Our last multi-class reunion was held at Cortlandt Colonial Restaurant on Sunday, October 6, 2024.  Kathi and I had a vision of how we wanted it to go yet other than providing a venue, food and music we had nothing planned. After attending the show at The Bean Runner the night before where both Ray Blue and Aaron Hurwitz played along with a drummer and guitarist and one fabulous singer, I was so afraid that people would be disappointed with our more subdued reunion. I couldn't have been more wrong.

First of all, the weather was simply gorgeous. It was a beautiful, sunny fall day and the temperatures were warm during the day and pleasingly cool in the evening. Kathi, Ron and I arrived at Cortlandt Colonial just before 4:00pm. Marcie (Barger) Leonard and Dianne Lancaster arrived with Kathi. Soon after Ellen (Reynolds) Zawacki and my sister Nancy (Finch) Lynam arrived and we set out to decorate. 
Kathi and I had settled on white tablecloths with rust colored toppers and white colored napkins to go along with our fall theme. I had collected mason jars for over a year and tied blue and red silk ribbon around each neck of the bottles. I wrapped fairy lights around each silk bouquet of fall flowers and placed in each jar along with another strand of fairy lights as our table centerpieces. Each table had a PHS Red Devil picture in a small frame to be sure our crimson and blue was depicted. 
 

In case you haven't heard, especially if you did not attend, 4 months into our planning, an anonymous donor contacted me and gave us a very generous amount of money which allowed us to be more extravagant in our planning. Because of this donation, we were able to provide everyone with a delicious NH maple syrup each in a bottle in the shape of a maple leaf. Each bottle had a tag with our reunion and date on the front cover, and as you opened it you saw the Class of 1969 Welcomes Classes of 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970 which was from our banner displayed at all previous reunions.  We had looked into this prior to knowing about our donor and knew we couldn't afford them. We also were able to have prints made of a beautiful rendition of the Bandstand in Depew Park and frames for everyone. The artwork was done by none other than Richard Zorn from the class of 1967. When asked by me if we could use his artwork, without a second's hesitation he said yes. It is something I truly treasure. 

The only stipulations from our donor was to have lobster tails and filet mignon. We also were not and still are not at liberty to reveal who our donor is. They simply wanted us to have a first class send off and I truly believe we accomplished it.  We not only had the most fabulous cocktail hour ever, but an open bar all night. One woman came up to me and wanted to know if that was the dinner because the food was so fantastic at the cocktail hour that she wanted to keep eating. At that point, nobody knew about the lobster tails and filet mignon. And finally to finish up about the food, we had a dessert table complete with ice cream and toppings, cakes and apple crisp. The Cortlandt Colonial did not disappoint. I just wish I went back for seconds of everything!

We had to get a new deejay this time and Steve Raguso did not disappoint. The music was great. I provided Steve with a flash drive of hundreds of pics from over the years. Steve set up a tv screen and the photos scrolled all throughout the evening.

The only thing planned was the speech by Nancy (Pagano) Brovarski of which I also heard for the first time that evening. Nancy welcomed everyone and spoke of the pandemic, took a moment of silence for our lost classmates over the years, welcomed our deejay, offered a prayer for all of us and then she handed the microphone to me. As I looked over my short speech, I eliminated things I was going to say about the pandemic and then decided just to go off script as I told everyone about our donor. I did that as I wanted to actually see everyone's faces when I told them. I cannot even begin to tell you how proud Kathi and I felt at that moment. Their was one more stipulation we had to follow and that was all unused monies go to the PHS Science Department. We also had multiple people give us deposits or even paid in full but knew they weren't coming so now we had another use for those funds. We donated in the name of our 4 classes $2,000.00 to the Peekskill Education Fund. I had spoken to their president and she informed me that it would be so welcomed as they were working on raising funds to purchase a second pair of some sort of virtual glasses that can be used for so many different uses. She explained to me that she put one on at a museum where it makes you literally feel you are in whatever you are looking at. For her, she was transported to a museum in Prague. In the science world, some uses are for surgeons as they operate. Each one of these glasses costs $17,000+ so when I told her we had $2,000.00 for them, they were so pleased. They are currently working on their brochure for this year and will send to me to share here when it is ready.

Years ago, Kathi and I decided we would donate our unused funds to the Louis and Bryan Panzanaro Scholarship Fund. Since their mother, Sharon Skinner, has always been a big part of our reunions, we used those deposits and payments as well as our leftover funds from previous reunions and were able to donate $1,000.00 in the name of the Panzanaro boys.

Kerry Wohlstein from the class of 1968 took it upon herself to stop the music and take hold of the microphone. I was wondering where she was going with her story about playing baseball with the boys when she was little and how she, a girl, hit that ball clear across the street. The next thing I knew she asked both Kathi and I to join her where she presented us each with an award for all the years we have done the reunions. This truly was a wonderful surprise to each of us. Kathi asked me as we walked up to where Kerry stood why I didn't tell her, but I had no idea, Thank you Kerry for your generous and thoughtful gift to each of us.

And I cannot forget Ellen (Lamb) Buck who took fabulous photos all throughout the evening capturing just about everything. We had set up a screen looking like a barn as our theme was an old fashion barn dance, brought in bales of hay, pumpkins and chrysanthemums but the waterfalls that the Cortlandt Colonial provided won out for all the pictures. Thank you Ellen. You are so appreciated.

Neither Kathi nor I ever knew from the first time we did a reunion in 1999 how it would be perceived. We winged it with nothing more than a vision for what we wanted to do and that was to bring everyone together. Over the years our reunions grew as word spread of how much fun they were. We tried to do things differently each time and always a ton of thoughts and phone time brought each reunion to life. It is amazing if you think about it as I live in NC and have also lived in Florida, too, while Kathi spends her weeks between NY and NH. Whatever our success was though came through the people that came to each reunion and breathed life into them. We couldn't have done it without any of you so thank you all.

And last but not least, I was thrilled beyond words that our memorial for our friends no longer with us was something everyone loved. We put up four lighted trees with fall leaves with the names of each deceased person on a leaf. The trees stood in order of their year. If a person either ever came to our reunion or had a family member or close friend who did attend, those named leaves were lying under the tree signifying how they were a part of us. It made it easier to find as each tree had a lot of leaves. In total, there were about 193 names on all the leaves. The deejay set up a speaker that continuously played Turn, Turn, Turn by The Byrds. We chose this song which comes from Ecclesiastes about all the seasons of our lives. It just seemed so appropriate.

i could never have pulled these reunions off without the help and guidance of Kathi DeChristopher. She always thinks she doesn't do anything but it would be impossible to achieve our goals without her. She became my best friend in 10th grade and remains that today. Not once in all of these reunions did we ever argue. Sometimes I needed to persuade her and sometimes she needed to persuade me. Each of us always found a way to work it through and both counted heavily on the sound advice of Ron Rodino. And just so you know, he 90% of the time sided with Kathi. 😀

Thank you all. Thank our anonymous donor and should someone want to step forward with another anonymous donation, you know how to reach me. 💕💕

REMINDER:  The reunion is in less than 3 weeks now. Sunday evening, October 6, 2024 from 6:30pm to 11:30pm.
Please start arriving by 6:00pm for check-in. With any luck, everyone will be checked in by 6:30 and Kathi and I will be able to attend the cocktail hour. Please pass the word to those who might not see these posts. See you all soon.

ATTENTION: I have submitted our final count and payment for the Multi-class Reunion on October 6, 2024.  
If for any reason you find you cannot come, we cannot issue a refund as you were counted in and the money was sent to the vendor.

Unfortunately it is too late to accept any more people who waited just a bit too long.  Sorry.

Please don’t forget our theme, an Old Fashion Autumn Barn Dance. Wear whatever you want but we highly encourage jeans, casual dress, etc. At our age, we are all about comfort. And please bring your appetites. We are having a feast!

See you Sunday evening, October 6, 2024. Try to arrive by 6:00pm so we can finish check-in by 6:30pm at which time we will head into our amazing cocktail hour.

Any questions, please contact me. 919-762-5365 or onidor@yahoo.com

As of today, March 24, we have 19 seats available.  It is not too late to sign on. Please let others know as we want this last reunion/party to be the biggest and best one. Betsy

Finally, we have signed contracts and we are ready to get this reunion in the works.  We need your help in getting our deposits in so please read below for all information. 

 

PHS Multi-Class 2024 Reunion

Date:  Sunday -October 6, 2024

Place:  Cortlandt Colonial Restaurant

714 Old Albany Post Road

Cortlandt Manor, NY 10567

Check-In: 6:00pm

Cocktail Hour: 6:30pm to 7:30pm

Dinner/Dance: 7:30pm to 11:30pm

Cost: $75 per person

Unrefundable Deposit requested to guarantee your seat is $25 per person. 

Music provided by Deejay Steve Raguso  

Theme: Old Fashion Autumn Barn Dance

We have a maximum of 200 people. With interest being high and multiple requests coming in from other classes, we need your deposits to assure your being able to be part of this event. Priority will be to PHS classes of 1967, 1968, 1969 and 1970 and to those Ladycliff girls who have already attended one of our previous reunions. At this time, I cannot accept new people unless they are in the 4 original PHS classes as mentioned above. I wish we had a bigger space but we actually were lucky to get this venue. Some venues wanted $280 a person and one venue told me to rent their space would start at $49,000. 

Now here is the best part. You can wear jeans or whatever you want because we are all about comfort. Even though our event room is indoors, just pretend you are in a big barn enjoying a night with friends. This theme was inspired by me being a little girl in bed on a Saturday night hearing the PHS kids on a hayride as they passed my house. It has always stayed with me and since our reunions are always about deep roots, we are coming full circle. I wanted to call it a hoedown but Ron asked me, “Where are you getting the hoes from?” 🤣🤣

This is the 25th anniversary of the first reunion Kathi and I did together. We never had to raise our prices before, but since the pandemic the cost of everything has skyrocketed. I apologize that we have to do so, but I still think it is reasonable. I hope you all agree. Because of the high interest, I must now ask you to send in your non-refundable $25.00 per person deposits. If you plan on bringing your spouse or someone else (because of the limitation of guests only 1 guest will be accepted at this time) you must send in $50 to hold both seats. This is going to be a first come first served basis. If we do not reach our goal by February of 2024, we will open it up to other classes and Ladycliff ladies.  

Checks should be made payable to Betsy Rodino and mailed to me at 748 Lake Artesia Lane, Fuquay Varina, NC 27526

I will start searching the hotel sites and will post by December as fall weddings, football games and fall foliage watching fill hotels quickly. I strongly advise that if you need a hotel you plan early.  Another option would be AirBNB or VRBO.

And last of all, at this time we do not know if we can put our deejay on the street the night before the reunion. If it is possible we will but we understand the permit fee to do so is about $900. It seems that there are several new restaurants near the train station so I will research and post. It might be a great idea for each class to explore reservations for large groups and after eating come out onto the sidewalks looking for others.  

Please share with others and direct them to this site. I will post on Facebook but will not put my full name, address or phone number out there. Thanks for your help.

I am very grateful Kathi agreed to help with this reunion one more time. Let’s make it the best one ever!

Betsy and Kathi

As of today, July 19, 2021 I have renewed our subscription for 5 more years so that we don't have to be bothered with Ads on our site.

Kathi has said she doesn't want to do anymore reunions, but I think there is a good chance I could convince her for one more.  With all the reunions we have ever had, we never honored the Class of 1967 and I think we should when this pandemic is completely over and life returns to normal.

Stay tuned, Betsy