Wow! What a Weekend!

The 50th Reunion of the BHHS Class of ’76 is now in the books. And what an incredible reunion it was! The weather was beyond perfect and the memories flowed like the Chetco.

It started with a bang on Friday night. Classmates met at Chetco Brewing and learned that Coach Harland Yriarte got there early and opened a tab to cover the beverages for everyone in the class. Explaining this extremely gracious act, Coach said: “In high school, I discouraged all of you from drinking alcohol. But tonight I’m encouraging you to do the opposite!”

The night was filled with conversation, reminiscing and enjoying a game of “Who Are You?” In addition to Coach Yriarte, we got another surprise guest: Jim Mercer. Jim was the baseball coach and our Teacher of the Year in 1976. His son Mike (Class of ’85) brought him to be a part of the celebration.

Saturday morning we convened at the high school with a special tour led by Brookings Superintendent Helena Chirinian. While some areas weren’t available to see due to summer maintenance projects, we got to rekindle a lot of memories created in those hallways.

Then came the big event at the Chetco Valley Museum Saturday afternoon. As us Class of ’76 relics joined with the many other local historical artifacts there, we enjoyed an afternoon of reconnecting, remembering and returning to our roots after five decades. We enjoyed snacks — including shrimp cocktails and tuna poke from Brad Pettinger — and hours of just spending time with each other once again.

The highlight of the afternoon was Jim and Harland sharing stories of the practical jokes they played on each other while we were there. Their tales were beyond funny and were a secret to most of us for 50 years.

As I told classmates, I had been looking forward to this weekend for more than a year and it exceeded all expectations. So much so that I am committed to shorten the time between reunions. As such, we will meet again in five years — 2031 — for the next reunion. This blog will remain active and I’ll post more news as we go along in the future.

So many of you have thanked me for organizing this and I must say it was a labor of love; I still can’t get the smile off my face. I could not have done it without my friends Mark and Shelly Matson and Brad Pettinger. They are — and will always be — my ride or die friends. Also, thanks to all of you who donated money for the reunion. We were able to give the Historical Society a donation of more than $400 through your generosity.

Big thanks to Sue (Exton) Oliver for taking many of the great pictures from the reunion below. Unfortunately, there are none of Sue! (UPDATE: Thanks to Bob Brown, we have Sue’s photo with husband Rick below). So if anyone has other photos from the weekend, send them to me [email protected] and we’ll post them here.

My heart is full, my friends. We’ve come a long ways from tether ball and the monkey bars at Kalmiopsis to make it here 62 years later. God willing, we’ve got quite a few years left in us so we can meet again.

Until then.
Butch Bernhardt