Together Again

Theresa Manos’ grade school isn’t there anymore.

But her fond memories endure. And so, once a year for the past dozen, she attends Alumni Day at the modern-era Cooper Elementary that replaced the like-name North Side school where she was a student long ago.

“It’s still Cooper,” said Manos, 68, “And it’s always great to see the old gang.”

This year’s event is Tuesday.

Though open to anyone who ever attended the school, named for novelist James Fenimore Cooper, the all-classes reunion started samll. Maybe 10 people showed up, said Connie Thoorsell, event organizer. In recent years, turnout has approached 100.

“It gets bigger every year,” said Cooper alum Angelo Pizzillo, 69. “It’s a lot of fun.”

Some attendees travel from out-of-state, said Sonia Ault, Cooper’s principal. Others, such as Manos, just have to walk across the street.

In recent years, alums showing up have ranged in age from the 40s to the 80s.

A catered lunch and a tour of current pupils’ Science Fair projects are among the highlights.

“This is their day and we do all we can to make it special,” said Ault.

Past reunions have featured former students finally confessing to breaking windows or putting frogs in teacher’s desks, apparently confident that the statute of limitations now protects them.

A grade-school reunion might not succeed everywhere. But Pizzillo, a retired bus driver, theorized that the event has flourished at Cooper because of the nature of the Minnehaha neighborhood, once known as “Little Italy.” “It’s close-knit,” he said.

Of course, grade-school alumni gatherings are not altogether unheard of. Nationwide, such events have enjoyed modest popularity as fundraisers, primarily at private and parochial schools.

Still, they are nowhere near as universal as high school reunions. That’s too bad, some say.

Mead’s Russ Stippel, 42, went to grade school at two Spokane elementaries (Bemiss and St. Xavier) and then attended a school in Haiti. “I wouldn’t mind seeing people from any one of those schools,” he said.

Surely, he’s far from alone. Wouldn’t it be a kick to learn what happened to the girl you had a crush on in the sixth grade or find out if the bully of the second grade did, in fact, wind up in prison?

Now let’s face it. Not everyone enjoyed the first few years of school. It wasn’t all innocence and Elmer’s glue, after all.

For some people, however, memories of elementary school are happier and more wistful than recollections of high school.

Ask around. When we look back and picture ourselves as, say, third-graders, we tend to see brimming potential, not angst and disappointment.

You wouldn’t necessarily know it from listening to the sometimes teen-obsessed hormonal cacophony of pop culture. But there was life before adolescence.

Given a chance, more than a few former chalkboard-washers might enjoy reminiscing about those years.

A public-opinion survey of 172 adults conducted by Spokane’s Robinson Research last month indicated that 48 percent would be either “very likely” or “somewhat likely” to attend a reunion at their grade school, if such an event were held.

That pool of respondents included many who did not attend elementary school in the Inland Northwest.

Potlatch woodworker Roy Knecht, 43, said he would go back to Bonners Ferry for such a reunion. “That was a good time,” he said.

There’s always the risk of rose-tinting recollections of childhood. But when Pizzillo peers into the display case of school memorabilia at Cooper, he recalls a happy period in his life.

Last time he looked, there was a picture in that case of Cooper’s 1941 championship softball team. Pizzillo was the shortstop.

Cooper’s Thoorsell said she has been contacted by representatives of other schools. But when they find out how much work can be involved in staging an alumni day, they often cut short the conversation.

Still, she cherishes the event. “It’s so interesting to see people change from year to year and to hear all their stories,” she said. “It’s like they’ve been saving them up all year, just for this day.”

For current Cooper staff and teachers, it can be moving to witness, said Ault, the principal.

Todd Woodard, 35, an executive at Spokane International Airport, started out attending grade school in tiny Loomis, Wash. The one-room schoolhouse closed its doors after he completed the third grade. The Loomis kids subsequently attended a school in the Tonasket district.

Would he attend a Loomis school reunion?

You bet.

“I think as you get older, you really value the foundation of your education,” he said. “There’s definitely an attachment.”

Among the stacks of real-life movie reels stored in our memories, grade school is its own rich genre. And all those spelling tests, arithmetic problems and recitations of the Pledge of Allegiance live on as echoes.

Even when the building is no longer there.

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