Commentary by Rick Rodriguez
On a perfect hot August night, Sunset Falcons from all parts of the country came together to reunite the spirit of the red/gold at The Sunset High School Class Reunion 2011. For many of the attendees, the reunion coincided with the 30th anniversary of high school graduation, and for others it was a chance to connect with Alumni that came before or after this anniversary date. More importantly, Sunset Falcons came! They saw! They connected! As new friendships formed others rekindled, and even more were strengthened. Held fiercely by inseparable binding formed on memories of laughter, fun, struggle, and kinship to a school that formed boys and girls into young adults; the Sunset High School spirit was alive and well on that late August night!
"Sunset High School was a public high school in Hayward, California, which opened in 1959, and was closed in 1990. The campus now contains the Hayward Adult School vocational school, part of the Hayward Unified School District.
At its creation in 1959, Sunset High School was part of the Hayward Union High School District and continued so until 1963 when that District was dissolved and all of its high schools became part of smaller Unified School Districts. At that time, Sunset High School became part of the Hayward Unified School District.
In September 1959, Sunset opened with only two classes: Freshman (9th grade) and Sophomore (10th grade). September 1961 was the first time Sunset had all four classes that a high school normally had."
For those in attendance and many others, Sunset High School holds within many deep personal moments, and based on the attendance at this Reunion, the school , has not strayed far from the hearts of those Sunset Falcons that made the trek to this Reunion!
The event was billed as a "can't miss" opportunity for those that made Hayward, California their home and Sunset High School their school of matriculation. And, they came! New York, Minnesota, Tennessee, Arizona, Washington, Oregon, and yes Hayward, Fremont, Manteca, Modesto, San Ramon, and many other Bay Area towns and cities were represented! Held at the prestigious Crow Canyon Country Club in Danville, California, its background the formidable Mt. Diablo, and in some ways an appropriate confine for the Sunset spirit that would soar to its summit that evening!
Earlier in the day, making last minute postings to the Facebook event page, I wondered how well the evening would go. A last minute substitute DJ, tangled balloons, and whether everyone would come drifted across my mind. I wondered if I could muster one last push; one last burst of energy to carry me to the end of the night (?). It had been six long months of concentrated focus: pushing, prodding, calling, and bugging every Falcon I knew. I called our Dean; our Principal; a coach, and urged Falcons to come, and it was almost over now. We had arrived and now it was showtime!
As I continued posting songs of our time, the late 70's and early 80's, I couldn't believe it had been thirty years since Sunset High School had become just a part of my history. I, like many, hold those Sunset memories so easily that they come up fast and I can see them; the gym, the locker room and its distinct odoriferous emanations; the football team marching gladiator like toward the field; the quad and its prominent sections, and the faces of my fellow Sunset Alumni; they never change! It is how I remember Sunset and how I remember each and everyone that came that evening!
We celebrated that evening. We did what people do when they get together. We ate, drank, laughed, smiled, and got up to date on our lives. We looked at him and at her and searched our minds where we first saw that face, Sunset, and then we were there again, at that place that formed the beginning to what we would become as adults. It was wonderful going back!
And then we DANCED! Just like we did back in the Sunset Cafeteria. The controlled mayhem lasted through the songs that found us at BOOGIE WONDERLAND with a FLASHLIGHT in one hand and a RAPPER that DELIGHTED us once again! As the clock struck 11, we pleaded for more and this was granted to us because we reasoned there was no way we could end the evening with lyrics of the "REASONS we are here,"....we knew why we were there, each and everyone of us, and in the end we didn't stop until we hit a BRICK HOUSE! We smashed it....once again, we smashed it!
It would be an understatement to say that the Sunset High School Reunion was merely an evening of fun and laughs, it was that surely! But it was more, it was life and love, and the people we've become; and it was about the school--Sunset High School--and Hayward, California! It was an amazing success for the teachers that taught us; the classmates that showed us how to be prideful in our school, and the durability of the friendships we formed at Sunset High School as Sunset Falcons!
