It's the rare Facebook user who hasn't accepted the friend request of a high school acquaintance not seen in years. Maybe you're someone who regularly receives these invitations from former classmates. Or maybe you're the one doing the nostalgic friending.

Either way, it's easy to think of social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace as ongoing online high school mini-reunions where conversations about old teachers and old boyfriends can carry on in perpetuity.

What a gift for reunion planners trying to build buzz for the main event, right? Perhaps. But maybe people will think that if they can keep tabs on their classmates online, there's no need to come to the in-person reunion.

To get a sense of how Facebook has changed the way that reunions are planned and marketed, and whether the site and others like it are viewed as net positives or negatives, I spoke with several high school alumni officials and grads who are doing the reunion planning.

Mining networking sites for familiar names

The alumni directors, who help facilitate reunions but don't actually plan them, had mixed feelings about the value of Facebook as a reunion planner's aid.

Pat Voss, alumni director for the Webster Groves School District, said Facebook unquestionably helps old classmates stay in touch. Alumni from more recent graduating classes primarily use e-mail and sites like Facebook to find old classmates and get the word out about the reunions, according to Voss, whose office doesn't have a Facebook page.

"Whether that translates into greater attendance at a reunion is a different situation completely," she said. "What governs reunion attendance are things like cost and time of year the event takes place, rather than whether people are on Facebook or not."

Voss said because old friends tend to gravitate toward each other on social networking sites, it can create a sense that the same factions that existed in high school are still in play. "That can cause grouping within a reunion class, and that, to me, is a negative if people decide not to come because they think the reunion is being planned by a certain group."

Jim Kemp, director of advancement and alumni relations at John Burroughs School, manages both a fan page and a school profile page that he said reaches about 2,000 of the school's 6,000 living alumni. Kemp said he's found Facebook to be a helpful way to send out invitations to events and feel confident that the message has gotten through, which often isn't the case with mailings that reach an old address.

Kemp said attendance has increased in recent years for school-sponsored events that aren't limited to a particular class, in large part because people heard about the gatherings on Facebook. He said he agrees with Voss that attendance at class reunions is more dependent on how many people can afford to come home for a weekend than how many are swayed one way or another on Facebook. Still, he said he can see how organizers could view the site both as a friend and a foe.

"On the one hand, people planning school events like it because it's one more way for alumni to stay in touch, and it allows schools to utilize a free platform that people are already using," Kemp said. "But I can also see that the element of surprise in going to a reunion might be lessened because of social networking sites."

Kemp said he's heard as many people say "I see you on Facebook so I don't need to come to a reunion" as respond "I've connected to you on Facebook, now I want to connect in person."

'No long-lost people anymore'

Jennifer Growe Soshnik, a 2000 graduate of Ladue Horton Watkins High School, is hoping that about 100 people (including spouses and significant others) will come to her class's 10-year reunion this November. That would be a typical turnout, but Soshnik knows it'll take quite the outreach effort to hit that mark.

"People in our age group who are having their 10-year reunions seem to be less excited for them, they're less of a big deal than they were for our parents' generation," said Soshnik (right), who is helping to plan her class's event. "My father's reunion was a whole weekend event. I had envisioned our reunion as being in the summer when people could enjoy the weather. But when it came down to it, I knew people wanted to have it when they were already home."

Soshnik used Facebook to get the word out about a survey of the class of 2000 that helped reunion organizers determine when to plan the event. She got the sense that for out-of-town alumni, with so many other destination events -- weddings, bachelor parties - it was hard to plan another getaway weekend.

It's not so much that classmates don't want to stay in touch, Soshnik said. "There's a mentality that I don't necessarily need to come home and go to the reunion, because I can already follow what everyone is doing (from afar). Because of Facebook (or all the other social networking opportunities), there are no long-lost people anymore."

Both Soshnik and Dave Riazi, a 1987 graduate of St. Charles West High School, said that classmates often prefer using Facebook to set up small, informal reunions. Riazi has long been involved in his school's alumni association, but the group has fizzled because of a lack of alumni interest, he said.

The question he often asks himself: "What sense does it make to revive [the alumni association] if everyone is planning their own gatherings using Facebook?"

Riazi keeps tabs on old football buddies and people who graduated in the late '80s. Some of those groups have their own social networking pages, and Riazi said he's always open to rekindling old friendships with people he comes across on various sites. That typically means meeting up in person.

"There's nothing like face-to-face interaction," said Lori Rigdon-Herman, a 1980 graduate of Affton High School who is on her class's 30-year reunion committee. "The internet and social networking are great for brief catch-ups, but to get a great relationship going, you need to actually meet people."

Rigdon-Herman is trying to generate buzz for her class's reunion in October. Her goal is to get roughly half of the class of 1980 to come to the event, which coincides with the school's homecoming.

Rigdon-Herman is administrator of the reunion Facebook page, which she said has already allowed her to track down classmates that she couldn't find otherwise. It also helps her keep in touch with people on the reunion committee, some of whom she hasn't seen since planning a reunion 10 years ago.

"You put the site out to create excitement and engage people in the planning process," she said. "Then you just hope that people feel like I do, that it's a milestone reunion."