Drinking with friends at the base of the Chief is one memory 30 years can't erase. On Saturday (Oct. 13), Howe Sound Secondary School's class of 1977 reunited with unabashed excitement.Seventy former students plugged up the entrance way to the Squamish Valley Golf and Country Club as they screeched out each other's names. President of the organizing committee, Harold Clark, turned in circles as old friends spotted him.
"I love Harold. I haven't seen him for 20 years, but we just jump back in to the way we were," said Wendy Buckham, who drove seven hours from Oregon to reach the event.
Her commute was outdone by other classmates who came from as far as Switzerland and Palm Springs.With such distance between them, Buckham said Christmas cards have been the group's main thread of communication.
The group has also had its share of reunions. They came together for their 10th and 20th anniversary with impressive turnouts of more than 100 people from a class of 132.
"We were a very close group of kids. We did a lot of stuff together," said Clark.
To ensure no one was weighed down by nerves, some members of the class met on Friday night at the Brackendale Art Gallery to "get warmed up."
The warm up led them to the Grizzly Bar and Grill (a place they used to know as the Myria Hotel) where classmates began swapping stories about their high school days. About a quarter of the class has stayed in Squamish, creating a generational overlap at the bar.
"Some of the parents' kids were there and we were sort of like 'Oh my gosh,' because we don't want them knowing what we used to do," Clark said.
Laurie Green is one of those former students who made her home in town. She said she was enjoying every second of her walk down memory lane.
"Nobody's changed. The men are a little bit chubbier but everyone aged gracefully," she said with a laugh.
A slideshow of black and white yearbook photos set against recent pictures showed how the years brought new hairstyles to many of the same smiling faces.
One couple had even held onto their high school love. Grade 11 sweethearts, Wendy and Lex Tetachuk came down from Dawson Creek for the reunion. Wendy said when the two came together in Oct. 1976, she wasn't expecting to meet her match.
In an impromtu vote, the class decided to hold the next reunion in five years instead of 10 and to pay for a permanent website to keep the group connected year round.
