Alumni Association Meetings Cancelled Until Further Notice
Due to other the pandemic, the Alumni Association has cancelled monthly meetings until things clear up a bit. Besides, Arlington County public schools are closed, and the Alumni Conference Room is not available to us. Watch this space for information about when meetings will restart.
Alumni Association Meetings
Alumni Association typically meets on the first Tuesday of the month, unless the school is closed for some reason (say, election day, scheduled holiday, weather closing). Meetings in the past have not been scheduled during summer break, nor during December. This is all subject to change, of course. If we get specific information about the schedule for an upcoming meeting, it will be posted here.
Meetings are held in the Alumni Conference Room on the main first floor hallway. From the Stafford St. entrance, go straight past the admin office, take a left at the main hall, and the conference room is about two-thirds of the way down on your left, across from the theater entrance. Meetings start at 7:30pm sharp.
Agenda typically includes these standard items: approval of minutes, Treasurer’s report, status of old business items, discussion of new business items, pleas for new members, and a briefing about progress on the Keep the Name campaign.
The Alumni Association really needs some extra hands to do all its work. If you have just a little extra time, please contact us, or attend a meeting. We need new volunteers more now than ever.
School Board Officially Votes to Rename W-L
At the January 10, 2019 School Board meeting, the board officially voted to rename Washington-Lee High School. The Washington-Loving name recommended by the Renaming Committee was voted down 3-2. The Committee’s alternate choice of Washington-Liberty won by a 5-0. New name will take effect starting in September 2019 with the new school year.
Alumni Association No Longer Does School Tours
Due mostly to a lack of active members, the Alumni Association will no longer be scheduling or leading tours of the new building, something we have proudly done over the last decade. Tours were typically done in concert with class reunions, being one of the extracurricular activities alumni could participate in.
Instead, classes can schedule and run their own tour. The material we used have been digitized and put online for download. See the Tour the New Washington-Lee page.
Your Groceries Can Help W-L
Alumni in the Northern Virginia can provide a little extra money for their high school when they shop at local Harris-Teeter grocery stores. All you need to do is link your store card to the school. It costs you nothing. For instance, last year the program at H-T awarded W-L a generous sum.
Please consider continuing your support of W-L by linking your Harris Teeter VIC card for the 2019/2020 school year. Please follow this link and we will link your card for you on opening day, August 1, 2019: https://forms.gle/5VVgBzBosevhH5KV9
Are You Looking for a W-L Yearbook? Alumni Association Is Selling Its Surplus
Over the years, we have collected many copies of the Blue and Gray. We have now completed three collections for our own use: one reference set, and two traveling sets that we use for displays at reunions and the County Fair. That leaves us with probably a hundred or more extra, and the shear volume is overloading our limited storage space.
We are making those surplus yearbooks available for sale. Priority goes to Alumni Association members, then to alumni looking for a missing book. There are a few mint copies, but most of them come from faculty and students, so will have notes and signatures collected by the previous owner.
Yearbooks are available for $40.00/each, plus postage. Those years most in demand (1952, 55, 82 … MacLaine, Beatty, Bullock) may have special considerations. Nearly every year is available, although quantities vary, so if interested, please contact us at mailto:wlhsalums@yahoo.com.
Crossed Sabres Now Available Online
Although the student paper we all remember will still be published on paper, an online presence for Crossed Sabres is building.
For alumni who would like some visibility into what is happening at today’s W-L, the student newspaper, The Crossed Sabres, is now available online. For a while, both an electronic and hardcopy version will be published, but expect the website to eventually take over the role. There are no subscription fees, and alumni are welcome to check it out at www.crossedsabres.org.
USA Reunited is a SCAM!!! Be aware of AlumniClass and Gradbook too!!!
Should you get an email from USA Reunited telling you a long lost classmate is looking for you — fuhgetaboutit!! The only thing they’re looking for is your money.
Many W-L alums are getting messages on a regular basis from USA Reunited (www.usareunited.com) informing them that someone is looking for them. When you go to the site to pick up the message, guess what? You have to pay to see it. Guess what else? There’s no message waiting for you.
In my lexicon, that’s known as a scam. Along the same lines, alums are receiving emails from AlumniClass.com or Gradbook.com asking them to join their classmates. It certainly looks like it was sent by some official W-L entity: the school, or the Alumni Association. They have no affiliation with the school, and certainly do not have the blessings of the official W-L Alumni Association (the sponsors of this website). They even have ‘W-L gear’ for sale. In a strict sense it’s not a scam, since there is content there, and (for a fee) they provide a service.
Just remember, both these websites require a credit card number! Are you sure you want these scam artists to have access to your money? We recommend that anything you receive from either of these groups be promptly deleted, asap, if not sooner. Ignore them, please. Even better, set your spam filter so you don’t even see the messages in the first place.
Forewarned is forearmed!