Lynda Boggs rocketed from person to person at the Berry College Elementary and Middle School’s 30th anniversary on Saturday, sharing congratulations, hugs and her memories from teaching at the school.
Dwayne Hunter, a former student and now the father of two little girls, asked Boggs, his third grade teacher, if she remembered his name.
Boggs responded with not only his name but almost everyone’s name from his class as well.
“It was the kind of school I wanted to be a part of,” said Boggs, who now teaches ESOL in Cedartown. “It was built on quality. The children understood their work was to be their best.”
A timeline from 1977 to the present covered the wall in Hamrick Hall on Berry’s Campus. Smiles, and in some cases tears, shone from the faces of people as they found pictures of themselves and old classmates posted on the walls.
More than 100 people attended the celebration of the school’s anniversary, and anyone who was a part of the school, whether as students, faculty or even relations of either were invited.
Boggs, along with Susan Atkinson, sought out former students, sometimes having little more to go on than an old picture and a name.
“I called over 200 kids and their parents,” said Boggs. “I found former students working on their PhDs. One was Miss Black USA. Others were firefighters. There were people in all walks of life. The most warmth that I felt was when I contacted parents who had lost their children, and they said they felt their child was still here because we included them.”
Former superintendent of the school Walt Arms still remembered driving up to the school for the first time as his daughter sat in the car singing to the deer on campus.
“We were called a laboratory school then, and that created its own kind of problem,” said Arms. “A man drove up and said, ‘my daughter is going to be in the sciences, and I’d love to see her laboratory.’ We had a terrible time communicating what a laboratory school was to some people.”
Arms said the main purpose of the school, which teaches Kindergarten through eighth grades, was to develop a core education in the children, and more importantly a “love for learning.”
“Thirty years is a long time for any organization to keep on going,” said Paul Atkinson, the current director of the school. “Because this place is so small the people that go here are so connected.”
