(see notes of that fire and other links in the Firecave story)

   ...there was the old three room school house that burned down when I was in the fifth grade -- I remember heading my school papers “September, 1922,” this must have been my second year in school -- after the school house burned they made two rooms in the old stone building down on main street, the “middle” room and high school room all in one -- the “office” in the front of the building was used as a class room for the high school.
   Basketball games were played in the building -- before that time basketball games were played on outdoor courts. When I was in High school not all schools had indoor courts -- I remember playing basketball out of doors at Hartman and at Pleasanton.
   When I was in the third or fourth grade we had a high school teacher by the name of Mrs. Heilman, (she died in Kearney two or three years ago) who was a dedicated basketball coach. She had six boys in high school, all of whom were over six feet in height. At that time, District tournaments were held in Kearney with classes of schools from "A" to "L," or "M," according to enrollment -- through some error, Poole was put in class "A" (should have been "K" or "L") and played North Platte and beat them. As I recall in the next game (don't know who they played), but Poole was beating them, but fouled out two players, and as they had only six, the other team refused to play them with only four players, so Poole had to forfeit.

"1926 Poole had a 10-grade school when we went to the finals in Kearney playing 12-grade schools.  The older boys saw we had a little fire-in-our-blood and came to scrimmage with us and we got to go to Lincoln. ~ We boarded the passenger train at Ravenna ~ Ravenna had four passenger trains a day. We lost by one point – at the gun when one of those tall Thedford cowboys heaved that ball from somewhere across the court - and I'm still frettin’ about it - almost 80 years later!  (“one left,” pointing to himself, “me!”

Author's recollections:
   I'm sure I recall Marvin telling of getting to North Platte by rail, which meant taking the Burlington to Lincoln, then the Union Pacific to North Platte.

   Marvin Book carried bulk mail from Ravenna to Poole and Pleasanton on a contract arrangement (a "star route") between 1934 and 1974, seven days a week, holidays included.  He also delivered mail to patrons along his route.  Marvin came to Pat's Store and Post Office very early every morning to deliver a bag of mail for the Post Office patrons and the Poole rural route patrons.

   I had a basketball hoop and backboard across the street from the store on that concrete floor with portions of the old foundation (seating) around it.  (The same stone building where classes were conducted after the fire.) The backboard was made from an old telephone pole and an old table from the back feed room of the store.  One of the few times I can recall that Dad (Glenn 'Pat' Stover) spent some time away from the store doing something for recreation.  This would have been the summer of 1956 or ’57.  He and Marvin came out to play a couple of times; they both shot from way out with a two-handed underhand shot that had backspin.  I thought that pretty odd as I worked only on jump shots or set shots and only sometimes used two handed underhand only for free throws.  I didn’t know that overhand shots were against the rules in their basketball days.