PRINT ADS

High school reunions are as much about reliving old memories as they are about repeating where you live, what you do, and why you're not married yet. That may be changing, however, thanks to Facebook.

"(Facebook) kind of takes out the awkwardness of the introduction and trying to figure out how you're connected (to classmates)," said Kris Warren, who graduated from Madison East High School in 1993 and has already attended two class reunions. While Facebook began four years ago as a Web site for college students to keep tabs on their scattering friends, it has caught on quickly and now serves the social-networking needs of everyone from teens to senior citizens.

Warren has had a Facebook profile for about a year and said the site has helped him and his classmates finally put an end to their infamous cliques. "(At reunions) you may sit back in a corner and talk to the people that you've been in touch with over the last 10 years rather than going outside your box," Warren said. "On Facebook, you discover that you have more in common with other people."

Ryan Gronli, a 1993 Memorial High School grad, said he has used Facebook to get in touch with several people -- from long-lost friends to current work colleagues -- and said he wishes his class would've had something like Facebook at their 10-year reunion.

"Everyone I talked to complained that we spent most of our time just giving the same spiel over and over again," Gronli said. Still, he's optimistic Facebook will reduce this boring small talk at future reunions. "If someone wants to know what I'm up to they can look at my Facebook account and get those basics, and then we can have a more in-depth conversation."

While Facebook could enhance the high school reunion experience, it could also make reunions a thing of well the past. As more and more generations grow up with online networking, some think reunions are becoming obsolete and inconvenient. Peter Albrecht, who graduated from Madison West in 2003, said his class of 560 recently organized a reunion on Facebook, but only 16 people accepted the invitation. Albrecht expects more of his classmates will go to future reunions when they settle down into "real life," but still thinks reunions probably won't be as popular as they have been in the past. "Everything that we know about our old friends we know through Facebook. ... I just don't see the reunion thing catching on for our age group," Albrecht said.

Does that make today's grads less sociable and impersonal? Not at all, according to Albrecht. "I'm way more connected with the people that I knew in high school than my parents ever were," he said.

Ken Ekern, a '98 Madison East graduate, said he isn't going to his 10-year reunion either. Instead, he recently used Facebook to meet up with an old friend he hadn't seen in five years, and the two went out to the bars to catch up as opposed to having a more brief, trivial chat at a reunion. "A class reunion requires people to pay just to reconnect, and it doesn't seem worth the effort just to see people I'll probably fall out of touch with for another 5 or 10 years," Ekern said.

But for some, like Nancy Sorge Shimeall -- an Edgewood graduate in 1973 -- reunions are the only option available. "I can see why the up-and-coming generations, by using Facebook, feel like they're always around these people or always communicating with them, but I don't have that. I've had virtually no communication with my former classmates for at least 20 years," Shimeall said.

Others say that even with Facebook, nothing can replace the atmosphere of a large gathering in a familiar setting. Sonja Boehm, a '93 Madison West grad, recently organized a potluck dinner for her 15-year reunion. "On Facebook you're only doing one-on-ones, whereas in a big group you might have five people joking about something or reliving something that you might not think to write someone about," Boehm said.

But while funny stories are bound to float around at reunions, there's also a fair share of artificial smiles, forced enthusiasm and lukewarm babbling. According to Brad Meyers (Madison East, 1993), Facebook offers a more relaxed forum for genuine conversation than reunions since you can screen who you talk to. "People can reject someone via Facebook or e-mail with no problem, but if someone were to bump into someone they knew on the street, they'd fake it as though they wanted to talk to them and tell them how great it was to see them," Meyers said.

Still, Colleen Gallaher, who graduated from Edgewood in 1993, said those who rely exclusively on Internet interactions are missing out. "I sort of view using Facebook as similar to a student using Cliffs Notes in an English class," Gallaher said.

Facebook may or may not squash the high school reunion into oblivion, but don't expect those old acquaintances to be forgotten anytime soon. With Facebook, you'll never have an excuse for forgetting a classmate's name ever again.