During their 30th reunion last month, members of the Cullman High School Class of 1978 had more on their minds than the school days of yesteryear.

A fellow student — one who several members of the class helped rescue from a life of misery and abuse a few years earlier — had died since the group’s last get-together.

The reunion held on July 19 at Terri Pines was about a week after the one-year anniversary of the passing of the woman known in high school as Rita Taylor.

“She had no power, no water, no food when we found her,” said Mary Alldredge, a classmate who recalled how beautiful Rita was when the two attended school together.

Another classmate, Charles Radcliff, who said in high school Rita was “the sweetest little girl,” alleges she was being physically abused prior to the intervention.

“She was getting beat up on a regular basis,” Radcliff said.

SEARCH PARTY

Finding Rita was not easy. The quest began more than 10 years ago when 20-year reunion organizers tried to invite her to the event.

The search was put into overdrive after a classmate received a chilling hand-written note from Rita, whom she ran into at a Wal-Mart store.

According to Alldredge, the message contained three words: “Please help me.”

With help from another classmate, D’ete Cabri Sewell, Alldredge began to take the search more seriously.

“We dug deep. I called the FBI,” Alldredge said. “Even if we had to find her buried somewhere, we were going to find her.”

Finally, five years after the initial search was started, the women found Rita in Summerville.

The classmate was remembered for the beauty of her youth, but those characteristics were hidden away by years of abuse, malnutrition and neglect.

“She did not weigh 95 pounds,” recalled Alldredge, who added that Rita’s once-beautiful smile had been marred. “She had very few teeth left.”

“She didn’t hardly look like Rita,” said Radcliff who added the woman living in cinderblock home with dirt floors had little to smile about.

“She was trapped. She had no place to go, no money to get there and no way to get there,” Radcliff said.

Rita did not recognize Alldredge. However, the mention of another classmate’s name, Joseph Campbell, served as a catharsis.

“Tears started flowing down her face and she said ‘I’ve prayed for this for so long’” Alldredge recalled, adding that Rita collapsed into Alldredge’s arms when the two women embraced.

“Once we found her, we were able to get her out of that situation,” Alldredge said.

A CLASS ACT

Although its next reunion was not scheduled for some time, the class of ‘78 was called upon to come together by Alldredge who made a goal of helping her classmate.

The members of Rita’s class responded with donations, gifts and hard work aimed at creating a better life for their former classmate.

Alldredge pointed out that it wasn’t a handful of class philanthropists taking part in the mission, but everyone.

“There were some people who sent $5, there were people who sent $2,000,” Alldredge said, adding that one classmate, Brad Eidson, furnished Rita with an automobile. “Everybody has given in one way or another.”

Radcliff provided Rita a place to live for a few weeks while the group arranged someplace for her to move permanently.

Alldredge also got Rita help from people with whom they did not attend school including Cullman dentist Rodney Dellinger, who helped repair Rita’s dental damage.

“We brought her out of a captive domestic situation,” Alldredge said. “She was not allowed to drive, she was not allowed to leave the house, she was not allowed to talk on the telephone, she was not allowed to have contact with the outside world at all.”

When Rita was free, Alldredge said she asked her what she wanted more than anything. It turned out Rita desired something most take for granted. Alldredge said Rita told her she wanted to buy her daughter, Nikki Robinson, a McDonald’s Happy Meal — a small act of kindness she had never been able to do.

During the reunion, Alldredge read aloud a letter from Robinson, thanking the class for everything its members had done for her mother.

“I was grateful that mother had friends like that,” Robinson said.

Alldredge said Rita also wanted to cut her long hair, something else she had been banned from doing in her dysfunctional household.

“She was not allowed to cut it,” Alldredge said.

REUNITED

Although it took Alldredge and Sewell five years to find their long-lost classmate, they did it in time for the group’s 25th reunion.

A photo displayed at last month’s reunion — their 30th — shows a woman dancing who looks nothing like the one described by Alldredge.

However, the woman in the picture favored the one members of the CHS class of 1978 remember.

She also looked like a woman with a reason to smile.

“Our class was able to provide her with four years before she passed away,” Alldredge said while perusing the table of class memorabilia where the photo was displayed.