School to celebrate 50 years
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What: 50th anniversary celebration for Union Elementary School
When: 3 to 6 p.m. Sept. 6
Where: School lawn, 95 N. Penn St., Belleville
BELLEVILLE - The year was 1958, and the farming community of Belleville was rapidly growing.
A new opportunity for area children became available with the construction of the township's own school - Union Elementary.
This year, the school will celebrate its 50th anniversary of educating community children. An opening ceremony will be held from 3 to 6 p.m. Sept. 6 on the school lawn. The event will include current pupils at Union raising the flag, saying the Pledge of Allegiance and singing "The Star Spangled Banner."
"Our slogan for this anniversary year is 'Still Inspiring Futures.' We hope to be doing that for a long, long time," said Starla Fogleman, a Union Elementary first-grade teacher who is organizing the event.
At the event, there will be music, food, craft stands and games for children. The building also will be open for touring and reminiscing.
The elementary school still holds fond memories fifty years later for the educators who taught there.
Former teacher Reba Harmon, who taught at Union for 24 years before retiring in 1995, said her memories go back to musicals she helped to direct.
Laughing, she remembered one pupil who did a "terrific job" as a grasshopper in the musical, "Gone Buggy."
"He was all arms and legs. He looked like a grasshopper," she said.
Even after her retirement, Harmon said she continued to visit the school with plates of cookies and assistance in Christmas and spring musicals.
Harmon said her pupils were like her own children.
"I would have fought for any one of them ... stood up for them," she said.
When they fell down and cried, she said she would give them a hug. When they accomplished a new goal, she said she would pat them on the back.
With a hint of sadness in her voice, Harmon said physical touch now is frowned upon in the educational world.
"Things are different now," she said, adding that she does not blame schools for being more cautious.
"In Belleville - as far as children were concerned - there were very few discipline problems," she said. "Physical education, music and art teachers could tell the difference" from other elementary schools, she said.
Fellow teacher Fern (Smucker) Grace, known in her teaching days as Miss Smucker, also remembered that people noticed Union's friendly, down-home atmosphere.
The Allensville native said she taught in her hometown before teaching in Belleville for 10 years.
Grace said her favorite subject to teach her pupils was reading.
"It was so much fun when they became independent readers," she said.
Prior to the construction of the elementary school, all grades were taught at the Belleville High School, said Mary Ann Stratton, a former teacher who compiled a history of the township schools.
In 1899, Union Township High School was established. The first graduating class in 1901 compiled two students. The high school switched from a three- to a four-year program in 1910, after a new building was constructed.
"Well knowing that the children of today will be the men and women that will be up and doing things tomorrow, Belleville has never lost sight of the importance of having as perfect a school system as possible," according to a Sentinel article from May 12, 1915. "... (School directors) have always insisted and seen to it that only the most capable pedagogues have been entrusted to the care of molding and instilling knowledge into the minds of the youth."
From 1920 to 1957, the school operated under several different names, including Belleville Consolidated High School, Menno-Union High School and Union Township Vocational High School.
In 1957, the school closed and joined with Brown and Armagh townships to form Kisacoquillas High School.
At the same time as the consolidation, Union Elementary School was being built. A plaque from the high school was placed on the elementary school in commemoration of the township's early education system. First- through sixth-grade pupils began using the new school on Sept. 3, 1958.
During a 1987 contest, pupils at the school voted to make union's mascot the bee, and today Union pupils are known as the Belleville Bees.
Union Elementary School includes nine classrooms, which can hold up to 270 pupils, according to a Sentinel article from Nov. 11, 1958. The cost of the building was $382,574, according to the article.
Current enrollment is 158, according to information from Mifflin County School District.
