Main Street. Block parties. Good music and memories. Reunion takes Tanya Woldbeck Pellettiere ’93 back to the best times.
By Tanya Woldbeck Pellettiere ’93
This year was my 11th or 12th Reunion at Geneseo, with more than 800 other alumni. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve been back to campus since graduating.
For most of my post-graduation life, I’ve lived pretty close to Geneseo, so I come back often. I’ll even come for a day!
I come back not only because of how much I love the school but how much I love Tracy Young Gagnier ’93.
Five of us who were close during our Geneseo experience have managed to stay close. Over the years, we have flown from all corners of the country to attend Reunion. Tracy works in Geneseo’s Office of Alumni Relations, and I often help out at Reunion as well. I enjoy seeing my best friends in the place we met and made so many memories together.
As chair of the Syracuse Area Alumni Association, I get to meet alumni at mini reunions from time to time, and I’ve made a lot of friends from many generations through the association and reunions.
Being in town is part of the whole Reunion experience. When I arrive in Geneseo, I go right to Aunt Cookie’s and get myself a sub, which is, I think, a ritual for many of us. Turkey, no seeds on my roll, with lettuce and tomato. I’m a traditionalist! Then I hit Main Street. I love to visit businesses of alumni who made homes and careers in Geneseo. I usually buy one Geneseo clothing item each visit.
I now have one of every kind of clothing there is with the Geneseo logo. I still have my massive sweatshirt I bought when I visited campus as a prospective student in April 1989, but I don’t wear it. I want to keep it forever and not have it disintegrate.
Cristina Curnow /Photo provided
I really enjoy the Annual All-Alumni Block Party. We all gather on Center Street, and DJ Jon Yates ’91 plays hits that take us back. “These Are Days” by the 10,000 Maniacs was kind of my song during senior year, and “Freedom! ’90” by George Michael was the last song that played in the bar the night after I graduated.
The college photographer always takes a crowd shot from atop a ladder. It’s so exciting to see in that image how Reunion and the block party have grown.
I keep coming back to Geneseo for the people I know, and continue to meet, because it’s the people that made Geneseo as special as it was, and as it still is. I often see alumni who are generous with their time and are willing to mentor and help other alumni and students.
There’s never been a good way to help people understand why this school means so much to us, but that’s why Geneseo is sacred. It’s church. It’s therapy.
It was a special place for four years of our lives, and I think all of us who come back in some way want to keep those four years going. That’s what Reunion is all about—celebrating that great feeling. We forget we are 53 years old for a moment.
Reunion feels like coming home, no matter where we go or what’s going on in our lives.
Tanya Woldbeck Pellettiere ’93 is among those alumni who have attended the most reunions. She is a psychologist in the Syracuse, NY, area, who says she has done pretty much everything to do in the field—and Geneseo got her started. She says she may not be the last one standing at the end of the night anymore, but she is having the most fun.