Class Reunion, April 10, 2015

Finally, the big day is here.  My 50th high school class reunion is tonight, and since I was class president our senior year, I am working hard to try to get our classmates to join us for this event.  Thankfully, I had a lot of help from my committee, Barbara Seitzinger Holscher, Nancee Woodward Truelove, and Toni Schultz Holmes.  Brenda Lane Nowaski was on the committee initially but had to drop out for personal reasons, but she was also involved in the early planning stages. Barbara, Nancee and I did most of the set-up last night but we still had some more "stuff" to bring in this afternoon.  Toni was busy helping decorating for tomorrow night's Alumni,  so she missed out on all this fun.

Our event was held at Slicer's in Vincennes, the old Elks Lodge out 7th Street.  I finalized my 5-page speech in the morning and printed it out, but then I almost left it at the house.  I also made two desserts for tonight -- Vanilla Texas sheet cake, and Pecan Cheesecake Squares.  I took the time to spell out 1965 on the Vanilla Texas Cheesecake before I remembered that we were going to cut it and put it on plates before anyone arrived.  Oh well, it was pretty to start with.

We still had some work to do, but we were ready in plenty of time -- time enough to worry about whether or not people would come early enough to visit.

 I realized then that I probably needed some kind of podium to put the pages of my speech on, so I went searching for someone to help me with that.  Although they didn't have a podium, they did come up with something that worked.

Joe posted this picture on Facebook, and he got some interesting comments.  Niece Lori Gerig posted "Wow - you got Red Bull to sponsor the event." and her sister Cathy Croxton responded "No surprise.  They're known for sponsoring events for the young and hip!"  LOL.  Anyhow, they did give me a tablecloth to cover up the Red Bull stuff, so all was well.

Our tables looked great, and I think our classmates did spend some time looking at our displays.  We had a few snacks as appetizers, but most of the social hour was spent milling around and visiting with each other, which was what we had hoped for.

The room looked really nice.  Barbara had put gold runners down the center of each table, then a floral arrangement with solar lanterns on each table.  She covered up the solar opening, and inserted battery-operated flickering candles.  Which was great, except none of us remembered to click them on.  Oh well, the lanterns looked great anyhow.  Barbara also had placemats made from our Senior Trip picture in front of the Capitol Building in Washington D.C.

 The other major thing we forgot -- we did not take a group picture.  That was a real mistake, we had such a great turnout, and I know everyone would have loved having a picture that included almost every one of their classmates.  But, nothing I could do about that when I remembered it as I went to bed that night.

 Barbara did an outstanding job with the decorations, the tables were lovely, as was the dessert array and the Memorial table.  We also had tables of memorabilia from the 60's, a table with our senior pictures, a table of pictures and mementos that some of our classmates had held on to for these 50 years, and a table with pictures of our boys who served in the military.

The dessert table was really beautiful.  Barbara set it up with lots of blue and gold, and her beautiful cupcakes. 

Finally, our classmates began to arrive.  We served 36 for dinner, only one couple  that we were expecting didn't make it (Dick and Susie Catt Johnson), so we had 17 (out of 24 graduates), and 5 classmates who did not actually graduate with us, join us for our evening of reminiscing.

After our delicious meal, I got up to give my remarks.  And it appeared that most of my esteemed classmates were actually paying attention (probably better than they did 50 years ago).  Well, maybe not Mike Baker, but that is no different than 50 years ago anyhow.

Finally, I concluded my remarks, and turned the podium over to Toni to talk about tomorrow night's alumni. 

After our official speaking was over, everyone resumed visiting.  We also had a little "goodie bag" for each graduate, which included a notebook with the contact information for each classmate, copies of pages from our 1965 yearbook as well as copies of the class picture for each of the 4 years of high school, the article "A Decker Chapel Student Recalls ..." from the History of Decker book that was published a few years ago (an interview of Barbara Seitzinger Holscher), and pictures of both Decker and Decker Chapel schools.   Also in the goodie bag was a wooden plaque that said "Decker Aces 1965 - 2015" that our Arizona friend Collins Brundige had made for me to give to each graduate.

As we began cleaning up the room, I took my class jacket down and modeled it -- obviously it shrank a lot in 50 years, it no longer came together in front!

I think everyone had a good time -- I know I did -- and the committee hopes to be able to stay in contact with our classmates in some manner in the future.  I am so grateful that so many came and joined us for this special occasion.

Since we didn't do a group picture, I will end this blog with the picture of our placemats of our Senior Class Trip.  Since we all look exactly the same as we did 50 years ago, this will have to suffice.