Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Of the attendees at Oakesdale High School’s all-school reunion July 11, one group in particular stood out.
The 13-member class of 1953 was represented by eight members, from a class who has not lost anyone as they marked the 62nd year since wearing their O.H.S. graduation gowns.
“I think the phenomenon is that everyone in the class is still alive,” said Kenneth Winn, 80. “You can hardly find a class that hasn’t lost somebody.”
Winn’s sister, Judy, graduated eight years behind him and they’ve lost two members.
“We’re all 80 years old and we’re all still kicking,” said Winn of his class. “There’s a couple of the girls that haven’t turned it yet.”
Of the 13 in the class, nine were from farm families. All of them now live in Washington state.
Winn was the son of longtime Oakesdale Postmaster Lawrence “Jake” Winn, who graduated with the Oakesdale class 15-member class of 1915.
Winn’s class went to all four years in the brick high school building where the 2015 class just finished.
In the early ’50s, girls and boys’ basketball teams played in a wooden warehouse-like structure with two balconies on each side. The building was later moved down the hill, and now sits as a former International farm machinery shop.
The class of 1953 girls also had a tennis team.
At the reunion two weeks ago, the group of eight did not pose for a picture together.
“That was a mistake,” said Winn. “Because it’s not like we’ll all probably be there the next go-round.”
Nonetheless, they were some of the senior members of the all-school event that drew from classes across the decades.
“You’re definitely the old people there,” Winn said.
Members of the class are: Carrie (Miller) Black, Gary Brown, Elnora (Littleton) Carr, Lonny Ellis, LaVelle (Billingsley) Gardner, H. Brooks Hanford, Jerene (Crow) Holling, Marlil (Chamberlain) Lovell, James Lust, Marshall Miller, Jack Silzel, Diane (Hoenike) Stiles and Kenneth Winn.
The eight at the reunion were Black, Brown, Carr, Ellis, Holling, Lovell, Lust, Miller and Winn.
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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