By Tucker Henderson

Reporter

t’s not all that often that one hears about a 70th class reunion. Especially when classmates have had 70 years to move away, have families, chase careers and fall out of touch with each other.  ¶  Well, the New York Mills Class of 1954 held their special 70th milestone reunion recently as they gathered together on Friday, Sept. 13 at Mills Lanes & Lucky Strike Grill. Ten classmates attended the celebration and enjoyed live music, lunch, fellowship and a delicious slice of cake.  ¶  With 60 members of the original graduating class, only about one third of the class or 21 remaining classmates are still living. Even less still live in the NY Mills area. Rachel (Brill) Ecklund is one of the organizers and said that classmate Jimmie Tumberg had told her before that “we have to go out with a blast.”  ¶  “He told me that we’re going out with a blast and I put that behind my ear,” said Ecklund, “So that’s why we had a blast for our 70th.”

“It was a real special one,” agreed Lynn (Nissi) Palomaki.

Palomaki has been the defacto record keeper of the class reunions over the past several years, maintaining a collection of materials and pictures memorializing their time together.

“I told them that you would be the one that would know the most of anybody,” Ann (Mischke) Hintsala told Palomaki. “You kept all of the articles and everything!”

Each classmate has their own story of life as a student in the 1940s and 50s.

“I had to go to the Mills school all 12 years because I lived on a farm, but it was only a mile and a half out and the district line was right beyond our road,” said Dorothy (Korby) Welter. “I spent the first eight years of school trying to fade into the woodwork so nobody would notice me because they always picked on me. Then, in ninth grade, all these country kids came in and I had a boatload of friends, it was so nice, and I really enjoyed high school, it was fun.”

“You went to country school first, didn’t you,” Welter asked Palomaki.

“Yes, at Dist. 281,” Palomaki affirmed. “I was in third grade when we went to town. We even had kindergarten there at that school and Walt Dresser was the teacher. Once they consolidated, he didn’t have a job, so he went to the Creamery and that’s where he spent most of his time.”

Ecklund also remembers her early school years in the same building where her mother had gotten her education.

“I went to country school at Dist. 179,” said Ecklund. “My mom went to that school too, then they moved it into town.”

Hintsala had started school in NY Mills when she started sixth grade and can still recall the old edifices on North Main Avenue.

“When I came to school in sixth grade, there were all those individual buildings sitting around,” she said. “The old yellow brick school house, we had some class up there. The floor would creak and oh my goodness…”

“One of our outings was to the St. Cloud Reformatory,” she continued.

“That was kind of depressing,” said Welter, with agreement from the others.

“Didn’t we go to the State Hospital one time?” asked Ecklund, with an affirmative answer on that one as well.

Most of the memories of those days aren’t as dreary as their class trips, however. Welter remembered her group of friends including Jean Korby, Donna Skoog, and Delores Paju.

“I think Delores was the one who named us the “Korby Gang,” laughed Welter.

“I remember that group, all you did was laugh,” said Hintsala, “they were always giggling and laughing.”

“One night everyone jumped into Jeanie’s car, because she was the only one with a car at the time, and we would drive around and she parked in the cemetery and we started telling each other ghost stories of things that had really happened to us,” laughed Welter, reminiscing of one of the many stories that kept her and her friends laughing over the years.

“See, that’s why we get together” chuckled Ecklund. “You’re like family when you go to school together for twelve years. Them were the good old days.”

“Those were the good old days,” agreed Welter. “We just like to get together, getting to see the classmates.”

“It was more fun years ago when more of the people were healthy and able to attend,” conceded Hintsala.

In spite of losing members most of the past few years, the group informally agreed to keep meeting each year for lunch, same place, same time.

“It’s going to be informal,” said Hintsala. “We just decided to get together every year for lunch. No flair, it’s just whoever wants to get together and have lunch.”