Page one carried a boxed notice highlighting the weekend program beginning Friday night at 9 with an “Open House” at the Elks Club. On Saturday was a “Down Memory Lane” party and dance (tickets $1.00) at the Hotel Saranac — public invited — prizes galore and a buffet supper was held at midnight.

Various class reunions were held throughout the weekend.

“The Saranac Lake Village Board has 3 Alumni serving on it — Trustees Joe Drutz, Class of 1937, John Morgan, Class of 1924 and Kenneth Garwood, Class of 1939.

“The Harrietstown Town Board has 3 Alumni serving on it — Hayward Plumadore, Class of 1933, Councilman Ray LaRose, Class of 1939 and Assessor Albert Homburger, Class of 1939.

“The Board of Education has one Alumni serving — Ruth Lietzenmeyer Arnold, Class of 1934.

“The Saranac Lake Police Force is almost entirely SLHS Alumni — Chief William Wallace, Edward Betters, Francis Gauthier, Oliver Queior, Neil Rogers, Don Garwood and Wallace Gay.

“Ten former SLHS students are now in religious work as Priests, Ministers and Missionaries. Eight former students are now in the religious field as Nuns.

“Twenty-three students have become doctors and dentists. Three graduates are now residents of our 50th State, Hawaii: John Doland, Class of 1916, now living in Honolulu; Graham Brown, Class of 1936, now living in Kailua, Oahu; and Rita Morford Thompson, Class of 1940 now living in Wahiawa, Oahu.

“There are approximately 200 SLHS alumni living in the Rochester area and about the same number in the Albany-Schenectady area.

(My brother Charlie — “Chic” — Ed LaPoint and Destry Lewis among others, all went to work at Rochester General, way back then, as they followed student nurses they dated in Saranac Lake.

(They met the student nurses when they were serving their compulsory three-month gig in a tuberculosis hospital which, of course, was at Trudeau Sanatarium.

(The boys worked as orderlies. They not only worked together but lived together and apparently took turns getting — by whatever means — left-overs from the hospital kitchen to supplement their meager wages.

(The number of people from Saranac Lake working in Rochester created an outing held every summer called the Rochester Picnic and Chic and the boys attended the picnic that year.

(Chic called me later and said there were more than 400 from Saranac Lake attending the event — so in typical Chic style he said, “You better come down here and run for Mayor because pretty soon there will be more Saranac Lakers living in Rochester than in Saranac Lake.”)

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How Homecoming Weekend started

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“This year marks the Third Homecoming sponsored by the Women’s Civic Chamber of Saranac Lake.

“The idea of a Homecoming was one which several different alumni had thought about and yet one which no one person alone could do anything about. It all started back in the spring of 1955 when the idea was referred to the newly organized Women’s Civic Chamber.

“A committee was appointed in May of that year to look into the possibility of such an event. It was no easy task locating the 2,500 known graduates of the local school. The Alumni Association was no longer active and no records available on where its’ many members were.

“However after many hours of copying names from school records, using old yearbooks and just plain talking with members of the various classes, the first list of 2,500 names was established. Then we asked one person from each class to take a list of classmates and see what he could do. That paid off.

“We may not recall all the people who helped to gather all the addresses but among the many were: Clair and John Duquette, Hil and Jo Zerbe, Doris and Mike Shatraw, Doris and Charlie Keough, Gladys and Bernard Brown, Betty Nutter, Tom Cantwell, Roma Lyons Commo, Florence and Dave White, Anne Hesse Deissler, Harold Hill and many others.”

I believe that many of the advertisements are as interesting as the stories so I will fit in as many as possible.

Other notes: “Mrs. Carolyn Trudeau, Homecoming chairman reminds everyone that the events are open to the public and urges anyone who is interested to come and see his or her old friends.”

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There was plea for more information on alumni from the attendees.

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There was a note that the Civic Chamber would mail out copies of this special edition of the Enterprise to persons out of town.