My Class Reunion Speech

Hello classmates! Thanks for coming. Thanks to Roger Underwood for being a real life version of my childhood hero - Nancy Drew. “The Case of the Missing Classmate”.

He has taken a great deal of time to hunt down contact information for classmates through the years – no small feat. Thank you Cindy Westfall for helping to set up catering – great job by you! Thanks Dawn Stangl for the nifty nametags.

Great turnout. Why do we come to reunions?

When I was 6 or 7 years old, the Bullock family had a big addition to our family. No not Bitsy Betsy. It was our first electric toothbrush! It was so exciting – each family member had a colored brush head to insert into the agitating base.

I invited my pal Robyn to come over to see it. When she did, we were so busy adding toothpaste and working the new toothbrush, we realized with horror that the bathroom sink was going to run over! Then – I didn’t know which way to turn the flipper to turn the water off. By the time my mother helped us, water had run over onto my dad’s Hi-fi stereo system, set up right below the bathroom - on a shelf in the furnace room downstairs. His pride and joy! Speakers upstairs and down, Ray Conniff and Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass.

Once the stereo got wet, Robyn remembers my mother inviting her to go home – helping her, not all that gently on with her little mittens. (#badinfluence) Here Robyn inserted her own version of getting sent home. Thanks for the assist babe!

I bet each of you has a story like this from your childhood. They are what bind us together. Our shared experiences from our formative years.

·        Dan Mason, Robyn and I got in trouble in Kindergarten for chatting during naptime.

·        Linda Skoog stapled her own thumb in third grade, which made her puke. We all remember that awful stuff the custodial staff rushed into put on puke!

·        Recess was all important – and I’m not so sure the world wouldn’t be a better place if we had “work recess” with a good game of kickball twice a day.

·        Red Rover is out though – in 6^th grade, those devious boys let go just when I got there – a girl, determined to “break through” the boy arms, sending me sprawling into the mud in my corduroy coat. I learned a lesson that day.

·        Seventh grade! Dodge ball and square dancing for PE. Smokers in the bathroom and twirling gum.

·        Every time I hear the song “Color My World” – I still think of school, church and YMCA dances. We talked Monsignor Kane into letting us Catholics host one dance, thanks to Mary Jean Faust. Once he saw us all slow dancing – that was the end of that.

·        Church youth groups, Scouts and 4-H more memory-making. I don’t care what the Maid-Rite franchise says, the Cass County Fairgrounds had the best sloppy joes ever.

·        Then there was high school. Though I was never a sports star, I still dream about riding on the bus with my buddies. What great friendships were forged. Coming home after a game to scoop the loop before hitting Pizza Hut or Lallie’s. Others here participated in band, the year book, FFA, debate and more – similar hijinx during those events I’m sure.

When I was about 50 (I know - big jump), a group of us got together to celebrate Theresa Faust's life. Life has a way of wearing us down. I discovered how these girls, now all grown up, fill up my bucket. We laugh a lot, we talk about life and in bad times, like after our friend died, we comfort each other.

·        Our class is a fabulous one. Just ask us! Classmates are successful in all walks of life. We haven’t forgotten our roots in this little corner of Iowa….a good place to be from. Thanks again for coming! Help remind me about a few more stories from our youth…