Spanning 30 years of classes, Syracuse High School Alumni Association held its annual banquet Saturday evening in the Syracuse Community Center.

Graduates of the former Syracuse High School gathered for reminiscing, a meal, roll call, a brief program and announcements. It was the 104th annual banquet.

Gary Kline welcomed everyone and noted Syracuse was typical of “small town USA” with relatively small graduating classes, but more recently he has had children or grandchildren graduate in classes of 350 to 400 students.

Kline kept everyone thinking by asking several SHS trivia questions, including what the favorite feature of the old high school was. The unanimous answer was the ramps. It was also noted two SHS graduates, Barbara Bowser and Cynthia Frevert, joined the Ringling Brothers Circus.

Honored classes were 1943, 1953 and 1963. Priscilla Rhode, Class of 1938, was the oldest living graduate attending the banquet. There were also a few members present from the Class of 1968, the last graduating class from Syracuse, thus accounting for the 30-year span.

While doing the roll call for classes, Marty Whitehead Scearce asked if the last graduating class had any regrets about not attending Wawasee High School. She was told there were no regrets because the consolidation took longer than expected. Syracuse, along with the high schools in Milford and North Webster, consolidated to form Wawasee and it opened in the fall of 1968.

The theme throughout the evening was the history of Syracuse and a DVD slide show ran displaying several old photos of the town of Syracuse and surrounding area. The DVD was provided by the Syracuse-Wawasee Historical Museum.

Becky Brower of the Syracuse Public Library presented a short program and spoke about a $9,000 grant obtained through the Indiana State Library allowing for equipment to be purchased to scan and download old photos and documents online as part of the Indiana Memories project. She said volunteers are needed to provide documents or photos and also to help scan or identify.

A 10-minute DVD, “Syracuse: The First 70 Years” was supposed to be shown, but was not due to technical difficulties.

Marie Eby Tom led the singing of the school song. The nickname for the old Syracuse High School, open from 1927 to 1968, was the Yellow Jackets.