Please enjoy this archived article from the old Mentor High School Log, one of the earlier incarnations of the Mentor High School student newspaper. Special thanks to Mr. Sanelli for finding these in an old bureau taken from the old Mentor High School Library during its renovation into the Hub. Also thanks to Mrs. Ford and the GenYes team for scanning and sharing the original article.

This story was actually run at the beginning of the school year, but at the beginning of a new calendar year in 2023, is timely to read and think about. How many of these students almost 50 years ago have gone on to make a real difference – perhaps even are now members of our Alumni Hall of Fame? What will your future be? Happy New Year! – Mr. Couch, Cardinal Nation Advisor

Editorial

Youth Can Help

As we enter the 1975-1976 school year, we are forced once again to remember who we are and why we are here.

We are a relatively tiny segment of our nation’s youth, and an even smaller part of the population of the country as a whole. There are thousands of schools such as ours across the land. Why, then, should we bother to consider the importance of Mentor High?

The total number of students in our building is approximately 2,800. Not a huge figure, after all. But nearly three thousand, well-educated people placed in strategic positions can make a difference. Ask anyone who has worked for a hospital, store, or volunteer organization that has experienced the malady of short handedness. How welcome new volunteers or employees would have been!

Our purpose here at school is to prepare ourselves for the lives which we will lead as adults. Society in general pays taxes to have us educated so that we in turn may make ourselves useful to it at a later date.

We must now make decisions which will affect the rest of our lives. For many, this year will prove of greater importance than all previous years of schooling. When it ends, we will separate, and each individual will pursue a life of his own choosing, a course he may still be following 25 years from now.

More importantly, our decisions will affect those around us. An overabundance of workers in any given field will almost certainly result in unemployment and less likelihood of wage increases.If we choose our vocations from those areas in which there is the most need, we will benefit not only ourselves but those who will receive the services we render.

As 1976 is our Bicentennial celebration, we will doubtless be bombarded with historic references, people, and places. We will be reminded again and again of the courageous struggle our forefathers waged to create the nation in which we now live.

But the world of today is many times more complex than that of Benjamin Franklin and George Washington. We must cope with more technology, depersonalization, confusion, and people than our ancestors. We all need at least 12 years of schooling to prepare us to cope.

When this year ends, we will be older, wiser, and more aware of the world around us.