In this thread, we discuss High School Reunions
 

Ahhh... it's that time of year again. The smell of cliques and catfights is in the air! Time for high school reunions!

*Sigh* this was the big five year reunion for me and I skipped it, and probably didn't miss much. I ran into a girl who I graduated with, who also didn't go, and she said she heard it was a waste (wow, talk about gossip!). It was at the York County Fiddlers Association (a really classy joint with wooden paneling on the walls) and someone served barbequed chicken and they had a keg of beer, all for the low, low price of $25/person. There were a total of 100 people present, including guests, out of 350.

Here's a recap:

"OMG, everyone has kids." not "Everyone's married and has kids." which made me laugh!!! It's actually quite sad. But, there are a few people married without kids.

The girl who won the 1999 (or 2000) MTV Model Search graduated with me. She did well for a while, even modeled for Tommy Hilfiger and was in Cosmo, but appearantly now she's lost her contract and all the money and has a kid, who's father is the same as another girl who we graduated with's baby.

A success story: One of the "smart guys" graduated with a degree in engineering and now lives in NYC and makes $100,000/year.

Ahhh... all this from the "class with so much potential."

Please, share your stories!!!

i was senior class president...and in my school the senior clas president does the reunions. this year is our 5 year and i chose not to have one because of the bull shit you just posted about. i figure we would wait until 10 years when people were more mature and had gotten past high school

We had a very informal 5 year get together about two years ago during happy hour at the MaiTai Bar. For a class of 90, the 20 of us that actually showed up was impressive. What was cool was that so many different "cliques" were represented, and even though there was a lot of tension between all of us in HS, everyone had a great time and we promised to all meet up at our 10 year in about 3 years. A few of us were married with kids already, but the majority of us have graduated with degrees or are currently pursuing degrees. One even went on to win Miss Hawaii 2002.

Lots of gossip went on, but good gossip. And NO ONE could believe that I actually joined a sorority. :eek:

If anyone ever asks me to take the helm and plan a class reunion ever again, I'll have a conniption fit!

I was responsible for coordinating my high school's 20-year class reunion last year down in Fort Liquordale - oops, I mean Fort Lauderdale! We had a professional reunion planner handle the details such as collecting the money, renting out the ballroom and catering and negotiating with the hotel for special room rates, along with the standard reunion features of a basic alumni search, alumni directory and decorations. It was a lot of work, literally burned me out... I was glad when the reunion was over at 12:01 am Sunday morning, 'cause I later proceeded to get thoroughly sh*t-faced!

While I had almost a year and a half of lead time to allow for a thorough alumni search (most reunion planners will only do a very basic search using DMV and other publicly-accessible data on the Web), I still had to do quite a bit of legwork to ensure the reunion planner was on the ball. It was much more difficult for me since I currently live in Texas and most of my fellow alumni still live in the South Florida area.

Would I plan a reunion again? At first, I said November Foxtrot Whiskey (No F*cking Way), now, as one year has passed, I'll only consider helping out as part of the reunion committee, not as chairman/coordinator, and I would only do the latter if no one steps up to do it.

Generally, the five and ten-year class reunions are the 'show off' reunions; most alumni have graduated from college and have started their careers and families. Five-year formal reunions are rare; most times they're held informally either at a bar or as a picnic.

The 20 and 25-year reunions are the 'mid-point' reunions, where most alumni are relatively stable in their careers and families.

From the 30-year reunion and onward, these are the 'sunset' reunions, as many alumni begin to retire from their careers and their kids have already grown and left the nest. By that time, reunions involve multiple class years.

oh wow - my five year is this fall (same night as homecoming - ehhhhhhhhh) and will be held at a bar/local tavern. reading everybody else's posts so far, well, i'm scared now.

i'm pretty sure it will be a 'show off' reunion and i know that we've already got a few of the 'wow you've all got kids but no significant others' people

and i'm pretty sure we've got a really smart guy that's doing really well too.

i'll give y'all the update when it happens. yeah!

-marissa

I had my five year last fall. Out of a class of approximately 86 or so, maybe 20 showed up, which is pretty good. As year rep, it was my job to send emails and to call people to remind them about the event (some people just don't RSVP to snail mail invites), and I did end up having a hard time with one (she asked me why I was calling her about the reunion). The school holds events for honoured years (5th, 10th, 15th etc), which includes a chapel service and a "cocktail supper", but after that, we were on our own. We ended up going to Scallywags, a midtown bar, which was great. At that time, no one who showed up was engaged, married or had kids. One girl who came to the reunion announced her engagement just two months ago. In total, I think there are only 3 people who are married right now, and none have kids (that I know of).

Re: In this thread, we discuss High School Reunions
 

Haha, ours is at the Holiday Inn along 30. Like good old RLHS, EHS (for the York savvy) won't have a good turnout. Apparently 80 people are needed to attend, and at last count, 60 had paid to go. Also at $25/person, we will get dinner and all you can drink beer...which would be cool, but I don't drink it (probably only grad that doesn't.)

I'm exciting to find out what others have done with their lives since graduation although most never left/returned to York. Since it was a smaller class, at 140, I have a good idea what most everyone is up to. Just like in high school, secrets don't stay secret very long. :)

I'll stop back after I go. :)

I just had my 10 year. It was....nice, but the good friends I still keep in touch with couldn't make it, the good friends I don't keep in touch with didn't come (big disappointment - there were about 20 people I would've LOVED to have seen), so I spent the evening talking to "friendly acquantiances". I'm glad I went, and I'll go again, but overall it wasn't so great.

I've spoken to girls and other people from different schools who have served on reunion committees and they all came to the consensus that the less "frilly" the reunion, the more willing people will be to show up.

I get my alumnae magazine twice a year and normally 10 year reunions aren't too popular with the classes. The Class of 94 just had theirs. Thankfully many of them keep in touch via Yahoo Group, and a lot of them said that as long as things were as informal and inexpensive as possible, they'd show up. None of this hotel ballroom/golf tournament crap. They had a reunion weekend -- Friday was just "Ladies Night" at D&B, dinner, and a funny slideshow and Saturday was "Show off your husbands and kids" day with a picnic at the beach. From what I saw in the magazine, over half the class showed up, something that's never happened before.

Seriously, is there really a need for nametags with your senior picture attached or awards for "Most Changed"?

Damn that Romy and Michelle.

YES! There were some people that I knew on sight, and others (again, those "friendly acquaintances") where I had to sneak a peak at the nametag. I suppose the size of your graduating class has a lot to do with it. If it's a small class, there's probably no need.

And there's NEVER a need for "Most Fill-in-the-Blank" awards.

Ha.. mine (5 year) was exactly the opposite. We had a small class, and I barely recognized anyone! I pretty much hadn't seen anyone since graduation, so that made it harder, but a lot of people (mostly the girls) had put on a lot of weight and weren't too recognizable anymore. Others had changed their hair a lot (cut a bunch off or grew it out, changed colours completely, etc)

Ours was really informal, we had it at a bar that was still open to the public, so there was a lot of "was that guy in my class? or he just here drinking?" going on. Plus they overcharged like whoa. $25 for pizza and free beer.

Out of my class of around 100, I think about 40 people showed up... probably 90% were married, some had kids...

I've heard our 10 year is supposed to be a lot more formal, so I'm looking forward to that one. The 5 year was poorly planned, I only heard about it I think 2 weeks before it happened, and luckily I just happened to be going back to my hometown that weekend so it worked out.

That's the same attitude our class Vice President had (class Pres was stationed in Japan during what would have been our 5-year, so he wouldn't have been able to do anything.) Some people were disappointed; I don't know what the turnout would have been had we had one. We're definitely having one for our 10-year and I'm sure it will be fairly informal, if only because there's nothing "formal" to do in our hometown save the Country Club. We have two bars and a convention center. Whoopee.

My 5 year would be this year, but I haven't heard about it. I'm assuming that there isn't one. I don't even know who would plan such a thing, because there was no requirement to be in your final year when you ran for student council president and I believe the pres was a year below me when I graduated.

It's pretty much an unwritten tradition in most high schools that the class president is usually responsible for organizing any future class reunions, but that's usually not set in stone.

Five year class reunions are rare, since many alumni are either finishing college or starting graduate, law, or medical school. I've only seen them done with very small high school classes.

I wound up planning the 20-year reunion practically all by myself, though I initially advised the reunion organizing company that should the class president ask to take over her traditional right to be the primary point of contact for the class, I'd hand it over to her. I got a little help, but not until the last minute.

If an anniversary year is approaching, DON'T WAIT UNTIL THE LAST MINUTE to begin organizing a class reunion. It takes at least a year of planning and contacting alumni if you expect a fairly decent turnout. My high school's senior class graduated nearly 600, and attendance at our 20-year reunion was around 150-160. You'll be lucky if you can muster up 1/4 of your graduating class.

It's much easier to keep in touch with classmates nowadays with the Internet, but don't expect everyone to react to an upcoming reunion with enthusiasm. Some will not even bother going for reasons known only to them.

This year is my fifth year since graduation and my high school usually has a 5th year reunion but I haven't heard about one for my class yet. I heard that the past few classes had informal reunions at bars and the person in charge would only invite their friends and the popular crowd lol.