Hello, everybody. I'll get to the reunion in a bit, but first, the latest on the mysterious death of WWE wrestler Chris Benoit and his family:

We have learned that it was the result of a double murder-suicide. TMZ.com and the Associated Press have reported that Benoit may have strangled his wife Nancy with an electrical cord on Saturday, suffocated his son Daniel with a bag in his bed the next day, and then hanging himself in the weight room of their home outside Atlanta. Also, steroids were believed to be found in the residence and whether or not it played a role in the deaths remains unknown.

Benoit's death has immediately brought back memories of Owen Hart, whose life was ended during a WWE pay-per-view in 1999, and Eddie Guerrero, whose end came in 2005 due to acute heart failure. Shortly after that, the WWE imposed a new drug policy after its first one in the early '90s was out the window after Vince McMahon stood trial for distributing steroids to his wrestlers. Despite Hulk Hogan testifying against his former boss, McMahon would be acquitted on all charges.

Now with Benoit joining Guerrero in wrestling heaven, it is another huge blow to the WWE hot off the heels of the discontinued storyline involving the "death" of Mr. McMahon (Vince's in-ring character) from a limousine explosion. They may have crossed the line countless times, but loyal wrestling fans like myself are quoting Owen Hart, "enough is enough, and it's time for a change!" No wonder why the only wrestling I watch regularly these days are "TNA Impact" and Lucha Libre; at least their storylines aren't too demeaning.

And now, on a much lighter note...

For the first time since we took the walk and threw our caps in the air on May 28, 1997, me and the rest of the West Valley High School Class of 1997 reunited together over the weekend for two days of reflection, reminiscing, and playing a little catch-up on ourselves.

It actually started late Friday night at the Red Fox bar just a few minutes from my house, where fellow alum Averi Beckner had a little pre-reunion party. The two of us talked about where we are now (Averi's husband Chris works for the FBI), and then I went into storytelling mode, talking about running my first Midnight Sun Run last year, my two weeks of R&R in the South, and then my double date with Britney Spears in 2000.

When the time reached close to 1:00 am, I had to call it a night, but not before we took a photo of me and Averi together. And make no mistake...she may look like a blonde Alyson Hannigan, but she still looks amazingly gorgeous in '07 than in '97!

On Saturday night, it was the big event at the Annex Art Gallery outside Fairbanks. I was expecting 100 or so to show up, but the turnout wasn't that bad; about 30 to 50 of us were there and I didn't keep count. Of course many like Victoria Cox (Giralt) had other commitments to fulfill somewhere in the world, and couldn't make the long flight up to Fairbanks to join us.

The first person to greet me just outside the building in was Chioke "Ben" Brent; he has returned to town after some college in a few places. When I came in after I got my name tag and updating my contact info, the scene there was pretty much low-key. Music from 1994-97 (the years when we were at West Valley) as well as a video of the 1997 graduation were played throughout as food, desserts, and drinks (booze and lemonade) were scattered all over the gallery. I even brought in my own yearbook with a few pictures of myself and a memento from the prom as well as a microfilm copy of the "News-Miner" coverage on our graduation for everybody to share.

There was even a small area devoted to Lyndsay Thomas, Matt Dullian, and Luke Sulkosky, who've all departed over the last ten years. Matt was the first to go after a car crash, followed by Lyndsay from another car accident, and then Luke's life was taken following a fatal accident on a construction site.

But even though the three have attended the reunion in spirit, the rest of us enjoyed the time of our lives. Some like myself and Jessica Helmers have remained in Fairbanks, while others like Jessica Lissow (formerly Mensik) now have sweet jobs somewhere in the country; Lissow works at the Queens Zoo in New York. And a few like Carl Tape and Tasha Fouts have attended college; Tape at a community college in Massachusetts and Fouts at the University of Illinois Chicago. And Tasha still looked hot in a short, low-cut gray dress that showed off her cleavage. I remember getting aroused at the sight of Tasha in short skirts and dresses that showed off her legs very nicely, and I couldn't wait till after school to...well, you know.

Anyway, as we were getting our last bits of food for the night, we gathered around like in the pre-YouTube days to watch a tape of one of our Airband competitions. I even cracked a joke about how it would look if it was shot in HDTV, but that technology was in its embryonic stages during our four years attending West Valley. Keely Buchanan -- who was our Senior class president and the HWIC (head woman in charge) behind the reunion weekend -- cringed when she saw herself in a cheerleader outfit emceeing the Airband. Maybe Hayden Panettiere's parents were taking notes.

Oh yeah...while all this was going on, the annual Midnight Sun Run took place back in town. West Valley scored a one-two punch in the race as 2005 graduate Tony Tomsich took the men's title at 32 minutes, 17 seconds while future Senior Crystal Pitney at 38:32 did a three-peat on the women's side. As for "that guy in those elaborate costumes", Sean Purucker? He and Hun Tak were the Atomic Arctic Cactuses this year.

Back to the scene at the Annex: As the night would down, me and the other alums who've stuck around gathered together for a group photo. It was truly memorable.

After a good night's sleep from all this, we now move to the next afternoon and the picnic at Pioneer Park where all the remaining food from the previous night were there. Again, the atmosphere was low-key (typical for a picnic), but a couple hula performances provided the entertainment for us.

During the weekend, a two-DVD set of the Airbands from '94-'97 as well as a CD of those years' top songs were sold for $5 each; sales would go to planning for the 20-year reunion set for 2017. I'm hoping we would hold it at the Riverboat Discovery this time...if it'll still be around in 2017!

The reunion was capped off with a few photo ops of me with Keely, Chioke, Carl, and others. I hope I'll be seeing all or some of them ten years from now.

But yeah, things have changed over that decade; I already told you about it on Thursday in my preview. Ten long years and some body changes later, the West Valley High School Class of 1997 were indeed reunited...and believe me folks, it felt so good!

By the way, I took so much photos from the weekend that a gallery of them is now up. There are some others I took that are too personal to show, if you know what I mean.

And so, with my complete wrap-up on everything that transpired over that incredible weekend...so long and stay strong!!

CHRIS BENOIT: 1967-2007

Hello, everybody. Tonight's blog was supposed to be all about the ten-year West Valley High School Class of 1997 reunion from over the weekend, but I'll have that for you tomorrow as there is very sad news from the professional wrestling world to report:

The family of WWE wrestler Chris Benoit, which includes his wife Nancy and son Daniel, were all found dead in their Georgia home today. As of now, there are no information as to the cause of their deaths.

Benoit started his wrestling career in his native Canada in the mid-1980's before heading to New Japan Pro Wrestling at the end of the decade and winning his first championship there. A few years later, he joined World Championship Wrestling, Extreme Championship Wrestling, and then WCW again where he was a member of the "Four Horsemen". During his time at WCW, he was World Heavyweight Champion, two times United States Champion, Tag Team Champion twice, and World Television Champion three times.

He would later head to the WW(E)F in 2000, and four years later at Wrestlemania XX, became the World Heavyweight Champion. Other belts he won there included the U.S. Championship (three times), Intercontinental Championship (four), and Tag Team Championships (four). Just recently, he was drafted from the "Smackdown" brand to ECW, and his last match was last week against Elijah Burke.

Benoit will be missed by those who've followed his career over the years, and his sudden passing came just almost two weeks after Sherri Martel's. But for the last few weeks, the WWE came under fire over their storyline involving the "death" of Vince McMahon's on-screen character. Now with the real-life deaths of Martel and now Chris Benoit, that angle has been discontinued.

Once again...because of this, I'll have everything that transpired at my class reunion tomorrow. So long and stray strong.

High School Reunion: The final countdown!

Hello, everybody. There have been some great events happening in June so far as summer is officially underway: Paris Hilton back in jail...the disappointing "Sopranos" finale...the San Antonio Spurs winning their fourth NBA title by sweeping the Cleveland Cavaliers...

But we're now less than 48 hours away from the month's biggest event (well, to me), and that is the West Valley High School class of 1997 reunion on Saturday and Sunday! Many alums like myself who still reside in Alaska, as well as others from many parts of the country and the world have descended here to Fairbanks to take part in this.

Now it may be a two-day event with a get-together at The Annex on Saturday night followed by a picnic and BBQ at Pioneer Park on Sunday, but thanks to an e-mail invite I got from Averi Beckner (she was Averi Benson when we graduated), things will really get underway tomorrow night (Friday) with a pre-reunion party she's throwing at the Red Fox bar just a few blocks from my house.

For the last year now, fellow graduate Keely Buchanan has been busy as a bee planning every detail of the reunion as well as getting in touch with almost every one of us possible about this big weekend coming up. Unfortunately, only three people won't ever make it to this reunion or the 20-year one planned for 2017; Lyndsay Thomas, Matt Dullian, and Luke Sulkosky have all left us over the course of those ten years. But they will be there in spirit, and never be forgotten.

When we took the walk on May 28, 1997, things were completely different. "ER" was the #1 television show; high-speed Internet was expensive; DVDs were about to hit the market; iPod, TiVo, or YouTube weren't even in our vocabulary; and Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, and Paris Hilton were all just innocent kids. And now this weekend, me and the rest of the class of '97 will be reliving and reminiscing about the good times we spent together at West Valley from when we came as freshmen in 1993 to when we got our diplomas.

Last year, it was me finally running the Midnight Sun Run; the summer before that, two weeks of beating the heat in the South; and in 2000, round two with Britney Spears in Los Angeles. This weekend, on June 23-24, 2007, another chapter will be written into the book of memorable summer events in my life with the class reunion that is a decade in the making.

Will some of the grads who never got the news about the reunion be coming in even at the last minute to join us? And most of all...what do we look like now? For the next 72 hours starting with the pre-party tomorrow, these questions and many more will be answered.

And of course, I'll have a complete recap of everything on Monday, as well as photos from that historic weekend. Till then, so long and stay strong!

Bada...Bing?!?!?!

Hello, everybody. Over the decades, very popular and long-running TV shows have found some great ways to go out in style. "Cheers" had Sam Malone closing up shop for the final time with "Sorry, we're closed" as the final line; "Seinfeld" ended with the cast all behind bars (just like Paris Hilton is...again), "M*A*S*H's" finale was the most-watched program of all-time; "The Fugitive" ended with the One-Armed Man gunned down to death with Dr. Richard Kimble being cleared of any wrongdoing; "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" capped off with Sunnyvale being swallowed whole underground; "Everybody Loves Raymond", the family sitting down for a meal; and "Friends" with the cast evicting themselves from the apartment.

But one finale that will not join the ranks of the other shows after last night was "The Sopranos." Okay, I've never liked the show, but I had to watch just to see how it all wound down. And boy, were we gypped!

The final scene had Tony, Carmela, and A.J. munching on onion rings, while outside the diner, Meadow's been struggling to parallel park her car. Back inside, three suspicious people were scoping the scene, and in the last few seconds with Meadow entering the diner....cut to black. Viewers all over were thinking to themselves, "What? Is my cable or satellite cut off? Did HBO go off the air?!"

After over ten seconds, the end credits popped up, leaving us to draw our own conclusions as to what transpired last. It didn't take long for loyal and irate viewers to flood HBO's "Sopranos" boards to explain their disgust, while some of them thought show creator David Chase did the right thing to end it like this.

But here's how I think it ended, and many of you might agree with me on this one:

Tony finished his last meal. Perhaps either the batter on the onion rings were laced with poison just to kill him instantly, or as the moment Meadow walked in, he got the ultimate whack as one of the guys shot him in the head as the rest of the family witnessed it.

However, there were reports that three alternate endings were done to keep things under wraps. Whether or not they'll be on DVD with the rest of the final season, we don't know. What we do know is when talks of a reunion movie are in the first stages, we'll get to find out how it really ended.

With "The Sopranos" now over once and for all after eight years, new lives for the cast have begun. James Gandolfini and Robert Iler will probably be typecast for some time, but for years Jamie-Lynn Sigler (Meadow Soprano herself) has been living a life in between seasons. She has done very sexy shoots for men's magazines like "Maxim", and earlier this year paparazzi has snapped her showing off more of her body in a bikini while frolicking in Miami Beach. Pretty whackable, but in a different kind of way if you know what I mean.

Anyway, I think Jamie-Lynn will either return to Broadway where she got her start, or get her own show on probably The CW or better yet, troubled fourth-place NBC. Yeah, like if they needed anybody but Meadow Soprano to save their network from extinction! No wonder why ratings for the Stanley Cup Finals (and congrats to the Anaheim Ducks, by the way) were down the toilet!

So in the end, "The Sopranos" closed off with not a Bada-Bing, but a Bada-Whimper.

Now that it's all out of the way....we're less than 14 days now from the big West Valley Class of '97 reunion weekend, in which the second day will be a barbecue at Pioneer Park. And speaking of which...last week, it played host to the annual Governor's picnic, which usually happens in mid-July. But it looked like Sarah Palin was in a showdown with Mother Nature and, in her first picnic as Governor, scheduled it a bit early this year. With my trusty digital camera, I was hoping to take a much more proper photo of me and Palin second time around after that horrible last time at the inauguration. And moments before the weather got real serious and started raining hard, I did just that. Boy, even in those big sunglasses and apron, the governor does look great!

Despite the heavy downpour and lack on condiments, I hope things will be a million times better when I return to Pioneer Park for the reunion barbecue in a couple of weeks. And with that said...so long and stay strong!

The countdown to the reunion begins now!!

Hello, everybody. Except for Lindsay Lohan arrested for DUI and in rehab, Rosie O'Donnell exiting "The View" prematurely, Dario Franchitti (Mr. Ashley Judd) winning the Indianapolis 500 last weekend, and the Anaheim Ducks halfway to the Stanley Cup 2-0 over the Ottawa Senators, there's nothing else for me to bitch about from this slow news week.

But we are in the month of June, and for me and 249 other members of a very elite group, we are inching closer to the biggest event ten years in the making.

Over ten years ago in May 1997, I was among the 250 students who graduated in West Valley High School's class of '97. It was very historic for two reasons, 1) It was the 20th anniversary of the school, and 2) The last graduation commencement to be held at the gym before we followed Lathrop and North Pole's lead by moving them to the Carlson Center.

For me, it was one of the most memorable events in my life, and since then I've been waiting for any word about a reunion coming up. Well, for almost the past year one of my fellow graduates, Keely Buchanan (who now works for Time Warner Cable in Colorado as a manager) has been gathering every contact from us possible and telling them all that she's planning a 10-year reunion this summer.

That's right; the West Valley High School Class of 1997 10-year reunion is on the weekend of June 23-24, and you can damn well bet I'm all pumped for it! A reunion bash with appetizers and desserts is planned for the 23rd at The Annex on Ester (a few miles outside Fairbanks) across the Parks Highway from the Blue Loon. That's followed the next day by a big reunion barbecue at Pioneer Park, where family members (except younger brother Lawrence; he's in Las Vegas and going to be a dad soon and won't fly up here) are also invited.

I'll tell you much more on all this as we seep closer to that historic weekend, but the countdown has already begun. Stay strong and so long!