Ever dream that you can’t find your locker and class is starting? That you have a test but didn’t prepare?  Forgot your homework or locker combination?  Went to school in your pajamas?  That you can’t find your high school classroom and the bell is about to ring?

Apparently these are common dreams- and the result of being subjected to years of “schooling”. The solution to those restless nights?  Go back to your high school as a grown adult and realize that these things don’t actually matter!  Reconnect with your classmates and remember that they were all great people!  Remember that we actually got a pretty good education which set all of us off on various careers from which some of us have now retired.  

Our class was unique in many ways- we literally ushered in things like calculators and computing and the space program. We attended school in every building in the district, from Stubbs Bay, to Maple Plain and Long Lake Schools, Hill School, Orono (now Schumann) Elementary, and the original Junior/Senior high school.  And we were the first class to go through all 3 years at the “new” high school.  Women’s sports got a serious start while we were there (too late, though).  We finally won a basketball championship. 

And while we experienced many of the traditional trappings of “schooling,” we also were the first to have modular scheduling (hello chocolate milk in the cafeteria) and rotating class schedules.  We went through the stresses of change in the late 60’s/early 70’s- (think student lounge, The Aquarium newspaper, Hugh Shedd and student rights, Vietnam debates, and Mr. Goulding).  We met all the challenges with creativity (Mr. Leuchtenberg’s class where a real Elilzabethian stage was built!  Plays like Brave New World presented in a gymnasium). 

This August you have a unique opportunity to reconnect at our 50th reunion!  I’m definitely coming from the Boston area, and I hope that some of you who are also far away will decide to make the journey as well!  And if you are local, well, you may see some classmates etc. regularly, but take pity on those of us who don’t get to see you and plan to come!  We only get one 50th, and luckily we have skirted the pandemic and will be able to hold it!  So if you have signed up, great!  Encourage your classmates to do the same.  And if you haven’t, well, we would love to see you so we can all “Stand up and Cheer for good old Orono!”

– Terry Tollefson

Invitation: https://orono71.com/invitation/

Registration: https://orono71.com/rsvp-register-for-the-reunion/