PORT ANGELES – When Violet Winters Grall, 84, was a student at Fairview School, it had only two rooms.
The different classes were defined by rows in the rooms.
Grall will join other Fairview alumni and former teachers Saturday to celebrate the school’s 100th anniversary and say goodbye.
The elementary school’s last day will be June 21.
The Port Angeles School District is closing the school because of declining enrollment in the district.
Saturday’s celebration will be from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. at the school, 166 Lake Farm Road.
Grall attended classes in the original school building at 43 O’Brien Road for eight years in the 1920s and ’30s.
That building housed the school from its first school year in 1906-’07 until the Lake Farm Road site was built in 1973.
The O’Brien Road building now houses Olympic Christian School, which also will be open for tours on Saturday from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m.
Grall started school at age 7, right after the school began holding classes in two rooms instead of only one.
“I went from grades one to four in that one room and then, when it came time to go to the new room, the teachers switched rooms,” Grall said.
“So I went all the way from first until eighth grade in the same room.”
She also drove a school bus for Fairview at its new location.
Grall and others will get together to see a short presentation, take tours of the current building and have a reunion of parents, teachers and students who had a connection to Fairview throughout its 100 years, said Marcia Winters Horner, who coordinated the event.
