Activities scheduled for our 50th

Here is the complete picture...

Many of us have attended prior reunions but this one promises to be the biggest and best of all.  So you will have an idea of what you can enjoy, here is the schedule of events.

Friday May 31, 2013:

7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. in the Hampton Inn Restaurant, 307 N. Admiral Byrd Road, Salt Lake City UT 84116 
(casual dress)

A pre-reunion mix and mingle for everyone to come and enjoy. The hotel will have wines and mixed drinks as well as soft drinks, coffee and tea for guests to purchase and enjoy. We will provide light snacks and good conversation. This is a chance for you to check out the hotel, enjoy good friends and conversation with people you may not have seen in 50 years or so.

There is no charge to attend, but we pay for our own drinks. The Hampton Inn is allowing us the use of their restaurant as an exclusive service to all GHS class members. The restaurant will be closed to the public.

So if you are worried that you'll come and not know anybody there, don't fret it...we will introduce ourselves and by the time you go to sleep, you should have renewed a number of school relationships.

Saturday June 1, 2013:

9:00 a.m. tour of the old Granger High School building before she goes under the wrecking ball the following week. We will gather at the old school at 8:45 a.m. and we will do a walk through tour of the old school, and then take a short tour of the brand new building next door. Be sure to bring your cameras! This is the last time anyone will be walking her halls... *UPDATE: After we asked for this one last tour, the school decided to do an open house for everyone to come and visit the old school as well as the new school, so we will do our walk through early to avoid any possible crowding. If you can't make it at 9:00 a.m. you can come anytime between 9:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. (But don't be late for the reunion at 4:00!)

11:00 a.m. Those who wish to join us can have a casual brunch/early lunch at a local restaurant to spend another hour or so reminiscing with friends we rediscovered. Transportation to and from the school tour for those who flew into town from elsewhere can be arranged.  NOTE:  Each person will buy his or her own meal. This is not a part of the reunion, simply another opportunity to chat with old friends.

3:30 p.m. (business casual) Arrival and sign in for the reunion celebration in lobby outside the Hampton Inn ballrooms.  When you have turned in your tickets and have gotten your name tags you may join the social hour inside the ballroom. There will be a bar set up. The hotel will provide ice water throughout the evening. Soft drinks will be available during the social hour, as well.  The top hits of 1961, 1962, and 1963 will be playing in the background as everyone enjoys meeting old pals and greeting new ones.  Those who have chosen to pay at the door will be issued name tags.  Please note: If you wait to pay at the door, there may not be a meal reserved for you, so pay in advance to assure your meal, or contact Frances Romney for special consideration.

5:00 p.m. The party officially begins. Guests will be seated. Drawings, entertainment, and prizes will happen randomly until the buffet starts. 

6:00 p.m. The buffet will begin. More fun and surprises will be going on throughout the evening.

8:00 p.m.  Social hour and wind-down. We have the place until 10:00 p.m. We can order drinks from the restaurant or lounge until we close the place down. 

I suggest that everyone coming should bring a notebook and pen so that people can exchange contact info.  I also ask that those attending bring "THEN" photos that they would want added to the 50th reunion "memory book" that will be made available within a short time after the reunion. If you do not have any old photos, we will use the photos from the 1963 yearbook. You will be able to purchase the book from the publisher. I will be taking "NOW" photos at the reunion. Those who wish to have me put a bio with their pictures will be asked to complete a short bio questionnaire mailed out with the tickets, or available at the door.

Information about how to pay for your tickets is in the earlier post below.  Save money by paying in advance for yourself and spouse/guest.  Those who pay at the door will pay full price ($40) for both class member and guests. 

Please do try to pay in advance.  Payments should reach us by May 25, 2013.  Paying in advance also lets us tell the hotel how many are expected for the buffet.

Thanks so much!  Please scroll down this page for payment info.

How to pay to attend...

Granger High School

Class of 1963

50th reunion

 Date: Saturday June 1, 2013

Place: The Hampton Inn

307 N. Admiral Byrd Road

Salt Lake City UT 84116
(There is plenty of free parking!)
 

Time: 4:00 p.m to 9:00 ? p.m.

Admission in advance of event:

 $40.00 per class member

       $30.00 per guest
(Payment in advance must be mailed by May 10th in order to be banked by May 15, 2013)
 

Admission at the door:

$40.00 per attendee
(Cash only at the door, please)
Since we must pay any remaining hotel bill before we leave, we will not be able to accept checks at the door.  Thanks for your understanding. 

How to Pay:

 Attendees may send checks/money orders made out to:

Frances Romney

P O Box 702124

Salt Lake City UT 84170

Please do not send cash.

OR
 You may use your credit card or bank account to pay

via PayPal at:

https://www.paypal.com/home

Send your payment to:

frannyr@xmission.com

The small print:

If you use PayPal, please add $2.40 to your total to help cover the cost of using this service. 
Please make sure you annotate on your check, money order, or PayPal payment that you are paying for (___) admissions to "GHS Class of '63 50th reunion".

If you mail your payment, please include the full names of those who will be attending and an e-mail address and phone number, as well as your mailing address.

You will receive a confirmation by e-mail (or snail mail if you do not have e-mail).

If you use PayPal, I will contact you by phone to get your other information.

For more information, or to RSVP contact:

 

Frances Romney - 1-801-560-6288  fromney@xmission.com

Rick Engstrum – 1-702-254-9215   rengstrum@yahoo.com

            Bob Berrett – 1-801-403-3644  bob@berrett.org

            JoAnn Curley Nazarenus – 1-408-497-7364   jnazarenus@aol.com

 Hope to see you there!

Reunion update!

Okay...new date and place for our 50th Class reunion!

June 1 2013

(Saturday)

4:00 p.m. ~ 10:00 p.m.

Hampton Inn

307 North Admiral Byrd Road

Salt Lake City, Utah, 84116

TEL: 1-801-530-0088

The hotel has rooms available at a special price for the event if you are coming from out of the area.  If you call to make reservations, please tell them that you will be attending the GHS 50th Reunion.

  

We are gaining new Class of '63 friends on Facebook

 But those friends have not migrated to our blog yet...

 Please "follow" our 50th Reunion blog if you are a class member. This was the official photo from our 45th reunion. If you are in this photo, please leave a comment and tell us about the 45th, for those who couldn't make it.

Thanks!

Frances Romney

Organizer

Welcome, Class of '63!

Do you remember the years we spent within her halls?

Do you remember the friendships and the homecomings and the balls?

Do you remember when the earth shook and the walls trembled and moved? Do you recall the year our team was called "the Cinderella team" because we fought so hard to turn the season around, and went to State?  Do you remember the assemblies we worked so hard on...the class plays we enjoyed?  The dances and the celebrations...and the sadness of losing classmates?

You must know that our Alma Mater is being torn down next summer to make way for the parking lot of the newer, "better" Granger High School, now under construction?  The new, huge, "earthquake resistant" school? (It only took them 51 years to decide to do that...LOL!)

Well, coming in June 2013, our class of '63 50th reunion will bid farewell and adieu to our "old" Alma Mater, so please plan on attending and rubbing elbows with our wide-flung member base.  It seems that the older we get (but of course, I am still just 39...have been 39 since 1984) the further we tend to wander from the old stomping grounds.  I know that so many of us have moved on to raise families, change jobs, and see the world.  But this is 

The BIG 50!  The Biggest Reunion of all reunions!  

Some of us have been fortunate enough to maintain our friendships from High School and college...some of us have maintained those relationships throughout the years.  Others of us have lost track of and gotten out of touch with those old friends...and some (like moi) have slipped through the cracks and been lost to the rest of us.

For many of you, this will be just one of many reunions you have had the pleasure of attending...but for me and others, this will be our FIRST. I want this to be the biggest and most memorable reunion in the history of Granger High School. I want...  

Sigh.  Let me rephrase that.  I just want this to be as good as the others have been, and I want all those who have silently slipped through the cracks of history to climb back out and come join us for the biggest, best, (and ONLY) 50th reunion we will ever have.

Many of us have joined online sites like Classmates.com in order to reconnect with friends and classmates.  Others have tried to find the GHS alum association by clicking links online, and have found any number of online site purporting to be the REAL, one-and-only Granger High School alumni association.  And we have paid money to join, only to find out that we had joined another "pseudo-association" geared to make money by pretending to be the genuine article.

So when I, too, paid money to join those pseudo sites, I made the most of it by posting a 50th reunion notice, hoping to find other class members who also want to join the fun. And the results were startling.  There were many of us doing exactly the same kind of search...and we got together and have shared e-mails and so on to stay in contact.

So let's make it simple.  The official e-mail address for those who want to contact us about the GHS Class of '63 50th reunion is here:

ghs.class.of.1963.50th.reunion@gmail.com

Over the next few weeks our reunion committee will be formed, plans will be made, and decisions will be made on how to make this the best reunion possible.  We would love to hear from you! We would love to have your help. But mostly, we would love to have you come to the reunion (which is posted on Classmates.com).  The tentative date and place are:

Saturday June 1, 2013

TBA

NOTE:  The date is still being worked out.
Some alumni have stated that they will be unable to attend at the end of May because of graduations of grandkids, etc. so perhaps a couple of weeks earlier would work better? But if we want to hold this in the OLD GHS we must do so before the first week of June. It will be leveled at that time.
 

Please contact me direct at the reunion e-mail address shown above if you are not a Gold member of Classmates.com. I will be posting updates here, and some fun stories from our school days, and I really want your stories and ideas, and I welcome volunteers to help out.  I also want pictures and other memorabilia.  Most of our yearbooks are happily tracked up with autographs and signatures, so many of the class photos available to me are written on or have mustaches drawn on them by those who didn't want their faces to be seen, thinking they were ugly or dumb-looking...chuckling. I WISH I still looked even half as good now as I looked back then.  How much clearer we see in hindsight...

Our reunion Facebook page is up and running.  
https://www.facebook.com/grangerhigh.classofsixtythree

So please e-mail me, and let's plan to have some fun.  

Hugs to all....

Frances Romney

Class of '63 50th Reunion Organizer