The Island Trees School District is celebrating its 100th Anniversary this weekend with a district-wide birthday celebration today, Friday, Oct. 25 at the Island Trees Middle School on Wantagh Avenue from 7 to 9 p.m. Cold beverages, hors d'oeuvres, cake and coffee will be served. Many pictures of each school, district residents and former students and staff members will be displayed, in addition to a photo journey of the Island Trees area dating back to the early 1900s.

A district parade is scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 26, which will leave the middle school at noon and arrive back at the high school prior to the High School Homecoming Football Game. The anniversary parade is taking place in conjunction with the district's Homecoming Parade.

In preparing for the anniversary celebration, Superintendent of Schools Richard N. Segerdahl and District Clerk Dottie Bassimer (secretary to the superintendent) have been gathering information with several retired district employees who volunteered their time to work with the district in preparing for the celebration festivities. Over the course of the last several months, these individuals have been reviewing thousands of old photographs, news articles and district documents and have compiled the information into dozens of displays to be shown at an upcoming district-wide party in celebration of the past century.

Among the dozens of artifacts that the schools throughout the district have on display which will be exhibited at the anniversary party is a bottle which was found in early 1971 that a group of students who attended the one-room schoolhouse buried in 1906 at the site of the schoolhouse on Hempstead Tpke., near the current site of Toys R Us. The bottle was discovered in 1971 when trees were dug up to make room for a new shopping center. Inside the bottle were several sheets of paper which featured the names of 28 students of the one-room schoolhouse and their teacher, William E. Peake. Among the names on the list were those of Michael Francis Stokes and Birdsall Sparke, who were in sixth and fourth grade, respectively, when the bottle was buried under a maple tree outside the school for Arbor Day. Stokes, a resident of Bethpage, served on the Island Trees School Board for 28 years, 15 years as president, and is the person after whom Stokes School is named. The Sparke School is named after J. Fred Sparke, brother of Birdsall Sparke.

The bottle and original papers found inside will be one of the many items on display during the district's anniversary party. All residents are invited to attend and celebrate 100 years of the Island Trees School District.