For several years now, graduates, former students, teachers, administrators, coaches and staff who are connected to Pea Ridge schools have been gathering each summer on the second Saturday of July to enjoy PRHS Alumni Day. This year, the Alumni Day event will be observed from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, July 14, in the Pea Ridge High School cafeteria. A light lunch will be provided at the cafeteria. There is no charge for attending the event, or for lunch, but donations are welcomed and much appreciated. This year's School Reunion will be the 12th annual reunion since the All-Years Reunions were initiated in 2007.
High School reunions in some form have been going on for many years. Many graduating classes from PRHS have continued to keep in contact with school friends, and have arranged class reunions from time to time. My personal first memory of attending a class reunion was in 1963, when my wife Nancy's class, the PRHS Class of 1958, held its five-year reunion at Taylor's Cafe in downtown Pea Ridge. The old Taylor's Cafe building in later years served as our mayor's office and courtroom until the new city offices were constructed on Weston Street. The Class of 1958 has consistently held a class reunion every five years until about three years ago when they began meeting every year at PRHS Alumni Reunion time. The Class of 1967 has also been a very consistent class for hosting reunions.
During the 1990s, several PRHS graduating classes initiated multi-class reunions. In our case, our multi-class reunions usually brought together my 1957 class, along with the two preceding classes and the two following classes; i.e., 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958 and 1959.
In 2006, we decided to invite anyone who had attended Pea Ridge Schools to join in with us in a time for reminiscing, catching up on old times, and reconnecting with our schoolmates. This seemed fitting, especially since in the earlier years our school was small enough that we could know most of the students, not only those in high school, but in the younger grades as well. I often like to comment that when I began first grade in the Pea Ridge School in 1946, the total school population, first grade through 12th grade, was probably about 150 students. Now we have come to a time when there are that many students in each grade, throughout the school system.
In the later months of 2006, a number of PRHS alums, mostly from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, began a series of meetings to explore forming a Pea Ridge High School Alumni Association, and looking for ways the alumni could be helpful in relation to the current school programs. In July 2007, we held the first All-Years Alumni Reunion, matching the date with that of the Pea Ridge Fair, in hopes that the two community events would benefit each other. We also made the first Alumni Scholarship grant in 2007, a scholarship awarded to one of that year's graduates. Since that time, the Alumni Scholarship has grown, with an additional scholarship initiated almost every year, until now, when 12 PRHS graduates from the PRHS Class of 2018 were awarded Alumni Scholarships.
Alumni Scholarships are devoted to helping PRHS graduates get started in their first year of college. Each scholarship provides $500 for the first semester, applicable for tuition, fees, or books; and most scholarships are renewable for a second semester and an additional $500 so long as a satisfactory grade point is maintained by the student. The funding for Alumni Scholarships comes from memberships paid to the Alumni Association by former PRHS students, from the sale of Blackhawk chairs, stadium cushions, class picture books, and from fund-raising dinners such as the springtime pulled-pork BBQ dinner, And the autumn-time ham and bean dinner, as well as donations from local businesses and interested individuals. The Alumni Association is very grateful for the support of all the friends who make these events and the scholarship program possible year by year.
The School Reunion is also the time for electing members of the Alumni Association's nine-member governing board of directors. The PRHS Alumni Association is a 501.c.3 non-profit organization, so major gifts qualify as tax-deductible. Members of the Alumni Board serve three-year terms. Each year, the terms of three board members come to an end, and three alums need to be elected to serve on the board. The board meets monthly on second Tuesday evenings, 6 p.m. in the School Heritage Building on the downtown campus of the Pea Ridge Intermediate School.
We hope everyone who spent time in Pea Ridge Schools in years past will plan to attend this years All-Years Reunion on Saturday, July 14, in Pea Ridge High School Cafeteria.
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Editor's note: Jerry Nichols, a native of Pea Ridge, is a retired Methodist minister and on the board of the Pea Ridge Historical Society. The views expressed are the author's. He can be contacted by email at [email protected], or call 621-1621.
Editorial on 06/20/2018