His 25th year college class reunion.

I just got back from my classes 25th year college reunion. The Friday night dinner for our class was really nice. Having the hesitations that I had at first made me a bit weary but right when I walked in, my roommate, Pete, walked up and gave me a nice greeting. I never thought I would see him again and there he was. I only went to Bryan for 2 years (4 semesters) and Pete and I roomed for 3 of those semesters. I could not have had a better roommate so it was awesome to see him again.

The next day started out slow as we were a bit late getting there but arrived an hour before the soccer game. During that time I saw a very special man that influenced my life at a young age and was the reason I attended Bryan. His name is Dale Linebaugh, and he had a church camp in north eastern Pennsylvania called Miracle Mountain Ranch. I attended that camp from the time I was 8 till 16 years of age and my family became very close to and involved in the camp as I grew. There were summers my mother would go work at the ranch, doing whatever was needed, to even being a cook for several weeks. Dale, after turning the camp over to his son-in-law and daughter, moved to Dayton and was a counselor at Bryan as well as pastor of one of the local churches. My senior year in high school he encouraged me to look into attending Bryan.

All through the day time was spent walking around and seeing different people and renewing old friendships as well as starting some new ones. The evening was capped off with a dinner where we heard from the President of the school, Dr Livesay, seeing the direction the college is moving and where they are wanting it to go. It was a very good weekend and I am very glad to have been able to make it.

Going to his 25th College Class Reunion.

First of all this is a bit more difficult for me as I did not graduate with the Class of 1983 for Bryan College. I was one of those that felt I could survive without that college degree and I allowed myself to let my emotions take charge and ended up getting married after my 2nd year and never returned.

So what is it going to be like? How am I going to be accepted? I went with Cindy, my girlfriend at the time, who was a graduate of Bryan College. This will help because she was a very popular person on campus as I was one that just floated along. Yes, I had my areas of standing out, I am 6'6", ha ha. I played sports, though it was mainly intramural because of a bad knee.

Bryan College is considered a Christian Liberal Arts College, so looking at it from that perspective, I probably will not have any difficulty with being accepted. I have had email conversations with other alumni over the past months and they are very excited about this weekend, including my being there as well. Don't you just hate that feeling of insecurity when you are about to do something like this? Fear is horrible and causes great apprehension, but what I am trying to do is look back at previous experiences, realizing that the apprehension was the worst part of it. Usually once I got to where I was going, and did it, all those fears were unfounded. So I guess I should stop with the theatrics, suck it up, and go have some fun. I am a different person now than I was back then. That is the person they will be seeing now, not the person from 25 years ago. They probably don't recall that I did not graduate with them anyways.

So what is it going to be like? It is going to be nice meeting people again for the first time, as matured adults. How will I be accepted? Who cares!!! Its about seeing what has become of other people and the accomplishments they have made. Allowing them to know and understand the person that I am now. You can not fully understand who and what a person is all about in a weekend, but you can grab hold of a small part of a person or group of people and make an experience out of it. I am going to have fun and enjoy my weekend.