Bellevue class of ’65 celebrates with 49-cent lunch
In the 1960s, Keith Faller would receive change from a 50-cent piece when he ordered a hamburger, fries and a milkshake at the McDonald’s on Ohio River Boulevard.
Prices have risen, McDonald’s has moved down the street and those half dollars are obsolete, but last Friday Mr. Faller and fellow members of Bellevue High’s class of 1965 were offered a trip down memory lane with a 49-cent special in celebration of their 50th class reunion.
For 49 cents, the reunion menu consisted of a Big Mac or a Filet-OFish, a medium fry and a medium drink.
Frank Kobosky, who organized the lunch, frequented McDonald’s as a teen.
“We used to go to the back and have our dinner and make-out session,” he said.
Mr. Kobosky’s wife, Bobbie, who is not a graduate of Bellevue High belongs to a professional sorority that works closely with the Ronald McDonald House of Knoxville, Tenn., where they live.
“Frank just got to thinking, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice to all hang out like we used to when we were kids?’ ” she said.
Through Ronald McDonald House in Knoxville, Mr. Kobosky got in touch with the Bellevue McDonald’s and set up the nostalgic deal.
“We’re very thankful to McDonald’s for sponsoring this,” he said.
In the 1960s, McDonald’s was a landmark in Bellevue.
Beth Ashby Mitchell, now of Columbia, Md., moved to Bellevue in 1960 from outside of Johnstown.
“To live in a town with a McDonald’s was a big deal,” she said. “It was tiny, it had the golden arches and it said how many burgers they’d sold,” said Mrs. Ashby Mitchell.
The sign out front now reads “Over 99 billion served.”
Before lunch, graduates had the chance to tour their old high school, now Bellevue Elementary School.
“It was a wonderful, nostalgic tour,” said Anita Burns of Santa Barbara, Calif., who admitted to being a class clown in school. Although it was disconcerting seeing the building as an elementary school, memories resurfaced and she even found her locker, she said.
Bellevue High graduates best remember their school and community as kind and close-knit.
“Bellevue was the ’Happy Days’ of real life,” said Mr. Kobosky. “We were the ‘ Happy Days’ and the ‘Grease’ of the 1960s.”
Mr. Faller, who lives in Carmel,
Ind., said life was, “sort of like the old-time view of the U.S. in sitcoms. On a Friday night or Saturday night, you could walk down Lincoln Avenue and say hi to everybody,” said Bill Peterson of Avalon. “Everybody knew everybody.”
The community was especially close during high school football season. When Mr. Peterson was in 10th grade, his team won the conference championship.
“Bellevue went nuts,” he said. “You couldn’t walk down the street, there were so many people.”
“Everybody was friends, and we still are,” said Ms. Burns. Even though many graduates haven’t seen each other since their 25th reunion, she said they were chatting and catching up like it was “the good old days” in no time.