I just received notice that my 50th High School Class Reunion will held next September. Current plans are to meet at a local pub/brewery one night, and then at The Lake, aka the Old Creamery Pond, the next night for a bonfire and gathering.
We were a class of about 190. I have no idea how many of us are left. I missed the reunion 10 years ago as we were just getting back from a trip to Europe with our kids. I haven’t run into any former classmates who live in town since we moved here, although I know there are a few. I have encountered a couple of our very aged, but hale, former high school teachers. Our soon to be housemate is a classmate. The local paper makes a big deal over reunions and takes group photos of celebrating classes.
I am so curious to see how everyone has aged, and if we recognize each other. I am also curious how much longer the poor souls who have been in charge of planning these get togethers are going to be sufficiently healthy and willing to continue doing so in ten more years.
Have you attended any high school reunions? If so, tell how they went. If why not?
Trail Baboon 
This year would be my 60th high school reunion. There have been some email feelers gauging interest in staging a reunion but I haven’t responded.
My graduating class was about 800. I went to a couple of earlier reunions—the 25th and more recently the 45th—and came to the conclusion that reunions are for those people for whom high school was a high point. They were the star athletes and cheerleaders and class officers. They still have stacks of old high school newspapers in which they are featured and they’ve worn out their yearbook. They have fond memories of specific events and coaches and teachers.
That isn’t me, nor is it the people I would most like to see. Those folks don’t ever come to reunions. Like me, they have left high school far in the past.
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I was doing one of those “comparison” things a few months ago, talking to my daughter (who is now 40) and mentioning how my brother (recently deceased) still had friends from high school (class of ’70). I was given some wisdom… “He PEAKED in high school.” Very true. Perhaps those athletes, cheerleaders and class officers peaked at that point in their lives. As for me, I’m glad to have moved on.
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My 50th was a couple of years ago. I didn’t go. I haven’t been to any of them. Even when I was in high school I knew that as soon as I graduated, I would be gone from St. Louis and not return. In addition most of my friends in high school were either a year ahead of me or a year behind me and I’m not even in contact with any of them any longer. Like Bill, high school was not a high point for me. In fact, by taking extra classes and summer school — I had enough classes to graduate after my junior year. I wanted to and I foolishly let my mother talk me out of it. She said and I quote “senior year can be the most exciting year of your life.” Suffice it to say it clearly was not.
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What I remember from my senior year was the desire to get.out.of.here. Was done with High School, with the exception of my friends, and the music program.
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Next year will be our 50th. I will not go. I haven’t gone to any of them.
I did have fun in high school, but I guess I’m just over it. I have no interest in going to something like that.
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I’m with Bill on reunions. Went to our 6th. Talk about a procrastinating class—couldn’t even get it together to do a 5th year. It was okay. I barely remembered it. Then we went to our 20th. Wife and I graduated together. That’s when I realized I didn’t care to maintain friendships with people I was barely friends with in school. Like Bill (again—we are so similar!) My grad class was over 800 people. Never met about half of those. Another half, I maybe had one class with in 3 years.
But yes, reunions are for those whose high school years were the high point of their lives. I’ve always lived with the philosophy that each year will be better than the last—hopefully. So reunions don’t do it for me at all.
Chris in Owatonna
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I think it is different in a small town/school where you have been together since kindergarten and you know most everyone and their families.
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The most dramatic reunion was our 10th, when we took up a collection for a classmate whose house burned down as she was driving to the reunion dinner from the Cities.
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The 50th reunion of my high school class is also this year. I’ve had a couple of e-mails and Facebook messages. I’ve never gone to any reunions. I am never very comfortable in large groups. I don’t know how many were in my class, but when I see the names on those contact attempts, they usually don’t look familiar.
I remember a reunion of my sister’s class, maybe the 10th reunion, but I’m not certain. She and a couple of her friends didn’t want to go, but they were sort of curious, so some of sat at a booth in the bar just outside the party room. I was there too. They would wave if they saw someone they wanted to see, and avoided eye contact if someone went by that they didn’t. The consensus was that for the most part, the people they really would have liked to see didn’t show.
One of my sister’s friends married a guy in the same class as hers. He goes to reunions, she doesn’t. The husband has long standing orders that if anyone asks about her he is to tell them she’d dead.
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Snort!
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My class size was about 174 and included a couple of cliques. My own experience included being kicked out of the “popular” clique but finding a small group of what turned out to be lifelong friends. Overall, high school was not a particularly fun experience. The class held reunions every 5 years for the first 25 years and I attended none of them. I did finally attend the 45th and it was better than I expected. I spent most of my time talking with classmates I didn’t hang around with back then and mostly ignored the ones who had been popular. Our 50th would have been in 2020 but Covid put the kibosh on that. There was a 51st reunion in 2021 but I was not comfortable being with large group – most of whom would not be wearing masks. Our 55th was this past summer and was well attended – about 45 people plus about 20 spouses. All of the pretense from the high school years was gone and it was a wonderful gathering. I guess there will probably be a 60th in 2030.
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Neither of our children go to their reunions. Bigger school, and few connections with people in our ND city.
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I attended my 50th in 2019. Took the train to California to do it. From a class of about 650, there were only about 120 persons present, and many of those were spouses of classmates. Having been there and done that, I need not go to another.
My college 50th will be on May 1st, similarly, in California. I’m staying put in Michigan.
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Next year will be my 45th. John Marshall HS class of ’82 had 425 or something…
My best friend Pete flew into town for the 10th. When we took him back to the airport to fly back out, Kelly stayed in the car having contractions, and our son was born that night. So that’s what we remember about that.
I called people for the 20th. Emails and social media not being quite so prevelant. It was fun talking with people.
I’ve missed the last few. I am still friends with a handful of people, and there’s quite a bunch that get together often it seems.
The people have mellowed and it’s kind of a nice gathering now days.
I remember my parents going to their 50th and it was such an outlandish concept to me.
I have a collection of yearbooks from the college (they had dozens from each year and were throwing them out, so I picked up one of each). It’s fun to look through them and see people I know from 1950, or the classes and instructors that were there in 1970.
Things sure have changed.
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High school was not a highlight for me as I was younger than many of my classmates and graduated in my junior year. Sorry you could not do that Sherrilee. College was totally different and comfortable- I felt I belonged there. My spouse and I attended his 40th or 50th Minneapolis large high school reunion. I scored 100% picking out who had been cheerleaders and sports heroes. My upstate NY high school class size was about 150; they only have periodic reunions for everyone who graduated from there, not by any specific year. Now I bet any reunions are by Zoom. I do agree with Renee that small town bonds are probably different as you often knew whole families.
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My class graduated 92, I think, but we had many dropouts, about a dozen who are invited and often attend I am told. My class was awful. I have never attended even though I only lived one mile from where they were twice held, a place Krista knows well. We had a group of 5 guys who hung out together. On the night before graduation we decided in what order we would get married. We did it in exactly the reverse order. We had 5 marriages between classmates. Quite a number out of 92. One was in our group.
Sandra graduated from Patrick Henry in north Minneapolis, a few hundred. She was very popular, as you would expect. She went three times without me. Once because I was on the road. The other two times because spouses were not invited, although some went anyway. They had girls clubs, a formal part of the school, sometimes as snotty and hurtful as you would expect. At the first two reunions she attended the women were seated by clubs. Yep. Still snotty. But Sandra circulated away from it. Her lifelong closest friend was in another club, so they went and sat at a random table.
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Rise and Shine, Baboons,
The reunions themselves have not been that interesting to me, overall. The most disconcerting thing was that in this small town where everyone knew everyone, there were several people over the years that rung no bell for me. I could not remember them. There are also the large number of kids who just disappeared. What happened to some of these kids I played with? There were girls who became pregnant then went away. I am so glad early pregnancy is now often handled with more compassion and realistic attitudes. Yes sexual behavior and that baby really do exist! One girl who became pregnant in our senior year refused to hide. She finished high school, had the baby, went to college with her parents’ help and raised her child. I admired her very much and I would like to find out how her life went.
I enjoy getting together with my close friends from that era, though. They are a great group of people. The one friend died in December (I wrote about that) and one died about 14 years ago of heart disease and cancer. The rest are still interesting and fun to be with. The reunions? Not so much, but I did enjoy seeing several people at the last one. My 55th is this summer. If the gathering is the same weekend as our “Girls Reunion” I will go.
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I graduated from high school in 1959. There were just 15 students in my class – eleven boys and four girls. To the best of my knowledge, there has never been an official class reunion. There was never really a need for one. Those of us who liked each other formed friendships while we were classmates and hung out together both in and out of school. After graduating we stayed in touch in person, and later, after I started working abroad, via letters and word of mouth.
When I left to work in Moscow, six of my old classmates surprised me by showing up at the airport to see me off; I suspect they thought I’d never return from behind the Iron Curtain, it was simply not a place people traveled to at that time.
When I returned to Denmark on my first visit after having spent ten years in the United States, a party was arranged at the home of one of the “boys,” where about half the class and their SOs were invited. Turns out that to this day, some of them still see each other regularly, and their adult kids are friends.
At this point, I’m in contact with only Freya and Ulla through FB and emails, it’s sporadic and tenuous at best. But each of them is still in contact with old classmates. The reality is, I suppose, that we no longer know each other well, but they are people who were important to me during a crucial developmental stage of my life. I care about them.
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That’s really sweet!
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im a reunion fan
my group is so poorly organized that ive done a couple and been involved in helping with others
5,10,15 &20 were fun because lots came back but the numbers went down down down as the years went by. 25 was maybe 50 people out of my class of 950. i knew most everyone in school and had close, not close, never interacted, flat out didnt like groups. i think a big contributor was the organizers assumption that folks would like to pay $50 a head to go on a boat ride or other costly offerings. when i got involved we did a park with boom box and a lost all the expense. we did a year at buck hill ski hill where there was a fire pit and a beatles knock off band for dancing.
the last one was 3 years ago i was the host so everyone want to check in and say hi. 150 or so and in 3 or 4 hours i dont think i got more that 10 min with anyone. fun to see them and a bunch of the ones i had wondered about made the trip for the 50th and it was good to see them. a couple sucess stories some anticipated some nice surprises.
i see some of the group at funerals but noone has died for a couple years that im aware of. ive had a few friends outside that group die in the last 5. my drummer died a year ago and we are planning a celebration in june or july.
i imagine the numbers will increase as we go forward
they all look do old.
exactly the same as 50 years ago but older.
everyone but me.
then i look in the mirror
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Some great stories, Baboons!
I’ve been to a few, including our 50th in 2016, right after we moved to Winona. Graduating class was around 180, and it was fun seeing some of the old crowd. The people who organized these were pretty much done after the 50th, so that may be it.
One fun thing was I connected with a couple of people I sort of secretly admired when I was in high school, that I hadn’t connected with. I’m on Facebook with them now, and it’s good to see them.
But like others above, I already keep up with the people who are important to me.
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