Such was the response to a school reunion in Yarmouth a few years ago that plans are taking shape for another reunion to be held next July.
About 200 people turned out for the reunion in 2015, which was promoted as Come Home Summer. It basically was a gathering of people who’d attended school in Yarmouth in the 1960s, some of whom hadn’t seen each other in a half-century.
The 2020 reunion is scheduled for the weekend of July 24-26, precisely the same dates as the 2015 event.
The reunion is open to anyone who attended Yarmouth Consolidated Memorial High School, the former Saint Ambrose school or the old Yarmouth vocational school during the sixties. Indeed, noting the emphasis on inclusivity, reunion spokesperson Paul Brittain said organizers invite anyone who just “wanted” to attend any of those schools.
“We don’t turn anybody away,” he said.
It’s still early in the planning process, but the weekend will include a dinner and dance on Saturday, July 25, Brittain said.
“Friday night we have a meet-and-greet,” he said. “We’re still working on different locations. The dinner/dance is going to be at the Grand (Hotel). We like to spread (reunion activities) around a little bit.”
Organizers are looking to include a visit to one of the Yarmouth area’s most famous sites.
“Saturday afternoon we’re going to go to the lighthouse since they’ve done a lot of work there,” Brittain said. “Obviously, we hope for fine weather.”
Sunday’s itinerary will include a church service followed by brunch.
A member of the YCMHS class of 1965, Brittain was involved in organizing the Come Home Summer reunion, an event that brought together people who hadn’t been together in decades.
Asked what it’s like to see someone for the first time in 50 years or so, Brittain described it as “almost surreal.”
But the reality, he said, is people go their separate ways, perhaps losing touch with their old classmates and their former home.
“There were people, when they left high school, they went off to university or something, got a job in another part of the world or another part of the country, and had no family left in Yarmouth, so they hadn’t been back (before the reunion of 2015),” Brittain said.
One-hundred-ninety-seven people attended the event in 2015.
“We’ve lost some since then,” Brittain said.
Tracking people down can be a challenge in putting together a reunion, he said, but social media has made a big difference in this regard.
Some of the participants in the 2015 event travelled a considerable distance to attend the Yarmouth reunion, including some who came from the West Coast. At least one of them, Brittain said, made the journey from California.
Of course, he acknowledges too that people can drift apart even if they live in the same area. A reunion, therefore, can be a chance to see someone who may be relatively close, but who, for whatever reason, you just don’t see much.
“I remember one guy in particular,” Brittain said, citing a personal example. “I hadn’t seen him, well, since 1997 and I ran into him about two weeks ago at the mall. You know, that’s over 20 years.”
