Kalispell Central School alumni band together
Kalispell's Central School no longer fills its halls with pupils, but that doesn't mean its former students have forgotten it.
Local Central School alumni are inviting their fellow classmates to get together to collect stories of school days past.
On wide-ruled writing tablet paper like that found in elementary education, an invitation asks former students to meet as the Central School Alumni Club for the first time Nov. 18 at 2 p.m.
"It's just going to be a lot of fun reminiscing about the early days of Kalispell," said Dorothy McGlenn, a board member of the Northwest Montana Historical Society who is organizing the alumni club.
The alumni club will welcome any students who attended Central School between 1895 and 1990, so people who attended Flathead Valley Community College classes there can join.
The only other requirement is that club members also join the Northwest Montana Historical Society.
McGlenn, who went to Central School from 1938-39, said she and others wanted to preserve memories of the school as well as recollections of life in Kalispell in years past.
"I thought, 'Gee, wouldn't it be fun to get these people together and turn on the tape recorder?'" she said.
Tapes of the gatherings, which the alumni predict will take place twice a year, will be archived in the historical society's collections.
Fellow organizer Beth Adele Beller, a student at the school from 1935-1936, also urges alumni to bring memorabilia to the November meeting. She has certificates and an autograph album from her time at Central School.
Autographs aside, what Beller remembers best about Central School is how different it was from the small school she went to in the Stillwater District. Her last year there she was one of six students.
When enrollment dropped, she headed to the much larger Central School.
"I was a naive little country kid," she said, laughing.
McGlenn recalled that when she was at the school, teachers had 40-60 pupils per class. But teachers were stricter then, so handling more students wasn't a problem, she said.
Marian Wise, another club organizer, remembers her time at school as somewhat more devilish. She recalls doing chin-ups on boards in the cloak room and being sent to the principal's office.
She also remembers fondly the time she and her best friend went ice skating at Woodland Park rather than returning to class after lunch. Thinking no one was on to their absenteeism, they headed home.
"And who should we see walking toward us," she said, "but Mr. Ross, the principal."
Beller returned to Central School in the late 1970s to teach community college courses. Her husband, Alden, taught college courses there as well, and he also was an eighth-grade teacher at the school in the 1950s.
Central School was a longtime Kalispell elementary school and later was part of the downtown campus of Flathead Valley Community College.
The school was renovated in the late 1990s and became the Museum at Central School.
Wise, now in her 70s, also returned to the school as a college student.
Beller says when her husband visits Central School, he now sees restrooms and display space where his classroom used to be. Regardless of the changes, she's glad to see the building still standing.
"I'm really happy it's been kept up the way it has," she said.
The alumni club will meet at the upstairs classroom of the museum.
People are asked to bring memorabilia to share and include in the museum's collections.
For more information on how to join the Northwest Montana Historical Society prior to the meeting, call 756-8381.
Reporter Camden Easterling can be reached at 758-4429 or by e-mail at ceasterling@dailyinterlake.com