NOTE: “Today” and “tonight” refer to Friday, Aug. 14.
SEQUIM — An all-class reunion for Sequim High School graduates this weekend will mark the 100th anniversary of the first graduating class in the Sequim-Dungeness Valley.
Leonard Fernie, Godwin O’Brien, Neva Peterson and Helen Knoph were the first graduates of the area a century ago, graduating from the Dungeness Schoolhouse in 1915.
“We usually have a reunion every four years. We waited five years this year to tie in with the 100th anniversary,” said Kevin Kennedy, reunion chairman.
Weekend activities include a golf tournament, gatherings, dinner, Pioneer Picnic and an assembly featuring the daughter of a man profiled in Daniel James Brown’s book The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
Registration, originally due by July 31, will be accepted at 9 a.m. Saturday, according to Kennedy. Registration is $25 and includes SHS alumni association membership for one year.
Some 500 are expected at Saturday’s lunch and 300 at dinner that night, Kennedy said.
Golf tournament
The Cedars at Dungeness, 1965 Woodcock Road, will host a golf tournament, a nine-hole, two-man scramble, today.
Registration will begin at noon. Tee-off will be at 1 p.m. The cost is $25.
A gathering is planned at the Sequim VFW, 169 E. Washington St., at 7 p.m. tonight.
On Saturday, former graduates can go to a luncheon at 11:30 a.m. in the Sequim High cafeteria, 601 N. Sequim Ave., followed by an assembly at 1 p.m. in the auditorium, while a car show is outside from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
During the assembly, Judy Rantz-Willman, the daughter of gold medal winner Joe Rantz, will speak about her late father, who lived in Sequim and who was a member of the team of Washington state men who represented the United States in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.
“She will show a newsreel of our team winning against the Nazis,” said Judy Reandeau Stipe, volunteer executive director of the Museum & Arts Center of Sequim.
“It’s a real hair-raiser,” Stipe said.
At 3 p.m. will be the dedication of the Cavalcade of Flags at the MAC’s veterans memorial wall at 544 N. Sequim-Dungeness Way.
A buffet dinner is set at the Sequim unit of the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Olympic Peninsula at 400 W. Fir St., with a social hour beginning at 5 p.m. and dinner at 6 p.m. No more reservations are being taken for the dinner.
Sunday open house
On Sunday, an open house is set from 10 a.m. to noon at the Old Dungeness Schoolhouse, 2781 Towne Road.
That will be followed by the free Pioneer Picnic at noon at the Sequim Prairie Grange, 209 Macleay Road.
To pre-register, contact Hazel Lowe at 360-683-5315 or Kennedy at 253-229-1673 or geoduck01@hotmail.com.
