Class of 1963 ‘floats’ down memory lane
Karen Peterson photo
Mission High School Class of 1963 planned for their 50th class reunion to coincide with this year’s St Ignatius Good Old Days celebration. First item on the agenda: build a float.
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ST. IGNATIUS — Fifty years ago the Vietnam War was a reality, the Beatles were beginning to write hit songs and the Mission High School seniors of 1963 were graduating.
The class planned their reunion with the Good Old Days celebration. The first item on their agenda was to build a float.
“Our theme is about being old. We can’t push it any longer,” LaVonne Olmsted said of the push lawnmower her class intended to use as decoration on the float.
“We can, it just takes longer,” Lorraine Ashley Courville added.
Raymond Cordier arrived from Oregon to help put the float together. He quickly noticed friends he hadn’t seen since graduation.
“I had to look and look until I noticed, it was you,” he said to a classmate.
Cordier explained the trick to identifying people after fifty years:
“You look at their eyes. Their eyes never change.”
Reunions have a way of digging up memories.
“The Beetles hadn’t got on here yet but Moon River was the theme of our senior prom. I remember that well,” Cordier said.
Cordier and his classmates reminisced about many community dances.
“We used to have sock hops. We wore our socks to dance, not our shoes. You couldn’t wear shoes on the gym floor,” Evelyn Detert Carter said.
After high school, Cordier joined the Army.
“I volunteered to go in the Army. I was stationed in Germany, and then the Vietnam War. I thought at the time that it was a righteous cause. I had blinders on,” he said. “It didn’t turn out like it was supposed to.”
Cordier decided to go back to school after the war.
“I finished college with a degree in elementary physical education. I taught in Oregon for 25 years.”
Carter graduated from high school with an itch to travel. She ended up in Russia on a polar expedition on the Kola Peninsula above the Arctic Circle.
“I was studying there,” she said. “It was amazing. I’d love to go back. I have my passport in my purse.”
Marilyn Roberts ended up moving to Canada.
“I’ve been teaching for 35 years at a small two year college in Canada. I’m also an inventor. I created a net that keeps the worms out of cherry trees.”
Bill Fry never left the valley.
“I’ve traveled to a lot of places, but I’d rather live here. My grandparents homesteaded here, and I took over the place. This is a great place to live.”
