Saturday night was my high school reunion. The turnout, for me, was a bit of a disappointment. This was the reunion for the Class of ’77 McLane Highlanders. All told, there were about a hundred people in attendance, including spouses. A lot of people that I was looking forward to seeing were distinctly absent. Of those who were there, I knew that Eric Cruthlow and Tommie Nellon would be there mainly because I called Eric the week before.
Reunion Attendees
Eric and Tommie were both pipers and I was a drummer in the McLane Pipers and Dancers. Rob Lowder, another drummer from the Pipe Band, and Cathy Van Stone, one of the Dancers were there as well. It was darn good to see all of them and meet their spouses (Eric’s wife was unable to make it.) There were a number of others from the Pipers and Dancers I was looking forward to seeing who were not there, some of them are still here in Fresno.
(left to right: Rob Lowder, Todd Hansen, Cathy Van Stone, Tommie Nellon, Eric Crutchlow)
I suspect that the low turnout was predominantly due to the high price of the tickets: $89 a month in advance and $99 at the door. That means if you bring your spouse (I brought Sue with me) you are talking $200. Then drinks are on top of that. Not everyone can afford to drop that kind of change for an evening out, especially since gas is still in the $3 per gallon range. The high price made me think twice about going, but we came as it was an opportunity for our daughter Anna to get to spend time with her grand parents.
The reunion was run by Great Reunions. Just a guess, but I suspect that that had something to do with the big ticket price. There was also a professional photographer who made CDs of her work available at the end of the evening at $20 a pop.
For the friends from those days who were there, it was darn great to get to see them again and catch up. Rob races sprint cars and teaches art. Who’d have thought?
Surprisingly, I am not the only member of the Class of ’77 with a two year old.
I really had hoped to run into some pf the other Pipers and Dancers, especially Laura, Jann, Tanya, Steve, and Brian. It would have also been great to see Bill Smith, Ron Long, David Minasian and a few others from those days.
McLane Pipers and Dancers
The current generation of Pipers and Dancers performed for us, and we were darn glad to see them. You see, it sounds like the program is in jeopardy. They need new instruments and uniforms, The reunion had a pass the hat to raise some funding for the program as well as another at risk program, the Highlander Project which has been putting the year books on the web. I don’t know how much was raised, but I know it was a pretty penny.
One thing that is coming out of this is I pulled the Pipers and Dancers who were there aside and had a chat about the possibility of organizing a Pipers and Dancers Reunion for All Years. And I do mean all years. Something that would be an opportunity to get them all together, friends, families, band teachers, and so on. Since every class overlapped with four other years, there is a long chain of Pipers and Dancers who are connected through their participation with this unique program at McLane. We all forged great friendships during those years. I was already thinking of this when before we hit the reunion and was glad that those of us there were all in favor of it. Eric said he will put up a website for it, and we’re going to do some research to start contacting folks. Should be fun. More on that later.
The McLane Pipers and Dancers, the kids that are in it now, are just like we were. Good kids interested in music and dancing and having a good time. They put on a great performance for us and we all cheered them on. It was great having them perform for us.
