Before the coronavirus pandemic, the class of 1969 from tiny Union-Whitten High School in Iowa still met once a month. Its homecoming queen, Denise Rife, then known as Denise Long, once scored 111 points in a basketball game, and was the first woman drafted by an N.B.A. team.

Rife, a retired pharmacist, turned 69 last week. She planned to drive from Rose Hill, Kan., where she lives outside Wichita, to celebrate her birthday with friends from her farmland roots in Iowa. The park now bears her name in Whitten, population 147, where she shoveled snow and then shot baskets for hours at a time.

The pandemic meant the monthly reunion was canceled. Rife could not see her former coach, who once joked that he would marry her if she could get him to the state tournament. The coach is in a nursing home, and because of the pandemic, no one, not even his wife, is allowed to visit.

Rife’s alma mater is on lockdown, too. At a nearby pharmacy, said Pam Paglia Norman, 69, one of Rife’s high school teammates, customers must wait outside until they are called inside to have prescriptions filled. Only credit cards are being accepted, so the cashier will not be exposed to germs carried on cash.