Photo Courtesy of Washington Middle School PTO Social Media
With its fate unknown, the Washington School District has put together a three-day celebration geared toward highlighting the current middle school, built in 1918. The Washington Middle School Alumni Event, “Honor the Past, Focus on the Present, Create the Future”, March 27th through the 29th, features two alumni races at Case Field during the annual Steve Roth Relays on Thursday. Friday it’s alumni girls volleyball at the 1918 building gym at 6p.m., complete with a concession stand, silent auction and chuck-a-duck contest for a free will donation. And Saturday enjoy alumni boys and girls basketball games beginning at 6 p.m. at the 1918 building’s gym, complete with concession stand, silent auction, chuck-a-duck, shooting contests, trophy case item auction and recognition of past Demon hoops teams.
Angie Shrader with the Washington Middle School explains the idea for the event, planning and preparation. “It was about seven years ago that it was our building’s 100th year, so we decided to do an alumni event and we called it the “Century of Tradition”. Knowing that this year, at the same location, the 1918 building, the old high school, current middle school, this is our last year at this building, I decided that we needed to bring back the alumni event to give everybody one last chance to play in this building, and then we just expanded it from there. So we’re hoping to make it a community event, one last time for everyone to come and enjoy the building. It will be open on Friday and Saturday at approximately 5:30p.m. for tours on their own. We don’t know what’s going to happen with this building but, we’re just going to assume this is potentially our last opportunity to have people in.”
Sign up to participate in any of the activities for the week by visiting the Washington School District website.
The 1918 building has been a fixture in the district for more than a century, transitioning from the high school to its current status as the middle school in 2012. Hear more from Shrader about the event by listening to the Jessica Yoder & Sarah Bigley with Kalona Realty Washington Page, free, online at KCIIradio.com.