Class Of '71 Looking To Get Together

Julie Dykstra sends this along to her classmates:

Class of 1971: Look for an invitation to our 40th reunion weekend (if we can find your address)! We’ll start slow with a casual dinner at the American Legion on Friday, June 24, then move on to a snacky reception in Ellicottville at Tips Up Café Saturday afternoon. Thoroughly primed, we’ll attend the Alumni Dinner Saturday evening.

Contact Julie Dykstra (jmd3@pitt.edu), Kathy Lindell (jdrkfl@roadrunner.com) or Mike Young (for the locals who see him around; he's at 716-257-9157)) for more information.

If you have contact info for any of our class, please get it to Julie so we can reach everyone. Ditto for suggestions, inquiries, pictures, memories, etc.

2011 Dinner Invitations Are Out

Your 2011 Alumni Dinner invitation should be arriving in mailbox this week, if it hasn't already.

Here's the key information:

Guest speaker: Harlow Fisher, Class of 1961.

Caterer: The Old Library restaurant, from Olean.

Dinner options:
-- Boneless stuffed chicken breast. It comes with cornbread stuffing and Swiss steak. $18 per person.
-- Two mesquite-grilled vegetable kabobs (they come with plum sauce, wild rice and a potato-crusted veggie cake). $17 per person ($1 less than last year!).

Everyone, according to the letter, also gets a "decadent dessert." And, of course, salad, rolls, coffee or tea.

Members of the Class of 1961, by the way, get to eat free (as the 50-year folks always do). So hit up one of them for a beer.

Dues: $5; same as last year.

Deadline: The Alumni officers would really like to receive your reservations by June 20. That's not an absolute-must, but would be much appreciated.

Mailing address:

-- Little Valley Alumni Association
-- P.O. Box 162
-- Little Valley, N.Y. 14755-0162

As always, if you wish you can also send along contributions to either the:

-- Little Valley Central School Alumni Association's General Fund

or the

-- Memmott-Langhans Scholarship

Just include a note (if you haven't gotten your invitation form) about where you'd like the donation to go and if you'd like it to be in memory of a fellow alum.

Checks should be made out to the "LVCS Alumni Association."

Hope to see many of you there.

This Year's Speaker: Harlow Fisher

There's confirmation from Alumni President Kevin Andrew that the featured speaker at this year's Alumni Dinner (scheduled for June 25) is the Class of 1961's Harlow Fisher.

Many alums will recall that Harlow's brother Joey had some fun at his sibling's expense a couple year's back.

Sad News: 'Jed' Jedrzejek Has Died

We're sorry to be a little late passing along the news that Edward W. "Jed" Jedrzejek, died on April 15. He was 88, according to the obituary printed in the Olean Times-Herald.

Along with being the husband of Jeanette, father of Kathy, Mary and Mike, a World War II gunner on bombing missions over Japan and a former mayor of Little Valley, Mr. Jedrzejek was an educator. And his teaching years included some at LVCS, where he taught driver education, science, math and industrial arts.

Later on, he was the first vocational principal at the North Area BOCES in Ellicottville.

According to the Times-Herald, "memorials may be made to the Little Valley Ambulance Service."

Class Of '79 To Gather On July 3

Ron Johnson writes:

Attention members of the LVCS Class of '79. We are planning a reunion/get together Saturday July 3rd, 2011 [that's one week after the Alumni Dinner]. The place has not yet been selected. Some members of the class are using Facebook to catch up. Updates will be made to this site as details are finalized. Feel free to contact Ron Johnson at ronson.johnson03@gmail.com with questions or comments.

'76 Plans Shaping Up

Fellow members of the Class of '76 -- Here's the latest word from Nell:

Ron, Pam, Ray, Dori and I met last night and discussed many subjects....some related to the reunion :)

Here we go:

-- informally meet at the Legion on Friday evening, June 24.

-- picnic noon to 3 or 4 on Saturday afternoon, place to be determined.

-- attend Alumni dinner on Saturday night, June 25.

Also, maybe a quick tour of what memorabilia the Alumni Association has gathered in "museum" currently housed in the Municipal Hall. Maybe a tour of the school too?

We'll keep you informed.....we plan to meet again Thursday night, April 7 at 7:00 at Hughes'.

Class Of '76: Let's Get Together!

All right folks. It's time to plan how to mark our 35th.

Nell and Pam and probably some others are starting to toss around ideas. What about gathering some place (the Legion?) on the Friday night (June 24) of alumni weekend.

Or, perhaps something on Saturday (though many may be busy with other things and the alumni dinner that night).

I'm glad to act as a clearing house for suggestions. You can e-mail me: memmottmark@yahoo.com.

Or, Nell's e-mail is Nell_Fellows@caboces.org.

Sad News: 'Coach' Newhouse Has Died

From The Post-Journal in Jamestown:

LITTLE VALLEY - Thorton A. "Pete" Newhouse, 89, of Court Street, passed away Sunday, Dec. 19, 2010, at Absolut of Salamanca.

Of course many of us will always think of him as "Coach" and remember his many years teaching at LVCS and then in Randolph.

There are calling hours Wednesday (Dec. 22) at the Mentley Funeral Home on Rock City St. The funeral is planned for Thursday, at 11 a.m., in the Little Valley Memorial Church. The obituary adds that "memorials may be made to the Little Valley United Methodist Church or the charity of the donors' choice."

2010 Dinner: Pickles, Ketchup And 'Enough Is Enough'

Please accept my apologies for not getting this post on to the blog sooner.

Rest assured, though, that the Alumni Dinner once again was a success.

This year's featured speaker, Dr. Jim Reynolds ('70), took us on something of a tour of the ages. The ages, that is, that we all hope to reach. From teens to the very elderly years. Sex, he suggested, is something of a common theme. So, too, is discovery. And by our '90s, Jim said, we realize that some things we thought were oh so important in earlier years aren't as special as we thought. We learn that "enough" may be just that -- enough.

Dr. Jim also suggested that Mr. Memmott was quite the authority figure. So true!

Brother Jim Memmott spoke on behalf of the class of '60. As he reports this weekend in his Rochester Democrat & Chronicle column, there was a bit of a dust-up at the class reunion when talk turned to politics (but no punches, or ketchup bottles, were thrown). At the dinner, Jim looked back at the wonders of pickle parties in fifth grade and surprise appearances in the boy's locker room. He writes:

"Could it have been," I asked, by way of example, "that every day in fifth grade, Mrs. C. (I'm not using last names here) had one of us bring a jar of pickles?

"And could it have been that she would take a prong and put one pickle on a paper towel on each of our desks? Could have been that we would watch the juice bleed out onto the towel, a spreading green stain?"

"Could it have been," I asked, "that, as we were sitting in the boys locker room, perhaps unclothed, Mrs. M. came into the room on her way to the coach's office, yelling out, 'Close your eyes, boys, I'm coming through'?"

As I remember it, we closed our eyes; we ate the pickles; we obeyed.

(The D&C will soon put that link behind its subsriber-only "firewall." If by the time you see this post you can't get to it, shoot me an e-mail ( memmottmark@yahoo.com ). I can forward the whole piece to you.)

I hope all those who were able to attend enjoyed the dinner. Let's do it again next year.

2010 Dinner Invitations Are Out

Down here in Virginia, the 2010 Alumni Dinner invitation just arrived in the mail. So I suspect many of you just got yours as well.

In case you haven't, here's the key information.

Date: June 26.
Place: The Corporate Building at the Cattaraugus County Fairgrounds.
Time: Social hour starts at 5 p.m. ET; dinner starts at 6 p.m. ET.

Theme: The Academy Awards.
Guest speaker: Dr. James Reynolds, Class of 1970.

Caterer: The Old Library restaurant, from Olean.
Dinner options:
-- Broiled ham steak (topped with mustard sauce; served with wild rice and buttered carrots). $18 per person.
-- Chicken parmesan (served with penne pasta and spaghetti sauce). $18 per person.
-- Two mesquite-grilled vegetable kabobs (they come with plum sauce, wild rice and a potato-crusted veggie cake). $18 per person.

Everyone, according to the letter, also gets a "decadent dessert."

Members of the Class of 1960, by the way, get to eat free (as the 50-year folks always do). So brother Jim Memmott should be able to afford to pay for a beer or two this year.

Dues: They've gone up a bit, to $5 from $3 last year. (Editorial comment: How many other exclusive clubs can you belong to for just $5 a year?)

Deadline: The Alumni officers would really like to receive your reservations by June 18. That's not an absolute-must, but would be much appreciated.

Mailing address:

-- Little Valley Alumni Association
-- P.O. Box 162
-- Little Valley, N.Y. 14755-0162

As always, if you wish you can also send along contributions to either the:

-- Little Valley Central School Alumni Association's General Fund

or the

-- Memmott-Langhans Scholarship

Hope to see many of you there.