Just like the students who graduated from UAHS in 1979, Hastings Middle School - originally Hastings Junior High School - will spend the next year celebrating their 50th birthday! It seems hard to believe that it has been 50 years since the school opened its doors! Let's revisit its origins ...

In order for the school to be built, a bond issue for $2,800,000 was passed by the voters of the city on June 2, 1959. Part of the money provided by this bond issue was used for the construction of Hastings and the remainder was used for a cafeteria at Jones, four classrooms at Tremont, and an 18-classroom addition at the high school. The original square footage of the school was 107,468 square feet.

According to the dedication booklet, the costs to build Hastings were:

Under the supervision of general contractor Knowlton, Inc., the original facility was built with 27 classrooms, a gymnasium, an auditorium that seats 770, and a combination cafeteria, study hall, and social area. There were two art rooms, two home economics laboratories, three rooms for shop (drawing, wood, and metal,) four science labs, and rooms for instrumental and vocal music. A "modern library suitable for needs of 7th, 8th, and 9th graders" was included as part of the building.

Since that time, improvements and enhancements have taken place, but the building looks very much the same….including the auditorium. For that reason, Principal Robb Gonda is launching an Adopt-a-Chair Campaign to restore the existing chairs in the auditorium. Chaired by Amy Chope Whalen UA '79 and Lauren Schooley Schuerman UA '79 - daughter of Hastings architect John Schooley - donors may adopt one or more chairs for $150 each. The chairs will feature a cushioned seat, and a nameplate will be included on the back of the chair with inscription of the donor's choice.

See more information and the order form here.

Mr. Gonda has a committee who is planning special events for this year of celebration. When the schedule of events is complete, we will share the times and dates with you. Please join us as we congratulate and thank 50 years worth of educators, staff, administrators, school board members, directors, advisors, coaches, parents, and students for creating a school of which the community is most proud!

It may be just February, but this is the time of year when reunion committees are busy at work, planning their reunion events, making reservations, locating classmates, and sending out information. If you are in one of the classes listed below, you are having a reunion during the Fourth of July Weekend, 2011:

1946, 1951, 1956, 1961, 1966, 1971, 1976, 1981, 1986, 1991, 1996, 2001, and 2006.

You can click your graduation year to go to the Reunion page of Bearalums.com that is set up for your class events. We are just now beginning to hear from this year's reunion coordinators, so some pages so not have much information yet ... but they will, so please continue to check back for updates.

For a full index of all the class reunions and links to individual class web sites and Facebook pages, please visit the Reunions 2011 page of Bearalums.com.

Also, whether you are having a reunion this summer or not, please make sure that your information is correct in our UAAA records! If you have moved or changed your telephone number recently, please email Joanie with those changes. If your email address has changed, please email Ellen.

John Kost, UAHS Class of 1974, has once again offered to sponsor the UAAA Block Party, to be held on Monday, July 4 right after the UA parade under the tent behind Barrington Elementary School.

John, a realtor with Re/Max Premier Choice, has very generously sponsored our UAAA Big Event for more than a decade now, and we can never think of enough ways to thank him. Through his many contributions, John has become UAAA's single largest individual donor!

Each UA reunion class will have a special table designated for their gathering after the parade, and the entire communtiy is invited. Join your neighbors as well as your seldom-seen out-of-town classmates under the tent again this year! We'll have food, entertainment, activities for the children, and lots of fun! We hope you'll join us.

John was named as our UAAA Outstanding Alumnus in 2003. His continuing generosity, superb organization, and genuine dedication to Upper Arlington and our Alumni Association make him a perennial Outstanding Alumnus! We simply could not do this without him. THANK YOU TO JOHN KOST!!!

At the eBear Marketplace page of Bearalums.com, you can place a free ad for UA items or offer UA memorabilia for sale. It's a great place to find alums who may have a Norwester you're looking for, or to let others know that you have UA items you'd like to sell or trade.

All transactions are done between alums, and the UA Alumni Association does not participate in the communications or money transactions. We just hope to connect you with someone who can help you!

Please visit the eBear Marketplace and see everything that 's currently being offered. If you'd like to list something for sale and post a "wanted" ad for UA memorabilia, please contact us.

Have you visited our Bearalums.com Alumni Web sites page lately? Many of our alums have sent in the addresses of their personal or company sites, and we've linked to each of them. They are organized by graduation year. You know how it is: people like to do business with people they know and trust, and it's interesting and fun to look through these Web sites to find out what kinds of businesses, organizations, and hobbies our fellow UAHS grads are involved in and enjoy.

Every couple of months, we will feature several of these Alumni Web sites. If you would like for us to link to your Web site, please email us your link and we will add you! You could be featured next!

FEATURED WEB SITES FOR FEBRUARY AND MARCH, 2011

Fred Hensley '77

A. Your name and email address appear on Bearalums.com ONLY if you specifically request it. Due to privacy concerns, we include only those alums who personally submit their names and emails to us.

The Lost lists are names of people for whom we have outdated postal mailing addresses. The last time UAAA attempted to send a newsletter or reunion information to those alums, it came back as undeliverable. We hope that you will look at the lost lists and if you know someone's whereabouts, or if you see your own name on your class lost list, please email us with updated contact information!

A. No, you do not need to be a member of UAAA to be on your class list, but we greatly appreciate those alums who help us out by becoming members. We offer four levels of membership, and we'll even work with you to divide your payments over a period of time. Bearalums.com is funded SOLELY by membership dues, and we will continue to provide this Web site at no charge to our alums as long as possible. If you can help out with membership dues, we will be very grateful to you!

Our email/online newsletter, Traditions, is UAAA's way of connecting our alums and passing along all kinds of interesting news. We invite you to send us any news about your own life so that we can share it with other grads.

Please email your news announcement to us and include your full name, graduation year, and your announcement as you would like to have it printed. We welcome photos to accompany your story, and the pictures will be used on the Announcements page of Bearalums.com rather than in the newsletter (we are keeping Traditions text-only for fast loading and readability even on your phone!). Remember - we love to hear about what's happening in your life, whether it is related to education, marriage, family, relocation, career accomplishments, or anything else! Thank you!

Thank you for helping us to keep our newsletter interesting and fun with your input!    

As graduates of Upper Arlington High School, we share a special bond that lasts a lifetime, and it is with sad hearts that we announce the passing of the following UAHS alumni and faculty. To their families and friends we extend our sincere condolences.

Thanks so much to all of you who pay dues to the UAAA. These dues are critical to the support of our organization. Many alums think that funding for the Alumni Association comes from the school district. WRONG! We are completely self-sustaining and need these dues in order to maintain our database of nearly 30,000 graduates and to pay the costs of running our Web site, Bearalums.com. We are proud that we do not require a login and password for our Web site and we do not restrict it to dues-paying members. However, over the past few years, we have seen our number of dues-paying members decline. We need YOU! Our tax-deductible dues are modest, so it is our goal to increase membership, and we hope that we can count on you. Membership in UAAA is available at four levels:

Some people are online a great deal and prefer to pay with Paypal; others prefer printing the membership form and mailing us a check. We appreciate your dues, and we want to make it easy for you, so please select your preferred method of payment.:

Because we respect our alums' privacy, we list names and email addresses on Bearalums.com ONLY when they are personally submitted by the alum. When we started Bearalums.com in 2000, we had approximately 320 email addresses in our database; we currently have almost 13,000 alums' email addresses listed on Bearalums.com!

If you are not listed on your class page but wish to be, please send in your information. If you notice that one of your classmates isn't listed, please contact that person and ask them to visit Bearalums.com and personally submit his or her information. And if you see someone's name on the Lost list at the bottom of each class page, and you know his or her location, please let us know, or contact that classmate and ask him or her to contact UAAA.

Our goal is to maintain the most complete and accurate database that we possibly can. We are asking for your help! And thank you to those of you who have helped us through your membership dues; your financial help allows us to provide the ongoing hosting and maintenance fees of our Web site.      

We hope that you will make sure that we have your current postal mailing address, phone number, and email address. Below are the email addresses to use to send this information to the correct person at UAAA: