While most classes opt to commemorate milestones through class reunions, one local graduating class marks the passage of decades by celebrating their birthdays together.

Vicksburg High School’s Class of 1974, its first graduating class, celebrated its 60th birthday Saturday at Tree House Banquet Hall on Cherry Street.

“We feel like we just walked out of Vicksburg High at graduation,” said Sheila Rees, a ’74 graduate who helped prepare for the event by putting it on Facebook, explaining why the class saw their biggest turnout to date.

The graduating class of 250 saw approximately 100 classmates and guests attend Saturday’s birthday bash, according to Joyce Beacham, chair of the event’s seven-person planning committee. She said a quarter of the classmates in attendance came in from out of town for the celebration, another record for the class.

“I’m sure it’s a flash back for some people,” Beacham said. “Some of these people are responding for the first time in 42 years.”

Held in lieu of a 40th reunion, the event, which Beacham called a chance to “celebrate life,” featured a DJ, heavy hors d’oeuvres, a small birthday present for each classmate, a birthday cake and a tribute to their 33 classmates that have passed away.

Vicksburg High School was created by combining classes from the former predominately white H.V. Cooper High School and the former predominately African-American Rosa A. Temple High School for the 1973-1974 school year, and the process was an experience that could have gone poorly, Rees said.

“It was a study on race relations,” Rees, who traveled to Vicksburg from Union, Kentucky, for the party, said. “There may have been turmoil in the central office, but to the students, it was a fabulous year. They wanted to give everyone an opportunity to make the situation successful. We just went with the flow and never saw any problems. Maybe it’s my age and maybe it’s my memory, but I can’t find anything negative.”

Beacham agreed their senior year went without a hitch.

“We’re a close class, especially those here in Vicksburg,” she said, noting their class combined the Greenies and Buccaneers and created the Gators as the school mascot, started the Gator Gazette and won the school’s first state football championship their senior year.

“From the day one when we combined schools, the athletics were just awesome, and I think athletics brought everyone together,” Rees said.

Chris Grice, who flew in from Texas for the party, agreed.

“What brought our school and our town together was a bunch of great football players both black and white deciding that regardless of the hand dealt us, we were going to go out and win and bring home the state championship,” he said. “But it was not just all about athletics, it was about all of us pulling together: parents, school administrators, teachers and students.”