30 Year Reunion Event Plans

Can an entire reunion be accomplished in just one evening? Maybe, maybe not.  Plans have been made for not just Saturday July 19, 2003, but for Friday evening, July 18, and Sunday, July 20.

Please come and join us on Friday evening, July 18, 2003 in the lobby area of the Hilton hotel for a no host gathering and very casual soirée. If you are visiting from out of town, you can arrange to meet with friends. If you want to reacquaint yourself with the local area, you can mingle with the "locals" and find new and interesting places to visit during your stay. For many "locals" here is a chance to reconnect informally with other "locals" who you have been meaning to catch up with for such a long time.

Saturday, July 19 “The Reunion”

Ke-Alians 30 year Reunion celebration will be held at the Port of Los Angeles/San Pedro Hilton Hotel on the evening of July 19, 2003.

Festivities begin at 4:30 P.M. with registration, photographs, no host bar, and informal gathering of celebrants in the patio area and lobby of the hotel.

The formal dinner and dance will begin at 6:00 P.M. in the Madeo Room on the second floor of the banquet facilities. This is the same room where the classmates celebrated the 25 year reunion in 1998.

The committee plans on ample room for people to reminisce with friends and view photographs from earlier years.

A deejay has been hired to spin the songs that are most requested and there will be some surprise tunes as well.

The reunion committee will do its best to keep the announcements very limited in time and scope during the dinner so there will be plenty of time to fully enjoy the entire experience. However, during the evening there will be an announcement about a surprise event set for the next day, Sunday, July 20, 2003. The committee keeps the event a secret for as long as possible for several reasons. First, we want to see the most number of people come to the reunion on July 19. Second, the planning of the surprise event will not be complete until just before the reunion begins. Third, the event can include family members and is usually enjoyed by all.

The formal engagement will end at midnight. As in the past, there will be an after-reunion reunion. The reunion committee has been given a room by the hotel for just such an event.

The hotel is situated along the docks of a yacht harbor in an area which used to be the lower reservation of Fort MacArthur, just off of 22nd Street in San Pedro. From the walkways that surround the hotel, participants can view the outer breakwater, outer harbor, and inner Cabrillo Beach. With friends by your side, you can stroll past dream boats moored alongside the hotel.

Sunday, July 20 is a surprise day. The committee keeps most of the plans for this day a somewhat closely guarded secret. The committee would like to offer some sightseeing tours to those places that class members have found near and dear to them. Sadly, many of the sites are gone, moved, paved over, or had condos built above them. But the ocean is still here and perhaps a little trek around town may bring back fond memories.

In planning any tour, it is probably a good idea to see the new football field. If you remember when the Ke-Alians graduated, it was on a field that was short, had bleachers that ran down only one side, and ran basically east to west. It is safe to say that the biggest change in our little town is the new football stadium at San Pedro High School. The new field now runs basically north to south and has aluminum bleachers on both sides. The concrete arch that used to stand near the boys' locker room has been moved to behind the north end zone. The baseball fields that were on the original site are now on a lower portion of the property on what used to be 15th Street. Many houses were removed to make the new fields and enlarge the classroom areas.