By Regena Handy
Probably many of us were apprehensive about the new school. After all, we had been together since first grade as children, then pre-teens, and now 16-year-olds who knew everything.
We were best friends, fought like brothers and sisters, and had seen the best and worst each had to offer. Now, this little band was about to become part of a bigger world, grouped with our former athletic and academic competition.
We are the Class of 1972, the second to graduate from the consolidated Patrick County High School. Children of the Greatest Generation, “baby boomers” who came of age as the Vietnam War waned, whose memories of the assassinations of President Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, the civil rights movement, the hippie age, and the moon landing remain as vivid decades later as when they occurred.
Recently, a number of us reunited to celebrate the 45 years since graduation. The furthest traveler came from Texas and the closest to our old alma mater from within the Town of Stuart limits. So where are we now, all these years later, and what are we doing?
If one drew a line southward from Michigan, taking a side trip to pull in Illinois, then Oklahoma and parts of Texas before meandering on to the Gulf Coast, almost all of us could be found in this eastern part of the country. Only one class member lives outside the USA, making his home in Germany. While a high percentage of us crossed the state line into North Carolina, Virginia still ranks as number one, with Patrick County topping that list.
The majority of us are currently married—a few to our high school sweethearts. Most are parents and grandparents. There are even great-grandparents among our classmates.
Lots of us are retired now. Some say they enjoy their work; they have no plans to retire. Others make the morbid joke that, for financial reasons, they will have to work until lunchtime on the day of their funeral.
Our educational background and careers vary greatly. Some pursued higher degrees in fields of engineering, teaching, medicine, etc. Many attended community college or technical schools, learning trades and skills. Others built successful businesses entirely by their own talent and ingenuity.
