- June 4, 2025
-
-
Loading
Loading
Among the elective courses offered at Sarasota High School during the 1970s were sailing classes, while the school's mascot is Sailor Sam.
Jan and Tim Solomon learned to sail with the school, and after walking the aisle together during graduation in 1975, they're still sailing today.
With their company Key Sailing, the couple invited some of their fellow graduates to enjoy time on the water as well, offering free charters, which Jan said totaled about $3,000 in value, to all members of the class of 1975 and their friends and families, on May 15 and 18.
The boat charters took place amid the 50th Class Reunion, held May 16 and 17 at the Stoneybrook Golf and Country Club in Palmer Ranch and Michael's on East.
“We're just kind of all there for each other, and those that we've lost track of," Jan said. "This is the opportunity to say, 'Wow, we're so excited you came to this reunion.”
Fifty years later, the anniversary is not the only notable occasion, as Jan and Tim's grandson, Enrique “Rico” Coletti, also graduates this year from Sarasota.
His father, also named Enrique Coletti, was the junior varsity soccer coach at the school, before moving up to varsity.
The boat rides were a chance for graduates to catch up with one another, before the reunion ceremony where Jan gave the invocation for the food and she and Tim were voted "sweetest couple."
Jan said other graduates have gone in a variety of directions, from fishing charters or other tourism businesses, to restaurants, to real estate.
“Many of us went to college and came home, or ran around the world like me and came home, and by the time you get to 50 years you're just happy that you're still here telling the story," Jan said.
Although graduate Lois Kain took the boat charter to catch up with her old friends, she recalled having different feelings at the time of graduation.
“I didn’t buy a senior yearbook because I was bucking the system," she said. "I thought I was cool and didn’t need a yearbook.”
However, she recently decided to buy one online, from a company that provides scanned versions of college yearbooks.
Graduate Cynthia Frank called herself "grateful" to be out on Sarasota Bay, what surprised her are the changes in the landscape, despite living in the area.
She said what stood out to her from her time in high school were her experiences with teachers.
“For me, the teaching staff was extraordinary for the most part," she said. "I mean, there were teachers that touched my life that I still walk out to the beach and go, 'Oh yeah, I know what kind of mangrove that is, because of Mr. Stuart.”
Michael Stuart was a locally renowned marine biology teacher at the school.
Jan and Tim remember the 1970s as a happy time of playing on the beach, unaffected by turbulence that was taking place in the world, and also look back fondly on their time in high school.
Jan recalls participating in activities that included the marching band, symphony, student council, honor society and Christian Fellowship Club.
Tim arrived much later than Jan, in the middle of his senior year, but remembers a welcoming environment.
As his parents were missionaries, he was missing many school credits due to his time spent in other countries. However, he says no one made fun of him for sitting in on classes like a ninth grade English course or a 10th grade history course.
"I didn't feel ostracized or like I didn't belong," he said. "That's the one thing that I really, really liked.”
After they were married in 1977, Jan and Tim traveled the world as missionaries, working on every continent except Antarctica and traveling to every U.S. state except Alaska.
After a foiled kidnapping attempt that left Jan with physical pain due to chemical poisoning, they returned to Sarasota, where she found healing in 2022 in what she described as a sudden, miraculous event.
She's glad to once again call Sarasota home.
“I really feel like we are still a welcoming town,” Jan said.
Jan says while at Sarasota, she was voted "most likely to write an international best-selling novel," because of her work on two school plays.
She hopes the prediction will finally come true when she releases her autobiography titled "Sailing Home."
