"They all left at mid-term and they didn't graduate with us," said Helyn East, a graduate of the class of 1945. "We tried to stay in touch, and we prayed for them. As far as I remember though, we didn't lose anyone from BHS in the war."

This weekend, several former BHS students from the war years were able to gather during the homecoming festivities and re-connect with old friends, as well as catch up on everything that's happened since they saw each other last.

"It was about what we expected," said Paul Jackson of Thursday night's gathering at Rusty's Family Restaurant, which drew about 35-40 people. "A lot of our members have died. But we had a nice crowd."

The group then had a brown bag lunch at the Military Memorial Museum at the old Depot Friday in downtown Brookhaven, where they looked at memorabilia and spent more quality time together.

"We told a lot of stories that we'd told each other a hundred times before," said Barbara Becker Bailey, to which Betty Bowles Page Evans replied, "A lot of them we have to make sure they don't change from year to year."

The group talked about teachers and friends from years gone by, and fondly remembered a physical education teacher named Celia Berry, who enlisted in the Women's Army Corps.

"She came back in uniform and she looked so cute," said Evans. "She was an officer, so she had the uniform that fit, and she looked so cute in it."

The women remembered that Berry's representation made them all think pretty hard about joining the armed forces themselves.

Jimmie McDowell said he remembered former class president Jimmy Cassidy, who saved his life when they were children.

"He saved me from drowning when we were 11," McDowell said. "Of course, I always said he finished his RC Cola and his Moon Pie before he jumped in and saved me."

And some of the remembrances were of the war itself.

"I was so glad when they gave up," said Charles "Ploochie" Ratliff about Japan's surrender. "We had our rifles and we all went and shot them up in the air to celebrate. Then they took them away from us."

Ratliff also remembered when he and his wife Virginia won a trip to Japan 25 years after the war was over. He said Virginia had asked some of the people they encountered, "Why were y'all so bad during the war?"

"They told us that they had to be, because the emperor would cut their heads off if they didn't do what he said," Ratliff said with a laugh. "They were real nice, and that surprised me."

And those present said they would come to the yearly reunions for as long as they are physically able. As classmates die off, the remaining ones said they're going to stay in touch to the end, no matter how far off that is.

"The group is getting thinner and thinner," Ratliff said. "But I'm shooting to be 125."