Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 19.djvu/59

 THE UMPQUA ACADEMY STUDENTS' ASSOCIATION. By J. H. BOOTH. Last year the faculty of the public school of Wilbur, Ore- gon, was making a study of the history of the early educators and educational centers of Oregon. It was impressed with the prominent part the old Umpqua Academy had played in the educational foundation of the State. It seemed important that this evidence should be gathered into permanent form. Upon the suggestion of Mrs. Inez Miller, principal of the school, it was decided to undertake the holding of a reunion of the old students. It seemed, also, a fitting way to close the commencement exercises for the first class of the new Stand- ard High School. Former students, residing both within and without the dis- trict, were communicated with and the idea received with favor, though not without misgivings, as to its success. The residents of the little town, however, entered whole-heartedly into the plan. Then began the hunt to locate the former stu- dents. In this effort Mrs. Miller and her co-teachers worked long and faithfully. Invitations were sent out for June first and bore addresses from California to New York. The won- derful response received in answer to these invitations can be realized only by those who attended the reunion. More than three hundred came. June first of last year was a bright, beautiful day. The season being late, Nature was at her best. The green carpet of the Umpqua hills was a-gleam with the bloom of wild flowers, which nowhere grow in more profusion. Birds sang from the trees and the fields, and as the old bell in the high belfry rang to call the assembled crowd together, men and women met who had been boys and girls in school there forty years ago. Many had not seen one another since. The exercises were held out of doors in the school yard, with the porch of the former academy as the stage. A pro-