YIKES - 1966 HAD A REUNION!!!! - Sandy Spring Friends School

Nudged by Aly Abrams (who ironically and despite wilting pressure was unable to attend) our Sandy Spring Friend’s School class of 1966 had its 40^th (yikes!) reunion. Mary Pacey, Betsy Heller and Tom Bernard pushed and prodded to make it happen though in reality it was only made possible, of course, by the effort and enthusiasm of many others. The end result? If you subtract the 6 truly lost members, 1 or 2 do-not-contact members and our 3 deceased members, roughly half the class (fourteen old fogies-in-training) attended some part of the reunion, either on the school campus or at our evening party at Betsy Heller's.

In the process of getting the word out, we were in touch with many more classmates--some who were unable to attend and a few who flatly declined to come! We journeyed from as far as Missouri, South Carolina and California and as near as Sandy Spring. We are at various stages of life in terms of work and family. Most of us are still gainfully employed though we have a few retired members. Betsy remarked that we seem to be heavily represented to some degree in arts and social sciences. Some of us have teens at home still, some are empty nesters or without children and some are even grandparents. It was fun finding " lost" classmates. John Grier and Nancy Gelfand Vardi sent updates both wonderful and humorous.

On Saturday, after a short meeting, lunch and alumni pics we toured the significantly transformed campus (would you believe there is a recently completed "athletic complex" and a state of the art performing arts center among buildings new to the campus since our days?) with Head of School, Ken Smith We were duly impressed but none-the-less convinced we still had it better in the old days of Nurdleybawl and Brindledorf , liverloaf and piling into green army surplus buses for adventures off campus. We all treasure our time at Sandy Spring. The best part of the reunion was sharing stories (some revealing), refreshing our memories and even solving some old mysteries egged on in part by our Forty Questions for Forty Years trivia game

Attendees in addition to Mary, Betsy and Tom included Carolyn Bell Pancoast, Rusty Thomas Suter, Sherrill Henderson Marchbanks, Ann Torreyson, Ann Harker Whittaker, Bruce Robbins, Steve Gulick, Ben Lourie, Miriam Heilman Gurowsky, Richard Aldred and Sue Whitmore. Kay Haith Butler '65 also graced us with her lovely presence.

Lost members include Sue Boomer, Dennis Gould, Pattye Hastings Henry (though we think we almost found her in Maine), Mark Lebelle, Anne Lord, Amy Weissbrodt Monahan, and Michael Azzato. Does anyone have clues?

Thoughts for the future: It would be fun to have an expanded, or cluster, reunion with classes surrounding ours. And why wait another 40 years?