In the late 1970s, Deb Hutcheson, Mary Hendershot and Cyndi Godfrey used to walk the halls of the Center for Career and Technical Education, singing the Doobie Brothers’ “Black Water”?at the top of their lungs.

That was back when the school was known as the Allegany County Vocational-Technical Center, back when eight area high schools sent juniors and seniors to classes there to learn a trade.

The three women graduated in 1978 in a class of 231, and they’ve never gotten together since.

“We used to go around school, drinking Mountain Dew,” said Hendershot, who’s helping plan the Vo-Tech class of ’78’s first ever reunion.

“We’d go up and down the hall; there was a group of us, so we had the harmonies going and everything.”

Most high school classes host reunions every five or 10 years, but Vo-Tech reunions haven’t been common around here, the women said. Hendershot and Hutcheson have each attended a reunion at their “home”?school — Fort Hill for Hendershot; the former Beall High School for Hutcheson — but they have learned of only one other Vo-Tech reunion in recent memory — the Class of 1980.

“It was the classes that we always went to that we loved, that we had fun at, but it was second to your home school,”?said Hutcheson, of Ann Arbor, Mich., who attended Vo-Tech’s needle trades program, which no longer exists.

“I?think because of the difficulty of trying to find everybody. ... It was so much bigger then than it is now.”

But armed with Facebook and other social networking sites, the women began to make some connections a few months ago. They’ve found addresses or emails for most of their classmates, who are scattered across the country, from California to Texas to North Carolina, with many others still living in the region. They’re ardently searching for the rest.

“Facebook was our tool,”?said Godfrey, whose home school was the former Oldtown High School. “Everybody bonded (at Vo-Tech), but once we graduated we went our own ways. No one knew how to get ahold of anybody.”

On Friday, Hutcheson, Godfrey and Hendershot got together to choose a venue for the big event, scheduled for Sept. 24. It was the first time they’d seen each other since graduating 33 years ago.

“We were good friends then,”?said Hendershot, who with Godfrey was in the cosmetology program. “The kind of friends that just continue to be that comfortable with each other. It’s been great.”

During dinner at Patrick’s Pub Friday, they flipped through a 1978 yearbook, called “The Torch,”?and remembered old times.

During the September reunion at Hotel Gunter in Frostburg, they plan to have a DJ play some old favorites — Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Foghat.

“We were rockers back in the day,” said Hutcheson, who was called “Hutchie”?in school.

“For this reunion there is no anxiety for me at all,”?she said. “There are so many people I’m looking forward to seeing. We were all a pretty close bunch of people back in the day.”

Reunion organizers are searching for contact information for the following class members: Barbara J. Abe, Stephen D. Amann, Johnny R. Barnard, Belinda A. Beechie, Bruce Beeman, Vicki Bible, Doug Bishop, Michael Campbell, Tamara J. Cooper, Donald S. Cornwell, Kimberly Corthrin, Catherine V. Cutter, Carol A. Davis, Tina N. Day, Dan Delaney, Brian C. Delong, Mason M. Durr, Jr., Vernon Fazenbaker, William G. Flanagan, Barbara L. Frantz, Katherine D. Gilmore, Tate F. Hagar, Mary Ann Kenney, Michael L. Lambert, Debra L. Lewis, James C. Lewis, Richard H. Lippold, Jr., Donna L. Long, Ronnie Lucas, Shelly Lutz, Vicky J. McGraw, Robert Merica, Theresa R. Miller, Timmy Miltonberger, Gail A. Muir, Donald M. Murphy, Dianna L. Nair, Debra S. Perrin, Rosemary Pfitzenmayer, Penny L. Pleasant, Roxanne Preston, Debra L. Radar, Kathi A. Reynolds, Karen L. Robertson, Mary R. Ruby, Fred Shook, Michael H. Smith, Gary Stallings, Danny Stewart, Donald J. Wade, John W. Walker, Mark C. Wilburn, Kenneth E. Willison, Kimberly L. Wilt, Danny W. Winter, Rosemary R. Woodrum and William J. Woods.

Anyone with information may call Mary Hendershot at 301-707-8474, or Cyndi Godfrey at 443-870-0366.

Contact Kristin Harty Barkley at kbarkley@ times-news.com.