Warm greetings to Garrett Schools Alumni,

For the past months your executive board has seriously deliberated about the annual reunion weekend this year. We’ve decided to significantly limit the reunion due to the health risks of coronavirus pandemic. We have decided to cancel the Saturday lunch and other activities that normally take place on Saturday.  The only alumni association affiliated event this year will be the annual alumni golf outing planned for Friday, July 17, 2020. The event will be managed by the Garrett Country Club personnel following all official state and local guidelines for safe operation. Dave Demske, Garrett Country Club owner, indicates that final registration information will be available around June 1. We will work with him to distribute that information to you. This year we welcome and thank Bob Novy, the new golf director for the alumni association.

Many alumni have enjoyed the Friday night Open House at the American Legion during past annual alumni weekends. This is the legion’s event; and questions about legion’s 2020 plans should be directed to them.

To bring some sunlight into these uncertain days, the alumni association gave Garrett Alumni T-shirts to each of the more than 160 Garrett graduates. In the name of all alums, we are welcoming them into the alumni association.

We’ll keep you updated as the next weeks and months unfold. More information about the golf outing, membership renewal, voting for officers, and plans for our next newsletter will be forthcoming – please watch for it.

Thank you and be safe!

Carolyn Ridenour, President, with
Jenny Teders, Bob Johoski, Linda Anderson, Chris Smith, Ginger Simon, Jacob Barnhart, Carley McBride Lowe

 

IN MEMORIAM

Cleo Talley, GHS Class of 1941
1922-2020

Cleo Tally was one of the strongest and most ardent members of the Garrett Schools Alumni Association. With her husband, George, she was one of the founding mothers and fathers of the association in the early 1980s. She was instrumental in planning events throughout the ensuing more than 35 years.

For the very first annual alumni reunion, July 28, 1984, Cleo was on the board of directors, She represented the decade of the 1940s that year and every year following. From that beginning, she was a constant active presence in planning meetings throughout the year; and was inevitably sitting and welcoming alums the day of each alumni reunion gathering. Her energy, her smile, her brisk conversation came from her unique spirit that inspired so many. Everyone could always count on Cleo to get the work done – to keep the alumni association alive. In addition to the day to day, month to month work of the organization, she served as its president for three years. Her advocacy of Garrett Alumni was linked to her stalwart service to the Garrett Historical Society as well.

Always an outstanding champion for the maroon and blue and for the heritage of the City of Garrett, we remember and will miss Cleo Talley, a stalwart alumna to whom we owe so much. Her spirit will always be with Garrett Alums – that is her legacy.