On these pages we will post pictures and other information that brought back memories to all of us at the 50th reunion. I am just getting started on this and it is taking a little time changing things over so please be patient. Also, you are requested to send in your photos, comments and memories. Some photos, due to size (pixels) may have to altered. Please try to identify individuals that are in the photos. I will try to get as many photos posted as possible but please try to include as many individuals as possible rather than duplications.

From the left: Emma Collins, Jackie Jones (wife of Charles), Susie Kisiah Moore and Sarah Jane Stainback MacKenzie.

Thanks to Nellie and Gene Austin for the picture of your chs57 webmaster and his lovely wife.

Leslie and Mickey Connell at the Friday night dinner

All I can say is that if you missed the reunion, you missed one wonderful experience!! I observed many smiles, laughter and hugs not only from old friends but with many new friends that everyone seemed to have made. All of us had our extra pounds, wrinkles and grey hair (and some of us with much less hair than others), but this did not stop the wonderful time had by all. I will not name any one individual but I will say that a number of people worked very hard to put this 50th reunion together and it was a fantastic event. The conclusion of the reunion was one that put tears to many of our eyes with a memorial to our deceased classmates but brought us closer together.

The most common question I heard the entire weekend was, "when are we going to have another gathering?"

Please send me your comments and stories on the reunion (your experience and general feelings) so that I can post them here for all to read. Also please send me your photographs to share with our classmates on this website.

Stories are beginning to come in!!

I am beginning to receive pictures and will have some up shortly. Be patient as it is taking time to plan, crop, resize and write the code for them.

It is amazing how all of these letters and emails, noted below, show the wonderful time everyone had at the reunion.

With the wonderful bonding that happened during the reunion, have you thought that if you could go back and do it over again you would be blessed with many more friends at Central!

An email from Susie Kisiah Moore>.

Mickey,

I just wanted to add my "thank you" for the '57 Class Reunion weekend. I became interested in going because of the information you provided on the website. It sounded like it was going to be a great time and it far exceeded my expectations. I was overwhelmed with all the work that had gone into the planning of the weekend, down to all the minor details. Everything was just perfect and will always live in my memories. I hope you are able to keep the website going so we can all keep in touch with one another.

Susie Kisiah Moore

An email from Nancy Marlowe Clifford.

Kudos to the co-chairs and the planning committees who worked so hard to make our 50th special. Special kudos to Mickey Connell who has worked expertly and tirelessly on our web site which has been so much fun. Jeff and I had a great time at the dinners, the hospitality suite, and all the other social times. Thanks to Joan and David for a beautiful memorial service on Sunday. It was so wonderful to see all my old friends, and spend time catching up with their lives. I'm already looking forward to the next one.

Nancy Marlowe Clifford

An email from Jeff Sechrist (husband of Nancy Marlow Clifford). He really wanted everyone to know how comfortable he felt and how much he enjoyed it.

Dear Mickey,

I wanted to take an opportunity to thank everyone for making the 'guests' feel so welcome at the 50th Reunion of the class of '57. People made me feel like I was one of the gang. It was very comfortable and a lot of fun. I'll look forward to the next one.

Jeff Sechrist

An email from Ann Goodson Faust

Thank you all for a job so well done. I was very nervous about attending since I arrived at Central in October of our senior year and had so little history there. I had a really good time Friday night and was so glad to see so many people I did remember - as well as meet new folks.

Ann Faust

I received a wonderful hand written letter from Gayle Powell Passons that is very worthy of copying for all to read.

"Mickey -

Unlike most of you, I am a non-member of cyberspace. You might say 'stuck in the 50's'. Having said that, I can still write a lone or two when I get elated over an event or happening. Saturday night at the Embassy Suites in Concord N. c. was a glorious 'happening'. Words can't convey a big enough thanks to all of you who planned this fabulous weekend.

I will treasure seeing all of you and I might add our teaching staff at CHS would be mighty proud of you folks!

Love to all

Gayle Passons"

An email from Barbara Snyder Hawkins.

Everyone who organized the CHS '57 reunion and its activities:

Thank you for all of the effort you put into organizing the 50th class reunion for us '57 grads. Steve and I were sorry to miss the Friday events but happy to be there on Saturday evening. I especially appreciated the name tags; I doubt that I would have recognized anyone without them!

I especially want to thank those who tracked down the members of our class and those who compiled the Memory Book. Your efforts provide a way to contact classmates with whom I have lost touch, which includes essentially everyone in the class in my case since I have lived in and near Baltimore for most of the past 50 years and was unable to participate in earlier reunions of our class.

I hope that you will forward this message to anyone involved in planning and organizing the reunion whom I may have omitted accidentally and to anyone involved who did not provide an email address.

I was sorry not to be able to talk with every one of you on Saturday evening, especially those of you who were in so many of the same classes as I at CHS. But it was good to get to know some of you better than I did back then.

Best -

Barbara Snyder Hawkins

An email from Jo Ann Salley expressing the thoughts of many!

Dear '57 Planning team and Everyone on Reunion Program,

What an outstanding, fun filled, heart warming weekend/reunion. I am sure there has never been another that could equal it's success! Your dedication and hard work clearly showed in the attention given to every detail, great and small.

The entertainment, outstanding, filled with memories, the music, professional and delightful, the food, delicious, on spot, the DVD CD so special, the table decorations, absolutely gorgeous, the tee shirt and napkin design so cute, the memento bag, a treat, my blue and grey M&Ms never even made it home.

Each committee did an excellent job! Registration was smooth and efficient, and those warm smiles and embraces made everyone feel welcomed and remembered! The web site, tremendous, got us together and hopefully will keep us together. The hospitality room, unforgettable, old memories, new memories, blending and bonding! And what about our memory book! Goodness! How great is that? A treasure to hold! The memorial service, such a loving, touching experience, done in such a reverent, respectful way.

Many, many thanks and kudos to all! To all who attended and to those who could not be with us, May God bless you and keep you in the very palm of His hand, until we meet again!

Love, Jo Ann Salley
Class of 57

Another reunion reflection in an email from David Dennis.

Hi Mickey,

As I think back over our FANTASTIC reunion weekend, I realize that one of the best decisions I have made in recent years was to volunteer to join the planning team in the areas of entertainment and searching for missing classmates. Getting together at the planning sessions, at Liz's home in Greensboro and at the Saturday lunches in Charlotte allowed me to reconnect with people I had not seen in half a century. Despite that huge time gap and the fact that I joined the planning group after they had already been working for a year, I felt "at home" with these classmates from the very beginning. I know that the classmates who came to the reunion realize that a lot of hard work went into the experience that we all so thoroughly enjoyed. But only those of us who know the details behind that hard work know the full extent to which people, like you, contributed time, energy and even personal resources to ensure that this would be, at least in our minds if not in reality, the best reunion that a CHS class has ever produced. Although I can't prove it, I can't imagine any prior reunion topping this one.

And so, through this email, I express my heart-felt thanks to you, Dan, Nita, Brenda, Carolyn, Mary Wayne and other planning team members who couldn't make it to Charlotte for our monthly sessions. And to Barbara, Patsy, Doug, Jackie, Lundee, Bo, Walter, Virginia, Jim, Claire and all the others I had the pleasure of meeting with, thanks not only for the great weekend that we shared but also all the fun times that led up to it.

Finally, I've got to give a special thanks to (Sue) Jackie and David (Green) for their beautiful music. Jackie wasn't keen on playing the keyboard, rather than a piano, but their wonderful duets obviously were a hit with the crowd. And to Doug, David (Sims), David (Green) and Vic, thanks for taking a stab at my wild idea of trying to produce the "Lost in the 50s" number with the difficulties of time and distance that prevented us from rehearsing enough. I think the audience appreciated our effort.

I'm looking forward to seeing everyone again at our 70th birthday party, if not before. And thanks to you, Mickey, for helping us keep in touch in the meantime through the CHS web site.

David Dennis

A wonderful email from Patsy Boyte Ratchford.

Hello Everyone,

One week has gone by and, in the midst of wrapping up things following our wonderful 50th reunion, I am still basking in the warmth and love that permeated the whole weekend—of visiting old friends and getting to know new ones, reliving memories, listening to Walter Elmore and Jimmy Norman tell one funny story after another and laughing ‘til I hurt...remembering our deceased classmates at the Memorial Service. What a weekend! I just want to thank everyone for coming, for the awesome work of the planning team and for the shared memories of our high school days.

Next weekend, I plan to attend our annual woman’s retreat and the theme of the weekend is “Growing Through the Seasons of Our Lives”. As I have studied to lead a small group, I am reminded that as the reunion was held on a beautiful autumn weekend in October that we, too, are in the autumn season of our lives. We have been ushered safely through the seasons—the springtime of our early lives (the great times at Central), the summertime of adulthood, the autumn of our older years and then one day, winter will come. As the cycle of one year can represent our whole lives, so we are called to believe that many more years lie ahead in the plan of the One who is the author and finisher of the seasons of our lives.

May we continue to enjoy one another and plan for many, many more happy times together—how about a big 70th Birthday Party in two years??? In the meantime, the monthly luncheons will continue so please come.

Love to all,

Patsy

An email from Danny Sells.

Mickey, I want to thank you for all your efforts with Central web site. Over the past few years the web site has brought our class closer together ---- which made getting reaquainted with our classmates much easier.

Everyone I saw had comments about chs57.com .

I can only imagine the time that you spent setting up the web site and keeping it updated.

I sincerely feel the reunion would not have been the success that it was -- without the web site.

Thank you very much

Danny

An email from David McSwain and Beverly Whitesides. McSwain

Mickey,

Thank you so much for all the wonderful work you did on the web site. It was so helpful and informative. I'm sure we all arrived at the reunion with a much better sense of those attending and the planned events as a result. Undoubtedly the site contributed greatly to the wonderful turnout as well. Again, thank you.

Bev and I had a sensational time at the reunion. For this, we especially thank Barbara, Patsy and the wonderful committee members. We saw so many old friends and made some new ones as well. I think we managed to see almost everyone that we had hope to visit with. The dinner-dances were great, the memory book was especially well done and the memorial service was lovely and very moving. Everyone seemed to be having a special time all weekend. We felt a deep sense of joy and happiness all during the reunion and will treasure the memories always. We're only sorry that we're so far away here in Connecticut from most of our classmates that it makes visiting difficult. Again, thank you.

Dave McSwain and Beverly Whitesides McSwain

An email from Walter Elmore.

Just wanted to drop you a line a say how much I appreciate all you did to make this reunion such a success. If it hadn`t been for the web site there wouldn`t have been so much interest by all of our classmates-I always looked forward to going on it and reading all the bios.....

Walter

An email from Bubba Rion

Mickey I want to thank you and the entire reunion team for a wonderful weekend. Everone did a wonderful job. I know it was hard work but it was a blessing to see all of our classmates. Thanks for all of the wonderful and new memories of the class of 1957. All of the team is a blessing to so many people.

Thanks again, your friend Bubba Rion.

A to the point email from Ikey Cathcart.

Thanks for the great time and "thanks for the memories".

Ikey and Judy Cathcart

An email from Mary Wayne Crymes Bywater. Sounds so typical of the comments I have heard!

Dear Barbara, Patsy, and all your wonderful committee members,

I just wanted to thank each of you for your hard work on our 50th (I still can't believe it!) CHS reunion. Every detail was perfect from the welcome gift bag to the memorial service which I couldn't attend but heard was wonderful. It was obvious you had spent two and a half years planning this occasion, and it was well worth it. I can only speak for myself, but I had looked forward to this event for so long and was not a bit disappointed. That's very unusual these days. It was wonderful to see so many old friends and renew acquaintances. My only regret was that I hadn't gotten to know more people better during my high school years, because I was so impressed with them at the reunion.

Everyone I talked with said they had a great time working on this reunion. I certainly did on my work with the Memory Book and was so glad I was able to help from Orlando. I'm so glad you all enjoyed it, because you made lots of wonderful memories for us. Thank you again.

Mary Wayne Crymes Bywater

An email received from Alex Reddeck

Maria and I simply wanted to say "We had a great time". It could not have been better. A very special THANK YOU to those who worked so hard to make our '57 Reunion a smashing success. Good luck and best wishes to all of you.

Maria and Alec Reddeck

From Barbara BargerHarelson

After my morning coffee this morning (the day after returning home from reunion), I decided to play the CD and DVD which David Dennis put together for our class. The CD music was great and the DVD was just wonderful and I'm still wiping away the tears. Thank you, thank you, David, for this tremendous tribute to our Central Class of '57! The music; the song, "Oh, Central"; the photos and the deceased classmate section portrayed all of us and our feelings for each other in the best way possible. I would probably still be crying but I just got 2 phone calls from Walter Elmore and Liz Lazarides White telling me how much fun they had at the reunion and we shared our thoughts of the weekend together. I heard some wonderful stories from many of our classmates during the weekend and I hope we will get some of those stories on our web page---2 stories so incredible to me---and they all promised to put these stories on our website---so I won't go into details. One-----2 classmates living in PA have known each other as friends for a number of years and just recently found out they were '57 Central classmates. Two----2 classmates living on same street in Charlotte--they may be next door neightbors--did not know until recently that they were '57 Central classmates! The reunion---what a fun, sharing, love for each other weekend! I'm already looking forward to our October classmate lunch at Jimmie's.

An email directed to for all of the organizers but great for all to read, from Liz Lazarides White.

Dear All!

I wanted to thank you all for everything that you've done to make the CHS57 Class Reunion this past weekend, the success that it was. To say it was wonderful is the understatement of the century! I couldn't find a word meaningful enough to describe it. And to think about it, to say simply "Thank You" doesn't seem to be enough.

The classmates and guests that were there were pleasantly surprised and loved every moment of the weekend. I'm so glad that Ed and I were able to at least be there Saturday and Saturday evening! To see classmates that I haven't seen in 50 years and to be able to pick up where we left off was amazing. Not to mention meeting people that I really didn't know in school in the 50's and wishing that I'd known them then, as they were just great to be with Saturday. I'm sure you each felt the same way.

It was first class from start to finish. So when you all look into your mirrors, smile at yourselves for a job well done. You have every reason to be proud of the memorable, beautiful class reunion that you pulled together over the past 2 1/2 years. You made it happen and it was as close to perfection as you could have asked for.

You all are amazing and the gift that you gave to each of us in this reunion is a memory that we will cherish always. I'm certain that I speak for everyone and I'm sure my e-mail isn't going to be the only one you get either!

Thank you again. I'm glad that we're friends.. Please stay in touch.

Always with love,

Liz