My alma mater, Highline High School in Burien, opened in 1924.

The history of Elizabeth Williams' family in Seahurst is not unusual. Elizabeth is a second-generation graduate of Highline; her kids are third-generation and her grandkids are the fourth generation of Pirate alums.

On the other hand, there is Glacier High in SeaTac. The school opened in 1961 just as the earliest baby boomers were hitting adolescence. But airport expansion and a declining economy killed Glacier just 19 years later in 1980.

There are so few Glacier grads that it is possible to hold an entire all-class reunion in one big banquet room.

I've documented previously how school reunions terrify me. A perhaps slightly exaggerated description of my jitters went like this:

"I'm sick, I think I have a fever," I whined.

Marge handed me the thermometer and left the room.

I immediately thrust it up next to a hot light bulb.

"What are you doing," Marge demanded as she unexpectedly re-entered the room.

"I don't want to go to school," I whined again pitifully.

"It's not school. It's your ...high school reunion. Now, what's the problem?"

"I'm nearly bald, I'm wrinkled and I weigh 60 pounds more than when I graduated," I replied.

"I've seen your high-school graduation picture with those big black-rimmed Goldwater glasses and geeky crew cut. Trust me, you look a whole lot better now," Marge declared.

However, the Glacier all-class reunion held Sept. 10 at the Normandy Park Cove intrigued me.

I was curious what it was like to have attended a school that only had 19 graduation classes.

Also my brother, Phil Mathison taught Chemistry as well as coaching tennis and basketball there. After Glacier closed, he moved over to Highline High, his alma mater.

My two other older brothers and my younger sister graduated from Highline, too. See what I mean about Glacier and Highline?

Anyway. I kind of wanted to get the gossip on what kind of teacher my big brother had been.

Oh, I suppose there may have been another reason why I wanted to go. I thought there may be a very slight chance I might bump into Glacier grad Gisi Janowitz. You might say she was my first teen romance more than 40 years ago when she attended Glacier and I was at Highline College.

So despite my aversion to reunions, I headed inside the Cove on the last sunny afternoon of the summer.

Mostly I hung around the teachers lounge section of the reunion.

It seems like most of the teachers had escaped dealing with the raging hormones of junior-highers by seeking a promotion to Glacier High. That was a time, they told me, when teachers were valued. With so many new schools opening up, transferring was easy.

All the teachers said they loved Glacier-the faculty, the neighborhood, the parents-even the kids.

"It was a blue-collar neighborhood where the parents knew the value of an education," drivers-ed teacher Chuck Sting remembers. "The parents didn't make excuses for their kids."

Mr. Sting is unique. He was a member of Glacier's second graduation class and then returned to teach after college.

P.E. teacher Jan Hall, famous in Glacier circles for being one of the few teachers who opened the school in '61 and closed it down in '80, recalls the school with fondness.

Ms. Hall recalls it just wasn't the mothers from the working class families who showed up for parent conferences and school events.

"You saw the dads, too," Ms. Hall declared.

"The teachers had fun and the kids had fun but they were respectful," Ms. Hall noted.

Sure, there were occasional pranks; "things that students wouldn't dare do today but there never was any vandalism," Ms. Hall said.

One of the pranksters, Scott Traverso, Class of '62, showed up at the reunion to confess that he had indeed stuffed a moose head into a Ford Thunderbird in the school parking lot.

"Back then, you only needed a wire to break into a car," Traverso explained.

Ms. Hall also remembers a young Mr. Mathison, who handled junior varsity tennis team while she coached the varsity.

"He took over as varsity coach when I thought he was ready," Ms. Hall joked.

Mr. Sting remembers my brother as a helpful veteran teacher who he called late at night with questions when they both taught at Highline.

Darin Gee, '80, part of the "last class out" at Glacier, laments that his alma mater isn't still going.

"We don't get a Homecoming. I can't help out at school dances. There are lots of things that I don't get to do with my school," Gee said.

Gee has volunteered in the Aviation High robotics program and started up the robotics program at Highline High.

A true believer in the value of robotics for students, Gee wistfully says, "I would have given everything to start robotics at my school and take it on into the next level."

After it closed, Glacier housed various schools including the state Criminal Justice Training Center and the local branch of Central Washington University.

Mostly recently, it was used as an interim site for the alternative Big Picture High School. Because it is in the airport noise impact area, it can't be used as a permanent school so Big Picture moved this year to the Manhattan site. The district continues to lease part of the building to Sound Athletics, which provides youth sports programs.

And what about Gisi? The reunion organizers checked their records carefully, but no Gisi.

Oh, well.