The school’s doors were wide open to alumni one last time at the school’s annual ice cream social.
The past and present collided last night when generations of students and staff from Evans Elementary School filled the halls to celebrate the school’s 60th anniversary and say their goodbyes before the school closes at the end of this school year.
The doors at the school are set to close as a cost-saving measure by Evesham’s BOE in response to declining enrollment district-wide, with private school operator Y.A.L.E. School set to start renting the school over a five-year period as an additional source of revenue for the district.
Yet before that happens, those at Evans decided to throw the school’s doors wide open one last time by expanding invitations to its annual ice cream social to all student and staff alumni from the past six decades.
Hundreds young and old filled the school’s grounds to tour the building, see old faces, tire themselves out on the playground and enjoy their fare share of ice cream.
Evans Principal Nick DiBlasi described the event as a fitting end for Evans and said he wasn’t surprised by the turnout, which saw crowds start to arrive at the event before the 6:30 p.m. start time and stay well past the event’s scheduled end an hour and a half later.
“The school has always had a really special kind of community spirit, and I think this is one of those nights where people can just come out and talk like community and have fun,” DiBlasi said.
From his research, DiBlasi said Evans was built in 1956 to house the district’s growing need for a middle school, with additional, younger classes sometimes at the school for short periods of time through the mid-1970s when Marlton Middle School was completed. DiBlasi said Evans then became the elementary school it is today, with additional wings built over the years as needed.
“Evans has been that school that everyone remembers playing basketball at, or playing in the fields — it’s just the oldest school still kicking,” DiBlasi said. “I think there’s a lot of nostalgia when it comes to school and elementary school in general.”
Several walls within the school were lined with blank pieces of paper where students and staff were encouraged to write farewell messages and recall their favorite memories of the school.
Payton Ogen, an Evans alumnus and current sixth-grade student at DeMasi Middle School, said some of his favorite memories included designing a t-shirt for the school in third grade and the time last year when he won for his essay and speech as part the school’s Law Enforcement Against Drugs program.
“I was hoping my teacher would pick me as one the possible winners for our poster contest, and he said he couldn’t pick me because I was actually the essay winner and I went crazy and the whole class just clapped,” Ogen said.
Another of the many former Evans students out for the event was Katie Humbert, who attended the school from 1992 through 1996 and described Evans as “the best school ever.”
Humbert, who still lives in town, said she could look back to many fun events at the school, especially school assemblies and talent shows.
“I wanted to walk the halls and just remember,” Humbert said. “With a lot of the teachers, I went up to and asked them ‘who am I?’ and they right away said ‘I know you Katie,’ and they remembered me. It was crazy.”
Among the many current and former teachers at the event was Roxeen Froio, who began at the school in 1976 and retired in 2015, having taught kindergarten for her last 25 years.
Froio said working at Evans was not like coming to work, and teaching at an elementary school with so many young students meant years of unconditional love.
“It was like a family,” Froio said. “It was very hard for me to retire. There were longtime friendships and many of the retirees came tonight because we all still keep in touch. It was like home away from home.”
