By: J. B. Leftwich, 1937 graduate of Baxter Seminary, Thursday June 5, 1986 - The Tennessean
From as far away as San Diego, Calif., they came one night recently to attend an alumni banquet of a school that no longer
exists and has not existed for almost 30 years.
The last class graduated in 1959. Now, there is no school, no campus, no building, no dining hall in which to attend an
alumni banquet. There were no announcements of the banquet, no invitations, no hype by an alumni office that the 1986
program would be the best ever.
The alumni either remembered that the banquet is held each year in the cafeteria of Tennessee Tech on the first Saturday night
in May and made reservations, or they missed the banquet. Even so 333 remembered and showed up for the banquet. I was
one of them.
People came early, some as much as three hours early. We stood in the reception area, read name-tags, and remembered - or
tried to remember. There was no bar, no cocktails, no happy hour.
Mostly, what we had was each other. We had no ivy-clad buildings to stir our nostalgia. Even Ivy Hall, once the
administration building and, on upper levels, the girls dormitory, is gone. Oh, its skeleton remains; not all of the old
structure yielded to an arsonist's torch.
The "new" administration building, Pfeiffer Hall, new when I entered the school in 1933, is gone; it was leveled to make way
for a new county high school. The land remains, along with the president's home, to remind you that this was once Baxter
Seminary, a high school operated by the Methodist church.
The school was small. Forty-seven graduated in 1936, and for them this alumni banquet probably was the best ever.
They ate as a group, these survivors celebrating their golden anniversary.
Nelson Maddux was their president. He said a few words, not many. They came back hours earlier to spend most of
the day together, so there was no use in the president making a speech.
The program was simple. There was a report on the scholarship fund - the Baxter Alumni Association annually gives a
renewable college scholarship of $750 to a senior attending Upperman High School, successor to Baxter Seminary.
Then association president Tommy Dow Waller called the roll by years and each alumnus rose to state identity and home
town. Pennock Maxwell, 83, class of 1924, was the oldest. Last year, Edie Ward, a member of the Class of 1914, first
to graduate from Baxter Seminary, was present.
Up until this year, the crowd was composed primarily of Baxter Seminary alumni. Now, graduates of Upperman are attending
in larger numbers.
Much of the success for the annual banquet is due to the association's permanent secretary, currently Sue Neal. Before
her, Mary Jo Johnson held the post for eight years, and Grace Presley held it for nine years.
The proof of the pudding was in the greeting, standing for two hours and mingling with friends you thought were frozen in
enternal(sic) youthfulness in your memory. Of course, there were the familiar faces, the ones who never miss a banquet, such as
John Tam Jared, J.T. Johnson, Vinette Ward, Charles Nunally, Maurine Ensor Patton, Bob Grace, Morgan Sadler, Bill Bain and
Elizabeth Duke Canavan.
There were sad notes. Some of the faithful will not attend again, including Dr. Harry L. Upperman, the school's peppery
little president who served from 1923 thorugh(sic) 1957. He died two years ago.
Next year is my year, the 50th anniversary of the Class of 1937. I was class president, and this was the greatest honor
I ever had. - Before his retirement, Leftwitch was a state correspondent for The Tennessean.
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