Marion County Private School

06/22/2025

I have received a few notes about old MCPS yearbooks. Does anyone know if there were extras and if so, who might have them?

09/21/2024

New music from one of our alumni, Scotty Welland

The songs on this album were a lifetime in the making. Many touch my deep East Texas roots and rodeo life, while others reach for the heartstrings. I hope you listen to the lyrics and they take you home, take you back to a special time and place or simply bring a smile to your face or a tear to your...

10/10/2022

So, a handful of MCPS alumni just happened to meet up on Ashley Mountain yesterday, and the talk of a reunion popped up.

How many would be interested in a pot luck style gathering?

02/17/2019

Has anyone done the math? Next year will be FIFTY years since our parents met at the Lassater building and opened Marion County Private School! Feeling old yet?

12/29/2015

There have been quite a few new viewers here in the past few weeks. If you know an MCPS alumni that hasn't had a chance to peruse these pages, please share this with them. Lots of great memories from years gone by. If you haven't peeked at the photos, I scanned the old annuals to share here. Enjoy! And when you see this note, please leave a comment so others know you were here.

07/04/2015

It has been 45 years since the doors of the Lassater School building were opened and MCPS was born. I started 1st grade that year with Mrs. McCasland as my teacher.

What do you remember from the first year of MCPS?

11/04/2013

For those who left East Texas and remember it fondly, and for those who stayed, give this a listen from one of MCPS's own.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7mKDpXqaFY

This is a song I wrote about my hometown. I left in 1983 and have only been back a few times to visit, but I go there often in my mind. "Muddy Texas Road" Wo...

10/31/2012

Just for fun - LASSATER, TEXAS. Lassater is on the Louisiana and Arkansas Railway at the intersection of Farm Road 1969 and State Highway 49, ten miles northwest of Jefferson in northwestern Marion County. It was named for Joe Lassater, an early settler in the area, and was probably founded about 1877, when the East Line and Red River Railroad was built through the site and a post office called Lasater Station was opened there. In 1881 the name was changed to Lasater. By 1884 the community had a population of seventy-five, two steam and grist mills, cotton gins, and a church, and its principal shipment was cotton. By 1890 Lasater had a hotel and a Baptist church; its population had risen to 125. The local school served twenty-six pupils and one teacher in 1899. In 1902 the name of the post office was changed to Pyland, probably for Dr. W. J. Pyland, who owned a drug and notion store in the community, and in 1909 was changed yet again, this time to Lassater. Between 1896 and 1914 the number of general stores in the community fell from three to one, and the number of sawmills from two to one. The population of the community also declined, to 103 in 1904, 98 in 1925, and 50 in 1933. In 1938 the Lassater school had ninety-two pupils and four teachers. In the early 1960s the community had a school, two churches, several scattered dwellings, an estimated population of sixty, and, some distance to the north, the Pyland cemetery. From 1968 through 2000 the population was estimated at forty-eight.

10/31/2012

July 2010 MCPS Reunion at Ashley Mountain

Please take a moment to post current pictures of yourselves and family.

10/30/2012

10/30/2012

Tommy Dorgan, do you remember who all belonged to RA's (Royal Ambassadors) at the Lassater Baptist Church across the street? Seems like there were quite a few of us that made the stroll over there after school a few times a month.