TC Central, West grads to reunite

By GRETCHEN MURRAY
gmurray@record-eagle.com

October 15, 2008 12:00 am

—

TRAVERSE CITY -- The alumni of Traverse City Area Public Schools' graduating class of 1998 are doing something they vowed to do 10 years ago -- they're getting back together. Members of the class of '98 will have the chance to reconnect during their 10-year reunion set for 7 p.m. Saturday at the Great Wolf Lodge.

Class reunions aren't unusual, but the class of '98 was.

Midway during the school year, the senior class was divided in two with part of the class staying on at Central High School while the rest were sent to newly completed Traverse City West.

Mariah (Nisbett) Powell, one of the reunion organizers, remembers the feeling of being torn from her familiar surroundings and fellow classmates for the final four months of her high school career.

"Everyone was at Central High School and we knew it was over capacity, so there was a need for a new school," Powell said. "West was supposed to open in September 1997, but because of construction delays, it didn't open until the end of January. They started the school year with duplicate classes with West people in one class and Central in another class, so that whenever the building opened they weren't splitting classrooms down the middle. That was their rationale for not keeping seniors together."

Powell said that when the nearly 760 classmates realized they weren't going to be able to stay together, they reasoned that even though they may have been divided by buildings, the spirit of the class couldn't be broken.

Powell was among the seniors who moved to West and recalls that by the time seniors found their way around the new building they were done.

She remembers that a number of hockey and tennis players had to open enroll at Central to keep the teams together, and the marching band played for both schools during that unusual school year.

"There was never a question that the prom was going to be split or graduation was going to be split. It was obviously going to be together because we were still one class," she said.

Graduation for both high schools was held together at Interlochen Center for the Arts. Powell wore the green robes of West Senior High while her friends and classmates at Central wore their black caps and gowns.

"It would have been nice to stay together, but we were fine," she said in retrospect. Powell along with other class reunion organizers are compiling an alumni database. Members of the class are requested to e-mail their contact information to TCReunion98@yahoo.com.