ZBTH Class of 1946


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Mini Reunion at the Senior Center in Shiloh Park, Zion

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Mini reunion at Grant's Farm, Lake County Illinois

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How this Web Site Got It's Start

A Mini History

By Virgil Ford

(Our precocious Cyber Nerd)

At the 1946 50th class reunion  I saw that most of the class was there at the closing
gathering and since I had just gone on the internet and enjoyed it so completely, wondered
how many others in the group were there with me. Thought it would be swell to really get
to know former classmates by this wonderful new communications media. As I looked around
over the group, most of the faces were recognizable but I thought that though we spent
four years together in high school, and some even more than that  considering grade school
attendance, we never really knew each other and so much has happened in the 50 years gone
by that it would be a rich experience to do this now  during our latter(ouch) years.
    During a break in the ceremonies I solicited Carl Brown's (as reunion moderator)
thoughts on this and he suggested that we send around the group a copy of the class roster
and invite all there who would like to participate to so indicate by posting their e-mail
address on the form. To my great surprise there were only three addresses on the roster
when it was returned, Mike Kerpan, Carl Brown and myself. Carl and I agreed that at least
we could communicate, me from the West Coast  (Oceanside,CA) and he, from Rockford, IL. I
tried several times to contact Mike after I had returned home but received no reply. Even
contacted his son who said he was around but sadly there was no response from him. So Carl
and I set forth. Our exchanges from the start were interesting and we reminisced a lot,
found out about each other, met ,second handed, families, and simply, got to know each
other better than we ever had during our high school years.
    Shortly thereafter, Rog Luther hooked up his P.C. and joined the AOL club and became
available to us. Right away we knew we had something here that would furnish us all great
enjoyment. The along came Clyde Congdon, Ken Miller, Jim Murrie, Finley (Gus) Gustafson,
Burt Brown ( our only aberration, he's from the class of 45, but he's such a nice fellow
we thought he would fit in nicely with our class), Edyth (Daily) McConnaghey, and recently
there has been an outburst of new members, Esther (Bishop) Paulson, Eileen (Tollefson)
Patterson, Ozzie Koetz and Ken Schroeder. Along with this new membership the e-mail
traffic has picked up and we are now discovering flowers on those seeds that have been
laying in the ground all these years.
    An additional bonus to all this is the three mini reunions we have had there in Zion.
During two of my ventures there several of us met, the first time at Grant Sissons Farm
out in the country and the second time at the senior citizens center Saturday morning
breakfast. Another group met when Jim Murrie visited the area from Florida. I have also
had the privilege of sharing apple pie with Rog and Mona at their cottage in Door County.
    And finally, but importantly, the group has been an effective prayer group whenever
the need arises. It's always nice to have someone else to carry prayer loads with you to
the Lord.

January 13th Edyth McConnaughey suggested that we exchange birthdates so that we could E-mail each other greetings on our special days.  What better place to keep that information than on a group web page.   Hence was born the Zion Benton Township High School Class of 46 Web Page. 

Ken Miller


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30th Reunion at the Illinois Beach State Park.

4th of July weekend, 1976.


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This page revised 7 December  2001