This year’s Golden Grads celebration was special for the Van Cleve family. For the first time, all four siblings got to attend the annual event at Lake Washington High School on Saturday.

“We have been planning this since 2006 when I had my 50th,” said Beth Van Cleve Skadan. “We knew that we would all qualify, so we started planning.”

Judy Van Cleve graduated from Lake Washington High School in 1959 and is the youngest. But not all of the Van Cleve siblings roamed the halls of Lake Washington High School. Bill Van Cleve graduated in 1943 and Marilyn Van Cleve Whitcomb graduated in 1945, both from Kirkland High School.

“This whole thing is sort of daunting since there are so many people here that I knew but I don’t know any more,” said Bill Van Cleve. “I figured that we might make quite the impression but I didn’t realize how many people would be here.”

Bill Van Cleve said one distinctive element of his graduating class was the fact that it came a year and a half into World War II.

“A number of the people I knew got drafted and many of my Japanese friends were taken away (to internment camps),” said Bill Van Cleve. “It was just heart breaking.”

But the excitement of being able to relive the good times from high school with his three sisters was visible on his face.

“I think everyone has so much fun,” said Skadan, who is also one of the event organizers. “We never have enough chairs, though.”

With nearly 300 people in attendance, pulling from two decades of graduating classes, the Golden Grads event has grown over the years.

“Last year we had someone from 1936 or 1937,” said Skadan. “We were amazed cause that is from before we were born.”

The organization of the event has been made easier in recent years.

“We pass the lists of names and contact information from class to class,” said Skadan.

The classes send out post cards every year to all the graduates who qualify.

“We normally start planning the event during the prior year,” said Skadan.

This year’s Golden Grads event was set up last spring when Lake Washington High School confirmed the date.

“It has all been made easier with the internet,” said Darlene Gray Hyatt, who is one of the main organizers. “It is really neat cause many of the people have moved away but they keep in touch every year with this.”

There are no formal speeches during the event, but everyone is at the event to mingle, catch up, eat and have fun. The event hosts grads from Kirkland High School, Lake Washington High School and Redmond High School. Both the Kirkland and Redmond historical societies were there to answer grads questions about changes to both cities.

The class of 1956 had many in attendance.

“The people in our class were pretty close,” said Hyatt.

Loa Schneewind, who also graduated in 1956, helped to organize the event.

“It is pretty cool,” said Schneewind, whose husband Dave Schneewind was a member of the first Lake Washington High School graduating class in 1950. “It is different this year knowing that they are going to tear this building down soon.”

Schneewind said that her best memory of high school was attending football games. Those games must have been exciting as the Kangs’ high school football team won three consecutive KingCo titles during the mid 1950s.