Wilson’s Class of 1968 had a year to remember

By Alan Rusch
Ellsworth County I-R

WILSON — When the 28 members of the Wilson High School Class of 1968 graduated in May, they inherited a nation in turmoil. While the Vietnam War raged overseas, riots, protests and killings took place here at home with Robert F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. both falling to assassins’ bullets. Class member Dennis Hathaway said the news of the time seemed far removed from Wilson. “You just didn’t even think about it,” he said. “You went on with life.”

Hathaway was one of 17 class members attending the annual WHS Alumni Banquet Saturday in the St. Wenceslaus Catholic Parish Hall in Wilson. Four from the class, Hathaway, Joyce (Klema) Kraus, Tom Vopat and Lucinda (Mahoney) Drago, remember attending Kansas State University in 1968 when Nichols Gymnasium on the Manhattan campus burned to the ground.

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