Out of sight isn’t out of mind for Everett High School graduates.
Though some of them spend the winter basking in the sun of southern California, they remember those at home in the rain and go "Burrrrrr."
Once a year, snowbirds invite any graduates from the Everett area to Southern California for a Snohomish County and Everett High Desert Reunion. This year the party is at 2 p.m. Feb. 20 at Tri-Palm Estates, 32700 Desert Moon Drive in Thousand Palms, Calif. For more information, call Betty and Roger Rice at 760-343-0971.
"We talk about old times, who is still around, the old days," organizer Roger Rice said. "We like to say this is for Everett and vicinity. They can come from Mariner and Cascade highs."
Rice, 81, who lives in Mill Creek, came to Everett in 1931 from North Dakota. His father died when he was 12 and his mother, a hardy Norwegian, said they could get along fine if everyone worked.
Rice delivered the Everett Herald and graduated from Everett High School in 1941.
After serving in Word War II, the former Snohomish County PUD commissioner married, became a dentist, was widowed, and left Illinois to bring his three children back to Everett.
He met his wife, Betty, 75, also an Everett High graduate, and they merged families like the Brady Bunch. He served on the Frontier Bank board of directors and retired in 1986.
During the winter, they live in a manufactured home in Thousand Palms. Did I care that it was 70 degrees there the day we visited on the phone? Life is good 10 miles east of Palm Springs.
They recently saw a traveling Broadway production of "Cats" at McCollum Theater. They mosey home when the weather gets hot. They visit family here at Christmas. Their California home is in a country-club setting with a nine-hole golf course and swimming pools.
"We play cards," Rice said. "We go out to dinner."
Friends traveling south to the desert reunion, in about its 10th year, often stay with some of the Everett families who live in the area.
"I have several who come down I have known since the 1930s," Rice said.
Mary Rayner, 74, another party planner, may have some guests who stay at her place. Mary and Dale Rayner, 75, who both graduated from Everett High, live at Tri-Palm and travel up here in the summer in their motor home. They stay at Thousand Trails around here and with family and friends on Camano Island and in Everett and Marysville.
Dale Rayner opened one of the first gas stations in Everett in 1950 at the corner of Rucker Avenue and 37th Street. As Mary Rayner worked up the sales ladder for Tupperware, the couple moved around the country with that company.
When they retired from Tupperware in 1974, they started moving south with their three children and landed in Oregon, then headed south again, to the Bay Area and opened an antique business before retiring at Tri-Palm.
"We are golfers," Rayner said. "We love it here."
When we visited, they were leaving to go with a caravan of motor homes to a lake retreat. It was raining here. I was so tickled to hear about a trip to a lake in beautiful weather.
For the February party, they expect more than 200 guests. Rayner said those from Everett High share a special kinship.
"It was kind of like a family at Everett High," Rayner said. "Back then most of us grew up in neighborhoods where we knew our friends since grade school."
One famous Everett grad always shows up to entertain. Stan Boreson will do his schtick at the party.
When Rayner comes home to visit, she does lunch with 14 old friends from school. "We still get together," she said. "After all these years."
It sounds like warmth at the party won’t just come from desert heat.
Columnist Kristi O’Harran: 425-339-3451 or oharran@heraldnet.com
Photo by Roger Rice
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