TIFTON —
Remembering the unique closeness of attending a country school, former Ty Ty students Anne Hayes Hall and Sandra Payne Johnson tracked down their third-grade classmates and organized a special reunion that has grown to include other Ty Ty alumni.
Hall and Johnson, members of the Class of 1963, had a 1954 photo taken on the schoolhouse steps.
“Three years ago, Sandra and I were talking — actually, it was after we had buried a couple of friends,” Hall said earlier this week. “We realized we’re at the age where people start going on.”
Hall said she and Johnson knew some of the people in the third-grade picture were deceased, but they began trying to locate the others and found all but two. The first reunion drew a majority of the group shown in the photo.
“The school was such an integral part of our lives,” Johnson said. “With it being a country school, we all started first grade together and went all the way through with the same classmates.”
The Ty Ty students scattered after going to high school in Tifton and didn’t see each other after that. “We were like lost sheep,” said Johnson.
The Ty Ty school closed in the 1960s and was used by Tiftarea Academy when it was first founded. The building burned in 1970 or 1971 and the Ty Ty Fire Department building is located on the site now.
The annual reunions, the most recent held in July, have been an opportunity for the classmates to share special, nearly forgotten memories.
Johnson made a list of some of those memories:
• Redneck ice cream sandwiches (a slice of ice cream between two graham crackers).
• The hog-calling contest on the stage.
• Going barefoot to school when the weather warmed up.
• The Halloween carnival.
• Chapel on Fridays.
• Bus drivers Wesley Lavender and Louie Gibbs.
• Going to the park in Sylvester for their end-of-the-year class trip in Mrs. Mary Clayton’s class in sixth grade.
• When basketball RULED.
“I remember all these things fondly. And a few more I hold in my heart,” Johnson wrote.
“We were blessed to be able to attend a school that kept the classmates together year after year so that we almost became like family.
“Our children and grandchildren for the most part missed that. For all of us, truly, those were indeed the good old days.”
The Ty Ty classmates are already planning next summer’s reunion and are inviting members of other Ty Ty classes.
For more information, contact Johnson at 382-7462 or 392-2795 or Hall at (386) 638-1617 or P.O. Box 1564, Jasper, FL 32052, or check the Ty Ty School Reunion Facebook page.
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