Salina ? When Darrell Mong introduced himself to Jean Weir at their 50th high school class reunion, he didn’t remember her at all. But she certainly hadn’t forgotten him.

“You’re the boy who hit me in the face with a baseball bat in sixth grade,” she said with a smile.

Darrell, embarrassed, recovered as best he could: “Well, it didn’t alter your beauty a bit,” he said.

Later that night, during a banquet and dance at the Salina Country Club, Jean decided to approach Darrell to dance, but he left before dinner had been served.

“I’m not much of a socialite,” Darrell said of the August 2002 event. “I was single, and sitting around tables full of married people was not my idea of a good time.”

A few days later, Jean called Darrell and asked what had happened to him. They began to talk and share memories of Oakdale Elementary School, Roosevelt-Lincoln Middle School and the long-gone Washington High School. They called each other often, became friends and began to seriously date. By Christmas, they were talking marriage.

In March, they became husband and wife.

“Eight months was a pretty quick romance, but we just got along and had so much fun together it seemed like the right thing to do,” said Jean, 68.

“I was tired of being single, going out to clubs and acting like a fool,” said Darrell, 69. “Jean was a good gal, and we both liked the same things, so I asked her to marry me.”

“I didn’t remember Jean when I introduced myself to her that night, but I never forgot her again.”

First meeting

Darrell Mong and Jean Weir were in the last graduating class of Salina’s Washington High School before students began attending the new Salina High School in 1953.

While in the sixth grade, they met on a baseball diamond at Oakdale, where Darrell was practicing his swing. Jean decided she wanted her turn at bat.

“She came up to me to take the ball bat away, and I accidentally hit her in the face,” Darrell said. “Either that, or she purposely walked into the bat to get my attention.”

“That’s not the way it happened at all,” Jean said. “He was swinging the bat around wildly and didn’t see me. The bat slipped out of his hands and hit me in the jaw. I knew it was just an accident, but I screamed at him never to talk to me again.”

Separate ways

Although they continued to share classes, hallways and lunchrooms for the next six years, Jean and Darrell barely noticed each other. Neither were involved in many high school activities.

Two months after high school graduation in May 1952, Darrell left Salina and joined the Navy. Jean got married at age 20 and moved to Iowa, where she spent the next 30 years and raised two daughters, Kim and Jodi.

Darrell served more than 20 years in the military: After a stint in the Navy, he joined the Air Force and then the Kansas National Guard. He married and fathered two boys, Michael and Dennis, but divorced in 1972 and never remarried. He moved back to Salina in 1975.

Jean came back to Salina in 1985 to be closer to family. She divorced about 10 years ago and began working as a custodian for the Salina school district. It was during this time she became involved with her high school reunion, serving on the organizing committee.

‘So much in common’

There were about 250 graduates in the 1952 graduating class at Washington High, and reunion attendance always has been good, said Marlene Leister, head of the reunion committee for many years.

Reunions also can be wonderful places to meet potential mates, as Marlene hoped for her friend Jean.

“I told Jean I didn’t want her to meet someone on the Internet,” Marlene said. “When you meet at a reunion, you’re meeting someone you’ve known since high school or grade school, someone from the same era who shares the same values. You have so much in common already.”

Darrell, retired from operating a Salina insurance agency, finally was persuaded to attend a reunion by classmate A. Jay Andersen, who assured the reluctant retiree he would have a good time — and perhaps even meet a nice lady there.

“I was hoping he’d meet Jean, who is a sweet gal, but I never thought they’d get together 50 years after the fact.”