By TAMMY PATEY
Assistant editor
� � A few months ago, the 37-year-old Northeast Tacoma resident began tracking down fellow members of the Federal Way High School Class of 1982. He formed a reunion committee with a few former classmates after he learned one had not been established
� � Since then, he has located about 40 percent of the more than 400 students who graduated in his class. He searches the Internet He looks up ex-classmates with unusual last names in the phone book, hoping he can at least find the parents or siblings of the people he seeks.
� � Like any detective tracking down information, Kopp, a facilities coordinator for semiconductor company LSI Logic, experiences a thrill when those cold calls result in a phone number or email address.
� � "It's like, 'Yes, mark off another one,'" he says "It's a puzzle. It's a hunt."
� � Kopp isn't alone. The hunt is on for thousands of reunion planners. Several classes from Federal Way; Thomas Jefferson and Decatur high schools are reuniting this summer and fall while other classes including Kopp's, will hold festivities next year. Federal Way's 1982 class will gather in August, 2002.
� � Reunions serve as compasses. They tell people where they've been and, subsequently how far they've come since then. Whether people long for or dread their reunion, the occasion serves as a chance for people to evaluate their lives.
� � Only about 20 percent to 25 percent of people attend their reunions, says Carol Riley; co-owner of Reunions Unlimited, an Olympia-based company that plans reunions, including Decatur's class of 1981 and Federal Way's class of 1991.
� � Some people didn't enjoy high school or worry they'll be judged for their less-than-stellar job, expanding waistline or receding hairline.
� � Those who do go usually take the opportunity to be transported, for a night or a weekend, back to their life's most worry-free days, Riley says.
� � "In this day of fast pace and technology, it's nice to step back in time," she says. "There's the nostalgia part we seem to forget about."
� � For some people, especially those attending their five- and 10-year reunions, the event might seem more about oneupmanship than camaraderie. Some ex-classmates delight in detailing their cars and their jobs and showing off their rock hard abs. People gravitate toward the people they hung out with in high school.
� � That's something that bothered Wendi (Rudzinski) Ball, 37, about the five- and 10-year reunions she attended for Federal Way's 1982 class, though she and her husband, Rick, 37, plan to attend their 20th.
� � "I'm hoping the cliques are gone by now," Wendy Ball says. "That was probably the worst part of high school. At the other reunions everyone was still hanging out with the same people they hung out with in high school. They'd say, 'Hi' but pretty much snub you. I'm hoping that's gone."
� � Rick Ball, who serves on the reunion committee with Kopp, believes it will be. He predicts the overall tone will probably be more professional and more sentimental. Ball expects his ex-classmates will, like him, want to kick back, have fun and chat about their families and jobs.
� � "It isn't about the money, it isn't about the status," Ball says about his own reasons for planning to attend his 20th. "I hope that everyone is happy and got what they want."
� � The bragging might cease, in part, because of time's touch on those who attend the reunion.
� � "Come on, we all look bad by the 20th," Wendi Ball says. "We don't have 20-year-old bodies anymore. Hopefully, we all look bad by now."
� � Committee member Terri (Sabotka) Latta, a 36-year-old stay-at-home mom, says she's excited about catching up with the Balls, whom she befriended in high school. The Federal Way resident is also hopeful she and the other committee members can find most of their ex-classmates - "It's really hard to track the girls, especially."
� � But everyone probably has at least one good reason to attend in the form of a past pal.
� � "Everyone wants to see somebody," Latta says.
� � Kopp concedes he seems an unlikely person to coordinate the reunion. In high school, he was quiet and moved outside the cliques. Some ex-classmates he's located admit they don't recognize his name.
� � "They have to get their yearbook and go, 'Oh yeah, that guy,'" he says.
� � But he says he's happy to help satisfy his classmates' curiosity - and his own - by getting as many people to the reunion as possible.
� � "I just wanted to know what happened to these people I'd spent so many years with," he says. "I start thinking about people I used to know. What ever happened to that guy?"