Class Reunions: From Marylin Lysohir's Pennsylvania to Kellogg, Idaho

It was a fitting set of bookends to the sense of nostalgia we have over class reunions.

Marilyn Lysohir's GOOD GIRLS exhibition

For Idaho artist, Marilyn Lysohir, the passion to recreate the figurative busts of every one of her 163 classmates from Sharon, Pennsylvania.

The exhibition, which opened at Washington State University and was recently at Missoula Art Museum, is currently at Kolva-Sullivan in Spokane.

That's where I was Friday evening for ArtWalk, before hightailing it across the stateline and up and over the mountain to join my partner at the Kellogg All-Class Reunion.

Having never been to my own class reunion and having taught in a school that is only ten years old, I was unprepared for the outpouring of community support.

Yellow and gold everywhere. Classes from as far back as the 1930's. Classic cars. Music. Open containers everywhere. Memorials to those who'd passed on. Class events, parades, and a trolley running from place to place.

Everyone looking and wondering, trying to figure out if they knew you and from where or how. And on Saturday night, the whole town was at the legendary Dirty Ernie's, with it's commanding view of the Teeter's Field down below and most of lower Kellogg twinkling in the distance.

With its mining/logging history, the Northwest often reminds me of my former home in Pennsylvania and thereabouts. And with the first day of school fast approaching, this was a good reminder for me that what I get to do--teaching--is as much about making art as it is helping make memories for my kids and my community.