- Grad year: 1973
- Program:
The 50th reunion of Civils ’73 class took place on June 2nd in Seasons in Park restaurant in Queen Elizabeth’s Park. Attending were 16 graduates and 13 spouses/partners/+1. Unfortunately, over the years we lost 7 classmates, so 16 attending represented 50% of our class.
Prior to the reunion, the Civils’73 Memory Book was created, which we feel is unique in history of UBC reunions, and current version is posted on internet only for our classmates to see. The Idea came from Daryl Stech who produced the template and all classmates were asked to contribute their life stories and photos. Kim Stephens spent long hours putting it together. Life stories were received from 20 classmates, 2 contributions were made on behalf of two no longer living classmates by friend and a family and where available the newspaper clippings and obituaries were incorporated.
The evening event started with general mingling and exuberant greetings fortified by appetizers and drinks. Perhaps because we had the chance to read everybody’s life stories in the Memory Book ahead of the event, thus bridging over the 15 years since our last reunion, we came together like there was no time lapse at all. The whole evening had a nice feeling of ease and genuine pleasure of seeing each other.
We later congregated on the terrace near the restaurant and our group photo was taken.
As we were seated for dinner, Harold Cunliffe – MC for the evening – made few brief remarks while restaurant staff served salad and took main course orders.
After dinner Kim Stephens paid tribute to classmates who already passed away and talked about creation of the Memory Book.
Lots of hilarity was caused by Daryl Stech who presented the statistical findings mined from the responses to questionnaires filled out by all attending classmates.
Following, Dan McKerracher was called upon to conduct a free-for-all. However, before that, Dan made a surprise presentation of a commemorative tablet to Jitka Prochazka for being the first woman-civil engineer to graduate at UBC.
Finally, every classmate had an opportunity to say a few words about how engineering affected their lives followed by a rebuttal from their spouse or “plus 1”.
Proceedings came to close due to the restaurant closing hour. It needs to be stressed that despite our advancing ages, everybody stayed till the end and there were already voices wondering about the next reunion. The organizing committee listened and the 55th reunion date is set for Saturday, June 3rd, 2028.
Submitted by Harold Cunliffe, BASc '73
