Our Mission

  It was the evening of the 25th of April 1884, that a group of concerned individuals gathered together in a house located on Washington Avenue in Downingtown Pennsylvania.

     On this day, a decision was rendered to create an organization whose purpose was for:

     “the promotion of the cause of education in the interests of our Alma mater and to excite and keep alive those interests in the same, to strengthen the bonds uniting us by social friendship and intercourse, to do all in our power to make our Alma mater the one that we may feel proud of and to be glad to say that from it’s walls the foundation of what we are or what we hope to be has been gathered.”

     This was to remain the Mission Statement of the Downingtown High School Alumni Association created by the minds, hearts and souls of those founders such as John M. Patton ’84, William Johnson ’82, Allie M. Gibson ’83, Paul Cobb ’81, Ella P. Smith ’82 and Hattie Miller ’82 whose home hosted the conception of these enormously significant words.

     The very first formal “call to meeting” of the Downingtown High School Alumni Association took place in the High School building Saturday afternoon at 2:30 PM, April 26 , 1884.

     In 1887, it was decided upon to begin hosting an annual Banquet and Reunion in which each Downingtown High School graduate would be entitled to attend.

     In the spring of 1952, the first committee to select an outstanding Alumni member was formed. The chosen member was to receive an award that read “ In recognition of consistent and meritorious service, loyalty and untiring effort in perpetuating the Downingtown High School Alumni Association.”

     Downingtown High School, in 1963, became the first high school in the state of Pennsylvania to organize an annual Homecoming event.

     The first Downingtown High School Alumni Association Scholarship Award was presented in 1969. The recipient of this award was an outstanding graduating senior student whose merits won them this financial endowment which was payable during his or her freshman year in College.

     The mission continues as the "Downingtown Area High School Alumni Association" moves forward with both the West and East campuses representing the oldest continually operating alumni association in the United States, celebrating its 126th anniversary on April 26, 2010.