BELLE — Fifty years after leaving Belle High School, members of the Class of 1976 returned to reconnect with people who had shared their classrooms, ballgames, band performances, campfires and childhoods.

The gathering at the Belle-Bland Community Center on Sept. 19 was as much about remembering classmates who could no longer attend as it was about celebrating those who returned.

An in-memoriam display honoring deceased members of the class became one of the reunion’s most emotional features. Classmates gathered around the display, shared memories and reflected on what those who are no longer with them might have thought about seeing their friends together again.

“I think they would love it,” Rita Lynn Brewer Schmidt said.

“They would,” Tricia Garstang Phelps added. “They’d love to be part of it, definitely.”

The classmates remembered the Class of 1976 as an active and close-knit group whose members supported one another at school events.

“It was the ’70s, remember?” Schmidt said. “So we were a party class.”

She clarified that she did not mean that negatively. The class was social, she said, and its members regularly showed up for one another.

“There was a ballgame, everyone was there,” Schmidt said. “No one missed any event or anything. We cheered each other on.”

Members of the class had participated in sports, cheerleading, band and other activities while in school. Schmidt said the relationships were strengthened by growing up in a small community where nearly everyone already knew one another.

“Most of them I either went to church with, or were related to, or just knew them from childhood,” she said. “That’s just the glory of being from a small town.”

Some of the most lasting memories came from moments away from school. Randall Lynn Phelps recalled campfires, laughter and the youthful mischief shared among classmates.

Phelps remembered chasing classmate Elmer Bacon, now deceased, around the clay piles when they were young.

“I was a lot bigger,” Phelps said, explaining that he had given Bacon the nickname “Playtoy.”

The story drew laughter from the classmates gathered around him and provided an example of the personal memories that endured long after graduation.

For Rhonda Lange Drewel, the reunion carried greater meaning than simply marking the passage of five decades.

Drewel said her husband, Doug Drewel, had asked why she wanted to attend a 50th class reunion.

“I said, ‘Those are my people,’” Drewel recalled. “The older I get, the more I want to connect with them. We’re not going to be here forever.”

Drewel said she believed the classmates who had died would have been impressed to see their friends continuing to gather after so many years.

“Fifty years is a long time,” she said.

The reunion also gave class members an opportunity to consider how Belle has changed since their graduation.

“Sometimes I look at Belle and I don’t see a lot of changes,” Drewel said. “And then another time, it’s like, ‘My gosh, things have changed so much.’”

Drewel grew up approximately one block from Main Street and said she was familiar with nearly everything happening in town. Today, many of the buildings and businesses she remembers are gone.

“It’s kind of sad, but Belle’s picking up,” Drewel said.

She also noted that people who left Belle to pursue careers and other opportunities are beginning to return as they approach retirement.

“It seems like everybody, when they retire, they kind of want to come home,” Drewel said.

Her own feelings about Belle have changed over the years. Drewel said there was a time when she was unhappy with the community, but she now recognizes the value of living in a small town where residents help one another during difficult circumstances.

“Now I wouldn’t change it for the world, because when there’s a disaster, everybody’s right there to help,” she said. “They love one another. Whether you could get along growing up or not, they love one another.”

That sense of connection was evident as members of the Class of 1976 looked through old photographs, remembered classmates and exchanged stories that had survived the passing years.

The faces, businesses and school buildings may have changed, but those attending the reunion said the bonds created while growing up together remain.

After 50 years, they were still one another’s people.