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Members of the Class of 1974 took a tour of the new Lowell High School during their 50th reunion on Oct. 5, 2024. (Courtesy Joe Regan)
UMass President Marty Meehan and Lowell High Class of 1974 classmate David Stirk during their 50th reunion on Oct. 5, 2024 at Mt. Pleasant Golf Club. (Courtesy Jen Myers)
Lowell High School Class of 1974 classmates gather at Mt. Pleasant Country Club during their 50th reunion on Oct. 5, 2024. (Courtesy Jen Myers)
A UMass Lowell-themed gift basket donated by classmate and UMass President Marty Meehan to the raffle held during the Class of 1974 50th reunion on Oct. 5, 2024 at Mt. Pleasant Golf Club. (Courtesy Jen Myers)
The Class of 1974 held its 50th reunion on Oct. 5, 2024, at Mt. Pleasant Golf Club. A memory board decorated one of the tables. (Courtesy Joe Regan)
Members of the Class of 1974 took a tour of the new Lowell High School during their 50th reunion on Oct. 5, 2024. (Courtesy Joe Regan)
LOWELL — There are class reunions, and then there was the Lowell High School Class of 1974 reunion. It was, said reunion committee member Joe Regan, one of the “best reunions in LHS history.”
More than 160 people attended the 50th reunion in October, celebrating a trip down memory lane, and a tour of the new high school followed by a dinner and dance party.
Besides catching up with old friends, the highlight of the evening was a chance to build out the legacy of past and future Lowell High School alums.
“It wasn’t just a party,” Regan said by phone on Friday. “It also had purpose. One of the goals of this reunion was to establish a scholarship in the name of the Class of 1974.”
The class is well on its way to raising $40,000 to endow four $500 scholarships in perpetuity for LHS graduating seniors through the Greater Lowell Community Foundation.
Marty Meehan, a fellow graduate and now the president of the UMass system, established a matching gift of $10,000. Regan said even before the reunion started, two classmates donated $5,000, bringing the total to $20,000.
During the evening, the class raised another $7,000 from raffles and silent auction items, as well as another $3,000 from classmate donations.
The fund has another $10,000 to go, but Regan believes the goal is within reach.
“A lot of people on the committee had scholarships in family members’ names,” Regan said. “So we kind of pushed it through and said, ‘This is a good thing. Instead of a one-time donation, let’s try and get something to live on.’”
That legacy building is part of the DNA of Lowell High. In 1998, the school turned over $75,000 in its scholarship account — 26 funds at that time — to the GLCF to manage and invest. That endowment has since grown to more than 373 funds totaling $7 million.
District spokesperson Jennifer Myers previously said scholarships offset the cost of higher education and help students invest in their future.
“Not only do these scholarships help students and their families financially,” Myers said, “but being awarded a scholarship likely from someone that has never met the student personally, is a great confidence boost for students to know that there are people outside of their families, friends, and teachers who believe in them and their potential and are happy to invest in their dreams.”
Lowell High School Student Honors Night traditionally takes place each May and almost 200 LHS seniors receive awards from scholarships ranging from the Jack Kerouac Prize for Literature Fund to the Cobblestones-Plath Family Culinary Arts Scholarship and the Store 38 Scholarship.
The Class of 1974 will add their name to the pantheon of LHS scholarship awards.
But to get to that night took a lot of planning, as well as private eye-level sleuthing to track down 800 classmates.
The committee was led by Diane McLeod, who, along with Regan, Sharon Styman-Lussier, Barbara Jezak, Marcia Dolce, Terrance Gormley, Betsy O’Brien, Brenda Maille, Steve Carignan, Vinnie Lombard and Carol Keirstead, spent 18 months organizing the festivities.
“We spent a lot of time trying to find people,” Regan said. “We took the yearbook and typed the names into a spreadsheet and we went through that painstakingly — where is so-and-so — and tracking them down mostly through Facebook.”
Thanks to the committee’s outreach, Regan said this was the best-attended reunion of the previous three events when the class celebrated its 10th, 25th and 35th reunions.
Sadly, they found that more than 250 of their classmates had died, so O’Brien set up a memorial table with a running video of their photos as a remembrance.
The weekend started with a Lowell National Historical Park tour of the Industrial Revolution and the cultural landmarks of Lowell, followed by a tour of the new Lowell High, led by Head of School Mike Fiato. Regan said they were “amazed” at the new buildings.
“Our home base was Tobin Hall in the 1922 building,” Regan said. “That’s all we had. The gymnasium was in the old Lowell Trade School in the annex building. It was deplorable.”
The old Riddick Field House wasn’t open until the early 1980s, long after the class had left campus. The tour took them through the new Riddick Athletic Center, which Regan said was “magnificent.”
That evening, the classmates gathered at the Mt. Pleasant Golf Club to eat and dance the night away, with music provided by the Dave Ayotte Band, whose lead singer is from the Class of 1975.
Sunday morning featured a tour of the Lowell Cemetery by Lowell historian Dick Howe, visiting the sites of notable Lowellians like Cyrus W. Irish, for whom the LHS auditorium is named and James Carney, a founder of the cemetery and who is honored by the Carney Medal, an award annually bestowed on the top three male and top three female students at Lowell High School.
Regan said everybody had a good time, and he encouraged people to attend their high school reunions, calling it a chance to reconnect with “your former self.”
“We had a great time,” Regan said. “And I think people l feel good about making a lasting impact.”
The Class of 1974 is still collecting tax-deductible donations to its scholarship fund, which is managed by the GLCF. Tax-deductible donations can be made at glcf.fcsuite.com/erp/donate/create/fund?funit_id=6085.
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