Alumni, friends, parents, students and staff gathered at the Rivergate Adventist Elementary School (in Gladstone, Ore.) Sept. 23 and 24 as the school celebrated 100 years of Christian education.
The centennial included Sabbath morning services featuring alumni, students and staff. Kim Huey, local historian, recited the school's history, and Warren Minder, Oregon Conference special assistant to the vice president for education, presented a plaque honoring 100 years of teaching excellence. Jonny Moor, pastor and alumnus, presented the sermon: When Duct Tape and Basketball Held the World Together.
After church, guests shared an outdoor potluck on the Rivergate campus and toured the new school expansion project while visiting with friends.
A band of Adventist Christians opened a small church school on Harrison Street in Oregon City, Ore., in 1911. They soon outgrew their allotted space. In 1930, the school moved to the Gladstone campgrounds (now Gladstone Park Conference Center), where it became known as the Campground School. They offered 10 grades in two classrooms.
When another expansion was needed, a four-classroom building was constructed adjacent to the campgrounds, and the school became the Rivergate Adventist Elementary School.
With continued growth, the upper grades moved into modular buildings in the early 1990s and, in 2006, the preschool moved next door to the Gladstone Park Church. A permanent expansion was necessary once again, so the Gladstone Park Church and Rivergate School teamed up to add space to the church for a fellowship hall upstairs and junior-high classrooms, lockers and showers, a staff workroom, chapel, and Pathfinder club space on the lower level.
To help complete the project, which began in 2009, the school board created the Centennial Capital Campaign to solicit the commitment of 100 families raising $2,011 in 2011 as part of the school's centennial celebration.
The Rivergate School community is thankful for community and church support as they continue the work of the early pioneers of Adventist education.
The Rivergate Adventist Elementary School and the Gladstone Park (Ore.) Church broke ground in 2009 on an expansion project to benefit both the school and the church. (Krissy Barber)
Students stand on the steps of the original Harrison Street school in Oregon City, Ore.
Five generations of the Ruud family have attended Rivergate.
