Seeing to it that the record is set straight and correct

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HURON – They returned to their hometown a decade ago to celebrate their 40th class reunion.
The 140 former Huron students admired a beautiful monument that will forever mark the site of the long-time Huron High School and Junior High School across from Huron Arena and near downtown.
But a year etched into the rectangular stone wasn’t right in their eyes, and as they talked about it they decided they should fix it.
They’re back in town this weekend – about one third of the graduating class of 265 – and as they celebrate at their 50-year reunion, they’re also happy to see that the monument has been revised.
Instead of “Site of the Huron High School 1916 to 1966,” it now reads “Site of the Huron High School 1916 to 1967.”

It was in 2002 that the Huron High School Class of 1952 paid for the monument.
Etched into it is a depiction of the former high school and junior high school on Illinois Avenue Southwest.
Members of the Class of 1967 say they were the real last class to graduate from the old building, demolished after the new middle school opened following the 1998-99 academic year.
After the story appeared in the Plainsman in 2007, members of the Class of 1952 reunion committee said the designers of the marker were using the dates of the building, not the graduating class. While the building was deemed off use as of Dec. 31, 1966, the Class of 1967 was allowed to remain in the building, they said.
The 1967 Tiger yearbook celebrated the old and the new with photos of the school they were leaving for the last time and photos of the school the Class of 1968 would enter in the fall.
At the end of the yearbook is a photo that shows smiling seniors donning caps and gowns as they’re walking across Illinois Avenue from the school to the Arena.
Before the Huron Arena was built, high school graduations were held in the old Huron College gymnasium, which is also no longer standing.

Photo by Roger Larsen of the Plainsman

Members of the Huron High School Class of 1967 reunion planning committee shown at newly revised monument at the site of the former Huron High School and Junior High School are, back left, Kathy (North) West, and from left, John Mecham, Peggy (Hyde) Gibson, Danny Hofer, Pam (Kauth) Hegg, Chuck Mahowald and Sandy (Kotas) Benson.