Topeka ? Seventy years ago, Bob Schick left his freshman class at Topeka High School to become a page in the Kansas House of Representatives because his parents needed the money.

On Tuesday, Schick and two friends who also left school in 1933 to become pages were greeted with a standing ovation when House Speaker Doug Mays introduced them to the full chamber.

What a difference 70 years make.

In 1933, Alf Landon was Kansas governor, Franklin Roosevelt was in his first year as president, and Cherokee County had more representatives than Johnson County in the House. Western Kansas was in the midst of the Dust Bowl, and the nation was in the grips of the Great Depression.

Schick had finished half of his freshman year, but his family needed the money he could make as a page. At that time it was a full-time job that paid $2 a day, and there were only 11 pages in the House.

By comparison, pages now serve only one day and are paid $3. Each chamber can have up to 15 pages a day.

“When I got paid, I would take the money over to my folks and keep a dollar for myself,” Schick said. “A dollar would go a long ways back then.”

Bob Rice, who skipped part of his sophomore year to be a page, said a big difference between the Legislature then and now is that there were no female pages or legislators then. Also, anyone could smoke anywhere; there were no designated smoking areas.

“This was a cloud of smoke all the time,” Rice said as he surveyed the House chamber. “People smoked cigarettes and cigars, and they even had spittoons there on the floor.”

Rice said he became a page because a state representative lived across the street from him. It was Rice’s idea to get together with Schick and fellow page Bob Johns on Tuesday to mark the 70th anniversary of their stint in the House.

All three still live in Topeka and consider themselves lifelong friends.

“I kinda think my dad helped me get the job,” Johns said. “He talked to Frank McFarland, who was our representative. I think he pulled the strings to get me here.”

One employee in the House in 1933 was a 90-year-old clerk who had fought Indians in western Kansas, Rice said.

Things got so heated at the end of the session, Johns said, that Democrats and Republicans threw things at each other across the House aisle.

“Back in those days, they still had pens and ink,” he said. “Well, someone threw a roll of bills at someone else, and a pen came out and stuck in a representative’s head just above the eyebrow. Things kind of quieted down after that.”