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!