Glenmont ready to reminisce at alumni banquet

The Glenmont Alumni Banquet will be held Saturday, June 7 at the Glenmont School. This gala celebration isn’t just for graduates; it’s for anyone who attended the school at any age or lived in the Glenmont area.

Sue Sponseller has been the reunion’s treasurer for a quarter-century, and she said this event is one that will bring back a flood of memories, much like the Flood of 1969, which effectively closed the building forever as Glenmont School.

“It’s still special to walk down the halls and remember all of these memories,” Sponseller said. “It’s really neat to hear everyone sharing these stories and reconnecting, and we are so fortunate to still have a school here.”

That almost wasn’t the case.

Following the Flood of 1969, the school was nearly destroyed, with water and mud uprooting the gymnasium floor and classrooms under a foot or more of water and mud.

After that, the students were sent to other area schools, and the school was abandoned. Vandals broke windows and trashed the facility, but two years later, the community went to work on restoring it, led by the effort of Red Turner with an assist from the Buckeye 4-H Club, of whom Sponseller was a member at the time.

“The community really dove in and made a tremendous effort to restore the building, and it worked,” Sponseller said.

Since then HeadStart, Kno-Ho-Co and a preschool have all called the building home, and it has been rented out for reunions, gatherings and more.

Former student and reunion committee member Sally Gonzalez, who was a first-grader in the school’s final year as a school, said this reunion enables people to return to their roots and reconnect.

“My grandmother attended this for many years, and it’s been special for those people who still have a heart for Glenmont,” Gonzalez said. “But we have lost so many members over the past decade, and our numbers are dwindling, so we are hoping to get some of the younger people involved.”

She said the committee has some gifts for the oldest attendee, the person who traveled the farthest to attend (thus far people from both Kansas and Florida are coming), most family members in attendance and other fun prizes.

“This reunion just creates this really neat sense of community that touches all of our lives in a special way,” she said. “We have so much fun reminiscing, and we hope anyone who ever attended Glenmont can make it because it’s such a good time.”

Each year the reunion honors its 50th-year graduate members, and this year there will be a special honor bestowed posthumously to longtime member Larry Gray, who passed away recently.

According to Sponseller, Gray has been an integral part of the Glenmont community and the reunion, and his presence will be deeply missed.

“Larry was such a big part of all of this,” Sponseller said. “He has amassed this incredible floor of memorabilia from the school over the years, and he will be greatly missed.”

Sponseller said they eventually hope to plant several buckeye trees around the school property and rename the school’s baseball field in honor of their friend, noting that before doing so, they must get approval from town council.

“We just want to keep his memory alive,” she said.

The banquet will host a social hour beginning at 5 p.m. with the fully catered meal starting at 6 p.m.

If you would like to attend the banquet and are not on the mailing list, call Sponseller at 330-231-5102, no later than May 27.