Need another reason to go Vegas? Try class reunion
By Jennifer Hiller
Advertiser Education Writer
When members of the Campbell High School Class of 1973 gathered in June for their 30th reunion, they didn't hold a lu'au or talk story in the banquet room of a beach-side hotel.
Instead, they chose 100-degree heat and the sound of slot machines, drawing 120 people from all parts of the country to the bright lights of Las Vegas.
Last October, 300 Kahuku High classmates who graduated between 1958 and 1965 flocked to the California Hotel.
And next May, class of 1972 graduates from five Honolulu high schools plan to combine forces and fly 500 people to the Tropicana to celebrate the year when they all turn 50.
Hawai'i's love affair with getaways to the desert gambling mecca has spilled over to the high-school reunion, traditionally a nostalgia-laden homecoming event.
Instead of gathering at old haunts, Island residents and kama'aina living on the Mainland are traveling to Las Vegas to reunite with old classmates, especially when the graduation anniversary is a big one: 25, 30 or 40 years.
"So many people from Hawai'i go to Vegas anyway," said Henriette Lopez Valdez, who helped organize Kailua High School Class of 1959's 40th reunion in Las Vegas a few years ago. "It's a nice function. You get everyone in the same hotel and you can do slot tournaments and banquets. We had a hospitality room open the whole time so people could just come sit around and talk story at their leisure."
Indeed, Las Vegas feels like a Mainland hometown to many Hawai'i residents anyway. Former Gov. Ben Cayetano once promoted it as Hawai'i's "ninth island." And it has long been recognized as the top tourist destination for Hawai'i residents.
Jovan Rosa, a reservationist with Vacations Hawai'i, said the travel company gets calls frequently from Hawai'i groups organizing high-school reunion trips to Vegas. "It's way cheaper than interisland travel because everything is included: air, room, meals," she said. "People can go for about $600 for everything."
Hawai'i alumni say the Vegas reunion makes sense on several levels: It's cheap, many residents travel there anyway and graduates living on the Mainland can afford that trip more easily than they can the airfare to Hawai'i.
Campbell High alumnus Tom McCue helped organize the June reunion at the Fremont Hotel and said about half of the people who attended live on the Mainland. Many of them had not been able to come to previous reunions on O'ahu.
"Some of them just drove in at the last minute," he said.
The Campbell planning committee, which included about 16 people living in Hawai'i and on the Mainland, organized a bowling tournament, an ice-breaker party, shopping trip shuttles, a bingo tournament, a slots tournament and an auction, in addition to the more formal reunion dinner.
"We had to plan about a year in advance. You have to make all the reservations early because the facilities in Vegas go really quickly," McCue said.
Despite the long-distance planning, things ran smoothly, he said. "Even I was very pleasantly surprised with how well it went. Everything fell into place. People are still writing to me or calling and they're still on a high. It's a rewarding experience. It feels good that you actually touched someone's life."
The Leilehua High Class of 1978 will have its 25th reunion in September in Las Vegas, and the Iolani School Class of 1968 will head to Vegas soon for its 35th reunion.
But one of the largest upcoming Hawai'i reunions is likely to be a 50th birthday party for the 1972 graduates of McKinley, Roosevelt, Farrington, Kalani and Kaimuki high schools at the Tropicana next spring.
"We're looking for a big contingent from Hawai'i," said Circuit Judge Gary Chang, a McKinley alumnus and member of the reunion steering committee.
Reunion organizers have a Web site — hawaii72.com — and hope to go on the Perry and Price radio show this fall to make a public plea in their search for classmates.
The idea for a mass reunion started with a conversation between McKinley and Roosevelt graduates who were each planning Las Vegas birthday parties. Chang said the interconnection of middle-school classmates led to the group reunion.
"Half of Kawananakoa (Middle School) goes to Roosevelt and half goes to McKinley. Some of our McKinley classmates who came from Washington (Middle School) had friends at Kaimuki," Chang said. Kaimuki shared middle school classmates with Kalani High School. "I thought 'Farrington is going to kill us if we have this sort of town reunion without including them,' so we called them."
The mega-reunion plans include a "Megabucks hui." Organizers want alumni teams from the five schools to head out at an appointed hour to hit the slots, using cell phones and coordinated wristwatches to coordinate the gambling. If 100 people each chip in $100, the group will have $10,000 to try to win the jackpot, with participants splitting the riches. "If each of five teams plays at the same time we maximize our chances of winning," Chang said.
But there's one sure sign this group is getting older: They're having an accountant look into the tax implications and a lawyer research the legal aspects.
"Time has its way of working its magic on all of us," Chang said. "It's the great equalizer."
Chang said he doesn't think any of the 1972 classes from the "town schools" have had a reunion in Las Vegas yet. "It just seemed like the thing to do," he said.
But even when classmates reunite on the Mainland, alumni don't leave the Islands behind entirely. The 1973 Campbell alumni shipped 500 pounds of door prizes and table decorations to the hotel ahead of time so they could keep the Hawai'i theme in the desert setting.
And when the Kahuku Class of 1970 gathered there to celebrate their 50th birthdays, they made sure to have a local-style buffet, complete with kalua pig and cabbage, teriyaki chicken, mahi mahi with macadamia nuts, lomi lomi salmon, sweet potato, steamed rice and coconut cake.
And since Vegas is, after all, the major vacation destination for Hawai'i residents, the Kahuku grads didn't have to ship the food out themselves or request any special favors from the hotel catering staff. In a city with thousands of kama'aina transplants, its own Hawai'i-themed magazine and hotels that cater to Hawai'i residents, the local-style food was waiting for them.
Reach Jennifer Hiller at jhiller@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8084.
