After last year’s championship season, it has become apparent during this off-season that the Class of ’94 remains committed to excellence. “We are the best and we will continue to remain the best,” said class president Mo Cheeks from the oval office. “We refuse to rest on our laurels of awesomeness.”

Although not as noteworthy as the Cederbaum deal, Mo Cheeks said, these are still notable acquisitions.

Class scientists Drew Davis and David Blehar are working on a way to use the sun’s energy to reflect off of Pirani’s head and shoot deadly gamma rays at our enemies.

“People forget that facial hair is a form of identification,” Mo Cheeks said. “It says, ‘Hey. Look at me. I am over 21.”

1. In 1992, she raised school lunches to the highest prices they have ever been: $1.25 (Later lowered to $.25 by Mo Cheeks).
2. She presided over the drinking scandal of sophomore year in which 12 members of our class were caught drinking alcohol out of Coke and Pepsi cans.
3. Against a tide of popular opinion, she tried (and failed) to change the school mascot to the “Feather Boas.”
4. That same year she tried to change the school colors to muave and off-white. This failed as well.
5. At 4’3″ she was the shortest president ever.
6. During graduation she forgot to move her tassel from the right to left, drawing scorn from her classmates and nearly ruining the day.
7. In the beginning of 1993, our senior year, she demanded that our class lockers be moved to the dungeon for nostalgia’s sake. Luckily, no one liked nostalgia.
8. In the St. John’s-Wachusett soccer game of 1992, she was seen standing on the St. John’s side. When confronted, she claimed ignorance, but there were whispers that she was secretly exchanging secrets with the enemy.
9. At the 10th Year Reunion, she showed up late and left early. No explanation was ever given.
10. She cheated during the 24-hour volleyball marathon for three successive years, staying up only 11 hours and then sleeping the remainder of the time.

When seeing this list, her brother Adam Cederbaum could only shake his head in disgust. “This is disgusting,” he said bluntly.

Initially, Adam broached the idea of a trade at this year’s unofficial Class of ’93 Reunion in which Mo Cheeks was the Guest of Honor and Featured Speaker.

Adam had had enough of his sister’s antics and said he wanted to be traded to a proven winner. After a lengthy discussion, he and Mo Cheeks came to a verbal agreement, followed up by a handshake and a wink and nod.

Amidst tears, Adam grabbed the microphone and in an impromptu speech bid farewell to his now-former classmates.

While the Class of ’94 and Adam had made an oral commitment to each other, the deal took months to complete because of paperwork, contract restructuring, and league rules.

“At one point, it didn’t look like the deal was going to get done,” Mo Cheeks said. “The Class of ’93 wanted too much.”

Yet, through some shrewd negotiations, Mo Cheeks was able to pull off what many are calling one of the greatest deals ever.

Adam was confident that he will be able to step into the starting line up and produce immediately. “My career stats speak for themselves,” he said while sharing a victory cigar with Mo Cheeks. “I am committed to two things: clearing the Cederbaum name and ensuring the Class of ’94 stays on top, always and forever.”

Amen to that!

We have just been notified that our senior class president and leader, Chris Kazarian, will be making an appearance at Barnes & Noble in Lincoln Plaza, Worcester on Friday, June 15 from 3:30-4:30 PM.

The event is open and free to the public and will feature a reading and explanation of the caption underneath Chris’ yearbook photo. “I am extremely excited that my fans will have a chance to be a part of this kind of history,” Chris said in a press release.

This will be followed by a short Q & A; the event will conclude with a yearbook signing. Please note, Chris will only be autographing Class of ’94 Yearbooks. He will not be signing basketballs, baseballs, beer pong balls, photos, Wachusett Class rings, Wachusett Lettermen’s jackets, or body parts.

Flash photography will be allowed.

This is the first yearbook signing Chris has attended since August 27, 1994. “Over the past 13 years, many of my classmates have told me the one thing they regretted since graduating is that they didn’t get my signature in their yearbook,” Chris said. “I wanted to give them that opportunity before it’s too late. I anticipate a large turn out.”

Stiles & Mitchell, the PR firm representing Chris, expected a minimum of 17,000 people to attend Friday’s event. The firm is basing its figures on the most recent census data completed in 2000, which showed that over 85,000 Worcester county residents considered the Class of ’94 the best ever.

Janet Hopperman, president of Stiles & Mitchell, said, “using these census figures, we can accurately predict with confidence that this event will break records for any yearbook signing appearance ever in this country.”

Chris has promised to sign autographs for all in attendance. “If it means I have to stay until 5 PM, I will do it,” he said. “I want my fans to go away happy.”

Our class is riding a wave of good fortune. Just two days after Doug Laidlaw set the keg stand record, his brother went out and destroyed it!!

It happened last night when Dave “JOOONES” Laidlaw called in the big horses (Reyo Matthews, John Dudley, Broham Brant Harmon, Mike Lewis, and Chris Nobile) to talk about raising the bar up a notch.

At the eleventh hour JOOONES decided to go for broke. He returned to the historic site where his brother set last weekend’s record.

What he did will be remembered by all for years to come. He proceeded to shatter Doug’s record by more than three seconds. It now officially stands at 46.928 seconds.

Here is how it went down:

JOOONES: My brother needed a little slice of humble pie and I served it to him with a side of revenge. As you know, revenge is a dish best served cold.

Class of 1994: What do you mean?

Class of 1994: Could you explain to everyone why you held your four fingers up as you broke the record?

Since news of the Katie O’ Connell incident hit the Wachusett district, a black cloud has been hanging over our class.

Thanks to Doug and Dave Laidlaw a silver lining has started to emerge. The Laidlaws were devastated by the negativity surrounding our class so they decided to do something about it.

They held a public forum at Wong Dynasty so all the bad air could be cleared. Some feelings were hurt, but afterwards the healing process began. The Laidlaws invited everyone into the Holden woods for a kegger behind an abandoned cement building.

The highlight of the night was a new keg stand record set by Doug Laidlaw (43.753 seconds), shattering the previous record held by Missy Nordberg (Class of 97 – 31.24 seconds).

When it was over all everyone could talk about was Doug’s amazing keg stand. We even got a chance to hear from the new record holder himself!

Doug: This is it. This is remarkable. There is no better feeling like this, brother. These are the days you dream about when you are a kid.

Class of 1994: How did you pull it off?

Doug: This was a total team effort. First off, let me thank Reyo Matthews and John Dudley for buying the keg. How do they do it? Everytime we need a keg, there they are. They are the unsung heroes of our class.

Finally, Mike Lewis kept the time. In order to make this official, you need someone who is non-partisan working the clock. He made sure everything was legal, that both of my hands were on the keg and I wasn’t using performance enhancing drugs.

Class of 1994: What’s next? Where do you go from here?

Doug: That’s the big question everyone’s asking, isn’t it? First, I’d like a few days to savor this victory. Then I can ponder the future.

Beyond that, I just want to get the word out that the Class of 94 is back on the map. We had a rough patch for a few months, but I honestly think we can now be considered the best class ever!

Below is a copy of the article:

Richer, not smarter
Wachusett grad quits while ahead

Larry Rettig may be the happiest “drop-out” in the country today — he is $100,000 richer.

The former Holden resident appeared on Fox’s new game show, “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?” Thursday night and came out a winner, although he conceded defeat to host Jeff Foxworthy.

If a contestant fails to answer all 11 questions and win $1 million, it is called “dropping out.” Mr. Rettig’s penalty? He had to admit to the host, and the nation, that he was not smarter than a fifth-grader.

Despite his overall success, Mr. Rettig, 31, showed several times just how much he has forgotten since his elementary school days.

Although he boasted on camera to achieving A’s and B’s as a student, Mr. Rettig had to rely on the expertise of those roughly 20 years younger than him. “I got lucky a few times,” he said. “Those kids saved me.”

Those “kids” are the show’s five cast members, who answer the questions along with contestants.

The quiz show takes its questions directly from textbooks in first through fifth grade.

Contestants who struggle with a question can turn to the children for help. The show calls it “cheating,” but Mr. Rettig had another term for it: Survival. He was allowed to cheat three times, and he needed it. “It is amazing how much those kids memorize,” he said. “You forget about how much you had to learn at that age.”

Mr. Rettig, who graduated from Wachusett Regional High School in 1994, happened upon the show by chance.

In October, he moved to Thousand Oaks, Calif., with his wife, Emily, and their daughter, Renee Belle Rettig.

Prior to his cross-country trek, he had lived in Central Massachusetts all of his life. He was born in Worcester and grew up in Holden, attending Dawson Elementary School. As to whether he might share his winnings with his former school, Mr. Rettig was blunt. “I didn’t answer that many questions,” he laughed. “They probably don’t want to claim me.”

After graduating from Wachusett, Mr. Rettig attended Worcester State College, majoring in health science, and graduating in 1999. His studies there paid dividends with the sixth question. It was the first, and only time, he displayed confidence on the show. The question, in the category of third-grade health science, asked what the largest bone in the body is. His answer — the femur — earned him $50,000.

After receiving his bachelor’s degree, Mr. Rettig worked in Worcester as an advertising salesman. He left the job last year to take an executive sales job at Diversified Panel Systems in Oxnard, Calif.

An occasional video editor, Mr. Rettig was browsing Craigslist.org in January for freelance editing jobs he could do during weekends. He stumbled on an online advertisement for a game show seeking fathers age 30 to 55 for “the world’s easiest game show,” he said. He sent a picture along with an e-mail explaining why the producers should pick him.

They called him in for an audition. “They didn’t tell us anything about the show,” he said. “They asked me sample questions (on camera) and I probably got half of them right. They also asked what I would do if I won a million dollars. I just dropped to the floor like a sack of potatoes.”

He was asked back, at which point he realized the premise of the show. “They actually had kids there trying out for the show,” he said. “That is when I got the hint.” He did a run-through and the children auditioning acted as his teammates. The first question they asked him, he got wrong. “It was a math question, which is kind of odd,” he said. “That is my best subject.” But the producers let him continue. He ended up with $50,000 of “fake money. You play riskier because it is not real,” he said. “With nothing to lose, you keep going.”

After that round, he said, he felt confident — but not for long. In the third, and final audition, he only answered two questions right. “I bombed on the third one in front of the executives,” he said. “I didn’t think I would get called back.”

He was wrong. Four days later he received a phone call that would change his life. “After that last audition I was not sure I would make it,” he said. “I was pretty surprised they called me.”

Mr. Rettig was given little time to prepare for the show. He immediately e-mailed his friends, telling them he was chosen as a contestant. “I had some people throw questions at me,” he said. “A lot of my friends are married to teachers, and they (helped me).”

He also studied with his wife. “None of the stuff we studied for was on the show,” he said. “It was a waste of time. I stayed up late to study and it was all for nothing.”

Mr. Rettig has two children, Renee, 2, and Pierce, who was born in November. Because of their age, he said, they were of little assistance. Some contestants had the benefit of having children in elementary school. “That would have been a huge help,” he said. “A lot of contestants had that luxury.”

His colleagues were supportive of him, he said, allowing him to work shorter days under two stipulations. “If I won $1 million, I could not quit,” he said. “And they said I better come back with at least $25,000 to make it worth it.”

He received phone calls of encouragement from friends, family members, former co-workers, “just a lot of people,” he said. “I even got a phone call from my senior class president, wishing me luck.”

With all the anticipation, he said, “I was fried,” by the end of the week. “The nights leading up to it, I was having a hard time sleeping,” he said.

He taped the show three weeks ago, spending more than six hours at the studio before his segment was taped. He was accompanied by his wife and daughter, his mother, Tammy Randall of Thousand Oaks, and his sister, Kaitlyn Bell, 16.

His excitement was tempered by the nerves of appearing on national television for the first time. “As soon as I was backstage and behind the set, I needed water,” he said. “I kept getting dry mouth.”

It made the show more difficult.

“A simple question becomes harder, knowing millions of people are watching,” he said. “I didn’t want to look dumb.”

Unfortunately, he almost did just that with the first question. He was asked how many “E’s” were in the phrase “pledge of allegiance.” Mr. Rettig kept adding the article, “the” to those three words. “If I had answered five because I included ‘the,’ I would have lost right then and there with no money,” he said. The host had to repeat the phrase several times before Mr. Rettig caught on. “Jeff Foxworthy saved me,” he said.

Besides winning the money, Mr. Rettig said, one of the biggest thrills was interacting with Mr. Foxworthy. “It was cool to talk to him in between breaks,” he said. They discussed their families, Mr. Rettig’s Massachusetts roots and the Boston Red Sox. Mr. Foxworthy happens to be a good friend of Jason Varitek, Mr. Rettig said.

During the show, the comedian was less kind to Mr. Rettig. At one point, he called him a “redneck” after Mr. Rettig said he would spend $1 million on a camouflage Lamborghini. “They wanted to hear (an answer) and that was the first thing that came to my mind,” Mr. Rettig explained of the Lamborghini choice. “I was trying to think of something expensive.”

Even if he had won no money, Mr. Rettig said, the experience would have been worth it. “It was definitely a fun experience,” he said. “It was neat to see the whole television process from start to finish.”

As to how he will spend his $100,000, Mr. Rettig was coy. “I am probably going to Vegas and put it all on red,” he joked.

He also suggested that other quiz shows may be on the horizon. “I consider myself an opportunistic guy,” he said. “If there is quick money, you have to do it.” He already has a show in mind: “Jeopardy.” “I’m coming after Ken Jennings’ record,” he joked. .