Tri-town students had never been so united as they were on the first day of class at Old Rochester Regional High School in 1961.

Although they lived only a few miles apart, many had attended different secondary and high schools before entering the shiny new high school on the hill.

“There was no foundation. There was no history. We were the ones who made it,” said John DeMello, class of 1965.

More than 50 years later, a group of those students is planning to reunite the first four graduating classes at a gathering on Sept. 9 in Marion.

As Teddy Laycock, class of 1964, said, “We’re dropping like flies.”

With the numbers dwindling, it made sense to get the old gang back together to catch up and share stories from the good ole days.

Over the years, many of the accomplishments from the classes of 1962 to 1965 have been lost, lamented Kathy DeMello, class of 1965. The original Cranberry Bowl is gone and trophies from the first championship teams have disappeared.

“It’s like we never existed, so we’re gonna make a little noise,” said Kathy, who’s husband John is also on the planning committee.

In fact, the two met while students at ORR and have been married for 50 years.

Kathy remembers getting bathroom passes her sophomore year so she could wave to John through the window of his English class across the hallway. John would then get his own pass, and they would meet in the hallway. Later, John’s teacher Mr. Fuller told them he knew about the rendezvous, but excused it since his pupil had straight As.

The rules weren’t necessarily lax in those days though. Students passed notes in the hallways because monitors made sure everyone was silent between classes. Boys had to wear ties. Girls were restricted from wearing culottes, and “we had to kneel down and our skirts had to touch the ground,” remembered Kathy.

Although many students were unacquainted before coming to ORR, “we became fast friends,” said Richard Morgado, class of 1964.

The new sports program put former enemies on the same team, and there was plenty to bond over.

For instance, John said the baseball team started out its first five or six games without uniforms, so they wore “sweatshirts and dungarees.”

“The only thing that showed up was the hats,” John recalled. “We heard, ‘There are the farmers from Rochester.’”

“There are so many memories with those days,” said Morgado, who like many from those first classes, lives in the tri-town.

He still recalls the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated and his disbelief when a student came into his classroom to break the news.

“I remember to this day saying, ‘Peter, that’s not something to joke about.’ I can picture it right in my mind.”

There was no denying that it was a turbulent time, but the former classmates say the school somehow avoided some of the unrest happening elsewhere in the country, including racial strife.

“There were no black kids, no white kids. We were all like this always,” Kathy said, gesturing towards the lighthearted bickering and bantering of the planning members.

Morgado and Laycock say they still refer to classmates as brothers.

Laycock, a second baseman on the varsity baseball team, and his friend Billy Garcia, a shortstop, were known as the “Keystone Combination,” and according to Laycock were “the two most handsomest guys of the day.”

“He was like my brother. Still is,” said Laycock.

He and Garcia, a 2015 inductee to the ORR Athletic Hall of Fame, were among the standouts in the first ORR yearbooks. No doubt the reunion will bring back some of those old monikers.

Alumni will want to know if John is still Most Flirtatious, if Carol Oliviera Regan from the class of 1965 is still Miss Personality Plus, and if former cheerleaders Kathy and Suzanne Prewitt Peterson still remember their routines from the first ORR cheer squad.

As the group plans an outdoor gathering on Laycock’s property in Marion, complete with tent, finger food and reminiscing, the ORR alums are trying to get in touch with everyone from the inaugural classes as well as teachers.

For more information, alumni and teachers can contact any of the following: Donna Pina Andrews (’65) dmandrews1@verizon.net; John DeMello (’65), jfdemello@verizon.net; Richard Morgado (’64), dickmorgado@hotmail.com; Peter Foster (’64), pfcoot@gmail.com; Suzanne Peterson (’63), suzpet44@hotmail.com.