JOYCE — First you had to wear your clothes inside out.
Then you were tied to a log that you had to drag a short distance.
Next, you had to take a bite of an onion hanging from a string around your neck.
This was followed by crawling around on your hands and knees through elementary school classrooms as first- and second-graders laughed and giggled.
Lastly, you were swatted — albeit lightly— with a paddle.
Such was Terry Kahler and Dan Dafoe’s initiation into the ninth grade at Crescent School in the fall of 1962.
Almost 60 years later, Kahler and Dafoe are still laughing about the annual ritual performed by upperclass students to “welcome” freshmen to high school and winked at by teachers and administrators.
“The superintendent and the principal signed the paddle!” Kehler said.
The freshman initiation as well as many other stories about attending the rural school are found in “Crescent School District 313, Joyce, Washington, 1922-2022,” the book Kahler and Dafoe wrote in honor of the district’s centennial.
A celebration of Crescent School District’s 100th birthday is planned from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday for former students, staff and the public.
The entire campus, at 50350 state Highway 112, will be open for tours. There will be a program featuring a history of the district, as well as live music, a free taco bar and a gathering at the Crescent Grange afterward.
Kahler and Dafoe’s book traces the 100-year history of Crescent School District starting in 1922, when it was created from the consolidation of six small districts: Eden/Freshwater; Ramapo/Lincoln; Joyce/Port Crescent; Piedmont/Lake District; Lyre/Gettysburg; and Twin Rivers.
It tells the story of its students, staff, sports and milestones through newspaper clippings, photographs and material culled from yearbooks and district documents.
Carole Kahler, Terry’s wife, designed the cover, did the layout and contributed drawings, while Jean Dafoe, Dan’s wife, edited and copy edited the book.
Kahler and Dafoe — Crescent High School class of 1966 — began working on the project in 2021 with little idea of how much work it would entail.
“Terry said, ‘How hard could it be?’” Dafoe said. “We found out.”
Dafoe had already started assembling information about the history of sports at Crescent when they decided to expand the project into the history of the entire school. The two were aware of the upcoming centennial, which gave them a deadline to aim for.
Kahler and Dafoe did much of their research at the Joyce Museum and at the North Olympic History Center, where they combed through old newspapers and searched the photography collections.
But much of the richest sources for the book came from talking to locals like John Singhose — class of 1947 — and Earline Secor Bourm — class of 1956.
“We tried to shake as many bushes as we could,” said Terry of their efforts to speak to as many former graduates as possible.
They said they are hoping that people at the centennial celebration will be able to identify students in old class photographs or donate items to the Joyce Museum, which has a collection of school memorabilia.
Among their favorite discoveries was a girls basketball uniform worn by Gladys Bourm Ross, who was in Crescent’s first graduating class in 1924. The uniform, consisting of a white cotton middy blouse, black cotton bloomers, long white stockings and black silk scarf, was donated by Bourm Ross’s granddaughter, Kathi Gregoire.
The uniform, along with photographs, a blueprint of the original school building (since demolished and replaced in 1975), the first school annual from 1926, a warm-up jacket and a leather football helmet, among many other items, will be on display at Saturday’s celebration.
Also on display will be two freshman initiation paddles from the 1950s signed by the students who survived the ritual.
“They don’t let you do things like that anymore,” Kahler said. “But it only lasted a day.”
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Reporter Paula Hunt can be reached at paula.hunt@soundpublishing.com.
