This year marked the 41st anniversary of the Imlay Elementary School’s Thanksgiving Dinner. The event attracts many community members with and without children at the school. What started out as a lesson in good citizenship has now become an event looked forward to by many in the community.
In 1978, several children at the school had played tricks on some of the senior’s by soaping their windows on Halloween. Understandably, this made many unhappy with the pranksters. When word got back to the two teachers, Cindy Meyers-Plummer and Sheila Kiley, they took the students around town to clean up the windows and decided to host a Thanksgiving luncheon for the Imlay seniors.
The menu was simple the first year; finger sandwiches were made by the students. Meyers-Plummer remembered “an enjoyable time was had by all.” The next year the seniors repaid the students by putting on a full Thanksgiving dinner for the students and their parents. The following year parents and the school hosted the dinner for the seniors. It became known as the Senior Thanksgiving Dinner for many years. As those students and seniors aged out of the school the event has morphed into the Imlay Elementary Community Thanksgiving Dinner hosted by the Parent Teacher Organization at IES.
This year Meyers-Plummer attended the dinner along with Pershing County Elementary School Principle, Ted Wells and PCSD Superintend Russel Ficht.
“It is so lovely that the community comes together each fall for this event. Tonight the room had many of my former students who now come with their own children. Thank you all for a delightful evening,” Meyers-Plummer commented on her Facebook page.
