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Driving from Kansas City, Mary Stone, a member of the Midway High School class of 1951, celebrated her 60th class reunion with former classmates on Saturday at the New-Mac Electric Community Room in Neosho.
“The nice thing about this class is that we have met often,” Stone said. “For when we were young, we did it every 10 years, then we began at five years, then it went down to two years. Now we are wondering if we should try a little bit, because you see, we only have eight classmates here today.”
The Midway Class of 1951 graduated with 25. The school was located between Newtonia and Stark City, where the current Joplin Truss business is located.
It was both an important and fun day for Stone to attend.
“You get to talk about the fun part of high school and remember when we were just kids, when we were excited about doing things together, the school plays, the basketball games, riding the bus to other suburban neighborhood schools,” she added.
Stone said her favorite class was English.
“I liked that because the English teacher helped with the singing,” she said. “She was also part of the music program … she made a point of letting everybody do what they wanted to do. So we sang some of the favorites.”
Just after graduating high school, Stone left the area, moved to Kansas City, working and living in Kansas City.
“I met my husband at this small chemical company and we were married the next year,” she said. “We shared 59 years together.”
Stone remembers the school as well.
“It was a brick building, it was a nice building,” she said. “The front sidewalk had the graduates names engraved in the cement. Going to school at Midway, was one of the better parts of my life growing up, it is parts that you remember the most and the longest is your high school years.”
Another classmate who attended the reunion was J.D. McBride, of rural Newtonia.
“I was up there for 12 years,” he said.
McBride said his favorite class was vo-ag and after graduating, he went into that line of work.
“Dad was a farmer, it just came naturally to work with agriculture,” he said. “It has been from a dairy farm to beef to a green bean and hay operation.”
McBride also thought the reunion was a great thing to attend.
“Well, knowing that we are getting a little older, I wanted to be sure to see as many as I could why we were still around,” he said.
Driving from Kansas City, Mary Stone, a member of the Midway High School class of 1951, celebrated her 60th class reunion with former classmates on Saturday at the New-Mac Electric Community Room in Neosho.
“The nice thing about this class is that we have met often,” Stone said. “For when we were young, we did it every 10 years, then we began at five years, then it went down to two years. Now we are wondering if we should try a little bit, because you see, we only have eight classmates here today.”
The Midway Class of 1951 graduated with 25. The school was located between Newtonia and Stark City, where the current Joplin Truss business is located.
It was both an important and fun day for Stone to attend.
“You get to talk about the fun part of high school and remember when we were just kids, when we were excited about doing things together, the school plays, the basketball games, riding the bus to other suburban neighborhood schools,” she added.
Stone said her favorite class was English.
“I liked that because the English teacher helped with the singing,” she said. “She was also part of the music program … she made a point of letting everybody do what they wanted to do. So we sang some of the favorites.”
Just after graduating high school, Stone left the area, moved to Kansas City, working and living in Kansas City.
“I met my husband at this small chemical company and we were married the next year,” she said. “We shared 59 years together.”
Stone remembers the school as well.
“It was a brick building, it was a nice building,” she said. “The front sidewalk had the graduates names engraved in the cement. Going to school at Midway, was one of the better parts of my life growing up, it is parts that you remember the most and the longest is your high school years.”
Another classmate who attended the reunion was J.D. McBride, of rural Newtonia.
“I was up there for 12 years,” he said.
McBride said his favorite class was vo-ag and after graduating, he went into that line of work.
“Dad was a farmer, it just came naturally to work with agriculture,” he said. “It has been from a dairy farm to beef to a green bean and hay operation.”
McBride also thought the reunion was a great thing to attend.
“Well, knowing that we are getting a little older, I wanted to be sure to see as many as I could why we were still around,” he said.
The classmates and their families enjoyed fellowship, food and looking at yearbooks and photographs of their school.
“I look through my own scrapbook last night before I came down here and yes, I was excited all week to come here,” Stone said. “Plus I still have family who live in this area, so I am going to spend the next two days just visiting with some relatives that I don’t see regularly.”
The last graduating class of Midway was in 1964. Midway joined with Stella and Fairview to form Triway School District. Triway later joined with Granby to form East Newton School District in 1967.
