Mona Waibel
For The New Era
Oregon’s new logo is all about dreaming and some of the city’s fathers have been dreaming for 40 years now, all about having money for scholars at Sweet Home High School. Many of our high school seniors need help with their college tuition. Our dream is to have money to pay ALL the college tuition for graduating seniors. Who are we? We are the Sweet Home Alumni Foundation.
We are alumni who believe in dollars for scholars.
How did we begin dreaming this enormous dream? Back in the 1970s, Jim Riggs, Keith Gabriel, Marge Kikel, Lucretia Seiber and yours truly, Mona Waibel, worked on many class reunions. It was Seiber’s idea to bring several years of classes together for a large reunion. At this time we had not talked of an all school reunion. About 15 years of classes from the late 1940s to the end of the 1950s enjoyed several successful reunions at the same date in Sweet Home. Our five-some was on a roll!
Jim Riggs, being the head dreamer of our group, pointed out the need our high school had for scholarships. Our goal is to raise enough money, to perpetually pay scholarships from the income and not touch the principal. Now how could we raise such an enormous amount of money? Fund raiser ideas were of course necessary. Now we thought of an all school reunion! And of course 1992 was the 100th anniversary of the first graduating class from Sweet Home High School. SHAF’s group was expanding and we needed this extra help, badly.
And with much work and planning, this all school reunion was actually held in 1992. How were we going to raise money from the reunion? Of course we asked for alumni to help with our cost of mailing, we asked for help with the meals we served. Most everyone sent what they could spare and that was a start toward a bank account that made money for scholars. Many other things had to be made and sold to make a small profit from each item.
Remember, we did yellow t-shirts with a green Husky logo on the front; we also made souvenir booklets with stories; there were great coffee mugs with SHHS then -1882 and now- 1992; we sold tickets on a fabulous quilt with signatures and pictures of our school; and the list could go on and on.
Our group worked very hard, but we were concerned that we had not received many responses. But we were optimistic and planned for a large crowd. And of course a huge crowd came. The town was really jumping for joy at all the turnout of alumni who came home again.
On Saturday evening we did a colossal show; a cavalcade through the 100 years. It was fabulous and we sold videos of the performances. Everything, mostly turned out even better than we had planned. What wonderful talent there was to draw on, singing, dancing, we even brought members from classes into Husky field in a classic car of that era. People who attended loved their reunion and couldn’t wait for our group to do another all school reunion. And we did make enough money to start giving out a few scholarships to the graduating seniors of 1993. Success!
Well, you know most of the rest of the story, we did another all school reunion celebrating 2000. It also was a tremendous success. And a great deal of work too. But you know what happens in small towns, sometimes you run short of enough workers to do huge undertakings, year after year. But our bank account grew again, enough to give a few more scholarships. Memorials scholarships began to also supplement our bank account. Staff members who taught and worked at SHHS, left money for scholars, too. There are many ways to leave money to help SHHS graduates. We will be telling you more about SHAF in future stories. SHAF president, Ben Dahlenburg carries on the work today. Board members are working to inform Sweet Home alumni of the “dream”.
People ask again and again “when will there be another all school reunion?” We certainly hope there will be. Of course, there needs to be more people to help make another reunion a success. Our group is a little tired and perhaps those of us that are 70-plus years can’t quite do as much today! Jim Riggs, Keith Gabriel and Lucretia Seiber are gone now; and we miss their leadership and hard work. But I have faith that other alumni will step forward and carry on our dream!
Call someone on our board, for more information.
Ben Dahlenburg, 541-367-4677 (home); Bob Dalton, 541-367-5371 (home); Phyllis Osborn, 541-367-2150 (home); Peggy Emmert, 541-367-2424 (w) or 367-8484; Steve Hanscam, 541-367-2157 (w) or 367-2285; Jann Horner, 541-259-1201 (w) or 367-6375; Mary McDonald, 541-367-6191 (w); Tim McQueary, 541-367-2956 (home); Coreen Melcher, 541-367-7140 (w) or 367-6235; Mary Sue Reynolds, 541-367-4968 (home); Dawn Waldrop, 541-367-2230 (w) or 367-1973; Mona Waibel, 541-367-3803 (home); Ivan Wolthuis, 541-367-2931 (w) or 367-2309; Lauri Carlson, 541-367-6751 (home).