A More Perfect Reunion

By PHIL DAVIS

May 24, 1998 12 AM PT

SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

In the summer of 1953, Bell High School students tossed their maroon graduation caps into the sky and set out to conquer Cold War America.

They did pretty well. One landed a starring role in a Tarzan movie and played some pro football; another became a surgeon and went on to run a medical school’s pathology department in Milwaukee.

But somewhere along the way, the Bell High Class of ’53 forgot a simple ritual--the high school reunion. When 1963 rolled around, no reunion notices went out. Decades passed: 1973 . . . ’83 . . . ’93 . . . nothing.

“Gosh,” said Tom Lazear of Huntington Beach, now 63 and owner of a software business. “Everyone was having a super time in high school and--bam!--graduation comes and everyone goes off in a different direction.

“We just went out and got busy.”

Then, last year, Lazear’s classmate, Bill Claybaugh, 62, received a call from an old high school buddy seeking real estate advice. Talk turned from house prices to the good ol’ days and, finally, to the forgotten reunion.

“Every time I talk to somebody we say, ‘What happened? We were so close.’ No one seems to have a good answer,” said Claybaugh, a retired real estate agent in Torrance. “We just kind of drifted away.”

Claybaugh vowed to bring the Class of ’53 together again.

It started with phone calls, friends calling friends who remembered friends of friends and so on. The task was daunting: reassemble a group of 230 people who had abandoned the old neighborhoods of Bell, Maywood and Cudahy for cities across the country. He expected it might take a couple of years. Maybe there would be a reunion in 2003.

But Claybaugh’s enthusiasm caught on. A small coalition of Bell High grads--including Lazear in Orange County--joined forces and turned to the Internet, gleaning names out of old yearbooks and punching them into “people finder” software.

The pace picked up. Responses kept pouring in: “You found me,” said a note from a woman in Texas whose son, tracked down after more than 20 phone calls, passed on Claybaugh’s e-mail address and reunion inquiry.

After hundreds of long-distance phone calls, dozens of letters and uncounted hours in front of their computers, members of the small reunion committee managed to track down most of Bell High’s 230-student Class of ’53 in only nine months.

There were nice surprises. For instance, Lazear discovered he lived within a few miles of several Bell High classmates and never knew it.

“It’s been a long chore, but I think it’s absolutely incredible that out of 230 students we’ve found 170 and 20 more who are deceased,” Lazear said. “That’s only 40 people out of that graduating class that we haven’t found.”

On June 20, the Class of ’53 will host its first reunion in 45 years at the Buena Park Hotel and Convention Center.

Despite his own enthusiasm for the reunion, Claybaugh said he was surprised at the number of old classmates who were excited at the prospect of getting back together. A few months ago, it seemed risky to put a deposit on the 50-person banquet room at a local restaurant.

“Now, I’m negotiating for an even bigger room,” he said.

Claybaugh’s also busy these days taking snapshots of Bell High yearbooks and dog-eared, yellow copies of the school newspaper, the Chimes.

Across the country, phones and e-mail are abuzz with talk of long nights at the Clock Drive-in, high school cliques and “Whatever happened to so and so?”

Lazear promises the halls of the Buena Park hotel are sure to get a little wild as the sexagenarians of Bell High throw a rollicking party--a few decades late.

“The 16-year-old is still alive inside us,” he said, chuckling at old memories. “I’ll be there with bells on.”