LTHS and the impact on the school, students during World War II, (Part 2, 1944-45)

• The following is part of an ongoing series of articles in celebration of Libertyville High School's 100th anniversary.

For the second straight year, the Northeast Conference did not have an athletic conference schedule for the 1943-44 school year since so many of the teams could not reach each other by train. The Libertyville Township High School football team finished undefeated in the fall of 1943 against competition accessible by easy transportation. Even though they didn't play everyone in the conference, LTHS did have a full schedule. Everyone else in the conference lost at some point, so LTHS declared themselves unofficial conference champions. 1944 saw a significant increase in the LTHS war fatalities as nine former students lost their lives. Paul Kristan was a three-sport athletic star. He joined the medical corps after his junior year, losing his life in December 1944, on a German battlefield while attending to an injured soldier. He had previously earned a Silver Star for saving another soldier under heavy enemy fire. Ray Cooper also left school after his 1943 junior year. He was serving in the South Pacific Bougainville Campaign when he was killed. He earned a Silver Star for his courage during a raid where he lost his life, destroying a Japanese gun post after suffering injuries that would end his life. As the war was coming to an end in 1945 (V-E Day on May 8, V-J Day on Aug. 14), LTHS lost eight former students in the first half of that year. Dale Kranz, the 1943 Newsom Award winner, was killed on a battlefield in France. Frances Dishinger, a star on the 1936 Conference Basketball Champions, lost his life at Iwo Jima. Roger Kane, a 1940 All-State football player, enlisted during the middle of his Iowa University football career. He spent five months in a German Prison Camp with a shrapnel wound that was never treated. Jack Cherenovich, Class of 1941 President and football/basketball star, lost his life at Okinawa, as did Lloyd Iverson, junior class president for the Class of 1942 and varsity basketball player, in the early stages of this critical two-month 1945 battle. Ole Ekstrom ('41), a class officer and track star, was the first Lake County enlistee into the Marines in early 1942. A tank driver at Okinawa, he lost his life near the end of this 1945 battle. In all, 21 former LTHS students lost their lives in World War II. In addition to the Silver Stars awarded to Cooper and Kristan, several others from LTHS earned Armed Forces honors. Richard Jaeger ('38), a class officer and three-sport athlete, was awarded the Silver Star. Carl Worthen ('35) and Howard Huffman ('42), both multiple-sport athletes, earned Bronze Stars. Air medal recipients included John Dorfler ('35) for his 40 bombing missions, Ken Piche ('42) for his 25 bombing missions, and Irving Enevold ('36) for downing a Japanese fighter plane in an aerial battle. Tom Edgren ('63), senior class vice president and football team manager, lost his life in the Vietnam War in 1970. Wesley Wells (2001) lost his life in Afghanistan in 2004.