A big thank you to the following for helping make this a great celebration.
Diane Perkins Wuthnow, Trudy Wentz Jacobson, Mike Howerter, Duane Harms, Don Huddleston, Roger and Betty Brown, Gary Marshall, Judy McCrea, Mike Cyphers, Ron and Betty Penland, Peggy Palmer, and Troy/Jenny Palmer, Jerry/Lawana Dieckman, Belinda Larsen (Augusta Gazette) and others that helped set-up events that were not on the committee. You know who you are.
There will be many pictures coming in for posting, including our group picture taken at the Prairie Rose, so check back to the website often in the next few weeks.
Class of 1962 50th Reunion
September 26-29, 2012
Our reunion began Wednesday night at 7 P.M. with a kick-off social at my son’s house located west of Augusta. At one time we had 47 guests, including classmates and spouses. The evening was spent eating, drinking and visiting. We decorated with orange and black balloons in the indoor swimming pool and helium filled balloons on each table with black table cloths. Jerry and LaWana Dieckman popped in to take pictures to send Charlie and Lana Rummell of our event. Jerry was kind enough to share his pictures with us which we have posted on our facebook page, linked from our website. Clean-up began around 11 P.M.. Nobody was in a real big hurry to leave, but all good things must have an ending. I believe a good time was enjoyed by all.
Thursday, September 27th began early for us that toured. We met at the oil museum at 10 A.M. totaling 27. We had a guided tour of the museum and property which lasted for about an hour and a half. Great tour and lot’s to see! The next stop was at the Beaumont hotel for lunch. We were a little early (1 P.M.) so everybody looked over the old Frisco water tower, the only one left in the state of Kansas. Roger Brown, took a group picture of all of us in front of the water tower which you can view in our album. The hotel restaurant folks took very good care of all of us and served us a good lunch. The next stop was a fairly long haul, going to Elk Falls, Kansas, located on U.S. 160 about 35 miles west of Independence. Our purpose for traveling to Elk Falls was to visit the pottery factory and pick-up our 27 mugs that Trudy had ordered for us to sell at our auction the following Saturday night. We all enjoyed watching Steve Fry demonstrate the art of spinning pottery. Several of our group purchased items from their gift shop before leaving. This ended our day and we started back to the Augusta area around 4:30 P.M.. Thursday night was open and our classmates were left to do whatever they wished.
Only two showed up to play golf at the Augusta Country Club. Lloyd Dotson and Randy Brooks got re-acquainted since they were the two golfers. The lunch at the Country Club was a different story. I had told the staff that we would have 25 for lunch, and we had 35 which wasn’t a problem since they had plenty food for all of us. Diane’s tour group left from the luncheon and began their Wichita tour at 2:30. Below is the agenda which was followed.
At 5 P.M. our tailgating began at the high school in preparation for the Augusta – Andale football homecoming game. Some of our crowd were in Wichita for the tour, so we had approximately 25 show up to eat. We purchased the food from the Augusta Booster club and visited for a couple of hours before the game. By game time we had most of our group back from the Wichita tour, so we when to the bleachers with a good size crowd. There were 3 other classes having reunions along with ours. We all wore T-shirts provided by Ron and Betty Penland with the Augusta Oriole and class of 1962 on them. Thanks Ron and Betty for the nice shirts. The game was a disaster! Most of us left at half time with the score 46-9 Andale.
As you notice on Diane’s agenda, Judy Burns McCrea was displaying her art at the Wichita Art Museum which was very exciting for all of us and created a big incentive for the Wichita tour attendance.
Saturday morning began with a downtown Augusta parade. We met in front of the Augusta theater and watched the parade which lasted about 30 minutes.
Afterwards, we enjoyed cookies and coffee inside the theater and visited in the lobby and reminisced our childhood experiences in this lovely old theater. DeAnne, the theater director, showed the
movie “The Artist” to our group which was enjoyed by all.
Our evening activities began at 5 P.M., meeting at the Prairie Rose Ranch, Benton, Kansas. Our committee and others began decorating the Hopalong Cassidy Room. Group pictures and collecting for the meals were our major objectives before we enjoyed our BBQ meals and our entertaining evening. Wow what a meal! The all you can eat homemade BBQ dinner was delicious! The next two hours was full of entertainment from the Prairie Rose Rangers, a band that performs regularly at the Prairie Rose. Kris Johnson, son of Bill and Lynda Johnson is a member of this group and more or less the comic of the group. Kris is a “hoot” and very talented. This is a night job only for Kris, being an electrician and a father of six. He is a very busy young man. The entertainment was over at 9 P.M. and our group ventured from the Opera House to the Hopalong Cassidy Room in the Theater building.
I gave a short welcome and turned the night’s program over to Duane Harms, our MC, and Don Huddleston, our DVD digital video producer. Below is our program
for the evening to give you an idea what was discussed and format we used for the remaining three hours of our reunion. Notice on the back side of this program, Duane listed ideas and questions
to give our classmates an opportunity to discuss and to get them to tell us about their last 50 years.
The three hours passed very quickly, but not before the generosity of the group was displayed by re-building our reunion fund. Wow, with all the auction items and just classmates giving donations we collected over a thousand dollars for our next reunion! Our fund balance is at $1517.14. Don Huddleston’s video of our annual pictures, our grade school pictures, our past reunion pictures, and our remembrance of our deceased classmates brought some tears to some people. Duane ‘s program and his entertaining remarks kept everybody’s attention and input for an exciting evening and a great closing for a wonderful reunion.
I liked the idea of classmates having choices. Some attended all of the events and some attended one, but still being a part of the reunion
celebration. If you were one of those that attended all the events, then you spent a lot of quality time with various classmates which I also really enjoyed. I would like to see this
format or similar one in our future reunions. Duane Harms has volunteered to arrange and organize our 55th. Send your ideas and suggestions to Duane. It's never too
early!
Thanks to all that made this a very special occasion!
Tom Palmer
Our 50th has come and gone! I hope everyone that attended enjoyed themselves. I know, I sure did. It was great sharing our memories of the past and present with all of you. You can share your thoughts and comments on our Post Reunion blog.
55th Reunion News from Duane Sept. 21, 2013 read
2 years, 5 months countdown to 55th reunion
50th Class Reunion September 26-29, 2012click on picture to enlarge
Our 50th was celebrated in style! Good people and good times! Thanks to all that attended our 4 day event.
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