Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities

Rogers school reunion celebrates small community

A couple of weeks ago I had an email from Lynda (Gray) Moore of Portales inviting me to attend an upcoming reunion for the Rogers school. 

“We have had around 13 reunions that began in the late 1970s,” Moore wrote, “and we have had great times.” 

But, she added, “We have lost quite a few of our group since the last reunion,” and there was a good chance “this will likely be the last one.” 

I happily joined the 50 or so folks who gathered Saturday in the air-conditioned lunchroom at Lindsey-Steiner School in Portales, where the visiting was non-stop from start to finish. 

The three main organizers of the event were Moore, Glenda (Parrish) Anthony of Elida, and Peggy (Walker) Woodard of Clovis. 

Anthony and Woodard were both members of the Rogers high school class of 1957, the last group to graduate there before dwindling student numbers and a teacher shortage forced the hard choice to consolidate with Dora 65 years ago. 

Moore was a sophomore when Rogers closed; she graduated from Dora — six miles east of Rogers and three miles south — in 1959. 

 Rogers is a quiet community these days, but Anthony said it was once a bustling place with “a couple of grocery stores, a post office, a park, a laundry.” 

“In Rogers itself, there was a Church of Christ,” she said. “The Baptists went to Mt. Zion, and the Methodists were at Inez.” 

Two undated newspaper articles from the spring of 1957 were on display at the weekend reunion, one titled “Rogers School Presents Awards to Team Members,” and the other titled, “Rogers School Board Follows Merger Plan.” 

Both noted the bittersweet decision to merge the 50-year-old school with its closest neighbor. 

Odell Smith, spokesperson for the Rogers school board in 1957, “explained that this is possibly the first such occasion in the strife-marked history of county school consolidations that a merger of a school has been initiated by the people of the community,” one article said. 

“The people of the Rogers community made their recommendation after a discussion of the problem,” the article continued, “when it was learned that next year the school would be entitled to only five teachers, and possibly only four.” 

The article detailing the merger said that during its final year Rogers had an average population of 30.9 students in the high school, while Dora had 51.23; grade school averages were 46.2 for Rogers and 123.6 for Dora. 

Anthony said there had been rumors for years in the community of a potential closing. She remembered that the spring of 1957 had “a lot of lasts … the last ball game … the last graduation … it was kind of hard to think about school not being there.” 

The seven graduates got their diplomas that May in the old gym at Rogers.  

The school’s almost-new community-built Quonset hut gymnasium was moved a few years later to Dora where it is still in use and still called the Rogers gym. 

A number of area alums who call themselves “the Rogers girls” continue to gather monthly for lunch and visiting, according to 1956 graduate Latrelle (Ross) Massey. “We usually have about 12 of us, sometimes up to 15.” 

In the spring of 1957, Rogers school athletes were honored at a banquet in the Cal Boykin Hotel in Portales where Portales News-Tribune Editor Gordon Greaves was the keynote speaker. 

Greaves wrote about the evening in his By the Way column, calling it “a fine occasion” and expressing admiration for the students. 

“The Rogers School has a fine tradition and has made a fine record,” Greaves wrote. “Times change institutions created by men, and sometimes we all have to ‘cooperate with the inevitable.’ But it is a fine thing to see youngsters with so much real respect for the traditions of their school.” 

Last Saturday — on a hot summer afternoon at what might have been the last reunion for this group — Greaves’ words still seemed to ring true, even if those “youngsters” are 65 years older. 

Whether or not there is ever another Rogers school reunion, that “Rogers girl” Latrelle Massey likely spoke for them all when she told me, “We were so blessed to grow up in that community.”  

Betty Williamson had a ball and even won a door prize. Reach her at:

[email protected] 

 
 
Rendered 02/22/2024 07:01