Building the In Memoriam Page

by Myrna Nickelsen | 24 Jan 2026

I didn’t want to launch this website until the In Memoriam page was finished. What I didn’t realize was how emotional that work would be.

It meant gathering names and dates from our WHS 75–80 Facebook page, messaging friends for details, searching through obituaries. But more than that, it meant confronting loss — not in the abstract, but person by person, face by face, memory by memory.

I started with Kim Wrentmore Abts because I had to start with Kim. Because planning a reunion meant talking to Kim more than normal. Because she was our reunion’s biggest cheerleader. She never missed one until 2016, and I didn’t attend that year myself – I was at a wedding in the Sierras. But there was a part of me that knew if I had gone, it would have been sadder without her there.

Her sister, Tish, was my friend in high school, but after the Dallas reunion, Kim and I stayed in touch, becoming friends in our own right. And whenever I’d tell her a reunion was in the works, our communications would go into hyperdrive – frequent calls, constant emails. Good thing we didn’t have smartphones then; I know mine would have blown up. She wanted to know everything: who was coming, what we were planning, every detail. She’d get so excited at the prospect of seeing old friends. It was impossible not to catch her joy.

So naturally, I started the In Memoriam page with Kim. But I wanted the right picture – one of her alone. Every photo I had showed her with other people: reunion shots, family pictures she’d sent over the years, always surrounded by the people she loved. I spent an inordinate amount of time searching Facebook for the perfect image, one that captured her beauty and spirit – that warmth, that million-dollar smile, the perpetual twinkle in her eye.

I found several candidates. The best ones had her husband Joe beside her, so I carefully cropped him out of one and cleaned up the background. Just getting Kim’s picture right took longer than I expected. But she deserved that time.

Next came Ann Piasecki Morey. She and Kim were such good friends, and there’s something especially heartbreaking about the timing: Kim lost Ann, and then just a year later, we lost Kim. Ann didn’t have much of an online presence – wasn’t really on Facebook – so pictures were scarce. The one I finally found came from one of our reunions, from before digital photography made everything crisp and clear. Restoring that old event photo taken at night, trying to bring Ann’s face into focus, wasn’t easy, but I kept at it until it was as good as it could be.

From there, I worked through the others. Aside from Kim and Ann, the order is somewhat random – usually determined by whose name surfaced during my research on our various pages. But each photo became its own project, each person their own story.

I set myself two goals: First, find photos that were recent enough for us to recognize the people we knew. Second, when I knew someone personally, choose images that captured their spirit – at least as I experienced it. If an obituary photo did that, I used it. When someone wasn’t pictured alone, I cropped carefully, trying to preserve what made the photo work. For pictures with poor quality, I did what I could to restore and improve them, even for people I didn’t know personally – because everyone deserved to be seen clearly, to be remembered well.

Some photos I barely touched. Robin Hollier’s, Doug & Louise Hetzel’s just needed cropping – they were already perfect.

If you have a better photo – one that captures your friend or loved one more fully – please send it to committee@whsreunion7580.com. You can also reach me through my private email, by phone if you have my number, or via Facebook message if we’re connected. I want to get this right.

And if I’ve missed someone, please let me know. Send their name, class, photo, and years. I know we lost people long before the Internet could keep track — Danny Grant, for instance. Somewhere, I have a picture he sent me when I was still in college. My memory for names isn’t what it once was, and I don’t want anyone forgotten.

Building this page has been sadder than I anticipated. Not because of the task itself, but because so many of the people on it were my friends. People who shaped who I became.

Byron Wood taught me biology for two years, and we stayed friends long after. Vern Harmelink fueled my love for writing. Louise Hetzel was a cheerleader at heart – the thought of this reunion without her feels wrong somehow. Doug Hetzel was the cute boy in high school who was always kind in person. Rick Velilla had this great laugh and was so obviously in love with Marie. Mr. Taft showed up at more than one reunion, still caring about us decades later. Terry Swatloski was my date for the junior/senior prom in 1977 – I still smile when I remember how he asked. He was a sophomore and couldn’t go without an upperclassman as his date: “Take me — you don’t have a date anyway…” John Joanou made me laugh in high school, and as adults, he loved pulling me into philosophical discussions, constantly name-dropping Bertrand Russell or Nietzsche — partly to get a rise out of me, partly to remind me how smart he was – which he was.

Each face on that page represents someone who mattered. Someone who was here, who laughed with us, who was part of our story.

I suppose working on this reunion – maybe our last – is my final love letter to the friends I made while at Wagner and even more importantly because of Wagner. What these gatherings have given many of us are real friendships with people whose faces were familiar but whom we never really knew in the Philippines. It turns out that these WHS 75-80 reunions mattered more than the memories at Wagner ever did.

In October, there will be empty chairs. Kim won’t be there to light up the room. Ann won’t be beside her. Louise won’t be cheering us on. Byron, Vern, Scott, Mark, Rick, Mr. Taft, Terry, Don, Will, Joanie, George — so many who never missed a reunion until they had no choice.

We’ll feel their absence. But we’ll gather anyway, for them and for each other, while we still can.

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