Updated December 23, 2005
Seasons Greetings from Your Reunion Committee!
Wishing you and yours a very special holiday season and a safe a prosperous New Years
Reunion Has Come and Gone
One of the highlights during the reunion was a "Remembrance Address given by Dave Stewart, Class of 1965. The address is as follows:
"...We are privileged people.
The classes of 1965 and 1966. The rock 'n' roll generation. The front line troops of the Baby Boom. We are part of the wave that swept across America and the world and changed everything.
We were still in high school when President Kennedy was assassinated. Most of us still remember where we were and what we were doing when we heard the news. Many of us still recall the shock of Dr. Small's chilling announcement and our early dismissal from school that Friday.
It was the most formative event of some of our young lives and a foreshadowing of turbulent years ahead.
Protests, demonstrations, riots. Civil rights. Bobby and Martin. Men on the moon. Three Mile Island. Watergate. Skyjackings. The hostage crisis. Waco, Oklahoma City, 9-11. Mt. St. Helens. The tsunami.
And Vietnam. Still an open wound on the national consciousness. A hotly debated topic during the presidential election. A measuring rod set alongside our current engagement in the Middle East.
Most of us know someone who died in Vietnam, not even counting our four classmates who never reached their 24th birthdays.
Vietnam polarized us. Embittered us. Tore us apart. Some of us still hold onto strong differences. But on this reunion weekend, let us recall the Vietnam era as a shared experience. We all were classmates and friends in the same moment of time at this great school. All of us, after we left, walked into the Vietnam conflict on some level. Each of us responded to that terrible time in a unique way, in troubled accord with our beliefs, values and knowledge. Everyone of us struggled to say and do the right thing.
The rest of the past four decades has been a shared experience as well. We all have had our triumphs and sorrows, pieces of good fortune and unexpected setbacks. We all have had to deal with sickness or the death of people close to us.
In the documentary "Years of Lightning, Day of Drums," about John F. Kennedy's presidency, narrator Gregory Peck speaks of the line of life that begins with birth and ends with death. President Kennedy, a vibrant, intelligent and charismatic leader, who was in control of so much, who influenced so much, had no power over the length of that line.
So let us give and accept from life, and each other, all that we can. We have no ultimate control over the length of our life line, but we have much to say about its breadth and depth.
We know of 36 classmates who preceded us in death. We believe there are others. Now, at this place, we recall them as youths moving into adulthood, and honor them for their lifelines that wove uniquely into the fabric of humanity..."
Let us remember..."Amazing Grace" on bagpipes performed by Barbara Knapp
Marcia Child O'Connor sang three songs for the class and the Alma mater was "performed" by a Barbershop group organized by John Strauss.
Joe Thoman provided an explanation of "class gifts" and the day was enhanced by spontaneous announcements courtesy of various alumni.
|
