The Last Reunion: The Class of 1952 Comes Home to the Secret City

There was a time when America was a team, when the free world had the tremors and looked to us for help. There was a time when we made sacrifices without complaint, supported our president without question and honored the standards of decency. There was a time of American patriotism and pride, of hope and love and humility. It was World War II and the nation was one.This book is about those days, specifically about Oak Ridge, Tennessee and the war at home; about the thousands upon thousands of everyday Americans who joined hands as strangers in a near classless society and secretly pulled off the greatest scientific experiment in history – the making of the atomic bomb. We, the Oak Ridge High Class of 1952, were their children and we, too, joined hands as strangers. We have never let go.In our mid-seventies now, we came home for a last reunion in the summer of 2010 and brought our stories with us –memories of our working parents and our neighbors and the genius scientists who lived together behind a secret curtain and helped create the miracle of Oak Ridge, the womb of the Atomic Age. What did we see there, what did we hear there and whatever happened to them and to us?

Jarrell "Jay" Searcy, a newspaperman for 44 years, is a national award-winning sports writer and feature writer who lived in Oak Ridge as a child during World War II. Both of his parents worked at the nuclear plants. Jay has been collecting Oak Ridge stories most of his adult life. His newspaper career, which started at The Oak Ridger when he was in high school, took him to The Kingsport Times-News, The Chattanooga Times, The New York Times and The Philadelphia Inquirer, where he was executive sports editor. He twice was named Tennessee Sportswriter of the Year and is a member of the Chattanooga, Oak Ridge and Tennessee Sports Writers Halls of Fame. He lives in retirement in Loudon's Tellico Village with his wife of 55 years, Jackie Hildebrand, an Oak Ridge schoolmate.