Thanks for the Memories–Let’s Keep Making More!
Being our Class President for the past 5 years has been a true honor, culminating with our 50th Reunion. Undaunted by COVID and world events, we came together, as our Class always does, and showed up big for our 50th, breaking records, doing new things, having fun and making new friends and new memories!
At our Saturday Reunion dinner, I asked everyone who helped, in any way, to stand up and be celebrated–this included our Reunion Chairs and their team, our Affinity Leaders and Chairs, our Memory Book Chairs, our Fundraising Chairs, our emcees and Bill H. for the Saturday evening show, our RED Talkers, our Class Correspondents, our Membership Chair, the WVBR people, all the classmates who reached out to friends about Reunion, and non-Cornell spouses who worked hard too. Almost every one of our 600 diners were on their feet. That’s teamwork! That’s notable! From the bottom of my heart, thank you!
That evening our Class gifted me a beautiful watercolor, Cornell Oak, by Susan Booth Titus. I LOVE it and look at it often; it fills me with such joy. As so much of our campus has changed, this view will always be my view of Cornell. (Read more about this special tree here.)
Passing the baton, I would like to introduce our new Class President, Jim Schoonmaker. Jim has been one of our Class Correspondents for the past 10 years and has been very active in the Cornell Club of Washington D.C. As a Cornell student, Jim worked for WVBR which led him to a lifetime career in broadcasting at several companies, including joining CNN at its infancy. Jim organized the amazingly fun WVBR live broadcast dance party at our Reunion. With Jim’s leadership and with classmates like you, we can look forward to the next five years and an amazing 55th Reunion. So please welcome Jim as our President!
As Jim takes on a new class leadership role, please know that I am not going anywhere. As Immediate Past President, I will continue to help manage the class website and our ongoing communications.
Finally, I have one last request. Cornell sent a short, very generic Reunion survey but we’d love your opinion on our Reunion–likes, dislikes, ideas, in your own words. Please send comments to me. We will compile them, read them, share them and use them to plan our 55th!
A heartfelt thank you for the memories! Let’s keep making them! And be sure to read the many P.S.’s below.
PS: Memory Book submission deadline is October 15.
PPS: Poor audio at our Friday Reunion dinner prevented you from hearing remarks from classmate Lois Bennett and me. Our theme was remembrance, connection and celebration, and a very well-deserved award was made to classmate Bill Walker. You can read our remarks here.
PPPS: Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story documentary, selected screenings.
PPPPS: Homecoming Pre-Game Meet-Up and Tour of the Center for Life Science Ventures.
