By Ed Karvoski Jr., Contributing Writer
Photo/Ed Karvoski Jr.
Hudson/Marlborough – Although Hudson Catholic High (HCH) closed after the 2008-2009 academic year, its class of 1969 revived the school’s spirit by celebrating their 50th reunion with activities from Sept. 13 to 15 at the Best-Western Royal Plaza Hotel in Marlborough. Of the 71 graduates consisting of Hudson and Marlborough natives, 59 classmates attended with 22 guests. A slideshow presentation memorialized five deceased classmates.
The class has reunited every five years since graduating. Reunion attendance, however, dropped from 53 classmates at their 20th to 35 at their 25th. Determined to update classmates’ contact info for their 50th, a committee formed in May 2017 chaired by senior class president Jimmy Harris, a Marlborough native now of Cumming, Georgia.
“I’m proud to say that we found 100 percent of them,” he relayed. “We told them the reunion dates as soon as we signed the hotel contract over a year ago. One of our hooks was to say, ‘If you’re healthy enough, you really should attend because you don’t know if you’ll be able to attend the next one.’”
A clever way they updated contact info was by postal mailing Christmas cards to classmates. When cards were returned, they knew to search for new addresses. Reunion attendees hailed from 16 states. Traveling the farthest was Mary Gillis Bradshaw from Steilacoom, Washington.
“We had a really smart group of students,” Harris said. “Up to that point, our class earned the highest amount of scholarship money.”
A valuable lesson they learned at HCH was to bond as a class, Harris noted.
“Growing up, we were conditioned that the [public high schools’] Thanksgiving Day football game pitted Marlborough against Hudson,” he recalled. “There was a little bit of that rivalry when we began at HCH, but it was gone by the time we graduated. We weren’t from Marlborough or Hudson; we were all from HCH.”
The class was taught mostly by Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur with a few lay teachers.
“The parochial education raises the foundation for the rest of your life – the discipline and commitment to public service,” Harris noted. “Those values were passed on to our class from the environment and we made it a part of us.”
Also serving on the reunion committee were Patty Adams, Jane Sasseville Bauks, Richard Bolt, Ellen Ghiloni Brien, Ed Correa, Jackie Joyce Coolidge, Maureen Curley, Tommy Higgins, Annie Coach Kosch, Maureen Letendre, Dennis Maher, Cathy Richards O’Connor, Danny O’Keefe, Jane Sasseville O’Reagan and Jeanne D’Amico Timm.
