Friday night started out with a tour of the High School. It was very well done, and very interesting to go back in time. I remembered the school as being all new (since it was!) and very clean and uncluttered. The first big change was the addition to the front of the school. Once the front entrance was merely a long hallway, now it is a beautiful,large open vestibule with more trophy cases, a few more offices, concession area, and benches. This was a much needed change, in my opinion. There is a "Wall of Fame" which features pictures of distinguished alumni, and two of our classmates are among them: Martha Twaddle and Gary McGrath.

The next big change was the locker commons areas. They removed the rows of those tiny orange lockers with the side-swinging top shelves, (remember how they were assigned alphabetically so we had "A" street and "B" street and so on?) and replaced them with larger blue lockers that run along the length of the hallways instead of extending out into them. This makes the hallways much larger and open looking.

We were shown all the Resource areas, and a few classrooms. The square and pie shaped rooms are still there, but they have added doors to all the classrooms they could, instead of the open rooms we remember. We were told the teachers are not fond of the pie shaped rooms, nor the rooms in the back that can only be accessed by walking through another classroom. I remembered the Resource centers being large open areas with many tables to sit at during your study hall. Now they are cluttered with a lot of teacher desks and file cabinets, which was probably inevitable as the class sizes grew each year.

I have to admit that I felt totally lost most of the tour, and was unsure how we were connecting from one area to another! I just followed the crowd!!! The Library is much the same. They added glass to the balcony not long after we left to curb the urge of students wanting to throw things down onto unsuspecting students below. There are only a few tables, some book shelves, but a large number of computer workstations. So different from 1977!!

The gym and field house are the same. We were told the locker rooms haven't changed either, but we were spared having to smell them again. The old wrestling room has been turned into a fabulous "health club for high school" workout room. It no longer looks over the pool, as they replaced the window with a wall. They have a media center now as well, and instead of the announcements being read over a speaker system, they deliver the information in a news video format, complete with a "news desk". It is produced daily by the students. And last, but not least, the bathrooms are still the same, with the symbols for male and female, and still no doors! This was truly a fabulous trip into the past.

After the tour, we headed over to the Fox & Hound, and proceeded to reacquaint ourselves with our fellow classmates. Thank goodness for name tags!! Actually, I must say that most people were easy to recognize, especially those who I was close to in high school. Many classmates who couldn't make the Saturday reunion were able to come to the Friday gathering, and many ended up attending both nights, which gave us all more time to catch up!

The reunion on Saturday turned out to be all we expected and then some! After breaking the ice with fellow classmates on Friday night, I think many of us were more excited about meeting up with old friends we had yet to see. Everyone started arriving right on time, and collected their name tags which conveniently had their high school graduation picture on them. The bar opened, and people gathered around the bar area and outside on the patio, some staking their claims to a table right away for dinner. We had an hour of socializing and picture taking before dinner was served. There were three food stations set up, to give everyone a choice of meals. You could choose from Italian pasta, a Beef carving station, or an Asian cuisine, along with the usual side dishes as well. It was "help yourself, and eat as much as you want!!" Even if dessert had been served, I doubt anyone would have had room for it after the enormous offering of food. Instead of dessert, we enjoyed having the bar open during dinner. I don't want to imply that any of us have an alcohol problem, but I will say that everyone has retained their ability to really party!!

We enjoyed a DJ the entire night, who played all the music we remembered from our high school days. There wasn't a lot of dancing going on, since everyone was too busy talking to each other - so many people to catch up with in so little time!!

The night ended all too soon, leaving everyone asking "why don't we do this every year", to which I answer "we do!" Now I will shamelessly plug the All-Alumni reunion that started out as a sporadic event and has now turned into an annual event, gathering more people every year. We hold it every year, the night of BGHS's homecoming game, at the Fox & Hound on Dundee rd, just west of the high school. It usually ends up being graduates that are still local, but there are some who actually travel every year from other states to attend and have a chance to see not only fellow graduates, but alumni who may have graduated in a different year as well. All are welcome; there is no fee or commitment other than buying your own food and drink. Feel free to spread the word to siblings, and friends that you'd like to see again, and join us!!

Back to the class of 1977 reunion: I would like to take this opportunity to thank Julie Speck Bockman, who deserves to be a distinguished alumnus herself, for getting involved in each one of our reunions, which is a huge undertaking. She is a reunion pro, not to mention she can sign the checks to pay for it all!! I would like to thank Brian Locker for all his input on our ideas and letting us use his home as a meeting place, since it was conveniently located at the halfway mark between us all! I would like to thank Gary McGrath for doing all our printing work, he was an enormous help. I would like to thank Patti Sterrett Cripe for making the centerpieces for the tables. I would also like thank Jeffrey Jay (JJ) who worked hard to make a website for our class, and donating the domain as well. We hope to keep this website going as long as possible, so join up because it's free! Lastly, I would like to thank each of you who were able to attend and make this such a wonderful event that left us all with huge smiles on our faces. To those who were unable to make it this time, I hope my little synopsis was a good description of events, and we truly hope to see you next time!!!

Kathe Kaszubowski Lucnik