A super partner for publicizing our reunion

Dean McCormack

You may not realize it but Sandra and Neil Morris have their hand on just about everything good that happens in our reunion activities.  Neither like to stand up front and take the credit for things, but both of them work by suggestion, friendly advice or support to help make sure everything comes out alright.  When I asked Neil one day to send out an announcement about our website trying to get some much needed publicity for it, he promptly accommodated me--but, he included Dean McCormack on his e-mail list.  He, of course, knew Dean would jump right on this topic and offer space in her column in The Colbert County Reporter to publicize the website and our reunion--and she did!

The CCR is a weekly newspaper published in Tuscumbia with a healthy combination of legal notices and local news.  Dean's column is on page 2 and is called "Town Talk."  It's a good, old-fashioned chatty column about a lot of the good things that happen in small town America, mostly Tuscumbia, but occasionally other Colbert County locations make it into her column, too.  She has been very good about publishing Buck Locke's write-ups of the past reunions--stories recording the events that were held.  Dean's always looking to promote things that interest people who read the CCR, and she latched onto the reunion as a topic that she thought merited not one report but many regular updates prior to the reunion as the time for the event neared.

I was invited to write an article about the reunion of my choosing back in August of 2005.  That was when I picked the topic of being a thankless graduate of SHS, never attending reunions and finally making the 45th--an experience that made me want to get 100% attendance at the 50th.  This generated the idea of the website.  After completing this project and having it published on my birthday, September 2, 2005, I thought I was done with newspaper article writing.  Boy, was I wrong!  When the reunion was 3-4 months away, I heard from Dean again proposing that I provide more reunion-oriented information and updates on the status of the planning.  I ended up contributing 3-4 articles.

The article recording the history of the reunion which just appeared was the collaborative effort of Buck and myself with the invaluable proofreading and improvements provided by Neil Morris.  Neil, in the absence of both Buck and I who were "on the road," handled the submission tasks.

The articles related to our Golden Reunion are reprinted here to give you the idea of how much of her column Dean was willing to devote to our publicity, and we hope you enjoy reviewing the preliminaries that led up to the reunion as well as the account of the reunion, itself.  Get yourself a copy of the June 16 and June 30 editions of The Colbert County Reporter as a keepsake.

The Prodigal Alumnus

September 2, 2005

Reunions Renew Friendships

April 7, 2006

SHS Class of '56 Reunion Events

April 14, 2006

An Account of the SHS Class of '56 Golden Reunion

June 16, 2006

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cooperation we got from the