Organizers hopeful their famous classmate Hillary Clinton will attend the Maine South and East high schools 60 year reunion

Chicago Tribune

2 days ago

Later this month, members of the Maine East/Maine South high school class of 1965 – which includes notable alums Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Candy – will attend what organizers believe will be their last formal reunion.
'Everybody that I talk to asks: 'Is Hillary coming? Is Hillary coming?'' Maine East/Maine South Class of '65 reunion committee member Bill Frey said, referring to the former secretary of state and first lady.
'I hope she does come, really,' Frey said, 'because this will be our last formal one.'
The reunion is set to start June 20 with a cocktail reception. The main event is scheduled for the next day, with both taking place at the Hyatt Regency O'Hare Chicago, organizers explained.
The Class of 1965 was divided between two schools in the students' senior year, but they have – with few exceptions – held joint reunions every five years. In addition to Clinton and Candy, the class counts among its alumni an Olympic torch-bearer and a Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter.
Their 1995 reunion drew national attention when Clinton, now a former New York senator, U.S. secretary of state and Democratic candidate for U.S. president, hosted the event in Washington D.C. during her time as first lady. Clinton had been one of the first students to graduate from Maine South High School.
According to archived clippings from the student newspaper, 'Southwords,' Clinton, then Rodham, helped write a constitution for the student body leadership and campaigned for Republican Barry Goldwater in a student mock election.
Nevertheless, Frey pointed out that the success stories to come out of Maine East and Maine South go beyond Clinton.
He mentioned their classmate Tim Lindgren, a Hyatt hotel chain executive, helped Clinton's childhood friend Betsy Johnson Ebeling and other organizers plan for the 1995 reunion. There were approximately 1,200 attendees.
'Betsy and I were sort of the ringleaders of the Washington reunion,' Lindgren said. 'I was kind of a vehicle to help them with things like the Grand Hyatt Washington and helping them with the catering.'
Ebeling died in 2019.
And before Clinton was on the national stage, their classmate Steve Goodman had captured the spotlight for his folk songs like, 'You Never Even Call Me By My Name,' 'City of New Orleans,' and 'Go, Cubs, Go!' Goodman died of leukemia in 1984.
'He just passed away too soon. A tremendous talent,' said Frey. 'He was a revered member of our class.'
Frey said that after the class's 10-year reunion in 1975, the members of the class of '65 devoted themselves almost religiously to attending reunions every five years.
'The only one we missed, really, is during the COVID year, 2020,' he said.
Lindgren pointed out that the Class of '65 lived through a transformative and divisive time. They graduated a few years after President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated, the Vietnam War was beginning to escalate and the Civil Rights Movement was reaching a boiling point.
But Lindgren believes it's the fact that his class was divided physically that sets them apart.
'You had to go to Maine South or you had to go to Maine East, and Oakland Street in Park Ridge was the dividing line,' Lindgren said.
He believes it's that separation that has made his classmates so determined to hold on to those ties for so many years.
'All of a sudden, you split from all your friends. That was really hard for a lot of us,' he said. 'We were two separate schools, but we decided we would always be one reunion in one group.'
But he also recognizes that as class members reach their late-70s, many of them won't make the trip back in another five years, and that soon there won't be enough of them to hold big formal reunions anymore.
'I think we'll see that this is the last highly organized reunion that will ever happen' for this graduating class, he said.