Over the weekend, my high school graduating class had our 30th class reunion. 30. 3-0. How can it be that I have been out of high school for 30 years? I swear we just graduated. I am sure you are also thinking we are LATE. Yes, we are. Technically, we’re on 31. Our reunion was planned for last fall, but NC had Hurricane Florence to contend with and our weekend was cancelled. May 4th was the first available date, albeit a harder date for attendance. All I can say is at least we did it! I vow here and now that it is my last reunion, unless we combine the classes of 87, 88, and 89. I’d be down with seeing all these people. After all, in high school, you have classes with other classes (like foreign language, art, etc.). I’m at an age now where they can only get smaller, so let’s parlay that into more classes at one shot. Most of us don’t miss a beat when it comes to getting together. There may be years between our visits, but we typically pick up where we left off.
Having grown up in the town where I was born, a lot of my classmates were with me in Pre-K at the church. Some, I met on the soccer fields at the Y. Some joined me at Johnson Street Elementary and some joined me a AJ Griffin Middle School. I love that when we all see each other, our rich background makes it seem like it was just yesterday when we saw each other last. I love, too, we realize this isn’t just about the 4 years of high school and the memories we made then. It’s about reminiscing and making new memories.
I believe it was my mom’s 30th reunion where she reunited with all of her high school buddies. After heading in different directions, raising kids, and coming out on the other side, they were ready to pick up where they left off. And they have. They kept in touch and planned yearly trips to the mountains for a while. Now, they are all on Facebook. All the Susans and Mollie, and there are a couple of others. I’m closest with the Susans. Seems natural since I am technically a Susan, too.
We also had some of our teachers with us to share in the fun. The always wonderful Mr. Kearns and his wife (mother of our classmate, Ashley, who wasn’t able to be here). Mrs. Dunn, choir extraordinaire. And the oh so lovable coaches, Ms. Cozart and Ms. Hester. Cozy, as I have lovingly referred to her for years told me to call her Andrea. I’m just not sure I can, but I’ll try. And Ms. Hester……she’s on the far right in the below picture. She started at HPC in 1957 (or ’54–I can’t remember). She was there when my parents were students there. I was glad to find out she retired in 1989. And man, she does not look her age at all! It was a great time seeing them.
The worst part about reunions is that not everyone wants to come and not everyone can come. There are some friends I haven’t seen in 25+ years that I want to see that have never been to a reunion. And then, there are those of us that live in the same town and never see each other. With the dawning of social media it’s a wonder people still have reunions, but we are grateful to Rebecca Price for somehow wrangling us all together for the last two reunions. Without you, we wouldn’t have these memories (or the fun)!
✨Thank you to everyone who shared their photographs. There is no way I would have gotten all these good ones!!✨
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