REDMOND — On Tuesday afternoon in a private dining room overlooking Juniper Golf Course, the surviving graduates from the Redmond Union High School class of 1938 gathered to celebrate their 75th- year reunion.

“The only way we got this together is by people calling people. ~ I knew how to get ahold of three people, but they knew someone else and they called someone else,” said Everett Endicott, the only male class member present. “I think this is just outstanding having all these ladies here from that long ago.”

Of the 53 graduates from 1938, Endicott knows of 10 still alive. Eight of those 10 attended the reunion.

“Two could not make it due to health problems,” Endicott said.

Most of the survivors still live in Oregon – in Eugene, Portland, Tigard and Silver Lake – except for two who live in Arizona.

Endicott, the father of Redmond Mayor George Endicott, joined the Army Air Corps in 1941. “I got my wings commission in 1943 and married Betty, and in July we’ll have our 70th anniversary.”

The brick building on Southwest Ninth Street that was Redmond Union High School is now vacant. It belongs to the city, which aims to turn it into the Redmond City Hall, Mayor Endicott told the reunion attendees.

After Everett Endicott spoke, he passed the microphone around the room so each of the classmates could share a bit about their lives since 1938.

Most talked about the families they’ve had. Fay Murphy Taylor of Portland listed her family tree of 16 grandchildren, 39 great-grandchildren and one great-great grandchild.

Two sets of siblings are among the attendees. Romona and Jean Delashmutt were there. Idona Krieger attended without her brother Francis Krieger, of the Yuma, Ariz., area.

Fernette Parkey McDowell has lived on a farm in Silver Lake since 1941, where she worked as a timber marker and farmer and “a little bit of everything.” At the reunion, McDowell gave each of her classmates gifts she’d knitted. They were able to choose between a vegetable scrubber and a cellphone holder, an easy choice for some of the survivors who didn’t have mobile phones.

McDowell’s daughter, Norma Bigley, accompanied her to the reunion and explained what the reunion had meant to Fernette. “I think it may have been a little hard to know that so many were gone, but still she was very excited.”

At her turn with the microphone, Fernette talked about her penchant for skinning and mounting rattlesnake hides, which she sells at craft shows.

“The highest-priced one I’ve sold, I got $100 for. We’ve only got four so far this year, but we’ll get more,” she said. McDowell finished her mini-biography by telling her peers: “I hope to stay (on the farm) the rest of my life, which I know I will.”