Brenda Lesueur is among those organising the reunion of the first class to go through South Dubbo High School.

While there were 45 in the graduating cohort, Ms Lesueur said there were about 150 who were part of the class at some stage. Of those, she’s managed to get in touch with about 50 or 60.

“People have spread far and wide, that’s why we’ve started a long way out. We’ve given them time to try and get here. Not a lot of people still live here,” she said.

The reunion will be held the weekend of October 25, 2019. Ms Lesueur said there would be a weekend of activities, hopefully including a tour of the school.

It was a unique group who graduated from South Dubbo High School in 1969.

“From the time the South Dubbo cohort were in sixth class we were told that we were going to be a special group because we were going to be at a new school. The pressure was actually on from the 1930s because Dubbo High was the only high school and their numbers were enormous,” Ms Lesueur said.

For year 7, the class was taught out of Dubbo High School. The following year they were housed in the oldest buildings at Dubbo Central Primary School with a small but dedicated staff, Ms Lesueur said, before they got their own building.

“There were no class photos taken between 1964 and 1967, which is a shame. We were a new school so we had no resources. We had nothing,” she said.

However they were a close-knit group of students. Ms Lesueur said she still get a Christmas card every year from one of her former teachers.

“We’re a very small group for a year 12 these days and we did very well. We had lots of people who got scholarships and most people went on to tertiary education,” she said.

“For a small group we did very well, and our staff were just so dedicated. Because we started with nothing everybody had to reinvent the wheel and they all went above and beyond the call of duty.”

While there had been a ten year reunion and small friend groups often met up, Ms Lesueur said the 50^th would be the first time the entire cohort had gotten together since then.

The hardest part of the process was finding the former South Dubbo High School teachers, Ms Lesueur said. Everyone had been making calls to try and track down the remaining 100 or so students and staff they had yet to contact.

Students from the South Dubbo High School class of 1969 or teachers should contact Brenda Lesueur on 0409 663 081 or send an email to blesueur20@gmail.com.