Greetings Classmates!

As the taillights get further away on our 50th reunion, the headlights are getting closer to our 55th.
2028 is only one year, four months and three weeks away!

We are pleased to announce that the committee for the 55th has now been established. It looks a lot like the same committee for the 50th with some re-organization established as follows:

1.    Jim Gubiotti has retired as the grand pubah for this reunion, but will remain on the committee. He will also continue to provide the GoDaddy domain registration, be the primary Facebook admin for the class page, and maintain the classmate contact spreadsheet.

2.    Larry Heininger and Sue Plvan have stepped into the roles of Committee Chairs, they jointly co-chair the 55th.

3.    Tom Story will now also be acting as an admin for the class Facebook page along with Jim G.

4.     Four of the 50th committee have retired either by request or by lack of affirmation.

Being on the committee is a commitment to be active in communications (email, Zoom meetings, phone chats, etc.) and to participate in the discussions, debates, and plans by sharing our ideas, thoughts, concerns and support for the 55th.

The committee for the 55th wraps up as follows:

Larry Heininger (Chair)
Sue Plvan (Chair)
Leslie Apetz
Mark Deyle
Chris Finkle
Jim Gubiotti
Lynne Perry
Tom Story
Terri Thon

If the committee learned anything from the 50th it was that starting to plan a lot earlier means a lot less scrambling later!

With that being said, here are the plans (so far) for the 55th:

1) The weekend after Labor Day 2028 is the weekend agreed on for the celebration (Friday, September 9th & Saturday the10th).

2) It will be scaled down with regards to activities to a Friday evening "Meet and Greet" and a Saturday evening buffet dinner. Both events will be casual.

3) Our 50th Friday night reunion was overwhelmingly enjoyable at the Delande House in Fairport, so we've locked it in again and reserved Friday, September 9th for the 55th Reunions evening event.

4) Plans for the Saturday evening buffet are still in the works, but our preferences (in this order) are the newly renovated and party house addition to the Clark House at Shadow Pines, the party tent at Shadow Lake, or the Dolmite Lodge.

Although these are the only two events the committee will be sponsoring, if anyone would like to add a reunion activity they must be responsible for organizing it, paying for it and running it under separate cover from the committee. We'll gladly share info about other events / activities being held by classmates in celebration of the 55th.

We will again be using the web site (https://penfieldhs1973.com) and the Stripe app for processing reservations, payments and updates. Note: If you are a registered classmate on the website and have a valid email address listed there, you may also get email updates via email.

Updates will also be posted on the class Facebook page "Penfield High Class of 1973" (https://www.facebook.com/groups/111100355609730).

We are looking forward to this next reunion and hope you are, too!

Stay posted!




 

February 2, 2025
Today marks the official launch of the George T. Steitz Ideal Teammate Awards!

The "George T. Steitz Ideal Teammate Awards" are a tribute to Coach George Steitz in recognition for all of his efforts over the decades as a Teacher, Basketball Coach, Baseball Coach, Soccer Coach, Girls Softball Coach, Athletic Director, PHS Official as well as his summer efforts in teaching the youth of Penfield to swim.

Penfield High School's Educational Foundation has officially expanded the teammate award that was already in Coach Steitz's name to now include all Boys and Girls Varsity Teams becoming effective for the 2025-2026 school year. Many thanks to the efforts and perseverance of Mike Glor for leading this effort!

How it works (briefly):

Each Varsity Team chooses an Ideal Teammate to receive an award of $500.

From this group an overall Boys winner and an overall Girls winner will be chosen by a committee organized at the high school to be awarded the All Varsity "George T. Steitz Ideal Teammate Award"  with an additional $2,000 grant.

To learn more about the program and read more about Coach, please visit the newly launched website at https://GTSteitzIdealTeammateAwards.org

Please do consider donating to the worthy program! And please, please pass this along to all classmates you are in touch with from all Penfield HS graduating classes!

Thank you for your consideration!

What a SPECTACULAR weekend reunion it was. And we're not just saying that because we think so, but because that's what the word on the street is.

Finally have the 50th Reunion Highlights page up and running here: 50th Reunion Highlights

However... if you're on Facebook, there are hundreds of pictures uploaded to the Class Facebook page by people who were there, but you have to be on FB and subscribed to the Class page to see them. Class of 73 Facebook Page

Meanwhle, HUGE thanks to...

As we are on the home stretch to our 50th year Reunion I wanted to take this opportunity to quickly reflect a bit on the journey getting here:

We have been working on the planning of this event for about a year now. It's all volunteer, brought to you by a number of your classmates, who like me, wanted to find some way to get us all together for what is a big milestone.

It was a process… Oh my. Finding classmates, deciding on venues, coming up with a budget, creating and maintaining a website, meetings, special tributes to departed classmates, outside events like a High School Tour, merchandise sales, Historical Society Tour, decorations, signing people up, collecting money… more meetings, more logistics.. You get it… it's actually more involved than that.

The people that made this happen are listed below… some were involved early, some later, some all the way thru. ALL contributed in one way shape or form:

• Leslie Apetz
• Sue (Burnett) Plvan
• Mark Deyle
• Chris Finkle
• Catherine (Murphy)  Kutsko
• Larry Heininger
• Lynne Perry
• Patience (Mosher) Reagan
• Jim Salmon
• Tom Story
• Terri (Maher) Thon

Whether you can attend the Reunion or can't make it for whatever reason, please recognize that THEY made this happen.

One person on that team stands out from the rest as our (MVRC) Most Valuable Reunion Classmate - Lynne Perry. Among other things Lynne set up and manages the website, handles the Finances, Set up the Merchandise sales, did the email blasts, set up our Zoom calls, set up two weekend Tours and generally held my and the team's feet to the fire per se (my feet are burning). If there is one person who woke up every day and thought about the Reunion, it was Lynne.

Thank You Lynne.

Thank You to the Entire Team.

Final thought: My goal (and role) throughout the process was simple. Create a weekend event that would give our fellow classmates as many opportunities as we could find and organize, that would allow you all plenty of chances to re-connect with each other and the area we grew up in

Simple, yes. Accomplished.  Nothing too formal… Be yourselves, re-connect and let's have a party. We earned it. 

Other than the usual down the stretch logistics, my job is done.  I plan on going to the party like the rest of you. And it will be great seeing you all!

Jim Gubiotti ("Gub")

PHS 1973 Website Welcome Message

Hey Penfield Class of 1973 classmates! Long time, no see… at least for many of us… I hope everyone is doing well! If you have not checked your calendars in the past few years (yes that’s you Retirees), next year is 2023 and time for our 50^th Reunion.

This website is a new one for us, courtesy of some amazing hard work from our classmate Lynne Perry. Thanks Lynne. It’s purpose is somewhat two-fold:

1. To give our class a place to convene, re-convene and stay informed on events going on in our lives and fellow classmates
2. To serve as the main information and  registration source for the 50^th Reunion.

A Reunion team has been formed and is in the process of planning the event. The Reunion Date however is set: October 6th - 8th, 2023! Party on.

VIEW LATEST REUNION NEWS HERE

Also, our class FaceBook page (https://www.facebook.com/groups/111100355609730) will be kept as up to date as we can, although we recognize that many of you may not be on FaceBook, and only use TikTok as the place to show us your grandkids, what you ate for breakfast and your last set of hip X-Rays.

Again, this site is the go-to place for all that is the Penfield Class of 1973. If you see or are in contact with our classmates, please encourage them to register here… Even if they have no plans to come to the Reunion, at least we can say we found them, and they can certainly keep in contact with all of us as much as they want.

More info to follow. Looking forward to seeing you all next year!

Jim Gubiotti

“aka” Gub