Dear Fellow Classmates,

Our time together on August 31 passed in a twinkling, and as the festivities came to a close, I found myself wishing for just a few more moments to savor it all and rekindle a few more treasured old relationships. 

I have to say that encountering a room full of dear friends, whose once-familiar faces had, to varying degrees, been age-progressed, aroused a range of powerful emotions and memories in me. I suspect that you all experienced them, too.

 Memories of the sweaty locker rooms and the clean chalked lines of the Friday-night football field, the pulse-quickening adolescent romances, the bootlegged cans of 3.2 beer and bottles of Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill, the long-play record albums that provided the sound tracks to our lives, the slow dances under the dimmed lights of the cafeteria, the PA announcements that began our schooldays and the bells that ended them, the Saturday-night cruises that always seemed to culminate at Penny’s Pizza, the sincere sentiments scrawled on the pages of our yearbooks, the clamor of crowded hallways between classes, and the swish of taffeta dresses and the ill-fitting tuxedos of prom night.

 For me, the passage of time has not dimmed or diminished those and many other fond memories.

 But were it not for the efforts of a few key individuals, August 31, 2024, would have been just another day to come and go without the slightest inkling among us that we might have been missing something truly momentous. Instead, we had inked the date on our calendars many months in advance, and, on cue, we arrived at a banquet hall crowded with our classmates to celebrate, reflect, and remember.

 All of us owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the MHS ’74 reunion committee, which has faithfully organized and hosted gatherings at five- to ten-year intervals for the past half century. That’s no mean feat, considering how widely dispersed we all are. Heck, the committee even managed to lure Bob Gilbert all the way from Sweden.

 I’d like to acknowledge the committee members by name and thank them for their tireless work on our behalf: Art Wilkinson, Annette Gillie Hartley, Marilyn Emery Phillips, Judy Effler, Janet Fahrenbruck Lynch, Tom Bascom, Bob Miller, Kent Ernsting and Ernie Lewallen.

 Absent their efforts, we all might have been cast adrift following graduation and forever left wondering whatever became of all those people who once were so central to our lives. On August 31, because of the committee, we had the opportunity to find out.

 Many of the stories we shared with one another on that evening effectively condensed the previous 50 years into a series of salient events and experiences that have, in meaningful ways, shaped the arcs of our lives.

 Some, like falling in love, welcoming children and grandchildren, and pursuing fulfilling careers, have proven to be richly rewarding, while others may have marked unexpected and unwelcome periods of struggle. Both, it seems to me, are parts of the fabric of lives fully lived.

 As the years continue to advance, the sad reality is that the list of friends and classmates we’ve lost will continue to grow, as attendance at our subsequent reunions will decline. For me, awareness of that certainty made our evening together all the more meaningful.

 With that in mind, as we reflect on our recent reunion and the opportunity it provided to embrace and engage all who are still present with us, it’s likewise fitting to remain mindful of our missing classmates, who will forever be preserved, at the very cusp of adulthood, on the pages of our yearbooks and in our memories.

 In tribute to them and with fondness toward all of you, I await our next opportunity to gather and celebrate our years together at MHS. 

David Brill
MHS ‘74