Members of the Dental Class of 1980 celebrated their COVID-delayed 40th anniversary reunion by revisiting one of their old haunts – the Faculty of Dentistry's Walsh Building.
The gleaming facility, which has been transformed with state-of-the-art equipment and spaces, was unrecognisable from their student days.
And in a strange quirk of COVID fate, the building would have still been a construction site if the reunion had gone ahead as planned in mid-2020.
“It's absolutely perfect like the stars are aligning,” said Eryn Agnew, one of the reunion organisers.
“It's just the most amazing building. This was our main clinical building. We never enjoyed the view because as students you never notice the nice things. We were very spoilt and didn't know it.”
The original class of 1980 has spread across the globe and branched into numerous specialties. For example, Eryn and her husband, Faculty of Dentistry Dean Mike Morgan, have just returned from living in Australia.
A total of 25 classmates out of 60 in the original class are attending the reunion.
“There's a few from overseas who couldn't make it. They were keen but couldn't come. But they've sent really nice messages.”
After a day of getting reacquainted “the stories were starting to come out.”
“We had one or two characters in our class. Most of us have mellowed but there's still the 20-somethings in there,” she laughed.
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