Turner grad find reunion planning difficult

Kelli Lewis is scouring Web sites like MySpace, Facebook and Classmates.com in search of alumni from R.L. Turner High School’s Class of 1998. Lewis, the class secretary, and other class officers are trying to plan the 10-year reunion, but have no list of current addresses to track down alumni.

“I know the school district used to keep them (current addresses) up,” Lewis said. “That’s how it was when I graduated and what I was told.”

According to the Carrollton-Farmers Branch Independent School District, no one maintains a list of alumni addresses from any of the high schools.

“We don’t keep track because of privacy rights,” said Angela Shelley, spokeswoman. “We did an alumni directory several years ago, published in 1999. That was the last year we did such an endeavor to track down students.”

The district outsourced the directory to a company called Harris Graduate Connection, which put the book together.

Shelley said schools try to stress to class officers it is their responsibility to keep up with alumni and plan reunions.

“We tell class presidents of the long lasting responsibility,” Shelley said. “They’re the ones who plan and help to do that. Creating some connections or maintaining is part of what they do.”

Lewis is disheartened by the fact that she has not been able to locate alumni n so far about 100 out of 450 have been located n and said other schools don’t seem to have such a problem.

“My brother is celebrating his 20-year reunion at (Newman) Smith this year and my husband had his 10 from Smith a few years ago. Both had companies that planned the reunion for them,” Lewis said. “We contacted those companies to see if they would do ours, but they say they lose money on Turner reunions because of poor attendance. I’m almost certain the poor attendance is due to a lack of current addresses. If you can’t contact the right people, you obviously won’t have a high attendance.”

Lewis also contacted the woman who organized Turner’s Class of 1997 reunion and said that reunion only had about 150 attendees because of the lack of current addresses.

The officers from Turner’s Class of 1998 are planning to hold the reunion June 28 and are considering Sneaky Pete’s in Lewisville.

Contact Senitra Horbrook at 972-628-4074 or shorbrook@acnpapers.com. Comment on this story at scntx.com.

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