I am a 1980 graduate of Garden City High School. Our class recently celebrated our 20th reunion and this is a letter of thanks to all the many Garden City residents who helped to make this event such a success. Due to the dedication of co-chairs Jacqueline Sullivan Bingham and Christopher Gallic, both of whom still live in GC, our turnout exceeded 300 people... more than any previous reunion.

Many traveled back to town from all four corners of the country and we even witnessed the return of one classmate, Lanna McCarthy, from as far away as Ireland. We met to reunite with old friends and to make new ones. We enjoyed gathering both Saturday and Sunday at the pool and capped off the weekend with a gala evening at the Bar Association.

So many worked so hard in preparation of this event, and I would like to mention just a few names here. Special thanks go out to: Doris Dwyer and Michael Noonan, Kathleen Sweeney, Theresa Larkin Gillen, Tracy Mortensen Murray, Marianne Maloney, Martha Higgins Ripp, Gina Nesi Gannon, Lisa Willis Beh, Kevin Allison, Peter LoSardo, John Gibbons, Douglas Housman and James Durkin, just to name a few. In addition, several women from the class of 1979 helped out by working the door: Tracy Hildreth, Cathy McGowan and Jean Venier... thank you again! My third grade teacher from Hemlock School, Judy Hartung, allowed her 8th-grade daughter, Alison, to also help at the door, taking reservations for our class directory. We would also like to thank the management at Leo's, B.K. Sweeney's Steakhouse and JP McGeever's for opening the doors to our class as we partied the night away after midnight.

In celebration of our 20th year, Bill Harder's family has generously offered one of their trucks for use in the Homecoming parade on Saturday, Oct. 7. Our class, including offspring, will gather prior to the parade and ride the truck from 7th Street to the high school. We are sponsoring a display in the cafeteria which will feature photographs from this reunion and from our 5th and 10th reunions as well. In addition, family photos which have been collected for the purpose of compiling a class directory, will be on display, with reserved copies of the directory on sale for $32. Anyone interested in ordering a copy of the directory can contact me directly to make arrangements at (203) 374-7476 or via email at SAChisholm@HotLoan.com.

Proceeds from the class directory project are also going toward the development of a GCHS Class or 1980 Web site which is currently being developed for the Internet. Many of our technology experts who are currently working at companies in the technology field have volunteered their time and technological savvy to this end. These are: Douglas Housman of Abinito Software, John Stein of Dell Computers, Will Emmert of Microsoft, James DeCastro of Lucent Technologies, David Bartges of the NYSE and Denise Norris of Applied Space. Special thanks go out to Billy Emmert who graciously converted all our electronic files from an IBM to a Macintosh format for the class directory. Thanks!

Finally, we wish to remember those seven classmates who are no longer with us through our In Memory display of photographs, poems and written messages. They are: Mark Franz, Kristie Frazier, Russell Kent, Stephanie Scalchunes, Larry Straton, Antoinette Turchiano and Cathy Umbach. May God continue to bless those who could not be with us... and, although you are not here, we will never forget you.

Stephanie A. Chisholm Licamele