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Millennium Reunion: Down on the Farm for the 37th
The reunion took place over the July 29th weekend at Rick Hevner's Farm. Our
preliminary estimate is that we had at least 50 people, but with things spread
out as much as they were it could have been more. Rick and his wife, Darlene,
cooked the food and Bobb Courtman added a "Class of 1963" cake to the dessert
table. There is a picture of his cake on the web site. (For those of you
familiar with what a cake looks like, there are also pictures of Bobb.)
We tried for a class picture around Rick's thunderbird, but much like the class
picture taken for the yearbook, very few people chose to actually face the
camera.So once again we experienced mass
class ADD.Check the web site and I think
you'll agree.
We didn't have any serious contests at the reunion and no special prizes,
beyond the door prize that is, but a few people deserve special mention:
Jerry Stretch gets the "really long-distance" award for making it to the
reunion from Los Angeles.
Jay Fenwick traveled from Arizona. In an effort to get the "really
long-distance" award he walked a significant part of the way and for this he
will always be remembered, especially by those he made walk with him.
Larry Howard and his wife came from Oklahoma and get the "long distance"
honorable mention.
Dave Hodges flew in from Florida accompanied by record setting humidity.
It makes you wonder why we didn't get more classmates from the local area to
attend. We had a significant contingent from Massachusetts and we should
probably consider holding an event up there one day.We
can now wait patiently for someone to volunteer.
I want to personally thank everyone that chose to smoke a giant smelly cigar at
the end of the evening when the mosquitoes came out.It's
amazing how well cigar smoke works as a pesticide.Next
thing you know we'll be planning a reunion in Havana with rum, panama hats, and
even bigger cigars.
Everything went so well with the 37th, we should probably devote our
efforts to convince Rick to hold the 40th Reunion at his house.I
think we should wait a respectable year or two before we put the pressure on.It
would also be helpful if someone would be willing to guarantee good weather for
the 40th.
All Class Reunion
I've been asked about the possibility of an all Penncrest class reunion to
be held in Philadelphia.If anyone is
interested in this type of event, please send your comments to me and I will
forward them to the interested parties.Would
it have to be an event, awards presentation, etc.?
Contributions
This reunion was co-hosted by Sandy and Rick.The
plan was to give everyone a party and maybe raise a few dollars to offset the
cost of the 40th.A number of
people gave us contributions and as soon as they are all recorded, I will post
the account balance on the web site.We
will not be posting names and amounts, just the account total.If
you want to make a contribution, please send a check to Rick or Sandy.Please
make it payable to: Sandy Sorkin, Penncrest Class of 1963.As
you might expect, it is not in any way tax deductible.
Other Ways to Contribute
When you purchase books via the Amazon.com link on our web site we get a 5%
commission that gets deposited in the class account.You
have to access Amazon via our web site link for us to get credit and the
commission.The more people we have
buying through our site the bigger the 40th party can be.
www.Penncrest.com
Tell me about the web site.I would
love to get opinions and ideas from everyone.Do
you like the idea of going back to the original message board?What
will it take to get more people to participate?Do
you have any ideas for raising funds using the web site? One suggestion is that
we offer a major network an opportunity to place little cameras around our
reunion location and broadcast the event.How
do feel about the reunion survivor concept?
Links
If you have your own web
site and would like a link to it from ours, send me the information and I will
add the link on the class list page.
Louis W. Scott, III: Personal Remembrances
For many of us, Penncrest was a 6-year experience in a new school.In
retrospect its newness probably made it a learning experience for the
administration as well as for the students.By
definition the faculty had to be older, wiser, and far more experienced than we
were.Over the years our definitions for
these words were refined with added perspective and understanding.It
is only now that I fully realize we were guided, advised, counseled, and
educated by relatively young men and woman. Most of whom were 10 or 20 years
younger than we are today.
Mr. Scott was our Physical Education teacher, then our Principal, and at all
times someone we met gladly in the halls, cafeteria, or auditorium.We
each have our favorite memories of Mr. Scott and for some reason mine seem to
center on detentions.A threat or
punishment then, but now, I would relish the opportunity to serve detentions
once or even twice a day.A quite hour
with a book sounds like a pleasant reward.
In our private, student conversations in the halls, we may have called him Lou
and after we graduated it was usually Lou Scott. I may have been an exception,
after graduation I continued calling him Mr. Scott because some habits are
impossible to break.A couple of years
ago, I phoned him and had every intention of saying "Hi Lou," but it
involuntarily came out as a respectful "Hello Mr. Scott."
I started at Penncrest towards the end of 7th grade and had no
significant contact with the administration-- with the major exception of my
introduction to the concept of good behavior via a huge number of demerits and
a letter to my parents.I never fully
understood the merit/demerit system even though Mr. Scott assured me that if I
walked the straight and narrow the demerits would all be gone from my permanent
record by the time I graduated.
Another favorite moment took place after a Back to School Night, which my
mother attended.Apparently things went
well until my mother was scheduled to go to the gym where they tended to
lecture you about the quality of the gym floor.In
her opinion, if you've heard about a wooden gym floor once, you never needed to
go to the gym class again.So she cut the
class and went outside to sit on the school steps and have a smoke.Mr.
Scott caught her out there and sent her back to class.The
next day he called me down to his office and told me I was getting 2 detentions
because my mother was caught smoking on school property.What
a wonderful way to get to know the students and let them know that adults can
have a sense of humor.
Later on, I don't really remember when, I got some more detentions, which I'm
certain I didn't deserve.Feeling
confident about my ability to play basketball and having no idea about Mr.
Scott's ability, I went to his office and challenged him to a little foul
shooting contest.We agreed that we would
each take 25 shots and the difference in our scores would either add or
subtract from my detention days.That day
was the first time I ever saw anyone make 25 foul shots in a row.
There was more--we sent in the 25 cents and necessary cereal box tops to enroll
Mr. Scott in the Rocky and Bullwinkle Club.When
it arrived, we displayed his fully completed membership certificate in the
locked lobby display case.He protested a
little and a week later we gave back the key.But
as I recall, the membership was for Lou Scott.
Sandy
A Memorial
Service will be help on September 8, 2000.
Please check the web site message board for details.
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