ALVA – The Alva Branch of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Mormons, invites the community to join in celebrating the 20th anniversary of the church's building located on Thunderbird.

Members of the branch will be hosting an open house on Thursday, April 26, 5-8 p.m. at the building located at 1467 Thunderbird, next to the Alva Recreation Complex. The community is invited to attend the open house, learn more about the church, meet some of the members and leaders and enjoy refreshments.

President Adrick Johnson of Jet is the presiding leader of the Alva congregation. He and other members of the branch serve as unpaid leadership for the various organizations within the branch and manage the Sunday services and weekday activities.

"We are a small congregation," Johnson explained, "but we have a strong spirit here because of the knowledge of the atoning sacrifice of our Savior, Jesus Christ, who is the head of our church. We hope our friends and neighbors throughout the area will join with us in celebrating these milestones in our history in this community."

The Alva Branch serves members who live in Woods and Alfalfa counties in Oklahoma, and Barber County in Kansas. Visitors are always welcome to attend services each Sunday: Sacrament Meeting (worship service), 9:30 -10:40 a.m .; Sunday School (adults and teens), 10:45-11:35 a.m .; Primary (children), 10:45 a.m.-12:30 p.m .; Relief Society (women) and Priesthood (men), 11:45 a.m.-12:30 p.m.

Members of the church first began meeting together in the Alva area in 1960. Bonnie Sprague Haas, who moved to the area in 1959, learned that a small group of members was meeting in Enid but that was too far away to attend more than about once a month. Then missionaries in the area helped track down a few other members and started conducting meetings in Alva.

The small group met in various places, including in the Ashley community between Cherokee and Alva, and in various buildings around Alva until the church purchased property on Thunderbird and built the current building. It was dedicated on April 26, 1998.

The First Presidency of the church authorized the official organization of the Alva Branch as an independent branch on June 6, 1973. Before that, it was a dependent branch of a larger congregation in Enid.

The membership has fluctuated and changed as people move in and out of the area for school and work. Many of the Alva Branch leaders have served for only a few years during their time living in the area.

The first branch president was Michael Scott, a student at NWOSU. When he and his family moved away for medical school, Jay McAllister, the ROTC director at NWOSU, became president. Other branch presidents until the new building was built included Ray Barber, Everett Rose, Don Diel, Philip Stice and Ernest Passey.

Today, the Alva Branch is part of the Stillwater Stake, which is comprised of 16 congregations. Larger congregations are called wards with a leader referred to as a bishop. Smaller units, like Alva, are called branches with a president as the leader. All church leaders serve without pay.

The building for the Alva Branch of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was under construction in 1997-98 before its dedication on April 26, 1998.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has 16.12 million members in more than 30,000 congregations around the world. Currently, more than 67,000 members are serving full-time church missions. Alva is part of the Oklahoma City Mission.