The reunion will open Thursday with a luncheon for the scientific class of 1877, according to Mrs. Eva McKay, Lebanon, secretary of the reunion association. Harry D. Aultman, Xenia, superintendent of the Green co. schools, is chairman of the first event.

Speakers scheduled for Thursday's program include J. E. Brate, Hamilton attorney, and Judge H. H. Tye, Williamsburg, Ky. Judge Ty is a graduate of the class of 1887 and Brate of the class of 1892.

The big day of the reunion is Friday when Myers Y. Cooper, former governor of Ohio, president of the reunion association, will preside. Concluding the program will be a banquet Friday at 6:30 p.m. at which Cooper will be toastmaster. Among the speakers for the banquet will be Dr. Walter L. Collins, Wilmington college, Dr. H. E. Cunningham, president of Holbrook college, which was organized at Lebanon in 1933 but later moved to Manchester; Judge Tye; Judge A. T. Siler, Williamsburg, Ky.; Mrs. Frances Richards of Miami university; Clarence J. Brown, Blanchester publisher, former secretary of state; John W. Bricker, former Ohio attorney general, and Dean E. Stanley, Lebanon attorney.

Professor Fletcher Hawk, Lebanon, a former instruction of the school, who was 80 years old last April, will not be able to attend the reunion this year as he is in ill health. We was graduated from the school with the classics class of 1896 and taught languages and other subjects after his graduation. He left the school for a time, returning in 1901 , and remained until 1914, when he retired from the teaching profession.

The oldest former student of the school, Mrs. Sarah Morris, 84, Lebanon, however, plans to attend the exercises. Mrs. Morris is a member of the class of 1872.

Among the thousands who registered at National Normal university from the time Marian Crosley, uncle of Powel Crosley, jr., president of the Crosley Radio Corp., who was the first student to register in the Lebanon institution, many have been outstanding in their work.

Former students include Cordell L. Hull, secretary of state; who was enrolled there in 1889 and 1890; former Governor Cooper, former Governor and Senator Hatfield of West Virginia, former Senator Robinson of Kentucky, Judge Charles Malsbary of Cincinnati, John W. Withers, dean of the College of Education of New York university, and Dr. Cunningham, president of Alfred Holbrook college.

Fifty years ago when Lebanon was in its prime, the schools attracted students from all over the country and was the greatest normal school in the middle-west.

The institution was established by Alfred Holbrook and his wife. A convention was held at the Miami university at Oxford to determine where the proposed normal school should be built. Lebanon was selected and nearly 400 teachers organized themselves into a group called the Southwestern Normal association to maintain the normal school until the time the state could take it over. Instead of erecting a new building, it was decided to remodel the Lebanon academy building, which had been built in 1845. [Our Warren County Genealogical Society resource center is located in this building at present.]

At that time, tuition was unbelievably low in comparison to what is now asked in a high class school. For two or three dollars a week, a student could have his board, room and instruction.

On November 24, 1855, the school opened with the registration of 95 pupils, 90 of whom were residents of Lebanon. The school grew by leaps and bounds and in 1881, the year in which began the period of greatest success in the school, there were 1850 pupils in attendance. Nearly every state and territory in the Union was represented. In 1870 the name was changed to National Normal school and 11 years later it became National Normal university. In 1907 the school became known as Lebanon University.

Notwithstanding the large enrollment, the school underwent a period of financial distress about 1890. It was immediately reorganized and a board of directors was named to control affairs of the school. Until that time, Prof. Holbrook had been in complete charge. Not long after, the Professor went to Southern Normal university in Tennessee.

With Prof. Holbrook's departure, Lebanon university started to decline and it was never able to retrieve its lost dignity. After spending several years in the south, Prof. Holbrook returned to Lebanon where he lived his last years close to the scene of his labor. He died at the age of 93 years on April 16, 1909. Lebanon university passed out of existence about five years later, but on the anniversary of the professor's birthday, in 1916, hundreds of the old alumni returned to observe the day.

Later the reunion association was organized and the memory of the famous school kept alive with annual reunions.

[Editor's note: A copy of the above article was sent to us by member Judy Tooman of Colorado Springs in response to our resource center being located in the Academy Building while the new Warren County Record Center is being built and the former Probate Courthouse is being remodeled. Judy's great-grandmother is the Sarah Bell Jones Morris mentioned as being a graduate of the class of 1872, and the oldest alumna likely to attend the 1937 reunion.]

This page created 21 October 2014 and last updated 22 October, 2014
© 2014 Arne H Trelvik  All rights