Reunion 2009 Wrapup

Post date: Dec 05, 2009 1:49:5 AM

Savannah CHS Class of 1979 30th Reunion

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Beyond Our Wildest Dreams!!!

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What a blast! Terrific! Unbelievable! Great! Wow! Amazing! How did they do this in such a short time?! I haven't had food this good in a loooong time! You look GOOD! I haven't seen you since ... Who is that? Is that ... ... ? Don't go away, I'll be back just as soon as I say hello to ... ... There are so many here, I just can't get around to everybody. We need to do this again next week!

These are just a sampling of the things heard at the 30th reunion of the Class of 1979 of Savannah Central High School held at the Broken Spoke in Counce, TN, on Saturday evening, November 28, 2009. To say that the reunion was a success is an understatement! The time chosen by the Reunion Planning Committee was from 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM, but classmates began showing up before 4:00 PM, and when we had to leave shortly after 10:00 PM for the return trip to Florida, many of the classmates were still celebrating. I dare say that some few shut the place down. Nobody wanted to leave, and only did so because of the next day's commitments.

I wish I could think of the proper superlatives to describe the evening, but I just can't – there aren't enough. Suffice it to say that this gathering was one of the very best I have ever had the pleasure to attend. The official count of attendees was 117, about 70 of whom were classmates. Mr. & Mrs. Mills joined us for part of the evening as did Mrs. Dottie Hutchinson and her daughter, Streetie. There were also several visiting non-classmates who joined us later in the evening, so I have no idea of the final number attending ... but it was a lot!

For those who have not visited there, the Broken Spoke is huge, is decorated and filled to the brim with Southern country charm, and is essentially divided into four serving areas: a pizza shop on the east end, next to that the smaller east dining area, then the lounge, and finally on the west end a huge main dining room with two separate but open sections. The class was allocated the rear section of the main dining room for the reunion so the Broken Spoke could continue to accommodate their regular Saturday evening patrons. However, as the classmates and their guests began to arrive, it very soon became readily apparent that there would be a huge overflow into the front section. Without a second thought or missing a beat, the Broken Spoke graciously allocated the class the complete main dining room.

We must pause here to thank classmate Diana Abrams Barker and her husband, Jay, owners of the Broken Spoke, who hosted the reunion without charge to the class except for the food we consumed. And no mere hosts were they! We were made to feel most welcome and at home, the food was *5-Star* Southern – from the ribs and catfish right down to some of the best sweet tea I have ever tasted – and the staff were totally awesome! We wanted for nothing – enough good cannot be said about 'The Spoke"! Folks, when you are in the Savannah or Pickwick area, you'll miss something great if you don't pay at least one visit to this fine place!

While we are paused here to say 'Thank-you', let's just go down the line and recognize those who gave of themselves to make the reunion a success:

To He who watches over us all, our thanks for the safe travels of our classmates.

To David Ratliff, DVM, whose thoughts on a classmate who crossed over ignited the spark that lit the flame of desire to organize the reunion and whose encouragement kept us going.

To John Lay and his fine family whose efforts are too many to enumerate, but as examples: for hosting the reunion website, for making our picture name tags, for the two slide shows which were high points of interest for the evening. The memorial one was very moving, and the Life Shots show evoked many pleasant memories for the classmates and was a definite hit. Thanks to his wife, Nettie, for her work at the registration table and to his daughters, Shannon and Erin, and even his visiting exchange student from Finland, Annika Tuominen, for taking all the photographs and video.

To David Long, whose accounting firm received and relayed the registrations and kept our financials in good order.

To Susan Cromwell for her banking assistance as well as some wrangling duties.

To Marie Mallette Hurst and Harrison Perry for the PR work and for getting our news releases out to the print media.

To Lisa Devore Stricklin, Ellana Smith Wilson, Donna Wood Kennedy and Myra Wilkerson Willoughby for your tireless efforts and the countless hours you spent finding our classmates and gathering their contact information ... and to all the classmates who assisted these wonderful ladies.

To Dennis Wilson for assembling all of the raw data into a workable and trackable system and for keeping our classmates informed.

To anyone we missed who contributed to making the reunion a great success.

And finally to the classmates; all the efforts of the planning committee paled in comparison to the honor of your attendance, your shrieks of pure joy and the smiles on your faces.

In addition to the photographs mentioned earlier that were taken by John Lay's daughters, there have been many contributed by classmates that they took at the reunion. We now have a collection of what may well exceed 800 photos plus some video from which John will distill and produce a Keepsake DVD of the reunion. It will be available to everyone for a cost of only $5.00 each. If you would like to have one of these DVD's, send John an e-mail at jlay@laysonline.com and he will give you instructions for ordering one.

If you would like to take a shot a recognizing those you might know, you may see the raw photographs by clicking on the links below:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/album.php?aid=123990&id=691868220

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/album.php?aid=124142&id=691868220

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/album.php?aid=124145&id=691868220

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1480868752#/album.php?aid=2021046&id=1480868752

After viewing all of these, I'm sure you will conclude that it's best to just go ahead and order the DVD. It will take John a while to get it into production, but the wait will definitely be worth it!

As we were reluctantly leaving the reunion, we heard tentative whisperings of plans for a 35th, so please keep Dennis or someone up to date on your whereabouts so we can keep you informed as these plans develop. Now that we have found you, we do not want to lose touch, and we do not want you to miss out on anything the class might come up with to do. I am sure that there will be informal gatherings from time to time also, and we would like to keep you informed of those. I am not sure that there will be regular publications until plans for the 35th have firmed up, but please keep your contact info up to date so we can always let you know what is going on with your class. We will always inform you of anything of significance, so please stay close to us so we can.

After all of that, I really don't know what to say, so I'll just close with this:

To those who were fortunate enough to be there, WOW, what a great time; it was a pleasure to see you all!

To those who were unable to attend, we had a BLAST, and we missed you! We hope you can attend the next one.

To everyone, keep your hearts close together ... and thanks for including mine!

LOOKING FORWARD TO 2014!!!