Email Museum

White Deer Land Museum

116 S. Cuyler

Pampa, TX 79065

Early graduating class of Pampa High School

By the time Pampa's school enrollment reached 150 pupils, it was necessary to expand the school facilities. On September 10, 1910, the new red brick building at 309 North Cuyler (first known as Lamar School) was ready for occupancy. At a cost of $15,000 the building had six classrooms and an auditorium to house the largest school district in Gray County.

Pampa had a 6-month school until 1911-12 when J.M. Daugherty, Jr. (who had come from Dumas in 1910) was hired as Superintendent for a 9-month term for $113.50 a month.

The class of 1912 graduated from Pampa High School at the time rattlesnakes, coyotes and lobo wolves were plentiful in this area. Young men of the time rented rigs from Rider's livery stable (between 100 South Gillespie and 101 South Ballard) for transportation. The village cut-up sported a rubber tired, cut under buggy, derby hat, button shoes, peg leg pants and chewed tobacco.

Lillian Williams, daughter of County Judge Robert E, and Martha "Mattie" Williams, married Thomas Harrison Barnard, son of Charles Berkley and Alton (Fox) Barnard. During the 1920s Harry operated the Pampa Electric Company and raised wheat on a small farm west of Pampa. In 1931 the family moved to Lubbock to operate the Blue Bonnet Laundry. Harry and Lillian Barnard were the parents of Wanda Stone, Pauline Greene, Ruth Collins, Aleta Burris, Marie Lilly and Berkley Bernard (born in Lubbock).

Austa Rhoades, daughter of C.A.  Rhoades, married Ivy (or Ivey) Duncan at the time Ivy was attending Cumberland Law School at Lebanon, Tennessee. Austa died during the flu epedemic of 1918 and was buried beside her father in Fairview Cemetery.

Dicie Ann Thomas was the sister of Sam, Charles and Josephine Thomas. She married Homer Robert Kees who worked at the Panhandle Lumber Company. They were the parents of Kline Vondell Kees, born December 14, 1915.

Homer Kees and Charles Thomas started Kees and Thomas' Gents Furnishing Store at 111 North Cuyler with Homer managing the store and Charles continuing his farm operation north of Pampa.

After WWI, Dicie had the flu and later developed T.B. She died in 1920.

Vondell Kees met and married J.B. McCombs, Jr. when she was attending school at Canyon, Vondell taught 36 years in Hutchinson County and J.B. taught for five years before working for Phillips Petroleum Company for 32 years.

Geneva Thompson married Henry Lippold, son of Henry J. and Alice (Ayres) Lippold.

Edna Walberg was the daughter of Nels and Bredena (Averson) Walberg, both of Norwegian ancestry. After Bredena died in 1906, Nels came from South Dakota with his children, Edna, Ella, Norman and Arthur. Nels farmed and was in the implement business. He was a lifetime Mason, served on the school board and as county commissioner and was a director of the Gray County State Bank. He married Mrs. Mary Elizabeth Sills in 1911.

Edna Walberg, one of the first graduates of Pampa High School, attended business college in Wichita, Kansas and Clarendon Junior College. She worked at the First National Bank for B.E. Finley before her marriage to Roy Tinsley in 1916.

Roy was the son of William Gwatkin and Harriet (Hiller) Tinsley who came to Pampa in 1908. Roy studied music and later taught at Lindsburg, Kansas before continuing his studies and teaching violin after his arrival at Pampa.

Roy and Edna, who purchased a section of land four miles east of Pampa, had two children Marie (Tinsley) Smith and William "Bill" Tinsley who died in a car accident in 1955.

In 1940 Edna (Tinsley) Walberg was killed in a butane explosion and fire in the Tinsley farm house.

Lottie Sills was the daughter of Mrs. Mary Elizabeth Sills (second wife of Nels Walberg. In 1915 Lottie married Alex Schneider, Jr. who followed his father as manager of the Schneider Hotel and who served as head of the fire department from 1917 until 1937. Alex, Jr. and Lottie were the parents of Paul Schneider. Paul and his wife, Christine Jackson, were the parents of Heidi Schneider Roupp.