Alumni of Marshall Lab School planning reunion.

 

Marshall High planning reunion Mar. 10, 2014 @ 12:00 AM KRISTI MURPHY HUNTINGTON -- Student teachers at Marshall University didn't have to go far to get classroom experience back in the early 1900s. Back then, when it was Marshall College, they simply had to go to Old Main -- and later Jenkins Hall -- to find young students eager to learn. In 1896, the first class of students attended the model school that would later be known as Marshall High School and the Jenkins Laboratory School. The purpose of the school was to allow education majors to do student teaching and practice new education theories on campus, according to an undated version of the school's handbook. Generations of students benefited from the top-flight education before the school closed in 1970. This summer, many of the living alumni will gather for the first all-class reunion in 25 years. "We have alumni all over the country and even people out of the country," said Jane Browning Sawyers, who is helping plan the reunion. "We have found 60 alumni in the Huntington area, but we want to reconnect with everybody." The three-day reunion is scheduled for Friday through Sunday, June 20-22. It will include speakers, including Mayor Steve Williams and Marshall professor Stan Maynard, as well as several social events and visits to Spring Hill Cemetery and the Marshall campus. The host hotel is the Pullman Plaza Hotel in downtown Huntington. "I attended the lab school from fourth grade until they began phasing it out," Sawyers said. "I left when I was in the ninth grade in 1968. We felt very fortunate to be able to attend and experience this school. The camaraderie was different. It was such a small, intimate group. It didn't make a difference what grade you were in, we were all one family." The first class of students included a group of five girls and five boys in the fourth grade. The next year, the same group of students attended fifth grade, and a kindergarten class was also added. By 1908, all elementary grades were taught at the school, and high school classes were added in the following years. In 1938, the school moved from Old Main into Jenkins Hall. It was exclusive and had very high standards for its students, according to its pamphlet. "Everything possible is done to keep the moral and social life of the pupils clean and free from taint by rough children," the school's pamphlet said. "All children of good habits are cordially welcomed till each grade is full-25. Beyond this we want not one more." "I heard stories that the school was in such high demand that the moment a baby was born the parents would call the university to get the child on the waiting list," said Sawyers, a second-generation alumna. According to the school's pamphlet, "the school day was short and children were kept busy." "A few-hours work well supervised and well done is worth much more than longer hours with chances for idleness and evil practices," the pamphlet said. With high behavioral standards came high educational standards. Since only about 25 students were permitted in each class, the school was focused on providing an exceptional education to its students. "By the 1960s ... the student body, now racially integrated, was essentially all on the college track, no matter their demographic origin," wrote former student Thomas F. Scott, who compiled a history of the school in 2001. "The basic premise was that learning could be fun. The student learned to read and express himself both verbally and by written word ... He was taught to think and reason in a logical matter to achieve problem solving." As costs increased and student teaching moved out into the public schools, the K-12 school no longer became viable. The university closed it in 1970 and repurposed Jenkins Hall into a general university classroom building, which today appropriately houses the College of Education and Professional Development. "When we separated, we went to three different states and five different high schools," Sawyers said. "It was very traumatic when our class separated." Sawyers said she hopes alumni will come together to build a remembrance of the school at Jenkins Hall. "There are a lot of people who don't even know that there was a lab school and what it was like," Sawyers said. "We would like to raise enough funds with the alumni to let people know that there was, in fact, a lab school." Furthermore, she said she would like for this year's reunion to spark smaller events in the years to come. "Hopefully, (we can) have a reunion event every year because we have so many alumni in the area," she said. She asks that alumni, even those not planning to attend the reunion, email her with their current contact information at mulabschoolreunion@aol.com. "If you were there one day or if you graduated from high school there, you're an alumni, and we're trying to get in contact and include everybody," she said. "Whether they attend the reunion or not, we would love to have current information on all the alumni." More information about the lab school can be found at http://mwsimms.wix.com/marshall-lab-school.