September 30, 2006:

Members of the BHS Classes of ’66, '65 & ‘67

Ladies and Gentlemen:

The deadline to register for the Class of ‘66’s 40th Reunion, to be held in Lynchburg on October 20-22, 2006, has been extended to October 10!   About 140 have registered so far, including spouses and a number of the faculty from our years at BHS, with more registrations arriving daily!  A list of those who have registered so far is enclosed. We’d enjoy seeing you there, too, so please consider joining us for one or more of the planned events!!!

The earlier letter provided many details of what you can expect over the course of the reunion weekend, including the following events:

- a golf outing Friday during the daytime,
- Friday evening’s non-alcohol ‘tailgate’ party before the BHS Homecoming game vs Appomattox,
- designated seating during the BHS Homecoming football game on Friday,
- the post-game gathering Friday evening at New London Steak House,
- the Saturday afternoon catered picnic lunch at the American Legion Lake pavilion, 1301 Greenview Drive,
- the Saturday evening ‘reunion reception’ cocktail party, dinner and dance at Merredith’s Restaurant, 2323 Memorial Ave., Lynchburg (upper level, Pittman Plaza), and
- optional ‘excursions’ with classmates and faculty members on Sunday to three area attractions: Poplar Forest, the D-Day Memorial, and the Peaks of Otter Winery!
As you can see, there are a number of different settings and opportunities to meet and reacquaint yourself with your classmates and members of the faculty from the ‘60s. There will also be several ‘takeaways’ – video/CD, class pictures, and a ‘surprise’ or two - from the reunion to remind you of the good times had by all, both from our years growing up and during the reunion weekend!
And if you are traveling from out of town, discounted rates for a block of rooms have been arranged at the Ramada Inn on the Expressway in Lynchburg.

So, please join us in October for a celebration of our times together - to renew old friendships and enjoy time together again! See the enclosed Registration Form for additional details, and complete and return it by October 10 to reserve your place!!

Sincerely,
The BHS Class of ‘66 Reunion Committee: Becky Jo Yeatts Blankenship, Grenda George Berkley, Ned Haley, Sally Glass Hargis, Jim Harlow, Mike Hill, Jackie Kidd Keyes, John McClain, Bryan Mitchell, Bobby Smith, and Barry Stevens
PS: Please RSVP by October 10 to Bryan Mitchell as indicated on the Registration Form!
 

September 22, 2006:

BHS Class of '66 Reunion - Who's Coming!

Click here for a list of everyone whose registration for our Reunion has been received so far. A total of 51 of your classmates have registered, along with 13 from the classes of '65 and '67, and 15 of the faculty. Including spouses and guests, there are 136 who have registered so far!

The good news - and it's all good news - is that there's still time to register for your reunion! The initial deadline of 9/15 was to ensure that there was enough money to meet the payment requirements of several vendors providing goods and services for our reunion. And with as many of you who registered by last Friday - many thanks to each and every one of you - we have been able to meet those obligations. With four weeks to go, we're hoping that as many as 200 - or more - will come to the reunion!

So, there's still time to register, and still a number of you - and other classmates for whom we have no email address - whom we haven't yet heard from. We DO hope you will join us come October 20-22. To register, use the registration form that was sent to you or the one now on the BHSBEES.com web site, under 'Class of 1966 Reunion". And if neither is available to you, let me know and I'll send you a paper registration form, or a replacement email attachment. However you do it, send your completed registration form and check BY OCTOBER 10 to Bryan Mitchell, Reunion Treasurer, at his home address, 2315 W. Grace St., Richmond, VA 23220-1908.

And if you have registered already, check the list over and contact your classmates who haven't yet registered, and whom you'd like to have join us! This is all about renewing old friendships and making new friends from among your old acquaintances, and you can help make this reunion our most successful yet by encouraging your classmates to come.

Looking forward to seeing each of you - and your spouses/guests - at our 40th!

Ned, and the rest of your Reunion Committee, Becky Jo, Grenda, Sally, Jim, Mike, Jackie, John, Bryan, Bobby and Barry
 

September 10, 2006:
Members of the BHS Classes of ’66, '65 & ‘67

Ladies and Gentlemen:
The Brookville High School Class of 1966 Reunion Committee cordially invites you and your spouse/guest to join us for the Class of ‘66’s 40th Reunion, in Lynchburg on October 20-21, 2006. The enclosed Reunion Schedule & Registration Form lists the planned activities; we have attempted to maximize your opportunities to mingle and converse with each other, the BHS faculty, and the Classes of ’66, ‘65 and ‘67.

The registration fee covers costs for the Friday evening ‘tailgate’ party (light snacks, deli-type food & soft drinks) before the BHS Homecoming game vs Appomattox, the Saturday afternoon catered picnic lunch (chicken & pork BBQ, picnic sides & condiments, and ice tea & lemonade) at the American Legion Lake pavilion, 1301 Greenview Drive, and the Saturday evening ‘reunion reception’ cocktail party, dinner and dance at Merredith’s Restaurant, # 16D (upper level), Pittman Plaza, Lynchburg. Tickets for the football game may be purchased separately at the game for $5 each and there will be designated seating for the Reunion at the game. Since there is no alcohol permitted on school grounds, the Friday pre-game ‘tailgate’ is non-alcohol. You may ‘BYOB’ to the Saturday picnic, while the cocktail party Saturday evening will be a cash bar.

Class pictures are scheduled for 7 pm Saturday evening at the restaurant, and at 7:30 brief remarks will be provided by our BHS Principal, David Urquhart, by our History and English teacher, Frances Tomlin, and by Steve Woodford, the Class of ’66 Senior Class President. Dinner Saturday will be offered at multiple food stations to ensure short lines, and will include separate stations for cheese & veggies, shrimp cocktail, hand-carved roast beef and turkey with rolls & condiments, a selection of pasta/crab/chicken and spinach salads, and desserts - a chocolate fountain with strawberries, a selection of other fruit, and cheese, carrot and pound cakes. Cle Logan of Mega Sound from Charlottesville will be our disc jockey Saturday night from 8 to 11 pm, playing all your favorites from the ‘50s,‘60s, and ‘70s – and more - (please list your favorite songs on the Registration Form – the DJ will endeavor to play them all and to give listed ‘dedications’), and the restaurant allows enough space (and acoustics!) for conversation by those sitting out the dancing.

The golf outing is elective for those coming early on Friday. And along with the football game and post-game gathering Friday, there are several optional post-reunion ‘excursions’ on Sunday, the 22nd, that you may sign up for (and continue your conversations!): 1) a guided tour of Poplar Forest, Thomas Jefferson’s octagonal summer home that’s been renovated as it was 200 years ago ($8 pp; see www.poplarforest.org for details); 2) a group tour of the D-Day Memorial in nearby Bedford ($5 pp; see www.dday.org ); and 3) an open house ‘fall colors’ tour of the Peaks of Otter Winery (‘free’; see  www.peaksofotterwinery.com ). The cost for these tours is separate. If you plan to attend a tour, please mark the Registration Form so we know how many will attend. Once registrations are in, a classmate will serve as coordinator for each tour, and will notify those who indicate their interest of the time and place to meet on Sunday.

If you are traveling from out of town, discounted rates for a block of rooms have been arranged at the Ramada Inn on the Expressway in Lynchburg. See the enclosed Registration Form for details.

Forty years ago - when we were eighteen or so - we completed a shared experience, one that saw the end of the original Brookville High School as we knew it with the move of the school to the then-new location on Laxton Rd. We have gone our separate ways, but we share those years together, many of us since elementary school or before. A concerted effort has been made to find and invite as many of the members of the classes of ’66, ’65 and ‘67 as possible to this reunion, along with the BHS faculty from the ‘60s who will be our guests. We hope that you will take the time in October to join us in a celebration of our shared experience, to renew old friendships and enjoy time together again!

Sincerely,

The BHS Class of ‘66 Reunion Committee: Becky Jo Yeatts Blankinship, Billie & Steve Bryant, Diane Falwell Childress, Grenda George Berkley, Ned Haley, Sally Glass Hargis, Jim Harlow, Mike Hill, Jackie Kidd Keyes, John McClain, Bryan Mitchell, Bobby Smith, and Barry Stevens

PS: Please RSVP to Bryan Mitchell as indicated on the Registration Form!
 

July 17, 2006:
From Ned Haley:

GREETINGS TO THE BHS CLASS OF 1966,

After much consideration of the best date for our 40th reunion this Fall, the reunion committee has selected OCTOBER 20-21, 2006. The BHS Homecoming football game is scheduled for Friday night, Oct 20, which will provide an additional venue for those who wish to connect with classmates.

Check out the BHSBEES.com website often for updates. We'll update you via email or letter for those who don't have email, as well as the website with the latest information. We'll also continue to post updates on the Classmates.com site, and will place announcements in additional media available in the Lynchburg area as the reunion date approaches.

If you know any classmates who have not yet been contacted, please refer them to the BHS website and me, nedhaley@msn.com. We continue to work towards finding as many classmates and faculty members from 1966 as possible, and invitations will be sent to all the faculty and admin staff to be our guests at the reunion. There's been lots of interest expressed by the faculty/admin who've been 'found' so far, and we're expecting the reunion to have record turnout!

Also, as an indicated preference on lots of questionnaire responses, an invitation will be extended to members of the classes of '65 and '67 (as paying guests).

Further details will be forthcoming, so for now PLEASE MARK YOUR CALENDARS FOR THE BIG 40TH REUNION on October 20-21.

For your Reunion Committee,

Ned Haley

July 3, 2006:
From Becky Jo Yeatts Blankenship:

The date has been set so mark your calendars now !!!!! The 40th Reunion will be held the weekend of October 20-21, 2006. This is Homecoming Weekend when Brookville will play Appomattox on Friday night. Further details will follow in the near future.

If you have not been contacted about the reunion, please email Ned Haley at nedhaley@msn.com
 

May 25, 2006:
From Ned Haley

Hi All!
Hello again Class of '66!

Below is the original note I sent out last week about planning for the upcoming BHS Class of '66 40th Reunion, and linked above you will find a newly-updated contact list of your classmates (a 12 page WORD document set in landscape format). The original note is included since there are some classmates whose email address I have received since last week. The original note has also been posted on the BHSBEES web site by Larry Lewis (thanks again, Larry) who created and maintains the site for the school and its alums. And I have arranged to have a condensed version of the note posted to the reunion page on the Classmates.com site for our class.

Be forwarned: I have listed all info I could get - so far - on everyone. Addresses and phone numbers that are enclosed in brackets [ ] are not yet confirmed; those were obtained through the internet White Pages using classmates full names or initials, and will need to be validated before we should consider them as accurate. And where asterisks *** are shown, I have sent an email through Classmates.com to everyone listed with Classmates that I didn't already have complete info. Many Thanks to Patty Cox Burchett, who provided info on over 20 classmates! There's still 65 classmates - almost half the class - for whom there is no information or way to contact them, so much work remains to be done.

As far as 'volunteers' to serve on the Reunion Committee, so far there's Steve and Billie Bryant, Bryan Mitchell, Grenda George Berkley, Marion Gulick Berger, Patty Cox Burchett, Sally Glass Hargis and myself, with others - Dan & Pat Bowyer, Jim Harlow, Kathy Johnson Drury, Linda Martin Taylor and Barry Pillow - who have also offered to help. If I overlooked anyone who volunteered, my apologies, and please reiterate your willingness to help out. Since no one has stepped forward to head the effort, I'll take it on - though still think we would benefit greatly from having someone who lives in the immediate Lynchburg area to do it....

One reason it's critical to get contact info on everyone as soon as possible is so the Committee can create and distribute a questionaire to all classmates ASAP asking for their input and opinions about the reunion, including when and over how many days it should be held, who outside of immediate class members should be invited, and what events should be included. The more classmates that participate in answering the questionaire, the more successful the reunion will be, and the more classmates will attend. Once those questions are answered, the Committee will then communicate the concensus to everyone so that we can get estimates of how many will attend, including spouses &/or significant others. The number of attendees will definitely determine what can be offered, what size venue must be found, and in turn what must be charged. So, I will again ask that everyone not only review the contact info for themselves, but also look at those addresses that are tentative (with brackets) or are missing altogether, and let me know what should be added or corrected.

Many Thanks for your participation so far. If we pursue the reunion planning aggressively, and get accurate contact info for most everyone in the class, we can be assured of having a great reunion!

As I continue to update the contact list, I will also begin developing the questionaire to be sent to everyone. Once it's in draft form - early next week - I'll send it to the Committee members and others who offered to help to get their input. Hopefully the questionaire can be completed by June 5, and sent immediately afterwards to everyone by email or regular mail where necessary.

That's all for now. Let me hear from you!

Ned

ps: if you didn't receive the contact list, or couldn't 'read' it, let me know.
 

Previous reunion messages:

May 17, 2006:
From Ned Haley

Hi All!

Taxes done, most-recent move completed, traveled 5,000 miles by car to two weddings, visited several other friends along the way & saw lots of sights between VA & Tuscon, AZ in recent weeks, and I'm finally back home. Past time to get serious about planning our 40th BHS High School Reunion!!

As most of you know, three years ago some 65 to 70 of us - including spouses &/or significant others and several teachers - gathered at either my family home on TimberLake or at the 'official' reunion site at the Ruritan Club in Lynchburg for a Class Reunion. This was a very late solution for the many classmates who wanted to see others of our class, but were less interested in "reunion-ing" with the classes from '67 through '70 at the same time, which was the chosen format. Unfortunately we were limited by time - just over two weeks before the official announced reunion in October '03 - to come up with a time, place and format for getting together. As a result, we missed contacting or finding many of our classmates, and some of those we found couldn't come due to previous commitments. Nevertheless, those who did attend reportedly had a good time at the Lake, from eating the great food that everyone brought to share, to guessing who each other was, to just catching up after so many years! And there was a strong desire expressed by many to meet again in 2006 for our actual 40th reunion.

Spring has come and almost gone, so it looks like our best bet to meet will be this coming Fall. I've composed a list of some of the points that should be addressed in setting up our reunion, below.

1. A Reunion Committee should be established ASAP, with one person selected to be the overall coordinator and spokesperson for the Class, and who will have responsibility for all communications to our Classmates and BHS about the reunion. Several have already offered to serve on the Committee or help in other ways, including Steve & Billie Bryant, Sally Glass Hargis, Bryan Mitchell and Kathy Johnson Drury.

2. The Committee designee should contact BHS to confirm our intent to hold a 40th Reunion for our Class this Fall, presumable just for our Class, but this latter point should be confirmed separately by the Committee.

3. The Committee should decide - or preferably poll all reachable classmates before deciding - about the date, format and content of the reunion, and any costs that will be charged attendees.

4. The Committee should designate someone to coordinate locating all our classmates. I've sent this email to everyone whose 'address' or 'addresses' I have from three years ago. Some of you have sent me corrected addresses since then, but I no longer have accurate email addresses for three of our classmates whom we were in touch with then: Martha McGraw Wingfield, John Finemore, and Betty Layne Finney. And as you can see in the attached WORD document of all our classmates who were in either or both our junior or senior classes, there's many for whom there is no contact information. I suggest that the attached document or something similar be adopted for continual updating both before and after the Reunion.

5. There should be a determination made about having others (other than spouses/significant others) attending the Reunion, be it teachers, members of other classes, or additional family members. And if either/both teachers or other classes are to be included, then a separate effort will be required to find and notify them.

6. If there is to be a charge for attending the Reunion, the Committee should designate someone to be responsible for acting as 'treasurer' for the Reunion, and it should adopt procedures for accurately accounting for all related receipts and expenditures.

7. A schedule should be developed for announcements of the Reunion to be made on the 'Classmates' web site, the BHS web site, local newspapers and radio/TV stations, and all other points of contact that can be developed so as to reach as many of our classmates as possible between now and the reunion.

8. There should be a planned and agreed sequence of 'official' communications made to everyone concerned so that everyone is kept appropriately informed.

I'm sure these are barely the start of points/issues that must be addressed to ensure a successful reunion. Hence the need for at least five (5) or more classmates who will actively serve on the Reunion Committee.

As for point #3 above, finding all our classmates, I'll be glad to participate in that effort since I have time to do so, though will need assistance from several others, especially one or two who are still in the Lynchburg area. I've rejoined 'Classmates', so can communicate directly to all our class members who have registered with that site.

Wouldn't it be great if we could find everyone?! And get a majority to come, including many who haven't been to a reunion since we graduated in '66!!!

Here's hoping we can do just that!

So, next steps:

1. whoever would like to help by serving on the Committee, please let me know by or before next Friday, May 26, and send both email and phone #s.

2. everyone who receives this, please review what limited contact information is on the attached document, and send me your confirmation that it is correct, and/or additional info as needed to have a complete contact record for you. And especially do so for any and all classmates for whom you have ANY contact info. Don't worry about adding it to the document; just send it in a separate email to me and I will add it in. I'll circulate the updated document to everyone on a regular basis, as new info is received.

That's all for now. I'm looking forward to seeing each and every one of you again, and some of you for the first time in years!

All my best,

Ned Haley, BHS '66
nedhaley@msn.com

ps: you will note that I have copied Larry Lewis, from a later BHS class, on this missive; Larry created the existing BHS web site, and has done a marvelous job in having class reunion and other pertinent info posted to it. So, a special Thanks to Larry for continuing to help all BHS classes.

March 2, 2006:
From Kathryn Johnson Drury

As those of you who are reading this know, we are fast approaching 40 years since we all graduated.  I think we need a reunion and more than a local one (thanks to Ned Haley for a great one in '03!), although it will take the "locals" to get the word out to others.  We can start now by emailing classmates, phoning and maybe putting signs in Lynchburg area grocery stores with info on the BHS reunion link.  Local rock stations are a good source, but with satellite radio, especially XM's 60's on six, we can get the word out nationwide.  I think it's to late for even a summer reunion, but we have time for one in the fall. 

Please respond to to me at kdrury@jetbroadband.com , and if you would like have your name added to the Alumni/Student list, write to Larry at  BHSLarry@bhsbees . 

GO BEES!

Kathryn Johnson Drury