Alumni committee members Mary June Grier Goodson, Class of 1960 (left), and Cheryl Gregg Coats, Class of 1974, promoted the upcoming Original Dixie All-School Reunion from a float in the Tyler Christmas Parade last December. The reunion will be held from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday at Christian Heritage School (CHS). Dixie School/Dixie Elementary alums from 1924 to 1978, and CHS families, are invited to attend.

Alumni of a campus that opened in the 1920s, and families of the organization that currently occupies the site, will gather on Saturday, June 4 at Christian Heritage School (CHS) to reminisce about reading, writing and arithmetic back in the “good ‘ol days,” as well as celebrate education today.

Dixie Through the Decades is the theme of the 2022 Original Dixie All-School Reunion, which is coordinated by a volunteer group of alums that attended the original Dixie School / Dixie Elementary in the 1950s through 1978.

The free event will be held from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at CHS, 961 CR 1143, Tyler. It will include a 9 a.m. assembly in the gym, displays, campus tour, and games. Dixie alumni (1924-1978) and families currently with children attending CHS are invited to attend.

More than 400 alumni attended the first Original Dixie All-School Reunion, held in June 2019. Reunions were not held in 2020 or 2021 due to COVID-19.

CHS Principal Jeff Schapansky will open the assembly.

“We were so thrilled to have ‘our’ principal, Mr. Arless Wilson, and his wife, attend the previous reunion,” said Kenneth Blundell of Chapel Hill, a member of the Original Dixie All-School Alumni Committee. “I attended Dixie Elementary with his son, Doug. Mr. Wilson was principal at the Dixie Drive school, then moved to what we call ‘New’ Dixie when it opened on Patton Lane.”

“The committee thought it’d be fun to start the 2019 reunion with an assembly in the iron ore gymnasium. Mr. Wilson was asked to lead the Pledge of Allegiance. That was so neat to see. Took a lot of us back to our youth,” added Blundell, who also attended Hilltop Church of the Nazarene with Mr. Wilson.

Arless Wilson died on Oct. 23, 2021, so this year’s planning committee has asked CHS Principal Jeff Schapansky to open the assembly, appropriately set in the same gymnasium, with prayer and the pledge.

“Jeff, his wife, and the CHS staff have lovingly taken care of our beloved elementary, and are educating children from kindergarten through 12th grade on a campus that does not divide state and school. They have been fabulous to partner with. We are beyond grateful that they are allowing us to host another reunion,” said Cheryl Gregg Coats of Shreveport, president of the Original Dixie All-School Alumni Committee.

Coats added that one of the announcements at the reunion assembly will award a scholarship to an incoming CHS senior.

“This will be the first year to gift a Living Legacy Memorial Scholarship. It is the Dixie committee’s hope that it will help a family with tuition for the 2022-2023 school year,” Coats said.

The scholarship honors past Dixie leaders and is made possible by donations from Dixie alums.

In 1924, the two-teacher rural schools of Pleasant Retreat, Black Fork, and Spring Hill, consolidated into one campus located on farmland east of Dixie Drive and what soon became Tyler’s original airport, Pounds Field. Named Dixie School by its trustees, the campus housed elementary and junior high classrooms, and then students completed high school at Tyler High.

In 1956, Tyler ISD incorporated Dixie School into its system and renamed the campus Dixie Elementary. TISD operated what alumni call “the original Dixie” until opening its current Dixie Elementary, located at 213 Patton Lane, in the fall of 1978. The Original Dixie All-School Reunion only honors alumni of the first campus, thus those in attendance from 1924 to 1978. The alumni planning committee does not represent TISD or its current Dixie Elementary.

Youth With A Mission purchased the former Dixie School campus, and established the Christian Heritage School in 1980. With a few exceptions, the CHS campus looks much like the Dixie School of the past.

CHS is a K-12 private school, and its staff are missionaries. For information on Christian Heritage School, visit chstyler.org.

For more information regarding Saturday’s reunion, leave a message at (903) 597-4879 for Karla Haynes of Tyler, vice-president of the Original Dixie All-School Alumni Committee.

Theme: Dixie Through The Decades

When: Saturday; 8:30 a.m. registration; 9 a.m. assembly; 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. fellowship

Where: Christian Heritage School, 961 County Road 1143, Tyler

Information: (903) 597-4879