In ones and twos and sometimes more, long-ago graduates of Forest Park Middle School strolled up to the pavilion in Miller Meadow’s Grove 1 Saturday scanning the growing crowd.
Let’s see … who do I know?
And then a frown of recognition as the bass from the DJ pumped in the background.
“Hi!” more than one said. “Remember me? How ya doin?”
It was music to the ears of Rebecca Ciardullo, in her 30th year of teaching at the school, proudly sporting her FPMS sweatshirt. For Ciardullo, hugs abounded, as did laughs and phrases like, “Remember that time …?
What was it like seeing her former students, successful in the paths they took in life?
“I am just so, so proud of them,” she said. “They’ve done such amazing things in this world. It’s everything that Forest Park Middle School wanted for them.”
Homecoming weekend kicked off Thursday night, Oct. 1 with alumni, faculty, friends and family supporting the current middle-school co-ed soccer teams, JV and varsity, in their games against Hillside.
Friday night was the big alumni basketball game at Roos Recreation Center, where the Old School squad, consisting of players who graduated in 2006 or older, beat the New School team 57-41. Titus Slaughter, hanging out with his class of 2010 classmates Edna Rome, Vonshae Ferguson and Del Ford, lamented the fact that he only got one shot in the contest. But he made it, so there’s that.
And then there was Saturday’s picnic, which featured a tasty lunch courtesy of Robinson’s No. 1 Ribs, multiple tents with snacks where grads in FPMS alumni t-shirts sweatshirts hung out and reminisced, a jump house for the kids, face painting, an ice cream truck and most prominently, photo albums, where people pointed out themselves and their friends and teachers.
Rashaun Sanders, class of 2013, drove in from Detroit for the event. He works for the city there. What’s his favorite memory of those years?
“The all-school picnic,” he said. “The Forest Park all-school picnic was the thing for everybody. It used to happen at the end of school, it would be like May. All the schools would come together – the middle school would come together, the elementary schools would come together. You’d see everybody there.
“You can’t duplicate that experience. It’s an amazing memory.”
The weekend festivities were led by Victoria Pride, class of 2007, and David Sims, class of 2005, and was billed with tagline, “Come home. Reconnect. Celebrate. Give back.”
That everyone did. The admission to the Friday hoops game collected well over 100 non-perishable food items, which will be donated to the Forest Park Food Bank and contribute to the Kiwanis Club of Forest Park food drive.
Sims said the event was like a family reunion and will likely become an annual affair.
“I felt like the weekend was needed and there was a lot of healing going on,” Sims said. “You could see people really enjoyed connecting with each other. Everyone was mingling, everyone was talking. I hadn’t seen that since the Cubs won the World Series.”
Daniel Gerger, class of 2004, admitted that his time in middle school was, well, rough. But still, he has fond memories of how FPMS helped shape him and he spent his time floating from group to group, smiling and catching up.
“The best thing I can say, even though those years were hard for me, even though it was good for other people, there are still good, nice, kind people like Ms. Ciardullo that helped make it better for me,” he said. “It was some tough times, but some good times, too.”
Ditto for Shantel Lewis, class of 2008, who thumbed through one of the photo albums with Gerger, laughing at days gone by.
She credited a long list of teachers for helping her, including Ciardullo.
“They cared,” she said. “They went above and beyond their job, just to understand what was going on with me.”