"It served me very well, not just on the college level but on the graduate level as well," said Ridley, who notes she was born on Wolfe Street "more years ago than I'd like to say."

She said the school for black students, which operated from 1935 to 1968, may have had small classes and a small faculty, but it gave students a strong academic foundation that has served them well.

"Teachers like Dr. William
J. Holloway, who inspired us so with the way he taught social studies, or Margaret Whylie, who insisted we learn all the basics of English, they prepared us for college and careers after that," said Ridley, now retired as a counselor and program administrator for Virginia State University.

Ridley and several hundred
of her classmates will gather in Fredericksburg this Labor Day Weekend for a Walker-Grant School reunion.

It's more than just a class reunion. This three-day festival of dinners, picnics and renewed friendships is open to any student, teachers or staff from the elementary or high school at the old Walker-Grant school.

Carol Hamm, the president of the Walker-Grant Alumni Association, which is holding the three-day celebration for the alumni and their families, said the idea of occasional reunions started back in 1981.

"Many of the [graduating] classes at Walker-Grant were small, 26 in one, 39 in another," said Hamm, taking time out earlier this week from reunion preparations. "There are class reunions, but because many of them are so small, and because everybody knew everybody back when we went there, the idea surfaced to have a reunion of all the classes together, plus the faculty and staff," she said.

Hamm said the gathering was such a success, and meant so much to those who attended, that it provided momentum for the creation the following year of the Walker-Grant Alumni Association.

That group has grown in number and in purpose, and now manages programs and space
at the oldest building of the old Walker-Grant School complex.