Reunion Pictures

Thanks to everyone who came out and enjoyed a wonderful weekend! It was so much fun to catch up with old friends and everybody truly seemed to have a great time. Here are some pictures from the weekend--please feel free to download them or order prints from the Picasa website.





People often joked that organizing the reunion must be a thankless job, but in actuality, everyone was so appreciative over the weekend it was anything but thankless! And speaking of thanks, I just want to give a big shout out to Charla, who was incredibly helpful--I couldn't have done it without her help!

Event Detail Reminder

We wanted to repost all of the event details to remind everyone of the schedule of events for the weekend. Make sure to leave your opinion on the rain location post before this one, and then check back on Friday or Saturday morning once we know what the weather's going to do! See you all this weekend!

June 11-13, 2010
The weekend of the Smoky Hill River Festival

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Friday:

Social Evening
The Paramount Bar (on the patio if the weather is good!)
219 North Santa Fe Avenue
8:00 p.m.

Saturday:

Tour of Salina Central
Enter the front doors on Front Street
10:00 a.m.

Family Gathering at the River Festival
Northwest of the Botanical Gardens Fountain (link to map)
12:00-5:00 p.m.
(Check here for rain location)

Class Reunion
Martinelli's Little Italy
158 S. Santa Fe
Hors D'oeuvres, Drinks, and Dancing
7:00-11:00 p.m.
Payment required in advance!!

Sunday:

No events scheduled

Rain Location for Family Event

Unfortunately there's a lot of rain in the forecast for this weekend, so we're trying make plans in case the weather doesn't cooperate with having our event at the River Festival. Thankfully, we have a few indoor options to choose from, so let us know which sounds like the best idea!

Starlite Skate Center
2-4 p.m. session for $5 a person

Jumpin' Joe's Family Fun Center
$15 per person includes 3 hours of everything except arcade tokens (although several of the activities are outside)

All Star Lanes
$3.25 per person per game, plus $2 shoe rental
(There are no guarantees that we would all be able to get a lane since we can't reserve them)

If you have an opinion about which place we should go in case of rain, please leave a comment below!

Nametags

We're working on nametags for the weekend, and we realized they would be nice to have on Friday night too and not just for our main event on Saturday. The problem is, we didn't ask everyone to RSVP for Friday, so we're not 100% sure on who is going to be joining us! If you're planning on being there, and if you haven't already paid for Saturday evening, please send a quick email to us at salinacentral1990(at)gmail.com to let us know!

Last Chance!

Hopefully everyone realizes by now that tomorrow is the deadline for making your payment for the Saturday night event. So far we have 50 people who are attending and have made their payment, but we're hoping that a few more of you will still be able to join us! Because of the holiday, you won't be able to drop your payment in the mailbox today and expect it to get to us tomorrow, unfortunately. Your only option at this point is to pay with a credit/debit card on the reservations page, so please check it out if you haven't already!

We're so looking forward to seeing old friends and we hope you all are too. If you're not sure if your high school friends are coming, make sure you contact them and encourage them to join us!

Have a wonderful Memorial Day and hopefully we'll see you all in less than two weeks!

One Week Until the Deadline!!

As most of you probably realize, as of today there is only one week left to RSVP for the Saturday night event and make your payment. Even if you RSVPed tentatively several months ago or RSVPed positively on Facebook, we still need to hear from you if you haven’t already paid online or sent a check! If we don’t receive your payment by June 1 (in just 7 days!), you won’t be able to join us for the Saturday night event. We would hate for anyone to miss the event just because they forgot to make their payment.

Although we originally estimated having just over 100 attendees based on the positive responses we received back in October, as of right now we have only 37 people planning to attend our main event on the 12th. We really hope more of you will be able to make it! Please let us know if you're planning to join us by sending us an email at salinacentral1990@gmail.com!

Family Event Details

We hope everyone will be able to join us on Saturday afternoon to enjoy the music, art, food and friends at the River Festival. Unfortunately, the park shelters across the river in Kenwood had already been reserved, so we've decided to make our official meeting place near the Oakdale fountain in the botanical gardens. This area is relatively close to the children's activities and food vendors, has lots of shade, and shouldn't be heavily populated with festival goers. While we couldn't reserve it officially, the organizers do know that we're coming and approved of the location. The map below has the exact area highlighted, so please make a note of this area or print it out (click on the map for a larger image) so you can find everyone! We'll try to have balloons or a banner to make us easier to spot.


We're planning to be at the festival from noon to 5 on Saturday, and the admission buttons are $10 if purchased in advance. Unfortunately, there's no place to buy them online, so you'll have to make a stop at Dillons before heading over to the festival. You can also buy them at the gate for $15, or for just $12 if you take this coupon with you. Thankfully, children 11 and under get in free!

Remember to bring your blankets, bag chairs, footballs and frisbees for a relaxing time with our families!

Five Weeks

It's hard to believe that just 5 weeks from tonight many of us will be getting together to reminisce at the Paramount. As of now, we've invited 145 of our classmates via email and 11 others via Facebook or Classmates.com when we didn't have their email address. Unfortunately, there are still around 40 people who graduated with our class who we haven't been able to reach to let them know about the weekend's events. Next weekend, a classified ad will run in the Salina Journal, which will be the final effort to contact these people. Hopefully any remaining classmates who are interested in attending will able search online for information.

Thanks to those of you who RSVPed immediately and have already sent your payment. We hope to hear from the rest of you before the June 1 deadline. Just three more weeks to RSVP--don't forget!

Reservations

To reserve your spot at our Saturday night event, first please email your RSVP to salinacentral1990@gmail.com or leave us a comment below. Let us know your name at the time of graduation and the way you want your current name on your name tag, as well as the name of your spouse or guest. We'd also love to know what years you attended Central.

The deadline to RSVP is June 1, and payment must be provided by that time if you want to attend the Saturday night event. You have two payment options:

1. Make your check ($25 per person or $50 per couple) payable to "Salina Central Class of 1990 Reunion" and mail it to:

Reunion Payment
1611 George Williams Way
Lawrence, KS 66047

2. Use the button below to pay online through the secure website PayPal. Because PayPal charges our account for every transaction processed, paying online adds $2 to total. Select the appropriate price from the drop-down menu and include your name and that of your guest, and then click the "Pay Now" button. This will take you to PayPal's site where you can pay with a credit card or your own PayPal account.


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Reunion Cost

Single Attendee + Processing Fee $27.00 Single + Guest + Processing Fee $52.00

Name

Guest Name

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After we receive your payment, your names will be added to the guest list, but paper tickets will not be issued. If you have any questions, please contact us at salinacentral1990@gmail.com. For more details about our Saturday night event, click here!

Saturday Night Details

Our Saturday night event at Martinelli's should be a wonderful evening with lots of great food and great music. Martinelli's is providing a terrific menu of great hors d'oeuvres, including toasted ravioli, fried mozzarella, stuffed mushrooms, crab and roasted artichoke dip, mini meatballs and mini BBQ sausages, among other things. There should be plenty of food for everyone! Tea, soda and coffee will also be provided, and alcoholic drinks will be available from a cash bar.

Our entertainment for the evening will be provided by a DJ from Complete Music of Kansas, who will be playing our favorite hits from our high school years, so bring your requests! We'll start at 7 and have the banquet room until 11 p.m.

The cost will be $25 per person, which can be paid by credit card online or by check through the mail. Click here to go to the reservations page, where you can find out exactly how to RSVP and make your payment.

The official email invitation above will be going out to all of the classmates for whom we have email addresses this weekend, just 6 weeks before our reunion!

Reunion Tickets Available Soon!!

Apologies to anyone who received an email about reunion tickets or saw an incomplete post on the blog from last night. We're currently in the process of testing different web based payment methods for our Saturday night event. One particular option automatically posted itself to the blog when it was being tested! Within the next couple of weeks we'll figure out the most secure and convenient method of payment and send out the official invitation. Thanks for your patience!

Searching for Debbie Graybeal

Debbie is another one of our classmates who hasn't been reached, and we know virtually nothing regarding her whereabouts. One classmate thought she might be in Topeka, but we were unable to find an address for her there or anywhere else in Kansas. There were several other Debra Graybeals elsewhere in the country, but we don't even know if that's still Debbie's name. Does anyone know where Debbie lives or if she's married? Does anyone know if Debbie still has family in Salina? Please send any information about Debbie to salinacentral1990 (at) gmail.com. Thanks!

Searching for Dae Kim

In order to make our Where Are They Now series a little more fun and interesting, from this point forward we'll be including pictures with our posts! Today we're featuring Dae Kim, who is one of the graduates from our class for whom we've found very little information. A Google search of his name turns up hundreds of hits, and we have no idea which Dae is the one who grew up in Salina!

A search on USSearch.com showed possible past addresses for Dae in Salina and Wichita, several in Manhattan, and most recently in Macon, Georgia. Unfortunately, no current address could be found. Does anyone have an idea where Dae lives or works? Can anyone confirm that he went to K-State? Please leave a comment if you have any info about Dae that would be helpful!

Hotel Accommodations

Since there are many of us who no longer have family living in Salina, we decided to reserve a handful of hotel rooms for the weekend to make sure that everyone had a place to stay for the reunion. Even though the River Festival is still three months away, there are several hotels around town that are already completely booked! Unfortunately, because it's such a popular weekend, this also means that the hotel room rates are significantly higher than normal.

There will likely be plenty of cheaper hotels available in town which can be booked through websites like Expedia, Travelocity or Hotels.com. However, if you'd like to stay somewhere a little bit nicer for the weekend, we've held a block of 10 rooms at two different hotels, so you'll have some options with regard to price and location. For both hotels, just call the local number below and ask for a room in the Central Class of '90 block. The rooms will be available until May 11 or until they are all booked. The details and prices are below.

Country Inn & Suites
2760 South Ninth
(785) 827-1271
King Suite (with pull out sofa)
Free Breakfast
$129 per night

Comfort Inn
1820 West Crawford
(785) 826-1711
King or Double Queen Room
Free Breakfast
$96.99 per night
Rooms in Comfort Inn block can only be reserved for both nights!

Remember, if you need a hotel room for the reunion weekend, make your reservations soon, even if you'd like to find a hotel on your own. Those rooms are filling up quickly!

Continuing Classmate Search

Although we haven't been posting any updates lately, we've still been scouring the Internet trying to get contact information for the rest of our lost classmates. As of today, we've contacted 143 of our classmates via email about the reunion. We sent postcards to the possible addresses of an additional 29 classmates, but we don't know for sure if those made it to their intended recipients. Another 4 classmates have been contacted through Facebook, but we haven't heard back from them as of yet. This means that there are only about 53 more classmates for whom we are actively searching, and only about 30 of those actually graduated with our class!

While we're slowly finding all those classmates we've lost contact with, we have less than 3 months to finish up our search! Give the lost list a glance and make sure you let us know if you have any information about these people!

Friday Night at The Paramount

For our Friday night event, we'll be meeting on the back patio of the Paramount Bar for a casual evening of socializing and catching up with old friends. The main bar will be open to us as well, but because there may be a band playing that night, it won't be so conducive to conversation inside! There is no cost for this event and there is no need to R.S.V.P.

The Paramount is located at 219 North Santa Fe, and we've reserved the patio at 8:00 p.m. Space outside is limited though, so get to the patio early--but stay as late as you want!

Searching for Ernie Whitaker

A few people have asked how to get in touch with Ernie Whitaker, but unfortunately we don't have an email address for Ernie yet. We found an address for a William E. Whitaker in Goddard, Kansas that might be Ernie, but there was no response when we sent out a postcard to contact him. We sent Ernie a message on Classmates.com, but there was no response via that medium either. There are several Whitakers on Facebook with Salina connections, but none of them are named Ernie. Does anyone know where Ernie lives or works? Is anyone in touch with someone in Ernie's family who might know how to reach him? Drop us a line at salinacentral1990(at)gmail.com if you have any information!

Family Event at the River Festival

Thanks to all of you who voted in our poll to share your preference for our family event location. It looks like the winning option is the Smoky Hill River Festival. This is a great choice and should provide a ton of flexibility for our group. It has food, music, lots of activities for the kids, and also has the nostalgia factor, since most of us have so many memories of going to the Festival as kids. It also incorporates one of the other popular choices--a local park! Although Rolling Hills was another popular option, as it turned out, their group rate wasn't exactly that much better than their regular rate, so it would have ended up being very expensive for those of our classmates with several children.

We'll try to reserve one of the park shelters this week (if any are available) so that we'll have a meeting place where people can eat, watch the kids play, and socialize. Stay tuned for details on the exact times and location!

School Tour

Since several people have expressed an interest in visiting our old stomping grounds, we've scheduled a tour of Central for Saturday morning, June 12, at 10:00. For those of us who haven't been in the building for 20 years, it should be very interesting to see how our high school has (or hasn't) changed during that time. It will be a great time to reminisce with our classmates about all of the hours (and hours and hours and hours) we spent in those classrooms and hallways. We hope everyone will join us! If you're planning on attending, please let us know so we can let the administration know how many of us there will be. Just drop us an email at salinacentral1990(at)gmail.com!