Picture of the past: One senior class’ search to find their missing portrait

WEST POINT, Miss. (WCBI) – It’s a portrait of more than 50 years in the making.

In 1969, the last senior class graduated from 5th Street School in West Point before it turned into a junior high.

It was after a class reunion that the alumni realized their senior portrait was missing from the wall.

Some of those former students talked about the search for a different portrait and why this journey is significant to them.

Lined down the hallways of most schools are pictures of the people who walked through those same doors but it was after a reunion that the last graduating class of 5th Street School noticed their original portrait was gone.

“Our class portrait that stays with the school was lost and us being in college or the military or whatever we didn’t know it until we started coming back to the school and all we saw on the wall was the class of ’68,” said Class President James Cannon.

Now, more than 50 years later, those former students were determined to get their class picture back on the wall.

Cannon said it wasn’t without a few hurdles and the need for modern-day technology.

“We sought to find out what we could do to get our portrait up there. They had a little temporary one up there, real small and you couldn’t even see the faces in the picture, so we finally got with a company that said ‘Hey, we can reproduce that on the computer and your pictures will come out clear and the size of a poster board.’ So, we did it, and after 54 years, we finally got our class portrait,” said Cannon.

Eddie Quinn said having a grand-sized portrait symbolizes a common goal for the class of ’69.

“It’s so pleasant that we assembled ourselves because it is so important about education because we know that now a mind is a terrible thing to waste and we are blessed to be blessed be here,” said Quinn.

A picture-perfect way to reminisce about the people they grew up with, the peers they studied with, and the class they will never forget.

“Most of those people in that picture went to school from grades one to 12. Now, of course, we’ve lost about 20 of our classmates but now that we have the picture up there it’s not so bad, but I wish they could have been here today to see this,” said Cannon.

The class of 1969 is excited for their next class reunion so that everyone can see the new portrait.

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