The Ondossagon All-School
Reunion
A Work in Progress
Most of us have attended, at one time or
another, a high school class reunion. We were concerned about our
appearance, what clothes to wear, will any of our friends be there, and
if we would recognize our classmates. Our spouses dreaded attending
since they would not know anyone, they would feel left out, deserted for
the evening while everyone else was having a fun time reminiscing and
telling stories. And then there are those all-school reunions with a lot
more people attending over a two-day period with great food and
refreshments, live music, museums, auctions, a memory wall, cookbooks,
history books, videos, proclamations, tents, souvenirs, and a candy
store. Sounds like an all-school reunion could be a great time for all.
And it will be! The eight-member reunion steering team and the nine
subcommittees are hard at work to make the Ondossagon All-School Reunion
THE EVENT of this summer in the greater Ashland, Wisconsin area.
The Ondossagon School opened in 1917 and closed
in 1990. Ondossagon (Ojibwe for “on the other side of the lake“) was a
small country school with classes from 1-12 and in later years, K-12. It
was located about 4 miles west of Ashland, Wisconsin, in the Township of
Barksdale.
Jan Lumberg Kupczyk (’70) came up with the idea
for the all-school reunion and in September 2008, she organized a
meeting at the Vaughn Library. To her surprise and delight, eight alumni
showed up ready and willing to organize an all-school reunion. Dates
agreed upon for the reunion were August 6 and 7, 2010. Friday afternoon
and evening will be at the Benoit Community Center in Benoit, Wisconsin,
and Saturday at the Bay Area Civic Center in Ashland, Wisconsin.
A general organizational meeting to establish
subcommittees was held at the Benoit Community Center in March 2009.
Nine subcommittees were established with chairpersons and each committee
was assigned a liason to the Steering Team. Every subcommittee has
responsibility for recruiting additional members.
It was decided to establish an Ondossagon web
site, www.Ondossagonaggies.com, get on Facebook.com, and have our own
Ondossagon blog. Our web master, who resides in the Green Bay,
Wisconsin, area, built the website framework and it has been enhanced
and populated by an alumnus residing in Oregon. The website, in addition
to providing communication about the reunion, will be used for reunion
registration plus the purchasing of souvenirs, cookbooks, and history
books. All steering team minutes have been posted on the site. Also, the
“name the reunion contest” was conducted on the website. We received
over 70 suggestions of reunion themes and after all votes were tabulated
there was a tie between “Aggies Again in 2010“ and “Ondossagon Forever.”
Our reunion has two themes!
We identified one or two graduates by year of
graduation who were responsible for providing names, mailing addresses,
and email addresses of their classmates. Our data base currently
contains 2154 alumni names and addresses, 942 of which have email
addresses.
Filings have been made with the state to
establish the Ondossagon All-School Reunion Committee as a non profit
association. Since the reunion is also a fundraiser for the Benoit
Community Center (BCC), all remaining funds or other assets on hand
after the reunion will be transferred to the BCC, the last usable
building of the former Ondossagon school district. The BCC also houses
the Ondossagon School Museum which contains old records, photos,
trophies, and other Ondossagon memorabilia. The museum will be open for
tours on both Friday and Saturday of the reunion. We are encouraging
donations be made to the BCC to help with the purchase of new heating
equipment to improve heat to the gym, new chairs, upgraded kitchen
equipment, additional gym ceiling insulation, parking lot improvements,
additional security lighting, replacement of the gym roof membrane which
is at its life expectancy, and potentially the installation of an
elevator which will service the second floor where the Ondossagon Museum
is located. Your tax deductable donation can be sent to the Benoit
Community Center, 63335 Ed Carlson Road, Ashland, WI 54806.
Some early all-school reunion fundraising
allowed for the rental of the Bay Area Civic Center. Seed money has also
been used for rental of a post office box, publishing the first edition
of the OHS Cookbook, the sending of postcards in July 2009 notifying
alumni of the reunion locations and dates, and costs related to sending
out the registration forms. The Fundraising Committee is now completing
its work for the seed money but will continue to receive donations
payable to the Ondossagon All-School Reunion, PO Box 149, Ashland, WI
54806 (please see our sponsor page on the Ondossagon website).
Currently, we have over 60 volunteers working
on the reunion through the steering team and the subcommittees. Our Food
Committee has arranged menus including a Cornucopia fish boil or a
stacked roast beef dinner on Friday and old fashioned Ondossagon hot
lunch on Saturday including but not limited to bean burgers, wiener roll
ups, BBQ’s, and apple crisp. Also available on Saturday will be Huff’s
Store (was located across from Ondossagon for many years) which will
have some of the old time candy favorites for sale including Milk Duds,
Sugar Daddies, popsicles, and other treats.
The Hospitality/Decoration Committee is working
on banners, a teacher board, a memory wall, arranging for individual
class exhibits, and coordinating a continuous showing of photos provided
by alumni on the big screen at the Bay Area Civic Center on Saturday.
Their members will provide coordination and assistance for alumni to
connect with their classmates at Saturday‘s big event. They have
reserved 205 motel/hotel rooms for the reunion attendees coming from out
of town.
The Souvenir/Theme Committee has arranged for
the creation of the reunion logo (thanks David Hnath) which will be used
on T-shirts, sweatshirts, hats, and other items to be sold locally, at
the reunion, and online. In addition, they have arranged for a live
auction to be held in the big tent on Friday and for a silent auction on
Saturday at the Bay Area Civic Center which are both fundraisers for the
Benoit Community Center. We are requesting donations of items for these
auctions from alumni, friends of Ondossagon, and community businesses.
The Nuts and Bolts Committee (Infrastructure)
are in charge of setting up the big tent in Benoit on Thursday and
taking it down mid-day on Sunday (we will need about 40 volunteers each
day to accomplish this). They will also arrange for tables, chairs,
porta potties, trash containers, generators for electrical needs,
lighting, traffic control, and shuttles for moving people to and from
Benoit from the Ashland area motels/hotels.
The Cook Book Committee is arranging for a
second printing of the OHS Cookbook which contains many of the old
school lunch recipes in addition to other family recipes from alumni and
friends of Ondossagon. The History Book Committee, along with Taylor
Publishing, is preparing a book that traces the history of Ondossagon.
They are gathering information gleaned from old yearbooks, Blue and
Golds, and from the Ondossagon Museum. Both the history and cookbooks
will be for sale on our website, at select local merchants, and at the
reunion.
The Registration Committee has responsibility
for tabulating the completed registration forms, will be in charge of
checking in the reunion attendees as they arrive at the reunion sites,
and will create and distribute the nametags.
Volunteers are being solicited for the OHS pep
band and the OHS chorus, both of which will be performing in the tent
Friday night in Benoit and in the Bay Area Civic Center on Saturday just
prior to the 8 PM program. Many additional volunteers will be needed to
work shifts during our reunion weekend.
The reunion is still several months away and,
as you can see, much work has already been accomplished. Our thanks go
out to our many Aggie volunteers who will make this reunion an event for
all to enjoy.
“Aggies Again in 2010”
“Ondossagon Forever”
Terry Torkko ‘67
Co-chair, Ondossagon All-School Reunion
