Distant futures, same roots: Old friends gather at Stanton
By Daniel Arens
Friends who have not seen one another for years at a time had the opportunity to gather again.
For Lee James Suess and Oscar Slinder, much of life’s early adventures were done together. Now living in California and Washington State, the friends found one another again in the small North Dakota town where they grew up.
Stanton held its all-school reunion this weekend, and a couple hundred people came up to take part in the planned festivities. There were banquets and parades and dances and races. But most important, there were tons of conversations among old friends.
Suess and Slinder were the first students to graduate from the “new” Stanton school in 1955, what is now Coal Country Inn along Harmon Ave.
“We spent our whole Christmas vacation in 1954 moving everything to the new school and getting it ready,” Suess said.
The old school building was located just behind the location of the new one, north of where Coal Country Inn currently sits.
The friends still recalled the old school, especially being on the basketball team.
