Leachville Committee preparing for Centennial

The Leachville Centennial Committee is busy copying Leachville High School composite photos and gleaning information from school annuals in preparation for the upcoming Leachville Centennial and School Reunion celebration slated for the July 4th weekend this year.

Thirty-seven Leachville High School composite photos, ranging from 1946-1983, were removed from their large wall frames last year and placed in a freestanding display rack outside the Buffalo Island Central East Elementary cafeteria.

"Having the composites on eye level makes it so much better to look at the photos up close and read all the named," said Centennial Chairman Barbara Lloyd. "The photos are well protected by archival quality plastic sleeves and can be quickly accessed numerically. We are so thankful that the BIC staff allowed us to copy the composites before they were placed in the new display rack, which allows us to document more of our school's history."

Tentative plans for the Leachville Centennial weekend will include a school sock hop on Friday evening, July 3, at the BIC East Gymnasium, which once served as the Leachvillie Lion's gymnasium. The Centennial parade downtown will kick off the July 4th celebration on Saturday, with the LHS Alumni Reunion following at the BIC East Elementary building. A Saturday evening program will be held at the Melody Theatre, followed by the city fireworks display provided by the Cave Dwellers. Area churches have been asked to conduct special Centennial recognition during Sunday services.

"We are trying hard to contact each LHS classmate so they can make their plans to attend the big celebration," Lloyd said. "We plan to list all the names of former classmates in our LHS Memory Book for the day of the event. In order to find the names we are going through old school annuals and listing them one by one. This is time consuming but something we feel is very important for our history."

The Centennial Committee has met monthly since last fall to finalize events for the July 4th weekend, trying to compile names, histories and old photos of the city and special school events.

Former and current Leachville business histories along with city organizations and church histories have been requested for the Leachville memory book. Anyone wishing to contribute histories or photos is encouraged to contact Barbara Lloyd at 870-539-7506 or Nan Snider at 870-486-2891.