Chief Sealth students and alumni celebrated the high school's long-awaited 50th anniversary with a reunion on Oct. 13. The anniversary concluded Sealth's homecoming week.

"We coordinated it with Sealth's homecoming, so it was all tied in with part of Sealth's homecoming event. The assembly, the dance, the game and then, Friday night and then Saturday was the 50 year reunion," said Athletic Director Nels Enquist.

Preparations for the reunion began spring 2007 with the school sending out mailings, brochures and small handouts.

"Friends of Sealth have a Web site and so they advertised on that, I believe it was in the West Seattle Herald and then a mailing went out to people in the zip code radius. And also people who have attended other Sealth events," said Enquist.

Next came planning the reunion program. Enquist said he approached it with the intent for people to reminisce and talk to other people.

"It was like someone's 50th birthday party. Having had one a few years ago that's how I kind of viewed the whole structure."

The students participated by decorating Sealth for homecoming week in a way that reflected the school's past five decades. Each of the four classes chose a different decade and decorated a wall by what was going on during that time.

"We had different areas of the school set aside for different decades, so you got signed in, you got a name tag with, you put your name and the grade, which year you graduated and then you go to the different areas and meet people from that same decade," Enquist said. "Because you might be from the class of '80 and you're kind of looking and maybe someone from '81, '82 which you would know also."

The reunion featured tours of the school so that people attending could see a particular room like their former homeroom or whatever else they requested to see in the building. Three birthday cakes were served.

"Also we had, the school newspaper came out with their edition that morning and what it had in it was, he took, Mr. Serpe the newspaper advisor, he took pages from different eras from the newspaper and put them in the newspaper," Enquist said.

"So if you turn the page you saw, from 1962, what was on the page in the school newspaper in 1962. And then from '77, you know and then different eras." Enquist pointed out that looking at the newspaper clips gave a glimpse of how the school has changed and how it has not changed in the past 50 years.

He credited Friends of Sealth, a non-profit corporation, for doing much work to put the reunion together. For more information visit www.seattleschools.org/schools/chiefsealth or www.freindsofsealth.org.

Ruth Wetzel is a freelance writer that may be reached via wseditor@robinsonnews.com