As Arcola Alumni Association continues recognition of Arcola High School graduates who have reached the age of 90 and beyond, we honor John Curry, who graduated with the AHS Class of 1952. John acknowledges he may not have learned a lot at Arcola High School, but lightheartedly relates he certainly had a good time. Accordingly, he considers “pretty much everybody” to have been his friend while in high school.

John Wesley Curry, the first of six children of John Horace and Joy Smythe Curry, was born May 24, 1932, in Peoria. John and his parents relocated to his grandparents’ home south of Mattoon and then Charleston when his father was employed by Illinois Consolidated Telephone Company. John explains he was “sick and puny” a lot as a young child. He developed a serious ear infection at the age of two or three, requiring a surgery that left him with a hearing loss and the effects of a stroke.

As a young boy growing up in Coles County in the 1930s, John’s memories of The Great Depression include the WPA government work crews, the extreme drought and the continued struggles of the farmers. He also recalls that bums, claiming to be World War I veterans, came to the Curry home to ask for meals. Four of John’s five siblings, Roger, Dan, Barbara and Robert, were also Depression Era babies. His sister, Debra, was born in November after John graduated high school in 1952.

It was certainly Arcola’s good fortune when the telephone company transferred John’s father to Arcola in the early 1940s. John and his family moved to Arcola and his father later opened a hardware store in 1945 that would serve the Arcola community well for decades.

John and his siblings attended East Side Grade School through the eighth grade. He was nine when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and remembers many local young men soon joined military service, including those who left high school before their graduation. John notes some soldiers were able to complete their education at Arcola High School when they returned home following the war. He also has memories of military planes flying over Arcola.

John entered Arcola High School in the fall of 1948. He played football all four years and lettered his junior year playing center, guard and defensive end. He was pleased when Arcola rallied in the fourth quarter to hand Tuscola their first loss of the season on November 10, 1950, allowing Arcola to share the Okaw championship with Monticello and Tuscola. The November 16, 1950 Arcola Record-Herald explained Arcola’s 12-9 victory was especially gratifying as Tuscola was heavily favored and looking for their eleventh straight victory over Arcola. John lettered again his senior year as left tackle. Arcola defeated Tuscola 20-6 on Monday afternoon, November 12, 1951, giving Arcola a repeated share in the Okaw championship. Both Monticello and Arcola were undefeated in conference play for the season.

During his time at Arcola High School, John was also a four-year member of the track team, competing in hurdles and other running events. Additionally, he participated in Future Farmers of America and was the Boys’ Sports Editor for Arco-Lite.

The December 13, 1951 senior class play, The Campbells are Coming, was a sellout in the high school auditorium. The December 20, 1951 Arcola Record-Herald reported John Curry “kept the house in laughter” in his roll of Bildad Tapp, the hillbilly father.

In the 1952 Torch yearbook, senior John Curry was remembered for “wrecking cars”. He explains his “poor old car” was a 1940 Studebaker named the “Blue Streak Special”. It had been a family car, but by John’s high school years, the car had fallen on hard times and occasionally only had one door. John remembers he and a young lady friend were coming home from a movie in Tuscola when they slid on loose gravel on the Filson road. The “Blue Streak Special” overturned, John fell from the car when his door popped open and he suffered a dislocated hip. In his own defense, he explains he could not have been speeding because his car would not go over 50 mph.

John worked several jobs throughout his high school years, including his work in his dad’s hardware store and also for Sam Blackwell, a local farmer. He and his friends found time for fun while in high school too, often gathering at Lester’s Sweet Shop in downtown Arcola, where they danced to jukebox music and also enjoyed hamburgers, chocolate milk shakes and Cokes.

When asked about other good memories at AHS, John tells about the fun times with his pet pig. He was visiting friend Hampton Parker on the farm, when Hampton’s father offered John one of the Parker’s runt pigs if he could catch it. John accepted the challenge, caught the pig, put it in a sack and took it home. Nelson Roberts, Ag teacher and FFA advisor, convinced John to bring the pig to school, where it was confined in a pen. The Curry pig was eventually named “Stanley Hutchinson” after the pig character in a story from English class. Stanley was a hit as he joined the senior class play cast of The Campbells Are Coming on stage in the high school auditorium. Stanley continued to do well during John’s senior year until some of the kids loaded him into John’s car. By that time, the runt pig weighed 200 lbs. and was not house broken. The prized Stanley Hutchinson AHS attendee and senior class play character was soon sold for $20.00.

John relates History was his favorite class during his high school years, taught by Miss Modesta Scott. He also credits Mr. John Powers, AHS principal and shop teacher, Mr. Nelson Roberts, his Ag teacher, and Andy Sullivan, his football coach, when asked about memorable favorite teachers.

The May 29, 1952 Arcola Record-Herald reported twenty-eight seniors graduated with the Arcola High School Class of 1952 in the high school auditorium on Tuesday evening, May 27, 1952. Many of the graduates remained in or returned to the Arcola area including Curtis Atteberry, Archie Dague, Joyce Ghere Miller Hancock, Pauline Grant Case, Jessie Gray Burch, Sabina Hayes Strader, Oscar Jacob, Bill Klopfleisch, Donnie Miller, Bill Sargent, Duane Strader and Dave VanDeveer.

Following his 1952 high school graduation, John’s hearing loss prevented him from military service in Korea, but he was hired by Central Illinois Public Service Company to work on the tree crew at Paxton in July that same year. Late in 1954, one of his co-workers recommended that John get to know “the little girl with long red hair” who was working in the Paxton CIPS office. John remembers he asked the petite redhead named Laura Fields for a November 11th movie date and then willingly cut his first day of pheasant hunting season short in order to be presentable for his special date. He soon learned Laura was a “wonderful person” and they were married in Paxton on August 14, 1955.

John continued his training as a lineman apprentice at the Paxton utility company in hope of moving on from the tree crew for more technical work as a lineman. He was hired as a CIPS lineman at Olney in 1956 and the young couple relocated to that community where they soon developed a strong commitment to their church and community service. Their daughter, Amy, was born in 1964 and attended Olney schools where she excelled as a distance runner before enrolling at the University of Evansville to study marketing.

The Curry family attended the Olney First United Methodist Church, where John served on the board and also volunteered his carpentry skills at the church. In the early years at Olney, he joined the Junior Chamber of Commerce and became acquainted with other young people in the community. He soon became a member of the Elks Lodge and is now one of their oldest members. John was involved with the Kiwanis for many years, served with Shriners and also served as a board member of the Salvation Army.

Laura retired from CIPS after thirty years of service and John then retired in 1994 after forty-two years with the same company. Retirement provided more time for John and Laura to work around the house, entertain and travel, including trips to Texas, California, Jamaica, Chicago and New York City. John enjoyed collecting and refinishing antiques and restoring older homes. His woodworking skills also contributed to the creation and sale of birdhouses and charcuterie boards.

John and Laura shared fifty-nine years together before her passing on September 28, 2014. John now fills his free time listening to history books and the Bible on Alexa. He enjoys visits with family and friends, including some of the linemen he worked with at CIPS. His siblings appreciate his fun-loving and congenial personality and say John is as popular as a “high school football boy” with a parade of visitors coming and going at his home. John is especially pleased when his daughter, Amy Sherman, and her husband, Peter, visit from Newport, Rhode Island. He adds he is proud their marketing careers have taken them all over the world.

Curry’s mind is still sharp and he does not consider himself old at age 93, but he does acknowledge his body does not work as it once did. John is grateful for those who help him. A retired Olney teacher provides assistance in his home by preparing meals and also driving him to his appointments. John says she is a very nice lady until his exercise sessions begin, and then her “sergeant stripes” take over during his 45-minute workout.

John Curry walked across the auditorium stage to receive his family’s first Arcola High School diploma more than seventy-three years ago. All five of his siblings are also AHS graduates: Roger (Class of 1954), Dan (1956), Barbara Browning (1956), Bob (1957) and Debbie McGrew (1970).