Dublin High School, 1963

Reunion tours

Each tour lasts about two hours and costs $3 per person or $5 per couple, at the following places:

• The old Dublin High School, which is now Dublin Middle School
• Claytor Lake State Park and Randolph Park
• Site of the Civil War Battle of Cloyd’s Mountain
• New River Valley Airport, including a federal customs office
• Motor Mile Speedway
• A $50 all-class golf outing is also planned at the Pulaski Country Club (formerly Thornspring Golf Club)
• More info at dhs-reunion.net

DUBLIN -- What could be the biggest reunion of its kind in Pulaski County history is being planned for the classes of the former town high school, which spanned six decades.

Former students of the former Dublin High School have started a Web site and are preparing for the Aug. 18 all-day reunion at the New River Valley Fairgrounds.

"This is the first time we've done this at Dublin. Pulaski High School did it about two years ago," said Jim Graham, a 1960 graduate who lives in Fairfax Station and is helping plan the event. "Theirs was so successful."

Pulaski High School existed from 1955 to 1974. But Dublin High School served students from 1911 until 1974, when Pulaski County High School opened and the two former high schools in the towns became the county's two middle schools.

The Pulaski reunion drew 1,200 to 1,300 people, Graham said. He is hoping the Dublin reunion will bring together 1,800 or more.

"There were a whole bunch of people thinking about it for years," Graham said. "We talked about it in my class for a couple of years and decided, if not now, then when?"

Graduates -- as well as anyone who was ever a student there, even if only for a short time -- are invited. Faculty and staff members are invited, too.

Thirty-seven people turned out for the first organizational meeting in October, Graham said. By March, they started sending out some 3,500 registration packets to former students and teachers whose addresses they had.

The packets are also available at public libraries in Pulaski and Dublin, the county visitor center in Dublin and the county treasurer's office.

Rose Marie Tickle, who is completing her sixth term as county treasurer, is also treasurer for the reunion. Eleanor Farmer, who was at the school as a teacher and librarian, is in charge of registrations. The registration fee is $35 per person, mailed to DHS All-Class Reunion, P.O. Box 643, Dublin, VA 24084.

Graham said the reunion committee hopes to have all the registrations in by the end of June. "We've got to get out the registrations," he said. "People just showing up won't hack it."

Contact people with phone numbers are on the reunion Web site for all but three classes from 1942 to 1976. The committee is continuing to look for people from earlier classes. For people hesitant to make the trip because of physical limitations, Graham said, there will be a volunteer escort committee to pick them up, bring them to the reunion and take them back home.

Like the Pulaski High School Web site, the one that's been established for the Dublin reunion is expected to continue as an online point of contact, updates and other information.

The Dublin reunion Web site has been pulled together by Carol Smith, technology staff member at the Pulaski County Public Library. It includes reunion news updates, class contacts, registration information, school photos and even a national decade-by-decade history running from the 1920s through the 1990s.

A number of school annuals have also been scanned in. "It takes about six hours an annual," Smith said. "It took a while, but it's been a lot of fun. ... We even did the advertisements."

The August reunion will also have a future goal attached: It will serve as a funding drive toward a new picnic shelter in Randolph Park, a major county recreation area outside Dublin. The proposed shelter would accommodate 75 people and be named Dublin High School Alumni Shelter. It will have two memorial plaques, one for deceased classmates and one for teachers and staff.

Graham said about $5,500 has been raised to date. The Lowe's home improvement store in Dublin is discounting shelter building materials by 50 percent.

Alice Buford, Mary Kate Kidd and Eleanor Farmer are among the volunteers helping to scan in the yearbooks.

Smith said there are plans to do a DVD of the reunion, so people will have something to watch and remember afterward.

On the Net:

www.dhs-reunion.net

www.pulaskihighschool.com