Another relic of the past is the student newspaper. Anyhow, on with our story. In the mid-1930s the Lassen Union High School student body experienced some interesting happenings. The first was a student newspaper dubbed the Hi-Times. This was followed by a school emblem—-the Grizzly bear.

In the fall of 1935, Miss Morgan, the school’s journalist instructor announced a campaign to change the school newspaper name. One issue was there were a number of Northern California student newspapers that had a similar name to Lassen’s. In an effort to promote the school’s new emblem, the word Grizzly was required in the new name contest. On October 4, 1935 the renamed student newspaper Grizzly Growler made its debut. It was Eleanor Hansen, Class of 1939, that was the prize winning entry.

Fast forward by several decades, when I attended Lassen High the school newspaper was just the Grizzly, somewhere along the line the Growler was dropped. From what little research I have done, it appears sometime in the 1990s the student paper ceased to exist.

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It was a long time coming but on Saturday, September 23, 1916 the Amedee School house held a dedication with ninety-one people attending. The school district had been established in 1893, but it never had a school building to call its own.

On April 7, 1916 a $1,500 school bond election was held. It passed by a large margin with a voter turnout of 100 percent—16 yes and four no votes. The bungalow style building was built by J. C. Thornburg and was located a block north of the Hotel Amedee.

The life span of the school was short. In a few short years the region would experience a major de-population. In 1922, the school was closed and operations moved to Wendel. In 1936, Maybelle Johnson purchased the building, moved it eight miles to the east and converted it into a private residence. It stands today in a dilapidated state.

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In 1935, Emma Lou Dakin, a Lassen Junior College student won that year’s contest. The Dakin name may be familiar to some, as her old home is now the Dakin Unit of the Honey Lake Wildlife Refuge.I am only publishing a small excerpt, but this will help to explain why so much of the Diamond Mountain range is privately owned. Once upon a time farmers were allowed to file for a 160 acre federal timberland patent. This provided the farmer wood for cooking/heating, fence posts etc. With that in mind, Emma Lou uses that as an example.

“Each one of us farmers own a little piece of timber land where we get our wood, fence posts and logs. There’s an old saying that ‘You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.’ My father is one of those old fashioned ranchers, but somehow for some unknown reason he did sell some logs to the Lassen Lumber & Box Company in 1929. From 300,000 feet of lumber we cleared $1,050, while in the same year from ninety head of cattle we got $3,000, but half of the $3,000 was put back into the cattle for feed, while nothing but our annual tax of $4.16 came out of our timber money. Besides making $1,050 we had enough slash left to furnish us wood for two years. From this experience I began to notice the economic value of the forests were to us people in Lassen County.”

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Early in the history of Lassen Union High School did stress an emphasis on agricultural, after many of its students were part of the ag community. In the 1930s, it had expanded the program. On Wednesday, April 29, 1936, E.F. McCarthy, the high school’s agricultural instructor held a visiting day for the public to the student’s experimental farm.

In a statement by McCarthy: “Irrigating of alfalfa has occupied the attention of the students during the past several days. Work at the farm had progressed rapidly and various projects have reached the stage where those who inspect the farm on visiting day will obtain a clear insight into the work being done.

“Seven hundred chickens including 250 New Hampshire Reds and 450 White Leghorns were recently received and the study of poultry has now been added to other subjects included in farm experimentation and demonstration. The farm already has been stocked with hogs and calves for study purposes.”

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Beginning on January 4, 1926, Lassen Union High School inconjunction with Lassen Junior College instituted night classes for those 18 years and older. This was an outreach effort for those who had taken some high school, but due to circumstances had dropped out. The courses offered were bookkeeping, typing, woodwork and millinery. In addition, the schools met an additional need since there was a large workforce of immigrants who worked in the lumber mills. For this group two courses were offered, one for English and the other a Constitution class. Classes were taught twice a week, starting at 7:30 in the evening.

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