This is my 30th year at Peavine, as an employee. It has been a pleasure and joy to be a part of Peavine's faculty. I have a special place in my heart for this school. It was my very first school as a teacher and as a child.
Very vivid childhood memories stand out in my mind of my early childhood years in a small, flag-stone school buried among red oak trees and rolling hills of Stilwell, Oklahoma.
After we were sure our energy was depleted from hours of reading, writing , and arithmetic our teacher would reach in her heavy oak desk and pull out a small bell. It was time for recess and a newly found energy. It was a time for talking, a time for games, a time to spend together developing close friendships. That special kind of friendship that grows from years together in a small country school.
With it's grassy yard shaded by the huge Oaks and a wide rock wall separating it from the dirt road, we found revival. When the merry-go-round would screech to a halt, we would jump off and race around the yard in a game of freeze tag. We waited for someone to free us, and once again we were off, darting in all directions. When the sun had soaked up all of our energy, we returned to our class where our quiet murmurings became loud gibberish, for our long-held anticipation would, at least, be satisfied. Orange juice and raisins! Our teacher passed out generous portions of the sweet, delicious treat to the outstretched hands that were entangled in a web of excitement. After we had finished eating, our faces juice-stained, we would listen with delight as our teacher read us a story.
But one day it all passes away as we move on to Higher Ed and something within us fades. Yet in my heart, these years in a small, one building school house fills my thoughts through the years and brings me comfort of a simpler life in the green hills of that little country school of Peavine. Those child-like memories that filled my mind, the 3 R's and my friends all lay a firm foundation from which I built, taking a first step to adulthood.
Many years have passed, friends have come and gone. And they say you can't go home again...But for a few, a very few of us fortunate... we are able to return and relive some of those memories.