WALES-LINCOLN
Home of the Wolves! 
Wales-Lincoln Alumni AssociationWales-Lincoln Alumni Association |
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Donna Corliss still enjoys a good game of basketball By Jan Castle Renander (reprint by permission of Jan Castle Renander) (photo at right) 
This time of year you’ll find Donna Corliss in the bleachers at her local high school, watching yet another generation of young people play the sport that dominated Donna’s childhood.
“Every recess growing up we went to the gym and played basketball,” Donna recalls with a smile. “That was our recess. It was what you grew up with. That was all we knew.”
She and her classmates would race to the gym as soon as they could because there were only so many basketballs and the first kids there, got the best ones. Donna and her friends took a shortcut, through the girls bathroom and then the boiler room.
“That way we could beat the boys,” she smiles, “because they couldn’t go through the girls bathroom!”
Donna Wetzel was born on the family farm, which was three miles from Wales and five miles from Henderson, in 1937. The youngest of three children (twins Charles Jr. and Charlotte were nine years older), Donna recalls those childhood years as most in her generation do – times were tough but there was always food on the table, clothes on their backs, and a roof over their heads.
“I never knew we were hard-up,” she says, “because everyone was.”
Still, Donna marvels at the resiliency of that generation. When she was one year old the family’s home was destroyed by fire. The fire occurred just before the school year started, so the children’s yearly new school clothes and shoes were lost. While the family was staying with friends, Donna contracted pneumonia and spent several days in the hospital in Council Bluffs.
“Obviously I don’t remember any of that but I remember Charlotte telling how Mom taped her shoes to make them last one more year because the new ones burned up. I think about all those things that we went through and I’m not sure we would have handled it today.”
Donna recalls the farm years with fondness, especially all the farm animals – dogs, cats, chickens, ducks, cows, pigs.
“We always had a lot of different animals. I really liked playing with the animals.”
She also remembers a special treat as a child. Her mother used feed sacks as material for the children’s clothes, a common practice at that time.
“Mom used to let me help her get the chicken feed so I could pick out the kind of sack because it was going to be my dress!”
Donna’s basketball career began on the farm with her shooting at an iron hoop.
“It was just a hoop, out by the chicken house, right in the middle of the yard. I can remember going out there when it was cold and I’d have my gloves on. I’d go out there and shoot hoops, all by myself because Chuck and Charlotte were enough older that they didn’t want to play with me.”
The family traveled to Red Oak weekly for groceries – only those things they could not raise on the farm. Even then, “scooping the loop” was a popular activity for the young people.
“The square was the main thing and the kids today would find this unbelievable, but we’d find friends and we’d walk around and around the square the whole time, just talking and visiting.”
Donna attended school in Wales. She remembers that the school bus often had trouble in the winter but somehow always made it through. There were few snow days.
“The road south of us was dirt and there was one big hill and the bus would always get stuck, but somehow they usually got through. Of course, they had chains on the tires.”
During those years, Donna graduated in 1955, Wales-Lincoln High School was known for its basketball teams, both boys and girls. Donna points out that basketball was the only sport for girls at that time, so it was a big deal.
“We won the county tournament every year I was in high school,” she points out. “A couple times Elliott beat us during the regular season but come county tournament, you played!”
Girls basketball at that time was six-on-six. Thanks to all those baskets she shot at home, Donna played in the forward court. The local newspaper reported that she scored 646 points during her senior year. That was before the three-point rule, she notes with a touch of envy.
“And that’s where I shot, from the outside,” she says.
Donna earned several high school athletic awards including Best Female Athlete. She also graduated as class valedictorian. After high school, despite the potential to play basketball at a small college, Donna chose Clarinda Junior College. She received a scholarship as valedictorian which paid half her tuition and provided her books. She rented an efficiency-type apartment in a local boarding house.
“I paid $5 a week in rent. I had a roommate and I’d go home on weekends and, of course, Mom would send me back with a lot of food. I had this one teacher that was bound and determined that I was going to college. He took me and Mom to Clarinda to look around and he just insisted that I should go to college.”
Donna’s mother had been a teacher and older sister Charlotte became a teacher so Donna says it seemed natural to follow suit.
“Back then, after two years you could start teaching,” she explains.
Her first class was third grade in Stanton.
“I went the first year the new building was opened, 1957.”
Donna had met a young Jim Corliss at the roller skating rink in Clarinda while she was in college. They married shortly after her graduation and moved to Stanton.
“I have really good memories of Stanton,” she says. “The kids were nice. The parents were nice. All those teachers were at least 20 years older than I was, but they accepted me.”
Her first class was composed of 34 students – a large group for any single classroom.
“You know, I see those students today and most of them still recognize me!”
Donna taught in Stanton for 13 years, and then quit to start a family. She stayed home with son Jim Jr. for three years then began substitute teaching. She subbed for five years and realized she was teaching just about every day, so she might as well go back full-time. Red Oak had a Title I opening, so she accepted that.
“The first couple years, I really didn’t like it, but by the third year I did. There was no set way to teach or set books to use. It was different having so many different kids for 30 minutes a day instead of one class for all day.”
Donna remained in the Red Oak district until her retirement in 2006. She spent 45 years in the classroom. After a short stint at CDS, Donna retired for good.
Jim died unexpectedly in 1995, but Donna remains in the Red Oak home they purchased in the mid-1960s. Today, she enjoys reading, her dogs, and her neighbors. Donna’s the person you’ll find providing rides and running errands.
Among her awards are the local VFW Citizenship Teacher of the Year in 2002, several NEA Excellence in Education awards, the 1984 Knights of Columbus Good Neighbor Award, the local Wal-Mart Teacher of the Year Award in 2003, and a certificate of recognition from then-governor Tom Vilsack upon her retirement.
Donna and Jim had one son, Jim Jr., and she has two grandchildren.
Do you know of an interesting individual or couple for Jan’s Corner? If so, contact Jan at renanderjc@aol.com.
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