Generations reconnect at Peshastin-Dryden schools reunion

PESHASTIN — Just over a week before Peshastin-Dryden kindergarteners convene for their first day of school, former students of an earlier generation gathered to reminisce about their last days of school.

On Aug. 16, graduates from Peshastin High School, Dryden High School, and Peshastin-Dryden High School reunited over a potluck at Peshastin-Dryden Elementary. 

“It's just fun to connect with people from the community that we may not have gone to school with, but we know them from their families. Because we are such a small community, we know everybody and their brothers and sisters and grandpas and grandmas,” said organizer Jean Foster Dennis, Class of 1965.

Ranging over three decades of former students, the reunion serves as a collective memory of schools that no longer exist. These annual reunions are believed to have started in the 1950s by graduates of Peshastin High School, and eventually expanded to reflect the changes of the school districts.

Class of 1949 attendee Jean Nieman represented Dryden High School, which operated from 1925 to 1956. Darel Sax attended Peshastin High School, which operated from 1932 to 1956. When Peshastin and Dryden School Districts voted in 1956 to merge into one, Sax was in the second class to graduate from the new Peshastin-Dryden High School in 1958. Nieman’s daughter and reunion organizer Judy Nieman attended Peshastin-Dryden High, graduating three years before the school district combined with Leavenworth and created Cascade High School in 1983.

“I think it's wonderful,” said Jean Nieman, who shared a book from a 1975 reunion of Dryden High School. The 50-year reunion brought together all of the high school’s graduating classes, from 1925 to 1956.

Long-time organizer Marilou Whaley Hughes said the reunions have reminded her how the care and friendliness of her tight-knit community has made it special.

“People are just interested in what you're doing and what’s going on in your life. It's just a great time of sharing,” said Whaley Hughes.“Facebook, things like that help to keep you in touch, but there's just something special I think about the in-person [reunions].”

Taylor Caldwell: 509-433-7276 or taylor@ward.media