Word Form Laurie
Hi All you Eighteen Year Olds!
For all of you who made it to any part of our great 35 year reunion weekend, you know it was a great success!
On Friday night, August 14th, fifty-three of us (plus many brave spouses and dates) packed Beavers Lounge in downtown Manchester. Thanks to Rachel Baldwin York, we all had nametags with our 1974 pictures so it was easy to remember who we all were! Many of us closed Beavers at 2:00 AM.
Then on Saturday morning the 15th, fifteen volunteers met at the fairgrounds pavilion to decorate and set up for the night’s festivities. In less than two hours the hall was decorated, tables set up, and our picture gallery assembled. Thanks to Mary Gaffney Milroy, Paula Wilson Wilgenbusch , Ruth Minehart Hesen, Inez Dingbaum, Julie Ewing Karbula, Craig and Diane Pasker Francois, Teresa Pink Wickman, Deirdre Devine Byrne for their decorating and set-up skills. Special thanks to Bill Logan for bringing in and setting up the TV and ancient VCR to view our slide show. And of course our reunion committee, Becky Boren O’Connell, Rachel Baldwin York, Rich McDowell and David Koehne were there directing operations.
That afternoon about twelve golfers enjoyed the Manchester Golf Club’s great course, thanks to our golf outing organizer Rich McD. Others of us relaxed over a long lunch at the restaurant there.
About forty of us toured the high school, thanks to WD School Board member Mike Ryan, before heading out to the fairgrounds for our evening of reuniting, dining, music and fun. About 100 attended Saturday night. Afterward, everyone was invited out to Harpers’ field for a bonfire, more beverages and even cigars. We partied there until almost 3:00 AM.
Sunday morning, about fifteen met for breakfast in downtown Manchester at Jude’s Cafe, others attended church and had lunch together before finally calling it a weekend.
There is already talk of our next reunion and possibly even a gathering at Homecoming this year.
David Koehne, our official photographer and webmaster, already has some great reunion pictures posted at our website, www.oldmanhawks.com. Many of us are also communicating now through Facebook, please join us there.
For those of you who did not make it, the booklets are being mailed out this week to those who signed up for one. If you did not send in your five bucks for a book but now would like one, we may still have a few left. Contact me as soon as possible and cough up the money and I will see that you receive one.
Any address changes, please keep us informed, it will make planning our 40th way easier…………..and easy will be good five years from now!
Your Thirty-Five Year Reunion Committee,
Becky Boren O’Connell
Rich McDowell
Rachel Baldwin York
David Koehne
Cheryl McWilliams Wheeler
Laurie Harper O’Leary
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