Spring Branch ISD Featured News

Tour the Spring Branch Senior High School Alumni Museum, featuring memorabilia from graduating classes of 1949 through 1985. View classic cars. Have children enjoy games and a bouncy house. Put your bid down on silent auction items.

Those are just of few of the fun activities planned for the upcoming Spring Branch Community Bear Fair, operating from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 19, on the grounds of the Spring Branch Education Center (SBEC) campus on Westview.

The alumni museum, located at 9016 Westview, shares space with the district’s Cornerstone Academy middle school and Academy of Choice alternative high school program. The museum, part of the SBISD 2007 Bond plan’s renovations, stands on the site of the original Spring Branch High Senior High School.

That high school closed in 1985, but three years later a group of women organized a reunion, and from that a tradition was born and has continued. Reunions are often held every two years.

The museum is in the former high school’s original, two-story library.

“This is where Spring Branch ISD was born,” said Della Sivley Mousner, speaking recently to a Memorial Examiner newspaper reporter about the Bear Fair.  The bear refers to the school mascot. “You know it’s a huge [school] district now, but at that time there was only one school. It was a country school, and we wanted to mark a place that . . . where it all began.”

Mousner, Sherry Roberts Williams and Alice Smuts Blackburn serve today as alumni association’s board members. High school alumni and interested area residents are being encouraged to attend the fair. 

Williams told the Memorial Examiner that one of the alumni group’s goals is to let SBISD residents know that they are welcome at their museum, not just alumni of the former high school. The museum is open limited hours currently during the regular school year.

It includes memorabilia ranging from cheerleading outfits to football ribbons, photographs and specific class-year historical items. The museum functions as a kind of time machine for alumni.

“I think [people] pass it; they see it. But they don’t realize that they’re invited and that they don’t realize that there is community history in this museum,” Williams said. “Even though the colors might be blue and white, if you walk in here and you graduated between 1949 and 1985, you’re going to feel like you’ve walked back into your school. Just change your colors.”

Years ago, Bear Fair reunions included mock football games with middle-age men, former cheerleaders, and high school brigade and band members. The football games are no longer held.

A nonprofit group, the Spring Branch Senior High School Alumni Association Foundation, remains active and supports activities and reunions.

For more details about the alumni foundation, the upcoming Bear Fair reunion event, or museum hours please visit: www.springbranchbears.com.