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Talk of the Town - Waldo County
Calling all alumni - Graduates wanted for first homecoming bash
By Tanya Mitchell
SEARSPORT — A first-only happens once, and members of the Searsport District High School Alumni Association want to be sure that no one misses out.
If you graduated from Searsport District High School, or either of the three town high schools prior to the creation of SAD 56 in 1962, the Alumni Association is inviting you to the school’s first-ever homecoming celebration. The gathering, which will take place in the newly renovated gymnasium, will coincide with the dedication of the long-awaited new addition to the high- and middle-school complex. The addition remains under construction this week, but the work is expected to be completed in time for the celebration, which is slated for Friday and Saturday, Oct. 4 and 5.
The festivities on tap so far begin at 7 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 4, and will include women’s and men’s alumni basketball games. Anyone interested in playing on one of the alumni teams may contact Emery Shute at 567-3654. Those interested in attending the games may contact the Superintendent’s Office for tickets at 548-6643.
Alumni Association Chair Natalie Knox said the games will be the first to be played on the new gym floor and that members of the alumni teams will likely see more familiar faces in the coaching staff.
“The coaches who were also teachers will be back to coach the alumni basketball teams,” she said.
On Oct. 5, the formal dedication for the new wing at the high and middle school will take place from 11 a.m. to noon. Admission is free, and the entire school will be open to the public for walking tours from noon to 2 p.m. The Searsport Lions Club will hold a chicken barbecue at the Lions Club facility on Prospect Street following the tours, and at 6 p.m., there will be a welcome-home dance and reception at the Blue Goose on Route 1 in Northport. Admission to the dance is $20, and $25 after Sept. 5. Contact the association for tickets at PO Box 444, Searsport 04974.
At Thursday’s association meeting, Knox said the dedication of the new school addition will come close to the five-year anniversary of the launching of Save Our Schools (SOS). SOS is the community-based committee that took on fund-raising efforts to improve the facility following the high school’s loss of accreditation in 1997. Many of the members of SOS also make up the Alumni Association, said Knox, who is also a member of SOS.
“We started Save Our Schools in October of 1997, and we’ll have the dedication of the new wing on October 5, 2002,” she said. “If you’ve worked on this for the amount of hours that this group has, you just pinch yourself to make sure this is really happening.”
The Alumni Association was an offshoot of SOS, explained SOS and association member Debbie (Robbins) Plourde.
“We wanted to keep the whole spirit of SOS alive,” she said.
Knox explained that with all the community involvement that had come from the creation of SOS, the committee members wanted to do something special when their fund-raising efforts were done.
“We thought we might as well have a big party for a lot of people,” said Knox. “And Searsport District High School had never had an alumni association before.”
The plans for getting an alumni association started three years ago, though Knox said the association’s members have been working in earnest for just the last year. In that time, the association has discovered two things they are in most need of in order to get this off the ground: current addresses and money. While the association has run notices about the alumni reunion in the town columns featured weekly in The Journal, Knox said they are still struggling to get the word out.
Knox recalled an outing to the Sail-In Restaurant in Prospect, where she met a waitress who she learned had graduated from Searsport in 1959.
“I asked her if she knew we were having a reunion and she said ‘no,’” said Knox. “So even though she’s someone who lives close by, she didn’t know this was going on. We’re simply doing the best we can with the few resources that we have.”
The association has done one mass mailing of 1,000 notices about the reunion, but due to a lack of current addresses and address changes associated with E-911, a stack of the notices were returned. Altogether, the association needs names, addresses and the years of graduation, and women should include their maiden name, if married.
“If you’re assuming that the association has your name and address, you shouldn’t,” said Knox.
The cost associated with printing and postage has been another hurdle for the group, and Knox said donations to assist with those startup costs will be “cheerfully accepted.”
Despite the lack of updated addresses, the association has received word via e-mail from interested alumni from as far away as Hawaii. Knox said she made contact with one woman whose childhood memories hit close to home for Knox.
According to Knox, a woman named Dot (Appleby) Kingsbury of Woolrich (originally from Searsport) had contacted the association after seeing the call for all alumni in the Journal.
“It turns out that she grew up in the house across the street from where I grew up on Steamboat Avenue,” said Knox. “So I told her that while she was here, we’d get her into that house to see it again.”
The association is also interested in obtaining any memorabilia from each respective class, which may include newspaper and magazine clippings of news events of the era, engagements, births, high school sporting events, and personal photos from the time they were in school. The scrapbooks and other memorabilia will be on display at the celebration, said Knox.
“It’s something that makes people feel very comfortable, seeing faces and things that are familiar to them,” said Knox.
Association member Patty (Krienke) Vose brought in a few of her own scrapbooks to get the collection started, an attraction that soon held the attention of many members as they leafed through the pages and remembered old friends and a little about their own pasts.
“Here’s where you got engaged,” said one woman.
“Remember when he joined the service?” said another woman.
Through newspaper clippings of man’s first visit to the moon, or their siblings’ graduation announcements, a hushed silence suddenly fell over the group as the clipping of a car crash appeared on the next page.
“The sad part of this is when you remember the people who died,” said association member Beth (Clark) Lockhart.
While remembering old times can be a bittersweet experience, Knox reminded people of how unique their school years were compared to those who grew up in big cities.
“Very often in small communities like the one here, you go to school with the same people from the time you’re in kindergarten to the time you’re in 12th grade,” she said. “Those people, they know you best; they’ve known you since you were 5. I think the older you get, the more you appreciate the longevity of relationships.”
The association will also begin meeting on a weekly basis from this point on, and are inviting all alumni to the Congregational Church Vestry on Knox Brothers Avenue every Wednesday at 6:30 p.m.
Anyone who wants information from the association, or has information for the members, as well as those who wish to donate money or lend out their scrapbooks, may contact the following people: Natalie Knox at natknox@yahoo.com or at (207)266-9494; Georgene (Tsetsilas) Coombs at gcoombs@powerlink.net or at (207)338-1645; Cyndi (Robbins) Dalton at unionpub@midcoast.com or at (207)338-4169; or Deb (Dunbar) Middleswart at (207)548-6541.