Greetings --and a big sigh of relief-- to
you all. On behalf of the other Reunion Goddesses (as we were re-christened by
Jim Kass), Sharon Teasdale Watson, Lisa Karpe Hugel and Ann Johnson Garrity, I’d
like to thank everyone who helped make our 25th Reunion Weekend a
smashing success.
170 alumni, spouses and teachers attended
the main event on Saturday night and we had over 35 at both the pizza party at
SHS on Friday night and the brunch on Sunday morning – and everything was
FABULOUS! If you were fortunate enough to have attended one, two or all of the
events then you know what I’m talking about; if you had to stay home…well, you
missed a heck of a weekend! On Saturday night, the line started forming at 6
p.m. (for a 6:30 start) and at 1 a.m., we were pushing people out the door!
Friendships were renewed, air-kisses were exchanged and the festivities were
heartily enjoyed by all. On a side note, it was interesting to watch the
reactions of the two SHS seniors in attendance – my son, Dan, who was our jazz
pianist, and Dick Wood’s son, Pat, our videographer, as well as those of the SHS
students on staff at the Hopmeadow Country Club. One would imagine they were
trying to picture themselves 25 years in the future – perhaps they were somewhat
relieved to see that even at our advanced age we still know how to party!
In fact, we had such a great time (and
because we’re gluttons for punishment, of course), we are planning on doing it
again in 4 ¾ years. And now that we have the handy-dandy little website so
cleverly set up by Sam Taylor, Head of the Loyal Order of the Water Buffalos-oh
wait, that’s Fred Flintstone, isn’t it?…I mean, Sam Taylor, Supreme and
Omnipotent Web-King, we can keep in touch with classmates and, we hope, continue
to accumulate e-mail addresses and find classmates who are missing – as well as
just being chatty when the situation warrants.
SCHOLARSHIP UPDATE
Through the generosity of our silent
auction donors and because of the enthusiasm of our bidders, we raised $1200 for
the Robert Cararini Scholarship and other Simsbury educational causes. A huge,
heartfelt thank you to everyone who helped make our auction such a success – Rob
Tobias, Jane Spatcher McAlpine, Sue Gottshalk Lutz and Steve Lutz, Joleen Urban
Benedict, Rick Wilde, Jayne Kalika Hundley, Jim Kass, Wendy Hilt Anelli, Pam
Rommel Currier, Sharon Teasdale Watson, and a few anonymous donors.
The Cararini Scholarship, which will be
awarded for the first time to an as yet-unnamed member of the class of 2003, is
designed to provide funds for an SHS senior who will be pursuing a college
degree in education. The Cararini family felt this was the best way to honor Mr.
Cararini’s over 30-year career as an educator and his outstanding commitment to
teaching. If you did not participate in the auction but would like to make a
contribution to the Cararini Scholarship, please send me a check (made out to
the scholarship fund so that you can deduct it) no later than May 1; also please
send me an e-mail alerting me to the fact you will be sending a check. I will
include your check with the proceeds of the auction when I bring it to Joan
Ramsay at SHS. My address is 3 Browngate Lane, Simsbury 06070.
MORE
ABOUT THE WEBSITE
A few reunion pictures are already on the
website. We will soon be posting the Class of 1977 Biography Book, many more
pictures and video from the reunion on the website; just give us a few weeks to
get organized (no complaining or we’ll post the previously-referred to resident
of Bedrock’s picture next to YOUR name!)
Class
Biography Book
If you didn’t fill out a bio and would
like to be included in the book, please go to the website and fill out a form
(ASAP); once filled out and sent, we can add it to the book. After viewing a
copy of the book and finding out quite a few classmates had written long,
information-filled bios, a number of people at the reunion mentioned they wished
they hadn’t been so sketchy. If you are one of those people, and want to add to
your “what I’ve been doing for the last 25 years,” just fill out that section of
the bio form and press send (but don’t forget your name!) We’ll add that
information before we post the book. Again, please do your updating ASAP since
we’d like to put the book online the first week of May.
Pictures,
Pictures, Pictures
If you have pictures of the reunion,
pictures of your family and/or pictures of our SHS days you are willing to
share, please do one of the following:
1. If you have digital pictures and can e-mail them to Sam, please do so (sam@setaylor.net).
Please be so kind as to snail-mail me hard copy of the photos as well – since I
have nothing to do for the next 57 months, I might as well get started on the
scrapbook displays we’ll be using at the 30th reunion. Please be sure
to identify the people in the picture so we don’t have to guess – or offend
anyone by guessing wrong.
2. If you do not have digital pictures but
can scan and e-mail them to Sam, go for it. Same deal as above – please send me
hard copy and be sure to identify who is in the pictures.
3. If you don’t have digital or you can’t
scan (or you do but have not have a clue what to do with it), please send me the
hard copy (and be sure to note that they were not sent to Sam). Joe
Brunoli has graciously agreed to lend his skills to the process (not THOSE
skills, his Internet skills) and will be helping to scan and e-mail pictures to
Sam.
Additions
to the Website
We’ve got lots of ideas for the website to
increase its use and make it a great communication tool for the class. If you
have suggestions for improvements and additions to the website, we welcome them.
Please e-mail ideas to Reunionchicks@shs77.net – this will go to both Sam and
me. Also, we were thinking that it might be nice to link the website to those of
classmates (with the caveat that the links must be to an appropriate and
approved-by-us website) – for example, I am still very involved in the Simsbury
Summer Theatre for Youth and we have a website that may be of interest to some
members of the class. Someone else may have a home business that offers items or
services over the Internet. If you have a website you would like us to link to,
please e-mail us the link and a description. If it looks like it would be a good
thing to do, then we’ll move ahead.
That about wraps it up for now. You’ll be
hearing from Sam and me in the not too distant future – in the meantime, keep
those pictures and biographies coming!
