ASHLAND — Georgina Miller (or Harley, to those who knew her in 1974) sat at the back corner table in the main room at Mount Vernon Estates Saturday night.
The spot put her right at the end of the buffet line, and as classmates from the Ashland High class of 1974 passed by her, Miller recognized several.
“Bring me a plate!” she shouted to one, as she waited to get dinner herself.
“It’s amazing how many of (my classmates) stuck around,” Miller said. “I run into them sometimes.
“When you stay here, you pretty much know everyone.”
Miller, who spent 23 years working at National Latex after graduating from Ashland High in 1974, was one of 112 attendees at the class’s 50th reunion.
Ashland High’s class of 1974 is the largest in the school’s history, according to Jeff Burnett, the class’s president. He said 435 students graduated from the school that year. With 112 attendees, 25% of the class returned to Ashland to celebrate the 50th reunion.
The reunion featured a gathering at Willow Hill Farm on Friday, a tour of the new Ashland High theatre and a dinner Saturday at Mount Vernon Estates.
Four members of the class — Burnett, Ellen Schlingman Hughes, Laurie Brehm Loftis and Deb Highman Vogel — took the helm of planning the event. The class has gathered 12 times since graduating, Burnett said. But this event was different. It took a year of intensive planning to bring everyone back together for the milestone.
Each person who attended the weekend’s slate of events had to pay $50, according to Burnett. He hoped they’d feel the price was worth the value.
At Saturday’s event, classmates embraced, swapped stories from their high school days, took a class photo and heard remarks from Burnett and Hughes.
From near and far
While some people, like Miller, stayed close to home, other grads had to travel farther to attend the reunion.
One of them was Jerry Shriver, 69. He traveled to Ashland from New Orleans for the reunion. He’s staying at an Airbnb along Center Street with two of his high school buddies.
Shriver, a retired journalist, moved away from his hometown in the late 1970s, but he has kept tabs through family connections in Canton and through local news outlets, including Ashland Source.
He graduated from The Ohio State University, after having covered Woody Hayes’ last season with the Buckeyes for the student newspaper, The Lantern. After that, he worked as an intern for the Mansfield News Journal, where he covered news from Shelby.
Shriver had brief stints at newspapers in Pensacola and Washington, D.C., then finished out his journalism career in New York City, as a features writer and editor.
He said he’s one of several 1974 classmates from Ashland High School with interesting careers.
He and another classmate, for example, lived in Manhattan and witnessed the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.
“Two classmates became osteopaths and treated mostly indigent patients in the Midwest; one became a law professor at Fordham, another an engineer at Ford and IBM; one became a nationally-recognized livestock judge; another became a wine judge at top California and international competitions; one earned a Doctor of divinity degree and worked with Mother Theresa,” he said.
“One classmate’s death from a rare disease inspired a made-for-TV movie; a couple became professional musicians; one collects cars and still drives the ‘69 Camaro he dove in high school; several of us became journalists and book authors; one runs the Dor-Lo Pizza truck at the Ohio State Fair every year; one ran the famous Sunset Sound Studio in Hollywood and another is an opera vocal teacher in Wales; there have been a few preachers and teachers and jailbirds among us; and 60-plus have died (which seems like a high number to me). Though we generally sucked at sports, at least two classmates wound up in the athletic halls of fame at their respective colleges.”
Unfinished business
Joy Nelson Kemp, like Shriver, traveled quite a ways to attend the reunion. After her high school graduation, Kemp earned her law degree from the University of Toledo. She married a law school classmate and moved with him to Arizona. She lives in Sierra Vista.
In high school, Kemp described herself as a “typical, nondescript student.” She knew she wanted to attend college to become an attorney.
Even though she lives in Arizona, and has for many years, Ashland is still where Kemp feels roots. Her family has been traced to Ashland’s founders. Her mom still lives in Ashland and her family reunites in town often.
“The ’60s had this cultural struggle where people were asking the question of ‘who am I?'” Kemp said. “But I never had that.”
Kemp said she attributes that to her strong sense of identity and place in Ashland.
But for Kemp, this year’s reunion served as more than just a chance to return to her roots.
She said when she was in the first grade, her mother had scheduled her a playdate with a classmate. Another young boy also went to the playdate, and she said the two boys left her behind. She didn’t know what house they’d gone into and was left alone without knowing where to go.
Fast forward: Kemp said she had a locker near the boy she was supposed to have the playdate with at Ashland High School. He apologized when they graduated, but she never got to thank him for it.
This weekend, Kemp found him and told him the story. She said she finally got to thank him for apologizing, and that felt important to her. It was a chance to resolve unfinished business, she said.
Always find your way back home
For others, the return to Ashland serves as a chance to walk down memory lane. Kim Calhoon, who worked as a court stenographer, married one of her Ashland High classmates, Jim.
Kim and Jim have attended the class of 1974’s reunions every five years, they said. The pair split their time living in both Canada and Florida, Kim said.
For the Calhoon’s, returning offers a chance to see their high school friends. They said their friends live all over the country.
Mark Patterson, who sat with the Calhoon’s Saturday night, said the most striking part of the reunion for him is seeing so many people who’ve left Ashland and returned.
Mel Karas, a fellow classmate, agreed. He said he’d lived in Chicago for a time after graduation.
“You fly out of the nest and all over, and when you’re done, the most sane place to be is to go back home,” Karas said.