Hi, “Hutch”:
Another Dave here. It’s been a while since we corresponded.
Just a bit of news from some former Mt. View grads. The 60th anniversary reunion of MVHS Grad class of 1962 was held in September 2012. It included a buffet lunch and optional drinks. Masking was optional. Tables were spaced, but not necessarily the grads sitting at them! To avoid close lineups we called out each table separately to approach the food selections.
Brian used his electronic genius to supply the background music. He chose songs from the 1958-59 era, which brought back sweet memories for all of us from our early teens at Colquitz and SJ Willis and from our first autumn at Mt. View.
Donna is on our committee and is also a Sweet Adeline, and kindly and ably led us in the school song. We are wondering if it is sung at any other gatherings, official or unofficial. Some think this reunion may be our last, and I remarked that this may be the last time in history that the school song was sung.
Donna also produced a beautiful framed list of our deceased grads of 1962 with the year they died. Sadly but inevitably the numbers are still growing.
A draw was held for some school days items among the effects of Frances who died in 2022, donated by her older sister who was MVHS grad an earlier year. She was one of the organizers of our first reunion, being the 10th in 1972, and a lot of the memorabilia was destroyed about 40 years later when her basement got flooded.
Judy was the great organizer on our committee and everything went off very well. As I did on our 40th and 50th I gave the “keynote address”, which elicited a few chuckles and a few surprises. One was a correction from our 50th where we mentioned that “young Joan” skipped a grade so was born in 1945, unlike most of us who are 1944 babies. It turned out that Pat was also born in 1945 and much later we found out that Leona was, too!
The other pleasant surprise was that Len was listed at our 50th reunion as deceased, but is actually very much alive and attended our 60th. Somebody got mixed up a while back!
We always rent a private venue rather than gathering at a pub or restaurant, which tends to keep the noise down and avoid intruders. Sometimes there is talk of inviting “kids” from other grad years, but we are pleased to say we only did this once (I think it was for the 40th) with unhappy results. We keep it pure 1962, and only those who were on the list that Huddy read out on grad night are invited.
Some folks asked for the next reunion to be a 65th, since if we wait till the 70th our numbers may have diminished considerably. I countered by referring to the Victoria High School Grad Class of 1940. In 2015 they held their 75th reunion. Of course, everybody was at least 93. If they can do it, we can do it, I say!
I must credit the other committee members for their hard work at organizing these things, and you know what that’s like, Hutch! I have only been helping for the past 3 every-10-year reunions and those folks are a great inspiration for me. They seem to think I am good at finding people, thanks to an apparently good memory of names, relatives, etc. Out of about 135 grads, there are only 3 or 4 that we have never been able to locate.
Well, Hutch, by now your eyes must be glazing over, but I just thought you might be interested in this. Your “do” in July will be held on my birthday, so I will be thinking of you and the gang, and wish you every success and lots of fun!
Rah-rah-rah!
Dave Welham