Homecoming Alumni Banquet

It's true.

I'm not old enough to have been out of college for ten years.

But somehow I ended up receiving notifications that this year was my ten year reunion from IWU. Since I work there, Homecoming is usually just another weekend out of the year for me, but this year I decided to participate since it was monumental!

Last night was the alumni banquet, so I thought I'd let you see what sorts of fun took place. I do have to make a significant disclaimer about the photography. I had MAJOR camera drama yesterday. My camera requires 4 batteries at a time to operate. I have two identical sets of rechargeable batteries and yesterday I charged up one set, dumped them in the camera bag, and off I went. Problem was...they were mixed in with the uncharged batteries...and I didn't know which ones were "good!" So all night I had to keep swapping out batteries, hoping for a magic combo. As a result, my camera kept dying during photos and the focus on some is just awful. So sorry!


Okay. This year's theme for Homecoming is....

And last night was the banquet for all alumni. Those who had been out of college for 50 and 60 years were honored by name, but the banquet was open to any alumni...

You know Faith. You've seen her on here before. Faith and I met in college when we became roommates in a (no longer existing...sniff, sniff) apartment. I met her through my roommate, who had gone to high school with her. So last night, we were banquet buddies!!

My good friends Bill and Kristin. Kristin and I work together, but we first met in college. (Kristin is my voice of wisdom on a daily basis and Bill is the advisor of all my electronics purchases!)

Dr. Newman kind of ran the program for the evening. He is (according to the handy dandy schedule we received) the VP for University Relations.

Camera goes dead blurry picture #1. :( This is our current president, Dr. Henry Smith. He has been our president for the last four years, I believe.

This is Dr. Barnes, who was the president when I was a student. (I think they said yesterday he was president of IWU for 19 years overall.) Yesterday they named the Student Center in his honor. (Well, and his wife's, too.)

It's true. Jonathan is EVERYWHERE. :) At the end of the banquet, one of the student groups sang us a lil song. The group, One Voice, magically has Mr. Jonathan in it! I don't think he knew I was back there, but it was so nice of him to look at the camera for me.

After the banquet, there were some dessert receptions around the Barnes Student Center, and this was one of them. The Wind Ensemble alums played some selections....and Miss Kristin (see above photo) was one of the participants!

And then down in the piazza...look who was singing! Yep, it was Chorale. Here, they were singing their Rain out of Africa song. That's probably not even remotely close to what it's really called, but I know all those words appear in the song at some point in time.

I HATE it that this picture is blurry. They invited the chorale alums up to sing my favorite (though I highly doubt that's why they sang it) - A Mighty Fortress. Jenny, my college roomie, was in Chorale, so she went up to sing. That's her on the end in the front row. I was SUCH a Chorale groupie in college.

Camera is really really going dead...so we didn't have a chance to see that we needed to redo this one so Jenny could smile! :( Faith, Jenny, and me. We sat back here at this table and talked forever, even after the Chorale stopped singing.

They invited the alums back up to sing A Mighty Fortress again...because Dr. Barnes had missed it the first time. If you'd like to play a little game of "Where's Jonathan?" - he's in there!

After we were all done, we took a walk around campus. I wanted to take some pictures because the buildings are so pretty all lit up. "Some" turned in to "one" because of the battery issue. This is the little prayer chapel I love so much.