Joplin High School
The JHS Alumni News Bulletin
Twister
Cripples Joplin School System & Economy.
May 2011
Tornado Destroys Joplin High Shool,
Other Schools,
St. John’s Medical Center,
Nursing Homes,
Hundreds of Other Homes
and
Businesses, and Kills 176 People.
Angelina
& Brad Pitt Pledge Half
Million in Aid to Victims.
~ Brad Pitt’s Net Worth Estimated At
$100 Million Plus ~
Brad’s Mom Jane Hillhouse
Pitt , JHS Class of 1958.
She Was
President of Lambda Alpha Lambda Social Sorority
Brad’s Uncle Sam Knox Hillhouse, JHS Class of
1956.
Brad’s Grandad
Hal Operated Commercial Feed & Seed Co.
In Joplin For
Many Years.
Arabs Pledge $1 million to include
$500,000 for Student Apple Notebooks
Union High School, established in 1872, was
Joplin’s first school. The school was located on the second floor of the
Hutchinson Hall Building in Joplin. The first real school building, known as
the Washington School, was a $6,000 four-room brick structure in East Joplin,
financed by three $2,000 bonds purchased by John Taylor, S. B. Corn and John
Cox.
In 1876, a school was built in West Joplin at the corner of Fourth and Byers Avenue, which later became the site of the first Joplin High School. The Lincoln School was built to provide separate but equal primary and secondary education for Joplin’s Negro citizens.
The first graduating class of Joplin High
School, comprised of thirteen students, was in 1888. W.T. Hamner was Superintendent of Schools.
The Class of 1888 included: Cora Hoyt (later Mrs. Fred Christman), Mayme Robinson (later Mrs. W. A. Dickinson), Ollie P. Simpson, Blanche Sergeant (later Mrs. Fred Kelsey), Taylor Snapp (later Mayor of Joplin), Johanna Becker (later Mrs. John A. Cotton), W. A. Nickell, Matilda M. Hamilton, Roy Lapsley, Ida Coffee (later Mrs. W.A. Nickell), Cora Lichliter (later Mrs. Harry Miller), L.L. Lichliter and William Leckie.
The first commencement was held at Haven Opera House at Fourth and Virginia Avenue, which later became the site of the YMCA, then the site of the Joplin Globe Publishing Company
In 1918, a new and larger Joplin High School opened its doors at Fourth and Byers, where it remained until the establishment of an even newer and larger Joplin High School at Eighth and Wall in 1938, at which time the Fourth and Byers location became the site of Joplin Junior College.
With the establishment of a newer Joplin High School facility, first known as Parkwood High School, at 2104 Indiana Street in 1959, the Eighth & Wall location reopened its doors as Memorial Middle School/
Memorial Middle
School was the scene of 2006 ‘copy cat’
shooting by 13-year-old Tom White, an apparently impressionable yet misguided
teenage boy, highly influenced by ongoing media sensationalism by Joplin
newscasters of similar shootings. White reportedly was incited,
encouraged and influenced by false rumors being circulated throughout the
community only days prior to the incident. White
was immediately imprisoned in the Jasper County Jail, where he remained for
three years as of May 2009. White was ruled by a judge to be psychologically
unfit to stand trial as an adult, based on evaluations by two psychologists. He
was later pressured into pleading guilty by his assigned defense attorney and
was sentenced to a special Missouri rehabilitation program for youth offenders.
Joplin Junior College later became Jasper County Community College until the establishment of Missouri Southern College at Newman Road, off Range Line, later to become Missouri Southern State College, then Missouri Southern State University.
Joplin’s Hall of Shame & Infamy
Joplin High School
is the alma mater of offenders Terry Lee Mills, Buck Jeans, Bob Thornhill, and
William R. Thurston Jr. According to the Joplin Globe, owned by the Cowgill
Blair family, the four were arrested by Joplin police during the summer of 1956
and charged with stealing hubcaps.
Just prior to the
arrests, the Claude E. Jardon family at 820 Richmond Road had made a complaint
to Jopln Police Department that hubcaps had been removed from their parked car.
The Jardons were the owners and operators of Jardon-Brelsford Motor Car Co. – a
Chrysler-Plymouth dealership. Claude
Earl Jardon Jr. later became a Joplin attorney.
Joplin High
School is the alma mater of psychopath Ross Thompson Roberts, who stalked and
made sexually lewd and demoralizing comments to 14-year-old female neighbor,
Elsa Newman, daughter of Albert Newman, owner of Albert Newman Interiors, and
her boyfriend. Roberts was later appointed a prosecuting attorney for the City
of Joplin. Still later, he was appointed a federal judge by President Ronald
Regan.
Joplin High
School is the alma mater of thief and psychopath Don Ray Smith (Class of 1954),
who mercilessly terrorized a younger student merely for telling the truth.
Joplin High School
is the alma mater of Joplin attorney Robert “Bob” Richart, who, following a
stint as a city prosecutor, was arrested and charged with a crime involving the
duplication of a prescription for a controlled substance – Demoral. Following a
change of venue, a colleague judge dismissed the charge on a technicality.
Richart was soon after elected president of the Jasper County Bar Association.
He was still later elected president of the Missouri Bar Association. During
high school Richart was president of social fraternity Alpha Phi Omega. His
father was a Joplin lawyer. His mother, Helen Richart, was the owner and
operator of a ranch north of Joplin and of a successful commercial poultry
operation, which Bob eventually inherited.
Missouri Southern State University is
the alma mater of former Missouri Attorney-General William Webster, who was
convicted of a felony and spent two years in prison for embezzlement, showing
favoritism for attorneys that contributed to his campaign by awarding their
clients substantially larger settlements than others in state workmen’s
compensation awards.
Thomas Connor “Tom” Nolan II, received a
six-month prison sentence by a Jasper County judge in 1967 for allegedly having
embezzled funds from Security National Bank & Trust Co. of Joplin, while
serving as president of the family-owned bank, Nolan was a graduate of Kemper
Military Academy High School and Joplin Junior College. Nolan attended law
school at University of Tulsa. He was married to Virginia La Rue, daughter of a
Columbus, Kansas bank president.
In 1982, Thomas Connor Nolan II was convicted
of forgery by a Texas court of law. He
spent the next 20 years of his life at the Nolan family home at 1240 Crest
Drive, while residing with his mother, Betty Dolan Nolan Wilson and his
stepfather, Alan Wilson, both of whom preceded him in death.
Tom Nolan was, in 1991, also charged with
creating and distributing, via U. S. Mail, pornographic smut in order to defame
the reputation of several deceased prominent Joplin people and to cause
unnecessary emotional pain for their surviving relatives. According to his
mother, a psychiatrist diagnosed Nolan as being possessed with a psychopathic
personality and a narcissistic personality disorder.
Joplin Woman Victim of Medical Malpractice
& of Fraud by Joplin Attorneys
Clara Olive
Shepherd (JHS Class of 1924) was victimized by gross medical malpractice at St.
John’s Hospital in 1962, when she was persuaded by her physicians to undergo a
hip replacement, as a result of arthritis. However, following surgery her
operated leg was 4” shorter than her other leg as a result of the fact that the
surgeon, Dr. Pipkin, recommended by Dr. Scorse, did not insert a replacement
hip after scraping down the femur bone.
Clara Olive
Shepherd’s attorneys, Ed Farmer, Lloyd Roberts and Jack Fleischaker settled out
of court for a mere $400, without their client’s approval, although Mrs.
Shepherd sought $25,000.00 in damages.
General Counsel
for St. John’s Hospital was John W. Scott (JHS Class of 1924) of the law firm
Spencer, Scott & Dwyer.
As a result of
multiple injuries, Clara Olive Shepherd was pressured into selling her home in
order to pay off medical debts.
Interestingly,
one of Mrs. Shepherd’s attorneys, Jack Fleischaker, attached a $1,000 lien on her home for recovery of his
legal fees.
Clara Olive Shepherd was a volunteer secretary and member of the board of directors of the Jasper Country Heart Association at the time of her death in 1976 as a result of additional injuries she incurred while undergoing knee replacement surgery at St. Francis Hospital in Tulsa. The surgeon was Dr. James White. The anesthesiologist was Dr. Moroney.
Clara Olive Shepherd,
throughout the years, raised thousands of dollars for other charities, to
include the American Cancer Society, the American Arthritis Foundation, and the
Multiple Sclerosis Foundation.
She produced
and directed fundraising variety shows for a variety of civic organizations
throughout America during the 1940s, to include Lions Clubs of America, the
Jaycees, the American Legion and women’s clubs. During World War II she was a
civilian employee at Camp Crowder Army Base in Neosho.
Joplin Area Public & Parochial Schools
St. Peter’s Roman Catholic School, also known
as McAuley Regional School, was established as a private school for the purpose
of providing separate education for the children of those members of the Joplin
community who did not wish to have their children taught by protestant and
Jewish teachers in the public schools, although some of its student body was
comprised of youth from protestant families.
The Lutheran Church, of which Rev. Edwin
Michaels was pastor, also established a private protestant school. Miss Carolyn
Johnson, a graduate of Joplin High School class of 1956, served as principal of
the Lutheran School for many years.
In February 1955, as citizenship chairman of
a Joplin Council of Churches youth organization known as the Christian Youth
Council or UCYM, Tom Shepherd, who was a member o the First Presbyterian Church
and St. Philip’s Episcopal Church during his youth, and who attended Bible
School at the United Hebrew Temple, took the initiative in inviting all
of Joplin’s Non-Negro and Negro clergy and youth to a protestant community
outreach service at First Presbyterian Church, Sixth and Pearl, during Youth
Week, the theme of which was “One Fellowship in Christ.” Mr. Shepherd
invited Rev. Fr. Malcolm, Episcopal clergyman from Carthage, to be guest
speaker at the event, which was the first time in the history of Joplin that
Negroes were invited to participate in a worship service at that church, of
which the janitor was a Negro gentleman by the name of Joe.
Other youth officer-members of the UCYM
included Anna Jean Cummins, Don Chilcutt, Edwina Michaels, Ronald Powell, Larry
and Gary Pigg, Beverly Bass, Jane Cunningham, Judith Baum, Donna Kitts and Jean
Gregg Blair.
Rev. E. Weldon Keckley, pastor of First Community
Church and Miss Louise Dutcher, Sunday school superintendent of First Methodist
Church, were sponsors of the UCYM. As a result of his demonstrated leadership,
Mr. Shepherd was later that year appointed president of the Joplin Council of
the UCYM.
During his junior and senior years at Joplin
High School, Tom Shepherd, was mocked by some of his fellow students for his
courage and leadership. Yet he received more votes of approval from the Joplin
High School faculty than any of the 13 male students selected to represent
Joplin High School at Missouri Boys State during the spring 1955 session held
at Warrensburg, Missouri. Mr. Shepherd was sponsored by the Joplin Rotary Club.
In 1956, the Young Peoples Service League of
St. Philip’s Episcopal Church, of which Tom Shepherd served as president and
vice president for several years, hosted the West Missouri Diocesan Youth
Convention in Joplin at the Connor Hotel, at which event Miss Carol Young of
Kansas City was elected by a unanimous vote of the over 100 Non-Negro
members present to serve as president of the West Missouri Diocesan Youth
Commission. Miss Young was the first member of the Negro community to hold that
office. Members of the Joplin delegation from St. Philip’s Episcopal Church, in
addition to Tom Shepherd, included Tom Burch, Breck Caldwell, Martin Casey,
Bill Curl, Norman Curl, Arthur Kingsbury, Judy Legg, Anne Friedheim, Dean
Tuggle, Neal Tuggle, Sandra Marks, Terry Mills, Sally Burress, Vicki
Butterfield, Lynn Newcomb and Clark Wallace.
Tom. Shepherd is the son of Joplin civic
leader Clara Olive Snyder Shepherd and the grandson of Mabel and John Snyder,
founders of the Snyder Bus Line, later purchased by the Crown Coach Company. He
is also a great nephew of United States Supreme Court Justice Bayard Taylor
Hainer.
*Special thanks to Evelyn Milligan
Jones, Tales About Joplin: Short and Tall.
Welcome to
Joplin High School
2104 Indiana
St. ~ Joplin, Mo. 64804
Arab Sheiks Befriend Joplin Students
2011 PHILANTHROPY
RESCUES JHS
Aid Joplin High School Students
Pledge $1 million in aid,
to include an Apple notebook
for each student.
The Shepherd-Montessori Institute
superior home
schooling
Shepherd
Center for Sane Living
Read: When
a Child Kills by Paul Mones See
amazon.com
Joplin High School Alumni Reunion News
