For the Culkin Academy class of 1962, anytime is a good time to celebrate.

“We get together constantly,” said Ann Warnock, who along with a handful of fellow classmates, has been organizing reunions and celebrations since the class members received their diplomas from the small school on Culkin Road north of Vicksburg.

Friday marked another milestone — 45 years since graduation. And the 30 surviving graduates had something else to celebrate — all but one of the them was there.

Eight of the group’s grads attended all 12 years of school together. Others, Clifford Harrell for example, arrived later but were welcomed anyway. Born and reared in Hawaii, Harrell was adopted in 1951 and wound up in Vicksburg. He admits the change in location made him a bit nervous.

“The first day of school,” said Harrell, “the teacher asked, ‘Where are you from?'”

When he told them, “They said, ‘Do you go surfing everyday?'”

Although there was no surfing to be had in Vicksburg, Harrell indulged his love of sports by playing football, basketball and running track. In football, “I never came out of the game unless I was knocked out,” said Harrell, smiling.

He remembers the athletic achievements of his classmates well. “We won the state track and field championship with five people,” said Harrell. During that era, he said, most other teams from schools the same size were twice as big.

Smiles, laughter and good memories were in abundant supply at the reunion which Vicksburg native Billy Sheffield hosted at his home on Halls Ferry Road. About 60 people attended the Culkin reunion Friday. Festivities continued Saturday as the Culkin alumni joined graduates of Redwood and Jett schools at Clear Creek Pavilion in Bovina for the annual Warren County All School Reunion .

However, the group’s fellowship hasn’t been limited to Warren County, said Sheffield.

“We’ve gone to Florida and spent a week,” and other trips, he said. Warnock and Sheffield said about half the group lives within an hour of Vicksburg, a few live within a day’s drive and the rest are scattered across the United States. Others live in Louisiana, Alabama, Oklahoma and Virginia.

In spite of the physical distance, “we’re all just about like kinfolk,” said Sheffield.

“Some of you I like better than my kinfolk,” chimed in a classmate sitting nearby. Both laughed.

Roy T. Nix worked at the school for from 1957-1959 and taught many members of the class of ’62.

“I taught civics, world history,” and after another teacher quit, “I taught chemistry, biology and algebra. I learned it at night and taught it during the day,” said Nix laughing.

Also a pastor, Nix was often up until 2 a.m., he said, juggling the responsibilities of both positions. The long hours were worth it, he said.

“I really enjoyed seeing the students’ faces light up,” when they got something, said Nix, who now lives in Birmingham.

David Williams, another member of the class of ’62, credits teachers such as Nix for creating an enjoyable atmosphere at the school. It was not only a place to learn, but it was a place just about everyone appreciated.

Classrooms “need to be like that today,” said Williams, who married fellow classmate and high school sweetheart Lyndale.

They wed in December 1962 and have been together since. “Our class was like “Happy Days,” she said.

Her husband added, “We knew if we got in trouble at school, we’d get in trouble at home.”

“Nobody was worried about someone bringing a knife to school,” Lyndale Williams said. “The only thing you were going to do with it was carve your initials in the desk.”

Harrell agreed. “I don’t think any of us realized what we had.”

In the early 1960s, about 400 people attended Culkin, Warnock said. The school’s last senior class graduated in 1964. The following year, Culkin’s high school students joined others from Redwood and Jett schools at the newly constructed, consolidated county school, Warren Central High.

Culkin continued to serve as an elementary school until 1999, when it and four others in the Vicksburg Warren School District were closed with the opening of two mega schools, Dana Road and Sherman Avenue.