Eva Dunkley and Pauline Mayberry shared a hug Saturday in the cafeteria where they and their classmates shared lunch during their high school days. &uot;I always admired you,&uot; Mayberry, a 1963 Sadie V. Thompson High School graduate told Dunkley, who graduated just a year behind her. &uot;I knew you were going places.&uot;

The third Sadie V. Thompson Era Reunion kicked off Saturday with registration and a get acquainted session. The reunion brings together all graduating 1954 to 1970 classes from Sadie V. Thompson, St. Francis and Natchez College, the period from the founding of Thompson to integration.

&uot;It’s a lot of hugs and a lot of kisses,&uot; Dunkley said.

Throughout the day, classmates who still live in Natchez greeted those who have moved away to places such as California, Illinois and Wisconsin.

But each still speaks of a common bond among the era graduates — a desire to succeed.

&uot;Each class wanted to be better than the one before,&uot; said Theodore &uot;Bubber&uot; West, a 1967 Thompson graduate who now runs West Funeral Home and serves as Natchez’s Ward 4 alderman.

Bob Shannon, a 1965 graduate who has coached six state championship high school football teams in East St. Louis, Ill., said he and his classmates may have been poor, but they didn’t know it.

&uot;We all wanted to make a contribution,&uot; Shannon said. &uot;Those were troubled times, but we had a clearer picture of where we were headed.&uot;

He has been instilling that drive to succeed into his inner-city football players. Shannon said he has coached students who &uot;have a lot of reasons to fail but who just refuse to.&uot;

Brothers Benjamin and Clarence Cowan live in the Los Angeles area but try to get back home often, where Benjamin is a physician with a radiology group and Clarence is retired from Pacific Bell and owns property. &uot;The camaraderie we both had is still there,&uot; Clarence said of the reunion with his classmates. He remembers a long list of influential teachers — in courses from music English to chemistry — that he said helped shape his future.

&uot;We were told we were smart, that we could succeed,&uot; he said.

Nearly 1,000 people had registered for the reunion by mid-afternoon Saturday, from doctors and lawyers to secretaries and salesmen.

Vernon Smith, a 1963, graduate, is a national correspondent for Newsweek, based in Atlanta.

Smith said he and his classmates &uot;were sort of on a mission in a way.&uot;

&uot;It was kind of understood that certain things were expected of us,&uot; Smith said.

But no matter where the classmates went or what they wound up doing, they all still accept one another as family, said Ruth Grennell Lyles, a 1957 graduate and now a respiratory therapist in Broadview, Ill.

&uot;Everyone just opens their arms,&uot; she said. &uot;It doesn’t matter what position you’re at and where you are. There’s nothing like coming home.&uot;

The reunion continues through Tuesday.