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AMANDA DEDIE and SCOTT DOWNEY
News Editor and Special to The Leader
Homecoming weekend isn’t just for students to celebrate with pep rallies and spirit days. It also gives Fredonia alumni a chance to come together to see the campus they used to stroll daily, the classmates they shared classes with, and the changes that have occurred since they left.
Alumni from 1950 all the way up to 2014 came from far and wide this past weekend to celebrate homecoming weekend with workshops, departments receptions, presentations and tours.
One of the more popular events this past Friday was the book signing of author Wendy Corsi Staub, New York Times bestselling author and Fredonia alumna. This was Staub’s second visit in two years to sign and help promote her newest books, the first in two separate trilogies, “Blood Red” (the first in the Mundy’s Landing trilogy) and “Nine Lives” (the first in the Lily Dale mystery trilogy).
Staub — along with her editor, Lucia Marco — held a personal fireside chat with students in Starbucks before the 6 p.m. book signing. At the book signing she gave students advice. She advises writers to write every day, even if it is just one page.
Molly Mellot, a sophomore English major and the president of English Works, recommends that students come to events like this. Mellot asked Marco how to get a job at Staub’s publisher, Harper Collins. Marco said the best place to start is on the company’s website.
“It is a great place to network,” Mellot said. “These things would be a great opportunity to meet people from publishing companies and maybe learn more about the business itself.”
Before graduating in 1986, Staub was an English major who took all the writing workshops that Fredonia had to offer. Professor Mac Nelson, since retired, was one of her favorite teachers, even though she stated that she had a lot of them.
By the time Staub was a senior, she had a large group of friends, many who she is still friends with today. Her time at Fredonia taught her that it is a big world, but she could fit in with artistic people.
“They were so supportive and creative,” Staub said. “I made friends for life [at Fredonia.] I never met people like that before. [Fredonia] is an artistic school and all my friends were theatre majors, BFAs.”
Saturday, Oct. 24 was another day full of Homecoming festivities, such as exhibits, sports games, breakfasts and banquets. One of the busier events was the Alumni Awards Brunch, which was held in recognition of recipients of the Outstanding Achievement Award.
This year‘s honorees were Perla Hewes Manapol, class of ’71, and Allan H. Wilson, class of ’75. The brunch was held in the Horizon Room, where Vice President of Academic Affairs Terry Brown presented the alumni with their awards, followed by short speeches.
Honoree Perla L. Manapol graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history and since has been managing clean and green energy projects. Since 2000, she has been president of Sustainable Rural Enterprise of Banga, Aklan, and the Philippines, where she was in charge of small, community-based enterprises that specialized in the processing of coconuts.
Manapol, a modest woman with a big smile and a wonderful sense of humor, does primarily pro bono work, which she referred to as “pro bone-head work,” because it’s work one does without pay.
Honoree Allen H. Wilson earned a Master of Music in trumpet performance at Fredonia. After college, he was a professional trumpet player for five years before he began conducting, orchestrating and arranging original film scores for animated cartoons, video games and major motion pictures like “Sleepy Hollow.”
Wilson said that his time at Fredonia as assistant conductor planted that interest in him.
“I am very fortunate for what I do and it all spring boarded from my time at Fredonia,” he said. “Once that interest [is] planted, and just this motivation and this belief that Fredonia gave me, whatever you really wanted to do, you can achieve it.”
Alumni Director Patty Feraldi said that homecoming week is a great time for alumni to return to Fredonia and to reestablish relationships and, in fact, is the reason it is held.
“I see people greeting each other as though they saw [each other] yesterday,” Feraldi said. “These are the kind of friendships that Fredonia is all about, and that is the purpose of homecoming, maintaining that family feeling that people have about Fredonia.”