On May 11, the Salem Presbyterian Church Fellowship Hall was decorated in blue and gold for former students and faculty of Monticello School.
Nearly 200 people were in attendance to reminisce and enjoy slide shows, sports and prom photos, letter sweaters, newspaper clippings and yearbooks from their time as Monticello Panthers.
The school opened in the 1920s, ranging from elementary through high school until 1960, when it became an elementary and middle school which lasted until 1967.
Two former Monticello teachers — Ran Foster and Nora Norman — were in attendance at the reunion.
Foster taught agriculture at Monticello from 1951-1960 and said he enjoyed his time there. He said he was happy to be at the reunion to meet with former students and see how much they had changed over the years.
Norman taught typing, shorthand and bookkeeping at the school, and she also had a seventh grade homeroom class which she described as “sweet and adorable.”
“It was a great experience to be there,” Norman said. “Everyone was so kind and thoughtful. The school was so unique because of such close ties with the students and faculty.”
Also in attendance was Nell Mayer Taylor — daughter of former superintendent L.V. Mayer. Mayer graduated in 1943, and she said she had great memories of living next door to the school.
Anne Turner Harrell (Class of 1953) was also in attendance.
“There was a closeness here,” she said. “Students came from all around; the school brought communities together.”
She attended Monticello during her last three years of high school, and her mother — Sara Turner — taught first and second grade at the school for a number of years. Harrell said she remembers her mother reading Bible stories to her students, and she still has the book from which she read.
Harrell mentioned other teachers such as English teacher Myrtle Wilkes and algebra teacher Kitty Lee Steele who were meaningful in her life. Harrell went on to follow in her mother’s footsteps, also going into education after graduating college. Harrell taught for two years in Beaufort and two years in Columbia before going to work with Columbia College’s news service for a number of years.
Mamie Faulkner Sullivan also had positive comments regarding Harrell’s mother, Sara Turner.
“She was a wonderful teacher, mother and friend,” Sullivan said.
“And Anne’s brother, William Turner, was the cutest thing — I’m still in love with him!” she added.
Sullivan was part of Monticello’s championship basketball team in 1955, and she brought newspaper clippings about the team that her family had recently framed for her as a Mother’s Day gift. One of the clippings was from The State newspaper, in which Jake Penland named her the best guard in South Carolina that year.
Others who shared memories with The Herald Independent included Georgia Wilkes Branham, who graduated as part of the Class of 1941. Branham and her ten siblings each graduated from Monticello. Their father drove one of the school buses, and they used to ride 10-12 miles to school each day.
“It was different than today,” Branham said. “We all loved and respected the teachers.”
Branham remembered school lunches.
“We had cocoa and a cracker one day, and then soup and cornbread the next day,” she said.
Branham wore her 1941 class ring to the reunion, estimating that she paid around $10 for it.
Annette Graham Floyd, 88, was also in attendance. Floyd attended school at Monticello through her 11th grade year, after which she went to work in the cotton mill, making parachute cloth to be used in World War II.
Floyd said she remembers daily devotions and singing at school. She also remembers makeshift school buses.
“They were needing more students, and my uncle took a long bed truck and made a bus out of it,” Floyd said, mentioning that her family has always lived in Newberry County. “He brought us across the river.”
Everyone who attended the reunion received a copy of the Monticello School Alma Mater, which was as follows:
Hail to thee our Alma Mater
Where our thoughts will lie.
We shall ever love and cherish
All our precepts high.
“Monticello sing we ever
Loud thy praises tell.
Hail to thee our Alma Mater
Hail all hail to thee.”
Fond the memories that cluster
Round our dear school halls.
Naught shall ever dim the luster
That thy name recalls.
“Monticello sing we ever
Loud thy praises tell.
Hail to thee our Alma Mater
Hail all hail to thee.”
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