Background

ASHLAND SCHOOLS ASSOCIATION, INC.

The Ashland School Association, a non-profit organization and a member of the Ashland Community Foundation, was formed in 1995.  The Association has two committees, the Reunion Committee and the Alumni Association. The Reunion Committee's main duty is to plan and hold a reunion ever five years while the Alumni Association promotes on-going alumni activities and educational activities.

Purposes of the Association

HOW IT ALL BEGAN

In 1989 the "Coffee Ladies" that met at Betty Salyer's Ashland Floral business were discussing a reunion that Buffalo Oklahoma High School had just had and thought it would be nice to have one here. Ruth McMillion (Class of 1927) was one of the women involved in the discussion and she spoke to Kim Hazen (Class of 1978) about the idea. Kim agreed to put an article in the Clark County Clipper for an organizational meeting for those interested in holding a reunion.

The organizational meeting was held at the Ashland Library and the officers of the Buffalo Oklahoma reunion committee were invited to explain how they got started. The people attending the meeting decided to have a reunion in 1990 and a committee was chosen with Kim Hazen as president. Other officers for this first reunion were Ken Swanson, vice-president and Doreen Jacobs, treasurer. Because the secretary's task were expected to be rather overwhelming, it was decided to have a secretary and two assistants. Karen Maris was elected secretary with Diana Redger and Tracy Butler her assistants.

The name "Ashland All School Reunion" was chosen instead of alumni reunion to not exclude anyone who would like to attend. Alumni often denotes graduation status, but for a variety of reasons many people attended our school system without graduating, and the committee wanted them to feel welcome.

Many people were involved in compiling the list of names and addresses of all the people associated with the school. Phil Arnold (Class of 1950) of Arnold Computing graciously donated his computer and services to generate the list that he, Sherre Harrington and Diana Redger spent many hours loading on the computer. Karen Maris is the "Keeper of the List" and makes all the updates and deletions by hand before they are entered into the computer.

Since its inception in 1990, the reunion has always been planned and held Memorial weekend. The committee plans one major activity for each day allowing other organizations to participate and leave time for classes to have time for individual activities.

The reunion committee hosted the 1990 and 1995 reunions. In 1995 the committee formed a non-profit organization - The Ashland Schools Association - to raise funds for the reunions and to better coordinate reunion activities.