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to the Reunion '97 HomepageJack Canavan '84
OK, I'm back from Vegas. Though I'm still a bit groggy from the sleep deprivation and alcohol stupor I developed while there, I'm going to attempt to compose a few notes about the big Vegas Bash.
First of all, it was a wildly successful event. If you measure a reunion merely by the number of people it attracts, then this one was nearly ten times better than any previous attempt. I think a reunion's success has more to do with what the participants take away from it, but if cold hard numbers matter to you, our final headcount was 180. I credit this unprecedented number of attendees to the hard work of a few key people:
Victor Sim - for having the vision and the drive to go through with it despite the fact that I wasn't too thrilled about the idea of doing another reunion this year after the ones we already did in '95 and '96. Victor insisted, and demonstrated an already working grapevine that was pumping up interest. He then worked tirelessly to head up the reunion efforts and cajole the hotel staff. Thank you Victor.
Allison Foster - for taking on a myriad of little responsibilities, which when put together, amounted to a mountain of work. She kept up her drive even in the face of looming deadlines, hotel induced adversity and beer shortages. She even went so far as to volunteer her room to be used as the hospitality suite. Thank you Allison
John Higa - for rallying the Kubasaki troops and providing local logistical support. John also helped immensely with the organization of the softball game and transportation to it. Thank you John.
Tracy Stuckrath - for muddling through despite inadequate communication from the rest of us, handling the DJ, and for understanding when our budget did not fit her original decoration ideas. (It would have been an awesome recreation of some of our favorite haunts outside gate 2. I wish we could have done it.) Thank you Tracy.
Kristi Patterson - for single handedly generating interest in this event with people from the classes of '87, '88 and '89. Along the way she also managed to find several people for which the alumni association had no information. Thank you Kristi.
John Murray, Derrick Coston and Cynthia Houston - for help conceiving and hosting the Saturday evening activities. Thank you folks.
Brad Barton - for posting those attendees updates on the web page as soon as I sent them, thus keeping Victor off my back. Thanks Brad.
Tom "The Bomb" Egan - for coming through with clutch transportation when the beer ran out on Friday night. Thanks Tom.
Reunions Unlimited - for putting up with some of our whacky ideas and demands. Brooke and Debbie for handling registrations and food events smoothly and for selling a bunch of t-shirts. Bill Gunkel for pulling it all together despite the problems along the way. Thank you all.
I also credit the great turnout to the networking that all of you did, especially through e-mail and through the message areas on both the Kubasaki and the Kadena web pages. Thanks so much for that support. It is impossible to measure how important it is.
For those of you who weren't there, you really missed a good time. We partied to the wee hours of the morning in the clubs and casinos of Vegas as well as the halls of the Flamingo Hilton. We held a very competitive softball game. (Kadena managed to pull out a victory in the very end, winning by one run off the bat of Tracy Stuckrath. Yea Tracy! Go Panthers!) We shared some victory Orion beer with our buds from Kubasaki. (Thanks to Jack Cooley who hand carried it on the plane from Oki.) We saw old friends, met new people and put faces to some of the e-mail addresses we've been hearing from for the last few months. We roasted one another mercilessly, and we all took that roasting in the good spirit in which it was intended. We talked and laughed, and when it all came to an end, we cried. The time spent together was much too short.
To all of you who came to the reunion, thank you so much. Seeing you all there having a good time is a greater thrill for me than you will ever know. It's a sort of homecoming and the feeling is incomparable.
To those of you who didn't or couldn't make it, please do everything you can to come next time. No one cares what you look like these days. No one cares if you reached your lofty goals since high school. We've all let bygones be bygones when it comes to old grudges. We just want to see you and spend a small bit of precious time together again. Because in the end, we can't and shouldn't deny our common past.
I love you all.
Jack