Class of '78 com-
mittee members
Lisa Chaben
Krieger, Randi
Pearl Glanz and
Leslie Collins
Schwartz.
DEBRA B. DARVICK
Special to The Jewish News
hatever happened to
the Southfield High
School class of '78?
Randi Pearl Glanz and
her class reunion committee are
about to find out.
Come 7 p.m. Saturday night at
the Southfield Westin, their hours of
planning, coordinating and round-
ing up missing people will bear fruit
as the class' 20th reunion comes to
life amid the blue and white school
colors and strains of Diana Ross'
"Do You Know Where You Are
Going?" which was played at the
class' senior prom.
Five women, who have known
each other since they were toddlers,
were having dinner at a restaurant
last March when talk turned to the
fact that their 20th high school
reunion was just around the corner.
"Someone mentioned that no one
lir
was
planning a reunion,"
Ms. Glanz recalls, "and we all decid-
ed we'd take on the chore because
we didn't want to go without a 20th
year reunion. We were already look-
ing forward to it."
So Glanz, Lisa Chaben Kreiger,
Susan Shapiro Conway, Amy
Solomon Lazare and Leslie Collins
Schwartz mobilized. They booked
hotel space, got out the yearbook
and began contacting former class-
mates — and discovered how much
work it would take to locate the
600-plus members of their class.
"We had received names of some
people who wanted to be sure to be
included if there was a reunion,"
Glanz says, "but then I realized how
hard it was going to be just to find the
women whose names had changed.
"1 contacted someone who had
coordinated my husband's reunion
two years ago. It was the perfect solu-
tion.
Dennis told me to give
him a yearbook and he would locate
everyone." Glanz did, and the
reunion was one step closer to reali-
rY.
"Dennis" is Dennis Brown of Class
Reunions Plus in St. Clair Shores.
"We use year books, commencement
lists and the Internet to track down
the members of the class," he says.
"We handle the hotel reservations
and, if need be, help plan the menu,
send out mailers and invitations."
Brown guarantees his clients that he
will find 70-80 percent of the people
on any given class list. In his first go-
round for Glanz's class, Brown found
479 out of the original 632.
As of last week, Glanz had received
RSVPs from more than 200 former
classmates and was confident that
another 100 would respond right at the
wire.
"I'm really excited about
seeing all these names on the lists," says
Glanz. "These are people I haven't seen
in 20 years, girls I used to walk to ele-
mentary school with, people from my
subdivision, from junior high school.
"And they are coming from all over
the country — California, Georgia, Ari-
zona, Minnesota, Texas. I've talked to a
couple of them and we are so excited to
see each other.
"Reunions bring us back to a time
when life was simple, although we may
not have appreciated it," says Glanz, a
former pompon girl turned family law
litigator. "Now our lives are wonderful,
but there are responsibilities.
"When we get together, I hope we
get the sense of that carefree time in our
lives." El
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