2009
60th Birthday Celebration
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Honoring the Class of '67
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Another successful event has concluded - it was a great reunion of friends. So many who attended our joint '60th' birthday party commented on how much they enjoyed the casual evening and opportunity to visit, enjoy food and drink and later dance. We shared a spectacular sunset against the beautiful Alamitos Bay. One of the many highlights was the elementary and junior high 'mini' reunions from Mann to Gant, Jefferson to Hill ... it was a wonderful time to renew treasured friendships! Enjoy photos taken by Kenny Siegers, Norman Riggs, JoEllen Munnerlyn Whitecotton and June Peterson Anderson (top right) ... we look forward to receiving more photos and will post as received!
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Seen at the scene ...
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Mike Bander
RaeDel Barker Shaw
Cassie Berrisford
Larry Blaisdell
Don Bright
Letitia Cadwallader Duesler
Monty Cochran
Cheryl Cocke Oliver
Val Connelley Nasser
Barbara Cottle Varat
DeeDee Crary Voorhees
Victoria Davis
Cam Doherty Killingsworth
Sherry Drake Smith
Lavada 'Jean' Finn Jaynes Santavicca
Lynn Gescheider Nielsen
Carolyn Gill Callahan
Greg Gill
Michael Griffin
Wim Griffith
David Haldane
Bill Harris
Bob Harris
Donna Harris O'Donnell
Susan Howell De Witz
John Kahler
Wendy Krafft Copra
Bruce Lewis
Pam Lewis-Plumbley
Barbara Livengood
Jessica Losch
Kari Lydersen Boster
Charlene Marks
Gregg Miller
Greg Morgon
Patricia Mulvey Cooney
Jo Ellen Munnerlyn Whitecotton
Casey Nasser
Judi Nesbitt McMahon
Wayne Nicholls
Rick Paap
June Peterson Anderson
Jim Price
Phyllis Rathbone Robison
Norman Riggs
Gay Sandberg Anderson
Carole Ann Schnug Marlowe
George Scouten
Jeff Severson
Diane Shaw Caldwell
Joseph A. Shuff, III
Pat Shuford DeLong
Kenny Siegers
Margie Switzer Cowan
Kathy Tatreau Lingener
Jon Vreeland
Janie Wheeler
Ron Wortman
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KEEP YOUR INFO CURRENT, MISSING and IN MEMORIAM GRADS
.We’d like to reach as many grads as possible. Our 10, 20, 30 and 40 Year Reunions were successful due to everyone’s effort to notify as many fellow grads as possible about our celebrations.
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Please keep your information current at www.wilsonhighreunion.com/1967
Click on “Register with your Reunion Committee”
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Please review the Missing Grad List to see if you know the whereabouts of anyone on the list.
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Email us anytime at our Class Email: 1967@wilsonhighreunion.com
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Your 60th Birthday Celebration Committee!
June, Cam, Wim, Jessica, Janet, Judy, Pat, Melanie, Judi and Tim
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40th Reunion ...
What's 40 years ... among friends!
The 40th Reunion is Complete!
October 26-27, 2007
June Peterson Anderson
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Cam Doherty Killingsworth
Wim Griffith
Jim & Betsy Lineberger
Jessica Losch
Janet Marcum Lehman
Judy Marcum McFadden
Melanie McKinstry Henkel
Pat Mulvey Cooney
Diane Myers Doyle
Judi Nesbitt McMahon
Kathy Ware Day
Daren Wilson Stage
Tim Wilson
The entire committee wishes to thank each and every one of you who were able to attend and we enjoyed hearing from all of you who couldn't join us but hope to in the future.
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Special guests included Ed Sewell, Karen McGrew,
Dick Van Der Laan and Coaches Russ Jordan and Bob Gruneisen.
It was great to see them!
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The much anticipated 40th Reunion Memory Books have been sent and WOW, what nice emails we received:
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Thank you for all the hard work it took to put together the wonderful memory book. There were many people that I didn't get to talk or visit with, so it's fun to see them in the pictures. Can't wait to hear about the upcoming class
60th (OMG!) birthday party.
Fondly, Sheila Becker Henson
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I got my memory book and just wanted to drop you a line and let yu know that you guys did a great job!!!! I am really enjoying it. Thanks again to you and all the committee
for your dedication and hard work.
DeeDee
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I just got home from Montana and the memory book was waiting for me. WOW!! You guys did a wonderful job of putting that together, and I really do appreciate all that you did to put it together. Many many thanks!! It's wonderful to have some emails and addresses also. I'm so sorry I could not attend the reunion, but it is great fun to look through that book! Please extend my thanks to the committee members, and Sue Howell for sure, for all your work and efforts.
Sincerely, Jan (Thompson) Rowe
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I received the memory book and it is terrific.
Looks like everyone had a great time.
Wish I could have been there.
Thank you all so much for everything.
All of you did a great job putting it together.
Thank you for the Memories.
Love, Carol T.
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Thank you so much for the Memory Book. You and the committee did an outstanding job. I am very sorry to have missed it. It looks like everyone had a fabulous time. I really appreciate the book. I'm looking forward to the next reunion. Thanks for all your hard work.
Sherry Drake Smith
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Great job on the book by the way. Are you sure you don't need more money for the publishing of such an outstanding job.
If so, let me know. Debi
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The Memory Books were definitely worth the wait! Thank you to all the committee and especially to Pat Mulvey and Susan Howell for putting them together. It was a great evening and seeing all the pictures shows that everyone had a wonderful time seeing old friends. Several of us girls have reconnected ... going all the way back to elementary days and we just had a mini-reunion on August 15th with 8 of us!
So thank you for keeping good track of us all!
JoEllen
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I came home last night after spending the last 4 days sitting with a dear friend in ICU that had undergone brain surgery for a malignant tumor. I have to tell you, after opening up the reunion memory book, I felt so much better. It transported me away from the difficult present moment into a world fuzzy with memories. Thank you for all the effort that went into putting this all together. I sat for hours just relishing the photos and brief histories. Of course now I wish I would have attended even though I was so busy surfing during high school I never got that involved with the campus activities. I saw that my "walking buddy" Austin Presby had died. And Chris Delance, a surfing friend. I especially appreciated Dave Haldane's essay. I think he captured in a few words what it's like to be approaching 60 and looking back. Thanks so very much for all your time, commitment, and energy that went into putting this all together. It was a lifesaver for me, if even for a moment.
Terry Eselun
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We made the decision to create our own Memory Book
instead of using a professional company so we could include more photos and have more control over contents.
Our heartfelt thanks to Susan Howell DeWitz for putting the book together and Pat Mulvey Cooney for printing.
People are enjoying their walks down memory lane!
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Remember to keep your contact info current via this website as we look forward to an informal gathering for our joint
'turn of the decade' 60th birthdays
Saturday, August 29, 2009.
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Please enjoy one grad's 'point of view'
(David Haldane, who writes for the LA Times)
and a few photos from our 'Grads Only' night
(courtesy of Kenny Siegers):
WHY I WENT TO MY HIGH SCHOOL REUNION
By David Haldane
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Forty years.
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It’s a lifetime, really. Many of the people born the year we graduated now have teenage children of their own. When we left Wilson, there was no Internet, cell phones were a science-fiction writer’s dream and man had not yet walked on the moon. Since then, wars have been fought and entire generations defined. So it’s not surprising that it was with some trepidation that I approached the 40-year reunion of the class of ‘67.
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The truth is, I thought it would be depressing. What if everyone was old; I’d have no choice but to admit to myself that I shared that condition. What could I say to people unseen since our long-distant youths? What would they have to say to me? What if I got there and didn’t know a soul, or at least not the souls they had become? Looking into the faces of long-last comrades, after all, is like holding a mirror up to your own. What if I didn’t like what I found staring back at me from that jagged shiny edge?
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I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t awkward. Walking into the Coast Hotel on Friday night, I searched frantically for a face to call my own. Not seeing any, I experienced a moment of panic; like a sailor lost in a sea of strangers knowing that he would quickly drown.
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Then, suddenly, there was someone, I don’t remember who, standing very close. He looked blankly at me, and I stared blankly back. Simultaneously, it seemed, our eyes fell to each other’s name tags and then smiled immediately in shock and surprise. For there, studying each other’s black-and-white portraits of long ago, we discovered we were friends.
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Thus I found my strategy; look at the name tags first. It got me through those strange early moments until, before too long, the new faces looked just fine.
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I can say this about meeting adolescent allies and adversaries after so many years; some things never change. The homecoming queen was still hot, and some of the athletes still buff even now. Cheerleaders still seemed cheerful, and the brainiacs were still smart.
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But time has a way of humbling even the mightiest it claims as its own. It is the great equalizer before which everyone ultimately crumbles; that which makes comrades of all in its wake.
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The thing of it is that we were children together. At a formative time of life, we were all there and, truth be told, the bonds that form later are of a different sort. What happens after high school is, of course, deeply consequential. But the people you knew when the world was still shiny occupy a special corner of your soul. I forget that except every decade or so when I walk into a big room feeling scared and walk out feeling young.
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I guess that’s why I attend these reunions; to feel a bond that never changes in a world that never stops. To my classmates, my childhood companions, my dear old friends, my walking partners, I say, well, thanks for sharing the walk. As we face the kilometers ahead, let’s lift our canteens in a toast: that the rest of the race is as grand as the miles we’ve already passed.
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