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Photo by Johnny Wagner

Photo by Johnny Wagner

FAIRBANKS — In the year 1958, gasoline cost 30 cents a gallon, Elvis Presley was sworn into the U.S. Army, NASA was created and 84 students graduated from Fairbanks High School, Lathrop High School’s predecessor.

The class produced a doctor, a lawyer, an architect, a scholar, a surveyor, a postal worker, a teacher, a flight attendant, a salesman, a few accountants and several businessmen.

Some of them are gathering here this weekend for their 50th class reunion.

Classmates are coming from as far away as Honduras. A few of the reunion planners took up a collection to bring up an Arizona classmate of modest means. Other classmates are coming from California, Washington, Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas, Colorado, Oklahoma and Idaho.

Almost half of the class of 1958 lives in Alaska, with a quarter residing in Fairbanks. Eight have died.

The class has gathered for previous reunions marking 20, 30, 40, and 45 years since graduating. A pair of classmates tied the knot after falling in love at the 30th class reunion, although the marriage has since dissolved, according to Skip Cook, class valedictorian, student body vice president and editor of the Paystreak, the student newspaper.

The class did not plan a 10-year class reunion because classmates were still recuperating from the 1967 flood, Cook said.

A small group of alumni have been meeting since February to plan the 50th reunion, which will include a banquet, a riverboat ride and a picnic. The group, led by Cook, involves Jerry Hubbard, who was a star basketball player, and Patty Skondovitch, who worked at Bill’s Drive-in. Now defunct, the burger joint at the corner of Illinois Street and College Road was a popular hangout.

Skondovitch, a retired airline worker, has attended all of the class reunions since 1978.

“I enjoying seeing all of my old chums,” she said, “finding out how they are doing, how many kids they’ve got, how many times they’ve been married. You know, all of the pertinent facts of their lives.”

Skondovitch has been thinking about the reunion for months. For the banquet, she is planning to wear the green skirt and jacket she wore to her daughter’s wedding in October.

“I haven’t worn it again,” Skondovitch said. “I was saving it for this. She was married Outside, so nobody has seen it.”

Skondovitch is looking forward to seeing Sharon Larmon, a close friend who has been living in California.

“She was my college roommate,” Skondovitch said. “It’s funny because I didn’t like her in high school. She was a goody two-shoes and I wasn’t. She was my college roommate and I thought, ‘Oh yuck,’ but then we turned out to be the best of chums and we’ve all of these years maintained our friendship.”

Wayne Webster, who owns a laundromat in town, said he is looking forward to seeing Herschel Harter, who moved to Louisiana and became a nephrologist. The two were lab partners in physics class.

Harter was one of the few students who Webster, a self-described nerd back then, talked to. The two were lab partners one day when an experiment went haywire, causing a minor explosion, Webster said.

“I haven’t seen him for 10 or 20 years,” Webster said.

Tom Lincoln belongs to the class of 1957, but is helping plan the ’58 reunion, even hosting a picnic at his home. Lincoln is making stainless steel wall hangings to hand out to the classmates.

During high school, the retired sheet metal worker held down a job at a shoe store so he didn’t participate in after-school activities. Attending class reunions makes Lincoln feel like he is making up for lost time.

“I get to see people who I haven’t seen for a long time,” he said.

Melise Kennedy is traveling here from Honduras, where she operates a resort with her husband.

The business keeps Kennedy busy, so she doesn’t keep in touch with her classmates as often as she would like.

“I’m hoping that my best friend through high school, Adele Kohler Virgin, will be there,” Kennedy said. “It’s great to get back and kind of pick up where we left off.”

Cook, an attorney, can’t wait to see classmate Larry Sweet, who spends part of the year working behind a bar in Mexico.

“I don’t think anybody would have dreamed that when we were in high school,” Cook said. “He was not at all a drinker.”

Louella Hupprich, a retired tax accountant, said she is looking forward to reuniting with Judy Clowers. In high school, both shared the maiden name Olson, a unity that sprung into a friendship.

“We just had a liking for each other,” Hupprich said.

Glenn Abel, who played Jonathan Brewster in the play “Arsenic and Old Lace” his junior year, is looking forward to catching up with Brenda Jones. Abel is retired from the U.S. Postal Service and Jones is a retired kindergarten teacher.

Jones struck Abel as quiet and reserved in high school. At the class’s 40th reunion, Abel and his wife sat with her.

“I got to know her a lot better than we ever knew her in high school,” Abel said. “I don’t know what I expected of her in high school, but she became a whole different person.”