Whistle-Stop

Whistle-Stop is a fitting description for the fictional small town of Lincoln, Minnesota. The Great Northern (sometimes called the Jim Hill locally) rumbles through the town, usually not stopping. Unless to unload or pick up a package or passenger. Or to sidetrack for handling boxcars at the grain elevator. When a new young and attractive teacher arrives on the Jim Hill, she helps transform the small school into a place of creative learning. And she quickly spots an outstanding student, who just wants to be a basketball star. But he's the runt of his class and team. Slowly he grows physically and intellectually to become a star and scholar. Afraid his talent might be wasted on the prairie, the teacher wants to provide him a chance to go to college, despite the constrictions of the Great Depression that curb that possibility. But she and others at her college cobble together a free ride for him with a combination of options they call the "new deal of education." Part of his package includes work in the office of the Civilian Conservation Corps, where he becomes the "poster boy" of the CCC to promote that Federal New Deal program. There he learns to be an outstanding writer, designer and spokesman for the CCC. Meanwhile, his good looks, athletic ability and pleasing personality make him popular with students, espicailly the coeds who gradually make up what he calls his "harem."