Class of 1992 Reunion

CLASS OF 1992 REUNION by Tina (Geschwindner) Bernhardt
AE Newsletter - Spring/Summer 2002
The AE Class of 1992 held its 10 year reunion on May 18. Being back on campus together as a group for the first time in ten years certainly brought back memories and made us all wonder how the time had gone by so quickly. The weekend started on Friday night at the Café. Fortunately, the semester was over because we took up the entire back room and part of the bar area. We spent most of the night catching up and after the night was through it was as if we had never left. There was supposed to be a golf outing Saturday morning, but it got rained out; which was a good thing because many of the golfers had been out a little bit too late the night before. Many people spent Saturday morning in recovery. So we’re not as young as we used to be! Saturday afternoon, we met at Old Main. This was a great opportunity to meet the spouses who couldn’t make it to the Café, and all the kids. There was of course, the obligatory trip to the Nittany Lion Shrine for the family picture. (For many, the last time they had their photo in front of the lion, they had a cap and gown on.) Many of the spouses had never been to Penn State and spent this time touring around campus. Along with touring campus, John Bechtel had set up a tour of the AE facilities. The Department has acquired new spaces and equipment. John did a wonderful job showing everyone the Department, including many of the research projects the faculty are involved with. Finally, Saturday evening there was a reception at the Nittany Lion Inn. There were 36 class members and their families attending, as well as some of the faculty, including Professors Geschwindner, Kingsbury, Brown, and Parfitt. Dr. Geschwindner gave a talk about where the professors that we had are now, as well as some of the goings on of the Department. After Dr. Geschwindner’s presentation, John Bechtel presented a slide show using many of the pictures from our 5^th year banquet, and, thanks to the digital age, pictures from Friday night at the Café. He even included prizes for things like least hair, most interesting non-AE career, and longest distance traveled. Some of the winners were Mike Pittsman for least hair, John Hamm for most interesting non-AE career (he has his own animation studio) and Marty Illingsworth for longest distance traveled. Marty, who was a Leeds exchange student, flew all the way from London, England, to attend our reunion. Now that’s dedication! All in all, we had a wonderful weekend and it was very difficult to see it end. Now that we have all been in touch again, I hope that we all make the effort to keep connected. I will be putting together a list of contact information for our class that will link to the AE web page. Look for details in emails to follow. I hope that this will be a way to track down some of the AE’s that we couldn’t locate for this reunion. In the meantime, please keep me updated on your contact information at the_bernhardts@yahoo.com. I’d like to give a big thank you to John Bechtel who arranged the tour of the AE Department and got the entire banquet together --as well as the slide presentation. This wouldn’t have been such a great success without you. So, THANK YOU! And we’ll see everyone at the 15-year reunion.

CLASS OF 1992 REUNION
by Tina (Geschwindner) Bernhardt

AE Newsletter - Spring/Summer 2002

The AE Class of 1992 held its 10 year reunion on May 18. Being back on campus together as a group for the first time in ten years certainly brought back memories and made us all wonder how the time had gone by so quickly.

The weekend started on Friday night at the Café. Fortunately, the semester was over because we took up the entire back room and part of the bar area. We spent most of the night catching up and after the night was through it was as if we had never left.

There was supposed to be a golf outing Saturday morning, but it got rained out; which was a good thing because many of the golfers had been out a little bit too late the night before. Many people spent Saturday morning in recovery. So we’re not as young as we used to be!

Saturday afternoon, we met at Old Main. This was a great opportunity to meet the spouses who couldn’t make it to the Café, and all the kids. There was of course, the obligatory trip to the Nittany Lion Shrine for the family picture. (For many, the last time they had their photo in front of the lion, they had a cap and gown on.) Many of the spouses had never been to Penn State and spent this time touring around campus. Along with touring campus, John Bechtel had set up a tour of the AE facilities. The Department has acquired new spaces and equipment. John did a wonderful job showing everyone the Department, including many of the research projects the faculty are involved with.

Finally, Saturday evening there was a reception at the Nittany Lion Inn. There were 36 class members and their families attending, as well as some of the faculty, including Professors Geschwindner, Kingsbury, Brown, and Parfitt. Dr. Geschwindner gave a talk about where the professors that we had are now, as well as some of the goings on of the Department. After Dr. Geschwindner’s presentation, John Bechtel presented a slide show using many of the pictures from our 5^th year banquet, and, thanks to the digital age, pictures from Friday night at the Café. He even included prizes for things like least hair, most interesting non-AE career, and longest distance traveled. Some of the winners were Mike Pittsman for least hair, John Hamm for most interesting non-AE career (he has his own animation studio) and Marty Illingsworth for longest distance traveled. Marty, who was a Leeds exchange student, flew all the way from London, England, to attend our reunion. Now that’s dedication!

All in all, we had a wonderful weekend and it was very difficult to see it end. Now that we have all been in touch again, I hope that we all make the effort to keep connected. I will be putting together a list of contact information for our class that will link to the AE web page. Look for details in emails to follow. I hope that this will be a way to track down some of the AE’s that we couldn’t locate for this reunion. In the meantime, please keep me updated on your contact information at the_bernhardts@yahoo.com.

I’d like to give a big thank you to John Bechtel who arranged the tour of the AE Department and got the entire banquet together --as well as the slide presentation. This wouldn’t have been such a great success without you. So, THANK YOU! And we’ll see everyone at the 15-year reunion.

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