Alicia School classmates reminisce

said. “He taught us all how to dance the jitter bug, swing, square dance. He was an amazing civics teacher and he oversaw the student body.”

She said Landis had an engaging and entertaining teaching style.

“He made history and social studies so much fun,” she said. “He’d have the eighth-graders get in a group and we’d play a live version of the game of Risk where countries would go to battle together, and we’d learn about negotiations, power and what natural resources are in different countries.”

Landis, 87, of Marysville said he was overwhelmed with emotion when he learned he was the guest of honor at the reunion.

“It brought me to tears because people came from all over for this and one person came from New York,” he said. “I enjoyed these kids so much.

Landis sat at a table with family as people lined up to see and reconnect with him.

Wahlberg estimated about 130 people attended the event and said they’ve lost about as many people over the years.

“There are about 130 people that we know of that have passed during that time frame,” Wahlberg said. “We created some memory boards from the old yearbooks we had and used some of the pictures of all the people we could find.”

Kupser said they held a similar reunion in 1981 and it was time to do it again.

“I recently lost two close friends who died unexpectedly so I thought, ‘this is now or never,’” she said. “We put it together in two months.”