THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Thursday, August 25, 1994              TAG: 9408240201
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN              PAGE: 04   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: BY FRANK ROBERTS, STAFF WRITER 
                                             LENGTH: Medium:   51 lines

ALL THE GOSSIP THAT WAS FIT TO PRINT

Mrs. Hobbs: ``Give me a sentence with an object.''

Coleman: ``You are very beautiful, teacher.''

Mrs. Hobbs: ``What's the object?''

Coleman: ``A good grade.''

Hey, don't blame me. Blame the Class of '64, Whaleyville High School.

Some editions of their newspaper, The Banner, are on display at Riddick's Folly, part of the exhibit on area education at that locale and the Suffolk Museum.

The little papers were filled with information, but those in charge also exhibited a sense of humor with their jokes and juicy gossip.

The gossip was fairly commonplace, but the writer - possibly Audrey Wilkins, who was listed as ``social'' - used some imagination in putting it together, noting at one point, ``Kaye, Del Cross and Ellen seem to be getting around. Franklin one night, Suffolk the next. Those poor, poor boys.''

Wanda F. got around, the writer describing her as ``quite popular. Her interests have gone from Doc to Edmond M., Calvin and Ernie E.''

Most of the gossip, of course, had to do with boy-girl relationships. You know: ``Joan F. and Jimmie B. are seen together quite frequently between classes now.''

The gossiper found out that ``Carolyn O'Berry has a crush on a Windsor Duke. His initials are G.G.''

The use of initials were big, although they certainly did not hide identities. I mean, ``Janice T. has caused quite a commotion between Tommy H. and Butch H.'' left little to the imagination.

The column probably caused a commotion or two each time it came out - nothing incendiary - something like, ``This is for Paul Carr. Get wise, Paul. Mary Louise has a mad crush on you.''

Mary Louise probably stayed out of school a couple days after that.

If you did not go for juicy gossip, you might have checked the Juicy Fruit announcement: ``Please stop depositing your tired gum on the bottom of desks. It is very annoying for a girl not to be able to cross her legs anymore without getting all stuck up.''

We wind up with one more Whaleyville joke:

``On his way to a restaurant in an Italian community, Abe Lincoln got lost. Unable to find the envelope on which he had written the directions, he said, ``Goodness, I've lost the Spaghettiesburg Address.''

Don't blame me, blame Whaleyville, Class of '64. by CNB