FRIENDS reunited

Darleene Barrientos

At the annual John Burroughs and Burbank high schools’ all-class

reunion, 1967 Burroughs graduate Barbara Bailley McGill discovered

firsthand how people can change over the years.

Last year, McGill re-connected with a woman she had not seen since

high school, but never spoke to while they both attended Burroughs.

Now, they’re great friends and even travel together occasionally, she

said.

“In high school, she was in the ‘popular’ group,” McGill said,

with a laugh.

The fifth annual all-reunion picnic and car show was held for the

third year in a row at Johnny Carson Park. Hundreds of Burroughs and

Burbank high school graduates from the 1940s to as recently as 2005

got a chance to meet, mingle and enjoy a day -- albeit a hot day --

at the park.

McGill and her longtime friend Linda King McCormick, who graduated

in 1969, come to every reunion. Both are proud graduates of

Burroughs, but between them, three of their children have attended

Burbank High.

The classic car show, featuring restored hot rods, trucks and

sedans, attracted 1997 Burbank graduate Daniel Deroo. Deroo and his

friend, 2005 Burroughs graduate Rachel Radulich, were the two of the

three attendees who graduated in the 1990s and 2000s.

“My mom said, ‘there’s cars,’ and I said, ‘OK,’” Deroo said. “But

she didn’t say you had to sign up.”

Signing up resulted in him being the lone delegate for his decade

when it came time for all the picnic-goers to congregate at the

center of the park behind signs listing each decade.

“Poor thing,” said his mother Shawna Armstrong, who graduated from

Burbank in 1974. “He was the only one standing in the 1990s.”

An event like Burbank’s all-class reunion is important, because it

helps preserve the history of the area, through its high school

graduates, said Burbank class of 1973 graduate Kathleen Gaston Hitt.

“I think, the older we get, the more we realize we are connected,”

Hitt said. “It transcends decades. It transcends time.”