Boulder City alums get ready for reunion

By Cassie Tomlin

Thursday, Oct. 9, 2008 | midnight

Fifty years sounds like a long time, but if you ask Jim Widner, 1958 could have been yesterday.

At the 50-year Boulder City High School class reunion Oct. 10-12, he expects to see classmates he hasn't seen since they turned their tassels on graduation night. Many of them have not attended past reunions, Widner said.

Widner, who describes himself as a professional reunion-goer, retired from the Las Vegas Valley Water District and now lives in San Juan Capistrano, Calif.

He visits Boulder City often to golf with old high school buddies. This time he plans to bring his girlfriend, Georgia, to join about 25 people from his graduating class of about 60.

On Oct. 10, there's a golf tournament at the municipal course.

The reception for all classes from 1942 to 1958 is that night at 6 p.m. at Boulder Creek Golf Club.

On Oct. 11, the class of 1958 will take a tour of Boulder City High School, and that evening have a dinner at Boulder Creek Golf Course.

Also that evening at the Elks Club will be a multi-class dinner reception.

At 10 a.m. Oct. 12, there will be a brunch at the Boulder Dam Hotel.

Brian Fox, a 1958 graduate, who was also principal at the school from 1980 to 1993, said the campus tour will show a school much different from when the class of 1958 roamed its halls.

Originally, about all that was there was the office complex, the original two or three wings, the basketball gym and the football field.

Widner said he looks forward to catching up with people.

"The thing people say is how much they appreciated growing up in Boulder City," he said. "There was no class system. People didn't even pay attention to what another's parents did. All the kids were achievers and went on to college. It was just a delightful, friendly place to grow up."

Cassie Tomlin can be reached at 948-2073 or [email protected].