Albury High School class of 1952-1956 holds reunion on April 15

Students from Albury High School in the years 1952 to 1956 gathered for lunch at Commercial Club Albury and dinner at Albury Manor House on Saturday, April 15.

Now aged in their 80s, guests travelled from Melbourne, Bendigo, Henty, Canberra, Sydney and Nelson Bay to take part. It followed similar reunions for the group in 1996, 2006, 2011, 2014, 2016 and 2018, with the planned 2020 event cancelled due to COVID.

Organiser Hazel Hawkins said the gatherings began after one former student, John Eddy, of Sydney, attended a general Albury High School reunion in 1994.

He was disappointed so few of his own class were there and suggested a 40th anniversary reunion for the final year class of 1956, 34 students in all.

"In those two years we did a lot of investigating and detective work to try and locate people," Miss Hawkins said.

"By the time we had the reunion in November '96, we had located every one of those except one girl."

A few months later, that final student was also tracked down.

"When we had the 50 year reunion ... she was the first one to reply, saying 'I was lost for the first one, but I'm found for this one'," Miss Hawkins said.

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Over time the reunions have evolved informally to include anyone who attended Albury High School over those years, with the students' biology teacher joining in the 55th anniversary celebrations.

This year's event included a booklet outlining what people have done since leaving secondary school.

Among the professions are teachers, engineers (Australia and overseas), chartered accountants, alarm security, farmers, financial counselling, music industry (Australia and overseas) secretarial, retail and a microbiologist.

Miss Hawkins, a former Albury Public School teacher for 21 years, said as they aged and travel became more difficult, the group had decided to hold a more simple function next year, for anyone able to come.

"At this stage it's 67 years since we actually left high school," she said.

"It's been an exciting journey for us. We know each other, it's continuing friendships, it's great."

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