Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2007
It didn’t take long for Robin and Sandi Cross, graduates of John Nevins Andrews Elementary School, to see a familiar face at the school’s 100th anniversary celebration.
‘‘That’s our second-grade teacher, right there!” screamed Robin Cross, class of ’66, to her sister Sandi, class of ’65, as they stood on the steps of the Takoma Park Seventh-day Adventist Church. The Cross sisters were soon smiling, pointing and snapping photographs beside former classmates as their former teachers posed for a group photo.
Seeing old teachers opened a flood of memories, said Robin Cross, who now lives in Crofton. ‘‘They just shaped our characters,” she said. ‘‘That’s all.”
After the group photo was taken, the Cross sisters embraced their former teacher, Anne Bryan, once known to them by her maiden name as Ms. Peeke.
‘‘It’s such a thrill,” said Bryan, who worked at the school from 1956 to 1979 as a second-grade teacher and librarian. Bryan joked that she was paying attention to the nametags everyone wore. ‘‘So many of them are old like me and I don’t recognize them,” she said.
Students and faculty alumni from around the country returned to Takoma Park for Saturday’s event, which gave different generations an opportunity to reflect on how the small Adventist school has shaped their lives.
Founded in 1907 to provide local Adventist children with a Christian education, John Nevins Andrews was originally known as the Takoma Park Church School and located at 8 Columbia Ave. In 1938, it was rebuilt at its current location on 117 Elm Ave. and named after the first official Adventist missionary to Europe, John Nevins Andrews, who preached throughout Switzerland as a traveling evangelist in the 1870s.
The school’s centennial celebration included banquets for returning alumni, church services and an open house at the school, which serves kindergarten through sixth grade.
Those who came to the festivities ranged from current students and faculty to two members of the class of 1935. Richard Burns and Violet (Cole) Roe, entered the school in 1927, when it was still on Columbia Avenue and called the Takoma Park Church School.
‘‘When we first went there in ’27, there were three rooms,” said Roe, who came from Arlington, Va. She added that the fewer than 100 students who attended walked to school and knew one another.
Kathy (Potts) Russell said the education she received at John Nevins Andrews guided her throughout life, eventually leading her to work with the Carolina Conference of Seventh-day Adventists today. After attending as a student from 1967 to 1974, she taught at the school from 1989 to 1994.
‘‘It’s been a real blessing to be a part of the school,” she said. ‘‘My teachers all the way through showed their patience and care in nurturing me.”
Frank Bondurant Sr., class of ’52, attended John Nevins Andrews with five other siblings and sent his son and daughter. From 1938 to 1976, he said, there was a Bondurant at the school. They all had the same principal, Myriam Tymeson, who served from 1933 to 1978.
‘‘I’ll never forget what she told me,” said Bondurant, who now lives in Columbia. ‘‘She said, ‘Frank, the best you can get out of life is to have good health and good kids.’”
During the school’s open house, Bondurant guided his son Frank Jr., class of ’76, through his old class photo, mounted beside every graduating class since 1939 in the school’s main hallway.
‘‘Here’s my girlfriend right here,” he said while pointing to the picture. ‘‘There are some old memories there, I’m gonna tell you.”
Other alumni wandered through the classrooms. ‘‘The rooms look oddly smaller than when I was a student here,” said Julian Saucedo Wheeler, who attended from 1975 to 1980 and came from Seattle for the celebration.
David Waller, who has served as principal since 1998, said the school has always sought to provide a thorough education rooted in Christian teachings. Children of all faiths are welcome, but students are taught religion and participate in daily worship, said Waller, whose office wall had a bumper sticker that said ‘‘Real men love Jesus.”
After a series of additions from 1957 to 1972, the school now has a gymnasium, an outside playground and three stories of classrooms.
One of several remaining Adventist institutions in a city founded by the faith’s followers, the school has experienced a slow decline in enrollment, Haller said. When he arrived to serve as vice principal in 1982, the Adventist church’s world headquarters, known as the General Conference, and its publishing house, the Review and Herald Publishing Association, were based in Takoma Park. Both have moved, to Silver Spring and Hagerstown respectively, and Haller said enrollment has trended downward as a result of Adventists leaving the area.
Today, the school has 218 students and buses children from as far as Seabrook, Wheaton and Washington, D.C., so they can receive the same education John Nevins Andrews has provided for 100 years.
‘‘We’re working hard to keep it going,” Haller said. ‘‘We certainly are a long way from dead.”
