Page 136 - some-stuff-i-wrote-and-some-stuff-i-didn't-(2011)-h-morris-williams

Some Stuff I Wrote (2001) H. Morris Williams

Double Exposure

May 24,1994

The school museum has a 40-inch wide photo of the entire student body at Columbia High
School back in the early 1900s. The photo is eye-catching because of its unusual width. It is also
unusual because the same student stands on both sides of the group picture. How was that possible?

Here’s what happened. The photographer used a rotating, panoramic camera. To photograph the
entire student body and get them all in the same picture, he panned the camera slowly from right to

left, taking maybe 30 seconds to complete the image. The twice pictured student stood on one end
of the group. He then took advantage of the time delay, ducked down behind the other students, and

raced to the other end of the group. When the camera reached the other side of the group, it
photographed him again. When the picture was developed, everybody got a laugh out of the

student’s “double exposure!”
CHS BRICK... The oldest Columbia High School building anybody still living remembers

was the white brick building located on West Duval Street, near the present Administrative
Complex. When that white brick building was tom down about 1950 to make room for a school

cafeteria, those bricks were saved and sold to a man named Noah Sellers, husband of school teacher
Ruth Sellers.
Noah then cleaned up those bricks and used them to build his home, south of Lake City. Ruth

Sellers, now deceased, used to talk about the honor and good feeling of living in a home built with
bricks from a great school like CHS. That home, built with the solid bricks of yesteryear, still exists

in great condition and is now occupied by Noidrie and Cherlyn Moses, both CHS graduates, who
enjoy the unusual history of their home’s construction.
SETTING A RECORD . . . When Dessie Meeks retired from our school system’s

transportation department, she became the first woman school bus driver to retire with a full 30 years
of service (actually she had 31 years). Dessie drove kindergarten kids to school and in her career she

saw kids begin school as five year olds and later graduate from CHS 18 years old. Dessie also
remembers her first job right out of high school — even before she became a bus driver. She went
to work for the Lake City Laundry back when it was located on Long Street. She particularly recalls

a very fine gentleman employee of the laundry who helped her get her social security card. I

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