The Willow Glen Resident

Willow Glen High alumni organize 10-year reunion

Buffet dinner, dance set for August 29 at San Jose Repertory

By Cecily Barnes

Just before the end of her junior year at Willow Glen High School, Sue O'Reily and a handful of classmates realized that they had reached the 12th grade and they were now the top of the pecking order.

"We decided that since the class of '87 was gone, the class of '88 was going to 'rule the school,' " O'Reily, now 27, remembers, a smile in her voice. "A bunch of us decided to camp out on the school grounds. We wrote on the sidewalk in chalk, 'good-bye '87; the class of '88 rules now.' But then the class of '87 showed up with all these eggs, and there was a huge egg fight on campus."

O'Reily has come a long way since the egg fight. She has graduated from Cal-Poly, lives in Los Gatos and works as a sales representative for Acuson, a company that sells ultrasound equipment. But O'Reily has not forgotten her high school years. Over the past few months, she has been working with a few other alumni to organize a 10-year reunion. From a graduating class of more than 300 students, she and other organizers have contacted most of the graduates.

"It has been hard to reach some people; we probably have about 25 people we can not get in touch with," O'Reily said. "The high school has supplied us with the old addresses, and through forwarding and word of mouth, we've got in touch with a lot of people. But we don't have time to do a worldwide search."

The reunion organizers are seeking all 1988 graduates in the hope of making the reunion a genuine bash. "Right now we have about 60 responses, and we're hoping for around 150," O'Reily said. "We want to reach as many people as possible."

The reunion will be held on Saturday, Aug. 29, from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m. on the rooftop of the San Jose Repertory Theater at 101 Paseo de San Antonio, with a buffet dinner, dancing and a formal announcement ceremony.

"We're going to announce the longest married, the newest married, the furthest traveled and other accomplishments that people have told us about," O'Reily said. "We have sent out questionnaires on the Internet, and we're encouraging people to send pictures of themselves and their families and travels. We'll put all that up on poster board so that everyone can see what people have been up to."

1988 graduate Colleen Mitchell now lives in San Francisco and works as a sales representative for a software company. She was initially contacted by O'Reily, to whom she is still close, and told about the reunion. Mitchell says the most exciting part will be seeing the folks she hasn't seen since graduation.

"The people you would always see on campus but haven't been able to hear where they are in the last 10 years," Mitchell said. "You don't realize how fun it was just [having] those little conversations."

According to O'Reily and the other planners, members of the Class of '88 are flying in from other states and even from overseas.

"The Willow Glen community in general has such a sense of community, and people come back to it for events like Founders Day and the street dance," O'Reily said. "We're hoping this will draw people just like those events do."

For more information about the reunion, contact Sue O'Reily at 650/694-5698, or email her at soreilly@acusan.com.

[ Back to Contents Page | Willow Glen Resident Home Page | Archives ]