WICHITA FALLS ( KFDX/KJTL ) — After opening back in 1961 with the first graduation in 1963, Rider High School will be closing its doors for good.

But, for one last time on Friday, May 24, the high school’s very first graduates were able to take one last walk down the hallways of the school that shaped many of their futures, including two students whose paths crossed several decades later.

Since then for Bob and Lena Burt, the rest was history.

The Burts first met way back in 1961 as they walked the halls of WFISD’s newest high school at the time, Rider High School.

“She had her boyfriend who she married, Larry Frost, and I had mine,” Bob said. “I don’t think we even spoke to each other in high school, not directly. I mean, just passing each other and in classes.”

As part of the very first class of Rider High School, these two high schoolers had no idea their paths would cross over 60 years later.

“We met at the teachers’ credit union office down there on Barnett Road, and when he came in the door, he hugged me, and I hugged him back,” Lena said. “From then on, I kind of thought, ‘You know, there’s something going on here.'”

Lena said about a week after that, football is what ultimately sealed the deal.

“He took me to a football game on the coldest night in the world to Rider. A Coyote football game, Rider-Coyote,” Lena said. “About a week later after the reunion … We danced together so perfectly.”

Now, 61 years later, this married couple who once nonchalantly passed each other in these halls as the first graduating class of Rider High gets the chance to walk them one last time.

Now together, the couple gets to create one last memory in the high school that shaped their future, even if they didn’t know it.

Rider High School will hold its last graduation ceremony on Saturday, May 25, 2024, at 9 a.m. at Memorial Stadium. There, the first graduating class, including Bob and Lena, will be honored and recognized for all they’ve done for Rider High School over several decades.

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