1977 El Lobo Yearbook

My original purpose for creating a Class of '79 website eleven years ago was to post old high school photos in case we might have misplaced or lost our El Lobo '79 yearbooks. Maybe we'd see a photo of someone and say, "Hey, I remember him. I hope he'll be at the 20 Year Reunion!"

I never owned a '77 El Lobo, but at the reunion, Bob and Rick Riley loaned me theirs so I could scan the yearbook and post some of it online. I really enjoyed this yearbook. We were Sophomores that year, and were beginning to gain confidence. We were hopefully getting taller and no longer looked so much like little kids.

It was great to see these old photos because, unlike the Senior pictures where we were all dressed up, in the '77 yearbook we were dressed in our regular '70s clothes.

But take a look at these 34 pages which I have uploaded -- 10 pages of Sophomore class portraits and 24 other pages. Lots more material to scan and post, but this is the stuff I wanted online first.

Doug Cody's Reunion Pix

We were fortunate to have Doug Cody, Class of '78, take some candid photos at the reunion on the 24th. Doug's a professional photographer, so his photos really do look good as he has a much greater sense of how to do proper lighting thamn most amateurs like myself do.

Here's the link to his BayAreaEventPhotography.com site where he is hosting his photos.

Click on a thumbnail to see a web sized image.
Click on that image, and you'll download the high res image.
Click the back button twice to return to the thumbnails.

First Comments on the 30 Year Reunion

After arriving home late last night from our 12 day trip to California, I finally have the chance to give my assessment on the reunion events of the last weekend.

First, I have to thank my wife MaryEllen for being such a great support for me and being with me at the reunion. Being five months pregnant, she was not up to standing for long periods of time, so she mostly sat at a table in the back room with Randy Blair's wife, Patricia, and Bob Downs' wife, Jeanette. The spouses who accompany us to our reunions are real troopers. My wife is comfortable with new people and she knows so many of my classmates, so she enjoys the reunions. It's just that with her present physical circumstances, a stand-up type party didn't work well for her.

Here's the one big reality I've gleaned from this reunion -- We hit our peak reunion attendance in 1999 and we will never have as high a percentage of attendees again. Were the 2004 and 2009 reunions given the same degree of attention and advance publicity as the 1999 reunion? No, I don't think so. But, still, I don't think that our classmates did not know about the reunion. And the stark reality of it is that we will never see some of our classmates ever again. Maybe that's obvious to others. But, I had this sunny and optimistic attitude that nearly all 400+ of us would come together at our reunions. Obviously, that is not the case.

I was loaned a copy of the 1977 SR Yearbook and while browsing through the Sophomore section, I was saddened to see how many boys and girls from those photos had not been at the reunion last weekend. And I really would have enjoyed seeing them again! My plan is to scan and upload much of that yearbook to the website.

The realists among us will rightly say that you are able to choose your friends and if you don't have a relationship with long lost classmates then you all have made that choice. And that's certainly true. I stay in close touch with Bob, Rick, Rich, Will, another Rick, Brian, Bill, Scott, Chris as well as occasional contacts with another Scott, Mark, Britt, and Steve. But how great it was to talk with Matt Wold and Guy Houston, among others last weekend! Folks I usually wouldn't have a chance to see.

Reunion is almost here!

Two days until our 30 Year Reunion. Claudia Gravelle has told me that the food has been all paid for (a good thing) and that the turnout will be great. She also says that latecomers are welcome, so if you were on the fence, it is not too late. I cannot guarantee it, but as far as I have heard the $30 fee is still valid at the door.

Of course, Friday night gives us an even more informal chance to get together as we meet at the San Ramon-Livermore football game. Varsity is at 7 PM. And then Elliott's Bar afterwards for those who are so inclined.

Given that there are about 800 members of the Classes of '78 and '79, I am sure there will be a lot of surprises at the weekend's events. You will see people you have not seen in 25 to 30 years. And some of us will also see people we've just seen the last weekend. I find it all very exciting and I hope most of my classmates will as well.

New website poll

I created a new poll for the website. You can access it here. It asks when you last were on the campus at San Ramon High School. Some of us are parents of SR students, while others may not have been there in a long time.

Reunion RSVPs

Try to get your check in for the 30 Year Reunion soon. It's not too late!

1978/79 Class Reunion
764 Tunbridge Road
Danville, CA 94526


($30/person)

30th Anniversary of First Day at Cal

30 Years ago today the high school classes of 1979 began their first day of classes at Cal Berkeley, thus officially ending our high school years. Of course, there had been a week to move into the dorms and get settled as well as the class enrollment process. But on this Monday, 9/24/79, we had to attend college classes for the first time. And my first class was 8:00 AM. English 1A. And boy, did I learn how far behind I was in my writing skills while taking that ten week class. The other classes, Math P and Poli Sci 1 were also challenging, but I will always think of the English 1A class as the one that jolted me into taking school seriously and forcing me to realize that I had to work hard to make it at Berkeley.

Also on this day 30 years ago, I attended an Elton John concert at the Berkeley Community Theater with my friend Rick Toft, also a Cal freshman from San Ramon's Class of '79. The concert was really fantastic. First, it was a relatively small venue and second, Elton John had decided to scale back from the bombastic glasses and high heel shoes and just play piano. No band, save for Ray Cooper's percussion accompaniment. We had a lot of San Ramon students at Cal and I really regret that we all went our separate ways for the most part rather than bonding together a bit more. Of course, a lot of us were ready to explore this new world rather than hold on too much to the past.

Classmates.com Announcements

I used Classmates.com to send out an announcement of the reunion to over 300 Class of 78 and 79 members who have registered there. On Monday, I sent out a followup announcement that the October 1 payment deadline is coming up. But after seeing what Classmates.com sends out, I am dissatisfied and a little embarrassed. I feel like I'm being used to send unsolicited junk mail to hundreds of classmates because, rather than send out a useful announcement, Classsmates.com sends out a teaser that forces you to log into Classmates.com to see the message.
Here's a sample:

NEW Announcements

1 announcement with big news:

From Announcement
Jim R. Classmates! Planning For
John R. The 30 Year Reunion Is On

At least Classmates.com is free for most people although I pay a fairly small fee to be able to be a Reunion Organizer. Anyway, if you felt like I had spammed you with the Classmates.com message, I do apologize. I'm just trying to get the word out.

On another Classmates.com note, a fellow Class of '79 member recently contacted me and was puzzled as to why she was not on the list at Classmates.com. As I told her, the Class of '79 (nor any other school's class) does not submit a list to Classsmates.com. Individuals choose to register and sign up for the Classmates services. So far, I do think that Classmates.com is the best of the companies out there simply because they seem to have the highest percentage of alumni registered there. But Facebook might soon catch up with them.

Monte Vista's 30 Year Reunion

Through a Facebook friend, I happened to learn that Monte Vista's Class of '79 is also holding a 30 Year Reunion in October. Theirs will be held on October 17th at Orinda Country Club. Their website was interesting to me since I attended either Intermediate School and/or Elementary School with a lot of the alumni listed on their RSVP list or Missing list.

Monte Vista's reunion costs $95.00 a person. I'm sure it will be a nice event, but I am glad that our San Ramon reunion is scaled back so that it is only $30.00 so no one should claim that the price was an obstacle.

Reunion Invitations

Last weekend the reunion invitation was e-mailed out along with a four page list of names with unconfirmed addresses from the Classes of '78 and '79. The invitation is posted here. The list of those with unconfirmed addresses (AKA the "Lost Sheep") is on this PDF file here. If you know where some of these people are, please let them know about the reunion. Also, please send the address information to Guy Houston and Claudia Gravelle at SRVHS7879@aol.com .

I was not involved in creating this list of the "missing," and I do not know how it was developed. I have talked with some people who are puzzled as to why they are listed as "lost sheep" when they had submitted address directory information in the past few years. The reunion "staff" is pretty much ad hoc. I try to help out and Claudia and Jay Briggs always are involved as well as others. If mistakes were made, they certainly were unintentional. The goal is always to get everyone in the know as soon as possible! I know that Claudia has already found a lot of people just since this weekend so the mailing has helped to do its job. In addition, the 333 Class of '78 & '79 members registered at Classmates.com were all notified of the reunion in a separate message last weekend.

This year's reunion is only $30 compared to $75 in 2004. It looks to be scaled back to the basics -- Getting together with old friends. The dinner and dancing were nice but most of us just wanted to talk with one another. And the SR football game the night before the reunion makes for another casual way to encounter old classmates without a lot of expense. Obviously, for me, it is a big expense because I fly out from the Washington DC area. Others will also come from afar for the reunion. Did you know we have classmates in Micronesia and Croatia?

More Reunion Details

Claudia Muller Gravelle has e-mailed the members of the Facebook 78/79 Reunion group with a request for e-mail addresses so she can send out a flyer with reunion details. Her e-mail added one heretofore unknown fact -- the October 24 activities will begin at 6 PM at the Radisson Hotel in Dublin with cocktails. Also listed were the already known plans for the SR homecoming game and post-game drinks at Elliots on Friday the 23rd.

It's nice to see this all coming together. Hopefully, those that need to make travel arrangements will be able to secure some of the low airfares that are currently being offered by Southwest and other carriers for Fall travel.

October 24, 2009

E-mail from Guy Houston has confirmed that the reunion will be on October 24, 2009. San Ramon High football will be playing their Homecoming game the night before, so a large group from the Classes of '78 and '79 will also attend that game. Guy says that invitations will be mailed out within the next week or so. Hopefully, the Class of '79 is included in that invite list -- Apparently a post card mailing went out in May from the Class of '78 but I did not hear of any '79 members receiving that postcard.

So I can finally book my travel for October's California events -- Scott Bisson's October 17th wedding and the October 23-24 Reunion. JetBlue happens to have some decent airfares right now, so I'm ready to buy! Woo hoo! Two weeks in California in October!

I'll continue to pass on any information that I receive, but make your plans to be there in October!

GeoCities to shut down October 26

The old free web hosting service, GeoCities, will shut down on October 26, 2009. While I had moved much of the website files from GeoCities, I still had most of the Wolf Print files there. They will be moved to a new location soon. Ideally, in the future I will re-scan the Wolf Prints at higher resolutions since computer speeds are so much faster than they were when these sites were created in 1999.

If you have a Yahoo GeoCities account where you may have stored some files in the past, you should make sure to download them to your computer soon. If you have a lot of files to download, I recommend the Firefox browser add-on called Down-Then-All. Here is a link to a step by step download tutorial . The "Down-Them-All" link is also at this tutorial site.

1979.SanRamonHigh.com

Well, after almost ten years of having the Class of '79 website at the "members.aol.com" address, I had to move it to another site last October. Since then, it has been at the "homepage.mac.com" site. Apple recently announced plans to close the Homepage service. Fortunately, Apple will NOT be deleting any files, but it will no longer be possible to make modifications through the Homepage service.

So, I recommend that everyone uses the address: http://1979.SanRamonHigh.com and that will get you to the correct page, wherever it may be hosted!

Facebook

I had been avoiding the Facebook phenomenon up until recently. I finally broke down and signed up in June just to see what all the fuss was about. I had mistakenly assumed it was very similar to MySpace.com. Well, it may be in some respects, but it sure does look a lot cleaner than any of the MySpace pages I had seen in the past.

Once someone asked me to be a "Friend," I finally learned at least some of what makes Facebook so great. First, this blog deals with the Class of '79 and Facebook does a wonderful job of grouping all of us class members together. There are about 100 of us on Facebook already. That's pretty good for our generation, I think. (I bet that the SRVHS Class of 2009 probably has more like 95% of its students on Facebook.)

Anyway, there is even a SR '78/'79 Reunion group on Facebook, where I learned that, at least as of Claudia M-G's March 2009 posting, the reunion is scheduled for October 24, 2009. But, if that's true, it needs to be better publicized than it has been! Post it at Classmates.com. Announce it in banner headlines at the Reunion Group Facebook page.

As for my facebook page -- you can find me by clicking John B. Ramsey's Facebook Page.

still wondering about reunion date...

So, with my last post, I passed on information from an alum who was told that the reunion would probably be the same weekend as San Ramon High's homecoming game. SRVHS's website doesn't give much information yet about the next school year, either in terms of Homecoming or a football schedule. But, I've ruled out the weekend of October 16-18 as SR will be facing De La Salle in Concord according to the De La Salle football schedule posted on that school's website. I've also learned that San Ramon will be home on October 23 and facing Livermore High School. This is according to the LHS website. So, maybe we'll have the 30 Year Reunion almost 10 years to the day of the 20 Year Reunion (10/23/99).

I hope an announcement is made soon, as a lot of us would like to begin to make travel arrangements. I am already planning to be in the Bay Area for Scott Bisson's wedding on October 17th, so I am hoping that the reunion will be within seven days of that date.

Reunion date?

Although I have not been doing any work in organizing a reunion, apparently some people have still been planning. I just got an e-mail from a class member who has been informed that the reunion will coincide with the football team's homecoming weekend in October. The 2009 football schedule is not posted on the web site, but De La Salle has posted their schedule which shows them hosting San Ramon on October 16th, seeming to rule out that weekend for the reunion.

My suggestion to all who want to be keep informed about the reunion is to register at Clasmates.com under the free membership option and keep checking your message box to see if any updates have been sent out. Also, make sure the e-mailbox you used to set up your Classmates.com account is still valid.

30 Years Ago Today!

In some ways, I can remember June 8, 1979 like it was just the other day. I recall sitting on the chairs on the football field and then the short walk across the stage to shake Jim Henderson's hand. The All-Nighter in the Small Gym and then one last early morning walk through the campus on the way home. The dozen or so classmates I've been able to keep in close contact with throughout all this time have helped to make those memories a little fresher in my my than they otherwise would have been. Unfortunately, there have been many more dozens whom I have not seen since that night, as we all went our separate ways. And sadder, by far, was the passing of at least a half a dozen of our classmates thus far.

So, to the San Ramon High School Class of 1979 -- Congratulations on the 30th Anniversary of our graduation. (And, on a personal aside, congratulations to my wife and myself on our 24th wedding anniversary which is today as well!)

As for the 30 Year Reunion, I have not heard anything about the plans since last Fall. Anyone know anything?

Your Comments on this 30 Year Anniversary are welcomed!

An unofficial mini-reunion

My 32nd Devil Mountain Run has come and gone. It was a successful weekend, despite the unusual May rains that accompanied my visit. Saturday was probably the highlight as Will, Rick R., Bob R., Chris, and I all got together in San Francisco for the evening. We also connected with Rick T. via cellphone who was on board the Pacific Princess Cruise Ship in dock at Pier 29 (or close to there). So, whether there is a real reunion or not this year, at least the six of us got together. We all go back to Rancho Romero Elementary School all the way back to at least 1972.

The 10k race was wet and rainy but I finished in my usual 9 minute a mile pace. What I find most interesting is to look at the results of the race by age groups. I started running this thing when I was 17 and a whole bunch of other people my age also ran that year. But this year, just like other recent years, there were only about 2 or 3 runners under the age of 18 doing the 10k. Not that these 10k runs don't get participants -- they do. But they tend to be older nowadays.

Bob R.'s daughter will graduate from SR this June -- Class of 2009. How old are we? Can you imagine what you would have thought in 1979 if someone came up to you and said, "I graduated from SR in 1949. " We'd have thought, "Man, that's a long time ago!"

I understand that the large gym has been taken down and will be replaced by a new and modern facility. I haven't walked around our old school since 2004, so I suppose much has changed. Sad in some ways, but even in 1975-79, we knew that we were in old facilities. And with the wealth of the area, it was inexcusable for them not to modernize the school. But, for purely nostalgic and wholly unrealistic reasons, it would have been nice for me to keep everything the same.

One last thing I noticed about the Class of 2009's group photo. Apparently, this year's Senior Class is somehow even less diverse than the Class of '79 was. Why was I surprised? I don't know --probably because I live in a part of Maryland with a broad variety of ethnic and racial backgrounds represented in my town. But that's okay. That's just the way the demographics have worked out. Everyone is free to live wherever they can afford to live. Alamo and Danville are great places to live. If I could have afforded it, I would have loved to move back there.

Been Away From The Blog

January was a month which was bookended with unusually bad sicknesses for me and some members of my family. Fortunately, all has been well since then. February was spent in doing home improvements. Anyway, I haven't heard anything about the 30 Year Reunion, and I haven't really had any new plans for the website. So, that explains my silence.

I will be in Danville for the 32nd (and my 32nd as well) Devil Mountain Run 10K race. It's on May 3rd at 8 AM.

So, I'll see Bob and Rick Riley. Hopefully Will and Rich Tauchar as well as Scot Bisson, Bill Buch and Brian Robinson. Maybe Scott Shields or Jay Briggs?

Hope to have some new news to report soon!