Since the first article about the William Winans 20th Year Reunion was published in your paper, we’ve received quite a few interesting responses. Most people are in favor of reuniting with old classmates, family and friends, and they welcome the opportunity to get together.

Several members of the Class of 1989 have met, and we are determined that the reunion will take place.

Next year, it will be 20 years since William Winans High School in Centreville was consolidated with Wilkinson County High School in Woodville. The Class of 1989 was the last graduating class from WWHS.

Winans is now a middle school and over 300 students still walk the halls every day. We all have fond memories that can be traced to our days as students at WWHS. We will relive those days next year, July 3-6, at the 20th reunion of all classes.

I’ve received many inquiries since the article was printed in the newspaper. One of the calls I received was from a 1959 graduate of William Winans Institute. He read about the reunion in The Natchez Democrat. He said he had the class ring of his aunt who graduated in 1927. He was very happy to talk to someone who had attended the school.

He was amazed that the school was still operating; however, I informed him that buildings were all relatively new or obviously remodeled since 1959. Nevertheless, he was happy to know that the land was still being used for education.

The caller pointed out that pictures of the old Winans building could be found on the walls at Vine’s Restaurant or the Camp Van Dorm Museum in Centreville. He told me a family had donated the land to the school, and that a traveling Methodist preacher was somehow involved. I received the call after 9 p.m. one night, and I didn’t think to immediately write down all that he said. I hoped that I would be able to look up the information online, but I found out very little. While I encouraged the caller to go online and login to wwhsreunion.ning.com and tell us about the history of Winans, he hasn’t done so yet. So if anyone else can fill in the gaps, we’d be happy to put it on ourWeb site.

I received another call from a Class of 1984 member, Yvonne Packnett. She lives out of state, but she was happy to let me know that she would call several of her classmates and get the word around about the reunion. We talked about 30 or 40 minutes, and she named several large families who had children or relatives to attend Winans. Yvonne, however, was more interested in the memorial service. She gave me the names of two 1984 graduates: Karen Brown and Flora Lee. She also gave me a 1983 graduate, Jackie Baker; several teachers, Willie Watkins, Marvin E. Haynes, Irene Jefferson, Mary Williams and Gloria Adams; former principal, George E. Wilkinson, and my great-aunt, Annie G. Vaughn. I recalled three Class of 1989 members: Angela Dunn, John Singleton and Michael Chapman, as well as a Class of 1988 member, Tyrone “Motchie” Robinson.

We’ve had calls from people and classmates from Chicago, North Carolina, Seattle, California, New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Hattiesburg to Jackson interested in attending the reunion. We hope that more people join the Web site and begin posting information about the memorial service and other events as they are announced.

If you have any questions or comments about the reunion, please call me at 601-341-2338 or e-mail fealy07@yahoo.com, or sign in at wwhsreunion@ning.com for more information.

Francis Montgomery

Woodville resident