will sound a bit too familiar to 2022 ears – their season was almost ended before it started due to the flu epidemic.  

Trinity’s Chanticleer staff felt it was a surprise to everyone – even UNC! – that UNC beat them:

Description of Trinity College's 1919-1920 basketball season

UNC takes a different tack, describing their win not as a surprise versus Trinity but as the result of a lot of hard work at the gym:

UNC's description of the effort they put in to beat Trinity College in basketball.

The yearbooks also feature team portraits – with UNC already sporting their familiar logo in 1920.

Portrait of white men posed with a basketball all wearing white uniforms with UNC's logo

UNC’s 1920 Basketball Team

Group of white men posed with a basketball with a "T" logo on their shirts

Trinity College’s (now Duke University) 1920 Basketball team

We’ll see what the matchup looks like tonight and inevitably, the resulting hot takes, 102 years later!  

If you want to check out more UNC and Duke content on DigitalNC, check out their partner pages.  UNC is here and Duke’s is here. 

40 Newspaper titles now available on DigitalNC!

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Header for the September 20, 1892 issue of The Vance Farmer

This week we have another 40 titles up on DigitalNC! In this batch we have special editions of Morganton’s The News-Herald that detail the destruction caused to Western North Carolina by “The Great Flood of 1916.”

In July of 1916, two hurricanes hit Western Carolina within a week of each other. The first one came from the Gulf Coast and stalled over the region from the 8th until the 10th, and the second made landfall in South Carolina, reached the mountains on the 15th, and dumped an astounding 22 inches of rain in a 24 hour period.

Photo of a flooded Asheville street in 1916

Asheville Grocery, 1916. Image via ourstate.com

After the storms had passed, the Swannanoa River was a mile wide, the French Broad was four times its normal width, there were over 300 landslides, and the town of Hendersonville was surrounded by a lake. At least 80 people died in the flooding, but since so many people lived in rural areas, the exact number is unknown.

Article from July 18, 1916 issue of The News-Herald describing damage caused by flooding

July 18, 1916

Article from July 19, 1916 issue of The News-Herald describing damage caused by flooding

July 19, 1916

Article from July 20, 1916 issue of The News-Herald describing damage caused by flooding

July 20, 1916

Over the next year, we’ll be adding millions of newspaper images to DigitalNC. These images were originally digitized a number of years ago in a partnership with Newspapers.com. That project focused on scanning microfilmed papers published before 1923 held by the North Carolina Collection in Wilson Special Collections Library. While you can currently search all of those pre-1923 issues on Newspapers.com, over the next year we will also make them available in our newspaper database as well. This will allow you to search that content alongside the 2 million pages already on our site – all completely open access and free to use.

This week’s additions include:

If you want to see all of the newspapers we have available on DigitalNC, you can find them here. Thanks to UNC-Chapel Hill Libraries for permission to and support for adding all of this content as well as the content to come. We also thank the North Caroliniana Society for providing funding to support staff working on this project.

 

Governor Stone Ball Programs, Photograph of Hope Mansion, and More Now Available on DigitalNC

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Thanks to our partner, Historic Hope Plantation, a batch containing Governor Stone Ball programs, a photograph of Hope Mansion pre-renovation, issues of Written in Stone: Historic Hope, a book on Bertie County heritage, and more are now available on our website.

This batch provides those interested in Hope Plantation with numerous materials to learn the site’s history from its completion to modern day. The Governor Stone Ball souvenir programs alone contain a wealth of knowledge for those curious about the early history of the Hope Mansion as well as information on renovations and excavations that have been conducted on site. One of these projects, an archaeological excavation, mentioned in the The Governor Stone Bicentennial Ball Souvenir Program [May 3, 2003] stands out as particularly fascinating.

From December 2001 to April 2002, an archaeological excavation was conducted at Hope Mansion. The archaeological excavation revealed evidence of an enslaved community living close to what is called the Hobson-Stone house. This evidence included a high percentage of colonoware, kitchen artifacts, and holloware vessel fragments. The story mentions that the Historic Hope Foundation planned to have additional excavations to enhance their “interpretation of plantation life at Hope in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.” 

To read “Archaeological Excavations Reveal Eighteenth Century Life at Hope” in its entirety, please click here.

To learn more about Historic Hope Plantation’s archaeological efforts, please click here.

To learn more about the Historic Hope Plantation, please visit their website.

1963 Issues of The Chapel Hill Conscience Now Available on Digital NC

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NCDHC East newspapers

The Chapel Hill Conscience header.

Thanks to our partner, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, two issues of The Chapel Hill Conscience from 1963 are now available on our website.

The paper was published biweekly with special issues sometimes appearing more frequently. The Chapel Hill Conscience provided updates on the progress of groups that were working towards desegregation and ending racial discrimination in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. In addition, the paper included articles which discussed psychological studies on integration, common sense positives for integration (for businessmen in particular), and establishments that practiced racial discrimination.

This clipping, taken from the August 24, 1963 issue, provided a comprehensive list of establishments in Chapel Hill to boycott due to their continued practice of racial discrimination. The establishments included Colonial Drug Store, Tar Heel Sandwich Shop, Allen’s Lunch Counter, Carolina Grill, and more. 

To learn more about the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, please visit their website.

To view more newspapers from across North Carolina, please click here.

Assorted Maps & Yearbooks From Granville County Public Library Now Available

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maps underrepresented yearbooks

A map of North Carolina noting wildlife

This map advertises some of the parks and wildlife of North Carolina

Thanks to our partner Granville County Public Library, we’ve added several yearbooks from Oxford, N.C. and Mebane, N.C., as well as a few maps, to our digital collection.

This map of North Carolina, called “An Outdoor and Tourist Guide to North Carolina,” was probably created to lure visitors to our brand-new parks; the text alongside it reads, “State Parks in North Carolina are still under development, and at present accommodations and facilities are not completed, except at Fort Macon State Park, Carteret County.” It also lists R. Bruce Etheridge as the director of the Department of Conservation and Development (he served from 1933-1949).

A map of an army plot in Granville County

A map of an army plot in Granville County from 1943

Another notable addition is this army map, supposedly used to train troops to read French maps during World War II. Although it shows an area of Granville County near Mountain Creek Church, most of the text is in French.

The other maps show different versions of Henderson, N.C. (one from 1882). They also note the major roads and land owners.

The yearbooks from this batch are primarily from Black High Schools in Oxford, N.C., including Mary Potter High School (1947 and 1953) and Toler High School (1966 and 1967). The yearbooks feature slices of student life, including a personal inscription on the inside cover of the 1953 edition of “The Ram.”

A group of students posing for the Library Club photo

Students in the Library Club at Mary Potter High School, 1953

The other two yearbooks are from Bingham School (Mebane, N.C.) from 1908 and Oxford College, 1921. To see our full collection of North Carolina yearbooks, click here. To see all materials from the Granville County Public library, visit their partner page. 

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This blog is maintained by the staff of the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center and features the latest news and highlights from the collections at DigitalNC, an online library of primary sources from organizations across North Carolina.

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