The 1970 graduating class from Central Collegiate Institute is having a reunion at the Moose Jaw Shrine Club on Friday, August 26 and Saturday, August 27, and organizers recently decided to include the ’71 class.
“Just our last meeting on Tuesday, we decided we would open it up to the class of ’71,” said Jeannette Cole, a member of the planning committee. “Some of them had indicated they’d like to join us, but we weren’t sure because of the size of the Shrine Club.”
The Shrine Club is at 1767 Main Street North and can comfortably fit about 125 people. Because the 1970 class had around 165 graduates, the reunion committee had to limit attendance.
However, the event has been planned for the last two years and has endured the familiar drama and compromises of the (hopefully) once-in-a-generation pandemic.
“It’s been amazing, actually, how many people had indicated that they would love to come in 2020 and that now have health issues, or their partner has health issues,” Cole explained. “So, they’re unable to come. That two years has just made a big difference.”
The reunion will begin Friday night with a meet ‘n greet from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. Cole hopes the Friday evening will have several teachers from that era to mingle and chat with their former students.
The committee have booked tee-off times at the Lynbrook Golf Club for Saturday morning and guests have been signing up for those times.
There will also be pickleball on Saturday, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Central gym. From 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. there will be tours of Central Collegiate. A lot has changed at the school, Cole said, so they hope to have plenty of participation in those tours for classmates to reconnect and reminisce.
Saturday evening will start with cocktails at 5 p.m. with dinner to follow at 6.
“We’ll have a few little speeches (at dinner), nothing much, and then we’re going to start the gas at 8,” Cole said. “We have live music. One of our former graduates is Gregg Gower, who is a member of the Bromantics, and he’s got another band together.”
Cole said that Gower and his group have been hard at work practicing their 60s and 70s jams and she’s looking forward to dancing the night away.
“The people I know are coming are all really fun people, and I know we’re going to have a great time,” Cole said. “I would encourage anyone that’s hemming and hawing about whether or not to attend to come out. I think it’s going to be a really fun weekend.”
To RSVP, contact Jeannette Cole at [email protected], or by phone at 306-681-6893.
