10 Year High School Reunion

Originally Posted 8/7/24

Event Date 7/20/24

image of 16 people standing for a group photo on a lawn. In the background are trees, a river, and even a mountain in the distance. From left to right, starting with the back row, is Aiden Thomson, Sam Osterhoudt, Everett Knagg, Dane Mowris, Robert (Bobby) Morse, Travis Lasher, Todd Shanley, Patrick Martin, Dylan Thomson, Steven Tanzi. Middle Row, from Left to Right, is Mackensie Abela, Marissa Flannery, Daphne Schroeder, Colette Sofokles. Bottom Row from left to right: Ainsley Manino, Arlie Hart

I can't believe it's been 10 years

It's still kind of wild to me it's been 10 years since High School graduation. High School feels both like it was forever ago, and also that time has flown since then. I remember in high school thinking people in their 20s had everything figured out. But here I am at 28 feeling like I'm still sort of spinning my wheels and figuring things out. It was also really cool to see how much people look both pretty much how I remember them, but yet different. I guess that's sort of what happens as people grow up but cool to see that sort of transition almost instantly since I haven't seen some of the people there in 10 years. It was great also just hearing about what people have been up to over the years - who had traveled, moved away, gotten cool jobs, or just gone back to school.

This post is going to largely just be a photo dump of the event. But I'll try to give some info or stories along the way. First up, I want to talk about how this event was planed. I want to say it started over a year ago - the first time I remember hearing about it was Ainsley Manino posting on Twitter about wanting to make a 10 year reunion happen, and me and one of my friends Dylan Thomson commenting asking to be kept in the loop about it. The next I heard about it was on Facebook, where Ainsley made a post in an old Facebook Group we had made for our class back when we were all in high school. She made a post explaining they were looking to make a 10 year reunion happen, and had put together a questionnaire to try to figure out when the best time, location, etc. would be for people. Ainsley was helped by Marissa Flannery, Logan Cook, Mackensie Abela, and Colette Sofokles. I reached out to Ainsley to talk about putting together a website (Link or Wayback Machine Link) with all the relevant info so if people weren't on Facebook, there was a spot they could see updates.

From there, I believe there were some follow up questionnaire's to narrow things further, and eventually there was a date and time set! Originally Greig Farm was picked as the location, and it'd be $95 per person to be able to afford the venue. Unfortunately, not enough people signed up so those plans had to be cancelled. There was still a handful of people that wanted to hang out though, and so plans were made to meet up at a local park (basically) called Blithewood. It was bring your own everything, but you could catch up with people. And the turn out ended up being pretty good! On the day of it rained a bit, but there's a historic building on Blithewood which had some spots with large overhangs we were able to be under to wait out the rain.

The last thing before moving on to photos, is I want to just label who's in the photo above: From left to right, starting with the back row, is Aiden Thomson, Sam Osterhoudt, Everett Knagg, Dane Mowris, Robert (Bobby) Morse, Travis Lasher, Todd Shanley, Patrick Martin, Dylan Thomson, Steven Tanzi. Middle Row, from Left to Right, is Mackensie Abela, Marissa Flannery, Daphne Schroeder, Colette Sofokles. Bottom Row from left to right: Ainsley Manino, Arlie Hart.

First Up, Some Old Photos:

First up I wanted to share two of my photos from my High School Graduation. I think it's kind of cool to see how peopel have grown over time:

Photo of 4 high school graduating seniors outside in red robes and hats. From Left to right, Travis Lasher, Steven Tanzi, Nick Lombardo, Justin Timperio Photo of 7 high school graduating seniors indoors taking a group photo. From left to right, in the top row, Tanner Coon, Dylan Thomson, Aiden Thomson, Dane Mowris, Parker Richmond, Alex Duntz. Kneeling is Steven Tanzi

In the second photo, you can see some of the people from the group photo but from back in High School - Specifically Dylan and Aiden Thomson, and Dane Mowris.

Now, the New photos:

A phot of a group of people standing outside but underneath an overhang with a tiled floor. In the center of the photo, there are 4 people talking to each other, one in a hawaiian shirt as well as a straw hat

The man with the hat in that photo is Arlie Hart. Sort of funny moment, a lot of us were hanging in that overhang area before Arlie showed up. When he did, we saw him walking across the grass with the hat being very noticable, all of us kind of squinting like "Is that Arlie?". It was just sort of a nice moment of seeing an fashion choice you don't really see but then immediately going "Ah, yeah, that totally fits that person really well". He had mentioned he started getting really into hats either during or right after COVID, I forget which, which was cool to hear about.

photo of a few people standing in somewhat of a circle, with one man smiling at a woman while they talk

One interesting fact here is the man smiling in the photo, Dane Mowris, still holds the benching record in our High School. Another fun story, the woman in white on the right, Marissa Flannery. Back in I want to say 6th grade, a group of us all went to her house to look at the stars through a telescope as part of one of our classes.

Photo of two women smiling towards the camera. One is in a black dress, the other a sort of white dress with red looking star shaped objects Photo of a group of people in a rough circle, with two women in the foreground talking to each other and two men in the background talking with each other. Photo of a man and woman smiling towards the camera. The man is in a blue shirt, the woman in a grey shirt and green overalls. It is raining behind them

So the woman on the left, Ainsley Manino, is the one who seemed to spearhead a lot of the planning process for the reunion.

A selfie where a smiling woman is holding the camera, with a man in front of her and a man behind her. The man behind her is smiling with an open mouth

The woman in the middle is my girlfriend Michelle Lombardo. I was really grateful for her taking most of the photos, so I was able to focus on catching up with people. She also did a great job getting people to take selfies with her, or get photos taken in general. Fun fact about the man behind her, Robert (Bobby) Morse - Michelle did not believe he actually existed until meeting him that day.

A photo of two women smiling. One woman is in a grey shirt and green overalls. The other woman is wearing white pants with a greyish green top A photo of a man with a baseball cap and grey shirt on smiling towards the camera. Another man also looks at the camera from the background

Another fun fact about Dane, he's a truck driver! Has been doing it for a number of years now, and is a great example of being able to make good money without going to college.

Photo of 4 people in a rough circle. One man in a bright blue shirt appears to be in the middle of saying something Photo of two men where one is holding a yellow canned beverage, and the other has both his hands on the first ones shoulders Photo of two identical men making a bit of a funny face towards the camera

The Twins! Dylan and Aiden Thomson. Both artists, and I had also just seen at Tanner's Wedding. Michelle mentioned to me previously how it made her really happy seeing us interact with each other, because it seemed like our humors all lined up really well. Which, makes sense given we were all in High School together.

Photo of two identical men and a woman taking a selfie together Photo of 4 people, two on the left side of the frame, two on the right. The two women on the left are both smiling and seem to be mid laugh. The man and woman on the right seem to be mid conversation Photo of 4 people - a man in a grew shirt, a man in a blue shirt, a man in a yellow shirt, and a woman in an orange outfit. Both the grey shirtted man and orange wearing woman seem mid conversation. Photo of three men, one seems to be mid stretch while the other two look at him Photo of a woman in an orange outfit giving the peace sign. There is another woman adjusting her glasses towards the right of the frame.

I don't think I've mentioned this yet, but this is Zakiah who will be marrying Sam Osterhoudt in just a few months at time of writing!

Photo of two men where one is sideways making a silly face towards the camera while the other is holding the peace sign Photo of a man smiling

One thing that was nice about having Michelle take the photos is I don't have many of myself.

Photo of three men talking. One is pointing off camera, one is looking in the same direction as the point, and one is looking at the man pointing Photo of a woman smiling on top of a cooler

This is one of my favorite photos from the event. Just seeing Michelle look so happy.

Photo of a man smiling in front of a green lawn with a river and mountain off in the distance

This is Travis Lasher, someone I've known for a really long time at this point. We hung out the most in late high school, early college where we'd often go hiking. A lot of the photography I've done in my life has Travis in it, as most of my photos were done while hiking.

Photo of a green lawn with some trees, with a river in the mid ground and a mountain in the background

This is the view from Blithewood, where the event was. I really miss how pretty where I grew up is.

Photo of a woman sitting in a lawn chair eating some pizza

This is another one of my favorite photos from the event.

A photo of a group of people either sitting or standing near some stairs, talking with each other A photo of two women talking with each other, with a third giving the peace sign towards the camera A photo of four men talking with each other A photo of a woman looking towards two men. One is laughing, the other seems to be in the middle of telling a story Photo of a group of people standing or sitting in a rough circle around some stairs with one person smiling directly at the camera Photo of a man in a grey shirt holding a bottle of water Photo of two groups of three people talking. One group is at the top of some stairs, the other at the bottom of some stairs A selfie of both a man and a woman. The woman is smiling, the man looks a bit more stoic