To the Editor:

This past weekend the Class of 1979 from Southampton High School celebrated our 30th class reunion.

Our class motto was “Together We Will Make It” and we have.

Even though our local community had just recently been hit with the news of our mill closing, our class came together as one, showing one another that we have made it and offering encouragement to each other.

As one of our classmates had stated while this event was in the planning stages, it does not matter how much hair you have, how much weight you might have gained nor what your children are doing just come to be together.

Our class has produced teachers, administrators, computer scientists, engineers, solders, appraisers, accountants, farmers, homemakers, attorneys, law enforcement professionals, entrepreneurs, papermakers, crane operators, electricians, ministers and a Supreme Court Judge of Virginia, as well as classmates with other interesting occupations.

Our principal, Mr. Bill Wright, often quoted to us 1 Corinthians 13:11 “When I was a child, I spake, as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”

However at our dinner and dance on Saturday night, we went back in time just for a few hours, left our cares at the door and remembered the good times we had with the Class of 1979.

I would like to thank Sharon Joyner Callahan, Melanie Carter Johnson, and Bernard Goodwyn who played the major part in planning our 30th class reunion and am already looking forward to 2014 for our 35th reunion.

Yes, our numbers may have dwindled as it had in the last 30 years but we will still be able to say “Together, We Made IT.”

Yvette Ford Smith

Sedley