Anyone who attended or taught at a rural school in Washington County is invited to attend the second-annual Washington County Rural School Reunion on Saturday at the Hay Lake School Museum in Scandia.
The reunion, which will be from noon to 4 p.m., “is for anyone who attended a one-room/two-room school anywhere in the county,” said Brent Peterson, executive director of the Washington County Historical Society, which is hosting the reunion. More than 60 people, including two former students who were 96, attended last year’s reunion, he said.
Washington County had 79 rural school districts and one joint district with Chisago County that were slowly consolidated during the 1940s and 1950s until all of them were closed by the early 1960s, according to Peterson.
Only a few of the schools are still standing, including the Hay Lake School, Eder School in Oakdale, Valley School in Denmark Township and the Hopkins school in Hugo. The McKean School, which was located in West Lakeland Township, was moved to the grounds of Boutwells Landing in Oak Park Heights and was restored by volunteers from the senior-housing complex — many of whom attended one-room schoolhouses when they were children.
Former students are asked to stop by and share their stories and photographs; no reservations are required. Cake and lemonade will be served.
For more information, go to wchsmn.org/event/one-room-schoolhouse-reunion-party.