Retrospect: Shop classes were extensive

Sixty-five years ago this week, Portland students and teachers were featured in a story that looked at educational projects outside the realm of “reading, writing and arithmetic.”

A story by Tom Witherspoon in the Jan. 10, 1963, issue of The Commercial Review looked at some of the courses offered to hundreds of students through teachers Howard Berry, Don Oswalt and Jerry Beck.

Drafting and craftwork projects, including electrical, foundry, die casting, wood and sheet metal, were available to students beginning in seventh grade, with Oswalt and Beck specializing in the junior high shop courses. Berry was in charge of the high school shop.

Welding courses were available for freshmen, with mechanical drawing added for sophomores.

In 1962, the shop had added a metal lave, which was purchased by the school, and a blueprint machine, which had been donated by the local Sheller plant.

Berry had been at PHS since 1946 after previously teaching in Fort Recovery for five years. He had bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Bowling Green State University, had completed speciality work at Ball State University and Kent State University and attended Hobart’s Welding School in Troy, Ohio.

He spent summers working on the school’s maintenance crew. He was also a commander in the Naval Reserve.