attend my 20 year West High School reunion in Anchorage, Alaska

I found William Gaines!!!! Our football star….. GO WILLIE

I am not a blogger. Get back to me.

I am truly sorry that I missed the big event. Life has a way of throwing you curves. I still think of Alaska as home and was really looking forward to going “home”. I suffer from a psychological disorder (you all thought I was crazy and you were right) called Borderline Personality Disorder and I recently had a relapse(July) and had to spend some time in intensive therapy. Yes, there are 2 men in my life my husband and my therapist! I have spent much of my adult life in and out of therapy and going through one breakdown just to have another. Finally, with my current therapist and this latest diagnosis I have begun to work on the big picture and the real issues of dealing with a very traumatic childhood. I will be very honest and tell you all that I was sexually abused from age 4 to 17. The people who did this all still reside in Alaska. Protect your kids! This has undoubtedly left some serious psychological damage. I wanted more than anything to be able to return home to Alaska without being in fear of them. As the time grew near I just could not cope with it. I truly do regret that I missed seeing all of you. I wish I could have reconnected with those of you who made my hellish life as a kid somewhat enjoyable. The time I had at WHS with all of you was the high point of my youth, Thank you. I didn’t want to bring you all down, but I did want to let you know the honest truth.
Renate

Best to you and all of your families.

I can’t figure this damn site out…yes, i am special-website-and-computer-skills-illiterate. But this will hopefully be my first successful entry.
All I want to do is tell everyone what a marvelous time I had at the reunion. I was anxious, as I have been out of touch with everyone for nearly 20 years, but of course this worry was unfounded. I consider myself so fortunate to have reconnected with my two best friends of all time (Teresa & Michele) – it was as if we had never been apart – and I am certain our relationships will grow and prosper. I also enjoyed reacquainting myself with the rest of you and reminiscing and learning about your lives now. Just as fun was establishing new friendships and connections with some of you and I’m happy we exchanged conversation – and addresses in some cases. I’m sorry I didn’t get to catch up with everyone, but with that said, it was really so much fun, and I didn’t expect it, and I realize that I enjoyed high school much more than I thought I had! You were fascinating, entertaining, warm people and I wish for you all the best life has to offer!

Hey All,

As I mentioned in my previous post, I’ve set up a Yahoo! group for any of you who’d like to subscribe to it. The advantage is having a secure place to post contact info and messages in the privacy of the group (versus the public forum of 43Things).

The site will be maintained as long as there are subscribers. It’s free, pretty straightforward and you don’t even have to go to the site in order to read messages (they get sent to you automatically unless you choose otherwise).

I am the only administrator currently, but am happy to appoint others so we can approve subscribers as needed. Here’s the URL:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/west86/

See you there.

Kevin

Ah, the long hours we spent back in the day at the Olympic Center and those great Scan Home dances…

It was fun to see everyone. Thanks to Teresa for the Herculean effort. I’m back in San Francisco and will be following up with my Bay Area classmates for some mini-reunions (some of whom I didn’t even get a chance to chat with)... on a side note, Charol Morikawa’s husband swam to frickin’ Alcatraz! Just had to put that out there.

One more note: Please consider putting your personal contact info elsewhere. These forums are public and any psycho (Mark Forceskie) can find you.

If you like, we can start a West ‘86 Yahoo! Group (no offense to 43T, Dan!) where you have to subscribe to get in. That way at least it’s secure and you are known. I’ll set that up, if I can get a “Scan Home Rules” from someone.

Kevin

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Okay everyone, here’s the final money toll. First, thanks to everyone, I did not go in the hole. I collected 9040 dollars.

Friday night cost 1450.00 for food and drinks

Saturday night cost 4700.00. This included food, drinks, servers, renting out the space, gratuities, clean up…..
We ate a lot more then I budjeted for and Rick did not charge me extra because we also bought a ton of his alcohol….

Sunday BBQ 1000.00 food, drinks, paper products, park permit…..

Tent rentals 400.00
DJ 600.00
Clown 200.00
Name tags 90.00
bubbles and ice 90.00
tips roughly 60.00
Folks that overpaid to keep me out of the hole….. 285.00
After sending money back to these people that I have 165.00.

Sunshine on Saturday and Sunday PRICELESS

I was hoping this could cover phone calls, websites I joined…. Any little bill I forgot to record.

Does anyone who helped track people down need to be reimbursed for phone?

So, folks this is a pool of your money tell me what to do with it what’s left…........

Once again, thank you everyone for a great weekend, I hope you and your families had a great time…....

Tess, now retired from reunion planning….... FOREVER!!!! :)

Special thanks to Sloan, Lisa, Rochene, Graham and Weston for donating food, bbq’s and tables etc….. on Sunday…....

hey you guys thank you very much i had alot of fun it was nice to see alot of old faces from west and for those of you that took the time to talk with me that made me feel good even though we never really talked in high school it would be nice to see if we could do it again in another 5yrs so any how you all take care it was nice to see you guys again and talk

always jerry steffensen

hey my e-mail address is
jerryjerrys99508@yahoo.com 
or you can call me on my cel#
its (907-301-8424) 
thats if you would like to talk