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Reunion to resurrect Ondossagon

Originally published in The County Journal
Published: Thursday, February 19, 2009 10:38 AM CST
Dan Satran Jr.

"The Last Hurrah," that's what the ceremony was called when Ondossagon School District closed in 1990. An all-class reunion, the second of its kind since the school was started in 1917, has been set for next year. It's being seen as a way to strengthen what has tied together alumni, faculty and even those who didn't get a chance to graduate when the district was broken into three pieces. These went to Ashland, Washburn and Drummond school districts.

Put simply, this will be a way to show love for a school district even though the main building is an eyesore, in almost complete disrepair.

The basics of this story are straight-forward.

An already hard-working steering committee has been formed, including: Jan Lumberg Kupczyk, Terry Torkko, Ann Bannister Green, Nikki Panusuk Gregoire, Linda Nelson Lindahl, Nancy Pagac, Paul Beeksma and Bill Radosavich. Interviewed for this, Kupczyk and Torkko said they are fortunate to have a committee with many individual talents, even one who is a lawyer and can help on legal matters. They are also taking advantage of the latest in electronics to reach those who should attend. There is a website on line, Ondossagonaggies.com; there is a facebook, Ondossagon Public School (already 178 are connected to this, 35 after one day being posted). And of course the internet is being used for e-mailing.

Classes are being used to form a network so the word can get out about the reunion. Already, 10 classes have located all of their members and reported in to the committee.

So vacations can be planned in 2010 around the reunion, the overall schedule has been decided: meeting at Benoit School Friday evening, Aug. 6 for dinner; then at Ashland's Bay Area Civic Center Saturday, Aug. 7 for a program and socializing (there will be special features at the center such as Huffs Store selling penny candy and souvenirs.

And for a school district known for the unusual, its Native American name meaning across the lake (probably a reference to its location along Chequamegon Bay, with a view of Ashland) or a signature sandwich, the "Bean Burger," this reunion is no small thing. Organizers believe there is the potential to have an attendance of just under 2,000.

Now the effort is to reach out beyond the steering committee and get others involved. A meeting for this will be at Benoit School (now called a community center, serves as the successor to the school district where a museum of sorts is maintained) on Saturday, March 7 at 1 p.m.

There have been gatherings for Ondossagon grads since it closed its doors for good. Individual classes have met such as a reunion for those who graduated in 1968, hosted at Benoit's Avalon Bar. But this event, is patterned after Washburn's Homecoming, an all-class reunion staged every five years (by coincidence, the next will also be in 2010). "It's something we've wanted to do for some time," Kupczyk said.

"This will be a celebration," she explained, "because it will be a way to call attention to how former Ondossagon students have excelled while they kept bonds that ran strong and true to the heritage of their school." Put simply again, she said it will be a way to "celebrate our culture." She said one of the purposes of the gathering will be to "highlight where we have come from, where we have gone."

Getting in touch with so many has already been a learning experience for the committee, Kupczyk said. "For example, I didn't know a thing about Facebook."

It's already been decided that the reunion will be a fundraiser to help with maintaining the Benoit community center where the Ondossagon museum is located. This display at the center, maintained by Peter Lulich and Vern Gillis, is so important that they have goals with money raised, to "keep the building going." Everything from helping to heat it, to better insulate the building, to putting on a new roof, to even installing an elevator have been discussed (as far as the heritage of this area, there was a standing room only crowd when a huge mural about it was recently unveiled at the center).

Kupczyk said she helped on the Last Hurrah, helping to organize a presentation by cheerleaders from the 1950s, 70s and the ones at the time it closed. Never fielding a football team, school spirit was generated especially by basketball teams, Torkko said. He noted that the usual bus routes would run after a game so that any student could attend. There were other sports, too, such as baseball and track.

Getting back to the purposes for the event, Kupczyk said it will be a chance, put tritely, for people to reconnect. "For example, the last time I had seen Terry (before they both volunteered to be on the steering committee) was in 1966 even though we had once been nearby neighbors." She said, "We know there will be a lot of reminiscing."

Attending Ondossagon, the two agreed, was like being part of a family. Even though the district had to close for financial reasons, class sizes had been as large as just under 75. And there was the tradition that goes with a tightly knit agriculture based area (thus the nickname, The Aggies). Torkko said of his family: "There had been a Torkko in the school from when it started up until when I graduated in 1967." He said one of the memories at the reunion, likely to come up, will be the horse drawn school busses of its past.

With well over a year to go before the event, reservations are not yet being taken. But the two members of the steering committee said that the help of hundreds are needed for different parts of the event. "The beauty of the electronic age is that a person does not even have to be in the area to help," they said.

So while many of the windows in the old high school may be broken, the building may no longer be heated and the gym may be used as a stadium for horses (the facility is used for animal care), there is still a lot of Aggie pride. It will come to the surface in 2010 thanks to some hard-working volunteers.


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