PRAIRIE GROVE -- Ann Dunham, treasurer and bookkeeper for Prairie Grove School District, had a surprise when she showed up at the administration office Friday morning.
Her colleagues had decorated her office and the administration lobby to celebrate Dunham's 50th anniversary as an employee with Prairie Grove School District.
Dunham worked 18 years as elementary school secretary before moving into the central office as the district's treasurer and bookkeeper.
Dunham on Friday said she had thought about retiring this year but then she kept working every day and the next thing she knew, it was a new school year.
She jokes that she will probably "die" at her desk.
Dunham was born in Belfast, North Ireland, in an air raid shelter. Both her parents were English. Her father was in the British Royal Air Force. He survived the Battle of Dunkirk in World War II but later died of malaria while on a troop train in Afghanistan.
Her father is buried in a British cemetery in Pakistan. Dunham was 3 1/2 years old when her father died.
Her mother later remarried an American GI stationed in London and she and her mother stepped on American soil for the first time on April 3, 1946, in New York City. Dunham turned 5 years old that summer.
She grew up in Wichita, Kan., and came to Prairie Grove on Dec. 18, 1966, for her then husband to manage the former Dillons grocery store (now Harps) in downtown Prairie Grove.
Dunham served as the grand marshal for the Prairie Grove Homecoming Parade in 2017, and said then she has continued to work because she loves the district, loves the kids and loves her co-workers.
"This is where I need to be as long as all goes well," Dunham said three years ago.
Reba Holmes, superintendent of schools, said Durhan is invaluable to the district.
"Ann Dunham is the rare individual every organization must have in order to remain successful, Holmes said. "Her 50 years of loyalty and commitment to this community and our school district is only equaled by the wealth of knowledge she possesses in both the history of Prairie Grove School District in helping to maintain the culture of our district and in the area of finance that helps keep us solvent."