ShawneeDispatch.com

When members of Shawnee Mission Northwest's 2004 graduating class returned Thursday to Broken Arrow Elementary School for a reunion, fifth-grade teacher Kathy Wilcoxon had to be there.

Wilcoxon's new nose and her familiarity with the Heimlich maneuver are credited to the group.

"This was my favorite class out of all them," said Wilcoxon, who welcomed about 50 graduates back to the school. "They were smart, fun and ornery."

Orneriness was to blame when Wilcoxon broke her nose nearly a decade ago while playing with a group of students from the class on the Broken Arrow basketball court.

Wilcoxon said she remembers dislodging candy from a choking student with a loose interpretation of the Heimlich maneuver too.

Then there was the time, in the fall of 1996, when the parent group nearly burned the school down while operating a cotton candy machine.

The memories for this class, it seemed, were endless.

"This was a very dynamic group," Wilcoxon said, "and they're still a very dynamic group."

Though they are legal adults now, Wilcoxon on Thursday didn't hesitate to use her whistle to quiet students long enough for a group picture midway through the get-together.

Before and after the photo, the students ate, conversed, watched videos from several assemblies and rummaged through scrapbooks maintained by Broken Arrow staff to rekindle memories.

Later, art teacher Paul Elo cracked open the class' time capsule, which included letters, artwork and other trinkets that the students locked away before leaving the school.

Betsy Degen, who was the students' principal while they attended Broken Arrow, returned for the event.

"They're taller now," said Degen, who now is the district's curriculum director.

Degen said that the class' propensity to want to learn from the Broken Arrow staff was unique to other classes. She also credited the students' parents with helping to provide "a spark for learning."

"We like to take a lot of credit for the first seven years and getting them to this point," Degen said, "but they had a fabulous group of parents that were very involved."