Minot High class holds 50-year reunion
Submitted Photo The planning committee for the 50-year class reunion of the Minot High School Class of 1976 includes, from left, Bob Stead, Carolyn Bodell, Renee Hermanson, Carol Kilene, Joe Stenvold, Cheryl LaFontaine, Mike Larson, Todd Hulse, Susan Burchill, Sandy Ehlers, Jennifer Kraft, Leslie Barney, Jean Fegley and Susie Niebuhr.
JILL SCHRAMM/MDN Shown in the lobby outside Arvel Graving Theatre, members of the Minot High Class of 1976 tour Magic City Campus Friday, Aug. 7, during their 50-year reunion.
Submitted Photo The planning committee for the 50-year class reunion of the Minot High School Class of 1976 includes, from left, Bob Stead, Carolyn Bodell, Renee Hermanson, Carol Kilene, Joe Stenvold, Cheryl LaFontaine, Mike Larson, Todd Hulse, Susan Burchill, Sandy Ehlers, Jennifer Kraft, Leslie Barney, Jean Fegley and Susie Niebuhr.
JILL SCHRAMM/MDN Shown in the lobby outside Arvel Graving Theatre, members of the Minot High Class of 1976 tour Magic City Campus Friday, Aug. 7, during their 50-year reunion.
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It was the nation's bicentennial year, and Minot's Class of 1976 fully embraced the red, white and blue during its senior year.
After a year of bicentennial activities that included musical and dramatic productions, community projects and school projects, Magic City Campus was celebrated as a Bicentennial school during ceremonies held on May 13, 1976. The Bicentennial Commission presented a certificate of recognition and Lt. Gov. Dr. Wayne Sanstead, a former Minot High educator, presented the Bicentennial flag, accepted by Carolyn Eidsness (Bodell), Student Council president, and Dean Strate, Student Bicentennial chairman.
Fifty years later, as the nation now celebrates its semiquincentennial, recognizing the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the Minot High Class of 1976 gathered in Minot on Aug. 6-8 for its 50-year reunion.
The class was Minot's first to break from the traditional maroon graduation gowns and make a statement, Carolyn Bodell recalled. Graduating more than 650 students, the class marched into its commencement ceremony to form a carefully coordinated, stars-and-striped flag in their red, white and blue gowns.
As fifth graders, the students lived through the 1969 flood, which displaced many from their homes. Bodell said elementary schools outside the flood zone operated half days, allocating the other half of the day to classes for students from flooded schools. Due to a teacher's strike in 1969, they also finished that year with different teachers than those who started the school year.
About 150 classmates and nearly 50 spouses, coming from several states from California to Rhode Island, attended last week’s reunion, touring schools and taking note of some of the positive changes in the community, including the new high school, Minot North. A memorial was held for the 76 classmates who have died since 1976.
Bodell said the one disappointment was the time capsule, believed to have been buried next to a tree donated by the class and planted at Magic City Campus. Efforts to retrieve it found it missing. Other than a couple of school newspapers known to be in the capsule, its contents will remain a mystery.