S. N. V. I...... Realizing the urgent need to provide secondary education to the needy but deserving youth of Dupax, concerned leaders of the community met to consider the feasibility of establishing a community high school in the area. Because of the considerable distance between Dupax poblacion and its barrios, particularly Malasin, the center of population in the municipality and also the existence of turbulent Binay River in between, the idea of a single high school was discarded. Instead, two private schools were founded, the St Mary of the poblacion and the SNVI of Malasin. A group of leaders which included Mayor Servillano Palugod and Capt Sinforoso Dugay of Ineangan, Messrs, Federico Rumbaua, Alejo Francia, Raymundo Cabading of Malasin, Atty. Hilario Bullacer, Mr, Aurelio Balut of Lamo, to mention few incorporated themselves into the Southern Nueva Vizcaya Institute and secured the legal assistance of the late Congressman Constancio Padilla. The permit to operate the high school for the school year 1949-1950 was granted by the Dept of Education and the colorful and notable career of SNVI was launched. A non-resident director-principal after which it was offered to Engr Virgilio Palugod, BSE, headed the first two years of the school. Engr Palugod accepted the offer premised on the condition that he managed the school on a non-profit, no-dividend basis. He believed that a school of that type should exist only for the benefit of the residents and should be used for not for commercial purposes. He also stipulated that every single peso net income of the school should be plowed back to further improve the school facilities and up-grade the teaching force. In 1963, the academic phase of the institution was placed on the very capable and dedicated hand of Mr. Feliciano Parucha, retaining Engr. Palugod as director. From its humble beginnings of a rented house near the town hall, to a modest 4-classroom building atop a small hill, the SNVI has progressed to its present multi-buildings on its half hectare campus site, Its administrative and teaching staff of five in 1951 has grown to its present (this was in 1976) 17 man force and this year 700 students population is far fry from the original 100. At the end of this school year l975, the SNVI will have graduated 1,422 students coming from families of the community whose principal source of income is from the soil. Truly, SNVI has been a potent factor that has enabled a lot of promising youth to attain considerable success and promise of a better life. We have doctors, lawyers, accountants and teacher aplenty; nurses and midwives, all SNVI alumni are found here and abroad. Several engineers are now with responsible positions in the government and private firms. And we even have alumni who are themselves children of alumni and are now successful professional here and abroad. After all, a half-century is a long, long time.Over half of my classmates have left Nueva Vizcaya and made their marks. Where ever they are the knowledge they acquired are high because the school is really on top of the hill.