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Famous Reunions
Twain makes a great reunion even better
The Timmins High and Vocational School (TH & VS) reunion in
Timmins, Ontario, Canada, was a tremendous success. The success
was due to great organization by the reunion planners and a surprise
visit by country artist Shania Twain, a 1983 TH & VS graduate.
Rumors circulated for weeks that Twain would make
an appearance, creating a buzz throughout Timmins. In fact, some
of the singer’s fans tried to purchase tickets with hopes
of meeting her. But they were just rumors … she might or
might not be there … no one knew what to expect reunion organizer,
Ross Clausi reported. The day before the reunion, Twain’s
representatives told the committee she wouldn’t be coming.
She registered under a pseudonym. When she showed up, "it
was wonderful, she’s a classy and terrific person,"
Clausi added.
Twain made the trip from her home in Switzerland
accompanied by her sister Carie-Ann Twain. Twain appeared at her
reunion without bodyguards to blend in with classmates. She said
she went to meet old friends and reminisce, just like everyone
else.
Everyone wanted to meet one of Timmins’ most
famous graduates. Twain obliged and posed for countless pictures.
The only time she wasn’t greeting and posing was when she
was allowed to eat her vegetarian dinner without interruption.
In her two hours at the reunion, Twain met nearly all of the more
than 2,000 people who attended.
Twain was known as Eilleen to her classmates.
Her fondest high school memories were performing at a school dance
and graduating. She said she wasn’t the best student because
she concentrated on her music.
Twain is known to have great pride in the area
where she grew up. She was raised poor outside Timmins and worked
at McDonalds to help her family. Her parents died when she was
21 and she took responsibility for raising her brothers and sisters.
She has donated time and effort to the community since becoming
a star. Twain performed a benefit concert, to contribute to the
TH&VS scholarship fund and donated $1 million to the Shania
Interpretative Center.
Twain’s visit was the icing on the cake according
to reunion-goer Jackie MacKenzie. Other attendees agreed with
MacKenzie’s assessment that the reunion was wonderful. The
response was positive not just for the celebrity visit.
Other notes from the Timmins reunion
The Timmins reunion was multi-class with representatives from
classes dating back to the 1920s. Organizers developed magazine-like
memory books with articles written by persons involved with the
school. Topics ranged from the reunion to Timmins. They also sold
photo albums featuring 50 pictures from each decade and photo
CD-ROMs containing 2,500 pictures; separated by decades.
from the Timmins Times, The Daily Press
(Timmins, Ontario) and the Star. With help from
Ross Clausi.
A Carter family reunion
Former President Jimmy Carter is a reunion fan both for intimate
affairs with his children and grandchildren (Reunions magazine,
winter 1996, vol 6, no 2) but also, this year, plunging into a
much larger affair. He wanted to commemorate the 200th anniversary
of the birth of his great-great grandfather, Wiley Carter. There
was already a database of 2,000 names going back 12 generations
and an estimated 500 living descendants.
Carter had discovered some hair-raising stories
about his ancestors. Wiley killed a man for stealing a slave while
his son, Littleberry Walker Carter, Jimmy's great-grandfather,
was killed in a gunfight with a business partner over money from
a carousel. President Carter reports, however, that most other
relatives were law-abiding, peaceful individuals.
When planning began it was assumed about 250 family
members would attend the reunion. The party in Plains grew to
800 including many descendants of Wiley who until recently had
no idea they were related to the former president. Carter recalls
calling one cousin in North Carolina who hung up on him saying
it was only someone playing a practical joke. He was finally able
to convince her. The reunion doubled the population of the Sumter
County, Georgia, town for one day.
Organized by cousin Betty Pope, the reunion assembled
at Plains High School, now a visitor's center, then traveled to
a gymnasium at Georgia Southwestern State University in nearby
Americus for fellowship and story telling. Finally everyone celebrated
at a barbecue and dance at Tanyard Hill Farm, home of Carter cousin,
Gatewood Dudley.
from AP, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and
Valdosta Daily Times with thanks to The Carter Presidential
Center
Reunions of champions
Anyone old enough to remember the Green Bay Packers of the 1960s,
knows there were five National Football League championships in
seven years, a feat unmatched to this day and 10 team members
and their coach, the late Vince Lombardi, all made it to the Pro
Football Hall of Fame. Players from those glory years are closer
now and enjoy regular reunions at which they cheer a re-incarnation
of their triumphs in a new era and new team of Packers. No one
is prouder of the new Packers than the old Packers. Green Bay,
Wisconsin, the smallest city in major sports sells out every game
(60,000) of the only publicly owned, non-profit big-league sports
franchise in the US.
from Parade Magazine by Dick Schaap
Campaign reunion
AP - Hard to believe that twenty years have passed since Jimmy
Carter's campaign for the White House. Seven hundred campaign
workers including the "Peanut Brigade" of Georgians,
Carter's staff and vice president, Walter Mondale, gathered to
reminisce particularly on the early, long-shot days. Carter was
surprised at how much fun and laughter accompanied everyone's
memories of campaign days.
Carter's longtime press secretary, Jody Powell,
told a story: early in the Iowa primary campaign she scored a
TV appearance but left the details until it was too late to turn
back. Carter had to wear a chef's hat and apron on a cooking show
and apparently fried some pretty credible catfish while creating
a video tape, which continued to catch the attention of Iowans
throughout the campaign.
Carter's biographer, Douglas Brinkley, said there
is growing appreciation for Carter's presidency among historians
and his peers.
from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Note: The Carter Family Reunion at Steinhatchee
(FL) Resort was featured in Reunions magazine, Winter 1996,
Volume 6, Number 2.
Showing Roots
For the first time, two branches of Thomas Jefferson's family
tree – one black, one white – came together in May for
the annual family reunion at Monticello Plantation, the ancestral
Virginia estate.
Descendants of Jefferson's slave and long-rumored
mistress, Sally Hemings, were invited to attend because scientists
said recent DNA tests showed that Jefferson fathered Hemings'
youngest son, Eston. The Hemings descendants have not, however,
been formally recognized as family members by the Monticello Association,
whose 700 members trace their lineage to one of Jefferson's two
daughters.
from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Family Feud
The Hatfields and McCoys are at it again. The two Kentucky clans
began fighting in the 1870s, resulting in the deaths of 12 people.
This time, though, the long-running family feud is substituting
bats for guns and softballs for bullets.
Bo McCoy, great-great-grandson of feud founder
Randolph McCoy, has organized a family reunion for June 2000 -
M2K or McCoys 2000. And the Hatfields are invited. If all goes
as planned, the McCoys will take on the Hatfields in a softball
tournament.
from the Associated Press
Hatfields, McCoys turn old feud into fun
Instead of rekindling their famous family feud, the descendants
of the Hatfields and McCoys faced off on an open field near the
mountains of eastern Kentucky to heal wounds that date back to
the 1870s.
Many of the feud's modern day descendants met
for the first time. Handshakes and pleasantries replaced the accusations
of hog-stealing and arguments over timber resources that were
believed to have started the feud.
The reunion was initiated by Bo McCoy, Waycross,
Georgia, and his cousin Ron McCoy, Durham, North Carolina. The
Hatfields came aboard after the McCoys extended invitations through
tourism offices in Kentucky and West Virginia.
The feud between the Hatfields of West Virginia
and the McCoys of Kentucky began in the post-Civil War era. By
the time all conflict associated with it ended in 1900, 12 people
were dead.
from the Associated Press
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