POWNAL — Alumni are invited to take a walk down memory lane Nov. 27 for the 50th anniversary of the town’s only school.

Principal Lisa Demick said the 6:30 p.m. event at Pownal Elementary School, co-sponsored by the Pownal Historical Society,will be an opportunity for alumni to “come back and celebrate its history.”

“It’s really more of a social gathering than anything, just an opportunity to welcome the town and to just celebrate the fact that the school is 50 years old,” Demick said. 

To gear up for the event, fifth-grade students have been interviewing people describe by Demick as “town elders” who attended school in Pownal. The students will be writing stories based on the interviews, which will be shared with visitors at the anniversary celebration. 

Demick said she took two fifth-graders to an interview on Nov. 13, for instance, with a woman who attended school in Pownal before PES was built.

The woman told the fifth-graders what it was like to travel by horse and buggy to school. Demick said the students also asked her questions about her day-to-day school schedule as a student, such as whether she took gym classes and what school lunches were like.

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Students are also creating a new time capsule to be buried for 25 years at the 587 Elmwood Road school.

Demick added the school also has a trophy case from when it served students in kindergarten through eighth grade, and she plans to put different items from the case on display.

She also noted that because PES is the only school in town, there was “some worry” when it joined Regional School Unit 5 in July 2009 that residents would “lose access to the school.” 

She said the celebration will highlight the work that has gone into making sure that the connection between the school and local residents hasn’t gone by the wayside.

“This is just another opportunity to reinforce the idea that this is still the town’s school,” she said. 

Elizabeth Clemente can be reached at 780-9123 or eclemente@theforecaster.net. Follow Elizabeth on Twitter @epclemente

Pownal Elementary School will hold a celebration Nov. 27 in honor of its 50th anniversary, when alumni will be invited to return to the town’s only school.


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