TRAVERSE CITY -- Imagine planning a party for hundreds of people, some of whom have been MIA for 20 years.
That's the daunting task organizers of the Traverse City High School class of 1988 reunion face. Coordinating a class reunion can be tough: Finding the right location, time of year, not to mention tracking down all those graduates. But planners who pull it off say getting reacquainted with old friends is worth the effort.
"(At) this age, too, it's more about wanting to connect with people and less about wanting to show off," said Kim Block, a member of the Traverse City class of 1988.
Block, who now lives in Petoskey, joined a group of classmates to organize their 20th reunion on Aug. 2 at the Park Place Dome in downtown Traverse City. They are among reunion planners who turned to the Internet to find classmates and publicize the event. The committee set up a Web site at www.classreport.org that provides reunion news, ticket information and a class directory of "missing" and "located" alumni. This year, they announced the reunion through the Web site, media and notices tacked up around town at work sites and on grocery store bulletin boards.
"Our class is so large that really getting the word out and finding everybody is the biggest challenge," said Kristi Galoci of Traverse City.
Their age makes them a "transitional generation" as far as technology, Block said. They didn't have e-mail when they graduated.
"I just hope we reach enough people," said Renae Gurthet, another organizer.
Finding and including all the classmates proves to be a tall order for many reunion planners. The task is made more tricky because some married women drop their maiden names, one planner said. It's also important to start plans at the right time. Block recommends working one year in advance. Some venues won't let groups book any sooner, while planners need time to promote the event.
Benzie Central High School class of 1992 is in the midst of organizing an off-year, casual reunion picnic for July 27. The class also used classreport.org to connect with its roughly 100 students. Jenn Ryan of Beulah found a lot of classmates through social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook.
"We had to keep it very inexpensive and low key and tried to do it at a time when we thought people were in town," she said.
In Petoskey, Ruth Miiller's class of 1978 is arranging a reunion. A committee began meeting last fall, and it's been a bit of a struggle to get classmates who live in the area to respond.
Miiller has been pleased with how far others are travelling. A group of her friends are coming from across the country, and two foreign exchange students are making the trip, she said.
Finding classmates required some gumshoe work, not just Internet searching. Some of her classmates don't own a computer. So, the group also tried to track down peers through local connections, parents and the phone book.
Jodi Potter of Grayling worked on a 30th reunion for Grayling High School students and shared a similar difficulty.
"It's funny, because the hardest people to get to respond are your locals," Potter said.
Their Grayling reunion was scheduled for late June, with an ice-breaker event one night and a dinner the next night. Potter said for some people, high school "was not a fun place to be."
"They just as soon leave high school where it was," she said.
But it's the "camaraderie" that counts, Potter said. Other organizers agreed that the fun of high school reunions is seeing how people have changed and reigniting old friendships.
"This is 20 years later. Those cliques that were in high school aren't really around anymore," said Rufus Welsheimer, who helped plan a recent Petoskey High School reunion. "You have the cliques in high school. You have the jocks, the guys who wanted to work on cars, the band geeks... . Now everybody is all kind of friends."
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