The Geneses of LNC
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In the summer of 1996 at a funeral in Houston Texas in which Phillip Lewis (Class of 1951) and Arthur Welch (Class of 1950) were both in attendance. It was at this place and time that the seed of LNC was born. After the funeral Phillip and Arthur were setting and talking about the school days at Natchitoches Parish Training School. Arthur mention to Phillip that his class after 30 years had their first class reunion and since the first reunion they were having reunions every two years or so. Phillip stated that his class was also active. Arthur ask Phillip if he thought we could have a combined reunion between the class of 50 and 51. Phillip though it was a good idea however, we should also include the class of 52 because there were some of our old Serenades band members in that class. During that conversation Phillip stated that one of his class mates (Edna Johnson Hicks) had mention to him about having a school reunion. The idea of a school was even better than having a three class reunion. We agreed to get together with other interested persons in Natchitoches to see if we could make this idea of a school reunion a reality. That was the Geneses of LNC, the seed was planted. The
Seed Taking Root
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Back in Natchitoches we called people together; held several meetings, called ourselves a school reunion committee. For nearly a year we tried to move the school reunion forward. It wasn't until we had a conversation with Rudolph Leon, president of class of 47, that we as a committee felt we were in good company. The class of 47 held monthly meetings at Asbury Methodist Church Hall and the committee was invited to further discuss the school reunion idea. This meeting was where the seed of the school reunion took root.
The Work Began
The class of 47 accepted the responsibility of host class for our first school reunion and Rudolph Leon accepted the chairmanship for the school reunion planning committee. The planning process involved a lot of meetings, hard work and time that lasted almost a year. We agreed that the reunion should include all three schools and the name for the reunion should reflection the three schools. We decided on a time and place for the reunion. The first weekend in July, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, on the old school site at Ben Johnson Auditorium. As the committee got into the details of planning the school reunion, our efforts attracted others who were willing to help There were people from the class of 46, 47, 48, 50, 51, 52, and 65 and others too. There were two major hurdles that we had to overcome: first, there was no mailing list and second, we had no money. We contacted the Natchitoches Parish School Board to get a list of those who graduated from the three schools. We were informed that those records were destroyed. We developed a mailing list of LNC Alumni by having each committee member get addresses from their class mates and relatives as best we could. To get money, each committee member paid their registration fee. The Seed Has Grown The first LNC reunion was such a success that attendees wanted to do it again. There were some 200 people attending this first reunion. It was established that a school wide reunion would be held every even number year for three days on the fourth of July weekend in Natchitoches. The LNC reunion has grown over the years and has been expanded to include more than just LNC Alumni. It is now open to all people who attended any of the three schools, have relatives who attended one of the three schools or know someone who attended one of the schools. It is also encouraged that those having an interest in the schools and perpetuating the memory of the schools and what they stood for, should also attend the reunions.
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