Today’s 1935 photo, courtesy the Washington County Historical Society, is of students from Barton School. Three years ago, Bill Homuth wrote in because he recognized one of the students.
“That was me dressed as the scarecrow on the top left of the photo,” said Homuth. “My cousin Mickey Ostrander was standing next to me as Mickey Mouse. His real name was Lesley but after that we always called him Mickey,” said Homuth who was later dubbed Big Red.
Homuth said he was in first or second grade at Barton State Grade School in 1935. “My mother was the one who came up with the idea or the scarecrow,” he said. “We had a little party that day with candies and things like that.” Homuth remembered his teacher was Helen Nagel and her dad had a barber shop in Slinger. “In the first couple years I went to school for Halloween we all went to school in costumes,” he said.
Other kids in the photo were Eugene Meyer, the cowboy standing next to Mickey Mouse.
“I recognized Mickey Mouse first and I knew I was standing right next to him,” said Homuth. “The ghost is Marian Schacht.” Originally a three-room school house, there were only two rooms used at the time. They put the third one in and the teacher that came in was Ruth O’Meara.