Lincoln County High marks 100 years of small town values

PANACA -- There's big doings in Panaca this weekend, more than doubling the town's population of 645. The town's one bed and breakfast can't possibly handle the crowd, nor can motels in nearby Caliente and Pioche.

However, the people of poor but pretty Lincoln County will open their homes to handle the crowds because the people coming are not motorcyclists or off-roaders. They're friends, family and former neighbors coming to celebrate a common bond -- the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Lincoln County High School.

About 1,000 people are expected, and about 800 will be from outside sprawling Lincoln County. There will be events for all of the alumni on Friday and Saturday, plus it is homecoming weekend.

The Grand Marshals of the Century Parade starting at 1:30 p.m. Friday are two special ladies, the oldest living graduates from the high school: Martha Bleak, class of 1929, and Marie Hurst, class of 1931. Both are 97 and will be riding in a carriage, leading 40 floats.

Bleak already has her outfit picked out, a red skirt and a white blouse (in honor of the school colors). She's excited, but showing her own true colors, said, "I've never been a showoff."

Panaca is a community where three, four, even five generations attended this high school, a school linked by spirit and values, not buildings. The first two-story high school dedicated Sept. 27, 1909, later made way for a second set of buildings, and in 2002, the modern high school was dedicated.

Lincoln County High School has a special spot in the hearts of people from Panaca, Pioche and Caliente who went there. "The school represents a way of life, values and morals, and there's a pride you don't feel anyplace else," said coach and math teacher Rick Phillips, class of 1972. "You're proud you say you're from Lincoln County High School."

While today the school population has topped 200, there were 36 in his graduating class.

His father, Donald Phillips, class of 1941, had 55 in his graduating class.

"It's where my wife and I met and courted, where all our seven kids went to school. And all went on to college, and all my five boys finished college," he said with pride. His daughters started families instead.

She didn't graduate from the high school, but Sherrin McHenry has taught there for 25 years and is one of the organizers of the 100-year anniversary honoring "A Century of Excellence."

Panaca, a Mormon pioneer community first settled in 1864, is like a town from the 1950s, she said, a town where a teacher can say to a misbehaving student, "I'm going to call your mom," and that's a serious threat.

Many of the students leave after graduation, either to go to college or find better paying jobs. Some return when they want to raise their own children in a safe place. "They go to Las Vegas, but then decided they're not raising their children there, and come back," McHenry said.

The classes from the 1950s will have the largest turnout with about 280 people expected. One of those is Las Vegas City Councilman Gary Reese, class of 1959. His graduating class had 29.

"I have a place up there, and we go up about every weekend; I love it up there," he said.

On Sunday afternoon, before making the 165-mile drive back to Las Vegas, he took me for a drive, sharing family stories and showing me his old home in Panaca and the rock house in Caselton, where his father worked the mine.

The high school was small enough that if you tried out for a team, you were guaranteed to make it, so he was on the football and basketball teams.

He'll be at the celebration, so will Boulder City attorney Ralph Denton, class of 1943, whose family settled in the 1880s in Caliente, a railroad town 14 miles south of Panaca. "It was a wonderful place to grow up, we were completely free to run all over those mountains, play in the crick and go hunting for cottontails."

Returning to high school for this celebration is not a return to a school as much as coming back to values -- values of faith and family that haven't changed dramatically in 100 years.

Jane Ann Morrison's column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0275. She also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/morrison.