For each reunion, we have to thank someone for stepping up to the plate and getting the ball rolling. For the 40th Reunion that person was Holly Horton.
Holly wasn't even with us for most of our six years at Massapequa High - she moved from Hicksville to Massapequa and joined our class in our senior year. Yet one year was quite enough to cement some strong bonds.
After high school she went into teaching and retired to her parents' home in Nassau Shores after 28 years of teaching in the Lindenhurst schools. Her father was ill and needed constant care which she selflessly provided until his passing in 1999.
Shortly thereafter, Holly launched into a new career of organizing reunions - and not just ours, but also a multi-year reunion for Hicksville High School.
Holly began the effort for our 40th reunion with a call to Art Schweithelm in the Spring of 2000. Art had organized the 30th reunion after being inspired by Jim Reardon in Chicago and Fred Black in Seattle. Basically, they said, "We're coming and you'd better have a reunion for us to go to!" Two weeks later Art drew 110 people to the 30th Reunion. He always regretted not having more time to do it right.
Art provided Holly with a ten year old list of names, addresses and phone numbers and copies of pictures from the 30th reunion that Holly posted to a web site that is no longer available. That Holly was voluntarily starting to organize the 40th more than a year ahead of time, was Art's wish fulfilled.
At first, she was a team of one launching a whole new way of putting a reunion together - through email. It is obvious that she had been bitten by the computer bug.
On a weekly basis Holly would send all classmates on her list several emails at once. These would keep them updated on reunion events and provide some amusements on the side. The principal amusement was a "Getting to Know You Quiz," that classmates were asked to fill out and return. It had 36 questions, some serious, but most begging for imaginative reponses. She took these results and mailed them back out to the Classmates List. Click here to see the Getting to Know You Quiz.
In August of 2000 she put out an email asking if anyone would be interested in helping her. Two people responded - Barbara Winkleston and Pat Mahoney. The team expanded to three.
I received my initial bundle of email on Labor Day weekend of 2000. I looked Holly up on switchboard.com and discovered that she lived all of four blocks away. With the kids in tow, I knocked on her door the next Saturday and we had a pleasant 90 minute conversation. We discovered a common interest in computers and especially video on the computer. Holly asked if I would be interested in helping her set up a Reunion web site. I said yes and the team expanded to four.
Six days later Holly died suddenly, likely a victim of a long addiction to cigarettes. At her wake many relatives, friends, and associates from Lindenhurst schools were present. Barbara, Pat and I attended in the evening, but strangely, no one from Hicksville High School was there - they had come in the afternoon. It is a great and very sad irony, that the Hicksville Reunion occurred on the night of her wake.
Unfortunately, none of us involved in the 40th Reunion had known Holly very long. But from our brief experience, we can say that she should be remembered as a person who served her family well, had serious health problems that she did not dwell on, and single-handedly launched an enthusiastic, imaginative, and solid effort to insure a successful 40th Reunion for our class.
-- Paul Mangels