Posts filed under ‘State College’
Back When We (Literally) Weren’t on the Map
A reader in Florida, Diana Storch ’47, sent me this postcard that she’s apparently had for quite a while. The postmark on the reverse side is from 1938. She was amused—and so am I!—by the fact that State College wasn’t yet big enough, or maybe wasn’t yet important enough, to merit a mention on this map. (And yet places like Ridgway, St. Marys, and Butler were.) Times certainly have changed since then.
It’s also fun to notice the roads on the card. The beginnings of route 322 are there, in the northwest part of the state, but there’s no Pennsylvania Turnpike, and no I-80. You can click on the image to see all of this stuff bigger.
By the way, the postcard got mailed for a whopping one cent. It wasn’t until 1951 that postcard postage went up to two cents.
Tina Hay, editor
Nice Shot of the Lunar Eclipse
I briefly considered trying to photograph the lunar eclipse that took place early Tuesday morning, but, well, the operative word there is “briefly.” Once I weighed the fun and challenge of shooting a colorful moon against the fact that it involved getting up at 2:30 a.m. and standing outside in 15-degree weather, the choice was clear: I’d much rather be in my warm bed.
I did actually wake up around 2:30 a.m., for no apparent reason, and decided to at least go take a look. So I went outside in my nightshirt, slippers, and a ski jacket and looked up into the night sky, and saw … clouds. It had been clear in State College when I went to bed, but the sky apparently had since clouded over. So I went back to bed.
But luckily for you, there are photographers who are a lot more patient and persevering than I am. And my favorite local shooter, Andy Colwell, apparently stayed up for the whole thing, waiting along Blue Course Drive with his tripod and hoping for a break in the clouds. He finally got one around 3:20 a.m. and shot the photo you see above.
(You really should click on it to see it larger; I especially love the fact that you can see some stars in the shot.)
Andy used a Nikon D300 and a 200mm lens plus a 1.4 teleconverter; he made a three-second exposure at f6.3 at 1600 ISO. It was so windy that he had to use his Jeep to shield the tripod.
We’ve featured Andy’s great photographic talents on our blog before—some examples are here, here, and here. We’re talking about running a photo essay of his work in our March-April issue. Stay tuned.
And if any of you photography fans have a shot or two from the lunar eclipse, let me know, and we might post them here on the blog.
Tina Hay, editor
Images of Mount Nittany
The Mount Nittany Conservancy has put together a nice slide show of photos of our favorite mountain—not just shots of it from a distance, but also images of its trails, overlooks, and plant life in various seasons.
You can find the slide show here. It takes a little while to load, so be patient.
The bluegrassy soundtrack is courtesy of a local group called Murphy’s Junction.
Tina Hay, editor
Happy Homecoming
It’s Homecoming weekend at University Park, which got me thinking back to this time a year ago, when Mother Nature decided she wasn’t in the mood to help Penn Staters celebrate. Remember this?
A ton of wet, freakishly early snow last October cancelled tailgating, knocked out power to much of the area, and took a lot of the fun out of camping out on College Avenue waiting for the parade.
This year couldn’t be more different. Campus is a gorgeous mix of green (thanks to a lot of much-needed rain over the past week or so) and early-autumn reds and golds. The forecast for Friday and Saturday? Low ’70s and lots of sunshine. If you’re on your way to Happy Valley for the weekend, safe travels. And welcome back.
Ryan Jones, senior editor
This Year, Arts Fest Has a ‘Bookfest’
The Helmut’s Strudel booth is back in its traditional space on Allen Street, so clearly it’s Arts Fest Week. I love how the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts mixes the tried and true with the brand new, so I’ll be enjoying myself Saturday when I get some strudel for breakfast and then head up the street for the festival’s latest addition: BookFest. (more…)
A New CD from Cartoon
The Arts Festival is next week, and in keeping with tradition, it’ll include a concert by Cartoon on Friday night (July 9) in Schwab Auditorium. This year, Cartoon will have a new CD ready for the concert—not bad for a bunch of guys who now are scattered throughout the East Coast, have jobs that mostly have nothing to do with music, and play together only once in a great while.
This past May, Glenn Kidder ’73, Kevin Dremel ’81, Randy Hughes ’79, and Jon Rounds ’87, ’94g got together in an old stone chapel in Keene, N.H.—Kevin’s hometown—to record the new CD. The recording is called The Chapel Sessions and I’m sure they’ll have copies available at their Arts Fest performance. You also can order it by going to the band’s website.
Now, who remembers hearing Cartoon perform at Rego’s in Heritage Oaks, or at the Hippo Room in the Deli back in the 1980s? You get extra-credit bonus points if you know what the group’s name was before they changed it to Cartoon.
Tina Hay, editor
A Little Opera in Happy Valley
I had a blast last night. At the opera. (Crazy, I know.)
I had an opportunity to attend, and shoot photos at, a dress rehearsal for the Penn State Opera production of The Marriage of Figaro, which will be staged Friday and Saturday night at the State Theatre in State College. I had had almost zero exposure to opera before last night—and I loved it. The performers, all of them Penn State undergraduates or grad students, were terrific; the costumes were exquisite; and the opera itself is hilarious.
This particular production is all in English, and the music is provided by a woodwind quintet plus piano—here again, all students.
A pair of grad students in vocal performance and pedagogy, Aidan Davis and Kate Scally, play the lead roles of Figaro and his bride-to-be, Susanna (see photo at top). Or at least they did in last night’s rehearsal: In a few cases, one person will play a given role in the Friday night performance, and someone else gets to play the role on Saturday night. There are 11 roles in this particular opera, but something like 14 students in the cast.
I was impressed by all of the performers in the cast, but I especially got a kick out of the elderly Marcellina and Bartolo (photo above—click on any of these to see ’em bigger), whose facial expressions and mannerisms were just a hoot. I was even more impressed to discover later that they are played by two Penn State freshmen! Julia Wolcott and Chris Hollobaugh are recent State High grads, and they were just great.
Another character well worth seeing is the Count’s page, Cherubino, played by junior music major Liz Walton (photo at right). The fact that a woman was playing a man’s role confused me at first (remember, I said this was my first opera!), but Kris Allen, who was there to record a segment for WPSU-FM, explained to me that Cherubino is what’s called a “trouser role” or “breeches role”—a male role almost always played by a woman.
I can’t say enough about what a great production this is. Kudos not only to the students but to Ted Christopher, head of Penn State’s opera program, who is the show’s artistic director, and to associate professor Beverly Patton, who is its musical director. A shout-out also to the School of Music and the Institute for Arts and Humanities for sponsoring the production. IAHS, for example, helped underwrite the costume rental, from a premier shop in Toronto called Malabar Ltd.—and did I mention how exquisite those costumes are?
I can’t believe it’s taken me more than half a lifetime to see The Marriage of Figaro, but I’m very glad I got to see this Penn State rendition of it. If you’re in town this weekend, I highly recommend you check it out.
Tina Hay, editor
P.S. Penn State Live has posted 10 of my photos from last night’s rehearsal—you can see ’em here.
The Fallout From State Patty’s Day
State Patty’s Day was celebrated in State College on Saturday, and the effects are still being felt. The fourth annual “holiday” attracted national media attention, with the likes of the Philadelphia Inquirer, Washington Post, and U.S. News & World Report covering the event. The news leading up to this year’s party seemed to imply a toned-down affair—downtown bars agreed not to open early for the revelers, the undergrad who helped start State Patty’s Day announced he was disowning it, and at least two local bars, the Lion’s Den and the Shandygaff, didn’t open at all — but the post-party numbers told a different story. Local police announced 430 reports over the weekend and made 160 arrests — more than half of them of non-students and “visitors” who apparently came to town last weekend solely to party.
I’m sure that plenty of students — probably a large majority — enjoyed the day and didn’t get out of hand. Like a lot of locals, I avoided downtown on Saturday, so I can’t account for how crazy it actually was. Reading accounts of a hit-and-run DUI and the State College cop who was punched in the face, however, I think I made the right choice.
Ryan Jones, senior editor
Andrew Pitz’s Snap Decisions
Mike Poorman ’82 has a cool piece this week on StateCollege.com about Andrew Pitz ’09, the Nittany Lions’ longsnapper last season (and Mike’s former intern) attending a special-teams camp in Arizona. Pitz is hoping the extra work on his skills, combined with his perfect record last season (when he didn’t botch a snap, including the hike that set up the game-winning field goal at the Capital One Bowl) will earn him a shot at the NFL. Like all of Mike’s stuff, it’s a fun read.
Bonus: Mike’s story gives us an excuse to re-run the goofy little video feature we did with Andrew last summer, at Penn State’s annual preseason media day.
You can see why we’re rooting for this kid.
Ryan Jones, senior editor
Becoming a Penn Stater
I didn’t grow up in a Penn State family—my uncle (Bill Wolfersberger ’49) went to Penn State, but he was the only one. My dad and oldest brother went to F&M; my mom, to Gettysburg; my sister started at Adelphi and finished at Pitt; my other brother went to RIT.
How I ended up at Penn State is a long story, but the short version is that I didn’t go to college right out of high school—I played around in radio for a while instead, moving up to State College at the age of 18 to be the all-night DJ on QWK Rock. From there I worked in radio journalism for a few years, and finally, at the age of 22, I decided, “OK, I’m ready to go to college now.” Since I was already living in State College, it just made sense to go to Penn State.
I mention this because the paths people take to Penn State can be pretty varied, and over the years I’ve heard some great stories about this. We’ve decided to turn that idea—How did you become a Penn Stater?—into a story, one of those articles where we collect your stories and print the best of them in the magazine. The details are here; we’d love to hear your tale, and maybe it’ll be one of the ones we use.
Tina Hay, editor
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