2004 Alumni Day Photo
Hamburgers
cost ten cents.
Gasoline
was twenty cents a gallon.
And
the world seemed a simpler, more innocent place.
Former
classmates at Milan High School took a walk down memory lane on June 19 as
hundreds of graduates attended the 2004 Alumni Day reunion.
An
estimated six hundred people attended the event, which featured an open house,
general meeting, banquet at the school along and informal get togethers by
members of special anniversary classes.
For Class of 1954 graduate Bobbie Pratt
Priddy, the
reunion is a time to reconnect with old friends. “Each of us likes to be
connected,” said Priddy. “That reason to be connected is why we have such a
large alumni association. You feel a connection by being here on Alumni Day.”
Retired after teaching kindergarten in Milan for
thirty-one years, Priddy was selected by the association as this year’s
special honoree. She has been an active volunteer for the alumni organization
many years and is currently on the board of directors. She won the Tennessee
Education Association Distinguished Classroom Teacher Award in 1988.
“It has been a wonderful experience,” Priddy said
in her speech to the alumni audience reflecting on her years as a Milan student,
alumnae and teacher. “This is a place where parents and students are
special.”
Priddy thanked former graduates for their
participation in reunions and for their generous financial contributions that
fund college scholarships for children of alumni. This year approximately
$29,000 in scholarships was awarded to twenty-six graduating seniors. “Without
your willingness to connect we could not have an alumni room and offer all the
scholarships that the alumni association provides,” said Priddy. “Let purple
pride connect you to the past and let you build toward the future.”
Priddy was saluted by her old basketball coach and
former administrator, Wylie Wheeler. He presented a plaque of appreciation to
Priddy during ceremonies. “Bobbie Sue was a tenth grader who took me up on
being manager of the basketball team,” said Wheeler recalling his first year
as coach in the early 1950s. “She was one of the most careful people I’ve
had dealings with. If you asked for six basketballs at a game, she brought six
basketballs. She made contributions to the team.”
For Jim
Towater, Milan’s Director of Schools and a
1964 Milan grad, Alumni Day marked the fortieth anniversary of his graduating
class. “I’m proud my classmates got up the steps as good as they did,”
Towater joked in remarks to the crowd, saying his class was celebrating their
twentieth class reunion “times two.”
The school director said Milan schools are continuing
a proud tradition, highlighted this year by the opening of the $9 million new
middle school. “We have some of the greatest students and teachers in the
state,” Mr. Towater said. He also saluted the Milan High baseball team for
claiming a state championship and noted that this year’s seniors were offered
approximately $300,000 in college scholarships.
Mayor George
Killebrew, a 1957 graduate, gave the
official welcome to Alumni Day visitors. Mr. Killebrew told former classmates
they could take pride in three things: the current school system, the alumni
association and their hometown. “Be proud of the town you grew up in,” said
the mayor. “Our school system is one of the top public school systems in
Tennessee. And as for our alumni association, there is none like it.”
Debbie Ownby McManus, a 1979 graduate, served as
president of the alumni organization this year and presided over Saturday’s
event. “This has been a very busy year for the alumni association with
pictures of schools and a cornerstone of a building being donated and five new
scholarships established,” said McManus. She thanked the many volunteers and
board members who help organize the annual reunion. “It’s a rarity to have
an alumni group as large as this one with so many active members,” she noted.
About six thousand invitations to Alumni Day are
being mailed each year. McManus urged alumni members to submit updated
information about addresses. She reminded the reunion attendees that annual
contributions enable the association to award more scholarships. Several
scholarships were increased in value this year from $750 to $1,000.
Principal Tim Warren, a 1974 graduate, presented
several scholarships to members of the Class of 2004. “We have a lot of pride
in our alumni organization, and it’s great to have such a big showing on
Alumni Day,” said Warren.
Rex Tatum, a Class of ’53 alumnus and annual
participant in the program, read reminiscences submitted by anniversary classes.
The Class of ’44 grads recalled ten-cent hamburgers and twenty-cent gas
prices, but also acknowledged the effects of time’s passing. “The Class of
1944 may remember some things that never happened,” joked Tatum. But he
saluted the group as part of the celebrated “greatest generation” in
America.
Other graduates nostalgically recalled hit songs and
popular movies, gathering places like Floyd’s Bakery and the Silver Kitchen
diner, and their high school years when they “walked, talked, flirted and fell
in love in the hallways of Milan High School.”
“We were seniors then and we’re seniors now,”
reflected members of the Class of ’59 in their tribute. “The difference is
now we use our AARP card to get a discount on coffee at McDonald’s.”
Members of the Class of ’94 pointed out changes in their hometown and each other after ten years. “Milan is different today,” they noted. “The K.D. McKellar building is gone, and Park Avenue has closed its doors. But Milan’s not the only thing that has changed. We’ve changed, too. We’re smarter, friendlier toward each other and more experienced.”
---------- By Steve Short - Milan Mirror-Exchange
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