LA GRANDE — La Grande High School alum Kathy Rudd recently made a startling discovery — her school’s history is vanishing.

Rudd, with the help of Eric Freeman, the school’s assistant principal, was examining framed collections of LHS graduating class photos from 1924 to 2001. All had been taken down from the walls near the school’s main entrance so their condition could be examined. Rudd, a 1969 La Grande High graduate, found 33 picture frames present and 23 missing.

The good news is La Grande High’s extensive yearbook collection will help fill a big part of the graduate photo void.

The school has yearbooks for 18 of the years the senior photo collections are missing. Rudd and Freeman plan to make copies of the photos of the seniors in those 18 annuals and put them in frames for their class so they can be on display at the school.

The disheartening news is La Grande High has no yearbooks for five of the missing frames — for 1940, 1949, 1955, 1958 and 1971 — meaning it may be impossible to make photo frames for those classes.

Rudd and Freeman are undaunted, though, and said they hope to find copies of yearbooks for those years as part of the Graduation Class Picture Project they are launching with major help from 1969 LHS graduate Nan Fordice. The trio aim to create a group of volunteers who will restore the frayed senior class photo frames and create collections for the missing graduating classes.

Freeman is excited about the prospect of heightening the visibility of past graduating classes.

“We want to share LHS’s history,” the assistant principal said.

The restoration work would include having the picture frames’ plastic glass replaced with a type that will help protect them from ultraviolet light to prevent the photos in the frames from fading.

Freeman would like to see all the restored frames have blue backgrounds to coincide with the school colors of blue and white. He also said he would like to see the frames have other common elements to provide uniformity and a sharper look.

“We want to protect and update them,” Freeman said.

He said doing this will make it more likely the senior picture frames will not be lost years from now, even if the district replaces the building in the future. La Grande High’s senior classes, he said, deserve to have their place in their school’s history preserved.

“We want to honor graduating classes,” Freeman said.

The tradition of creating framed senior class picture collection is believed to have been discontinued several years ago, but Freeman said he hopes to revive it.

“We want to continue this process for every senior class,” said Freeman, who is in his first school year as the school’s assistant principal after coming to the Grande Ronde Valley from Roseburg where he was an educator.

Freeman said he is hopeful people in the community will come forward with materials the project can use to fill in the holes and help complete the series.

“Someone might even have negatives for the years that are missing,” he said.

Rudd said she is confident many people will be eager to assist the Graduation Class Picture Project because of their allegiance to La Grande High School.

“The high school is such a big part of La Grande,” she said.

For information on assisting the Graduation Class Picture Project, call Rudd at 541-910-6122.

• La Grande High School has framed collections of graduating class photos spanning 1924 to 2001.

• Missing from the series are 23 of the graduating classes.

• Yearbook photos can fill in 18 years’ worth of the missing photos.

• Yearbooks are needed for 1940, 1949, 1955, 1958 and 1971.