POULSBO — The location of their high school reunion on Aug. 2 was a telling reminder of how this group came of age during the Cold War.
Raab Park didn’t exist then. When this group graduated from North Kitsap High School, Raab Park was a U.S. Army Nike missile site, one of 265 in the United States and 18 in Washington state.
Each member of the Class of 1958 entered adulthood in an uncertain world. The space race and the arms race were speeding on. The U.S., USSR and Great Britain tested nuclear weapons that year, amid calls by those same countries to halt the testing of nuclear weapons.
The high school’s Hostmark Street location was new that year. The Class of 1958 was the first to spend its senior year on Hostmark, although they chose to have their graduation ceremony in the old gym at the former high school.
Members of the Class of 1958 had all that in common, and more. They always had the North Kitsap Peninsula in common, and the experiences shared while growing up here. The ties that bind continue to be strong; many classmates have stayed in Kitsap and stayed in touch. Bob Arless of Shelton traveled the farthest to the event. Pete and Claudia Herber travel in their RV now, but they stay in touch with their hometown.
Still, the Class of ’58 reunion and picnic was a relatively small gathering, and included only a couple of people from classes other than ’58. The event took on a sentimental tone as classmates remembered Allan Jerome Wang, a retired fisherman and merchant seaman known as “Halibut Al,” who died June 18.
Many classmates will gather again Aug. 30, for a potluck lunch celebrating Wang’s life. The celebration of life is scheduled for noon that day at the Fairview Grange Hall, 2123 Lake Farm Road in Port Angeles.
— With reporting by Herald correspondent Melinda Weer
