Orleans High Alumni Reconnect

ORLEANS – It’s been 66 years since Orleans High School served its last graduating class, the class of 1959. This past weekend, members of past classes took the opportunity to go back to school and reconnect with some familiar faces.

On Saturday, Sept. 13 the classes of 1950 through 1962 had a joint class reunion at the current Nauset Regional Middle School, which was formerly the Orleans High School. More than 60 alumni, ages ranging from 81 to 93, shared a common refrain, that getting the chance to see so many people from their past was a “wonderful” experience. 

Barbara Neese Fulcher, who organized the event, credits the idea’s origin to a conversation with some of the “high school girls” who have lunch once a month.

“The group that we do lunch together every month, said we’re going to do something in 2025,” Fulcher began, “and someone said, ‘maybe we can do a joint one,’ so I got ahold of Pete Norgeot, who did the Orleans High website, and we started to send things out.”

Fulcher explained that they moved to including multiple classes after experiencing some reunions in which fewer and fewer alumni turned out.  She expected that getting a group like this together, some of whom had not seen other members for multiple years, was just going to be a fun experience.

The event started at 1 p.m. with mingling among the classes, with conversations starting about how someone “looked just like their mother,” to daughters coming in with mothers and meeting others doing the same. Fulcher and her organization committee lined the cafeteria with red and white balloons and tablecloths. Along the walls were tables of yearbooks that drew eventgoers to flip through pages of photos, intent on finding themselves or their family members and drawing a few comments on the people they had crushes on. There were multiple tables of memorabilia: bright red letterman jackets, class T-shirts, and photos upon photos of memories from the period. A section memorialized class members who had passed on.

Getting the chance to reconnect, and document it, is something Norgeot, who helmed communications for the event, said he hoped would be something people could learn from.

“It won’t occur again,” said Norgeot, noting that as time passes, the number of people who can attend these events naturally declines. Yet, he said, maybe witnessing this reunion can spur the alumni from Harwich High School or Chatham High School, who may have similar pride in their time in school, to similar action.

For many in attendance, the pride they felt in their school was also a connection to family, with multiple eventgoers explaining that parents and grandparents had gone to the school and how the community has changed since then. For most, attending the event was a way to reflect and reconnect with not only each other, but the people they’ve lost.

The highlight of the event was the speech by Fulcher as people were finishing up their lunch. She welcomed all in attendance, explained how the event came to fruition, but also spent a good amount of time reflecting on what life was like in the era and comparing it to now, which drew a fair amount of laughter from the crowd.

“We came of age in a remarkable time,” she said. “When we were in school the world was moving fast. We grew up in the shadow of World War II and we witnessed the dawn of the Cold War. We also witnessed the excitement of new frontiers. Remember the television in our living room? We lived through the 1950s, where we drank water straight from the tap and sometimes from the garden house. If you ever thought you should bottle it and try to sell it, people would think you lost your mind.”

Ending her speech, Fulcher spoke of the things that haven’t changed through all of the years: the bonds they share and the relationships that helped shape who they became.

“Let’s celebrate the fact that after all of these years, through joys and challenges, we are here together, still connected,” said Fulcher, ending with a toast to the classes of 1950 to 1962. 

To learn more about the history of Orleans High School and its alumni, visit orleanshigh.com.