The idea for the Memories Book was originated by Milt Rogers in an email to Pat Jones in late May or early June. He was pretty specific with his suggestions and it made the idea very clear. Al Simmons had subsequent suggestions which made the planning for the book much easier.

This is Milts message:

"What about asking the class members that you have identified to submit a brief biography of say 'X-hundred words max. (X was yet to be determined) I would be interested in knowing a bit about what happened to folks in the 50 years since we were parted for the last time as a class. -- Who has become a rocket scientist, who has had 5 spouses and 10 kids, etc. Maybe even a photo too -- head shot only of course, as most of us are not at our 'fighting weight' anymore. If this idea blows you away just say so. If it is a possibility I would be glad to jump in and be involved in the grunt work."

After a thorough review by the committee it was decided to go ahead and start this project. The culmination of which most of you have already seen.

The way things went for the first two months of collection of Biographies and pictures from our classmates, it was estimated that we would probably have around 30 biographies to print. Additionall, signups for the Reunion itself were very slow and estimates for that affair were very conservative. After seeing this Milt Rogers and Al Simmons were assigned to contact all class memb ers and prod them a bit into sending a bio and commit to attend the reunion. These efforts turned out to be very effective and the book ended up with more then twice the amount of bios originally expected and attendance at the reunion was much higher then expected. It also triggered an increase in the price of the book.

Robbie Carr Suggested this idea rather late in the progress of our planning and at first this idea met with some resistance from several of the other members of the committee. He decided to take charge and administer the fund and all its attendant responsibilities himself. As I understand it he has been fairly successful at collecting funds and finding appropriate places to apply them. It wou behoove us all to keep this fund going by committing funds to it annually.

Cheryl explained that we would need to pay our share of the expenses for the "all 50's party" at the Elks Club Friday night. The expenses included room rent, decorations and food. She also arranged it so that the tickets for both Friday nite and Saturday were given out Thursday nite in order to allow our classmates the freedom from having to go to Balsam St. on Saturday afternoon to get their tickets for the dinner/dance. This worked our well for all of us. Thanks for taking care of that issue Cheryl.