Wednesday, July 3, 2019

Class Reunions

Any given year, there are always two or three class reunions going on in St. Tammany Parish. Sometimes a class won't have a reunion every year, sometimes a class likes its class reunion so much that it has a bunch of smaller ones through the year and the ensuing years. There are the occasional 10 year class reunions, the life-changing 25 year reunions, and the monumental 50 year class reunion.

Anyway, St. Tammany high school class reunions, at least the 25 year and 50 year variety, are an interesting mix of the old and the new. Those who graduated 50 years ago remember the area as it was in the 1960's, and the 25 year reunion participants remember what is was like in the parish in the early 1990's. Quite a bit changed in the area between 1965 and 1995. Almost like two different places. 

It's always fascinating when the attendees at a 50 year class reunion get to mingle with the attendees from a 25 year class reunion since they are often in the same area at the same time, often at the same football games.  


 
As a newspaper reporter, I covered a lot of class reunion events, but since I started writing in 1972, I'm talking about class reunions from people who graduated in 1947 or even in 1922. That was back when St. Tammany was still predominantly rural in nature, and still isolated from New Orleans traffic. It was an all day trip to go to the big city.

Reunion participants from classes graduating in the 1920's through the 1950's always had a different world view, a different fond memory of what St. Tammany was like during that time period. As the class reunions came and went, talking to the classes from 50 and 25 years go would always reflect the changing of St. Tammany Parish decades earlier. It was interesting.

Here's an article I wrote in 1972, about a 25 year class reunion taking place in the Covington area.


Click on the image to make it larger. 

See also:

CHS 50th "Class of 1968" Reunion

 Lyon High 1942 Reunion

The Lee Road Class of 1953