Classmates,
While your Reunion Committee won’t claim the Reunion was a 100% success as there are always some glitches, we hope more things went right than wrong and that the vast majority of you had a good time. That said, your Reunion Committee pledges to strive to do even better for our 50th Reunion.
To help in our assessment of our 45th and planning for the 50th, we will be soliciting your feedback with a survey. It will be out shortly. You’ll be getting a separate notice with a link to the survey site when it is up and running.
“Tale of the Tape.” We had a great turnout for our Reunion and reunion events. Here are the numbers:
- 529 Classmates Registered
- 84 Signed up for the Golf Tournament
- 424 Signed up for the Welcome Reception
- 507 Signed up for the Memorial Service
- 399 Signed up for the Class Meeting
- 307 Signed up for the Supe’s and Alumni Association Brief
- 242 Signed up for the Prayer Breakfast
- 873 Signed up for the Tailgate
- 90 Signed up for the Farewell Brunch
SWAG and ’78 Branded gear Still Available.
We have a limited amount of 45th Reunion Yeti tumblers available for purchase from the Reunion Committee on a first come, first served basis. The price is $49 each. Shipping costs will be based on your mailing address. See the flyer at the end of this update for more info.
You may still order Class of ’78 Branded gear from Lands’ End and Forever Firstie. Here again are the links and gouge:
Forever Firstie. Forever Firstie will have the ’78 special event page on the main menu up until 2024 reunions start to come into play. The products themselves will never go away. They are and always will be available on the all products menu. You’ll just have to do a little searching to find it once the 1978 reunion menu goes away. To order: Go to the “1978 Reunion” tab on the website for highlighted items. You can pretty much order any of the catalog items with either our Class Crest or “USNA 78”, on them. You can order additional Yetis too.
Lands’ End. Two logos available to be embroidered on all apparel available from Lands’ End Business: Class crest and “N-star with 1978”. Class crest available apparel available from Lands’ End Business. The “N Star 1978” logo is only available to be embroidered on the Collegiate Collection. Two ways to get to the Land’s End site:
- Via Class website, www.usna1978.org (“Links”, “Class of 1978”). On the next page, look under “Class/ USNA Gear.” The first two links are to the Class Crest logo and to the N Star logo. Click on the link for the logo you want. Follow instructions. Use code EFLFS to get the free logo and free shipping.
- Order items directly from Land’s End. Click on the link for the logo you want, and it should take you to the Lands’ End Business site, then follow the previous instructions. Remember to use the code EFLFS.
http://business.landsend.com/store/usna1978/
https://business.landsend.com/store/usna78_n_star/
Reunion Photos:
You may have noticed that this year we only had a professional photographer at the reunion to take the class photo after the Memorial Service. Our photographer for the last few reunions, Bruce Latta’s (25th Co.) wife Debbie, was not available. The Committee figured the abundance of you were taking photos across the Reunion days and within your own company events. While we are also culling those social media posts, we ask that you upload photos you desire to our class website. The instructions are in Q3 in the FAQ section of our class website (https://www.usna1978.org/faq/)). You can send them directly to our Webmaster, Matt Elias at mpelias78@gmail.com and he will upload them.
Reunion Class Photo (in front of the Chapel). The photo looks great!! You can find the gallery here: https://hamiltonphotography.shootproof.com/USNAclass1978
The photo will have a watermark over it while viewing in the gallery, however once you download it, it will be free of the watermark. Please make sure to download the photo using the “download all” link found in the upper right corner of the gallery main page. The photo will only be hosted in the online gallery until Feb 29, 2024.
You can share the above link with all the people needing the photo and they can log in and download for themselves.
Al “Blues” Baker’s Memorial Service Homily. Regrettably, we did not have a video of our Memorial Service and capture Al Baker’s wonderful homily. As with our 40th, we did obtain his text and have provided that to our webmaster to place on our Class Website’s 45th Reunion tab. If anyone was able to capture any of the service on video, please share with classmates by uploading to our class website. Just follow the guidance above in the “Reunion Photos” section.
Thanks. Your Reunion Committee Leads would like to thank the event coordinators for their hard work in making the Reunion and their events the great success they were:
- John Rudzis- Hotel Coordinator
- Joe Martin- Golf Tournament Coordinator (Since he’s moved to Williamsburg, VA, we’re looking for someone to take over the job.)
- Kevin McGhee- Memorial Event Lead
- Jim Fiorelli, Ray Milton, and Fred Butterfield- Prayer Breakfast Lead and Team
We also would like to acknowledge the generosity of John Semcken and John Young; and thank them for their donations that provided Golf participant golf memorabilia and prizes. Thanks, Shipmates!
Go Navy! BEAT ARMY!
John Cooke Vince Balderrama
45th Reunion Chair 45th Reunion Assistant Chair
Start planning to attend our 50th Reunion!
“But still when two or three shall meet, and old tales be retold,
From low to highest in the Fleet, we’ll pledge the Blue & Gold.”