Students from a Wagga school have been reunited after more than half a century apart.
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About 55 students from Wagga High School's Class of 1971 gathered this weekend to mark the historic milestone, prompted after one of their classmates was diagnosed with cancer.
Organiser Lyn Bradley, 67, said the idea for the reunion came about after her brother Bruce, also in the class, was diagnosed with cancer.
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Ms Bradley said the siblings shared a great group of friends between them during their time at the school and his diagnosis brought some of them together after about 40 years apart.
She said that reunion "inspired" her to organise a 50-year gathering for the entire year.
Sadly, Bruce passed away last year, with plans for a reunion shelved during COVID.
But as restrictions eased, Ms Bradley began once again to organise the 52-year anniversary with the aid of classmates Jack Nott and Liz Anschaw.
Ms Bradley has lived in Adelaide now for the past 30 years and travelled to Wagga, where the cohort enjoyed a laid-back reunion reflecting on great memories together.
Among other things, she said they reflected on "the type of uniforms we wore and how strict the teachers were with our behaviour".
Ms Bradley also recalled how the boys would wag school on the way to sports days and classmates would smoke in the back of the school bus on the way to school.
Also joining the reunion at the weekend was the school's former woodwork teacher Ross Woodbridge and the former mathematics and PE teacher Jock Currie.
Following a tour of their former school on Saturday afternoon, Mr Woodbridge unveiled a special memorial plaque in the schoolyard, with "The best days of our lives" engraved on it.
Looking ahead, Ms Bradley is hopeful the reunion will spur classmates to keep in touch in their latter years.
"Going forward, [staying in touch] is going to be great, because the sad thing is we don't know how much longer we've all got left at our age," she said.
"We've all probably achieved the things we want to in life and it's wonderful to be able to share it [all] with these wonderful people who have known us since we were 12 or 13 years old."
The reunion wrapped up with a special upstairs gathering at Romano's with a slideshow and a celebration cake.
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