Jesse Joyner, PhD

Last Saturday night, I had the pleasure of attending my 10-Year High School Reunion (Godwin High, Richmond, VA, Class of ’98). Not only did I attend, but I also got to be on the planning team for the event, which gave me a unique perspective on how High School Reunions are fabricated (or at least ours). The humor of a night like this one is the fact that everyone there is in such a great mood and you end up cheerfully talking to people that you never spoke to throughout all of high school. I remember talking to one guy and introducing my wife to him. After our 5-minute conversation, which was cordial, I looked at my wife and said, “That’s the longest I’ve ever talked to him in my life.” Now, there are those people that I really did know in high school and I got to reconnect with them and see how they’re doing after all these years. It’s seeing those people that made the reunion definitely worth going to. I’m glad I got to be a part of planning it, also. I was the treasurer – and though I thought we were going to fall under budget, we ended up being around three hundred dollars in the positive. We’re going to send any excess money to the people who run the location where we had the reunion since they did such a great job and even gave us a break on our bill with them. All in all, we had 136 people, one of which was a teacher. We had many spouses and guests – no kids, though a few pregnant ladies. Great 90’s music from the DJ, great food from the catering, lots of old faces (most of whom looked just the same), and the satisfaction that we successfully pulled off our 10-Year High School reunion.