Carle Place High School Class of 1965 hosts 50-year reunion
People often dream of revisiting the glory days of their youth, but few actually get the chance to do it. Carle Place High School’s Class of 1965 did, taking a walk down memory lane at their old school to mark their 50-year reunion. For many, it was as if they never left.
Laughter, songs and stories of the old days filled the hallways as old friends greeted each other with warm hugs and big smiles on reunion day, Saturday, June 13.
“Everything all looks the same it is so wonderful to be back,” Maureen Kurtz said, beaming. Then an old song from a familiar voice could be heard echoing in the school’s auditorium.
“Some enchanted evening,” sang Jack Curphey. Soon another singer joined in, “When you find your true love,” sang John Ficarelli. The pair spontaneously broke into a duet from the play South Pacific where they were cast mates.
“We did so many plays together back in school,” explains Curphey. “They were really high caliber plays with a full orchestra and all,” proudly proclaimed Ficarelli. Just as in the old days the duet drew a big round of applause and cheers from their classmates.
With song filling the auditorium, a familiar sight was found in the hallways. A group of five friends who could always be found together back in their high school days were together again walking side by side laughing and joking just as they did in high school.
“We have all been best friends since third grade,” said Susan Smith-Scibelli.
Giggling in a similar fashion to their former schoolgirl selves the five friends—Jackie Weaver-Rhode, Dawn Salerno-Chapman, Dorothy Skeados-Ganek, Susan Smith-Scibelli, Genevieve Gregory-Pandolf and Diane Cox-Kuenster—reminisced about the pranks they used to play on their classmates.
School pride could still be felt amongst all of the alumni as they could be heard telling each other “Go Frogs”, the schools mascot to this day.
“We really made our mark across the board in all areas, academics, music and athletics,” said alumni Tim Hart.
One of those athletes, Ken Sicoli found his picture on the schools wall of fame from his days as a star baseball player for Carle Place. In fact Sicoli went on to be a high school baseball coach.
“My first job was coaching right here at Carle Place High School where I used to play,” he proudly said.
It wasn’t just sports that caught his attention, Sicoli met Robin Phillips his junior year at Carle Place, when she was a sophomore. Not long after graduation the high school sweethearts were married.
To cap off the reunion, the class of ’65 held a big bash at the Marriot Hotel in Uniondale that night.
