BYU Roommate Reunion 40 Years Later at Women's Conference

Deanne, Michele, Mary, Elaine, Anne and Keri. Picture taken April of 1978.

2017 marked 40 years since I graduated from high school, but I wasn't the least bit interested in attending a high school reunion. However, 2017 also marked 40 years since I'd headed off to BYU as a 17-year-old freshman, and a reunion with my college roommates did sound like fun. 

When I sent out Christmas cards in December of 2016 to the roommates I've kept in touch with through the years, I put in a little note about having a roommate reunion in 2017 at the annual Women's Conference held at BYU. Everyone responded positively.

 These were my freshman roommates. We lived in apartment 76 of Maeser Hall in Heritage Halls on the BYU campus from August 1977 to April 1978-- Anne, Michele, Elaine, Mary, Deanne and Keri.

The hit movie during the summer of 1977 was "Star Wars", so that fall we decorated our balcony that was close to our apartment for Homecoming with characters from the movie. (This is the same balcony as in the picture with all of us lined up on it.)  I couldn't resist putting this photo in considering "Star Wars" is still big 40 years later!

I put these photos in because they show the kitchen of our apartment, including very trendy yellow and green wallpaper! 

There wasn't a living room in the apartment, so the kitchen is where we gathered to entertain. I'm not in the picture since I was taking it. (the story of my life)

 For the 1978-1979 school year, Anne, Michele and I moved off campus to Pineview apartment #133, with three girls from the apartment next door to us in Maeser, #77. Those girls were Tracy, Crista and Cherie, who are in the picture below. 

Pictured above in 1979: first row: Anne, Tracy and Elaine. second row: Michele, Cherie' and Crista

Anne was the first of us to get married in the summer of 1979.The above photo was taken at Anne's bridal shower, spring, 1979. Pictured: front row- Anne's sister, Jane. middle row- Keri, Elaine and Cherie. back row- Anne, Michele, Tracy, Crista and Cherie.

 I flew to San Francisco to attend Anne's wedding reception in Antioch, California the summer of 1979. Pictured are: Keri, Deanne, Anne and Elaine

I'm putting this picture from our reunion in May 2017 right after the photo from 1979, since all of us are in both photos. (except for Tracy). Pictured are: Keri, Deanne, Elaine, Anne and Tracy

 Our apartment in Pineview was locally famous because of the posters we had plastered on our ceiling. We picked up posters from campus that were advertising events and put them up, so we didn't pay anything for them. It was a cheap way to decorate!

I think this picture was taken at the apartment of our FHE brothers. It shows a good sampling of the disco styles of the late 70's! (I'm not sure where Cherie' was when this picture was taken.)

I'm putting this picture in to show me baking oatmeal cookies at our apartment in Pineview, because I did most of the baking in our apartment.

 Michele was the second one of us to marry, so this picture was taken when there were four of us left. Pictured center front and clockwise-Tracy, Cherie, Crista and Elaine.
We added other roommates to replace the ones who got married, but I've mostly kept in touch with the roommates I had from 1977 to 1979.

Crista got married in December of 1980, and I was next in June of 1981. Tracy and I were the last two to get married, after we'd graduated from BYU.

 Fast forward to 1995: before we moved to Japan I organized another roommate reunion for us to attend BYU women's conference. That year only Tracy, Anne and I came.

I put in this picture because in the background is Maeser Hall, and that window on the second floor was our kitchen window. When we were living in Apt. 77 we found out the phone number for the phone booth, and if we saw a cute boy walking by we would call the number and hope he would answer it. It was harmless fun and gave us hours of entertainment!

Here we are standing in front of Maeser Hall, which has sadly, now been torn down and replaced with newer, fancier housing.

And here are the three of us twenty-two years after our 1995 reunion! Tracy lives in Utah, Anne lives in Oregon, and I live in Virginia. The three of us stayed together at Tracy's brother's house.

The Women's conference was set up with lots of places for photo opportunities, which was fun.

I've done a bit of cropping to the above picture so that it only includes the four of us who attended the roommate reunion this year. This picture was taken in 1979 with Anne and Cherie' in front and Elaine and Tracy in back.

Here we are in 2017--Tracy, Cherie', Elaine and Anne

Cherie' has recently moved from Oregon to Utah, so we met up with her, too, but didn't spend as much time with her as Tracy, Anne and I did together.

There was a large room full of service project options, and this was the one that we worked on.

An iconic view of the bell tower with the beautiful mountains in the background.

The Y was lit up in honor of Women's conference.

A view of the Marriott Center full of faithful, righteous women, at the closing event of the conference.

 The Museum of Art on campus was displaying the art of Minerva Teichart, who has always been one of my favorite artists.

We have a large copy of this print in our master bedroom.

I was only in Utah from Thursday afternoon to Saturday afternoon, but it was an uplifting and fun-filled couple of days. Kent and I haven't been to Utah for many years since none of our children are living there, so it was nice to go and enjoy the atmosphere at BYU again.

Who knew back in the 1970's that we'd be forming life-long friendships with our roommates? We've all stayed active in the church and are all still married to our original husbands. My time at BYU was very influential in who I am today, and I feel blessed to have had those idyllic college years at the "Lord's University."