Charles Crane/MDN Reunion organizer Shelly Weppler discusses memorabilia from Magic City Campus’s first graduating class on Tuesday in preparation of the Class of ‘74’s 50th reunion festivities beginning this week.

The Minot High School Class of 1974 will convene for its 50-year reunion this weekend, marking not only their graduation but the opening of the then new Magic City Campus.

“We had the largest graduating class ever for Minot High School in 1974. It’s not only our 50th reunion, it is also the 50th year of Magic City Campus and it’s also the last year Minot High School will be one consolidated high school,” Rich Feldner, a Class of ’74 graduate and longtime MPS educator, said. “We had a little over 700 students in our class. When Magic City Campus opened, we had probably almost 1,300-1,400 kids in that building.”

Organizer Shelly Weppler said the Class of ’74 has gathered every five years consistently since they graduated, and they expect more than 100 classmates to congregate for the 50th year reunion. Weppler’s father, Stuart Summers, was the vice president of the school board as the new school was being planned and constructed, along with several other parents of ’74 students in the administration, including Pat Schmitt, Dudley Whitson and then Superintendent of Schools Marlowe Johnson.

“Our parents were engaged. We would sit at the table and I would listen to my dad talk about decisions they needed to make in building in the new school. ‘Here’s some of the things we’re thinking about. What do you think of this?’,” Weppler said.

Weppler recalled two topics that shaped the new approach being discussed were centered around how many classes would be at Magic City Campus and whether a second high school should be pursued as well.

“They talked about having two schools back then, but what that would mean was having to bus kids. It was all about location and means. Some people thought that more kids could play sports with two schools, but in the end they decided, ‘Let’s do it this way’,” Weppler said. “Magic City Campus was called Magic City Campus for a reason. We were going into a new time. Just being able to be a part of something fresh and new, you felt invincible.”

The new approach involved a more open and integrated mingling of the upper-class students in lieu of the traditional junior/senior dynamic, which was touted in the 1974 yearbook as bringing about the “disappearance of the cliques and clans of days gone by.” Weppler found the approach to be a great preparation for students at the time to grow accustomed to working with and around a variety of individuals before they entered higher education after graduation.

“Classrooms were separated by tall rolling bookcases. You were literally right next to everybody the whole time. You could hear what was going on in rooms right next to you. It was a lot of team teaching back then so you got to mix with your other classmates a lot,” Feldner said.

Weppler said the new school opening came in the wake of the 1969 Souris River flood and the aftermath of a teachers’ strike, which resulted in the hiring of a new generation of young educators who graduated from Minot State College.

“We had to cross the picket line to go to school during the strike. They fired all the people who were on strike. Then we got all these fresh teachers who were hired so we had this fresh slate,” Weppler said. “It was used as a training ground for national education. We had all these young teachers and they brought their own ideas into it.”

The new era ushered in by Magic City Campus operating with only two grades remained for 50 years but has fallen out of fashion nationally, with the vast majority of high schools grouping grades 9-12. Minot Public Schools will now be embracing this with the opening of the new Minot North High School and the realignment of Central Campus into a middle school.

“I’m a member of the Golden K here in Minot and we just got a chance to tour through the new building with Dr. (Mark) Vollmer. It’ll be a once in a lifetime experience for those students, because there won’t be a new school opening in Minot High for at least a few generations,” Feldner said. Vollmer recently retired as MPS superintendent.

Members of the Class of ’74 will have the opportunity to tour and visit their old stomping grounds during the weekend, which will also feature gatherings at local establishments and speeches by incoming MPS Superintendent Scott Faul, Minot Mayor Tom Ross and former Magic City Campus teacher Larry Louser.

“We’ll probably allow them to meander for a bit, but I’ll have to take them to some of the areas that are new and locked. They all probably will want to go to a room they had their favorite class in. One area I know they’ll love to go back to if they were in band and theater; the theater kids liked to write their names on the walls. I’ve had classmates cry because they still had their names on the walls. It’s pretty neat,” Feldner said.