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POTSDAM Alumni of Potsdam Central School from all across America and beyond will come together this weekend for the first ever Mega Reunion, an event thats being billed as Stonerstock.
Were very proud of the interest and how things have turned out, said JoAnn Roberts, whos helping to organize the event.
Weve sold 575 tickets and are officially sold out, she said, referring to the number of tickets available to Saturday evenings alumni dinner at SUNY Potsdams Barrington Student Union.
That number comes from the number of people SUNY Potsdam could accommodate for the dinner Saturday night, Ms. Roberts said, adding many of the weekends events are open to the public and other Potsdam Alumni, who may find themselves without tickets for the big event.
Phil W. Demarest, who is one of the three original minds behind the event, said hes aware of people coming from Australia, London, Sweden, Canada and pretty much any state I can think of.
Those are just the people who have purchased tickets, he said. Theres hundreds of people coming without tickets.
Mr. Demarest, who resides in California, said the idea for Stonerstock came from a conversation he had with Jackie Hurley and Dianne Bustamante, two other Potsdam graduates who live in the San Diego area.
They had the idea of doing a reunion for four years. The two years ahead of them and the two years behind them, he said. They asked me for help and I said if were going to do something, lets do something big.
While the trios original plan was to include 50 years of Potsdam graduates, it quickly grew into something even more than that.
Once we started advertising it, we started getting interest from pre-1950 students, he said. We have people coming from as far back as 1937.
Mr. Demarest also noted some of the more recent graduates will also be attending.
When we first started we were thinking 250, 300, 350 people max, he said, adding there are no plans to make this an annual event.
This is definitely one and done, he said. This is something that will go down in history for Potsdam and we would like to keep it like that.
Stonerstock will kick off Friday afternoon with a 60s-themed welcoming reception at the Potsdam Museum from 1 to 5 p.m.
From 5 to 7 p.m. various class mixers will be held at different restaurants in the Potsdam area.
Classes from 1937 to 1956 and 1958 to 1964 will meet at the Lobster House in Norwood. The class of 1957 will meet at the Potsdam Town & Country Club. Former and current faculty will meet at the First Crush Wine Bar. Classes from 1965 to 1969 will meet at Scoopuccinos and classes from 1970 to 1973 will meet at Maxfields.
Classes from 1974 to 1977 will meet at Mama Lucias and classes from 1978 to 1982 will meet at the Cactus Grill & Cantina. Classes from 1983 to 1989 will meet at the Elks Club and classes from 1990 to 2012 meeting at Tons Sports Bar.
Fridays activities will conclude with a free block dance that is open to the public from 6:30 to 10:30 p.m. with Market Street closed from Main Street to Elm Street.
The action will then shift to Maxfields and Tons from 9 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. for jam sessions that will also be open to the public.