LITTLE ROCK — My congratulations and best wishes to the young people who graduate from high school this year. I suppose that for today’s graduates, to whom my generation now are old folks, it may seem strange that Grandpa or Grandma were once 17 and 18 years old, and that years ago they went through a similar time of excitement, relief and uneasiness as their high school days came to a close. I graduated from Pea Ridge High School in 1957, which some think of as a long time ago. To me it was like day before yesterday!

Today, as the graduating classes of Pea Ridge High School are reaching nearly 100 members, our class of 15 is dwarfed in comparison. But, regardless of size, graduation time was our moment, and many of us still remember those days fondly. We lived some stories and created some history as a class, and we still like to refresh those memories and to re-enjoy them.

I’m thinking of how different commencement programs have to be these days. Our high schools in Benton County, including Pea Ridge, are what we in the ’50s would have called “big schools!” Home facilities are no longer big enough for the crowd at graduation time, so we have to go to Fayetteville and the University of Arkansas to find room for graduation ceremonies.

It is interesting to me that early in the 1900s, when the rural public schools operated under a county superintendent, the small schools would come into Pea Ridge, to the oldcollege building, to hold their graduations. During the 1920s, my mother went to Valley View School, located in the Little Sugar Creek Valley between Pea Ridge and Bentonville. She used to talk about the competitions her school would have with the Pea Ridge rural schools, and of going to Pea Ridge for events that brought the numerous schools together. The old Pea Ridge college building, which in the later years of the college was known as Mt. Vernon Masonic College, had a sizable auditorium on the upper floor of the south end of the building. It was quite suitable for dramatic productions, musical programs, recitals, lectures and topical talks, community events and celebrations and graduation ceremonies. It also served as a classroom for the high school and college courses.And when the Bank of Pea Ridge was originated in 1911, the Bank Board held its meetings in college hall at first.

When the “new” schoolhouse was built in 1930, an auditorium was included in the plans. The auditorium extended all across the center front section of the building, with a high curtained stage at the west end of the long room. In the 1930s and 1940s, the auditorium was large enough for graduation ceremonies. It also was the place forclass plays, and so on. I’m guessing that one of the most entertaining senior plays ever was performed several times in that auditorium in the early 1950s. It was a hillbilly play, starring Jimmy Don Jones, Peggy Patterson, Joann Easley, Robert Henderson and others, and it beat all I done ever seed in my whole life.

When the old high school building was taken down in 2005, hardly a sign of that old auditorium could be seen. Only up in the attic could one find the pillars and facade of the old stage.

By the mid-1950s, we were growing too big to have graduations in the schoolhouse auditorium.

Commencement ceremonies moved to the gym, the old flagstone and brick gym which then stood at North Curtis Avenue and Yates Street. That old gym had been built in stages, from 1931 to about 1935, as the money and labor could be raised. One of my fond memories in the later school years involved days when we older boys would be dismissed from classeswalk and onto the gym floor, providing seating for the crowd that would attend the big events. Our old lunchroom in more recent years served as headquarters for the SEEK program.

It occurs to me that I am 70 years old, with a college degree and a graduate degree, and I’m still setting up tables and chairs for events that I enjoy. It all started in high school when we boys were allowed to miss class to go carry chairs and set them up in the gym for assemblies, plays and graduation ceremonies. I wonder if any of the other boys have fond memories of carrying chairs? To me, getting out of class was worth a little work, and the whole thingwas fun.

◊◊◊

Jerry Nichols, a native of Pea Ridge, is a retired Methodist minister with a passion for history. He is vice president of the Pea Ridge Historical Society. He can be contacted by e-mail at [email protected], or call 621-1621.

Community, Pages 5 on 05/26/2010