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Southern Ulster Times, Wednesday, November 22, 2017
Plattekill Elementary School celebrates 75 years
With songs, special guests, and many
happy memories, Plattekill Elementary
School celebrated its 75th anniversary
this month.
More than 25 former teachers and
alumni joined current students and
school and District staff in celebrating
almost eight decades of learning.
“You’re a family and a team,”
Superintendent Kevin Castle told those
in attendance, and thanked teachers and
staff for the hard work they put into the
75th anniversary celebration.
Construction on Plattekill Elementary
School began in 1941 and doors opened to
students from the six closest one-room
schools in the fall of 1942.
A PowerPoint presentation created
by Wallkill High School Library Media
Specialist and Plattekill Historian Libbie
Werlau highlighted the school’s history,
from the addition that doubled the floor
space in 1955 and the strange mystery
of the many frogs that appeared on the
property on the first day of school in 1954
to the first computer labs in the 1980s and
the greenhouse added in 2004.
One of the moments in the school’s
history that had special significance was
a ceremony held on December 5, 1941
in which the one-room-school students
who would make up the first classes at
Plattekill helped place the building’s
cornerstone. Current Principal Monica
Hasbrouck said that staff have long
believed that there was a time capsule
inside that cornerstone. Using technology
that didn’t exist in the 1941, they were able
to confirm that the rumor was true and
Former teachers and alumni of Plattekill Elementary School were special guests at the 75th anniversary celebration.
they eventually excavated a copper box
from inside.
“What do you think we found?”
Hasbrouck asked the students.
Replies included bugs and water,
and both were true. Sadly, the water
damaged quite a few of the papers, but
staff were able to identify a list of Board
of Education members from the time, an
attendance book, a math textbook, a pane
of stained glass, and a rock with fossil
imprints.
As part of
the anniversary
At the Plattekill Elementary School 75th anniversary celebration, Principal Monica Hasbrouck
holds up a rock with fossil imprints that was included as part of a time capsule placed inside
the school cornerstone in 1941.
celebration, the school will place a new
time capsule for future generations to
find when the school celebrates its 100th
anniversary in 2042. Among its contents
will be pictures of each class, a copy of
the school newsletter, information about
the District, and letters from each class
describing current events.
The anniversary celebration wrapped
up with each grade level performing
popular songs from the decades that the
school has been open, from Bing Crosby
to the Beatles and the Bee Gees. A history
“museum” tied in a Social Studies lesson
by putting on display the results of
research that each class conducted on its
assigned decade.
Plattekill Elementary School students (from left) Shaun McGovern, Ahja Breedlove, Marilyn
Velazquez, Liam McCartney, and Bennie Stanley play the xylophone during musical perfo r-
mances highlighting the decades.