The few, the fit and the determined
Go ahead and call them artifacts. They won't smack you. They're happy to be alive and hearty enough to still party.
With an average age of 91, they belong to the Class of 1933 at Greensboro Senior High School, now known as Grimsley. They will hold their 73rd reunion May 13 at Muirs Chapel United Methodist Church.
The class numbered 372 graduates. One, Tommy Cox of Greensboro, estimates 48 to 50 are still alive.
He's got 16 definites for the reunion. One classmate is coming from Michigan.
The class holds annual reunions. The survivors have reached the age where waiting for reunions just on years ending in five and zero is actuarily chancy.
Their principal, Charlie Phillips, stayed in touch with the class until his death in 1989. Cox remembers during the early 1930s, the Depression, money was too scarce for Mr. Charlie, as he was known, to have a secretary.
Phillips summoned students taking business courses to take dictation and type his letters, Cox says.
"We had a ball last year," he says of 2005 get-together. Twenty attended. He's hoping he can reach that figure by May 13.
One woman came from California last year. She's still alive, but has said the trip would too arduous to make again.
The class looks forward to a milestone 75th anniversary in two years, when the city celebrates its bicentennial.
After that, it may be that proverbial situation of the last one alive turning out the lights.