Reminiscence fest grows into Evergreen reunion

Under pressure from friends and colleagues, I finally signed up for Facebook in July 2009. At first I thought it was silly. Then the “friend requests” started coming in daily.

One of the first people I reconnected with was Kris Stewart-Clifford, my dear childhood friend from the old neighborhood off South Clinton Road. And, the friend lists grew from there.

Before we knew it, a large group of former neighborhood school friends had reconnected. Eventually, we wanted to plan a get-together so we could catch up and get reacquainted in person.

Kris and I continued looking for former classmates, and we were successful. We had been catching up with friends from their junior high years on Facebook and had originally decided to plan dinner for five couples. Before we knew it, the gathering had grown too big for a dinner party.

Finally, what started as a simple plan to reconnect with old friends on Facebook ended up as a meeting of an incredibly large group of former students from Evergreen Junior High School on Dec. 28 at Players and Spectators. People came to celebrate an all-school Evergreen Junior High reunion.

Students attending the former junior high spanned the class years from 1976 to 1986. People came from as far away as Switzerland and Southern California to attend the social event. Nearly 75 people came to mingle and visit at the reunion.

The former Evergreen Grizzlies reminisced over old yearbooks and traded memories of former teachers. Many stories from the “glory days” were exchanged.

Some of the people present had known each other since kindergarten at the old Keystone Elementary School but had lost track of each other. People were thrilled to have the opportunity to meet and greet all sorts of people from the past.