In the fall of 1958, more than 100 Clinton High School students started their senior year in a three-story brick school building on the corner of 3rd and Franklin.
The seniors were told that after Christmas, classes would switch to a new high school building on Clinton Street, and they would be the first class to graduate from it.
Instead, the Class of 1959 was the last to graduate from the old building.
“The new one fell down,” said Dr. Gus Wetzel, a member of the class.
Dr. Wetzel told this story at last Saturday’s dedication of the Memory Walk, which the Class of ’59 created on the grounds of the new high school. The new high school opened in 2009, replacing the one on Clinton Street, now the Clinton Middle School, which opened the year after the Class of ’59 graduated in the gymnasium of the old high school.
Of the 114 in the class of 1959 who graduated, more than 40 alumni survive, and joined to fund the Memory Walk.
Dr. Wetzel said it was good to renew friendships and remember the good times the classmates had “just a few years ago,” as he put it. He recalled that the principal, Russell Welch, was a big booster of the school athletic program, and that teacher Ada Peckinpaugh was named Missouri’s Educator of the Year and was a friend of the St. Louis Cardinal baseball legend Stan Musial.
The 1911 high school and the gymnasium were eventually torn down, but the cornerstone and four large cement stones from the gymnasium were saved from the demolition, and were used to border the Memory Walk. The walk is just to the right of the main entrance to the current Clinton High School, 1106 S. 2nd St.
Linda Griffiths, who headed the planning committee for the project, said the class started thinking about a way to memorialize their class and the school building at its 60th reunion five years ago. But it was after meeting with Brian Wishard, Clinton School District superintendent, in 2023, that the project took off.
“He gave us the idea for the walk,” Linda said.
She also thanked Jeff Clausen and Brandon Goth, who laid the concrete and put all the elements together last week. Shawn Custer Welding made the red metal frames for the blocks from the old gymnasium building.
A bench with a picture of the 1911 school and the names of the 114 students who graduated in 1959 inscribed on it was the idea of Martha Lowe, and made by Marty Loyd of Legacy Memorials of Clinton. Four bronze plaques were also installed in the walk, one with the names of the 1959 Clinton Board of Education.
Artistic Designs by Michael, in Eldon, Mo., created the bright red metal cardinal, the Clinton school mascot, for the center of the walk. Linda also thanked Dan Wallace for letting donations to the project go through the Clinton School District Foundation, making them tax-deductible.
Contributing to the project fund were ’59 classmates Pearl Wallace Bird, who came from Oak Grove for the dedication, and Lorette Houk Webb of Bates City. Cheryl Oswald and spouse Robert Oswald came from Urich. Kathy Keith Wood read the “farewell to high school” letter she submitted to the Clinton Daily Democrat May 21,1959 issue.
Martha Lowe led her classmates in singing the school song, and G.R. Lowe closed the dedication ceremony with prayer that the past would import some inspiration to the future.
Before the dedication, members of the Class of ’59 rode in the Olde Glory Days Parade in a procession of two 1959 Ford convertibles, a newer T-Bird and Dr. Wetzel’s Model T. Their entry won the award for Best High School Reunion unit. Then the classmates drove up to the new high school for the Memory Walk dedication, which was attended by three dozen alumni, spouses, CHS principal Jenny Corson and Dr. Christian Meier, Clinton School District assistant superintendent.
