This just in from the Big Sandy Class of 76 Reunion Planning Committee:
Hello Dear Friends!
Will you help us find fellow classmates of the Ambassador College Big Sandy Class of 1976? We entered as freshman in the Fall of 1972 and it seems impossible to believe its been 35 years since we graduated! Well then, - I'd say, it's time to party again!
We're in the beginning stage of organizing a college reunion!
We're including everyone who was part of the incoming class of 1972 or who joined our class in the years of 1972 through 1976. We are looking forward to reminincing with you who have shared many of the same memories of the wonderful years we had together in East Texas. (If we can still remember them!)
Many more details will follow in the next few weeks and months -- but in the meantime -
Save this date: 2nd weekend in August (Aug 12th - 14th).
Place: Dallas, Texas (Charles Melear is helping us locate a meeting place and we'll provide all the details in the next few weeks.)
AND, we need your help to locate our classmates. If you know of fellow classmates who were part of this class -- please direct them to: http://www.ACReunion.info for more information and updates that will be coming soon!
Can't wait to see you all again.
Much MORE to come...
Warm Regards,
Tony Hill, Jolinda Schreiber, Scott & Connie Ashley,
Jennifer Halprin, Angie Kelley & Paula Jo Frazee
Your AC Reunion Planning Committee
More information and pictures of AC students from all three campuses can be fond here: AC Reunion Site
10 comments:
I have a question: Is Neotherm invited? In fact, are any of those who worked in the 1-W program at Ambassador College Texas as conscientious objectors invited to this little soiree, apparently dedicated to the privileged elite?
"It hardly seems like 66 years since we all left Dachau after serving there as support staff. Come to the reunion in Muchen to hoist a beer and relive old times."
Just like everything else WCG, it makes me wonder just what the people attending still have in common, beyond those wonderful fleeting moments in Camelot.
I wonder if they still think they are better than the rest of the dumb sheep...now that they are OLD. They sure were a bunch of "better-than-thou" sobs when we went to visit in Pasadena. I walked from one end of "gawd's" auditorium to the other, and NO ONE held out their hand to meet me. And, the girls? You couldn't touch them with a ten foot pole. Snooty bitches!
I would be interested in seeing what they used their "degrees" for, outside of being employed in a COG.
Paul Ray
In defense of the snooty bitches, some of them may have had a better than thou attitude but I recall receiving frequent admonishments to not date outside the college. (Not that it was a worry for me, I wasn't exactly one of the girls who had the guys queuing up to ask me out - My best friend has remarked that I don't look so much now like a 12 year old as I did at 18:)
But I agree, Pasadena was not a friendly place. There was some definite class separation that was going on. Mostly it broke down by what category you were in relating to the college (Faculty, student, employed, not directly affiliated). Although there was some cultural/ethnic divides as well. I got the sense that people had to be categorized before the regulars could understand how to relate to them.
One of the things I notice about the reunions that occur with former students from my own era (mid 80's) is that most of the people attending were those who had greater degrees of involvement in terms of popularity, friendships and common experience. Fringers like me don't have a reason to go.
I don't begrudge them any good memories. Wish I had more. But am glad that I don't waste any time wanting to go back.
I understand that the girls of the illustrious A.C. couldn't date outside of college. Most of them just wanted to marry a "minister" type, and those who didn't just had to settle for "second-best". If a guy tried to even say hello to them, they would turn up their noses and walk away. It happened to me more than once, and I'm a pretty good looking guy. :-) Besides, many of the pretty ones who married "ministers" during that era had given their virginity to Teddy, so they don't have much to be proud of, do they?
Thanks for posting the link to the AC re-union. From it, I was able to learn “the rest of the story” and whereabouts of 6 people I knew as a teenager growing up in the Baltimore/Washington, D.C. WCG congregations in the 1960s/early 1970s. One girl was my first date who was visiting her local Baltimore congregation on summer break back from AC. I guess my experience was an exception to the rule of earlier observations as an example of an AC girl going on a date with a non-AC guy.
As I have posted here in the past, I am an Ambassador College reject. While I took it very hard at the time, today I am very thankful. I left WCG by the time I was 20 years old. Still, we all had the common religious experience. That makes us unique amongst ourselves. We can relate to one another because of the experience. For example, I’ve talked with Dennis Diehl several times over the phone although I have never met him. He knew many of the people I knew, and vice versa.
Perhaps it is remembering our roots, or “the day of the small thing”, or perhaps it is our own personal version of “The Wonder Years” when we were all young, perhaps dumb and impressionable. I don’t wish any of the victims of the religious fraud any ill will. These people were once my friends sharing a common uncommon teenage experience.
Not everything Herbal was bad. For example, there are children that would never have existed today if not for being the product of WCG marriages.
We need to learn from the experience, retain the good, and move on from the bad.
Richard
Steve, It's funny how your comment made me think about how a span of ten years can make for a somewhat different experience.
I was in AC during the mid 80's which was after the GTA years and after HWA's crackdown a.k.a putting the church "back on track".
AC was a pretty uptight place during that time. One of the faculty went so far as to comment during one of the forums that AC didn't want us all to be #2 yellow pencils. (How he could have expected anything else is beyond me since the factory mold was pretty well set to only make #2 yellow pencils)
I recall a conversation with one of the older more in the know students who conveyed that one of the horrors that took place during those years of near apostasy in the 70's that someone actually put up a christmas tree in one of the dorms. All of us listening were suitably horrified:)
The Armstrong image management was so effective that Ted's infidelities were never a blip on the radar screen. Of course, there was an attitude of protecting the delicate feminine sensibilities during this time (in other words, keep them childlike and ignorant so they are more manageable) so it might have been that I just wasn't exposed to such shocking information.
It makes me wonder how the kids of my era fared in response to all the upheaval as compared to those from the 70's. But it's just a passing curiosity.
Ambassador - Class of '76. Another of Herbie's greatest steaming, stinking turds.
THAT'S putting it mildly!
can past graduates that are no longer members even contact other past students?
This is the only school that prohibits you from contacting your classmates if you are not still with them. I tried to sign in out of curiosity, I had a nightmare exerience in the 80's but I'm indifferent to the church and would like to contact some people, but they won't let me have access -
Isn't there an alternative site so the many of us not with the church can still contact old friends?
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