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BURGETTSTOWN, Pa. (AP) — George DeSantis didn't get a chance to start his senior year of high school.
"All of the fellows in our class turned 18 in 1943, when they were juniors, and quite a few were drafted," he recalled. "They had to go into the service before their senior year."
DeSantis was inducted into the U.S. Army and participated in invasions of the Philippines and Okinawa, but was not wounded — and neither were any of his classmates during the duration of World War II, which ended two years later.
The military men thus put off graduation from Union High School, the forerunner to Burgettstown High. For DeSantis, the delay would be 65 years, when he passed his GED exam at 83.
Being uprooted from school as a teen would upset many people, especially when they reflected on that later in life. But DeSantis accepts that now, as he did then, as an experience from a rich life. A life he has shared, to a large extent, with almost everyone at his dinner table Sunday affternoon.
The Union High Class of 1944 celebrated its 70th reunion at Walden's at 1709 Main, a Burgettstown restaurant. Yes, 70th. The banner behind their table attested to that.
All are in their late 80s, and all had a spirited time. They savored their meal, but enjoyed chewing the fat just as much, recounting pleasant memories from growing up in Burgettstown, Slovan and surrounding communities.
About 30 remain from a class of 106, and nine — seven of them women — attended the soiree. And it didn't matter whether you got a GED in 2008, as DeSantis did. They were classmates in every sense.
Asked about their overriding memory of high school, about five responded: "Fun."
"It was a different time," said Jean Gilbert Castellino.
"It was a simpler time," said Mary Stiak Malinkowski.
Castellino and Wardie Joseph Bertolotti organized the event, with ample assistance from DeSantis. It had been five years since their last reunion; the first was in 1950.
Spouses Jack and Betty Hamill Crilley were among the guests who graduated together. Togetherness is the operative word here, as they've been married for 66 years, but together for more than 70.
"I met Jack the first day of school as a junior," Betty said. "He had just moved here."
"I came here from Mercer," Jack said, "and now we live there."
Margie Maropis, Rose Zilich Yesko and Lucille Jackson Byrne were the other classmates on hand. Maropis' husband, Pete, also was there, along with Byrne's two daughters.
Byrne was the only attendee who became an educator, She taught and was a dietitian at three Washington County school districts.
The celebrants remembered their region during the FDR administration as being mostly farms with some deep coal mines. A couple of classmates recalled Union High burned down in the mid-1960s while classes were in session, but that the new high school was ready to open.
Speaking of lighting up — Betty Crilley still does. She didn't start smoking while in school, but not long afterward.
"I started when I was 18," she said, chuckling. "I still smoke. The doctor asked me 'When will you stop?' and I said, 'When I die.'"
Class reunions frequently are conducted in increments of five years. Asked about a next one, several roared.
"We'll have four or five people for the next one," Castellino said.
"I've never heard of a 75th," Malinkowski said. "I don't think I'll be here. But God has been kind to me."
Kind to all nine, actually, which was evident at Walden's.
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