Back in kindergarten at Overland Park Primary School, seven little girls hit it off. Childhood friendships like theirs are common; so are vows to be "best friends forever." But those seven girls, and four more they "picked up along the way," are even more tightly bonded nearly 60 years later, and the bonds keep deepening. That's the story of the "Over the Pill Gang."

The setting for this all-girl brew was a four-square-block Overland Park neighborhood, bounded by 72nd and 74th streets, Metcalf Avenue and Marty Street. They were classmates at Santa Fe and Arrowhead grade schools, Overland Park Intermediate, Milburn Junior High, and Shawnee Mission West, and most of the girls belonged to Asbury United Methodist Church. That day-in, day-out proximity was the gang's foundation.

In the view of Carolyn Debiak, of Lenexa, "Neighborhood playing was our cohesion. We were together for movies, roller skating, Teen Town at church, playing jacks, riding bikes, swimming. I was an only child, but I was never alone!"

They didn't just play together; they hung out. They banded together to walk to the grocery store or the drug store. They slept overnight with each other. Their parents knew all the girls and watched out for each of them. Best yet, the girls made up their own Brownie troop (#98) and two of their mothers were the troop leaders.

It was pretty idyllic, but it couldn't last forever. Debiak was the first to break the circle, when her family moved to Oklahoma just before she started high school. But they didn't really let her go. As a farewell gift, the girls gave her a silver charm bracelet of disks engraved with each friend's name. Eventually all of them had a bracelet like it, a constant reminder to keep each other in mind and heart. And in the summer, some of the girls would travel by train to Ponca City to reconnect for a couple of weeks.

In spring of 1965, the remaining 10 girls graduated from Shawnee Mission West and then the exodus began as they moved to other cities to attend college, marry, and start careers. During those years, while they were forming unique identities and making their own way in the world, their connections were looser, though never in peril.

But 15 years ago Lindsey Cegelis, of Overland Park, made a conscious decision to serve as hub of The Gang and try to pull everyone back into the circle. She began organizing yearly reunions, always the fourth week in June. From Friday night until Sunday, the women—who now live in Texas, Colorado, Tennessee, Topeka, Lawrence, and Johnson County—congregate at a site chosen for that year. Reunions often are held in Kansas City, but the women have met in Topeka, Colorado, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and the lakes region of Missouri.

"Even though I only see everyone once a year, we always pick up where we left off—like we had coffee (or a margarita!) just yesterday," said Vicki Knipp.

Said Cegelis with a grin, "We used to try to plan every minute of the reunions. Now, we're more likely to let it flow."

Still, there's a certain natural progression. The first order of reunion business seems to be "clarifications"—providing facts to straighten out the confusion that round-robin e-mails and oft-translated phone calls sometimes create. They talk about the past year's joys and the troubles. They reminisce. They eat. Some of them might shop or sight-see. And at day's end they fall asleep on a collection of beds, sofas, and air mattresses.

All the women's spouses cheer The Gang on because, says Cegelis, "They know how meaningful it is to us."

Families don't tag along to reunions, but over the years the women have come to know their extended gang—spouses, children, grandchildren—intimately.

"We've been through thick and thin with each other," Cegelis said, "and we're as close as sisters."

Between reunions, through group e-mail they share their joys (a lovely new job or home, the wedding of a member's child, a cherished new grandbaby) and sorrows (the deaths of parents or spouses, cancers and other illnesses among the gang members). The women are in-person witnesses for as many of those events as they can be, and they help each other with transitions, too. When Debiak moved back to this area after living in New York City, it was Cegelis who found her an apartment.

But to be sure, the way they tend to each other isn't born of a sense of duty.

"We truly love each other," Cegelis said.

In a passel of 5-year-old girls there are differences, but for women in their early 60s the differences are much more vast. Professions, for example. The Gang includes a CPA, a library director, office managers, a business owner, a stockbroker, a politician, an attorney, a teacher, and a school administrator. The women have done vastly different things with their lives and they have many other friends and involvements. Their interests include everything from parasailing to traveling, hiking, mountain climbing, bowling, gardening, reading, boating, bridge, exercising, and volunteering.

But the childhood bonds transcend all the changes.

In a reflective frame of mind, Debiak offered this counsel based on her love for The Gang: "Choose your friends wisely, because you don't ever lose the real friends."

Then she looked at Cegelis and smiled: "The way we were as kids is the way we are now."