Boy Oh Boy.......................What a FANTASTIC Weekend!!
We (most of the reunion committe) were a little nervous heading into
the reunion weekend. The Friday night gathering came together at the
last minute. We sent out almost 100 emails and 165 postcards only the
week before announcing the get-together at The Fareway's. We called The
Fareway's and told them we were expecting 25-30 people TOTAL for a
"couple" of hours,but you guys proved us wrong!! The "Ice Breaker" was
to start at 7:30PM, so Patti Scott, Frank Wesighan and I got there at
7:15PM to go over some last minute things with the restaurant. Our
classmates and alumni started arriving at 7:30PM (actually some were
there a little before)and continued to do so through out the evening.
It seemed like every time the door to the place flew open, another
totally unexpected classmate was there! You could hear people
whispering as they stared toward the door; "Look there's so& so!"
or "Who's that??". The 30 people that we had told The Fareway's were
coming turned into about 60, including spouses, guests,
boy/girlfriends, etc. Almost everyone that was there said that they
would be back the next night at Romanelli's!
It was GREAT to see:
Patti Bellanger, Steve Clayton (in the running for most changed?),
Craig Collins, Karen Cranmer, Tammy DeFranco, Michelle Dumas, Sue
Filling, Tracy Fulton (probably travelled the furthest - TEXAS),
Lorraine Grasso, Eric Hanggeli, Susan Hartwell, Kathy Hewitt, Jeanne
Higgins (and her husband, Fred Steinman AHS 75), Jeffrey Hughes, Lou
Ireland, Diann Iuduca, Mark Levin, Rick Krack, Debbie Lake, Lura
McFatridge, Risa Mohn (who somehow has found the secret of anti-aging,
despite 3 children in college at the same time), Tom Newkirk (Mr.
Warmth), Mark Ohnemuller, Sal Palermo, Vanessa Quarles, Danny Rollins,
Patti Scott, Corinne Sheeran, John Stewart, Katy Stoto, Bill Thomas,
Tammy Truax and Frank Wesighan. Additionally, there were alumni from
other classes - Sam Giacconda (75), Doug Collins (75), Michael Thompson
(77). I'm sorry, because I've named as many names as possible, but I
know I've missed people. If you were there and I neglected to mention
you, email me and I'll include you!!
The couple of hours that we had warned The Fareway's about turned into
2:00AM as the place closed and a couple of us adjourned to the parking
lot to see if Mickey Wilkes was still awake down in Florida. He
wasn't!! Whoops!! He did talk for a few minutes, but hung up with
threats (which turned out to be idle ones) and calling everyone that he
thought was involved at 6:00AM that morning. (SEE RICK KRACK'S message
below, in NEW MESSAGES!)
I remember saying to my wife, Carol on the ride home that I thought
that there was no way the actual reunion could be as good as the "Ice
Breaker and would probably be anti-climactic. WRONG AGAIN!!
SLIDESHOW PICTURES FROM THE FRIDAY NIGHT ICE BREAKER
For Still Pictures look in the "Featured Links" section on the right of
the page for "Pictures from the 30th Reunion Pre-Get Together.
THE REUNION
As with the "Ice Breaker" Get-Together, we were anxious about who would
be showing up. The amount of pre-registered people was somewhat lower
than we had anticipated. People were obviously not intimidated by the
increased price at the door! I also felt (and still feel) that some
people missed out because they were watching the "List of Confirmed
Attendees" on this site and opted not to come because they didn't think
there were enough people on the list.
Anyway, as with Friday night at The Fareway's, every time someone came
up on the porch to register it was a pleasant suprise. As I said above,
almost everyone from Friday was there - maybe only three or four people
on the list could not make it back for Saturday.
If you were at the reunion, please post your comments in the messages
section.
Did you take digital pictures............please send them as jpg or gif
file attachment(s) to absegami76@hotmail.com and I'll get them on line
"shortly".
Thanks to all for a GREAT night and making all the effort to was put
into planning the weekend worthwhile!
A BIG, BIG THANK YOU to Patti Scott, Lura McFatride (my kindergarten
girlfriend), Jeff Hughes and Corinne Sheeran for ALL your hard work
that goes on behind the scenes, while I suck up the credit. You guys
are the BEST!!