Our History
An excerpt written by C.M. Feuquay featured in the first very first Alumnus Newspaper published in 1937:
“From very small beginnings in 1891, Chandler had been climbing upward slowly and after much difficulties. Schools were early established and conducted in various buildings including churches and store buildings on Manvel Avenue. Finally, enough funds were raised to put some up and down wooden buildings on the present high school grounds and then came the final victory and a new brick school building and a real high school came into the community life. These were real accomplishments, especially in hard times and poor conditions and over the cyclone which had laid waste the small city.
The Alumni Association failed to get a start with the high school and three classes had graduated before its early history was written. In the spring of 1906, Mrs. Jence Cornelia Feuquay, whose son, Courtland M. Feuquay, was a member of the Class of 1906 of the Chandler High School, decided that the new building and new high school was not enough and that she should continue her efforts until the Chandler High School boasted an alumni association such as had been the proud possession of high school in older and more settled states. Less than ten graduates had passed from the halls of our high school at that time and many of them no longer resided in or near Chandler. Believing that it was only necessary to start such a beneficially organization and culture it in its young day to see it grow and flourish, Mrs. Feuquay issued invitations to the members of the Classes of 1902, 1904, 1905 and the graduating Class of 1906 and the members of the faculty of the Chandler High School.
Great Preparations were made and there being ten members in the Class of 1906, they greatly overshadowed in numbers at least, all of the prior graduates. Friday night, the 11thday of May, 1906, the Class of 1906 was graduated into the alumni. Mrs. Feuquay, assisted by her sister, Miss Edith Holland, for many years a teach in the Chandler school system, had prepared the banquet which was served in the Feuquay home which was then in the Feuquay building. Everything tempting from soup to nuts and from punch to strawberry short cake, was served in abundance. Cut glass punch glasses tied with the colors of the Class of ’06 were at each plate and at the end of the banquet were presented to the guests as a souvenir of the first banquet of the association.
In 1907, again Mrs. Feuquay did not feel that the association was strong enough in members or traditions to stand alone and still feeling that it would improve the high school and become one of the fine social events of the city, she again issued invitations to all the members of the association, to the Class of ’07 and to the faculty of the Chandler High School and again they assembled in her home for the annual banquet and to initiate and welcome the new Class of ’07. With the growth in members and enthusiasm, the second banquet was a great success and the speeches and fun had at that feast has never been excelled although often equaled in the history of the many banquets of the association. Again Mrs. Feuquay, assisted by Miss Edith Holland, prepared and served the feast and presented to those attending the cut glass punch glasses from which the toasts had been drunk. Since Mrs. Feuquay was a Kansas prohibitionist, the punch served was non-alcoholic but at the second banquet Carl Owens managed to judge his capacity better and did not find it necessary to leave the festive board and hang out the railing to make room for further courses. Everybody made a speech except for the Class of ’07, who were not thought experienced enough to cope with such matters. Judge Earl Foster, ’06, made his second speech and the effect on him, not to say the audience, was so terrific that he then made a vow to never miss a banquet and never fail to make a speech at one whether with invitation or provocation or not.
After the first banquet an organization meeting was held and officers were elected and plans made for creating and carrying on the Chandler High School Alumni Association.
When spring and the time of graduating came in 1908, Mrs. Feuquay again surveyed the association which was long on enthusiasm but very short on cash reserve and decided that another push would be needed to certain that a representative banquet be held. The growth of the association in numbers and the size of the Class of ’08 made it impossible to hold the banquet in her home. So plans were made and the fraternal bodies very kindly permitted the banquet to be held in their lodge rooms in the Union National Bank building. Again Mrs. Feuquay, Miss Edith Holland, Mrs. D. R. Owens and several others assisted in the preparation of this banquet and the older classes came back from college where most of them were in attendance and helped to make the third banquet a great success.
Larger membership and great enthusiasm permitted the association to take up the burden and since those early years, the association has carried on, growing stronger and meeting a need in the life of the city of Chandler that other cities have envied more and more. Mrs. Feuquay and Miss Holland were made honorary members of the association as well earned honors for their early activities in its behalf and for many years, until their passing, attended the annual banquets to admire the new classes and bask in the glory of the largest, oldest and most active association of its kind in Oklahoma.
In the many years that have gone by since the founding, the association has always held its annual banquet and properly initiated all of the classes that have graduated with the exception of the World War years of 1917 and 1918. During those years when every energy and though of all the graduates were bent on the winning of the World War and when most of the eligible alumni were in the army making every effort to do their bit, the banquets were discontinued to be resumed in the spring of 1919.
The banquets and initiation have been held in many places during the years and have been served by various organizations of local ladies. Much credit is due them, since such a large organization has required so much work and real labor that it has been largely a matter of love for the association that has enabled them to carry on under difficulties many times.
The early history of this organization is so tied up with the efforts of Mrs. Feuquay for the founding of it that it is well to recall that her interest has never lagged. In 1921, with Mrs. D. R. Owens, she gave a party in the City Park for all the children of the Alumni and while it was a children’s party, all of the Alumni were invited and shared in the good times. Despite the fact that Mrs. Feuquay was not a graduate of Chandler High School and for that matter had never attended a day of school in Oklahoma, she believed that Chandler should have one of the first and best high schools in the state and that every child in Chandler should be encouraged to benefit from public education. Not a few of those who now belong to this association of the early graduates and who now look back on it with pride, owe their chance to her work and not a few to her financial help and encouragement.
The association has long since come of age and its influence grows space in the community and the children of the oldsters will sit at a banquet starry-eyed as did their grandparents. Then Mrs. Feuquay will look back to consider the Chandler High School Alumni Association is fitting organization in the City of Chandler and in a small measure a fitting monument to her early help and a rich fulfillment of her dreams.”