BUCHANAN — Good friends and good memories were the order of the day at Saturday’s 32nd annual Buchanan Area Rural School Reunion. Nearly two dozen alumni of Buchanan area one-room and rural schools gathered at the Buchanan Area Senior Center for their annual reunion.

Twenty-one one-room and rural schools once operated in the Buchanan area from the 1850s through the 1960s when the last ones closed and consolidated into the Buchanan school system. Most of the schools were one-room schools with students in kindergarten through eighth grades all studying in the same room.

Virginia Firehammer Behnke went to the Kansas School through the fourth grade and remembers those years fondly. Kansas School was located on Bertrand Road between Orange Road and Red Bud Trail. It had two rooms, one for kindergarten through third and the other for fourth through eighth.

“They closed the school when I was in the fourth grade, and then I went to Stark Elementary in Buchanan,” she said. “We always rode our bikes or walked to [Kansas] school. When we had to drive to Buchanan to go to school, it seemed so long.”

Behnke now lives in Berrien Springs and came to Saturday’s reunion with her husband, David, who grew up in South Bend.

“In my grade, there were only four of us most of the time,” she said. “People always used to say that we didn’t learn as much in the rural schools, but I felt I did.”

Joyce Ferris went to both the Kansas and Miller schools.

“I went through the eighth grade and then went to Buchanan High School,” she said. “It was definitely a lot different when I got to high school. There were a whole lot of kids there. … The country schools were really comfortable. Everyone was like family. I definitely learned more. We would learn not only our lessons but also the lessons of the students in other grades.”

Fred Moore came to the reunion with his daughters, Linda and Pat. Fred went to Broceus School, while his daughters went to Wagner and Indian Hills. Pat Moore is a doctor and the current Buchanan mayor, while Linda Moore will soon retire from Hillsdale College where she is a librarian.

“I think the one-room and rural schools made learning easier,” Linda Moore said. “We were learning what the kids ahead of us were learning, and it made it easier when it came our turn for those lessons.”

Don Holmes has been organizing the reunion for the last 10 years. He attended Broceus School. Saturday, he once again served as master of ceremonies in what he said might be his last year leading the reunion as he turns 92 next month.

Holmes collects donations every year from area businesses to give out as door prizes and to support the reunion. He related how he got an unexpected donation this year from a group of 12 women visiting a Baroda winery from Chicago.

“They said they would help me and gave me $74,” he said. “I can’t thank them enough for their generosity. We now have over $200, which is enough to rent out the senior center for the next four reunions.”

Buchanan District Library archivist Peter Lysy was the guest speaker. Lysy, the archivist at the University of Notre Dame, volunteers at the library and runs the local history room. He reported that the library accepts photographs and other materials from local families, businesses and organizations and stores them for the community.

“We collect materials and make them available,” he said. “We can help people find information about their families and the community or do research for them. I don’t handle documents anymore at Notre Dame, so it’s fun to be able to do this at the library.”

The rural school reunion is hosted every year for those who attended Bakertown, Broceus, Cedar Lane/Thompson, Colvin, Coveney, Currier, Dayton Lake, Gardner, Geyer, Gitchell, Holmes, Howe, Kansas, Kelsey (Lake Chapin), Mead, Miller, Oak Forrest (Pollywog), Rangeline/DeMott, Womer and Wagner schools.