Rick Cadden
The Class of 73 proudly presented over 600 students that day in May 1973 as we all lined up, robed up, with hats on and tassels dangling, ready to face the world boldly and with great anticipation. As I look back personally, I remember our class as active, fun, competitive, smart, and full of energy. For me, the biggest part was friendships. (I did learn) Back in those days families did not move around as much as today. My family lived in the same home for 30 years, all through my school years. I graduated from high school with the same kids I went to elementary school with. That is so cool!
My best friend today that I still travel with and see all the time is from 5th grade at Calk Elementary. Most of my 6th grade class picture graduated from Carroll with me. During high school I was fortunate enough to make friends for life. I realize that not everyone was that fortunate. We all have different personalities. However, our class was special. We not only went to learn but we did life together. Some were involved in Young Life, band, drama, sports, mechanic shop, journalism, Drill Team, and so many other activities that went beyond classroom time and gave us the opportunity to build friendships.
Reunions are for re-kindling those friendships. Reunions are for remembering the good times and the fun times but ultimately the great times of friendships. Our class "moto" since 1973 is "Friends for Life". If you have attended any reunion from our class, you have seen or heard that said. Reunions are to celebrate friendship. Reunions are for celebrating and remembering life together during high school. Reunions are an extension of high school that bonds us and keeps us friends for life.
In the year 2000, I lost both parents within three months. What a traumatizing time that was for me and my family for my mom and dad to pass away so close. I will never forget seeing two high school dear friends show up at my mom's funeral. As they walked up to the church, I started tearing with joy that two classmates, friends for life, took the time to come and encourage me that day.THAT my friends is what reunions are for, to continue the friendships. I am sure you have stories like that as well. That is why I attend reunions. To keep the friendships I have made in our class alive and active.
We are way past the reunion where we compare, see what people look like, how much money they make, or what they accomplished after high school. We had those and we still had fun! Reunions for our class are all about re-kindling friendships and remembering great times in our lives together. All our reunions have been a success in doing those two things and that is our purpose when planning reunions. I have been on the planning team for every reunion so I know about why we have them and its all about alumni reassembling for fun. I attend reunions to see you, to visit with you, and hang out and have fun, and tell stories of high school, and to see how you are doing today.
Update from the Reunion Team
Now the sad news. Reunion 45 is not shaping up well and we are almost at the point where we will need to cancel and not reassemble. The Reunion Team has spent long hours and spent so much energy in planning but ticket sales are super low. Low enough that if they dont quad triple in a few weeks, we will have to cancel and cover our loses. This is so disappointing that we will not all get to see each other this year.
Every reunion, the team tries to plan according to interest. We send surveys asking alumni many questions and then we plan based on how you responded. We have held reunions at the high school, at a park in town, at hotels in town, and one at the beach. We hosted live bands, DJ's, music from our time, of many genre's. We have done semi-formal and casual. We had dinners, snacks, we grilled burgers, we had beef, chicken, and seafood. We have offered a wide variety over the years to please as many as possible based on what you asked for.
We offered to plan a 45 year reunion since we are not getting any younger. We planned live music, an incredible indoor/outdoor facility, catered food of variety, two nights full of gathering time, and secured rooms at the location on site at a discount for you. We promoted the reunion date on Jan 21, 2018 and have been promoting the best we know how for 8 months now. We set up on-line registration and payment to make it easy for you. We have done all we know to do, yet as of today only 21 tickets have been sold including spouses. We have 165 people on our Facebook page and at almost every posting we get around 100 views, yet 21 tickets sold?. We have some emails and they were notified. We all stay in contact with alumni and we notified them. Although our purpose and goal is all about friendships and fun, there is the behind the scene costs related to each event that has to work. The reunion team does this as volunteers and the entire event is planned based on ticket sales as the sole source of income.
LONG STORY SHORT, we are giving the event until September 1st, to have at least 75 tickets sold, or we will be forced to cancel the event. If the event is canceled everyone that paid will get refunded no problem. We have done what we can to make this an exciting and fun event, now it is up to the alumni to purchase tickets and attend. Come on Class of 73 Alumni, lets make this happen. Thanks so much for reading to the bottom of this article.
You can see who is attending and how many have registered click here.
The Reunion Team