Flags! Tents! Banners! Balloons! The Football Team! Cheerleaders! The Band! Hundreds of alumni from all years! November 3, 2007 was quiet a day at Lamar High School. The occasion was the 70th Anniversary celebration sponsored by the Alumni Association. It was a beautiful November day and almost 2000 alumni showed up for the party! The front campus was covered with tents and banners and balloons. Golf carts were buzzing around ferrying alumni all over the campus. Alumni arrived in their cars, on their buses, with their scooters, and one lady even came in a hospital bed in an ambulance!

The day started with a Pep Rally featuring the band, the cheerleaders, the arrowettes, and the football team. The alumni gave the team an exciting sendoff as they left to play Bellaire High School for the annual Homecoming Game. Next, the alumni were invited into the school and directed to specially designated classrooms. The classrooms were filled with memorabilia. Yearbooks, trophies, and a giant enlargement of each class photo were on display in each room. Everyone had fun trying to find themselves and their friends in those photos. There was also a video of each yearbook playing in each room on the TV and those generated lots on interest and comments! Seeing familiar faces in the hall, meeting friends in the classrooms, finding teachers from years past - it all made the building buzz and the time pass quickly.

Lunch on the front lawn followed and was provided by Prince's Hamburgers. Alumni found seats under the tents or under the trees just like in earlier years. This gave everyone more time to reminisce before the final event - a special performance in the auditorium. Three current students began the performance with a song, a dramatic reading, and a piano solo. Then Francie Mendenhall took over looking wonderful and singing just as beautifully as when she was a student of Mrs. Lowder. A video of famous alumni was shown and then it was time for the highlight of the day. The famous Choralettes, dressed in black and white with pink Hawaiian leis around their necks, returned to Lamar in force. Over 100 Choralettes succeeded in evoking wonderful memories for the 1000 alumni in the audience. Organized by Connie Mims Pinkerton and conducted by "Mr. Keding" alias Marshall Maxwell, the Choralettes sang three medleys from their past. "Mr. Keding" conducted the session and admonished his students about getting serious and doing their best just as always. Various Choralettes turned his pages, tiptoed in and out of practice, and generally carried on as they had 30 years earlier. You could tell how much they enjoyed being back on stage at Lamar. You could also tell just how much the audience enjoyed seeing them there too. At the end, Mrs. Lowder got to address the audience, Betty Braly gave a moving speech about Mr. Keding from her hospital bed, the Choralettes led the audience in a moving rendition of the Alma Mater, and it was over. Everyone had such a good time, they want to do it again soon! Plans about more performances and a bigger and better 75th are already starting.

The Lamar football team beat Bellaire 42-7 that afternoon, and the Homecoming Dance that night at the school had over 1000 students attend. All in all it was a wonderful 70th Anniversary day for Lamar and its alumni. Hope you were able to be with us. If not, enjoy the photos available on this website and plan on being at the next big event.