A personal Thank-you to all 50th Reunion Committee:

From Sue (Brigham) Hiraoka:  This 50th Reunion Committee has been great and I would like to acknowledge the following people for the effort they put in to making the 50th a success.  I had begun this effort a year ago and people quickly jumped in.  What I did not realize is four months into organizing this, by precious daughter set her wedding date for 2 weeks before the reunion after checking with me.  Of course, both could work and I looked forward to the challenge.  The wedding was perfect and know that the reunion will come off without a hitch.

As part of the website, I began developing the Memoriam page for those classmates that we have lost throughout the years, looking for old pictures and obituaries.  The old reunion slide shows were developed from there.

I'd developed the website early and have tried to update it as we've gotten more details and made an email address, so we could have one point of contact.  I have to applaud and give a huge shout out to Chris (Hamburg) Scanlan as she has done an amazing job taking over most of the communications in these last few months and have kept things straight.

Chris works with SHAFI, so she was instrumental in getting access to the online tool that SHAFI subscribes,  to find many of our missing classmates and divided lists to all members of the 50th Reunion Committee.  She has also taken on updating the list as we go and kept everything organized.  It has been a challenge emailing folks as we sometimes had up to 10 different emails for each classmate.  Emails either bounced or went into spam and classmates were unaware that they were contacted, so we needed to come up with another plan.

We decided on old-fashioned snail-mail and found a few more people, while also signing up for as many different reunion websites as possible, but there isn’t one out there that everyone subscribes to.

Debbie (Keeton) Simpson was the main phone contact and played that role with ease and enthusiasm and I cannot express enough how thankful I am for her contribution.  She was instrumental in all aspects of planning and contributed with her knowledge of organizing events, since she organizes events for the Parker Senior Center that has around 800 members.  Debbie also gave flowers to us on various occasions, which I was able to use a photo of one especially beautiful rose to place at the top of the Memoriam page.  Her kind gestures never went unnoticed, and I am grateful for her sweetness, ideas and everything she contributed (many stamps were part of the contribution.)

Janet (Asher) Notary took on the difficult role of tracking financials through the bank and all incoming payments for checks and Zelle.  Since not all payments went seamlessly into the bank account she set up just for this purpose, she more than once visited the bank to open an investigation and wouldn’t stop until they were able to find the payment.  Janet has made all payments for the reunion on time, to keep us on track.

Phil Sweeney took on the other part of the financial piece in accepting VENMO payments, since not everyone does Zelle or checks, he and Janet worked tirelessly to keep all records straight.  Phil took on the difficult role of finding and connecting to classmates that were very difficult to find and went the extra mile to track down leads and then make phone calls to find them and pushed to find more obituaries, and old photos even going through junior high yearbooks.  Phil also paid for the reunion committee’s food and drinks when we initially met at 2 Penguins to solidify the venue, which was so much appreciated.

Karen (Post) Doebelin helped with all aspects of the reunion in finding lost classmates, scanning pictures for the slideshow, signing the contract and being the liaison to 2 Penguins.  Her passion was putting the Memory book out before the reunion and worked tirelessly to put out a quality product.  She also took on the difficult role of organizing the ever-changing golf tournament, so big kudos to her.

Paul Fair was always quick to offer a space for us to get together for those meetings that we just could not have accomplished online and was always a gracious host.  He also provided our 50th reunion cover for the Memory book which came out beautifully.  Paul paid for our entire initial reunion meetings food & drinks, which was such a kind gesture.

Char (Reeves) Clark was our Zoom Meeting extraordinaire, since being remote she organized meetings that she managed monthly.  It made planning so much easier than needing to meet monthly at South (like we’ve done in all other reunions) to get things done.  Char also contributed with finding people and contributing pictures for various aspects of this reunion.

Cindy (McCoy) Maas, was also instrumental in finding deceased obituaries and photos, going through Ancestry and other means.  The amount of work she put into this aspect to remember our dear classmates was astounding and we couldn’t have done it without her.  Cindy also provided some great old photos to include in the Memory book.

L to R:  Phil Sweeney, Cindy (McCoy) Maas, Karen (Post) Doebelin, Chris (Hamburg) Scanlan, Sue (Brigham) Hiraoka, Debbie (Keeton) Simpson and Paul Fair.  (pictured separately:  Janet (Asher) Notary, Char (Reeves) Clark)

Contact us at:  DenverSouthHigh1975@gmail.com