Maybe it isn’t Guinness world record stuff yet, but it’s pretty darn unique.

That’s an opinion registered by throngs of enthusiastic returnees to the 100th anniversary reunion of the Powell High School Alumni Association June 26-27. Alums were back in number to be part of the milestone 100th consecutive annual reunion and because this may be the last of the every-year gatherings.

Ask the core group of alumni who year after year do the grunt work of putting the reunion weekend together. It’s a grind, and they need new blood on the production end to keep the event alive.

In plain language, they’re tired. They put out the word ahead of the 100th. Come back. It’s going to be a blast because it may be the last hurrah.

The planning committee made good on its end. Alums were wined and dined, paraded and serenaded. It was a hot time at the 100th reunion, but one question lingered through the weekend: Will there be a 101st?

The chorus heard over and over, my own Class of 1958 included, was “Don’t end it.”

Susan VandenBoom, who has labored on the committee for 10 years, heard the same thing. She didn’t hear what she was really listening for.

“Forty-two thousand people say keep it going,” she said with considerable emphasis. “None say they’ll help.”

Yes, the response is rewarding, VandenBoom added. “But only three of us were picking up trash at midnight Saturday. Somebody’s gotta do it.”

And there is the crux of the issue. Somebody’s gotta do it.

It’s no different than in any organization. You can only lean for so long on the same few. They wear down. Somebody’s gotta sub in. 

The 100th anniversary planning team has made it easier for someone to pick up the baton. Lessons have been learned. One of the biggest is in what not to do, as in holding a banquet in a hot room with a program that is always too long.

Longtime board member Nancy Hall puts it in no uncertain terms. “Banquet is a dirty word,” she said.

Pat Graham, with his own 30 years of alumni board affiliation, agreed.

“That banquet keeps people from coming,” he said. “People want something more relaxed and casual, something where they don’t have to dress up.”

This year’s 100th offered the formula. Bonfire. Kegger. Jam session. Food and drink alternatives. All informal.

It still takes hands on deck. Or a virtual crew. One of the interesting suggestions I heard this week as an offer of help to the local alumni committee was from someone in another state. In this day of social media, you can be as far away as Florida and still contribute.

The day of decision on whether the consecutive annual reunion run will continue for the PHS Alumni Association is July 16. That’s when the alumni board hopes to hear concrete offers of “I’ll help.”

Oh, and on the subject of the Guinness Book of World Records for longest running school reunion by the same high school, I could use some help. I did a partial search. Partial, that is, because the computer gave me 11,315 responses. Of the several pages I did review, Powell High School didn’t make the list.  But I saw enough to make me believe there’s a category waiting to be created.

For instance, the record for the longest consecutive annual class reunion for the same class at the same high school is held by the Class of 1929 at Cherokee County Community High School in Columbus, Kansas. The class held reunions for 77 straight years until 2006.

Sometimes it takes a good idea a long time to germinate. For the 1929 class of Miss Blanche Miller’s Kindergarten School in Bluefield, West Virginia, it was 70 years later before it held its first reunion in 1999, another record.

If the PHS 101st goes forward, we’ll need a record classification committee.