Curryville Competitions

In the Curryville two-room school, Bobbie Ritchey and I made up the first and second grades with a couple more students joining us in grades three through seven. Our eighth year, we attended junior high in Martinsburg.

Bob and I were a little competitive, especially grades five through seven. We not only knew the states and their capitals, we kept track of which ones the other missed. We probably both worked a little harder just to be sure we were not out-graded by the other. My favorite memory of Bobbie was how he dramatically explained a historic massacre.

He said, “They had to be careful or...