Bittersweet: 30th Year South Fork High School Reunion Becomes Super Spreader Event

On June 25, the South Fork High School Classes of 90-94* held a reunion which directly resulted in 21 COVID cases including a beloved former principal and the virus may have spread to additional people beyond the original group.

However, with more options to fight the virus, deaths from COVID are at near record lows. According to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, “We are really reaching, at the global level, an extraordinarily low level of the impact of COVID. In fact, the death toll at the daily level has now reached the level we last saw around March 20, 2020.”

With the much lower death toll in mind, some people feel the risk of spreading COVID is worth the heartwarming social connections that so many have missed.

Helga Roe Conklin who was on the organizing committee for the Reunion put together the following description of what occurred with the assistance of several others who attended. Her description fits what we learned from the several reunion attendees we spoke to– so rather than piece together accounts from each, we’re offering Helga’s description of the event:

In the aftermath of our 30th Year South Fork High School Reunion which included several early 1990s classes, numerous people have tested positive for Covid. We estimate about 70 people attended our reunion party Saturday [June 25]. We held it at the (formerly) Cecil’s venue, which was generously donated to us by our classmate. We used the indoor and outdoor space of the bar. A few people arrived wearing masks, but chose not to keep them on. A few expressed concern for Covid, but attended anyway. Most were simply excited to see old friends.

It was a joyous occasion, many of us having grown up together since toddlerhood, not just high school, yet some classmates we had not seen in the thirty years since graduating. Photos from that night show the love and connection we have. Our DJ, a local friend and transplant, told us she couldn’t imagine having as much fun at her own reunion. We, the grownup children of SoHum, know we have a special bond born from a childhood unique to our community.

So it was disheartening, to say the least, to have the shadow of Covid dim the afterglow of our gathering. Being the primary voice of our Reunion Committee, people started reaching out to me. I received my first “heads up” Monday morning. Someone had tested positive after mild symptoms and recommended I let people know. I immediately posted in our Reunion Facebook group that we unfortunately had a Covid case. My dear friend, already feeling “off”, tested and found they, too, were positive. These two first cases had hung out together much of the evening. Both are vaccinated, maybe boosted. Sadly, this friend had been to a memorial for a family friend on Sunday. We hoped they weren’t contagious yet and the cases would stop with them.

I tested myself and thankfully tested negative. Murmurs of other attendees that felt sick started to reach me, yet they tested negative. We hoped they had something else going on.

The next day (Tuesday) a close friend from my mom’s generation reached out to tell me yet another classmate had tested positive. They, too, had been at a memorial on Sunday, in another mountain community, and again we worried for our SoHum family. With that news, more reports of cases poured in, most of them vaccinated. I started a list and the numbers grew. By Tuesday evening we had 10 cases.

Immediately people started asking about our former principal. He had kindly asked to drop by our reunion and we were honored. It horrified us to think he’d become infected. Upon reaching out to him, I indeed had to add him to my list. Not wanting to bug him, but extremely concerned, I’ve checked in a couple of times. So far he’s doing okay and has people checking on him.

On Wednesday I received a worried message from someone who had tested positive and felt I needed to reach out to participants more aggressively. So I wrote a new post inviting people to check in online in our Reunion Facebook group. I also private messaged as many attendees as I could telling them we had a dozen cases and I hoped they were okay. I  received several more messages from someone who had zero symptoms and others who only felt fatigued but tested “anyway” and were positive. I also heard from more people who were sick but testing negative. A friend suggested swabbing their throats rather than nostrils and that yielded more positive cases.

By Thursday we were up to 20 cases. I received my final case notification on Friday. They had minimal symptoms, and told me, “I’ve had 3 shots. My husband has had 4. I started feeling something last night. Chills, hot flash, scratchy throat, and night sweats. Hard to tell if it’s COVID, hangover, and/or just menopause LOL! I have a home test kit to use if I don’t feel normal soon. I appreciate the head’s up.” She tested positive. Number twenty-one.

We are deeply saddened that our sweet event turned into a super spreader. We had talked in March about having protocols, but by the time of our event we noticed other events seemed unconcerned, so we let our guard down. I doubt we are any worse than all the other events that took place in June (graduations galore, Arts Festival, rodeo, Kate Wolf, memorials.) At least we took extensive steps to catch people from spreading it further after the fact, and sincerely hope that has made a difference. I find it fascinating that the majority of cases were vaccinated and some even boosted. Some were second timers, already having had Covid previously. The symptoms ranged from fairly major, though no hospitalizations that I know of, thank goodness, to extremely minor. I am confident we prevented the spread from being worse by alerting everyone as best we could. I hope everyone heals quickly and manages to instead hold onto the beautiful time we had reconnecting.

One of those with COVID described a “super brutal” 48 hours with “Fever, tooth chattering chills, splitting migraine. Fever lasted several days.”  She said she had “a few near fainting spells.”

Others, as Helga described, said they had no symptoms at all.

Several of the attendees mentioned that they wished that people had tested before coming. One said, “I think Covid fatigue has led people to ignoring protocols, which clearly creates an atmosphere where Covid can spread more easily and rapidly. It’s a bummer, but a risk I knew I was taking…In the 2 1/2 years that Covid has been around, this is the first time I’ve gotten it. I feel really lucky that my case is mild, and hopefully I haven’t spread it beyond my family.”

Another of those who went explained, “We’re all really excited to get back to normal, but it’s not the old normal yet. The odds are COVID will crash any party with more than a few people right now so we may need to think about new kinds of ‘social distancing.’ He suggested that this meant “being conscious of the tradeoffs involved in gathering.” He explained, “Testing aggressively before and after events is important, and I wonder if we’ll start to see new norms where we leave some extra time between possible exposures at work or social events to minimize spread at a group level, not just the individual level we’ve focused on.”

*Our apology for incorrectly reporting the class year in an earlier version of this post.