Four graduates of Patagonia Union High School got together on October 10 in honor of their 60th reunion. The class of 1945 met at the home of Mary (Washburn) Clay in Patagonia. The other class members were Lucy (Valenzuela) Mihalik, also from Patagonia, Vern Steen, who now lives just outside of San Francisco, and Isaac Jose Montoya of Yuma, Arizona. As best they can determine, they are the only four classmates still alive.
Isaac Jose Montoya provided some recollections of those days:
“In 1945, Mr. O.H. Oldfather was the principal of PUHS. The United States was totally engaged in World War II against Japan. Germany had been defeated. Shoes, sugar, meat, gasoline and many other items that we use every day were rationed, so you could only buy what was permitted each month.
“Because tires and gasoline were rationed, school buses were only used to carry students to school and home. From about 1942 until 1946 PUHS had no athletic events against other schools. The class of 1945 participated in only three or four sports events or competitions of any kind during their entire high school experience.
“But we were happy! We still had the Patagonia Opera House for our gymnasium and the field where PUHS now proudly stands for our six man football team to practice. No new football equipment was available during those years due to the war.
“We hadn’t thought much about careers but accepted that we would all be cowboys or work at the Trench Mine and the girls would be raising families when school was over. Then along came the war, and military service followed by discharges from service, and the GI Bill—an opportunity to go to college, which most of us had never even thought of! The GI Bill took away our expectations of being a cowboy or a miner and girls began to look at professional careers.
“Many of us left Patagonia for what we thought might be greener pastures but our love for P’gonia never left us!”