Photo by Deb Gau Ruthton School alumni and community members got one last chance to look through the building during Saturday’s all-school reunion. While most of the building was cleaned out at the end of the school year, reunion organizers had a display of Ruthton yearbooks, band uniforms and other memorabilia.

RUTHTON — For some of the crowd gathered Saturday, it had been many years since they had last been inside the Ruthton School. But once they were there, the memories came back. Different generations of Ruthton alumni walked through the hallways, talking about where their classrooms used to be, and sharing stories of former teachers and classmates.

“You feel a little nostalgia,” said Cheryl (Reimer) Schmidt, a 1968 graduate of Ruthton High School. Schmidt stopped to get her picture taken next to her old high school locker. “I remember it, because it was right outside the science classroom.”

Former Ruthton students, family and community members all toured the school building Saturday afternoon. The open house was part of an all-school reunion that brought more than 300 alumni back to Ruthton over the weekend.

Ruthton had its own K-12 school from 1923 until 1987. As part of the Russell-Tyler-Ruthton consolidated school district, Ruthton served as the elementary school location. The school saw its final classes of students this year. After RTR’s new K-12 school in Tyler opens this fall, the Ruthton school building will be demolished.

Organizers of the all-school reunion wanted to make sure alumni got the chance to see the school one last time, said Tami Nelson. Plans for the event had been in the making for a couple of years, ever since RTR passed the building referendum for its new school.

On Saturday, past Ruthton graduates met up with friends or reminisced with family members as they walked through the school. Some had memories going back over their whole time at elementary and high school.

“I started first grade here,” Russ Pilegaard said. Pilegaard would go on to graduate from Ruthton as part of the class of 1956.

In a different wing of the school building, Chris Stensgaard was showing family members his old locker. Stensgaard graduated from Ruthton in 1981, and his mother taught at the school as well.

Stensgaard said he remembered his locker being near math teacher Cap Wabeke’s classroom. Wabeke sometimes used to slide his keys across the floor in that hallway, Stensgaard said. Wabeke could get the keys to slide all the way from the end of the hall into his own classroom, Stensgaard said.

While much of the school building had been cleared out this spring, reunion organizers had put together displays of memorabilia like old Ruthton band uniforms and yearbooks.

“It’s kind of fun to look at these,” said Karen Trimble, as she and Linda Brockberg paged through 1970s yearbooks to find old pictures of themselves and their classmates. Trimble now lives in Virginia, Minn., and she said it had been more than 40 years since she was last inside the Ruthton school.

Nelson said Ruthton community members do hope to be able to save parts of the school building. There’s the school’s original 1898 bell, which is currently displayed outside the building. Nelson said community members would also like to keep part of the building’s stonework, including the 1923 construction date.

If possible, she said, “We would like to put a memorial on this spot.”

Several people attending the open house said it was going to be sad to see the school building go.

“It’s a shame they’re tearing it down,” Faye Engbarth said.

“It’s sad. But we had to do something with the building,” said Nelson. At the same time, she said, “I hope my grandkids will have many good memories in the new school.”