b'Coming Back to Give Back: Class of 1969/1979 Reunion I n May 1969, the senior class left its first lastingMembers of the Class of 1969 had invited the Class legacy in the form of a gift: a set of four street lampsof 1979 to join their reunion party and challenged it to illuminate the fountain. Fast forward to July 1994to take up the mantle of coming back to give back, when this same class returned to campus to celebratewhich it did immediately and with gusto, announcing their 25th reunion at the Alumni Associations Alumnithat it would top off 69s effort to make the grand total Weekend, an event they helped to organize. Pan Am$40,000! In addition, 79 pledged to set its own fund-alumni were joined by Tex-Mex and Pres-Mex alumsraising goal. in a full weekend of events. Members of these classes will be reaching out to other For its reunion, the Class of 1969 raised funds for analumni to widen the come back to give back effort. anniversary gift in memory of a classmate who hadAs Patsy Cavazos Perez 69 put it, Somebody else paid died several years earlier, and they used these funds tofor me to go to Pan Am. It only seems right that I would purchase new hymnals for the Morris Chapel. Addi- contribute now so that others might obtain the education tionally, they established the Arnoldo Lopez MemorialI received.Scholarship to further memorialize their friend. Elena Mackay Reisner, long-time English teacher and direc- Coming Back to Give Back 2019tor of thespian efforts, remarked at the time that it was the first time a class had come back to give back.Fifteen years later, in 2009, the Class of 69 met once again, this time for their 40th reunion in Nashville, TN, where they set a goal of raising $4,000 to add to the scholarship fund. They reunited again in Fort Worth, TX in 2017, setting another goal of raising $5,000 to benefit the scholarship fund, and at this time, they were invited to return to campus in 2019 to cele-brate their 50th class reunion. On May 24, 2019, they gathered at the Harte Student Center on campus and excitedly announced that they exceeded their initial fundraising goal, and they pre-sented a check in the amount of $9,000 to the scholar- Mr. Greg Hopper, PPAS CFO, receives check from Laura ship fund. But, another surprise announcement was inFrischeisen 69 while F. Clark Williams, Jr. 69 reads a letter store when class member Laura Alvarado Frischeisenfrom North Shore Presbyterian Churchpresented an additional gift of $30,000 from her Great Neck, NY congregation, the North Shore Presbyterian Church, taking the total to $39,000!www.ppas.org|Page 11'