Orem High Seminary

When I was almost 15, my family moved to Orem, Utah because my father got a job at BYU in the Business School. I started my 10th grade year at Orem High School and spent the next three years there. I was not looking forward to moving. We had moved about 2.5 years earlier to Plano, Texas, from Indianapolis, Indiana, and it was a hard move. It took me a while to find friends and I don't think I ever felt like I truly fit in. So I anticipated that would be the case once again in Orem. Fortunately I was wrong.

I found friends right away who lived quite close by and I felt comfortable very quickly. One thing I enjoyed about our new location was going to my religion class called seminary (no credit) during the school day. When I was in 9th grade, seminary was held before school. I got up every morning so I could get completely ready for school and make it to seminary on time at 6am. It was rough. I did lots of sleep-walking that year, due to lack of sleep, and I also got the influenza and was sick in bed for a week. I definitely needed more sleep. So not having to get up so early was really nice.

Seminary was great. I still remember my teachers quite well--Brother Hull, Brother Young, Brother Gubler, and Brother Parker. They were good people and I enjoyed my classes. We memorized scripture references and we were encouraged to be members of the ACAD club--a chapter a day of scriptures. I have good memories of that time of my life.

What sparked this memory? Today I was picking up my son at the high school for a track meet and I saw the seminary building being torn down. It's an old building and they are building a new one to be finished by this fall. Currently the seminary students are walking to a nearby church for their classes.

I'm sure the new building will be great but I just felt a tiny bit of nostalgia seeing that old building being torn down.

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