History at a Glance

On Jan. 22, 1955, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer carried a story from Shelton claiming that "high school officials have put a damper on the teenage pink shirt and trouser fad here." It went on to say that teachers felt the popular loud-colored garb that students were wearing was attracting more attention than 'reading, writing, and arithmetic.' Therefore, students at Irene S. Reed High School had been forbidden to wear any clothing that detracted from school work.

"School Principal George Hermes, who doesn't like to see his students in the pink – or any other bright color for that matter – says that the ruling includes slacks and pedal-pushers and just affects about one percent of the students. 'Their grades don't attract any attention, so they try to attract it in another way,' Hermes said. The newspaper also claimed that Hermes had explained that a bright pink shirt worn by a student the previous week disrupted the normal school routine as fellow students went out their way to pass the youth's classroom to stare at his shirt.

Not all was at it seemed, apparently, because on Feb. 11, the P-I followed up with a story titled "Shelton High School Principal Says He DIDN'T Ban Bright Garb." "A lot of extra mail has arrived here in the past couple of weeks, and most of it has been addressed to Irene S. Reed High School Principal George Hermes. The letters say, in effect, 'You old spoil sport!' Hermes, innocent victim of circumstance, cringes every time he sees the mailman.

Hermes, you see, has been quoted far and wide as banning any garb which detracts from school work. But he says he hasn't done anything of the sort. The whole thing started when there was a veritable rash of pink shirts. It's happening in a lot of places. Questioned for what he thought was a survey on problems raised by high school clothes fads, Hermes had said quite frankly that he couldn't comment because Irene S. Reed High School doesn't have a clothes problem. But that isn't the way the story went around the country. And from coast to coast came sarcastic vitriolic letters condemning Hermes for his supposed stand. One merchant in Shelton said he'd ordered umpteen gross of pink shirts and now that Hermes had banned them, what was he going to do with the shirts?

Hermes explained that he HASN'T banned pink shirts or anything else. But the word hasn't gotten around, hence this explanation. Jack Jarvis, Post-Intelligencer columnist, passed the story along last Monday, and it seemed to Hermes that every student in school was waving a copy of the P-I (circulation department please note) when Hermes arrived at school Monday morning. The students are hurt, too, because their school has been held up to ridicule.

'There's no explaining high school fads,' said Hermes, 'but there's no point in becoming ridiculous by banning them, either. They die out if you let them run their course.'

So let it be repeated – there is NO ban on bright colored clothing at Irene S. Reed High School in Shelton. But George Hermes is sure he'll hear about the subject for a long time to come."

■ Jan Parker is a researcher for the Mason County Historical Museum. She can be reached at mchsparker@gmail.com. Membership in the Mason County Historical Society is $25 per year. For a limited time, new members will receive a free copy of the book "Shelton, the First Century Plus Ten."