Seventy years ago, Charles Gregory, Sue Robinson Winters and Russ Winters were the last graduates of Bellflower High School.

On Oct. 18, they were among the 40-plus former Bellflower students who participated in a reunion at the Bellflower Community Building. 

“We like it,” Gregory said. “It’s enjoyable. It’s something to do.”

The Bellflower School Reunion was held for the first time in six years. The event was held every two years until 2019. 

The reunion honored the students who attended the Bellflower high school and grade school, located on Walnut Street. The high school ran from 1914-1955 before it turned into a grade school. That closed in 1966 when it went into consolidation with the Montgomery County R-II School District.

Jim Clark, the chairperson of the Bellflower School Reunion, said the school has been vacant for years. It was a museum filled with memorabilia until one of the coordinators, Karen Clark, passed away in 2021. Several people visited the two-storied school on Oct. 18.

“It’s in disarray,” Clark said. “It’s not very pleasant to look at because it’s no longer being taken care of as a museum.” 

The reunion had old pictures, newspaper clippings and a book that had a list of 734 students who attended Bellflower High School between 1914-1955.

Six students graduated from Bellflower High School in 1955. Gregory was the last person to receive a diploma during the graduation ceremony.

Gregory, who will be 88 in December, now lives in Wentzville, while Russ and Sue Robinson Winters still live in Bellflower.

Gregory said he enjoyed his time going to school in Bellflower.

“It was all good,” said Gregory, who graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in physics at the University of Missouri-Rolla (now Missouri S&T). “We don’t have any bad memories. It’s good seeing the people from here. But as far as memories are concerned, they’re all good.”

Clark said he was pleased with the turnout of the reunion.

“This is pretty good for a school that has been closed since 1966,” he said. “To still have these many people here is pretty good. One year, we sent out over 200 (invitations), but a lot of them came back with either the wrong address, no one at this location or they’re deceased.”

Clark read more than 30 former Bellflower students who have passed away since 2019. 

“It pains me to read all of these,” Clark said.

Clark graduated from Montgomery County High School in 1961. He attended school in Bellflower in seventh and eighth grade.

“That’s when they heated the boilers with coal,” said Clark, who is part of a board of directors that include Tom Oliver, Wanda Carter and Becky Reagan.

Dean Baxter, who graduated from Bellflower High School in 1953, gave out cardinal statues to several people in attendance. He started making cardinals during the COVID-19 pandemic five years ago.

“I just enjoy making them and thinking about the smiles on somebody’s face when they get a cardinal,” said Baxter, who has made over 1,000 cardinals. “All of my neighbors and all of my family have them.”

Baxter was born in Bellflower. He went to elementary school in the town until he was in fifth grade, when his family moved to Troy. He returned to Bellflower in his junior year in high school. 

At the reunion, Baxter shared his memories on how he met his wife at the Bellflower schools.

“When we were in the fourth grade, there was a family that moved east of town called the Westermans,” Baxter said. “Eileen started in school in the fourth grade. We went to school together for about a year. She wrote to me after we moved to Troy. I never answered her letters until we came up to a basketball game. I think she was a freshman. I thought, ‘You know I think I’d better answer that letter.’ But I found out later that she wrote to everybody who left. We got together and we were married 71 years this past August.”

There were two Bellflower High School graduates in attendance who are in their 90s. Imogene Varnon Woods, who graduated in 1945, was the oldest attendee at 98 years old. Mary Lee Moore Biven, a 1947 graduate, was the second oldest at 96.