LITTLE SILVER – More than 170 former Markham Place School students, neighbors and friends gathered last month for a school reunion.
The event began with a tour of the grammar school, including the original building and the large newer addition. Teacher B.J. Olsen and fellow alumni took event-goers on the tour.
The reunion continued at the Nauvoo Grill Club in Fair Haven where members of the classes of 1957 to 1983 were welcomed.
The original plan was to have a reunion for people who graduated from Markham Place School during the 1960s and ’70s but when word of the event spread, the organizers decided to accommodate all who wanted to attend.
The event also was promoted through the reunion group’s Facebook, created in March, which now has more than 500 members.
The evening was filled with laughs, plenty of smiles and big hugs as alumni embraced each other and the special memories they shared growing up in a such a unique time and place.
Diane Marshall Gradone spearheaded the effort with the assistance of Betsy Pope Aras, who helped with the class directory, and the reunion committee, including Stephen Dill and Nancy Milligan Fain, Class of 1969; Dana Dillon Walling, Sandy Blakelock, Mark Fitzsimmons and Larry Campanella, ’70; Chick Bruno, ’72; Kathi Pennington Stonaker and Thayne Huhn Tessenholz, ’73; and Moira Quinn, ’74.
