Reunion News
BHS 76, 25th
Class Reunion Recap
(from Cookie Newlon - November, 2001)
Huge Success!
The Class of 76 enjoyed a tremendous turnout for our 25th
reunion held at the PC Reunion in August. We
started the weekend off with a wonderful banquet at the Orlando Marriott and
then a BANG UP party with the Orlando band, Deja View.
We had over 100 people attend the banquet and tons of other
zonies joined us afterwards for music and dancing. The food was wonderful and the band was terrific!
Zonian, Ric Figueroa (RigFig@aol.com)
heads up the band, Deja View. We
had a bunch of classmates join him on stage; Mike Morris, James Slater (who is a
professional musician in Europe), Mike Young, T-Bird, Ed Soriano, Eva Thompson.
We also had the opportunity to listen to Craig Cicero’s son’s band; “Well
Trained Dogs”.s What a great
party! Other loosely scheduled
events included socializing in the hospitality suite throughout the weekend.
A Big Big thank you goes to Diana Duncan who provided the
driving force of the reunion. She
organized the banquet, the shirts, the hats, the raffles, the rum and the
Chinese plums! And all this from
Panama and email! A Big Big thank
you goes out to; Joel Baglien, for organizing our website that keeps us all in
touch and generated a lot of excitement.
Check it out at: http://www.canalzone.org/bhs76/
Other Big thank you’s go to Tom White who was our master
email communicator. There are so many people to thank (Carol Peterson, Joe
Barkowitz, Lucho Azcarraga, Donna Seeley) for helping out that it’s just not
possible to mention everyone. We
were able to raise approx $1,000 to send to our classmate, Mike Little, whose
son Tommy is recuperating from the car accident last May. I’m excited to say that Tommy is doing much better
and that the news is he will soon be on his way to Vocation School in Atlanta.
Our 30th class reunion will be organized by Joe
Barkowitz (Barkowitz@aol.com) and we are
considering a cruise to the Bahamas!
Better bring your life vest. Thanks
goes to everyone in our class that was able to make the reunion.
It was Fantastic!
A United States Changed Forever
(from Joel Baglien - September 12, 2001)
Our prayers go out to all those who were affected by the
events on September 11th. Words fail at a time like this . . .
Closer to home - please remember to pray for our classmates Mike Little and his
family for his son's continued recovery, and Joe Barkowitz and his family for
his Mother's struggle with cancer. Paul Dolan is okay - check the Message
Center.
Reunion Photos Will Be Available Soon
Several classmates have sent photos and Steve Sowder is busy with his
scanner. I'm a little behind on getting our Class Directory on our site
but please be patient.
Next Live Chat In October - TBA
Thanks to all who participated in our last live chat on August 24. We will
try to schedule our next chat for a Friday or Saturday evening in October.
Please check back for updates.
WOW! What a party!
(from Joel Baglien - August 16, 2001)
I know everyone had a great time. For me it was the most fun I've had
in years (maybe I need to get out more 
) - a chance to connect with friends, have some great conversations, laugh until
my sides hurt, drink way too much beer, not get enough sleep, dance to the point
of falling down, and get sunburned. I was able to remember the best part
of who I still am - not just who I was. Trying to recognize each other was
a unique and surreal experience. There was a lot of looking up and down
between BHS name tag photos and faces. Thanks to Andy and Marcia Smith for
doing the name tags. Andy also gave me a digital copy of all our BHS
yearbook photos. I'll get them added to our Web site in the next few
weeks.
Gracias Para Todo
Thanks again and again to Di, Cookie, and Tom for pulling all the details
together for such a great reunion. They even had a chance to relax once
and awhile and hang out. I can't thank everyone individually but our
classmates volunteered when and where needed just as we have always done for
each other. I have to say (in my humble opinion) that our reunion had the
best attendance, the best music, the best dancing, and the best class
spirit. Many times I overheard classmates saying, "76 is STILL the
best Class!"
Send Me Your Best Stories by August 31st
Now, let's start adding some favorite stories about the reunion to the Message
Center! Better still, send me
(Joel) an email with your best reunion stories by
August 31st and I'll include them in our "Reunion 76"
book. More info on our reunion book is below.
Show Us Your Photos - Ahora Pronto!
Steve Sowder and I are going to work on getting photos of our reunion on our Web
site. We also want to add photos to the print version of our "Reunion
76" book. If you have photos in a digital format, email them to
me, jbaglien@beyondstrategy.com.
If you have a bunch of digital photos, putting them in a single "Zip
file" is helpful. If you have printed photos, mail your best ones to
me at the address below (and yes, we will return your photos to you).
Steve and I will scan printed photos for the Web site. Please include a
caption or description of the photo, date, time, location, and who is in the
photo - or include as much as you can remember and we'll try to fill in the rest
over time. Let's make our online photo album a great
one for those who were not able to be at the reunion!
Mail your photos to: Joel Baglien, 10757 Garland Lane
North, Maple Grove MN 55369
Post-Reunion Chat on Friday, August 24th - 8 PM Central
Time
If you have not already visited "Chat Central"
and gotten yourself set up for MSN Chat, do so before our next live chat on
August 24th. It takes about 10-15 minutes to set up but it's well worth
the effort. I suggest that you print out the chat setup instructions
before you begin. Paul Fiori (Mouse to his friends) checks into our BHS76
chat room regularly at 7 pm Central time during the week. So, you can test
your chat setup on him. It is a bit of a let down to visit an empty chat room
on your first attempt. I'll try and check in some evenings before next
Friday's chat too. Our next chat session will go until
"whenever". We stayed up until 2 or 3 am most nights during the
reunion, we can certainly match that for a chat. Those of you who were not
able to make it to the reunion, will be able to enjoy many stories about how we
partied and stuff . . . don't miss this one!
Now About Our Plans for a 30th Reunion . . .
For those of you who weren't at the reunion, Joe Barkowitz
agreed to organize our 30th reunion. We had witnesses present in
the courtesy suite - if only they can remember what Joe said. My job was
to remind Joe that he volunteered after he sobered up. Joe agreed to be
the 30th reunion honcho only if I agreed to do the Web / email / chat
stuff. I kinda figured that I was stuck with this Web gig anyway, so
permanently bookmark this Web site as 30th Reunion Central. Darn, now I'll
have to come up with a new logo for the 30th. The idea that floated
highest on Saturday night / Sunday morning was a Bahamas Cruise from Charleston
South Carolina sometime during the Summer of 2006. Start that reunion trip
fund now! Joe did a great job as MC for our Thursday night ping ding . . .
don't miss Joe's tribute to our Class of 76
to the tune of "Yesterday".
Reunion 76 Book
We
plan to create a "Reunion 76" book using the information you have all provided using our online Class Directory form.
The deadline for filling out the online Class Directory
form is August 31st. My plan is to have an online version of the
"Reunion 76" Book available in mid-September for proofing /
corrections / updates. I'd like to compile our orders and go to print in
early October. I'm trying to keep the costs down. I've had printing
estimates between $30 and $60 per copy (including shipping and handling).
I think we can err on the lower cost side and make many of the reunion photos
available online for download and printing on your own. The high cost
printing option included about 20 color laser printed photo pages. The
lower cost option includes high resolution black and white printing and a few BW
photos. If anyone is interested in purchasing an advertising page or half
page (personal or business) to help offset and lower our printing costs please
let me know. Contributions to help cover printing costs for the
"Reunion 76" book are welcome too. Please
send me an email if you are interested in helping financially with our
"Reunion 76" book.
