Women and Sports
by Deane Gunderson

The Rolfe Arrow — November 20, 1975

Daughter Helen Gunderson is enjoying a new job as Assistant Sports Information Director at North Dakota State University, Fargo, North Dakota.

It’s a fitting job. Helen has been a sports promoter ever since she led a group of fellow junior high girls in a formal petition to Superintendent Mortensen and the School Board to have Girls’ basketball (unknown to her parents, which I doubt Mort believed).

There is a nation-wide movement toward greater involvement of women in physical education and sports activities - but that’s nothing new to Rolfe. Reading the Rolfe Centennial book, I find a reference to a Rolfe Arrow article about an earlier petition to the Rolfe School Board.

Rolfe, Iowa  — November 30, 1920

To the Honorable Board of Education, Rolfe, Iowa

Gentlemen:

We, the undersigned, hereby beg leave to present to your honorable body for your earnest consideration the petition to be herein below set forth, hereby stating and showing to you as follows, to wit:

That whereas the Rolfe Public School Building was so planned as to have included in its equipment a well ordered gymnasium to the end that the boys and girls attending said school may receive proper physical training and that their physical development may be equal to their mental growth; and

Whereas, said gymnasium was intended and calculated to be used not only by the students of said school but by the patrons thereof as well, and under proper supervision and in accordance with the regulations adopted by your honorable body for the control and use of said gymnasium; and

Whereas, the men of our town have in times past regularly availed themselves of the privileges and benefits of physical training and exercise afforded by said gymnasium, as the result of which training and exercise they have all without exception developed into modern Apollos; and

Whereas, we as modern, twentieth-century women, have now taken our place on a part with men in everything excepting only grace and shapeliness of figure and physical strength; and

Whereas, it is our desire to mold and shape our bodies into the perfection of symmetry and grace and to develop our physical strength in the greatest possible measure, confidently believing that such attainments may be reached through the use of said gymnasium in the proper physical exercise and training for our several individual needs as that the goddess Venus may look upon us with envy;

Now, therefore, we, the undersigned, on our own behalf and on behalf of all the women patrons of our school and on behalf of all the women of our town and community, hereby request that one evening in each week shall be set apart by you upon which evening we may have the exclusive use of said gymnasium and its equipment, and upon such conditions as will enable us to have the advantages and benefits to be received through our use of said gymnasium for the purposes and in gratification of the desires herein-above set forth.

We thank you in advance for your consideration of this petition and trust that your action hereon may be favorable to us.

Very respectfully submitted,

Mrs. O.A. McCreary, Mrs. A.B. Symes, Mrs. Robt. Bruce, Mrs. J.K. Lemon, Mrs. J.H. Brinkman, Mrs. E.L. Hollis, Mrs. J.R. McIntire, Mrs. Ella Hille, Mrs. Gussie Bruce, Mrs. C.B. Bower, Mrs. J.T. Grant, Mrs. C.H. Moon, Mrs. C.J. White, Mrs. C.W. Siefkin, Mrs. F.E. Hoyne.

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