AUBURN — George Folsom Herrick Sr. says he will celebrate the 77th year since his graduation from Oxford High School this year, even though he’s the only surviving member of the Class of 1934.

This week, the 95-year-old Auburn resident walked into the Lewiston offices of the Sun Journal to drop off a brief notice about his high school reunion. On Friday, he learned he’s the oldest survivor among Oxford High School graduates and that there will not be a reunion this year. Traditionally, a reunion is held every five years for all graduates of Oxford High School because the classes were so small.

“I’ll have one myself,” he said.

“Ain’t that something? Just think of it,” he said Friday when told that two older students he thought were still alive — brothers Francis and Dean Peaco of Otisfield — had died.

Oxford High School, a two-story, wooden building on Pleasant Street, was built in the 1920s and used until the late 1960s when Oxford joined seven other towns to form SAD 17. The old school is now the Town Hall.

As a youngster, Herrick lived across the street from the school. In his fourth-floor, two-room apartment in Barker Mill Arms overlooking the Little Androscoggin River are photos of some of the classes. There is a photograph taken in 1930 of the entire high school student body, including the nine students in Herrick’s Class of 1934.

As he took it down from the living room wall and blew a little dust from the frame, Herrick said he could name every one of the 70 or so students pictured. The students, including himself as a freshman, are in four rows around their principal, William B. Ledger, on that day 81 years ago. Names such as Red, Virginia and Bessie are recalled. The girls have pigtails and dresses below their knees; some of the boys are wearing their varsity sweaters and ties.

Herrick played basketball and baseball for four years at the high school.

His home is filled with pictures of family and friends, awards and certificates for a lifetime of activity and accomplishment. They range from his work with the American Legion to the Masons and his championship bowling career.

Sepia-toned pictures of his Scottish-born mother and father, his siblings, his schoolmates and his wife’s family, who came from England, and his childhood homes adorn one side of the living room.

Pictures of his children, Sheila, Bernice, Sherry and George Jr., have prominent places on three sides of Herrick’s living room walls, along with photographs of his 15 grandchildren, 33-great-grandchildren and at least one great-great grandchild.

And there are multiple pictures of his beloved wife, Bernice, whom he calls “my sweetheart.” She passed away from Alzheimer’s disease in 2007.

Herrick and Bernice began dating when he was a senior. They were married six months later. She was a musician who played at local dances and for the American Legion Post in Oxford, he said.

He and his wife were the only members of their family’s generation to graduate from high school, he said.

“We’re very proud of that,” Herrick said. It was a struggle to stay in school when his siblings had to leave during the Great Depression, he said.

He was 14 years old when the Depression hit. He went to work in the fields picking corn and beans for 50 cents a day, but he still managed to return to school in the fall, and to graduate several years later.

As he approaches his 96th birthday in the fall, he is still an avid reader. His overflowing bookcases include autobiographies of Diana Ross, Alexander Haig and Hugh Downs, and books on baseball, among other subjects.

Not a drinker or smoker, he said his longevity is probably due to a life of hard work, first as a weaver in the Oxford woolen mill and later in the Cowan Mill in Lewiston as a weaver supervisor.

“I’m the last one alive,” he said, glancing again at the 1930 picture. “I’m still going.”

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