A class by itself: 72 years later, Waynesburg grads still reuniting
72 years later, Waynesburg grads still reuniting
Sheila Wright Black and her classmates are long past the days of worrying about cramming for a chemistry final or lining up a date to the prom.
But decades after their high school experiences, the Waynesburg High School Class of 1954 still relives the days of drive-in movies, sock hops and Patti Page.
For the first 50 years after graduation, they met up for the major milestones, every five or 10 years.
“Then when we got together on our 50th, we decided let’s try it every year,” Black said.
And they have, turning their reunion into an annual two-day event.
Time and the years of reunions have forged bonds between students who weren’t necessarily tight back in high school.
Several of them had gone to the same schools in Waynesburg since first grade. But the high school also took in students from surrounding townships “who felt like they were in a strange world,” said Black, the co-chair of the planning committee for the reunions.
Her own husband had experienced the same thing coming to Waynesburg as a ninth-grader from Nineveh, Black said.
“I’m sorry that they felt that way, but I can tell you from now, from our 2004 reunion to 2026, we are close-knit,” Black said. “It’s just a good group. We were not running around with each other in high school. So we’ve changed. We’ve moved on.”
“You know, you get together to talk, reminisce, and find out what everybody’s doing and how they’re feeling today, and there’s a camaraderie,” said 1954 grad Joe Ayersman of Waynesburg, who’s also on the planning committee. “I guess you want to find out what’s going on and how everybody’s health is, and what they’re doing, and you know that’s about the size of it.”
Thirty-four students from the class that walked the stage in 1954 are still alive.
Some are out of the area, some are too infirm, and some just haven’t wanted to come, Ayersman said. But a core group still does, drawing 15 members for this year’s reunion.
About 10 live either in Waynesburg or nearby, said Black, who makes the trip from Washington County. But others routinely travel from as far away as California and New Jersey.
Acting as the group’s secretary, Black will go searching for classmates when she hasn’t heard back from them. Sometimes, she’ll find an obituary, which she sends on to the rest of her classmates.
“One of the girls said, ‘You know, Sheila, every time I get an email from you, I don’t want to open it because I don’t want to know who died,'” Black said. “And I said, ‘I’m only trying to keep you in touch.’ Every time at this point in our lives, you read your obituaries and you find out things about your classmate that you never knew. It’s history.”
As the group has aged, they’ve relied more on family members to provide transportation and logistics. The crowd at September’s reunion numbered 37 — “more family members than classmates,” Black said.
Some of them have taken it on as an annual tradition of their own.
One longtime attendee who lived in Ohio died before this year’s meetup. His son and granddaughter, who’d accompanied him to last year’s reunion, came back to be with the people who’d known him when he was young.
“I just thought, ‘Oh, no, they’ll back out.’ What in the world do they want to come and hang around with old people when their grandfather is gone, their dad’s gone?” Black said. “But they were there and had a wonderful time and thanked me immensely for keeping them posted. So those are the warm fuzzies of it all.”
Now entering their 90s, the members of the 1954 class met over two days – Sept. 25 and 26 – for this year’s reunion.
On Friday, 13 classmates and their family members met in the lobby of the Hampton Inn in Waynesburg for pizza, sandwiches and other treats — and naturally for Waynesburg alumni, cupcakes decorated as the Red Raider.
It’s an early meetup for the seniors-turned-seniors, with socializing at 4 p.m. followed by eating at 5.
“And of course, by the time it gets to 6:30 or 7, we’re heading home because we don’t party anymore,” Black said.
Fifteen students turned out for Saturday’s meetup at Back Bay Catering in Carmichaels, where they ate a buffet dinner. In the background played a slide show of photos, a mix of vintage shots dating back to their middle school years and of the new memories they’ve made since 2004.
They also had a piano singalong of old favorites like “How Much Is That Doggy In the Window” and “Amazing Grace.”
Classmate Jay Stiles, a retired professor from Virginia Tech, was pounding the keys. A genealogical researcher, he also compiled a book of yearbook highlights for the fellow alumni, and brought for the taking several Waynesburg High School Oracle yearbooks, and Waynesburg College Mad Anthony yearbooks.
“He said, ‘My kids say I cannot bring another book home,'” Black said.
Ayersman’s wife of 62 years, Lila Ayersman, said several other classes from Waynesburg have been holding their own reunions. She’s one of five or six members of her own Waynesburg graduating class of 1963 who meet up on a monthly basis.
She also comes with Joe to his get-togethers.
“It’s nice just to see where they’re at now and how they’re doing,” she said.
This year’s is looking like the last for the annual meetup, Black said. Four members of the seven-member organizing committee are left. And as they get older, it becomes more of an ordeal to arrange.
But the 10 or so students living within a half-hour of Waynesburg are still talking about a less formal meetup, Black said.
“I said, ‘Well, maybe we could plan something like Saturday for brunch or Saturday afternoon because we don’t see too well at night anymore to drive ourselves,'” she said.