Another recollection worth recounting relates to Larry Martin. Larry was Rev. Cleo Martin’s son. The Martins moved to Hammon during my 7th grade year. I recall that entering 7th grade was a high experience for me. The special thing to me about becoming a 7th grader was the fact that we could move to different classrooms for different courses. I felt I was in tall cotton when we didn’t have to stay in the same room all day long for classes.

My homeroom teacher was Mrs. Chronister. She was a pretty good size lady. No, I would say she was a very big lady. I am sure that she seemed bigger than she actually was but I was impressed by her size.

Not only was Mrs. Chronister large, she was a stern teacher, she made a big deal out of students spelling her name correctly. I recall that on the very first day of school, she went to the blackboard and wrote her name. She then commanded us to get a pencil and a sheet of paper and practice writing her name in the upper right hand corner where teacher’s names were supposed to be duly recorded on papers we were to hand in. She told us it was important that we know how to spell her name correctly.

Larry was a year older than me. He moved to Hammon during his 8th grade year and was in the grade immediately ahead of me. Some of his new classmates, who attended our church, were Billy Dugger, Jerry Gwartney, and David Dowdy.

Jerry Gwartney was always a mischievous kind of guy. He was never a malicious kind of mischievous, rather, he was a funny kind of mischievous. When Larry moved to town and enrolled in school, he and David Dowdy pulled a prank on Larry which I shall never forget. Although Mrs. Chronister was not his home room teacher, she was his History and Civics teacher.

Jerry and David, knowing of Mrs. Chronister’s propensity for having her name spelled correctly, told Larry that he needed to know definitely how to spell her name. They told him that she would get angry if her name was not spelled correctly on papers handed to her. They then led him to believe that Mrs. Chronister’s name was actually Mrs. Monister. They told him that, although it seemed strange, it was the truth. So, as I recall being told, on one of the first papers he handed to her in Civics he wrote her name as Mrs. Monister. I don't recall what happened to Larry out of that, but I do recall that for a couple of weeks, there was a lot of laughing around the school about the incident. On at least one occasion, Mrs. Chronister was a Monister.