Typing Class. 1st Row L to R Marlene Hodge, ?, ?. 2nd Row L to R Sandra Meece, Lida Jones, Darlene Maiden, Norma Galloway. 3rd Row L to R Judy Chitwood, ?, Peggy Sears. 4th Row L to R Sue Guy, ?, ?, Jerry Meece. 5th Row L to R Carolyn Love, ?, James Nelson, ?.

Mostly girls took typing in hopes of landing jobs as typists, secretaries and executive secretaries after graduation. Before the computer, all businesses had to maintain skilled typists, who could type over 100 words a minute without any errors. Competitions were held for speed and accuracy. Girls had to learn to maintain their typewriters and manipulate mimeo and ditto masters and other devices. As the school's major sponsor, the Southern Railroad hired the top four or five girls every year for its own secretarial pool in the 30s, 40s and early 50s.

Biology Class. Notice it is all boys. For many years, Ferguson linked Biology and PE courses and taught them separately. While the girls were in the gym, the boys would be in Biology, then they would switch. This allowed all boys and all girls PE classes, then allowed boys and girls to receive separate teaching during the parts of Biology that dealt with sex and reproduction. In this picture, a forest ranger has brought in several live snakes to liven up a unit on reptiles. Until 1960, Ferguson ran very strong science programs and brought in a continual series of guest speakers to demonstrate everything from birds, insects and fish to motors, guns and electricity. During the 40s and 50s the annual stop of a Southern Railroad train behind the school so the students could peek inside the engine and see how everything worked was a big tradition. The railroad, which funded the school, needed all the engineers and scientists it could get and, indeed, many boys and a few girls from Ferguson went on to careers in science and engineering. By 1960 this had begun to fade.

Lida Jones was as big a star at Ferguson as any of the basketball players. She was a 1961 graduate who was gifted academically and won a long list of awards plus being president of her class. She was an outstanding writer and speaker. Back in the fifties and sixties the state sponsored various writing and speaking competitions on special topics. Lida won competitions with her essays, and for delivering a powerful speech beginning with the words, "I Speak For Democracy," in which she explained to the audience exactly what it meant to be an American. At a time when Ferguson and Somerset were battling over which school was academically the best in the county and the region, students like Lida were treasured. Somerset had the children of doctors, lawyers and other professionals. For Ferguson to be able to take the children of railroad, forest service, drilling, timber and other blue collar workers and have them equal or surpass their cross town rivals showed that the school by the tracks was a good place to be, that its teachers were at least doing as good a job, and that they might even be doing a better job. Since Ferguson, as an independent school district, needed to attract transfers from the city and county, this public perception was critically important. Ferguson had a long history of success in debate, science fair, music, drama and other competitions. No one realized at the time that Lida was the last of this 40 year tradition. The school stopped coaching students for these competitions, stopped sending them off to the events, and began losing its reputation as a top academic institution. Parents from Burnside, Mt. Victory, Shopville and Somerset stopped sending their kids to Ferguson, and its enrollment began to decrease. Six years later, this would prove fatal. Lida earned a masters degree in Home Economics at the University of Kentucky, became an agricultural extension agent in Michigan, married, raised a son, and moved back to Kentucky, where she is an agricultural extension agent based in Albany.

This photo is one of our most treasured. It was given to us by the family of John Muse. This is the very first bus the Ferguson School District owned. When it was purchased from the Lexington dealership, it was the best bus in the county. Danville, Harrodsburg, Somerset and other small towns and cities did not even own buses, because their kids walked to school. The county systems tended to purchase the cheapest buses the state would allow. This, by comparison, was a Cadillac among school buses. Both the seats and backs were padded (most school buses back then had unpadded wooden seats and backs). The headlights were closed beams. Many of the school buses of the day did not even have headlights because they ran only in the daylight. The flowing lines of the fenders and hood were also considered ahead of their time since school buses back then tended to be quite boxy looking.

Notice the single small windshield wiper, the single small rear view mirror, and the stainless steel hand grip rails on both sides of the door.

Ferguson ran this bus for 10 years, then used it as a source of parts and a storage shed.

Pausing in this photo is (right) Supervising Principal Howard Moore and two of his star pupils, Bert Minton, center, and Melvin Cox, left. They have just finished taking down the flag at the end of the school day, and are standing in front of the then new administrative & home ec building, now the Ferguson Community Center. Bert would go on to serve as a teacher and coach in the Pulaski County Schools, then as Assistant Superintendant for six years, and Superintendant for 12 years. The boys are shown here in their Key Club blazers.

Janet Henderson's Home Economics Classroom. Ferguson High School had only 98 students but 70 girls were enrolled in Home Ec classes, as seventh and eighth graders also benefitted from Ms. Henderson's instruction. It was the third finest Home Economics facility in the region, behind only Danville and Harrodsburg. Many of the smaller rural high schools in the region either had no Home Ec facilities, or taught Home Ec in a trailer or portable classroom parked behind the school. Ferguson girls were the envy of the county. This facility today functions as the Ferguson Community Center.

Mrs. Olive Williamson's Ferguson Library in December of 1966. By modern standards, this was not a huge library. But by the standards of 1960 it was very good. Ferguson in 1966-67 had the third largest library facility and third largest collection of books in the 12th region, behind only Danville and Somerset. There were no recently built schools in the region as of 1966. But in 1960 the state had passed a law requiring that all schools have libraries. All other schools except for Danville and Somerset simply converted a spare classroom to library use. But when Ferguson School was built, this room had been designed specifically as a library. It was much larger than a classroom and had certain library specific facilities built in. It also had a basic collection of two thousand books, which when H. T. Higgins took over as Superintendant of Ferguson he immediately supplemented with another $4,000 purchase (using funds from Federal Title I and Title II) to bring the total to three thousand. This was not only larger than the other schools in Pulaski County (outside of Somerset) and larger than the schools in other 12th region counties (outside of Danville), but was also larger than the book total of the county public libraries between Lexington and the Tennessee line. Librarians were required to keep circulation records. Ferguson records documented that its students checked out more books per student, and more of its students checked out books, than was shown by any other library in the region, including Danville and Somerset.

The l962 yearbook staff pose for a picture. From left are Mary Sue Cox, Howard Hunt, Randall Wheat and Pearl Hardwick.

Good yearbooks require money. The money comes from advertising. In the years when the Southern Railroad shops were thriving and Ferguson itself was a booming community, the staff had enough ad revenue to publish award winning yearbooks every year. After the shops closed and the town declined, ad revenue fell off, and the books were no longer competitive with the wealthier schools in Danville, Campbellsville, Harrodsburg, Middlesboro, Louisville and Lexington. Nevertheless, the school continued to publish yearbooks until the 1967-68 year, and today they remain a key source of information and photos.

This may have been one of the the last high school musical performances ever staged at Ferguson. In May 1967, Doug Mitchell sings "Ole Man River" while Mr. Young plays accompaniment on the piano. This is at the Seven Gables Restaurant in Burnside. Although basketball and other activities got most of the headlines, Ferguson had a very strong music program and Mr. Young was the last in a long line of talented teachers and directors. Ferguson was too small to field a competitive band or orchestra, but it was always competitive in chorus. Mr. Young developed many Ferguson youngsters into outstanding vocalists.