The quaint western Kentucky town of Dawson Springs once again drew quite a crowd of former residents and graduates of our small independent school system: Dawson Springs Community School. Each year on the third weekend of July, citizens of Dawson Springs welcome former residents back home. From far and wide these proud people return to celebrate Dawson Springs and what a "special place" it is. Sixty - two years ago the local Rotary Club started the annual Dawson Springs BBQ. I believe the idea being that this homecoming of sorts would create an event to be scheduled yearly for residents and former residents to catch up and enjoy one another. In conjunction with the festival made up of cake walks, dunkaroo and many other fun activities, thousands of pounds of pork barbeque is cooked at the city park and served at the community center. The event sprawls itself across a hot Kentucky weekend and over the years a long standing tradition of churches hosting homecomings and former classmates of the Dawson Springs High School hosting class reunions has been established. This year marked my classes ten year reunion giving me the perfect opportunity to join in on this tradition.
Our class from the very beginning was set apart for a simple reason that we really had nothing to do with - it was merely a timing issue. From the beginning we became unique because our graduation date would be the year 2000. I don't know if it was the uniqueness of that date or the hype that surrounded it that made us focus more on our unique qualities. It could have been that we were all just different to begin with. Regardless, we found time over the years to set ourselves apart among other classes, in antics, accomplishments and closeness. And as we gathered this past weekend to commemorate ten years that has passed since we last roamed the halls of our High School, I noticed that we are still unique. Eighteen members of my small class of twenty - eight got together at a cottage within Pennyrile State Resort Park. The State Park has been a long time back drop for DSHS class reunions and we carried on that tradition gladly. But not only has the park been a back drop for reunions, many of my classmates - myself included, were former employees. The park provided us with summer jobs, a place to hang out, play golf, take paddle boat and canoe rides, a place to camp, and a place where many fond memories would be made over the years; this weekend included.
The reunion consisted of less decorations and more talking and laughing. There was plenty of good food and drinks, but it too was outshined by smiles and stories shared Saturday evening. All through the night as the stories began to flow we reconnected with our youth. We became those faces in the pictures far beyond ten years ago, and I was reminded of why we were unique. Time has taken us many places, it has scattered us out and as it always does life has happened to us. But one thing that hasn't changed a bit is our spunk, our charm, our compassion for one another and our successes. We were all very lucky to have been brought up in Dawson Springs, a city that rarely shined in sports arenas, but consistently did with test scores. We were lucky to have been brought up in this place because it too is so unique. Our Mom's and Dad's just so happen to drop us off and take us into that same Kindergarten class - into those same school doors - on that same first day. From the late 1980s until the year 2000 we roamed those halls. We were challenged in those classrooms as students and as people. We passed notes and laughed at pranks, and ten years ago we left those halls behind. Ten years ago we left home and said good bye to those same parents that waved at us and wished us well, and not only on that very first day of school, but everyday thereafter. And we blinked our eyes and ten years passed - it seemed that fast. Ten years of so many moves and changes…but even ten years can't change our bond.
When we left our gymnasium at the end of May in 2000, I pledged to host these reunions. In 2005, Lynsey Winfrey and I, among other friends, managed to get fourteen members of our small class together, and this year we wrangled in eighteen. I guess I should hope for twenty - two in 2015 if the trend keeps it's beat. And ten years after making that pledge to my classmates I am still standing proudly behind it. I'll gladly host this event in the years to come and I'll go even farther than that. I'll be proud to be associated with this group of people for life. Sharing in this milestone were two fixtures of the institution as we knew it, Donnie Allen, our class sponsor and his wife Dorinda, who was our Primary School Coordinator. These two could possibly record more of the changes that we have all went through - after all they witnessed most of them.
So a decade ago I graduated High School. I was a naïve young kid then and that kid still rears his head from time to time. Fortunately, there were twenty-eight of us, at least I didn't have to be that way all by myself! See you in 2015…right?
No comments:
Post a Comment