Facade of the Mountain Arts Community Center.A Signal Mountain Elementary Alumni Potluck is being held in the school’s former building, now the Mountain Arts Community Center, in the cafeteria Friday, June 3 from 6-8 p.m. The deadline to RSVP is Wednesday, June 1.
The event is being organized by the newly formed MACC Patrons group, which serves as the fundraising arm of the MACC, to commemorate the building’s 90th anniversary. This event is a pre-party for alumni and their friends and families – a larger, community-wide celebration, the 90th Birthday Party Bash, is planned for Aug. 27, said Lolly Durant, SME alumna, member of the MACC Patrons and one of the event organizers.
“I think people should come to support the last standing historical building in the town of Signal Mountain and to help preserve it,” Durant said.
She said any alumni are welcome, from those who attended shortly after the school’s 1926 opening to its closing in the spring of 1999. Among the alumni planning to attend are Jim McDowell, who Durant said was one of the first students to graduate from the school, and Mountain Opry founder Ken Holloway.
“We have quite a few people from different age groups,” she said.
Durant said she and fellow alumnae Christine Dall Anzalone, Rita Smith Irvin and Mary Ann Leun have been spreading the word about the event by word of mouth and by mailing about 300 postcards to alumni in the community.
Over a potluck dinner, attendees will gather to share memories from their elementary school days, and probably some photos as well, she said. Individual and group photos of different classes will be taken, and attendees will record their favorite stories to keep as an audio record of the past.
Pruett’s is donating tea, coffee and ice for the event.
The MACC Patrons will share plans for the renovation of the building, which has been undergoing mold remediation, Durant added.
“We’ve spent 17 years in that building, and we want to see the programs keep moving ahead and have our community center keep moving forward,” she said of the MACC, which opened in the fall of 1999 after the town of Signal Mountain took over control of the building from the Hamilton County Department of Education. “Getting people in the building who haven’t been there for years will be good.”
To RSVP, call the MACC at 886-1959.