To all those who missed the reunion,

We had a blast, and were so sorry you couldn't make the party. I wanted to take a few minutes to recap the weekend for you guys, hopefully enticing you to come the next time we gather together, maybe in five years?

Anyway, first of all I want to thank my work crew. Andy was the most amazing of all. He worked endless and sleepless hours putting together a Powerpoint presentation that had us all laughing and reminiscing. He also helped me coordinate the evening by hauling and setting up equipment, formatting a program and orchestrating the arrangement of the individual bios into a booklet for everyone to take home. He went beyond the call of duty and thanks to him, our program was sensational and flawless.

My other committee members were Keith Thomas, Deena Champlain Peterson, Jane VandePolder Lambers, Michele Hattaway Love and Tammy Files Powers. Keith helped me organize the actual event since he lives so close to the Yacht Club. He also organized the goodies from BCS and the flower arrangements for the tables. And thanks to Keith and his parents, we were able to use the Yacht club. He also was a master at taking photos throughout the course of the weekend, I can't wait to see them. Deena was my hound dog. Give Deena a name, and she will track that person down if it is the last thing she does. Jane and Michele helped Andy execute the organization of the bio books and also offered me much moral support. And Jane was thoughtful enough to get presents for Andy and myself and had everyone sign a card for us. Tammy helped secure a location for the Sunday picnic and organized the details so that all we had to do was show up ready to play.

The evening started with an hour of socializing and getting reacquainted. I then welcomed everyone and Andy started off the dinner hour with toasts from each table. Keith lead us in prayer, and dinner was served buffet style with a selection of beef, fish or chicken, vegetables, bread, salad, and an array of wonderful desserts.

Next was the program. I introduced it, Andy added his disclaimer ("hopefully all the right pictures are with the right names..." that sort of thing) and then it started. Andy set it up in 3 sections, the first being the Early Years, our Class origin. We saw pictures from first grade forward. Ouch, some of those pictures were scary!!!

We had breaks between the sections of the presentations. After the first section we read excerpts from the submitted bios, pulling out highlights and filling in a few of our own stories. Billy got up and gave us the history to date on the "Eh Beh Man". For those of you who remember this, it was hilarious. For those of you who don't, don't ask. Fred also told us a story about Don Orange rescuing him as he walked home alone around midnight after being kicked out of Luke Weaver's home. The things we never knew.....

The second section of the presentation was title the Junior Senior Years. This was followed up with the reading of the predictions that the junior class of BCS had made for our class when we were seniors. It was a little scary to hear how some were actually pretty close, such as Billy's. Billy was predicted to be a swinging bachelor, now president of Universal Dating Services. He related a story to me of how he was actually asked by an insurance client to set up some form of relationship service between America and Peru. Weird.

The third part was titled Class of 1982 Update 2002. This is where we saw all the new pictures sent in from those choosing to participate. It was great to see most everyone's families and activities.

We also interjected at some point in the evening winners of BCS paraphernalia. We came up with the following categories of competition: 1) Who came the farthest: Chris Nicklo 2 & 3) Who present had the most kids, it was a tie between Jane and Tammy with 4 each 4) Who has the youngest child - Carlos Gimenez 5) Who has made the biggest 180 degree turn around with their life, Fred VanderGraff 6) The Boobie prize for marrying an underclassman, Tammy, who married Kevin Powers 7) Who had the toughest struggle to come that night, won by Lora who had just come off a 12 hour shift and had been up since 3:30 am! 8) Married the longest, has the oldest kids, Cheryl, who was married in 1984 and has a 15/16 year old, and 9) Don won a prize because it was his birthday and we were honored to have him share it with us.

We closed out the evening with plans to meet again the next day at The Beach House Restaurant. A few of us went out for a drink and further catching up since not all could come the next day.

We met on Sunday at noon, had a very nice sit-down lunch, and played for a few more hours. Billy was kind enough to bring along his jet ski and take kids for rides. I really think the kids had as much fun as the adults!

Again, we really missed each of you. I hope this fills in all those questions of how things went, and I also hope it encourages you all to stay in touch and try hard to make the next gathering, which hopefully will be in five years at our 25 anniversary of graduation.

I have attached a few pictures and have more if there are any special requests. I tried to get everyone, but again, Keith did a much better job than I did!

Missed each of you!

Donna Duke Morrison