Harrington’s loyal alumni gather

HARRINGTON – Virginia Strout, Barbara Spizio and Donna Drisko are all pushing 90. They don’t get around as well as they used to.

But Saturday night in this Washington County town was special, and the three women were the main attraction at the annual Harrington High School reunion.

The trio of octogenarians represented the graduating class of 1936 from the now-defunct high school, which closed its doors in 1966 but still holds a reunion every year for any and all graduates.

This year, the alumni association made sure to recognize Strout, Spizio and Drisko for returning after 70 years away from high school, but Saturday’s event also brought together graduates from four decades.

“In a town like this, you have a much closer connection; these people are your family,” Junita Drisko, Class of 1962, and Donna Drisko’s daughter, said. “Coming back, you still have that closeness. You don’t ever lose it.”

“I’ve been coming every year,” her mother said, then added dryly, “There’s not too much going on here, you know.”

Harrington’s students now go to Narraguagus High School in nearby Columbia Falls. Like many other rural Maine towns, Harrington faced the grips of consolidation long ago.

From 1915 to 1966, though, the town’s teens studied at a school within town limits.

Donna Drisko said she used to walk about five miles to school from her home in the western part of town – even in the winter.

“When it was cold, we would stop halfway and go in the first house we came to just to get warm. All that walking, maybe that’s why my feet are sore now,” she quipped.

Saturday evening inside the small gymnasium at Harrington Elementary School was a night of memories. Old friends chatted in small groups at one of five long tables, reminiscing about their younger days. They ate, drank coffee and punch, and shared laughs, even at their own aging bodies.

“For an old lady, I’m doing OK,” Beverly Cotton, Class of 1961, told a friend who walked through the doors early Saturday night.

Cotton, who was a teacher in Waldoboro for many years before she retired and moved back to Washington County, is now the alumni association’s secretary.

“I have always come, even when I was away,” she said. “You come back and see people you haven’t seen for years maybe, but you’ll always know them.”

When Drisko, Strout and Spizio, whose surnames were different all those years ago, graduated in 1936, the class had only 11 members. All but four are now dead, and three of those four attended Saturday’s reunion.

“If I can make it to my 70th reunion, I’ll call you,” said Chester Curtis, Class of 1952, who introduced the three women before presenting them with certificates.

The night also marked the 50th reunion for five members of the Class of 1956 who were in attendance.

“We were the best class that ever graduated,” joked Marion Ramsdell, who spoke for the class and embarrassed her former mates by reading a poem from their old yearbook.

The night had a solemn moment when Gwendolyn Hartford Reed, Class of 1952, read the names of seven former graduates who had died since last year’s reunion, but the mood didn’t stay somber long.

Mike Plummer, Class of 1957, followed Reed by reading letters from alumni who couldn’t make it to Saturday’s reunion. Their words could have been echoed by anyone in the room that night.

“Even though I moved from Harrington, my heart will always be in Maine,” wrote one woman who now lives in New York.

“I wish I could be with you, but I don’t travel much now,” wrote a 97-year-old woman from the Class of 1926, who urged her fellow alumni to “think of those who preceded you once in awhile.”

“Sometimes we outlive them all,” she wrote.