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The yearbook party continues

The Life & Arts section of the old Gazette is one big sock-hop today.

We’ve got photos of 10 well-known people on the page, from their senior years in high school. They’ve also shared memories of their time as kids in the hall.

We couldn’t fit my fat Irish face on the page ... so the curious will have to click HERE for my 1973 mug shot from Rochester’s Aquinas Institute and another
picture taken 35 years later.

The full rogue’s gallery from today’s page is also part of the link. I’m right at the end, if you really want to see a bread box on a pair of shoulders.

We’ve also tossed some bonus photos in the mix. Liz Bishop is seen working on her Vincentian Institute newspaper — “The Blue Banner,” and young writer Wilkin stands with the staff of the Aquinas “Maroon and White” in 1973. If Lydia Kulbida could have found her yearbook from the Academy of Mount St. Ursula in the Bronx, we would have had a shot of young Lydia from the staff of “The Mountie.”

Not sure which paper had the coolest name. Yeah, I am: Liz, I think “The Mountie” was more colorful than both of our color-friendly newspapers.

Julie Chapman of Capital News 9 is also part of the extra: Chapman — wearing number 16 — has on her game face as a member of the 1987 Susquehanna Valley High School girls’ soccer team.

I remember my senior photo experience. Thankfully, Aquinas (an all-boy school in my day) didn’t force guys to wear tuxedo jackets and clip-on bow ties. Think the Bishop Kearney guys got stuck with that ordeal. We just wore suit jackets, button-down shirts and ties.

I insisted on choosing my wardrobe for the shot. Much to my parents’ dismay, I decided on a dark jacket, white shirt and loud, kelly green day suitable only for St. Patrick’s Day. When we got the proofs back, I had to admit it was one grim look.

For round two, with parental guidance, I chose a light blue shirt, striped blue tie and dark jacket. It was a plaid jacket, although you can’t really tell, so I was mixing stripes and plaids. It looks like I didn’t bother to comb my hair, either. But at least I’ve got a nice smile.

Thirty-five years later, I’m fuller in some places and thinner in others. Time catches up with everyone ... except the 10 people on our pages today. They all look great, then and now!

I have one extra story, from Julie Chapman at Capital News 9. It’s sort of a funny one.

Chapman went to school at Susquehanna Valley, near Binghamton. She later graduated from Cornell and got a job with WBNG in Binghamton. She spent several years in the Baltimore television market before arriving in the Capital Region for the launch of Capital News 9 in 2002.

Last year, Capital News 9 expanded into the Binghamton area; newscasters in Albany report news happening in the city.

“I got all these e-mails from people who think I’m home, ‘Welcome home Julie,’ ‘You’re back,’ Chapman said. “I was like, ‘Not really, I’m in Albany, I have no idea what’s going on except for what I read.’”

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