Class Act How you went from class clown, jock or geek to entrepreneur.

Every five or 10 years, we have to make a choice: Ignore that high school reunion invite, or suck it up and go. After all, no matter how successful we may be today, a lot of us are still going to be remembered as, say, the fat kid with a mouthful of braces, or the well-liked but simple-minded jock. Still, there are some good arguments for going, even if it's only to chart your progress and see how your high school personality shaped your entrepreneurial personality.

Take David Newman, 41--a former class clown who's now the managing partner of BusinessDNA, a consulting firm in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, and founder of Unconsulting, a marketing strategy firm. The two businesses project combined revenues of about half a million dollars in 2006. Back in high school, Newman was hosting Frisbee matches on the roof of his school and frequenting the principal's office for trying out his stand-up material in class. Only in hindsight does he seem a likely candidate for a future as a successful entrepreneur.