Stout Middle School Celebrates 50th Anniversary

Dearborn's celebrated its on Friday evening with alumni, staff and the recognition of William B. Stout, who the school is named after.

Yearbooks dating back to the 1960s and original building floor plans of the school were laid out for all to see. There were also club pictures of past sports championships that included football, cheerleading, soccer and basketball.

Planning of the event began in December 2010, according to school liaison Fatima Tekko. Refreshments were served free of charge. Raffle tickets were sold with a chance to win a one night stay at the and two pairs of tickets to the . Stout Falcon alumni T-shirts were also sold at the event.

“I have been working a lot with the community, students and parents," Tekko said, "and I thought this would be a great way to bring them together to share their memories and the outlook and the diversity from then until now."

Former Falcons stood reminiscing with old friends about past memories and laughing at bad picture day photos. Gordon Crumb, a Stout graduate of 1970, called up some of his friends after seeing the memorabilia set up, telling them to come out and take part in the event.

“It is exciting because you take a look at some of the pictures and you can name all of those people that you may not have seen in 40 years, but when I see them it’s like I remember it like it was yesterday,” Crumb said.

State Rep. George Darany (D-Dearborn) was a guest speaker at the event, and passed along a Stout Middle School Recognition Award to Principal Julia Maconochie.

Bill Chapin, president of Automotive Hall of Fame, was also among the guest speakers. Chapin showed a short PowerPoint presentation in honor of William B. Stout. Stout is best known for his design of the trimotor aircraft and was an executive at Ford Motor Company.

“Anytime any organization or any institution recognizes somebody of the stature of Mr. Stout … that’s a very special recognition for not only the hall of fame, but in this case, for the school here,” Chapin said. “We don’t probably spend enough time in this country honoring our heroes and I think this is a wonderful occasion to be able to do that.”