Surprise Arrival
At around 6:00 PM on Saturday, classmates started arriving at the Biltmore with family and friends. Soon the room filled with small groups of old friends greeting one another, hugging, chatting, posing for photos, and selecting seats together for dinner.
The big surprise of the evening was seeing SJC classmate Robertino Palomo, who had been on the “missing” list since the 25-year reunion. After many attempts to find his address, all the reunion organizers knew was that he live in Mexico.
A breakthrough came in March when SCA classmate María Antonieta Cardona Martínez (known as Antonetta in high school) contacted the organizers. She reported that Robertino was living in Quintana Roo and that his cousin, SCA classmate Margaret Rose Marin Ozeata, might know how to contact him. Margaret Rose subsequently got his email address from Robertino’s sister. Unfortunately, by the time the address was relayed to the organizers, “.com.mx” had been shortened to “.mx” and their email never went through.
As luck would have it, Robertino was in Belize at the time of the reunion; together his sister, Margaret Rose, and María Antonieta made sure that he know about the reunion and urged him to attend. Their persistent coaxing eventually overcame his initial reluctance.
Soon after Robertino arrived at the reunion, he was very happy to be there. He thoroughly enjoyed seeing everyone after so many years and spent most of the evening on the dance floor.
Dinner
Dinner was delicious and abundant. The buffet spread started with dinner rolls and butter, then advanced through garden salad, potato salad, and spicy cabbage salad before reaching the entrees of Belizean stew chicken and Creole fish, accompanied by steamed vegetables, rice & beans, and fried plantains, and for dessert coconut pie and lemon pie. Classmates were still talking the next day about how tasty it all was!
Program
After dinner, while the band took a break, Stanislaus Martínez took over as MC for the evening’s program. After welcoming us all and thanking the organizers, he proceeded with humorous comments then, on a more serious note, he called for quiet remembrance as one person from each school read the names of our departed classmates.
Stans then introduced a representative from each school to speak. Reminiscing about high school days, Juanita (Nena) Beeke, née Rudon, of PHS included anecdotes that brought chuckles from her Pallotti classmates. Reflecting on our life journeys since high school, Francis Gegg of SJC noted that the Jesuits’ teaching had formed the basis for the moral compass to guide our progress to maturity. Christine Heusner Robinson, who planned to speak on behalf of SCA, missed the reunion due to a conflict with her teaching schedule; Carli Scott filled in briefly, ending by urging us all to enjoy being with long-time friends and to have a great time during the reunion—which we did!
Dancing
The band played a variety of music including popular songs from out high school days. Couples danced during the slow pieces. For the faster numbers, they were joined by groups of women dancing together. Several PHS and SCA classmates commented that it was nice to be able to get up and dance when they wanted to–instead of having to wait to be asked, as in high school!
Party’s Over
The organizers had decided that the dancing didn’t need to go till 2:00 AM this time. Midnight seemed a bit early, so the compromised on 1:00 AM. However, by midnight, most of the crowd had left. The remaining classmates and guest seemed tired—as did the band and the hotel staff. Those who couldn’t leave until they helped taking down the decorations decided that no one would be offended if they started doing so at 12:30 AM. Not only was no one offended, but most who where still there pitched in to help.
Everyone left happy; many enthusiastically looking ahead to the next reunion and talking of what we could do to make our 50-year celebration the biggest and best!