Twenty classmates gather at Byerly’s for 73rd reunion
By ERIN ELLIOTT /Â Community News Editor
When Lordean Stattine Wick retired more than 20 years ago, she bought a computer and taught herself how to maintain a database of more than 900 names — contact information for her classmates from North High School in Minneapolis, class of 1936.
“We had two classes,” Wick told the AJW. “Some graduated in January and some graduated in June because there were so many of us.”
Since she compiled that first database, Wick has been painstakingly keeping track of her classmates and helping to organize a yearly get-together, something the class has done since its 40th reunion in 1976. Twenty people, members of the class and their guests, met for the 73rd reunion on Aug. 13 at Byerly’s in St. Louis Park.
Members of the North High School class of 1936 met for their 73rd reunion on Aug. 13 at Byerly’s in St. Louis Park. (Photo: Erin Elliott)
“As long as one of us is alive, we’ll have a reunion,” said Lillian Himmelman Raen, who co-organizes the reunion with Wick and Martin Ring. “Of course, it gets smaller all the time.”
The group has met at Byerly’s for the last three years. This year’s reunion included music by accordion player Skeets Langley, whose mother was a member of the class.
Members of the class who attended the Aug. 13 luncheon were Ben Badiner, Alden V. Halloran, Raen, Marion Lavintman Resnick, Roslyn Malinski Tarshish, Ann Ovesky Barnett, Johnnie Penrod, Ring, Tedd Schai, Janet Stattine Conover, Wick, Ruth Trach Snyder Herzoff, Lee Fine, Seymour Locketz and Shirley Rothstein.
Geri Nelson is Wick’s daughter and helps her mother with the planning of the annual event.
“My mother didn’t know a lot of these people in high school,” Nelson said. “But now they’re dear old friends.”
Reunion organizers are (l to r): Lordean Stattine Wick, Martin Ring, Geri Nelson (Wick’s daughter) and Lillian Himmelman Raen. (Photo: Erin Elliott)
