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Wednesday, 28 May 2008 |
By Buck Traxler, I-O Editor
 LAST TIME RUNG – Reba Donnell, a former Brady graduate and school clerk, rings the school bell one last time in a closing part of the Remembrance Day ceremony held Thursday at the school. I-O Photo by Buck Traxler
Not only was it the last day of school, it was the last day for the Brady School, a focal point of the community since 1910 when early area homesteaders formed a school district and were able to have a session of school that lasted for six weeks.
In 1915, Brady High School was organized, offering a one year of study and in 1929, Brady graduated its first class of seniors which included Paul Armstrong, Clifford Curtis, Hazel Berland Castle, Myrtle Bowman, Lyle Peniz, Bernal Leary, Angus Rose, Mary Rose Steele, and Kathryn Ward Oien.
The present school building was constructed in 1959.
The school held a Remembrance Day on Thursday afternoon to mark 98 years, just two years short of a century, of being a landmark.
Anna Schlepp, a former high school cheerleader was decked out in her black and orange school sweater and had a cheering mega-phone, “We put lots of good trophies in the showcase,” said the graduate from the Class of 1941.
Bonnie Pearson said she and her husband and eight kids had graduated from here. “I cried when I graduated and I’m going to cry today.”
Kurt Dyer had memories of dissecting frogs and playing a lot of fun basketball.
Dyer was a graduate of 1970. With 30 seniors it was the largest class in school history, he recalled.
He has served on the local school board for 27 years and three generations of Dyers have served on the school board.
Asked about a wall stacked with trophies from over the years, Dyer said there have already been a community meeting to discuss what to do. Plans are in the works to build an addition to the Community Hall and take them over there he said. As he turned to gaze down the wall and showcase, laden with hardware, he noted, “It’s part of our history, it’s a big part of community history here.”
Declining enrollments made it difficult to keep the school going and eventually, in 2005, the Brady and Dutton schools consolidated, helped by extra funding allocated to districts for that express purpose. The new district became the Dutton/Brady School.
Nevertheless, it finally came to a cost saving measure and last February the school board made the decision to close Brady campus. Grades 5-8 who lived in Dutton will no longer have to commute up I-15.
Reba Donnell, a graduate of 1941, and school clerk at Brady for 34 years rang the “big bell” in front of the school for one last time while students released black and orange balloons that floated in the rain skyward.
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