BUCKFIELD – About 150 former and present staff members bid farewell to SAD 39 Thursday night with a promise from newly formed Western Foothills School District Superintendent Tom Ward that the the district and two others will become one family.

“I promise you we will work very hard to become the RSU 10 family,” said Ward moments after SAD 39 Superintendent Rick Colpitts handed the school district’s key and budget to Ward at a three-hour farewell dinner and ceremony to honor the 44-year-old district.

The towns of Buckfield, Hartford and Sumner, which make up SAD 39, along with SAD 43, based Rumford and Mexico, SAD 21, based in Dixfield, will cease as a legal educational entity on June 30.

On July 1, the new district, known as Regional School Unit 10, or the Western Foothills School District, will begin operations. The district also includes the unaffiliated town of Hanover.

The farewell party, held in the Buckfield Junior-Senior High School, brought together four superintendents, six principals, scores of teachers and staff members from 1965 to the present.

“I see my third-grade teacher over there,” said high school junior Shane Miclon, whose grandfather Ray Miclon, was a gym teacher in the 1960s. Fellow 1960s English and history teacher Rodney Abbott sat with the elder Miclon reminiscing.

Shane Miclon was one of the two dozen students who participated in the party with the culinary class, chorus and jazz ensemble providing food and entertainment.

“We had a great time here,” said Ray Miclon, when asked about his experience in SAD 39.

Colpitts, who will work full time as assistant superintendent in SAD 17 in Oxford next fall, said SAD 39 has many stories to tell by many people.

“Our story is our legacy,” Colpitts said as he introduced speakers including the first SAD 39 superintendent, Richard Marks, and some of his predecessors, Brain Coulthard and Dean Wells.

They were recognized along with many others when Dottie Kingston asked each group to rise from their table.

“MSAD 39 has had its share of ups and downs, and I think that’s the way it’s suppose to be,” said former high school teacher Deb Litchfield.

Diana Tolman, a longtime Hartford-Sumner Elementary School teacher, recalled the pranks she and other teachers played on each other including removing everything from the janitors’ closet one Halloween and hiding a teacher’s desk in a closet on April Fools’ Day.

Teachers union Co-president Dan Allen called the transition to the new school system an opportunity.

“What really matters is the school family,” he said.

Time after time, former administrators stood up to acknowledge the spirit of the school community.

The most important thing is the people,” said Jim Anastasio, high school principal for seven years during the 1980s.

Other speakers included Marks, Coulthard, who was the first SAD 39 superintendent to submit a budget to the school board that was more than $1 million; Wells, the superintendent in the 1990s who helped spearhead important curriculum changes such as the reading recovery program; and Dick Spencer who was the special education director in the early years of the this decade and spoke about turmoil and transitions.

Former Superintendent Jack Drinkwater was unable to attend because of illness, but Colpitts said he is enjoying his retirement in New Hampshire and sometimes drives around the district when he is in the area.

Colpitts said the transition to the new district has not always been easy, “but it’s been a good and healthy change.”