Category: Articles, Essays, Poems, and Tips-Ideas

Concepts about Schools

What is most important and valuable about the home as a base for children growth into the world is not that it is a better school than the schools, but that it isn’t a school at all.
John Holt

There is no school equal to a decent home and no teacher equal to a virtuous parent.
Mahatma Gandhi

Updated: June 23, 2017 — 2:56 pm

Search and Post for Reunions in as many places as possible….

Check the Events, Reunions, Calendar, etc of your local Online Newspaper as well as your local print copy.  Check your Alumni Association Sites.

Updated: May 20, 2017 — 11:55 pm

Article — Time Article on Reunions being affected by Facebook

Who got fat, who got hot, and is that old crush of mine still single? Whatever happened to that weird kid with the hair? Wait, am I the one who got fat?

Such are the essential questions at the core of every high school and college reunion. For decades, the routine has remained the same: a bunch of old classmates get together and catch up, settle (or renew) grievances and swap glory-days stories. Yet the ability to locate former classmates through Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and, well, the Internet itself, has alumni organizations and other such groups wondering if the sun is setting on the traditionally organized reunion. (Read a TIME report: “Five Facebook No-Nos for Divorcing Couples.”)

Take Kim Brinegar, who in 1998 helped organize the 10-year reunion for her class at Maryland’s Arundel High School. “Back then, the Internet wasn’t really that reliable for finding people,” she says. “I had to rely on word of mouth, advertising in the paper and sending things to people’s parents.” For the 20-year reunion, however, she had a new tool: Facebook. Through the site, Brinegar was able to get in touch with tons of people she couldn’t track down last time around, including an exchange student from Italy who flew across the Atlantic for the reunion last November. (See TIME’s top 10 social-networking apps.)

Rather than turn people off from wanting to attend (“Well, smokin’ hot Sally looks just awful now — no need for me to go”), Facebook only increased the excitement for the 20th reunion at Massachusetts’ Sharon High School, says Holly Goshin, who helped plan the event. “It’s enticing. It’s like a little preview, seeing everyone’s life online. And whether you’re happy that someone is not doing as well as you or you’re happy that they look amazing, you get to see it all in person. Then you can move on with your life.”

But such self-organization is hurting businesses devoted to reunions, says Jonathan Miller, co-owner of Reunited Inc., a 20-year-old company that has helped plan more than 1,000 high school reunions. “It’s definitely affected our business,” Miller says. “Classes can now easily say to me, ‘Jonathan, we have 150 people in our Facebook group right now, and we really don’t need your services.’ ” (See 10 ways in which your job is going to change.)

College-alumni associations are dealing with the same issues. “Students now are all connected through Facebook and MySpace and other sites, so they leave college with their own network completely intact,” says Deborah Dietzler, executive director of alumni relations at the University of Georgia. “This is not like 20 years ago, where, if you wanted to get in touch with someone, you kind of needed to call the alumni office.”

On a personal level, Dietzler is a good example of how Facebook can hurt reunion attendance. “There was a Facebook page for my 20-year college reunion, which took place this May,” she says. “I looked at it a couple of times and it didn’t seem like anyone I knew would be there, so I lost interest.” (Read “Your Facebook Relationship Status: It’s Complicated.”)

Still, the idea that social-networking sites might kill reunions is a faulty one, because that would essentially mean killing nostalgia itself. While Facebook allows you to easily discover that your old pal Jack now has twins, it does not allow you to knock back a drink with Jack at your old campus dive (unless it’s a virtual drink, and where’s the fun in that?). What the Internet is doing is shifting power from schools to former students. There’s less need for snail-mail brochures and impersonal e-mails from alumni offices and businesses like Reunited Inc. when any former student can just form a reunion group on Facebook.

Marc Dizon was a class officer for Virginia’s West Springfield High class of 1999. Nine or so years later, dozens of former classmates began to e-mail him via Facebook to ask if a reunion was going to happen. The interest was there. “I don’t think reunions are redundant on account of social media,” he says. “You’re always going to want to see people face to face. And those who don’t go are probably those who wouldn’t have gone even if there was no Facebook.”

Mike Huynh, who helped organize a reunion for his 1998 Lowell High School class in San Francisco, says the gathering — which 214 out of about 600 class members attended — might not have happened if it weren’t for Facebook. “It made it very cheap for us to connect quickly with classmates and get information out to them. It was also easy to get feedback on what dates students prefer and, afterwards, on how the event went. I think that five years from now, the popularity of Facebook is going to make it an even more effective way to get people together.” (Read about using Facebook and Twitter to find a job.)

So reunions are probably here to stay, says Andrew Shaindlin, executive director of the Caltech Alumni Association and a blogger at Alumni Futures. But the real danger is that an end to reunions organized by alumni associations would make it more difficult for those associations to raise funds from former students. “It’s going to affect donations,” says Shaindlin. “We’ve lost our monopoly over the data on how to communicate with schoolmates. We need to step back and figure out how to remain relevant, because there may be some point three or five or seven years from now when we’re going to hold a reunion and almost nobody is going to sign up.” By then, however, alumni associations may have figured out how to tap donors via Facebook.
Read more: Time Article on Reunions being affected by Facebook

 

Updated: June 20, 2017 — 11:22 am

Essay – An Invitation to a Reunion – plethora of emotions

The invitation to one‘s 30th high school reunion brings about a plethora of emotions, the first one being how is it possible that I graduated from high school 30 years ago? The litany of other emotions includes the inexplicable onset of a feeling of failure, both in life and in weight management, as well as wardrobe panic and the fear that nobody will recognize us.

Oddly enough, we read the invitation with equal parts horror and curiosity, and almost instantly convince ourselves to attend. We urgently need to know who else is going, not only because we hope to be surrounded by comforting and familiar faces, but also because we need to make a mental list of those we hope won’t show.

As the day draws closer, we get excited about the prospect of seeing the “old gang” even if we never really had one, and we dig through boxes to uncover our yearbooks so that we can study up and hopefully identify fellow classmates with ease. Unfortunately, the dredging up of the yearbooks serves mostly to remind us of those people we do not wish to see, then to cement in our already-insecure minds how skinny and cute we were 30 years ago, and finally to refresh the memories of teacher‘s names and shared experiences we want to be prepared to laugh about out loud.

When the moment arrives, we spend the day preparing ourselves to inspire squeals of “you haven‘t changed a bit” and other sweet little lies that flow freely at 30-year reunions. We toy with the idea of inflating our accomplishments in life in case we are confronted with tales of grand accomplishments from those we never imagined would get a job outside the local burger joint. We brace ourselves for the moment when we look around the room and quietly ask ourselves who all of these old fat people are who are so happy to see us and seem to know us so well.

We slap on our name tags that often carry a photo from our high school yearbook, and boldly venture into the crowd, desperately searching for a friendly face. When we find it, suddenly we are 17 years old all over again, and all the things that we were so worried about vanish from our minds. We recognize everyone, even the guys whose name tag photos betray their bellies and bald heads, and we are so happy we came.

Who we are inside doesn‘t really ever change. The packaging goes through some re-designs over the years, but the person inside is always that kid we knew in sixth-period English that knew everything one could possibly know about grammar, or the kid who always had a note from home that got him out of gym class. Welcome back, Class of 1982, enjoy your reunion! And here‘s a tip for you: Write down the names of the people you snap photographs of, because trust me, when you go to share the memories with friends and family later, you will have no idea who those old fat people in the pictures are.

———————-

WHS 1983
Follow Randi Miller on Twitter:   www.twitter.com/Randi_Miller

Randi Miller
Voiceover artist and the ‘Voice of Metro‘ in D.C.

 

Updated: June 20, 2017 — 11:23 am

Reunion Poem

Reunion Poem
Source: unknown

Every five years, as summertime nears,
An announcement arrives in the mail,
A reunion is planned; it‘ll be really grand;
Make plans to attend without fail.

I‘ll never forget the first time we met;
We tried so hard to impress.
We drove fancy cars, smoked big cigars,
And wore our most elegant dress.

It was quite an affair; the whole class was there.
It was held at a fancy hotel.
We wined, and we dined, and we acted refined,
And everyone thought it was swell.

The men all conversed about who had been first
To achieve great fortune and fame.
Meanwhile, their spouses described their fine houses
And how beautiful their children became.

The homecoming queen, who once had been lean,
Now weighed in at one-ninety-six.
The jocks who were there had all lost their hair,
And the cheerleaders could no longer do kicks.

No one had heard about the class nerd
Who‘d guided a spacecraft to the moon;
Or poor little Jane, who‘s always been plain;
She married a shipping tycoon.

The boy we‘d decreed “most apt to succeed”
Was serving ten years in the pen,
While the one voted “least” now was a priest;
Just shows you can be wrong now and then.

They awarded a prize to one of the guys
Who seemed to have aged the least.
Another was given to the grad who had driven
The farthest to attend the feast.

They took a class picture, a curious mixture
Of beehives, crew cuts and wide ties.
Tall, short, or skinny, the style was the mini;
You never saw so many thighs.

At our next get-together, no one cared whether
They impressed their classmates or not.
The mood was informal, a whole lot more normal;
By this time we‘d all gone to pot.

It was held out-of-doors, at the lake shores;
We ate hamburgers, coleslaw, and beans.
Then most of us lay around in the shade,
In our comfortable T-shirts and jeans.

By the fortieth year, it was abundantly clear,
We were definitely over the hill.
Those who weren‘t dead had to crawl out of bed,
And be home in time for their pill.

And now I can‘t wait; they‘ve set the date;
Our fiftieth is coming, I‘m told.
It should be a ball, they‘ve rented a hall
At the Shady Rest Home for the old.

Repairs have been made on my hearing aid;
My pacemaker‘s been turned up on high.
My wheelchair is oiled, and my teeth have been boiled;
And I‘ve bought a new wig and glass eye.

I‘m feeling quite hearty, and I‘m ready to party
I‘m gonna dance ‘til dawn‘s early light.
It‘ll be lots of fun; But I just hope that there‘s one
Other person who can make it that night.

 

Updated: June 20, 2017 — 11:22 am

Remembering a Deceased Classmate at Reunion…

http://varsityreunions.com/archives/160

The site above has the Methods listed as well as comments by viewers. You too can visit the site and leave a comment.
______________________________________________________________________________________

The harshest reality of a high school reunion is learning of the death of a fellow classmate. You‘re young, or maybe you feel young, so it is hard to believe a classmate just as young is no longer with you. At your reunion, you want to remember these classmates, but want to do so in a respectful and appropriate way. Here are a few ideas:

1) Create a Memorial Table Photo Display On a linen covered table, set a framed photo of each classmate. In front of each picture, place a lit white votive or candle. You may also frame a list of names along with a single white candle. Adding an appropriate poem or quote is also a nice touch.

2) Include a Directory Page
Include a page for each deceased classmate in your directory or memory book, add their high school photo, and ask a fellow classmate to write a memory or thought. Or, have a single page listing the names of each classmate in the front of the book.

3) Remember Parents or Family Members
Let parents or families know you haven‘t forgotten your classmates. The Kirkwood Class of 1991 set out cards for reunion attendees to write a note to the parents of their deceased classmates. Each card was filled with messages about how the classmate was missed. You may also want to send flowers to the parents or families, letting them know their loss is felt by everyone in the class.

You may be concerned this would be upsetting to family members. Parents and families deal with their loss every day. This isn‘t a reminder. It is a way to let them know you also share in their grief. But, use your best judgment as to what you and the committee feel is most appropriate.

4) Make a Donation to Your School
Make a donation to your school or alumni association in memory of your classmates. Include the donation as part of the ticket price, or allow classmate to donate to the fund when they register for the reunion. The donation may be used as a scholarship or to buy something the school needs, such as equipment for the football team or books for the library. Click here for a story about the Lafayette Class of 2002 and the scholarships they created in memory of their classmates.

5) Create a Permanent Memorial
Collect donations to purchase a tree or bench. Have the dedication during the reunion weekend, and include pictures in your directory or on your memorial table. The tree or bench may be placed on the school grounds with a plaque or sign, such as “In Fond Memory of Our Classmates, the Benton Class of 1991”.

What Not to Do
It is not necessary to include the when, why or how of a deceased classmate. This gossip isn‘t anyone‘s business, and you don‘t want to offer information which may not be 100% correct.
Don‘t read names or have a moment of silence during the reunion program. Classmates are usually too busy talking and visiting and drinking to listen to what you have to say, making it hard to maintain a tone of respect. If you are able to hold the attention of your classmates during this time, transitioning back into the spirit of the reunion celebration can be difficult.
Don‘t leave empty chairs at a table in memory of each deceased classmate unable to attend.

Most of all, know it is not wrong to celebrate your reunion while at the same time remembering those classmates who are no longer with you.

Here are a few quotes you may want to include as part of your memorial:

No love, no friendship, can cross the path of our destiny without leaving some mark on it forever.
Francois Mocuriac

So many things have happened
Since they were called away.
So many things to share with them
Had they been left to stay.
And now on this reunion day,
Memories do come our way.
Though absent, they are ever near,
Still missed, remembered, always dear.
Author Unknown

Hold a true friend with both your hands.
Nigerian Proverb

We all take different paths in life, but no matter where we go, we take a little of each other everywhere.
Tim McGraw http://varsityreunions.com/archives/160

Updated: June 20, 2017 — 11:22 am
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