Bill Peeper, Iola High School social studies teacher and head coach for the boys basketball team, is ready to return to the classroom after a summer of boning up on American history.
For each of the last five years Peeper has taken advantage of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to explore his homeland.
This year Peeper studied the life, impact and times of Samuel “Mark Twain” Clemens and his book, “Huckleberry Finn.” A native of Missouri, Clemens also strayed east. Peeper attended a weeklong conference in Hartford, Conn., where the author, steamboat captain and sometimes journalist built a home in what was at the time, an affluent area.
