CAPE MAY: (Wed. 5.16)  The students hadn't set foot in the school for 65 years or more but their kindergarten teacher was there to greet them May 12.
Twelve former students of the Franklin Street School, a segregated city school that closed in 1945, gathered for a lunch at Cape May United Methodist Church and a tour of the school, which is being restored by the Center for Community Arts.
The highlight of the reunion may have been the appearance of Cordelia Howard Bounds, 93, believed to be the last living teacher from the school. She taught kindergarten and first grade.
Bounds visited her former classroom during a tour. She recalled the school being built in 1928 on the site of a former Odd Fellows Hall.
Bounds said she often taught kindergarten students first grade curriculum if they could read. She said sharp students often skipped a grade.
Guests at the luncheon were photographed and offered the opportunity to record their memories of the school on video. The last reunion took place 10 years ago.
Steve Bacher, executive director of the Center for Community Arts, warned former students and their teacher that there is much more work to be done inside the school.  They should not be shocked, he said, at the appearance of classrooms, where wallboards were removed due to mold problems and wooden floors were taken up.
Participants posed for a group photo on the school steps, then went inside to tour the building. They noted only teachers entered by the front entrance while students entered through separate boys and girls entrances located on opposite sides of the building.
Classrooms were bright, as sunlight shone through newly-restored windows.
Some of the men in the group, with a twinkle in their eye, recalled childhood hijinks including crawling out a window onto the roof and having knuckles rapped by their teacher.
 Former student Gordon Stiles said his father once owned a store located across the street from the Franklin Street School. He noted the absence of a school coatroom, which had one side for boys and one side for girls.
"We met in the middle," Stiles said, with a laugh.
Also attending the reunion were:  Dorothy Jarmon, Angela Washington, Robert Anderson, Joseph Hicks, William Hicks, Beulah M. Harris, Willie Hicks, Audrey L. Smith, Anita Jarmon Vasser, Alma Hicks Vasser and Emily Dempsey.