Milo Elementary celebrates six decades

By Stuart Hedstrom 
Staff Writer

    MILO — What began as a small building repair over the summer led to a 60th anniversary celebration for the Milo Elementary School, with the start of the school’s sixth decade honored on Feb. 12.
    “Over the summer we noticed that the outside recess bell was not working,” Secretary Susan Keith said. She explained school officials knew the bell had been in place since Milo Elementary opened in the mid-1950s but they were unsure of the exact date.

The Milo Elementary bell,
in use for the school’s first six decades

    “We went to the Milo Historical Society and asked when they thought the school opened and they said it was 1955,” Keith said, with Feb. 14, 1955 being the exact date students started to attend classes at Milo Elementary. The previous elementary school was located on what today is the site of Bailey Lumber on High Street and pupils ended up walking from the old building to the new facility in February 1955.
    Keith said upon learning of the approaching 60th anniversary of the opening of Milo Elementary, school officials began to plan a birthday celebration with the event taking place on Feb. 12 (Feb. 14 was on a Saturday).
    For the big day, staff member Katie Ladd, who also has the business Piece of Cake, donated a cake and the public was invited to attend a morning presentation that ended up lasting several hours. “We had staff members, former staff members from principals on down and students who had attended all through the years,” Keith said, in addition to the current K-5 pupils and many of their family members. She mentioned former SAD 41 Superintendent David Walker was in attendance to present the opening remarks and also at Milo Elementary were current district Superintendent Michael Wright and Assistant Superintendent Stacy Shorey.
    “We had a trivia game like ‘Jeopardy,’” Keith said, with questions such as what year was the addition put on — 1986 — and what was on the land before the school — a blueberry field.
     “Each of the grade levels did either a song or an essay,” Keith said. She explained all in attendance sang the “Milo School Song” with one of the songwriters, Cheana Herbest, present for the 60th birthday ceremony. 

The Milo Elementary 60th birthday cake,
made by staff member Katie Ladd
of Piece of Cake

    Keith said current teachers joined a group of “notables”, which was made of retired teachers, for a musical performance. “The kids loved seeing them sing,” she said. “The older kids got to see some of their former teachers.”
    Posted on the wall was a timeline chronicling 60 years of Milo Elementary. Keith said the timeline was made up of various newspaper articles from the mid-1950s through the rest of the 20th century and the first decade and a half of the 21st century.
    Keith said current and former students wrote essays and “they were all so touching.”
    Lil Costello, who currently is a senior at the Maine School of Science and Mathematics in Limestone, wrote that she transferred to Milo Elementary in second grade. “I remember being afraid of going to a public school and of having to make new friends and to meet new teachers. I remember being worried that Mainers would treat me different because I was from away or because I was a different sort of 7-year-old. Thus when the teachers welcomed we warmly, and the students allowed me to befriend them, you can imagine my joy and surprise! Milo Elementary School became the warm community that I needed to foster my early education, and boy I’m glad it did.”
    Costello also wrote, “This community has given me so much, and I am truly proud to say I graduated from Milo Elementary. I can only hope that this culture of caring and belief will continue far into the future. And from the new teachers and administrators I’ve met, I have no doubt it will.”
    Current Penquis Valley High School senior RyAnne Young wrote, “Attending kindergarten might not have meant as much to you at that age, unless you had Mrs. Carey, Mrs. Walker and Mrs. Green guiding you along and making it unforgettable. Every day here at Milo Elementary was made so much fun because of the teachers I had and the fresh start they gave me to start my school years. I cherish every step I took in these hallways as a kindergartener, now standing here as a senior I’m proud to say I attended school here.”
    “What MES means to me is that it is where my family grew up and I am the third generation here,” fifth-grader Raven Lee Sawyer wrote. “I am just so happy that for 60 years my family has been going here and growing up and getting scholarships in the town of Milo. To me it means I am part of something bigger than just a school. I am part of a community. I hope that someday I can be part of something great because of Milo Elementary School.”
    “I love Milo Elementary because every day you walk into the room and see your friends’ smiling faces,” grade 4 student Katelynn Lunn wrote. “Milo Elementary is my favorite school, not because of the things we do, but because of all the friends and amazing teachers we get to see every day.”
    “The teachers here want us to learn” fifth-grader Trinity Moulton Moors wrote. “Some kids around the world don’t get to go to school so I think of learning as a privilege. This school is amazing to me because it is all about learning.”