Ricky Hayes of Glasgow provided barbeque to sell to attendees of the Ralph Bunche School reunion Saturday at Donnelly Park in Glasgow. Hayes attended the school in 1964 and 65, during the first years of integration at the formerly all-black school. (Miranda Pederson, Daily News)

GLASGOW In 1965, being a shy fourth grader with a stutter was not the only challenge Wayne M. Mason faced. In addition to the obvious awkwardness of youth, Mason entered fourth grade for the first time with white students when Barren County schools were desegregated in 1965.It was a little bit difficult at first, Mason said, who is now a Bowling Green resident and biology instructor at Western Kentucky University. They worked hard to make sure things went well. I look back now, and I made some of the best friends I ever had. Mason attended the reunion of former students Saturday of Ralph Bunche School. The three-day event began Friday with a dinner and dance and concludes today with a service at First Baptist Church. Former students of the all-black K-12 school gathered at Donnellys Park for a picnic and cookout following an alumni basketball game. The onetime classmates talked of old times and current days. The classes were always small at Bunche and comprised of students who commuted from as far as Tompkinsville and Hiseville because they were not welcome in schools in their own cities. The students at the school, such as 1956 grads Charles Mansfield of Glasgow and Stanley Herndon of Louisville, knew that their school was separate from the all-white Glasgow High School, but not exactly equal. The school had a chemistry class with no lab, no football team and got the broken desks, tables and chairs from the white school. Books were worn out and had missing pages. It wasnt until after graduating, when many of the students left Glasgow for jobs or opportunity, that they realized the limitations they had experienced while growing up. We knew we didnt have much, according to former Bunche student Jerry R. Bransford. We actually had much less than we thought. The switch came suddenly for Bransford, who attended the first 11 years of school at Bunche and graduated from Glasgow in 1965 as part of the first integrated class, with nine blacks in a class of 240, he said. The change was described as a mixture of gladness, sadness and, most of all, anxiety, he said. Despite a few derogatory remarks in the schools hallways, the change went fairly smoothly, he said. Since then, Bransford, who works as a photographer in Glendale, and has been active with the Hardin County National Association for the Advancement of Colored people, said he has seen a pleasant change in Glasgow. Before he went to Vietnam, he was able to sit downstairs at the Plaza Theater, instead of in the balcony, he said. Former Bunche students now reside in all corners of the United States including New York, California and Alaska, according to Glasgow resident William Bradley.