Parker Rural High School alumni holds annual reunion

By Roger Sims, rsims@linncountyjournal.com

PARKER – Graduates of Parker Rural High School and their guests gathered for their traditional spring reunion on Saturday, April 26, at the Parker Elementary School. The evening began with the opportunity to catch up with each other and buy tickets for the quilt that was being raffled off to fund the alumni scholarship.

Eventually the dozens in attendance moved toward the gym where tables were placed for the dinner that was catered by Sue Page and the One Stop restaurant staff and served by the Parker Thunderbirds 4-H club.

Three classes were featured for photos, the classes of 1955, 1960 and 1965. In the fall of 1969 students from Parker, La Cygne and Fontana began attending school at Prairie View High School, so the class of 1969 was the last class to graduate from Parker high school.

The class of 1955, celebrating 70 years, was represented by, seated from left, Josephine Wilson Riley, Shirley Quisenberry Osborn, Alice White Frear; standing, Phil Polley and Carl Frear. (Photos by Roger Sims / Linn County Journal)

Attendees who graduated in 1960, celebrating 65 years, included, seated from left, Wayne Long, Judy Creighton Brown, Tom McCray, Donna Hampton Sutton; standing, Albert Conrad, Frances Garst Richardson, Beverly Harold Dungan, Carol Stites Prentice, and Phillipp Harold.

Graduates from the class of 1965, celerating 60 years, included, seated from left, Mary Ward Buster, Margaret Burk Guilliams; standing, Dwight Gorrell, John Polley, Steve Kinder, Gary Mahon, Tom King, Richard Chambers and Albert Kerr.

Jean Keitel Nickel, a member of the class of 1946 was the most senior alumnus to attend. It wasn't long ago that Nickel was reporting on the Parker reunions for the now- defunct Osawatomie Graphic newspaper.

Members of the alumni committee include, from left, Marlyn Hampton Long, Janice Woolsey Long, Connie Holderman Snyder, Steve Kinder, Richard Chambers, and Albert Kerr.

The Parker alumni awarded three scholarships that evening. Scholarships went to two Prairie View seniors, Abigail Bowman and Lilah McCarty (right), and Dayson Eastwood, a senior from Jayhawk-Linn High School.

Members of the Burk clan included, front row from left, Warren Stahl, Quentin Stahl, second row Margaret Guilliams, Krista Lloyd, Carol Buckman, Tiffany Singer, Timberlane Browning, Harley Singer, Zoey Lloyd; back row, Kendra Browning, Marvin Stahl and Cole Sharrow. Tina Sharrow also was with the Thunderbirds but was not available for the photo.

The alumni reunion was also a family reunion of sorts for sisters of the Burk family who grew up just north of Parker. Carol Burk Buckman, a member of the class of 1967 who lives in Colony, and Margaret Burk Guilliams, a member of the class of 1965 who now lives in South Carolina, are the aunts and great-aunts and even great-great-aunts to most of the members of the Parker Thunderbirds and their parents who were serving the dinner that evening.