Two decades of friendships were recently revisited at the Silver Beaver field and pavillion at Boyce Park.
Put together by a group of organizers, a different kind of class reunion took place Sept. 11. The unique effort brought together members of every 1970s and 1980s Penn Hills High School class in one multiclass reunion.
The event featured a DJ, a food truck and T-shirts being sold to alumni. Many alumni brought their own beer to enjoy as the various valedictorians spoke.
“I said to myself, look at these people who are getting it done,” said Lee Adams, who ran the event and graduated from Penn Hills in the 1970s. “They don’t get their picture in the paper. They don’t get the recognition. They don’t get accoladed. So I came up with the idea that let’s honor the valedictorians that can get here from the 70s and 80s, and there are some terrific, terrific stories.”
Even as people were reminiscing about the past, the present was still very much on the event planners’ minds. Attendants were asked to bring masks, although not required to wear them, and temperature checks were mandatory upon entry.
There was also an optional blocked-off section for at-risk alumni who had to adhere to all the guidelines set forth by the state and federal governments.
Despite the extra precautions, that section was barely needed, as most people came to chat and catch up with their classmates.
The event, held for the first time this year, is likely to become an annual affair in the area. While the group didn’t rule out expanding to allow classes from the 1990s and early 2000s, they plan to stick with the 1970s and 1980s classes for now.
“We realized that all these class reunions are just one year,” Adams said. “So we decided to have a multiclass reunion, so we went right to all the ‘70s and ‘80s (classes) in Penn Hills High School. It was quite the heyday back then, my class size was 1,301.”
