The weekend of September 17th & 18th was pretty much a success by all accounts. Friday night’s football game was a resounding victory for CHS (we just won’t talk about their overall record… this season OR last… OR even the year before!) The River Kings drubbed the Maquoketa Cardinals 28-0. A good size crowd (60-80) was then seen at the Silver Dollar Saloon in the Lyons Shopping District where it was said certain people had to be booted out at closing time, but we won’t mention names (Dave Smith!)
Saturday morning’s activities kicked off with Sandy (Guidebeck) Healy looking for fellow bicyclists to get some exercise… How many showed up, Sandy? The reunion committee organized a school tour which was relatively well attended considering the trouble we had getting anyone from the high school to coordinate with us! GEEZ! The biggest change since our days there of course is the (relatively) new sports complex addition to the front of Yourd gymnasium… WOW! Pretty impressive. They are just breaking ground on a new addition to the school where the east-side parking lot (outside of the Commons) used to be. That hopefully will be completed before the next reunion, so if you missed this tour… come back next time and see even MORE changes!
Saturday afternoon a few classmates met for a golf outing announced by Joel Kazcinski the DAY BEFORE (good planning, Joel!) They did get a foursome together and must have had a good time because the last of them didn’t show-up at the reunion dinner Saturday night until after 6:30 PM.
And speaking of the “big event”… Fun was had by all! The evening event started with a social hour with appetizers at 5:30, followed by, may I say, what I thought was a FANTASTIC buffet dinner catered by Creative Catering of Clinton. That roast beef was DEE-licious! During this feeding frenzy we gave away door-prizes valued at close to $750.00! All of these prizes made available through very generous donations from fellow classmates. The final grand prize given away was kind of a “bribe”, but a good one! Anita (Keefer) Hayes won two dinners at our next reunion and a two night stay that weekend (time & place to be determined, no cash value, yadda-yadda-yadda). I guess you can count on seeing Anita in four years!
Saturday night culminated with mingling, watching the “slide show” (available for download… watch for notification in the near future) all to the accompaniment of none other than Clinton’s own, Bowman, Pickney & Evans. Interesting side note, Bruce Bowman told us that night that we share something in common with the band (other than Bruce & Gary Bowman being brothers!) B-P-E was formed as a band in 1980… that year should ring a bell with you all! Eleven PM rolled around sooner than many wished and rumor has it, in good ol’ Class of 1980 tradition, the party carried on in at least one of the hotel rooms into the wee-hours of the morning!
A photo-share site was set-up using Google Photos (see link below) that anyone can contribute to. In years past Annette (Bott) Black’s husband, Tim, has acted as the “unofficial photographer” at our reunions, but alas he was “excused” this year as many spouses were. So we are depending on all of you to share all those pic’s you snapped during the two nights of activities. We know everyone has a cellphone camera attached to their hand 80% of the time, so come on, share those pictures so they can show up next time in the slide show!
With that, just like the reunion itself, we will put a bow on it, and wrap this up. Please keep us informed of your whereabouts, abreast of your current email address, and “Like” us on The Facebook (for those so inflicted.) And of course you can always check out the class website to see what is NEWs to you!
Hope to see even MORE of you in 2025!
Share Your Photos (requires the use of Google Photos App, available for both Android & iPhone!)
“Slideshow” (uploaded to Youtube, no account necessary to watch!)