The Golden Ties of Friendship

By Carol Woolum Roberts

Make new friends, but keep the old,

One is Silver, and the other Gold.

A golden thread weaves through a gathering of friends this weekend.

The Vandal Gold thread from our college, the University of Idaho.

The Tri-Delta Gold thread, one of the three colors of our sorority.

Does this make us Golden Girls?  We are all now 60 years old, or very close to turning 60.

Old friends are golden.  The journey with these golden friends began on a summer day in August 1981.  Let me share with you a bit of the journey.

After I graduated from high school, I knew I would be attending the University of Idaho.

I had a choice to make.  Would I live in the dorms, or would I go through rush and live in a sorority?

My sister had this same decision to make eight years before I did.  She decided to go through rush.

So, besides following in my sister’s footsteps on what college to attend, I also decided to follow in her footsteps and go through sorority rush.

I ended up pledging Delta Delta Delta, the sorority my sister was a member of during college.  When she lived there, I would often go and visit the sorority house, and one spring break went and spent a few days at the house.

At the end of rush week, Delta Delta Delta chose me, and I also chose Delta Delta Delta.

We had a pledge class of 25 people. 

This coming weekend, I am gathering with members of this pledge class to reunite, kindle old friendships, and get caught up with one another.

The expected turnout is rather amazing.

Of the 25 members of our original pledge class from Fall of 1981:

2 have passed away.

We do not have contact with three of the members, who all left the house either during or right after our freshman year of college.

3 had life conflicts and were unable to attend.

This weekend, we have 17 of the original 25 pledge class members reuniting in a lovely house in Hailey, Idaho.  42 years later, we are coming to spend a weekend together.

We started this back in 2018.  That weekend, four of us stayed at a vacation rental in Hyde Park in Boise, Idaho.  Four additional pledge class members who lived close joined us at various times throughout the weekend.

The next year we met in Utah.  At this gathering, there were eight of us together for a wonderful weekend in Park City.

Because of COVID restrictions, we put our in-person gatherings on hold in 2020 and 2021.  We did have a few Zoom gatherings online to keep in touch.

In 2022, 12 pledge class members gathered in my town of Kellogg, along with two “adopted” sisters from the pledge class ahead of us, and behind us, for a total of 14 enjoying the Silver Valley with a bike ride, shopping, dining, and visiting.

From our beginnings of four staying in a house rental in 2018, to now 17 staying in a house rental in 2023, our annual gathering keeps growing.

These women are amazing.  They are all nice, successful, wonderful women who I can’t wait to spend a weekend with, while we visit, attend the “Trailing of the Sheep Festival” and catch up. There are a few of these women that I haven’t seen since the 1980’s. 

I also did a little creative project to share with my friends.  I will share more in next week’s blog post.

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Is there a group of people you enjoy reuniting with on a regular basis?  What makes you want to spend time with them?

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