Advance High School graduates gather to celebrate Class of '62 reunion over weekend

Members of Advance (Missouri) High School's Class of 1962 celebrated their 60-year reunion Saturday, bringing together classmates from around Southeast Missouri and from as far away as Texas.

The graduating Class in 1962 consisted of 45 people.

Larry Winchester originally had the idea of bringing everyone together for the reunion with the help of classmates James and Patsy Barks, who maintained a list of class members from 1962. Winchester said he wanted to have a larger celebration and build a memory book for everyone to take home, once the height of the COVID-19 pandemic passed.

"Let's celebrate getting out or COVID. Well, I didn't know it would take that long. So, what I did is I sent packages, letters to all our classmates that were living. Let's have our celebration here and what I want to do is build a classmates notebook," Winchester said.

The memory book Winchester built listed all of those in the graduating class and explained what activities they were involved in at school. It also followed them post-graduation, mentioning them getting married and what career milestones they accomplished.

Through being at the event and making the book, Winchester said he looks back at his time in Vietnam and how it's a shared experience among many of his classmates.

"Just to see classmates, we were kids when we graduated. The 60 years since our graduation, they look back, it's been a remarkable time. With Vietnam, most of our classmates were drafted and went to Vietnam. I was a Chinook pilot in Vietnam and lucky I came back alive," Winchester said.

At the reunion, class members put out a table in remembrance of all the classmates they have lost over the years since 1962 — 15 of them.

Winchester, who lives in Texas, was happy to see how well Cape Girardeau has fared since 1962.

"That's a remarkable 60 years when you reflect back. Well, I'm happy to see Cape Girardeau has prospered, it's doing well," Winchester said.

The event was held at Drury Conference Center in Cape Girardeau.