When members of the Ann Arbor High School class of 1964 learned that one of their classmates was suffering from multiple sclerosis and feeling depressed, they cheered her up by quickly organizing a lunch at Weber’s restaurant. Thirty-five of her classmates attended, after reading about it on their class’s Facebook page.

The idea of creating a Facebook presence came from classmate Carol Naigus Smith. Since graduation, Smith has resided in six other states and Germany, and she now lives in Marquette. “While I hadn’t kept up with the goings on of A2 and my parents are gone,” she emails, “it was the only place that seemed like home.” So Smith emailed a few classmates, who, in turn, emailed others.

One particularly helpful contact was Bob Dascola. Arguably the friendliest barber in Ann Arbor, Dascola thinks he knows about half of the 742 members of the class of ’64. He’s become the Ann Arbor contact for the Facebook group, which now includes 107 members, with new ones joining every few days.

A few people got in touch after they were mistakenly included on a list of seventy-seven class members who were thought to be deceased. That was embarrassing, but also helpful–thanks to the page, says Dascola, classmates will be up to date on each other’s lives before their fiftieth reunion in 2014, leaving them free “to just have a really good time.”