The Moosic High School girls — they still call each other girls — displayed their school banner last week.
“This is our treasure,” said Ruth Gronski Mozeleski, who keeps inscribed senior photos in a wallet-sized album.
She and Barbara Zikoski Sincavage, who still has her drill team jacket, are among the organizers of the last all-class reunion of Moosic High School on Aug. 16.
They were part of the last graduating class of the school in 1961. The small school has been kept alive with reunions. Since the late 1990s, all-class reunions have been held most years. While the class of 1961 may meet again, organizers decided the all-class reunion has gone as far as it can.
The late Bob Strong, class of 1948, started the group reunions.
Barbara Zikoski Sincavage, class of ’61, with her drill team jacket and Will Stull, class of ’60, with his football jacket, outside of Moosic Methodist Church in Moosic on Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2025. (REBECCA PARTICKA/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
Ruth Mozeleski’s yearbook portrait. (Melissa Janoski/Staff Photo)
Barbara Sincavage’s yearbook photo. (Melissa Janoski/Staff Photo)
The Scranton Times, Friday, Jul 21, 1961 (newspapers.com)
In March 1961, Moosic High School named team captains for a season that would never happen. In July, a merger with Taylor was finalized. (The Scranton Times/newspapers.com)
A Scranton Times photo of Moosic and Taylor school board members. (newspapers.com)
About 40 people, including some spouses, are expected at the reunion. Last-minute responses are welcome by calling Mozeleski or Sincavage.
“We enjoy each other’s company,” Mozeleski said.
The Moosic and Taylor school districts were combined at the beginning of a wave of statewide mergers in the 1960s and 1970s.
The number of school districts statewide shrunk from more than 2,000 to around 500. The state pushed consolidation, in the theory that bigger districts would do a better job and that economies of scale would save money.
As Mozeleski and her sister, Ann Gronski, remember it, they first heard about the closure at the end of the 1961 graduation ceremony. It was Mozeleski’s graduation ceremony and Gronski was in the audience. That’s how Gronski remembers finding out she would move to a bigger school for her sophomore year.
“It was devastating,” said Gronski.
The consolidation became official in July 1961, the Scranton Times reported. Taylor students would make up 1,149 of the 1,800 students in the new district. Moosic High School was declared unsafe. Staffs merged, with the superintendent, high school principal and head football coach coming from Taylor, the newspaper reported.
Moosic students were sent to what became Taylor-Moosic High School. That building closed after a few years. Moosic is part of the Riverside School District today, which holds the Moosic High banner between reunions.
At first, she “would have given anything” to stay in Moosic, Gronski said, although she doesn’t want her Taylor classmates to take that personally.
“It was scary, not knowing what to expect,” Gronski said. Learning to open combination locks on lockers was a pain. At Moosic High, they used pigeonholes.
Gronski only got to know some of her new classmates well later.
“I was kind of on the quieter side,” she said.
The first year was stressful for everyone, Gronski said, including many parents who opposed the move.
There were 49 in the 1961 graduating class and about a dozen have died, they believe.
The alumni remember a neatly dressed bunch. It never would have occurred to the girls to wear pants to school or on class trips.
The building was small. Gym class was held at a youth center across the street.
But they had a big class trip every year. They visited the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, where they enjoyed glimpses of the cadets and the pomp and circumstance.
“That was great,” Mozeleski said.
They took a four-day senior trip to Washington, D.C., a tradition at the school.
They raised money for the trips by selling snacks during a break in the school day called intermission.
Some proms were at the old Mount Airy Lodge in the Poconos, a well-known spot at the time. Moosic High played football rival Avoca in the fall and crowned a May queen in the spring.
Sincavage’s drill team jacket has a star on it, symbolizing that she was a team captain.
“It’s a good remembrance, ” she said.
Mozeleski kept wallet-sized senior portraits, which her classmates inscribed to her on the back. One boy called her the “cutest grease monkey,” a reference to her helping at her family’s business.
The reunion is at St. George’s Center, 730 S. Keyser Ave., Taylor, from noon to 4 p.m. The cost is $40. Contact Sincavage at 570-347-5201 or Mozeleski at 570-342-8009.
The history of the Riverside district is commemorated on panels outside Riverside Elementary East. They were placed last year after teacher Shawn Murphy led students in researching the district.