Not quite a half-century ago, a pal of mine inadvertently killed all the fish in a public fountain, while trying to make the water pretty. And I know an old boy who still can hurt himself giggling over how he used an iron pole to reach through a barred door and activate buttons in the control panel of a campus bell tower. Such pranks pale beside a misapplication of high school spirit reported in Little Rock newspapers 100 years ago.
The name L.H. Buis didn't make the paper often in 1920s Arkansas, but when it did, it left an enduring impression. From the scant evidence we have of him in the Arkansas Gazette and Arkansas Democrat, he springs up to speak out: vivid, direct and fed up.