RHS Class of 1959

From there we went to either Southside or Northside School. Southside was erected in 1887 as the high school. It was torn down when it became unsafe in about 1950. It was in the middle of the yard of the present Bickerdyke School. The new school, at Fourth & Maple was erected in 1952 and named after a well-known county superintendent, J.R. Bickerdyke. Northside was erected following the Southside construction in 1887 and sat in the middle of the present Simpson School yard, at 1323 N. Main. Northside was razed after the construction was complete and in service by the fall 1951. Simpson School was named after Marietta J. Simpson who taught in the old Northside for 41 years.

Those of us on the north side attended Simpson for 5th & 6th grades. Those on the south side were schooled in various locations during the construction project. Although classmates joined us throughout the years, a large number joined us in junior high & high school from country schools. Our junior high years were spent in the building at Fifth & Kansas and high school in what is now known as Ruppenthal Middle School at 400 Elm St.

A Memory Book was created and printed by Janet Laubhan Flickinger but not without the efforts of others on the reunion committee who took their personal time to get information from local relatives of the unresponsive classmates. Our optimistic goal was to have information on everyone! We regret that, even the extra effort was not enough to have something up-to-date to publish on each one. We encourage each of you, as you change addresses in the future, to let one of the reunion committee members know your whereabouts so that we can contact you for future reunions.

The committee this year consisted of: Sandy Krug, Clair Fisher, Juanita Flegler, James Moser, Larry Speere, LoAnn & Gale Sechtem, Dean Keil, Jeannette Lewis, Kay Morris, Don Dawson, and Janet Flickinger.