GRANDVIEW STUDENT BITTEN IN FIGHT WITH INSTRUCTOR

TOMLINSON, WASHINGTON

Posted By: Judy Kelley, volunteer (email)
Date: 8/28/2010 at 21:22:11

(Journal's Special Service.)

source: LCHS scrapbook; newspaper with handwritten date of 1916

Fred Washington, the young son of Rev. A.G. Washington, pastor of the Congregational church at this place, is nursing a lacerated thumb and incidentally is denied school privileges as a result of a mix with his teacher. The youthful attendant at the local school received his injury in an altercation with Jesse L. Tomlinson, his instructor, when in some manner the boy's finger was bitten by the teacher.

Young Washington, it is stated by certain members of the school board, has been an arbitrary pupil. When the teacher instructed him to clean the lamp chimneys at the school on last Friday he is reported to have refused to do so and was accordingly suspended by the teacher.

On Monday the youth returned to the building in violation of the teacher's instruction and an altercation arose in which blows were struck. During the course of the melee the Washington boy's thumb was bitten. The laceration was such that medical attention was necessary.

The teacher has been upheld by the school board according to President Clay Arihood, who stated today that the actions of the boy were in violation of school rules and as a result he has been indefinitely suspended by the board.

The parents of the injured youth declare that he was the object of persecution and it is rumored here that proceedings against Mr. Tomlinson have been threatened.

source: LCHS scrapbook; newspaper with handwritten date of 1916