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Twenty-six members of the class - the first to graduate from the Utica school - returned to the city for their 50th high school reunion.

Reunions have been held every five years since class was dismissed, with many making the trip back to Utica from as far way as Florida, Virginia, Delaware and British Columbia.

“We’ve been close. Some people, we see them every five years and some have stayed right in the area,” said Virgil Zanardelli, reunion chairman and class graduate. “Some people you kind of have to look at twice to remember who they are, but then after you talk to them for awhile, everything comes back.”

The former classmates enjoyed a pizza party at Mr. B’s in Shelby Township on Oct. 3 and attended afternoon Mass at St. Lawrence Church the next day before heading to Fern Hill Country Club in Clinton Township for the reunion dinner.

Zanardelli said the return to his old stomping grounds brought back some fond memories.

“It’s a lot bigger than it was before,” he said. “We, as students of that class, saw the groundbreaking of the new church. We were 10 years old at the time. We also saw the groundbreaking of the new school.”

A trivia contest at the reunion challenged the returning classmates on their memories of downtown Utica. Questions such as “Who was the Justice of the Peace?” “What was the name of the corner drug store?” and “Who owned the local bakery?” were posed to those who could remember walking the streets of Auburn and Cass before M-59 began running through the heart of the city.

“We actually used to walk under that tunnel into downtown Utica and I really wanted all of us to be able to do that again,” Zanardelli said. “My wife said, ŒThese people are getting older and that’s a mile-and-a-half walk.’ So it was probably best not to do that.”