The time has come to make some more improvements at our alma mater, Hickman High School, the greatest high school on this planet.  This improvement is TURF on the “football field.”

I didn’t know anything about artificial turf until I read about this issue recently in the newspaper.  Now I know a little about it and a little is all I need to know, because this is not about the grade point of a football player and this is not about air conditioners for classrooms.  This TURF on this “football field” will allow hundreds of Hickman students on some days to use this area that we call the “football field.”  I am told that the times this “football field” is used per year are less than 30 times and almost exclusively for varsity football.  The addition of this TURF will allow the area that we call the “football field” to become a multipurpose field for use of band practices, soccer games, intramural sports, physical education classes, sport events for junior high schools and football games.

Under normal conditions when it’s too wet to have physical education classes outside, this field will be available.  That little number of less than 30 times a year can now becomes over 300 times a year.  That’s what this word TURF is really about.  So you see it really doesn’t have anything to do with the grade point of a football player or air conditioners in classrooms, it’s about giving almost ever student at Hickman High School the opportunity to get some use out of that area that was just called the “football field.”

I hope that if you haven’t seen all of the other great improvements that have been made the last few years you will stop at Hickman the next time you are close, walk in and check it out.  The building continues to radiate excellence in its appearance.  As always the best administrators and the best teachers available still continue to prepare the young adults of our great community with the knowledge to make this an even better community and perhaps make this world a better place.

I hope your remember what a great school Hickman was when you walked the hallowed halls.  Perhaps your grandparents, your aunts and uncles, your mother and father, your brothers and sisters, you sons and daughters or your grandchildren have also known the greatness of Hickman High School.  Remember I am talking about the “Home of the Kewpies.”  I think I have talked to about as many Kewpies on this planet as any Kewpie has and it is very possible I have talked to you.  I can assure you I have not talked to any Kewpie that wasn’t proud of this great place and proud enough to want to tell me about it.  I have had Kewpies sing the school song or recite poems from the Verse Choir to me and my answering machine.  Columbians have been graduating from high school in Columbia for 109 years, for 94 of those years they have called them KEWPIES and for 78 of those years they have been going to classes at Hickman High School.

Hickman High School has always been on the edge of innovation and I hope it will remain there.  It is time to make changes, technology is moving forward, that’s life, and it’s time for TURF.  When we look back we will still be proud to say we are KEWPIES from Hickman High School and we will also be proud to say we were one of the first schools that went to TURF rather than one of the last.
 

“Strawberry shortcake, gooseberry pie,
V-I-C-T-O-R-Y,
are we it, well I guess,
I am an alumnus of HHS!”

Charley Blackmore, HP Class of 1963
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