It may have taken 40 years to make the grade, but the Guilford High School (GHS) Class of 1969 recently completed its class shield. But don't say they procrastinated. During the same year man first walked on the moon, the GHS Class Shield

program was defunct.

"They didn't do it anymore," said Connie Tigner Joyce, a member of the (circa 2009) GHS 1969 Shield Committee.

Today, creating an annual class shield's once again a strong tradition at GHS. Each year, the latest is unveiled with pride during the commencement ceremony on the Green. The outsized shield uses design, artwork, and prose to generally represent where each class has come from and where it hopes to go in the future.

Introduced to GHS more than 80 years ago by Guilford artist Charles D. Hubbard, shields from successive classes are still on display in the GHS Media Center, ranging from the 1930s up to 2008. But there's a significant gap in years when the tradition disappeared. When current First Selectman Carl Balestracci, Jr. (GHS Class of '58), became principal of GHS, he revived the class shield tradition. The first graduating class to reintroduce a shield did so in 1983.

As the Class of 1969 planned its 40th reunion (Sept. 18 to 20), the idea to develop, build, and dedicate a class shield took root. Key to that decision were Class Shield Committee members Connie Tigner Joyce, Donna Capezzone Bonjiorni, and Heather Benton Collinson. The three had been contacted by Class of 1969 member Joel Helander.

Helander, currently Guilford's Probate Judge and municipal historian, had been asked by GHS administration whether the Class of 1969 might want to put together a shield to add to the

collection.

"Being 40 years out of school, we had to think of what memories were important to us and what did it mean to us, 40 years later. We had a lot of ideas and we did a lot of communicating by email," said Joyce.

The ideas came together in the official GHS Class of 1969 Shield. The colorful, wooden oval was unveiled for 76 members of the original 150 members of the class during its reunion weekend. Many of those alumni saw it for the first time when they joined the group at the Citizen's Day Parade on Sept. 19. The alumnus traveling the furthest to make it to the parade was Paulette Roczynski, arriving from Sydney, Australia, where she's lived for more than 30 years.

The alumni-laden GHS Class of '69 parade float featured Joyce, Bonjiorni, and Collinson at

center, displaying the new shield to the public.

"It's an arrow concept," said Joyce of the shield.

The shield's theme is "Our Roots, Our Foundation, Forging Our Hopes and Dreams." Artwork painted within four

interlinking arrows begins with a nod to agriculture and the Guilford Fair (which celebrated its 110th year in 1969); a birds-eye view of the Guilford Green swooping over the Civil War monument; coastal Guilford's little red shack and Faulkner's Island; and an emblem of a graduate on the Guilford Green superimposed outside the main façade of the GHS

building (as it appeared in 1969).

GHS Class of 1969 President Tom Bamrick said it was a significant year for the school building.

"1969 was the last year of the original building," he said, noting many alumni met at the high school to take a tour of the building on Sept. 18.

Other class officers present for the reunion were Diane Diruccio Warner (vice president), Nancy Sampsell Mathew (treasurer), and Pricilla Barry (secretary).