(PHS - click to enlarge)
Payette Idaho  
Pirates 

Reunions: 40th  35th  30th  20th  10th
Recent photos The Way We Were Yearbook photos Grade school photos Old Payette photos Payette history Links In Memoriam Class info

  Hi everybody, Eric Pence here. I created this page several years (and reunions) ago and I will try to add to it when I have new things to show. It started out as a page devoted my my PHS class of 1966, but I have broadened it to cover all things relating to Payette.  Email me if you have any suggestions or requests.

Our next reunion, the 45th, will be held  October 7- 8, 2011—mark your calendar!

Remember the armory dances we attended in our high school years? Check this out!   Ontario Armory Dance 1962-1972 PHS Reunion

In October, 2005, I attended (as did several others from our class) the 40th reunion of the class of '65. Their reunion committee—Nancy Iseri, Wanda (Swigart) Newton, Ron White, Anita (Fallon) Smith, Clint Selover—deserves a lot of credit for doing a real outstanding job. Everybody looked wonderful and it was a blast for me to visit with so many people I hadn't seen since we were at PHS! I was told I am welcome to attend their future reunions and I want them to know the invitation goes both ways. Some of the members of the '65 class have regular outings in the Boise area on the 3rd Tuesday of most months. I keep hoping to get to one of these. They have an open invitation to PHS graduates of other classes.

Click on any image on this page to see fullsize.   Some will look better if you have automatic image resizing turned off.

The school demolition, 2005

The school had been condemned for awhile and was finally torn down. My thanks to Ron Shurtleff for these photos.

40th reunion, 2006

  Our 40th reunion was held August 4th & 5th. Maggie did most of the work herself, with a little help from Skip and others. The Friday night registration was held at the Scotch Pines Golf Course clubhouse (like previous reunions) but the clubhouse was booked for a golf tournament on Saturday so the Saturday night banquet was at the Nichols Steak House in Fruitland. One of our favorite teachers, James Johnson, attended with his wife, Leora, and they were welcomed by all of us. Several of us went to the Ontario Armory on Saturday afternoon and reminisced about those great dances and took some pictures (see below). The PHS class of 1971 is having a reunion dance. What a great idea! Also on Saturday we attended a tour at the Four Rivers Cultural Center in Ontario where we learned a lot about the multi-cultural history of the valley.

Put the mouse over the following pictures to see the names of who's in the photos (I'm showing high school names for women).
Friday night...

Saturday...
    At the Ontario Armory

Saturday night...

 

Several of us had cameras and I will post more pictures as I receive them!

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35th reunion, 2001

  Our 35th reunion was held the weekend of August 4th, 2001, at the Scotch Pines Golf Course clubhouse. It was organized by Maggie (Snook) Heide, who did an excellent job, and it consisted primarily of 3 events—the traditional Friday night social, the Saturday night banquet, and the Sunday brunch. At the banquet Maggie entertained us with a program of trivia questions about our high school days using her usual charming wit!  Thanks again, Mags!  We were having so much fun catching up with each other's lives that on Friday and Saturday nights some of us didn't get to bed until after 2:30am (I heard even later for some)!  On Saturday we had a tour of our old high school, now a middle school, during which we sat in the bleachers in the gym and sang (with a little prompting) the school fight song, amazing many of us that we still remembered the words after 35 years!  We had a good turnout—I think Maggie said 45 of our graduating class of 99 came to the reunion, some for the first time. Many photos were taken, and I will try to post them here as I get them.

Here are some reunion photos from Kathy Watanabe's digital camera...

Here are Skip Cockerum's photos.

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30th reunion, 1996

  I went to this reunion without my family, so I spent lots of time catching up with my classmates' lives. This was the first reunion where several of us exchanged email addresses, and we have continued to stay in touch, which really helped in the planning of the next reunion.

These are some snapshots I took at the Sunday brunch...

  More coming...

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20th reunion, 1986

  This was the first reunion I attended, and I was unprepared for the emotional impact. I had not not realized the deepness of the bonds I shared with many of my classmates – going through adolescence with them, and even 12 years of public school with some. I moved cross-country several years after graduation, and my parents moved to Boise, making my ties to Payette pretty remote, so I had lost touch with pretty much everybody. I had a smile on my face and tears in my eyes for pretty much the entire weekend of the reunion. Patti went with me and we had our 9-month-old, Alex.

These were taken at the Sunday picnic in the Kiwanis Park...

  More coming...

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10th reunion, 1976

  I didn't attend this reunion but I did get the reunion booklet from Terry Adams. I lived 2,500 miles away in Boston, and it also seemed that I had recently seen many of my classmates anyway. I want to thank Mollie (Davidson) Minow, one of my regular email correspondents, for sending me this scanned picture.

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Recent photos

Karen (Bates) Cartwright and husband Ron

Wynn White and his children Weston & Flora visit Skip Cockerum in Oregon

Eric Pence and Mollie (Davidson) Minow, at the old Davidson homestead on 1st Ave. S.
(now refurbished and lived in by Mollie's brother, Roland)

Mollie (Davidson) Minow, Melanie (Glover) Turner, and Melanie's son, Jason

Maggie (Snook) Heide, Skip Cockerum (with Ernie), and Kathy (Handley) Wagers

Wynn White, taken by his son Weston in front a gallery in Japan

Daniel Ortega, with his sons Jordan and Tyler

Jane (McHaffie) Blyseth, with Carina and Elizabeth on a trip to Turkey

Polly (Nicholson) Van Camp, and granddaughter Malea Rose

Dennis Carson and family, Thanksgiving 1995

Bill Chalke and his mother

Mike and Lyla (Graden) Aldrich

Mr. & Mrs. James Johnson's 50th wedding anniversary, October, 2001.

For my photos see the Gallery page.

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The Way We Were...

  Photos (and above title) from Marlena (Harper) Bertholl.

Here we are on the steps in front of the gym, 1966
A group of us in the park, 1966
8th grade band, also on the steps in front of the gym

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Yearbook photos

Here are our senior pictures from the 1966 yearbook, "The Axe," and our 7th grade pictures from the 1961 yearbook, "The Treasure Chest." We were so young then! They are scanned in a page at a time.
For best viewing make sure your automatic image resizing is turned off in your browser.

  View 1966 Axe photos   View 1961 Treasure Chest photos   (Thanks to Karen Bates Cartwright for these!)

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Grade school photos

Eastside
  I have scanned in my class pictures from my years at Eastside, 1954-1960. Sadly, the building is gone now. I will put other class photos here if anyone has them.
Thanks to Janet (Seaweard) Jarboe for her 2nd grade photo of Mrs. Schwartz's class.

 
  1st grade
Miss Hisa		 2nd grade
Mrs. Hickerson		 2nd grade
Mrs. Schwartz		 3rd grade
Mrs. Barrett		 4th grade
Mrs. Hill		 5th grade
Mrs. Betts		 6th grade
Mrs. Williams

Westside
  These photos are from Marlena (Harper) Bertholl.

   1st & 2nd grade      3rd & 4th grade   


5th grade

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Old Payette photos

  Many of these are from postcards I picked up at the Payette County Historical Society museum, which is located at the corner of N 9th St. and 1st Ave. South, across from Central Park. The museum occupies the building that was the First Methodist Church when I was growing up. It contains many artifacts of my heritage that bring back memories of my childhood.

Payette high school, pre-fire, when it had a full 3rd floor
Payette high school, before the gym was added
Eastside elementary school, now gone
looking up main street, 1920s
looking up main street, 1940s
looking up main street, 1960s
the old library
the old Town Hall
Bancroft Hotel, now gone
Union Pacific railroad depot, now gone (the statue went to Central Park for awhile)
Central Park
Harris Kiwanis Park
the Post Office
YMCA building, previously located catty-corner from the Post Office
Old, old Payette
the old Ritz Theater
First Methodist Church (now the Payette County Historical Society building)
1924 May Day parade (note the flagrant display of KKK marchers!)
Payette National Bank, 1910
Peter Pence, my great grandfather, a Payette pioneer
Albert Lloyd Pence, my grandfather and a Payette resident, who died when I was 5

Payette County Photo Album – more old photos of Payette

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Payette history

    Here is some information I have collected that I thought belonged on this page.


The City of Payette is located in Payette County at the confluence of the Payette and Snake Rivers, approximately three miles north of Fruitland and ten miles south of Weiser (in Washington County) at an elevation of 2,150 feet. 		 
"Payette" is named for Francois Payette, the good-hearted postmaster for the Hudson’s Bay Company at Fort Boise, which was just upriver on the Snake. He was known as a generous friend to Oregon-bound emigrants in the 1840s.1
 

In the 1800s, Payette was a panorama of sagebrush and bunch grass covering rolling hillsides. The first white man to settle in the region was Francois Payette, a French Canadian, who came from Quebec in 1812. In 1867, James Toombs established the first principal settlement, the Payette Store, and from this small beginning a thriving town began to develop. A few years later, Peter Pence [my great-grandfather] brought the first cattle to the area, introduced hops to Payette, and grew peaches, and built dams and irrigation ditches. A. B. Moss arrived in the valley in 1881. He supplied ties to the Union Pacific Railroad and shipped the first fruit from the area in 1891. Thus began the long history of Payette as an agricultural center.2

In 1891, the City was incorporated and became the Payette County seat in 1917. Today, Payette is home to 7,434 (2005) residents with anticipated growth to a thriving City of over 12,700 (2030).


1 Bill Loftus, Idaho Handbook, February 1992 (page 157)
2 "Payette, City Center Plan", Planmakers, November 1985, page 4.
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Links
     Class of '66
Wynn White Photography – Wynn White
     Vandyke Notes – Wynn's article on using the Vandyke process
     Wynn's Gallery at Profotos.com
     Wynn's albums at Clubphoto.com – some family photos here
Skipio's – Skip Cockerum
ART in FLUX – Cheryl Shurtleff
     Cheryl's faculty page at BSU
Davidson Family – Mollie (Davidson) Minow
Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall – Make a virtual rubbing of Scott Flint's name
Health Enhancement: A Journey to Wellness – Mike and Lyla Aldrich
Ortega Home Page – Daniel Ortega
Curb and Vent Manufacturing – Mike Frazier
PENCELAND.com – Eric Pence (you are here now)
     Other classes
Payette Class of 67 – this reunion site was created by Tom Zumwalt and has many great photos
Payette High School Class of 1982
L and S Enterprises (fun·and·fab.com) – Linda Barrie (class of '65)
     Payette
City of Payette – the town website
Payette Chamber of Commerce
McCain Student Articles – the work of former 7th and 8th grade students from McCain Middle School
     Payette High School Fire of 1956 – this event caused many students to attend school in other locations one year
     McCain Middle School History Quiz – many of these questions relate to our old high school building that became the middle school
Payette High School – the current high school link
     Payette History
Payette County Historical Society
Payette County Idaho GenWeb Project – great site with lots of historical and current information
     Boomerang – about the founding of the town
     Early Mayors of Payette
     Payette County Photo Album – more old photos of Payette
     Peter Pence biography – my great grandfather, a Payette pioneer
     Other
City of Fruitland
New Plymouth, Idaho
Presque Isle High School Class of 1982 Reunion Site – the best reunion site I have seen
Wy'East High--HOME – another great high school website

  Also see Childhood associations on my Friends page.

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In Memoriam

  Several of our classmates have passed away since high school.
If you have further information you wish to contribute, or you want to write something about any of them here, please contact me.

 

Janice Adams 		2004*
Janice attended the 35th reunion. 		 
John Brotherton

Letha Brown 		 
Frank Crowder 		1981*

Stacey Dewey 		Car accident, McCall, 1972*
Stacey was a good friend of mine in high school. 		 
Scott Flint 		Vietnam, 1967
Scott is listed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, DC,
  at Panel 19E - Line 117 (here is a pencil rubbing I made),
  and on the VVMF Virtual Wall (his profile with photo I uploaded).

Warren Meador 		 
Keith Reitz 		Vietnam, 1970
Finished high school in Stotts City, MO.
Keith is listed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, DC,
  at Panel 13W - Line 101,
  and on the VVMF Virtual Wall (his profile).
 
* SSDI – I obtained some of the dates of death here

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Classmates' information

  Here is a list of the people in the PHS class of 1966 and some additional information. Please contact me with any updates you want to make.
I am trying to present the info in a way that won't violate your privacy or get you spammed.