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News of the Class of 1965!
March 3, 2010
45th Reunion
Announcement!
Read
Monte's Review of the
40th Reunion!
The T. F. Riggs High School Class of 1965
40th Reunion was a resounding success!
The mixer on Friday was wild. A couple of
teachers showed up! The 60's DJ was excellent and everybody rocked until
way past bed time. Saturday we hung out at the Legion Cabin, by
the big tent we had set up. Tom Noble and Paul Mitchell gave motorcycle
rides to take people by the house they grew up in--nice touch.
We had a good turnout at the banquet. Saturday evening started with Paul
Mitchell presenting a candle light memoriam for the 15 deceased
classmates, Paul read a poem written by Larry Kleinschmidt. Jack Kennedy
gave a great tribute for our Veterans.
The website received praise all around! We passed the hat and collected
about $600 to be used to continue the website into the future. We
even made the front page of The River Life newspaper: "The Class of 65
Comes Home"!
Many thanks goes to the
Pierre Planning Committee, the
Get Connected
Team and others for all the time and effort put into making this reunion
such a spectacular event. Thanks to all who photographed the
events! We have almost
400 photos available here on the
website!
Class of 1965 40th Reunion!
The T.F. Riggs High School Class of 1965 will hold its
fortieth (yes that's
40th) class reunion during Pierre's Oahe Days celebration, June 24-26,
2005. The festivities begin Friday evening, June 24, with a mixer
at the Isaak Walton. A golf outing is scheduled the next day for those
who want to visit the links. An adventure on the Missouri River via the
Capital City
Queen is also on tap for Saturday. A social hour and dinner will be held
Saturday evening at the Ramkota Inn. Other activities on the drawing
board may include a visit to T. F. Riggs High School to renew old
memories and a Class of '65 float in the Oahe Days parade. So dust off
your Gumbos, put on your Green and White, and get ready to rock and roll
this June with all your "old" friends and classmates. If you did not
receive a reunion letter and registration form in the mail, that means
your address is not current on the class mailing list, please notify Cathleen at
pendowsk@gwtc.net
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(Reprint of Capital Journal Article - 1985)
CLASS OF '65
By Terry Woster
The Class of 1965 is coming back. Long, measured graduation strides
carried them out of Riggs High School 20 years ago. They tossed aside their caps
and gowns, eager to begin their personal conquest of the world.
It was a simpler world.
Lyndon Baines Johnson was president. Nils Boe was governor. Grass was
something that you found in the back yard, not in a baggie, and protest
was something you did when your dad told you it was time to cut the
grass. Vietnam was a 30-second clip on Walter Cronkite's evening news,
an area of the world barely mentioned when the Class of '65 fidgeted
through grade-school geography.
"It really was a simpler time, " says Tom Maher, a Pierre attorney who's
spearheading weekend reunion plans.
"Football was king, teachers had all of the authority in the world in
classes, and it was a pretty daring person who did much smoking of
tobacco back then," he said. "Kids did Euclid, naturally--- some things
never change-and snuck a few beers once in a while, but I don't remember
big issues then, or big problems."
It was a simpler time, 1965. It wasn't to remain that way long.
The Class of '65 entered high school goovin' to the Four Seasons and
Chubby Checker and, yes, even then the Beach Boys. They graduated into
the front lines of the British invasion, with the Beatles and Gerry and
the Pacemakers and the Dave Clark Five. Within four years most of the
Class of '65 was tuned in to the wailing of the Rolling Stones and the
Who and the Doors, with Gary Puckett and the Union Gap offering a mellow
memory of the old high school days.
Vietnam became a reality, and the Class of '65 made decisions to fight
for their country, in the service and on the protest lines.
They were Riggs' juniors in November of 1963 when television hit them
with the assassination of John Kennedy. Many of them were still in
college or in the service when another Kennedy fell to an assassin, when
a black man with a dream died in Nashville, and when a sitting president
chose not to seek re-election rather than risk losing his own party's
nomination.
The Class of '65 came of age during one of their nation's most
tumultuous decades. Members of that class will share their experiences
over the last two decades during reunion activities that begin Friday at
9 p.m. (1985) with registration at the Kings inn. Maher says that 100
members of the class of '65 have promised to attend, and more are
expected to show up during the weekend.
Saturday morning is nostalgia time, with a tour of the high school, a
chance for class members to recall that Jim Flannery and Mary Van Camp
were homecoming royalty, that the football team allowed only two
touchdowns and hung up an 8-1 season mark, the basketball team went to
state four straight years and that, as Gumbo Editor Betsy Kelly wrote in
1965, "Our story has just begun, for the future course of our road has
not been charted."
A float, or maybe two, will carry the Class of 1965 in the Oahe Days
parade. On Saturday evening, a group dinner offers the 20-year veterans
the chance to examine how their classmates charted their individual
roads after Riggs High School.
The Class of 1965 is coming back.
(And again, we are coming back!)
 The
Class of '65 is now presenting its own version of "reality TV"! It is a
true test of your bravery if you choose to participate. Here's how it
works: just send in a copy (to the email address below) of a CURRENT photo
of yourself, pose it up, make it good! We will then match it up with your
Class of '65 yearbook photo and present them side-by side in the
Now & Then Photo gallery.
So, are you ready! Where's your confidence! Send in that current
photo today to:
larryk@riggshighclassof65.com
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