By Patricia Bogumil
Editor
Back in the old days – when school room and board cost $10 a week, student dating was frowned upon and teachers earned a good monthly salary of one or two hundred bucks – the Racine County School of Agriculture and Domestic Economy offered a practical education on the values of farm life to boys and girls from Racine and nearby counties.
On Saturday, Sept. 15, about 250 Aggies and their spouses will celebrate their years together and after during an all-school reunion in Racine.
The reunion will draw in students from 11 states, representing classes from 1934 to 1962.
The Ag School, which was funded and operated by the County of Racine, operated in Rochester from 1912 to 1959.
Its students included those who boarded on campus in a dormitory, those who commuted by horse and buggy, automobile or electric train and local kids from Rochester who walked or rode horseback to school.
The school’s list of alumni reads like a “who’s who” of area farm, business and governmental names, including (but far from limited to) Squire, Ranke, Overson, Rowntree, Noble, Jacobson, Kortendick, Greeley, Hoppe, Kempken, Sorenson, Hansen, Naber, Yahnke, Reesman, Mealy, Rehberg, Sohns, Sheard, DeBack and Bennett.
The school’s alumni include many U.S. veterans from several wars, including Ed Bennett, who played on the Aggie’s first basketball team of 1912 and who was killed in action in World War I.
The oldest member of this year’s reunion is Warren Hansen, 96, from the Class of 1934, who lives in Mukwonago.
The reunion starts Saturday at 11 a.m. at Roma Lodge, Racine.
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