In 1987, a group of about 20 men (including yours truly) who served together on a Coast Guard Cutter held a reunion in a shipmate’s backyard in Grand Haven, Michigan for the express purpose of partying and reminiscing.
Everyone obviously enjoyed themselves immensely because the following year, the number of reunion attendees doubled, as did the fun in sharing exaggerated tales from our military days.
Later in 1988, an article appeared in The Wall Street Journal stating that “Reunions Are Big Business” and contained quotes from a reunion planner in Baltimore, Maryland who found great success in the reunion planning biz. Intrigued, we phoned this person. She stated that if we wanted to become an official reunion planner, we should contact the National Association of Reunion Planners (NARP) located in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Within a month, my wife, Debi, and I jetted to Colorado and attended an intensive, week-long training program, learning all facets of the reunion planning business, of which class reunion photography was a component.
In 1989, our first year in business as “Reunions With Class,” we organized and planned about 10 high school reunions and felt we were well on our way to a rewarding career. Subsequent years, however, proved us wrong. We were never able to surpass that number and surmised that perhaps West Michigan wasn’t the most fertile ground for this type of business. The photography end of the business, conversely, seemed to be, shall we say, developing. And that was the start of Class Reunion Photography.
In 1993, we performed our first “photograph only” class reunion, eschewing all other elements of reunion planning. In 1994, that number swelled to 20.
Soon, word was spreading throughout Grand Rapids, Muskegon, Lansing and Kalamazoo, as well as many smaller West Michigan communities, that a Grand Rapids couple and their son, Chris, do an excellent job of organizing and photographing class reunions—at no charge to the reunion committee and at a very fair and modest cost to attendees who want a photograph!
By 1999, our little enterprise was flourishing, and we were photographing over 60 reunions a year throughout West Michigan.
Today, we at Class Reunion Photography are closing in on photographing our one-thousandth class, family and military reunion and are one of the most sought-after photographers in West Michigan for reunion purposes. And in all honesty, we continue to enjoy this work as much as we did in 1993. And why not? After all, how many of us can say their job means attending parties and meeting great people every Saturday night?
John, Debi & Chris Krueger
Owners, Class Reunion Photography
