Tulsa World: Small-school reunion has big following

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Small-school reunion has big following

By MARY BISHOP World Staff Writer
Published: 7/20/2009 2:21 AM
Last Modified: 7/21/2009 4:05 PM

They say you can't go home again, but about every two years for the past 30 years, I've been doing just that.

There's something special about my small, rural school that draws me and a couple hundred other alumni and our spouses back to the biennial all-school reunion.

The banquet room at the Ada Elks Lodge is crammed full of old McLish Oilers who couldn't be prouder of their school if we'd won another state basketball championship.

Half of my class of 21 graduates turned out this summer for our 30-year reunion. But at the all-school reunion that evening, the Class of '79 mingled with alumni from the grades before and after ours.

After all, at a school with Head Start and kindergarten through 12th grade all on the same campus, everyone knew everyone.

When I transferred to McLish in the third grade, the third- and fourth-graders shared a classroom — and a teacher. McLish was so "old school" that the elementary school principal — who also was the fifth-grade teacher — rang the bell with, literally, an ancient hand bell.

It all was quite a shock for me, coming from one of two third-grade classes at one of four elementary schools in the "big city" of Ada, but I quickly adjusted, and the system worked.

During high school, students in multiple grades shared the same classes again. With fewer than 100 students in the entire high school, in many ways we were like one big family.

In fact, the all-school reunions look an awful lot like family reunions. Multiple generations of the same families are McLish graduates, so parents, children, brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews are seated with their respective classmates across the banquet hall.

While some alumni stayed around the area after high school, others pursued higher educations and careers elsewhere.

In the years after I graduated, it seemed that fewer and fewer families with school-age children were living in the McLish school district, a vast territory from north of Fittstown in Pontotoc County to south of Connerville in Johnston County.

One year, McLish had three graduates.

Eventually, the inevitable happened, and McLish was consolidated into the neighboring Stonewall district in 2004.

That's the year a fellow McLish graduate, Kevin Flowers, who had given up a lucrative career as a certified public accountant to become an educator, was named superintendent of Stonewall Public Schools.

Kevin, a member of the class of 1980, shepherded our school's consolidation into the Stonewall school system and found a way to keep the Oiler spirit alive. Because of his leadership, the name "McLish" lives on as Stonewall's middle school, early childhood education center and alternative school.

While we are proud that our school has been brought into the 21st century with refurbished facilities and new technology, we're grateful that the shrine to McLish's glory days — the trophy cases that tell the story of a Class B basketball powerhouse — was left untouched.

Admittedly, small rural schools can't provide the broad curriculum that large city schools offer. But they can and do give students a good foundation and a chance to excel.

Beyond that, they provide students with a larger family — and a place to come home to, even if it's only once every couple of years. By MARY BISHOP World Staff Writer

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Peter Piper, TULSA (7/20/2009 7:42:38 AM)

What a nostalgic return to our youth! Mc-Lish reminds me of the little country school I attended back East. It had the big bell, outdoor privies, coal barn, wash basins,--the whole nine yards! Several small towns consolidated, and in 1955 we started at our SHOWPLACE high school,with showers, electric typewriters, a cafeteria, and 450 students! There were 42 in my graduating class. Thank you, Ms. Bishop!!

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52favoriteteacher, Washburn--used to be Broken Arrow (7/31/2009 12:48:09 PM)

Yep

Had the pleasure of attending a one room school

house grades 1 to 5 in Zena, Oklahoma. We had

grades K to 8.

It was awesome---I cherish those learning yrs.

Actually took 2nd and 3rd grade in one year and

saved a whole yr in education!

Then in fifth grade Dad had left so we rolled to

Collinsville.

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