Thousands of students — including me — have received diplomas from Luverne High School since it was built in 1956.
The LHS Class of 1983 celebrates its “35th plus one” class reunion this weekend.
The reunion comes on the heels of the June 20 groundbreaking ceremony that honored the changes coming to the 63-year-old facility.
For days leading up to the groundbreaking, I watched two excavators nibble away at a portion of the two-story west wing.
Memories, while distant, began to emerge as the classrooms came down.
One of those rooms was where I attended kindergarten. Another is where Gordon Gits instructed us on proper reference and research techniques, and in another we explored Minnesota authors with Roger Headrick.
The cleared area makes room for the new middle-high school commons and performing arts center.
The center replaces the former school auditorium (also known as the Little Theater), which is being remodeled into band and choir suites.
As a high school student, I performed in several plays in the Little Theater. That’s where I learned I couldn’t act or memorize lines, for that matter.
The experience, however, developed within me an appreciation for the performing arts, and I enjoyed watching my own children perform on that same stage.
Now that space no longer resembles the theater of my middle and high school days.
Equally transformed is the former band room, where I spent six years learning to play the clarinet, both in marching on the street and in formal concert settings.
The tiered floors are now being leveled and the walls and hallway between the band and the next-door choir room are now gone. The area will become a multi-purpose physical education and weight room.
Finally, an area where I spent a great share of my high school years is the upstairs media center.
In two years the media center will move to the second floor of what will be the new commons area in the center of the school campus. The former media center that I knew as the high school library will be remodeled into middle-school classrooms.
I am nostalgic for the building where I spent my formative years, but I’m excited about the changes.
Rather than feeling a sense of loss for what once was, I instead feel a sense of community and a duty to “pay it forward” for the next generations of students.
… Just like parents and grandparents did for my classmates and me.
The old high school served us well, and its construction makeover will help it continue to create memories for the next 60-plus years of high school graduates.