Phil Campbell class reunites for 50th reunion

By Staff
Kim West
PHIL CAMPBELL – For the seventh time in 50 years, the Phil Campbell High School class of 1958 will reunite.
More than half of the 63-member class is expected to gather tomorrow night for at the Galley Restaurant in Haleyville for a 6 p.m. reunion dinner.
"We've had several class reunions, and we've had good attendance at all of them," said Mary Nell Burfield, a member of the reunion planning committee who attended Phil Campbell from ninth grade through senior year. "I've heard we're having the largest crowd we've ever had, and I expect a lot of people."
Burfield said class members will also have opportunity to meet at the school this Sunday.
"Phil Campbell has a school reunion every year on first Sunday of August, and that's why a lot of classes have their reunions on the Saturday before so people from out of town can go to both reunions," Burfield said.
At the class reunion held four years ago, the class met at the new Phil Campbell lunchroom and toured the campus.
"So much has been built since we were in school," Burfield said. "The school burned down in '53, and I believe we were the first class to graduate from the new school auditorium, which is still there today.
"The school has had two different lunchrooms since we graduated, and the new one is a really good place to meet. The football stadium, home economics building, agriculture building, elementary school and part of the high school were all built after we graduated."
Burfield said some of her classmates still live in Franklin County but there are many classmates who have moved away.
"There's quite a few of us still living around here but the class is scattered throughout the state and the Southeast," Burfield said. "I think if you look at our class, a lot of us are teachers or preachers. Those were the two professions that a lot of our class went into."
Class officers included president Jimmy Rivers, vice president Billy Todd, secretary Norris Pharr and treasurer Joe Holmes. The class, which had six girls named Nell, also produced a judge, and the school principal the time became a state senator.
"Larry Jackson, who has passed away, was a probate judge of Franklin County, and our principal, Paul Weeks, went on to be a state senator from Winfield," Burfield said.
The class has planned a tribute for the more than dozen class members who have passed away.
"We're going to have a ceremony where we call out their names and say something about them, and then we'll put a rose in a vase for each of them," said Holmes, a reunion committee member and one of five preachers from the class.
Holmes said the class has benefited from several different members who have planned reunions.