School Carnivals

Our school was new when our oldest son started there in the second grade. We started a Cub Scout group when he became eight and as usual you need to have a fund raiser. I know the first carnival we had lots of people give prizes for our games. One gift was guppies and we won some. The woman who gave them to us told us there would soon be more guppies. Right after that our son, Steve, went on his first overnight. And in the middle of getting ready we had more guppies. It added to the excitement. The PTA of the school soon took over the Carnival and they were our sponsors so we had to let them have it. I was a PTA officer and was put in charge of prizes. I collected them in a room behind the kitchen at the school. The night of the Carnival I found the janitor had locked the room and left for the night. He had to come back and give us our prizes. The Carnival was very successful and we decided one year to have it outdoors and in the daytime. We made lots of money for a school carnival. We found our PTA president had taken all the cash money for herself. Now our 2nd vice president was the wife of the Police Chief of Shawnee, but our principal stepped in and we asked her to give us the money back. She did not have it as she had used it already so we threatened her with arrest. Her mother paid the money. We found she had stolen money from where she worked at Montgomery Wards also. I should have known about her as I had her daughter in Campfire and she gave me a bad check for the boxes of candy her daughter had sold--12. She left town after that and for years sent me Christmas cards from New Mexico, but not from jail. After this event the women of the PTA were unhappy and none would take the presidency of the Nieman PTA so two of the men took over--one was my husband. No more fancy PTA meetings with lace cloths on the table and tea cookies. One man was President to finish out the year and then Ray was president the next year.