Bare-Faced Messiah (PDF) - Apologetics Index

[He had, in fact, been thirteen. But this small slip-up and the curious omission of the 'execution'
from his journal were not nearly as puzzling as the fact that it has never been possible to trace the
newspaper from which the cutting was taken.[6] It appears to exist only as a photostat in the
archives of the Church of Scientology labelled 'Clipping from Helena, Montana, newspaper circa
1929'.]
On 6 September 1927, Ron enrolled in the junior year at Helena High School, a forbidding Victorian
building of rough-hewn grey stone with castellated gables and turrets, just five minutes' walk from
the Waterbury home. A cousin, Gorham Roberts, who was in the same year, introduced Ron to
many of his new school-mates, but no one found it easy to settle down to work, for the whole
school was distracted by the frustrating knowledge that Charles A. Lindbergh was visiting Helena.
He was on a triumphant tour of the country after flying the Atlantic alone in his tiny monoplane Spirit
of St Louis and returning as a national hero, and there was not a boy or girl in the school who did
not fervently wish to catch a glimpse of him.
At first Ron seemed perfectly happy at Helena High, perfectly happy to be back with his
grandparents. In October he joined the Montana National Guard, enlisting at the State Armory on
North Main Street and claiming he was eighteen to avoid having to wait months for his parents to
send consent papers from Guam. As a private in Headquarters Company of 163rd Infantry he felt
he cut quite a dash as he strode through the town in his uniform - broad-brimmed hat, khaki shirt
and breeches, gloves tucked into the belt - to report for training at the Armory, where twin flagpoles
rose from perfectly manicured patches of green grass.
At school, he managed to get himself appointed to the editorial staff of The Nugget, Helena High's
bi-monthly newspaper. He would naturally have preferred to have been editor-in-chief, but as a
newcomer he had to be satisfied with jokes editor, a position he held jointly with Ellen Galusha. He
was photographed with the rest of the editorial staff for the year book, standing in the middle of the
group on the steps of the school wearing a suit and a bow tie, eschewing the faintly raffish literary
style affected by his colleagues. 'The Nugget is a really good paper . . .' the caption explained. 'The