BRADY — Brady's annual Western Days celebration is getting a new addition this year — an all-school reunion honoring graduates from Brady High School's first class in 1929 through its last graduating class in 2005. The event runs July 17-19.
Barb Coffman, a 1987 Brady High School graduate, helped organize the reunion, which is being held in conjunction with Western Days.
"We talked about waiting until it was for the 100th year for the school, you know, in 2029. But everybody would be three years older and we would have lost more people by then. So we decided just to do it now," Coffman said.
The reunion will be held inside the Brady Community Hall, which has been decorated in orange and black with trophies and achievements on display.
"There's even a record that they made of the marching band from 1965," Coffman said.
(WATCH: Brady's Western Days celebrates community history with all school reunion)
A table of Bulldog jerseys will be free for the taking, along with yearbooks from almost every academic year. Organizers will also be selling a special reunion book.
"It has history, a little bit of history in it, and history about the school from beginning to end. And then it has all the graduates from 1929 through 2005," Coffman said.
Janice Farkell, a 1972 Brady graduate and the unofficial Pondera County historian, collected biographies for the reunion book.
"I'm still just struck by every single one of them, how they have such good memories of growing up in this community," Farkell said.
Farkell is also working on a military tribute for veterans who once called Brady home. Her 1972 class was one of the school's larger ones, with 27 students.
"My great-grandpa was the custodian for 25 years, and great aunts and uncles and we just have a closeness. And yes, a lot of us are related and proud of it," Farkell said.
Western Days will also feature food, music and entertainment at Dusty's Bar, a pancake breakfast, a parade, a cornhole tournament, and a reunion dinner and program on Saturday night, July 19, inside the Brady Community Hall. A complete list of Western Days events can be found on the organization's Facebook page.
"Brady will be a buzz, it will come alive again," Coffman said.
Brady High School has been closed since 2008.
