Saturday Afternoon Event Added to Reunion

The Paramount Hotel on SW 13th Street in Gainesville (also US 441 south) will provide plenty of space around the pool Saturday afternoon for classmates to gather. This was the site of one of our previous reunions and has a wonderful shaded setting overlooking the Bivens Arm lake. You can purchase food and beverages inside from the hotel. Come see which of your old friends show up or organize a small gethering of your team or club from school -- this is the place!

Death of James Mauldin '68

We lost a classmate this week, James Mauldin. He lived near Gainesville in Waldo. Here is the text of the obituary in today's Gainesville Sun:

James Clyde Mauldin, Jr., 57, of Waldo, FL, passed away early Tuesday morning, April 22, 2008 in his home. James was born June 16, 1950 in Williston, FL. James was preceded in death by his father, James Clyde Mauldin, and his sister, Barbara Wilson. He is survived by his wife, Vera, of 20 years and mother Mildred Mauldin; sons Keith Mauldin and wife Carla of Mount Dora, Kevin Mauldin and daughter Kimberly Harrison and husband Dustin of Gray Court, SC; grandsons Anthony and Christian Mauldin and granddaughter Destiny Harrison; sisters Judy Ruff and husband Joe of Panama City, FL, Linda Simmons of Modesto, CA, Carol Curington of Viera, FL and Louise Castillo of St. Antonio, TX; numerous nieces and nephews and special baby Barbara Yvonne Wilson. James was a self-employed shoe repairman. He was loved and will be greatly missed.A funeral service will take place on Friday, April 25, 2008 at 11:00 AM at the Chapel of WILLIAMS-THOMAS DOWNTOWN FUNERAL HOME 404 N. Main Street (www.williamsthomasfuneralhome.com) with Rev. Jim DuBois officiating. Interment will follow at Orange Hill Cemetery in Williston, FL. The family will receive friends one our prior to the service at the funeral home.

CAN'T FIND YOUR REGISTRATION FORM?

If you can not find your registration form, don't panic. You will not be sent to the "office" or be made to stay after school.

Send us an e-mail at ghs68reunion@aol.com and we will e-mail one right away.

We hope you can make it.



The Committee

OK, THIS IS YOUR CHANCE!

The response to the videos posted on the site has been tsunami-like ..... well.......OK OK that is a bit of a stretch, but some folks enjoyed them.

We want more shots from all of you. Video yourself for 10-15 seconds and send it on. You can have your 1o seconds of fame.

Keep it as clean as you can. There are still tender folks out there in the world and the imaginations of some of you might.....well, we will have attorneys review all submissionsfor proper decorum. Don't do the Gator in other words.

Let us see and hear from you.

The Blog Meister

MISSING CLASSMATES LIST IS AVAILABLE ON THE YAHOO GROUP/FORUM. HELP US LOCATE THE LOST SO THAT THEY MAY BE CALLED FOUND

Bill Harlan posted the following note on the forum:

On the Class Forum, I just discovered "Files," where I posted a much shorter and up-to-date list of our "missing" classmates,and "Database," where Ken Nibling started a list of all of us (four, todate) last year. Adding info to this list is pretty self-explanatory. Both of these are found on the left hand side of the forum home page. Please check out the missing list and see if you can help us get in contact with any of your friends and neighbors shown there, and we'll invite them to join us in June.

Thanks, Bill Harlan

Registrations Are Arriving!

We are pleased that members of our class will be returning to Hogtown to celebrate with us. A sampling of the attendees includes; Jackie Cooter Hoover, Jim Conner, David Boothby, Al Cook, Kathy Sherman Cook, Ken Nibling, Richard Greene, Bill Chesnut, Terry Rigsby, Beth Graves Davis, Judy Dwyer, Ronnie Hilliard, Ann Fearney Paul, Susan Hazen Balloon, Ed Hagen, Steve Lally, Emery Swearingen, Coleman Stipanovich, Becky Peek Fitchlee, Rik Dilgren, Mark McLaurin, Diane Turney Taylor, Robbie Davis, Doug Lynes, Richard Robinson, Bill Harlan, Robert Scott, Karen Stack Van Lare, and Mike Boles.

If you have not sent in your form, please send it in soon.

Thanks,

The Committee

Official GHS Class of '68 apparel

Very soon, a T-shirt and a ball cap will become available on-line to all classmates. Instructions for purchasing will be posted here as soon as the design is completed and submitted to Cafepress.com. We hope that ordering can begin in a matter of days from this posting.

Essentially, Cafepress is a print-on-demand supplier thus relieving the Committee of having to foot the bill up front for the items. You will be able to order directly from them on-line both before and after the Reunion. The items will not be sold on-site at the Reunion.

Deborah Neill-Mareci is working her magic and we believe these items will be a fine way to commemorate the Reunion.

For the Committee,

The Blog Meister

A note for members of the GHS Classes of '67 and '69

We know that you have secretly sequestered a desire to be members of our high school graduating class, the class of 1968. The last 40 years must have been a strain knowing that there is one missing link in your collective psyche.

We have a way out for you. Come and hoist a beverage of choice with us at Gator's Dockside on Friday evening, June 20, as we begin our 40th Reunion. We hope that any of you who would like to join us will do so.

The Planning Committee

DON'T OVERLOOK THE LINKS ON THIS SITE

In addition to links for the venues we will be using for the Reunion, you might want to check out the Alachua County Visitors and Convention Bureau web site. It has some gorgeous photographs of the area and an excellent list of lodging opportunities. Also, Google Maps shows an aerial view of the school and, by clicking and dragging, you can move the image about the city.

We will be adding a few more links to this list soon. Stay tuned.

RESPONSE TO GHS '68 FORUM GOOD

The initial response to the GHS '68 forum has been (OK, I twisted a few arms to get a few of you started) very promising. In a short time, we have 19 members joining it and 29 messages posted, a number of which are extended updates on how some of our class mates have spent the last 40 years. We have been having 3-5 posts daily.

Frankly, the only thing I knew in January about blogs is that the word rhymes with "logs." The process of learning what is available and and assembling something that serves our needs has been challenging and fun for me. Who says old dogs can't learn new tricks?

Just as a note on nomenclature: the blog and the forum/group are two separate entitities. You can go to the group via the blog (www.ghs68.blogspot.com) and click it on under links.

Basically, the blog has all of the news of the reunion and official postings on the reunion. That is the central place to go for reunion stuff and you find there video, slides and regular postings from the committee. The forum/group, on the other hand, is more for you to let us all know what you are up to. It provides a chance to write up something and send it along for your class mates to read.

In addition to regularly visiting the blog for the daily information updates and slide show, I invite you to try the forum/group out. If I can figure out how to build it, you can figure out how to use it. Heck, at this point, I am not even sure whether it is more correct to refer to it as a group or a forum. The latter makes more sense to me and the former more sense to Yahoo.

The main point is that the group/forum has had some fine exchanges. One of my favorites so far is Gary Stanley opining on reading poetry (a side of Gary that is new to me) and Gary trying to persuade Richard Robinson to send wine to him for "safe keeping."

How can you pass that stuff up? This is true art in the making. Go for it 68'ers and impress your grandchildren with your new-found computer savvy. Tell us about yourselves. We want to hear from you.

The Blog Meister

WHEN SIGNING UP FOR THE YAHOO GROUP, OPT FOR E-MAILS TO BE SENT WHEN NEW POSTS APPEAR

When you sign up with Yahoo GHS Class of '68 Yahoo group, you will be given an option to receive an e-mail each time someone posts on the forum/group. That e-mail will provide the text of the posting and will be a convenient and effortless way to keep up with what folks are saying in the on-line forum.

Video, action!

If you are coming to the reunion or if you only want to say hi to your classmates, send in a ten second video and our video committee will attempt to post it on the blog. Some of your favorite local stars will be appearing in future weeks.

When playing each video, be sure to click right on the little black arrow to make it play. If you do not, it will not.

WANTED: MORE PHOTOS

We have set up a second bunch of photos that we will use soon as a slide show periodically alternating with the first slide show. We need you all to dig into your collections, scan those photographic gems waiting to be seen by the world, and send them in so they can posted in our collection. Don't wait........

The Committee

Suggestion from Ken Nibling on getting friends to the Reunion

I trust that we are getting a great response from everyone and that the registration for the Reunion is going well. I had an idea that I wanted to share to help spur activity.

The idea is to (1) encourage folks to go back and read the comments in their Hurricane annual (2) then have them contact five of their classmates that wrote something (citing an excerpt) and (3) let them know that they are coming and invite them to do the same.

Video Postings

We are able to post video blogs now. To play, click on the arrow button below the picture in the blog postings (in this case, Bill Harlan). Easy as pie.

Stay tuned in future weeks for appearances by other illustrious class members including a special posting with Emery Swearingen (our Hospitality chairman appointed in absentia) and his pet Harley-Davidson motorcycle as he heads out on the highway bound for the Reunion.

GHS CLASS OF 68 FORUM

So that class members may send in their erudite recollections of their past or thoughts for the future, join our class forum on Yahoo. Click on the link, register, and then let us know more about what you have been doing in the past or will be doing in the future. For those of you who are computer-challenged, we urge you to step out of the box and use this utility.

Remember: the blog site is for information on the reunion and the forum/group is for things you send in. While the forum/group can be used more widely, we have decided not to maintain two sites of information and to have both the blog and forum/group do what each does best.

Be patient. We are all learning here, but once you get through the fog of discovery you will see the bright torch of knowledge and enlightenment. As cave divers must learn early on, just swim towards the light.

Posting on the forum may allow only one person posting at a time so if it does not work at first try again. Let me know how you do and I will do all I can to help you through this. The alternative is to remove this option. I think it is valuable to use this forum or user group as much of the world already does. Remember: "Swim towards the light."

GOOGLE MAPS AND SATELLITE VIEWS OF HOGTOWN NOW AVAILABLE UNDER VENUES/ LINKS

Check out venues/links for Google Maps/satellite views of the school and the City of Gainesville. Hold down your left click button and move your mouse around the image and you should be able to "travel" about town with a bird's eye view. Have fun.

Many thanks to Kelley Wiltbank for helping get these images onto the blog site.