Sue Grannis Harrison, Kathy Foley Ockert and Sally Morris Fortuna with “linked arms” 
Sue Grannis Harrison, Kathy Foley Ockert and Sally Morris Fortuna holding the original photo from December 1949 Life Magazine. A copy now hangs in the Cedar Springs Historical Museum
By Sue Harrison
On a cold November day in 1949, children in Cedar Springs households were getting dressed for school. This was a special day because Life Magazine was coming to Cedar Springs to do a feature on Red Flannel Days for their December issue. Children were asked to dress in red and when they got to school, and some students from each grade got to be in the “now famous” cover photo of the Life Magazine December 1949 issue.
Three lucky third grade girls were placed in the front row on the right end of the photo. They linked arms and the rest is history. Those three girls were Sue Grannis Harrison, Kathy Foley Ockert, and Sally Morris Fortuna. The photo was taken on the north steps of the Hilltop School before the north annex was built.
This year, 2019, is the 70th anniversary of that Life Magazine photo and those three women decided to reenact that photo at their recent 60th Class reunion on August 7, 2019.
Kathy Foley Ockert brought an original Life Magazine cover to the reunion and the girls had fun with the re-enactment and remembering that day many years before.
