Editor's Note: Thank you to Ronica Wolbert for coordinating this conversation and to Michelle Hollingsworth for providing her written thoughts and pictures. Writing and photo credits belong to Michelle Hollingsworth.

A small few gathered to bid farewell to our old school gym.  It was a high school, then it was a middle school, before our small town had two.

A few of us took some photos for old times' sake with our handprints on the wall. We were the last 8th-grade class to walk those halls.

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So here are a few things you may not know about us. We, the 8th grade class of 1988, were the class who walked to JR foods convenience store across the street to get snacks after school. In case you didn't know, we didn't have cell phones. We walked and rode bikes almost everywhere in town with friends.

We dared to use "Sun-in" in our hair and watch MTV. We got to be GenX rebels and still may be.

We were the last class, but we also had some firsts there in our past.

We had our first school pompom blue & white dancers squad with a teacher/coach who took a chance on us who couldn't make the cheer team.

We were the first class to have male cheerleaders.

We experienced our first protest/petition for a new school our first year there in 5th grade.

We watched our first birth video in middle school and swore we would never have children. We watched the space shuttle crash live on TV in the classroom.

We learned a lot about life in those bleachers.

Some of us got short-lived nicknames, some got ones that stuck. There was nowhere to be modest or run from that locker room. We got demerits for chewing gum. Puberty was no fun. But looking back, those years there sure were.

Those walls held and heard a lot. And I don't need to be in those 4 walls to remember.

For me, those 4 walls in 4 years shaped a preteen/teen, and I still hold those memories close. In those walls, I was a Ray's Rocket, a Barkley's bomber, a Malone's maniac, and a Drake's Dynamite.

I had my share of embarrassment.

My first kiss was outside that gym.

I shot a basket for the opposite team during intramural basketball. I lost my retainer in the cafeteria trash more than once. I had my first paddle experience there. I lost a friend who moved away. I had my first heartbreak there and broke some hearts myself.

I missed the bus more times than not, mostly by accident. I grew up watching my kids play youth basketball in the same gym, and sat on the same bleachers, reminiscing only with more responsibilities.

Our class was the last 8th-grade class to leave this school. But the school didn't leave us.

We didn't get to go to the new middle school even though we were among those who petitioned for it in front of media and were in the newspaper. Our school was 48 years old when we left it, and those still with us are all older than that now. We had basketball games rained out in the gym due to leaks. We got to climb the tree out front that is long gone. What that place taught us and prepared us for life was that even if we work hard, we may not always get the reward. Timing is not up to us. Our generation's time got to see Purple Rain and Top Gun in real time. We had Opryland. And before we had jobs or cell phones or lost a classmate (soon after), together we got to have this old school gym. We had our time, and it was a blast.

As for our class, we got a bad rep. We didn't get to go on the traditional 8th-grade Mammoth Cave field trip. Our 7th-grade teachers seemed to warn the 8th-grade ones about us. They were right but also wrong about us. We are good humans. I am proud to be part of our class, we went on to be hard workers, local business owners, CEOs, managers, teachers, coaches, principals, musicians, farmers, electricians, plumbers, mechanical technicians, accountants, locksmiths, artists, actors, photographers, videographers, pilots, contractors, engineers, professors, nurses, doctors, lawyers, politicians, military service members, truck drivers, pastors, mothers, fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers.

We may have left this building or even left this town. But what we took away from it, you can never tear down. Our shared experiences inside those walls cannot be taken away even when all the walls are long gone.  

Goodbye, old middle school gym. Rest in peace with Opryland.