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“Wow! Is that really you? It’s been over 50 years since we last spoke!” Comments such as like this were frequent in Waterloo’s Francis Thomson Park June 13, where former students reminisced at the Richland Township Schools Reunion.
Over the years since my boyhood in rural DeKalb County, I had often wondered whether it would be possible to find enough of my fellow “old-timers” to have a get-together. Earlier this year, in an e-mail exchange, a fellow Waterloo High School and West Richland School classmate, Janis (Myers) Sproat (now of rural Butler) asked me what I thought about staging such an event — and that was all it took to get the ball rolling.
Over the months leading up to the reunion, Janis and I worked diligently to locate and contact alumni from East Richland, West Richland and Corunna. Since I live quite a distance away (northwest of Chicago), I concentrated on such things as media contacts and designing the promotional flyers, which Janis had printed locally and then posted in various supermarkets, churches, libraries, etc. In addition, she called many people personally, and I performed numerous Internet searches with some success. Although not everyone we reached was able to attend, we were pleased with the turnout — approximately 75 (plus spouses and other guests).
An adjunct event was a tour of the old East Richland School, now owned by Don and Pam Sebert of Auburn. Don spent grades one through eight at the school. After I shot group photos at Thomson Park, a number of attendees drove to a well-planned open house hosted by Pam at East Richland. This is the only one — of the three old schools — still standing, and the exterior is pretty much the same as at the time of its construction (1914). West Richland’s roof collapsed some years ago, and the building today is largely rubble. At Corunna a monument now marks the site of the old school.
Many expressions of heartfelt appreciation were expressed to Janis and me for organizing this event. But others contributed as well, especially Janis’s husband Ron, along with Connie (Roop) Combs and her husband Claude. Janis and I are also thankful to all those who attended — some coming from far and wide — to be able to reconnect with their old classmates.
Will we do it again? Well, keep your eyes on the local papers and bulletin boards in a couple of years or so —
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