Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Voyager Media Publications • www.shorewoodsentinel.com
Vol. 18 No. 34
GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN
JOHN PATSCH/FOR THE SENTINEL
JT East Class of 1976 graduates Rowna Vargocko, Vicki Jordan, Cathy Scheidt, Lee Ann Camp Fisk, and Kim Conroy used balloons to tell what class they were from.
Joliet East alums celebrate, commiserate 30 years after school closes By Stewart Warren For the Bugle
Thirty years ago, one of the Dejarald boys lost something. It was a green-and-gold varsity letter jacket from Joliet East High School, a wrestling patch neatly stitched to the front.
It might have belonged to Jim Dejarald. Or maybe to his brother, the kid everyone called “Beaver.” “Like ‘Leave it to Beaver,’” Tom Chudy explained helpfully, his back to the beer vendor Saturday at the Joliet East All School Reunion. One of the Dejaralds left the coat at Chudy’s house and apparently forgot about it.
Chudy didn’t. After he married, the 51-year-old packed the jacket each time he moved to a new home, four times in all. On Saturday night, he brought it with him to the reunion at Joliet Memorial Stadium. “Have you seen any of the Dejarald boys here,” Chudy asked Mike O’Connell. O’Connell is a member of the Joliet
East Class of 1969, one of the school’s former basketball coaches and a reunion organizer. Chudy practically had to shout so O’Connell could hear him over the more than 600 partying alumni. “No,” O’Connell said. Chudy had left the jacket on a table See EAST, page 2