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Mark Your Calendar

2026 WSR 50+ Reunion

Saturday, September 19, 2026

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WSR - Class of 1961 Website

George Beebe, Class of 1961 has provided a link to a website that is primarily focused on 1961 history, but it also contains copies of the WSR Annuals from the following years: 1950, 1951, 1954, 1959, 1960 and 1961.

That website is:  www.wsr1961.com.  

Take a look! Great oldies, plus hundreds of historical photos of Waverly from the past 125+ years.

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Longer more detailed announcements sre posted under the Announcements Tab in the left column of the home page/

Will be a work in progress for a while, welcome suggestions and comments.

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You can click on  the History/Videos link to the left and select the year you want history/videos from as long as you want 1958 or later!

i.e. in 1966:

Average Cost of new house $14,200.00 
Average Income per year $6,900.00 
Gas per Gallon 32 cents 

After you become a member of the site the member functions will appear in the left column and you can make some more choices.

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Modify the program or not?

Over the years several individuals have suggested changing the dates of the 50 Plus to correspond with the Waverly Heritage Days Celebration.  BIggest problem is that Heritage days didn't come into being until 1987. two years before the first 50 Plus Reunion. This year's incoming Class year (1969) got out of school more than 20 years before Heritage Days Started.  So unless classmates stayed in the area or returned to the area, they have no idea what it is.

From 1990 until 1996 the two events were held at the same time, then in 1997 Heritage Days moved from Sept to July.  Heritage days start on a Wednesday and run through Sunday morning, In 2019 it will be July 18-21. It includes a large parade, a nice Fire Works Display and many other events, too numerous to mention here but they do have a nice FaceBook Page "Waverly Heritage Days" that covers all of it.

The logic concerned with recombining is that it would provide a lot more available activities and as such would provide a lot more for classmates that travel more than a day to get here and then just have the social morning and the lunch. (Also eliminated the Ia vs Ia St football game as a detraction!)

Any possible thoughts of moving the dates will not be a spur of the moment  project. It takes a long time to line up the Venue, arrange for the Catered Meal, get all the paperwork ready, printed and distributed, etc.  So if it were decided this year to try moving, it would be 2 or 3 years before it could actually happen.

Even though the incoming classes are larger, the number of attendees is steadily declining, we need to do something to reverse that.  Connecting to Heritage Days is one possibility, another is to add more events to the 50 Plus, Tours of the Waverly Area, trips to  places like the Amana Colonies, the Match stick Museum in Gladbrook, ok so many aren't at all familiar with some of this but this is just throwing out ideas.

Would like to have some input on this subject, not chiseled in stone plans but general thoughts, would you rather have  a 2 or 3 day function? What Dates?  Maybe set up a day for individual class reunions 55, 60, 65 or whenever?

Dropping the years to be a 40 or 45 Year Plus has been suggested but18 year old graduates plus 40 are only 58, and plus 45 are only 63. Limited number of retirees there.

There is literally no time to have an involved discussion at the current 50 Plus Events, much of the thinking and suggesting has to be right here on the websilte IF you will participate.  I hate think about it but with the current trend, the future 50 Plus Events would appear to be short lived.

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The New WAVP is located at 1300 4th St North West, the same location of the old VFW Post Building.

The Class of 1967 Roster has been added to the WSR 50 Plus so any member of that class can now register for the site.  If you have friends and/or relatives in that  class please encourage them to join.  If they are not inclluded in the posted listing under Class of 1967, they can still sign in, but they have to fill out all information on their detail and profile pages.

If you have any questions or comments concernint this website or the wSR 50 Plus Event, please contact us through this website, your comments and suggestions are alwayls welcome.

We are making an all out effort to use emails to help establish better communications with the WSR 50 Plus Classmates. Please help us by verifying the email address in your data or by entering and email if you have one and it isn't listed.

The once a year communiction via the annual Newsletter, usually sent out around Memorial Day which this year is on May 28th.is at best a minimal contact. It will continue to be sent out via usps to those for which we do not have emails and by email to everyone for which we do have an email, but we need to communicate more often.

We initiated the email version of the actual invitation to the 50 Plus last year but for some reason it did not get out as well as we expected. This may be due to a selection in your individual website preferences.

Any update of the Website will generate an email to all of the emails we have on the website, however if you have elected to not be notified in the "Notify Me" area accessed - right under the "Members Function", you will not be notified so if you see this on the website and didn't get a notice via email check out your preferences.  If you have a problem, contact me and I will try to help you.

It also could be that the email address we have listed for you has an error, please check out ALL of your Profile and Contact Information Email, mailing address, phone numbers, etc.. I know from personal experience that I can look at what is supposed to be my email address and read what I EXPECT to see, NOT what is actually there.

Reasons for moving into more email contact are multiple:

1. It allows us to commuicate at will with no cost involved, we could send out additional issues of a News letter but postage is a significant expense when mailing out almost 2000 copies.  We do work with the WSR High School to use their bulk mail system which drops the cost to $0.17 cent a copy, but every one that has a bad address comes back and that costs $0.50 each.  Also there are printing costs to be added. We have no intention of stopping the mailed copies of the regular Newsletter to those without email.

2. Email allows for 2 way communications, if you have questions or concerns it is very easy for you to contact the Committee via Email at any time. We can also offer you a choice about an item in an email, which again you can easily respond to.

3. Lost newsletters or invitations and registration forms can easily be re-created.  Remember if you do not have access to a printer, as far as i know every public library has the capability of printing information off the internet for you. Normally the library staff will be happy to help you find what you want if you just give them the website address http://wsr50plus.net 

Emails can be sent from any website member to any other member, and unless you put your email address in the body of the email, no one will ever see your email address. So you can locate and correspond with classmates you have lost contact with, as long as both parties are members.