63 long years ago we left the comfortable nest that was our Alma Mater. We were young, apprehensive, hopeful and innocent. 70 somethings were old folks - and we were NEVER going to become old ourselves. Old folks were out of touch with the real world. They wore frumpy clothes and sensible shoes. They sat in rockers a lot and bored us with discussions of their various aching body parts. But the years flew by. We became young people. Then quickly we morphed into middle-aged adults. And now, undeniably, we find ourselves slipping into our senior years. It has been an interesting journey filled with once unimaginable challenges, joys and sorrows. Youth and innocence are no longer ours, but the years have shown us how important it is to cherish life's simple joys and given us a new perspective. (Dare we call it wisdom?) Life has taught us to be more caring, more patient, and less self centered. We are more relaxed and self-confident. Slightly ahead of the Baby Boomers, we are in the vanguard of a new age of seniors. With luck we can lead the way into an era in which seniors can work longer, contribute more to society, and enjoy life as never before.
~~Robyn Madison Potter          

Val Farny built this website, and he built it to last.

He put it up in 2003, back when WordPress, the software most websites are built on today, had barely launched, and there was no ready-made add-on you could install to do any of this. So he wrote it himself. A content management system with member logins, a classmates section only classmates could get into, photo galleries, search, even email notifications when something new went up, Wow! That was a lot for one person to take on. It is also why a committee of volunteers has been able to keep this site current for twenty years without a developer on call. The fourteen change logs in the Archive, running from 2011 straight through to 2024, are the proof of it.

KnightWorks has been building for the web for over twenty years now, and has moved a lot of old sites onto new platforms. Most of them fight you the whole way. Val's did not. Everything came across intact the first time: every classmate page, every photograph, every reunion album going back to 1986. That is rare, and it is not luck. It is what happens when someone thinks hard about how to build a thing before he builds it.

Val is to be Greatly Thanked for this website! It is still here! It is still his!

From Classmates of 1961 and Mike Towery, KnightWorks   

Twenty classmates have been added to or updated in the In Memoriam Section. Click a name for their obituary.

Karen Almstead (May 20, 2024)
Mike Arnold (December 19, 2018)
Sandy Baker (November 19, 2023)
Price Chenault (November 9, 2024)
Jim Chesney (February 12, 2025)
Mary Ann Dorsey (April 10, 2026)
Bill Drozd (February 26, 2026)
Val Farny (October 19, 2024)
Judy Frehulfer (October 29, 2022)
Bob Johnson (October 8, 2022)
Irving Klink (July 24, 2025)
George Meyers (November 24, 2023)
Fred Mueller (March 23, 2015)
Bill Pfeif (August 27, 2022)
Ruth Rector (March 8, 2026)
Sheila Sullivan (December 24, 2023)
Carolyn Van Allen (May 27, 2025)
Diane Walsh (November 23, 2022)
Larry White (April 24, 2025)
Dan Zabriskie (March 2025)

The 65th Reunion Booklet is now posted in the Classmates section (classmate password required). Future changes and corrections will be listed there too.

If you have updates or corrections, please contact Bill McMillen, David Utz, or KnightWorks.

An Editorial in the 1929 yearbook has the following to say. "1929 will be an important date in the history of this school. It marks the graduation of the first class from Delmar High, and it also marks the first edition of THE ORIOLE. It was taken for granted that a class would graduate in 1929, but the establishment of a Yearbook was not so certain..."

"This year marks the 70th anniversary of Hamagrael Elementary School. All of our grade schools have rich and colorful histories, but I think everyone might enjoy this great series of (10) photos from 1954-55 – Hamagrael’s first year. When they opened that September, the classroom furniture hadn’t arrived, requiring everyone to sit at folding tables. The cafeteria itself wasn’t ready to serve children until halfway through the year, so it was bagged lunches for students, eating with their teachers in class.

John Falvey was the first principal and served well into the 1970s. I don’t have student names for this series, but click each photo for teacher names. And check out that old “Cafetorium” divider they used as a backdrop in these shots, which is still in use today – the very same my youngest smashed into, head first, about six years ago during a disconcertingly physical game of basketball (for 2nd graders, anyway).

Know some of these fresh-faced kiddos?"

( The orginal facebook post was in the Bethlehem Historical Association group on January 30th )