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During the early years (1930s) of Purdys Central High School, "The Salemite" was a quarterly periodical published during the school year by students and faculty. What has been variously called "Issue 4", "Number 4", "Senior Issue", "Commencement Issue" or "Commencement Number" was generally focused on the senior class - what eventually evolved into the annual yearbook as we know it today.
What we see here from June, 1931 is an example of what would eventually morph into two publications: a true yearbook (the end-of-year Salemite yearbook published by the senior class filled with mostly pictures) and quarterly or occasionally a separate newspaper-like literary publication, also called "The Salemite". The class of 1962 seems to have renamed the peridiocal publication "Clarion". And, the North Salem High Class of 1968 yearbook speaks about both a "Clarion" literary-riented publication as well as a "Bengal" newspaper published 8 times during their senior year.
Once-a-year, picture-filled, senior-oriented Salemite yearbooks became the norm by the mid-to-late 1930s. This change becomes obvious in 1936 when photography played a much larger role in the annual senior issue published in June. In the late 1950s and early 1960s I recall seeing and reading the separate Salemite literary periodical or "newspaper". An example and very professional looking issue was produced by the Class of 1957 (see Page 21 of the 1957 yearbook). Alternately, mimeographed versions were also published as evidenced by the 1961-1962 edition (see the Class of 1962 section of this website). I am sure there must have been many others beyond what this website contains, as the publications generally all have a "Volume & Number" identification scheme. Samples show that Volume relates to class year, and Number normally goes up to 4 - the "Senior" issue at the end of the school year - although a number 5 was mentioned for 1934.
If you have or know of any Salemite publications that you would like to share on this website, and consequently preserve for history, please select the "CONTACT" menu item, above.
Commentary by Pier "Peter" Guidi, '62
Website author & editor, Sept. 2012
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Purdys Central High School - Class of 1931 "Yearbook"
