Students paint a pretty picture
Editor’s note: This is one in a series of articles marking the 50th Anniversary of Hartselle City Schools.
On October 23, 1975, the Hartselle Enquirer ran an article entitled “Stu dents Paint Store Windows for Halloween Prize Money.” I was in the sixth grade at what was then Hartselle Junior High School, and I can vaguely remember that event.
I remember students using the old, powdered tempera paints that all elementary teachers kept in their stash of art supplies. I can remember that on the inside of store windows of several Hartselle businesses, there were Octoberthemed sketches on white paper hung for the young local artists. With some guidance, students filled in the lines of those drawings on the outside of the store windows to paint corn stalks, hay bales, pumpkins, ghosts, witches, and more.
What I don’t remember is the hours that teachers and volunteer moms and dads had to have spent gathering supplies, working out a schedule for student painters, finding someone who could sketch the original art onto white paper, and then supervising the student artists in their work.
Neither do I remember cleaning anything up at the end of the October holiday. My guess is that parents or store owners or both had to restore the store windows and surrounding sidewalks. What I can see clearly as I reflect on the window painting is that Hartselle’s merchants were demonstrating to their community that they could rally behind its schools and that students could count on them to scaffold a new school district with a variety of support.
During my time as a student, teacher, principal, and district administrator, I consistently saw Hartselle’s merchants support Hartselle’s schools in big ways and small ways.
Advertisements in programs and on playing fields and courts, the donations of building supplies and paints, of plants and mulch, of food, of eye exams and glasses, of services from gravel spreading to dental checkups, the gifting of items to be used in auctions or give-aways, the donations of supplies specific to certain academic programs, the donations of time to act as a mentor or sponsor or volunteer coach or general helper I can’t imagine the price tag that could be placed on all that has been given to Hartselle’s schools on behalf of its children.
But wait there’s more there’s also the fundraising. Swamp John’s tickets, gallons of stew, holiday wrapping paper, candy bars, magazines, mums, and more. And don’t forget the chances at televisions, Alabama-Auburn game tickets, and even a car.
Business owners are typically Hartselle homeowners, too. So just like all the other neighbors on the street their doors have been knocked on by neighborhood kids with hopeful-yet-hesitant faces and fundraising order forms in-hand.
Back in 1975, the window painting competition was to result in a fourth grade class winner, a fifth grade class winner, and a sixth grade class winner. The teacher of the winning class was to receive a $25 cash prize from the participating Hartselle merchants, and the overall winner was to receive a $75 cash prize. In 1975, a teacher could have bought a lot of tempera paint with $75!
I don’t recall if Crestline’s Mrs. White’s classroom won with their Piggly Wiggly window masterpiece, if Burleson’s Mrs. Fields’s classroom won with their artistic offering at Kuhn’s, or if Crestline’s Mrs. Brown’s class’s expression of autumn in the window of Jacquelene’s Cut and Curl carried home the prize.
What I do know is that, looking back over fifty years of Hartselle schools working together with its community business owners, we have all walked away winners.
