Dedicated Elmont Class of '62 grads (of which Nelson DeMille was a member) gather for mini-reunions 4 times a year

It’s been 63 years since this Elmont Memorial High School class received diplomas, but when some of its members see one another, it’s like time has hardly passed. That’s in part because they don’t wait for a reunion every 10 years to get together, they do it every three months.

Members of the Class of ’62, whose ranks included the late prolific novelist Nelson DeMille, meet for quarterly luncheons. They discuss business — class funds and scholarships — but it’s mostly social, to keep company with friends who go back six or seven decades and whose bonds have only grown stronger with time.

On a recent rainy afternoon, about 18 of the class’ 272 grads, now in their early 80s, met in a private dining room of B.K. Sweeney’s Parkside Tavern in Bethpage. They come to reminisce about everything from sock hops to Belmont race days, when some would climb a tree to catch a glimpse of the horse races.

Mary Lou Trombino (née Butta), a former member of Elmont’s Spartanettes, the kick line team that performed at football and basketball games, called Elmont “a great school.”

Nobody bullied anybody. All the teachers were nice. I don’t have any negative thoughts of my high school years.

- Mary Lou Trombino, Elmont Memorial High School, Class of ’62

“I always looked forward to going to school,” said Trombino, 80, of Garden City, who worked in advertising. “Nobody bullied anybody. All the teachers were nice. I don’t have any negative thoughts of my high school years.”

A SENSE OF CAMARADERIE

The group enjoys getting together regularly to check in with one another, said class member Harvey Brooks.

“There’s a camaraderie, and we all have the same feelings about the school,” said Brooks, 81, who lives in Woodbury and owned an electrical contracting and sign manufacturing companies. “We all enjoy being here.”

Traveling from upstate, Judy Nebel (née Mathews), came to the luncheon with Stephanie Ossendorf (née Hanish), because her husband Ken Nebel, also from the class of ’62, wasn’t feeling well.

“I went to the prom with him,” said Judy Nebel, 80, a former assistant teacher, who lives in Kingston in Ulster County. “And then I didn’t see him again for many years. We were both married and both ended up divorced, and then we got back together again. Now we’ve been married 22 years.”

Ossendorf enjoys coming to the luncheons to share memories with her former schoolmates.

It was a different time. It was a much slower time.

- Stephanie Ossendorf, Elmont Memorial High School, Class of ’62

“We see somebody and we think of what they did in Mr. Visconti’s class or in homeroom or whatever,” said Ossendorf, of Hudson in Columbia County, who worked with disabled people. “It was a different time. It was a much slower time.”

Fred Morabito concurred.

“We were always out playing together, stickball or playing basketball,” said Morabito, 80, of Hicksville, who worked for IBM. “And dances. We had sock hops and confraternity dances. There was a lot of social dancing and you’d learn how to do the Lindy and the foxtrot and the cha-cha.”

These luncheons are a good way to reconnect, Ken Nebel, 80, said by phone a few days later.

“It’s nice every three months to get together,” said Nebel, a former business consultant. “I think everybody enjoys it. There have been some renewed friendships because of it, which I think is a nice positive.”

IT STARTED WITH A REUNION

Classmate Sharon O’Neill, who died in November 2017, had saved a lot of memorabilia from high school, such as old menus and mementos from places the class used to go, according to Roberta Furman (née Gevertz).

“And she’s the one who organized the reunions,” said Furman, 80, of Bethpage, a former medical secretary.

To honor her, the class named two $500 scholarships in O’Neill’s memory, said Mike Limmer. The group also gives out a third $500 scholarship paid for by its members.

“She was a true dynamo,” said Limmer, 80, a former teacher and coach who lives in Wantagh.

After the 50th reunion in 2012, some members of the group decided they’d rather not wait so long between reunions and just meet every three months, Ken Nebel said.

“Since December 2012, we’ve probably done this about 40 times,” he said. “It’s just nice to get together and have a lunch, very informal.” He estimates that of the 272 class members, 217 are still alive.

For the quarterly meetups, the group has tried different restaurants, settling on their Bethpage spot — which accommodates them with separate checks — about eight years ago.

Now Nebel sends out reminders to the text group of 18 people about their next scheduled rendezvous.

Initially, the group’s conversations centered almost exclusively around memories from school, Furman said. But now they are up on the current happenings of one another’s lives.

“It’s only four times a year, but some of us talk on the phone,” Furman said. “We don’t talk as much about high school as we used to.”

GROWING UP IN ELMONT

The Class of 1962 was the first one to attend all six years of junior high and high school at Elmont Memorial High School, which opened in 1956.

“The school was new. And we were the first class that started at the seventh and graduated at the 12th,” said Brooks.

Brooks lived close to Belmont Park, and he recalled walking up along the Cross Island Parkway on racing days.

“There were trees next to where the racetrack was,” Brooks recalled. “And in those days, they had the horse jumping over hurdles. When we were kids, we built a little treehouse and we used to sit up in the tree and watch the horses. I spent a lot of my childhood near the track.”

Many of the group’s ties go back to grade school, when most attended Dutch Broadway elementary school.

“It was a great era to grow up during that time

- Fred Morabito, Elmont Memorial High School, Class of ’62

“It was a great era to grow up during that time,” said Morabito. “We all hung out together. Everything was intermingled . . . and we all got along.”

None of the old gang still lives in Elmont, and the area has become predominantly a community of residents with Caribbean heritage, Limmer noted.

“Elmont Memorial High School is one of the most diverse high schools in the nation,” said Limmer. “The neighborhood looks the same, but the population is enormously different.”

The high school is still known for its academic excellence, said Limmer, adding that in two different years a Class of ’62 Sharon O’Neill Scholarship was presented to a student who had gotten into every Ivy League college.

THE DEMILLE CONNECTION

Among the luncheon regulars was DeMille, who wrote 17 New York Times bestsellers before he died in September.

In high school, DeMille was into athletics, according to Limmer, who said he would never have pinned him for a writer. After graduation, DeMille served in the Army during the Vietnam War and earned a Bronze Star before publishing his first major novel, “By the Rivers of Babylon,” in 1978.

“I said to him one time, ‘I didn’t know that you can write,’ ” Furman said. “He said, ‘Neither did I!’ ”

For all his success and fame, DeMille remained just one of the gang, his classmates recalled.

“Nelson, even after he was famous, was just a very down-to-earth guy,” Furman said.

Alex DeMille, Nelson’s middle child, wrote via email, that his father possessed a true gift for relating to people, regardless of their background, and maintained a healthy disdain for elitism and snobbery.

“He was proud of growing up in Elmont as the son of a house builder,” said Alex, 44, a novelist from Brooklyn who co-authored three books with his father. “He valued his roots, and the relationships he forged there. He would tell me about his high school reunions, and how it was great to see many familiar faces and catch up on the lives of those who had known him the longest. Where a person came from was important to him, and that came through in his writing as well [as] in how he drew his characters.”

Nancy Sisson (née Dorrington), 80, of North Babylon, recalled attending a DeMille book signing and waiting at the back of a big line to get his signature.

“When we come up, he looks at me and he goes, ‘Where were you?’ Sisson recalled. “I said, ‘Way back there.’ He said, ‘Next time you come, you tell them that you know me.’ ”

Many from the group attended his funeral, Furman said, which was on a day the classmates had a gathering scheduled.

At their March luncheon, Limmer proposed adding a fourth scholarship in honor of DeMille.

“The creation of the EMHS Class of ’62 Nelson DeMille Scholarship in the amount of $500, like the other three,” Limmer said. “It would be given to a senior student who excelled in literature and English, and it would be chosen by the English department chairman.”

And with that, the group voted unanimously to establish the latest academic gift for their younger alumni.