Fifty years after walking the halls of Carl Sandburg High School, members of the Class of 1976 are coming together to celebrate the memories, friendships and experiences that shaped their high school years.
The class, which included 825 graduates, will celebrate its 50th anniversary Friday, Oct. 2, at Silver Lake Country Club in Orland Park. About 170 alumni and guests are expected to attend, with classmates traveling from across the country for the milestone celebration.
Karen (Deadman) Schram of Elk Grove Village is one of six committee members who organized the reunion.
The committee also includes Vicki (Cooper) Grochowski, Lona (Ingram) Mucha, Candie Petrolli, Donna (Borschel) Gritzman and Wayne, affectionately known as their “Charlie’s Angel.”
The six members came together in January and quickly discovered they had plenty of work ahead of them.
“We are detectives, counselors, and passionate about including everyone,” Schram said.
The committee has spent months locating former classmates, tracking down contact information and making arrangements for the celebration. They found more than 700 members of the Class of 1976, including 93 who have died.
The search took the committee to Facebook, Classmates.com, LinkedIn and even old-fashioned Google searches. They also reached out to Sandburg High School for input.
“It’s not easy to find people after 50 years!” Schram said.
The committee members did not know one another when they were in high school, but the reunion project has brought them together in a way they never expected.
“We did not know each other in high school and have formed a very close bond during the process which will last a lifetime,” Schram said. “We came together to form a team.”
Each member took on different responsibilities, from finding the venue and arranging live music to organizing decorations, memorabilia and name tags featuring high school photographs.
The group initially held biweekly Zoom meetings and now meets weekly as the reunion approaches. They also met in person several times, including an early gathering at Pelican Harry’s Sports Grill during a Bears playoff game.
The committee wanted the reunion to be welcoming to everyone. They discounted a few tickets and decided against establishing a dress code.
“Everyone can come as they are,” Schram said.
The reunion will feature music, memorabilia, raffle items and plenty of opportunities for classmates to reconnect. One special moment will feature twins playing the Sandburg spirit song on their trumpets.
The committee also carried forward the class theme, “Spirit of 76,” which was used by the school when the classmates were students.
Schram said her own memories of Sandburg remain especially meaningful.
“The teachers were very kind and challenged us to learn more and to think outside of the box,” she said.
Math was her favorite subject, but athletics also played an important role in her high school experience. Schram was a member of the swim team and remembers Sandburg as one of the first schools in the state to offer women’s swimming.
“I loved it so much,” she said.
Schram was heartbroken when her mother moved the family from Palos Heights to Palos Hills, forcing her to finish high school at Stagg High School.
She also remembers Sandburg football games as being popular and well attended.
The Class of 1976 will return to Sandburg for another special event Sept. 25, when the class will be honored during the varsity homecoming game. Committee members have even purchased matching T-shirts for the occasion.
The reunion committee also arranged a tour of the Sandburg campus for the day after the reunion. The tour will give classmates, including those traveling from out of state, an opportunity to walk through the school again after five decades.
“We were the first in the Freshman Wing,” Schram said, recalling the long walks students made between classes.
The anniversary celebration has become a destination event for former Sandburg students. Alumni are expected to travel from California, Florida, Texas, Washington state, Iowa, Michigan, Indiana, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Virginia, Nevada, Wisconsin, Arizona, North Carolina, Tennessee, Colorado and Connecticut.
For Schram and the other committee members, seeing classmates return from so many different places makes all the hours spent planning worthwhile.
“Putting together the final touches has been all worth the hours each of us have put in,” she said.
The committee members may have started the year as six people working on a reunion. They are ending it as a team connected by the memories of a class that graduated half a century ago.
