Schools
Ramona High’s Class of 1951 Remember the Good Old Days
Everyone knew everyone in town when they were going to school growing up in Ramona and many of the friendships have lasted for a lifetime. All-school reunion takes place today at ROCC.
It was a time for reminiscing and catching up with old friends when eight alumni from Ramona High School’s class of 1951 got together for dinner Saturday night, along with family and friends.
The occasion marked their 60th high school reunion. Many of them will be attending the all-school reunion picnic that takes place today at . The annual event is for anyone who ever attended local schools or worked for .
Patsy Stockalper keeps a list of the 40 people who were her classmates in 1951 and the years previous when they were in grammar school. Many of them have passed on, and others have moved out of the area. Several still live in Ramona or nearby within the county.
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“Things were very different at that time,” Mischa Dobrotin said. “It was very much more open, but, speaking in general, things really haven’t changed a heck of a lot.”
Alumni Darrell Beck, author of On Memory’s Back Trail, talked about the times he and his buddies ditched school and took off for Sawday Pond in Witch Creek.
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“We’d hike down into a steep canyon and spend the night,” Beck reminisced. “We used to go down to Devil’s Punch Bowl. We’d drive right down there. You can’t do that today.”
The population in Ramona and the outskirts was around 2,000 in the early 1950s.
“You practically knew everyone in town,” Dobrotin said. “I think that’s why the friendships lasted so long.”
When events went on at school, it wasn’t just the teenagers who went to them.
“School dances, the adults would come to them,” Stockalper recalled. “That’s how I learned to dance, dancing with the older men.”
The same was true for sporting events. Merchants in town would close their stores so they could go to the games.
Stockalper and her sister, Joan McIntosh, reminisced about stores that are no longer in business—Newton’s Department Store, Minor’s Department Store and Gina’s Dress Shop. No one went down the hill to shop because there was no need to do so.
But even though more than half a century has passed since they were in high school, some things stay the same.
“The town is still rural, that’s part of the attraction,” Dobrotin said.
There will be more reminiscing and more old friends getting together today when the all-school reunion gets under way at 11 a.m. at the ROCC, 421 Aqua Lane.
