Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities

Looking forward to Dora all-schools reunion

If you want to be technical, the cardboard box I excavated (I am not exaggerating) from my garage this week is not historically significant.

But I can’t help feeling like an archaeologist as I wade through the dusty detritus of notebooks, envelopes, and crumpled registration forms from the 2015 reunion for the folks who attended the schools that eventually ended up in the Dora school district in south Roosevelt County.

It was time to dig it out again because — like a flash — five years have passed, and we will be holding another Dora all-schools reunion at the school on June 13.

“All-schools” by now is officially Lingo, Rogers, Causey, and Dora — those are the four with surviving graduates.

Lingo passed out its last diplomas in 1945, Rogers in 1957, and Causey in 1972.

But the geographic area that is the Dora Consolidated School District once boasted more than 30 schools.

Besides the four above, there were schoolhouses at Allie, Belcher, Bluitt, Carter, Cromer, Emzy, Garrison, Givens, Grand Prairie, Hiway, Inez, Leach, Longs, Mann, Milnesand, Minco, Mt. Vernon, Need, the recently renamed Buffalo Soldier Hill, Nobe, Pep, Red Lake, Redland, Richland, Roebuck, Roller, and Tartop.

It’s been a century or longer since many of those communities had kids riding up on horseback for a day of education in a drafty shack marginally warmed by a cowchip-fueled stove.

I wonder what they would think if they could see us working on laptops and sending text messages, scouring the internet and making cell phone calls, as we search for updated contact information to add to the computer database that we’ll use to print labels to invite their descendants to the reunion.

This information-gathering portion of the reunion happens to be one of my favorite times. It’s when I hear great stories and discover family ties I never knew about before.

If you have a connection to one of these south county schools, past or present, and want to make sure you’re on the list for the June 13 gathering, send an email to dorareunion

@doraschools.com or call the school at 575-477-2211.

We’ll write your name in chalk on the slate, and make sure there is a dipper of water for you in the bucket that day.

Betty Williamson loves an excuse to go traipsing down memory lane. Reach her at:

[email protected]

 
 
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