On July 22, Escalante High School celebrated its 100-year anniversary. The event was held in conjunction with the city’s annual Pioneer Day events.
For the reunion, several sites in town were marked with displays explaining the history and progression of the community and its schools. One such location was the old DUP Building at 30 S Center Street, a stone building next to the South Ward chapel. The new commons in the high school was also decorated with displays looking back on a century of history.
The event culminated in an assembly in the high school auditorium at 4:00 p.m. The auditorium was filled to capacity, with some viewing the program from the gym. For two hours, alumni were recognized and stories were told by various graduates for each of the school’s decades.
Evelyn Corning and her committee Analee Knuden, Julee Lyman, Camille Shakespear, Patrice Cottam, Peggy Meisenbach, Doneen Griffin, and Karen Ott, said that the planning preparations took up the whole of last year. Much of the work done was based on compilations of old graduation programs, which Susan Shurtz earlier had combed through to identify each of the alumni from 1920 to 2020. Then a team of volunteers added the alumni from 2020 to 2023, then searched for addresses for all those still living, inviting them to attend the reunion.
Escalante High School was first founded in 1920 with just 30 students, comprising a freshman class. Each year following, the school expanded up a grade with the first full class graduating in 1923. Escalante High School was first housed in the old white chapel on Meetinghouse Hill (in the parking lot of the current LDS stake center). The faculty included the Principal Roy Lee, who taught all the core classes, and Miss Cora Golding, an elementary school teacher, who taught music throughout the county and was considered an excellent musician. For the first couple years, students sat in the church pews with no desks.
A real high school was not built until 1938. It contained five classrooms and no gym, at the site of Escalante’s new Community Center. In 1988 the current high school was built on the eastern fringe of town, and the auditorium section was completed in 2002.
But the high school was not Escalante’s first venture into education. In 1876 when 201 settlers first arrived in Potato Valley, 131 were children. School homes were organized until the first log schoolhouse was completed in 1878. That building, the parent of today’s Escalante Elementary School, housed 90 students in a building only 18 feet wide and 36 feet long.
Later in 1899, the log schoolhouse was replaced by the red brick schoolhouse situated in today’s town park. In April, 1956, students each carried their books and school items in a parade to the current elementary school on 300 E Main.
This winter, Escalante Elementary will move to a brand-new building near the high school.
– The Byway
More Pictures
Feature image caption: Hayley Baksis and Jenny Evans perform during the Escalante 100-year Reunion assembly, July 22, 2023.