{"id":19201,"date":"2023-08-07T02:18:29","date_gmt":"2023-08-07T12:18:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/?p=19201"},"modified":"2023-08-07T02:18:30","modified_gmt":"2023-08-07T12:18:30","slug":"looking-forward-to-ucnhs-6th-multi-highschool-reunion-in-the-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/2023\/08\/07\/looking-forward-to-ucnhs-6th-multi-highschool-reunion-in-the-us\/","title":{"rendered":"Looking Forward To UCNHS 6th Multi Highschool Reunion In The US"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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by Elpidio Estioko<\/em>

The Urdaneta City National High School (UCNHS) Multi High School Reunion to be held in California this year is selling like hotcakes!

Graduates now residing in Hawaii (like Assemblymember Rose Martinez, a graduate from the Divine Word College of Urdaneta (DWCU) and Iris Rosario Lauvao from the Our Lady of the Lilies Academy (OLLA), among others), may have to register their reservations now since 18 out of 30 tables were already reserved by alumni from all over the world who will be attending the reunion in California.

There are about 20 to 25 Urdanetanians who are now residents of Hawaii who graduated from the four high schools in Urdaneta City. This should be a heads-up for them! I know they are eagerly wanting to see and meet their previous classmates in high school whom they haven\u2019t seen for many years now.

The event organizer is OLLA alumnus Fe Gonzales Sepulveda. The reunion will be held on September 17, 2023, at 6pm at Pechanga Resort Casino in Temecula, California. A picnic will follow on Monday, September 18 at Admiral Park in San Diego, California.

The multi-high school reunion will be attended by alumni from four high schools in Urdaneta City \u2013 Urdaneta City National High School (UCNHS); Our Lady of the Lilies Academy (OLLA); Divine Word College of Urdaneta (DWCU); and the barangay high schools of Urdaneta.

Yvonne San Juan-Sera, The Global Urdanetanians (TGU) president and one of the reunion organizers who is mainly in charge of reservations said: \u201cWe will be adding tables as soon as all the 30 original tables are reserved\/filled out.\u201d

The way it is going, additional tables will have to be added as many alumni from the Philippines, in addition to a huge number of alumni in the US, are very eager to join and attend the event.

Based on the reservations and queries, among the batches whose alumni are eagerly contemplating attending are those from Batches 60, 64\u00b865, 69, 72, 73, 76, 79, 80, and 81, coming from the four high schools.

Six years ago, was the last time we had our multi-high school reunion held in Las Vegas, Nevada on\u00a0October\u00a01, 2017, at Tropicana Hotel. That reunion was very memorable because, aside from 365 alumni who attended, the deadly\u00a02017 Las Vegas shooting likewise happened the day after our gala night.

I would like to recall some facts, not to scare prospective reunion attendees but to have a knowledge of what transpired and be part of history during the active shooting incident. I remember, on the evening of October 1, 2017, Stephen Paddock, a 64-year-old man from Mesquite, Nevada, opened fire upon the crowd attending the Route 91 Harvest\u00a0Music\u00a0Festival on the Las Vegas Strip in Nevada.

From his 32nd-floor suite on the Mandalay Bay Hotel, he fired more than 1,000 bullets killing 60 people and wounding 411 others. About an hour later, Paddock was found dead in his own room with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The incident was later recorded as the deadliest mass shooting in the history of the US.

The good thing is that all the alumni who attended the reunion survived the shooting! However, there were inconveniences for some. David Sumera, Batch \u201865, his wife\u00a0Merry and his cousins\u00a0were\u00a0trapped in the Strip\u00a0and locked down\u00a0at the Bellagio Hotel, while we (my wife Delia and I) were likewise grounded\/locked down\u00a0at\u00a0adjoining Tropicana\u00a0Hotel\u00a0where we were billeted when the shooting started\u00a0at about 10:00pm in the evening. Everyone scampered for their lives toward our hotel\u2019s parking area as police officers positioned themselves to track down the active shooter.

I remember another Batch \u201865, Alberto Lapena and his wife Zeny from Melbourne, Australia who were also scheduled to attend the reunion with purchased tickets to the concert, but they\u00a0failed to make it due to an unforeseen circumstance. Had they made it, they may have been victims also considering that they would surely be attending the concert (they being country music lovers), so it turned out to be a blessing on their part.

Cris Ramirez, Batch \u201965 with his wife Jackie, from the Philippines, were stopped on their way to the Strip that evening by police officers and were told to turn around and leave the area.

Event coordinator Sepulveda was worried and tried to call everyone making sure everybody was fine.\u00a0She was happy we were all safe. Except for hours of fear, tension\u00a0and no sleep till\u00a0the early morning the\u00a0following day due to the lockdown, all the alumni in attendance\u00a0were safe and\u00a0sound.

The Las Vegas incident was a scary moment of our life which we were able to avoid and thank God we were all safe! We became part of history in the making, I would say!

That flashback reunion will never happen again, not in Temecula, right?

In fact, this will not deter the alumni from attending the 6th Multi High School Reunion in California this coming September 17, 2023, because there\u2019s a lot to recall, a lot of bonding to be made, and more hello\u2019s and hi\u2019s with old high school buddies and BFF\u2019s, whom we\u2019ve missed for years!

ELPIDIO R. ESTIOKO<\/strong> was a veteran journalist in the Philippines and an award-winning journalist here in the US. He just published his book Unlocking the Chain of Poverty: In Pursuit of the American Dream which is now available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Xlibris Publishing. For feedbacks, comments\u2026 please email author at\u00a0estiokoelpidio@gmail.com.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Elpidio Estioko The Urdaneta City National High School (UCNHS) Multi High School Reunion to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[32,10,12],"tags":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/download-2.jpg?fit=239%2C211&ssl=1",239,211,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/download-2.jpg?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/download-2.jpg?fit=239%2C211&ssl=1",239,211,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/download-2.jpg?fit=239%2C211&ssl=1",239,211,true],"large":["https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/download-2.jpg?fit=239%2C211&ssl=1",239,211,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/download-2.jpg?fit=239%2C211&ssl=1",239,211,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/download-2.jpg?fit=239%2C211&ssl=1",239,211,true],"ultp_layout_landscape_large":["https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/download-2.jpg?resize=239%2C211&ssl=1",239,211,true],"ultp_layout_landscape":["https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/download-2.jpg?resize=239%2C211&ssl=1",239,211,true],"ultp_layout_portrait":["https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/download-2.jpg?resize=239%2C211&ssl=1",239,211,true],"ultp_layout_square":["https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/download-2.jpg?resize=239%2C211&ssl=1",239,211,true],"covernews-slider-full":["https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/download-2.jpg?resize=239%2C211&ssl=1",239,211,true],"covernews-slider-center":["https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/download-2.jpg?resize=239%2C211&ssl=1",239,211,true],"covernews-featured":["https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/download-2.jpg?fit=239%2C211&ssl=1",239,211,true],"covernews-medium":["https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/download-2.jpg?resize=239%2C211&ssl=1",239,211,true],"covernews-medium-square":["https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/download-2.jpg?resize=239%2C211&ssl=1",239,211,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"As I See It<\/a> Global<\/a> Mainland<\/a>","tag_info":"Mainland","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/download-2.jpg?fit=239%2C211&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19201"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19201"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19201\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19202,"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19201\/revisions\/19202"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}