OHS Class Gathers For Reunion
BOBBY ARDOIN
Editor/Consulting Writer
They will always be remembered as the first class to graduate from what was then the new Opelousas High campus.
Now 60 years later, 48 members of that class returned to the Opelousas to celebrate their graduation, exchange memories and update their life histories during a four-hour reunion matinee held Saturday at Toby’s Downtown.
Carolyn Cox Dupre,a 1965 graduate, said it was refreshing to attend the first year of classes as seniors at OHS, which remains located as it was then at the Judson Walsh Drive location.
For three years the 1965 seniors had attended high school on South Market Street, but the first thing she and the other students noticed when classes convened in September at their new school, was they were now sitting in air conditioning.
“We had the air conditioning and we also liked the large auditorium that we didn’t have at the old (Market Street) school,” she said, remembering the transitional year.
Carolyn Cox and husband Butch Dupre revisited OHS a few days ago and both commented how little the school architecture has changed since 1965.
Randy McDaniel and Raymond Stelly, who also attended the reunion as 1965 graduates, were four-year members of the annually talented Opelousas High baseball team.
Stelly and McDaniel had also been starters two years before on the 1963 Opelousas Babe Ruth state championship team comprised of elite players from the summer recreation program.
McDaniel said he spent several reflective minutes during the Saturday reunion event observing the other 47 who attended.
“I am just standing here looking at everyone and imagining what they looked like back then when we were in high school and how everyone looks now,” McDaniel said.
Also attending the event was 1965 graduate Mike Ortego, who played on the 1964 OHS football team. A little over a decade later Ortego became a successful head football coach at Opelousas High.
Ivan Burgoyne, also a 1965 graduate, said there are 92 members of the OHS class of 1965 who are living, while 56 are deceased.
Brice Palmer, who graduated in 1965, discussed his currently tranquil live in the Longville community between Lake Charles and DeRidder.
Errol Perron, a ’65 class member who lives outside Carencro, still raises racing pigeons. On Saturday Perron was monitoring two separate flights of pigeons who were covering combined flights of 1,000 miles in states north of Louisiana.
Before the Saturday reunion evolved into a heightened social atmosphere, those who attended paused in remembrance for those who have died.
The names of the deceased graduates were posted on a board. Many of the reunion attendees took photos of the names of the deceased before leaving Toby’s.
Several of the class members recalled the class motto, “He who walks ahead, never walks behind,” and the class song, “You’ll Never Walk Alone.”
