In 1950, the Athens Rural High School Alumni began to gather annually. The meeting was sometimes called the “Athens School Reunion” but whatever the name, the group met continually for 42 years. At the 1992 meeting, faced with dwindling attendance, it was decided to look into the possibility of meeting with the Ionia Alumni Association.
The earliest known record of an Ionia Alumni Association, gathering, reunion or community picnic is found in a May 1967 Jewell County Record. This group also continued to meet. But in 1993, the two groups, the Ionia Alumni and the Athens Alumni, began joint meetings. Though attendees ate and socialized together, they continued separate business meetings for some time.
The early meetings for either group would have had 100 plus attendees. But as the years went by, attendance, especially of the Athens alumni group, began to dwindle. Athens Rural High School closed in 1943. By the 1990s, age and travel distance began to take their toll on attendance.
Today, there is only one living Athens Rural High School Alumna, Alethia Rannebeck Loomis. Loomis, a spry one at 102 years old, graduated with the Athens Rural High School Class of 1939.
Ionia Rural High School educated students from 1921 to 1960. Ernest Fedde, Class of 1942, is the oldest graduate. Fedde lives in Arkansas. Hooley Alcorn, Mankato, who graduated in 1943 is a close second for oldest graduate honors. Though, compared to Athens, there are several more living graduates, there are not enough to continue holding the annual meetings.
Only 13 graduates attended the 2019 reunion. COVID-19 caused the cancellation of the 2020 and 2021 reunions. The 2022 reunion will not be held. There are neither attendees nor those to organize the meeting. The Athens-Ionia Alumni Association will disband and there will be no more annual meetings. It is the end of an era.
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