Stuart Low is coming to celebrate his seventieth Choate reunion this weekend. Although he is the lone representative from the class of 1935, over six-hundred alumni will be joining him to reconnect with old classmates for their five-year reunions. The festivities begin with tonight’s Blue and Gold Kickoff party and will continue through Sunday afternoon. Students (and faculty) be warned, alumni are invited to attend Saturday morning classes.

This year’s reunion weekend houses several special events, including The News’ Centennial Celebration, speakers from Sudan, an early Saturday panel on global warming, and the dedication of the Gelb track and field facility. Except for Friday and Saturday night dinners, students are invited and strongly encouraged to attend all events.

On Saturday afternoon, the Centennial Celebration will hold two panel discussions, “Defending the First Amendment,” and “The Corporatization of the Media” each featuring prominent Choate alumni speakers from such venerable media sources as The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The New Yorker. Tom Kaplan ’06, News editor-in-chief emeritus, has worked with News adviser Zachary Goodyear since last spring on the project.

Almost a year after the start of its reconstruction, the Gelb track’s opening ribbon is ready to be cut. Mary Verselli stresses that this event has a little of something for everyone. Mr. Shanahan and Mr. Gallahger will be speaking along with the donor, Bruce Gelb ‘45, the campaign chair of An Opportunity to Lead. Two special guests, Lindy Remigino and Victor Frank, Olympic track runners, will also be present. Along with the speaker lineup, the professional opera singer and Milagros alum, Nikisha Pitter Alcindor ‘96, will sing the National Anthem.

Each Reunion Weekend is planned in coordination with the Alumni Relations Office and class committee. Thus, each year, reunion classes host their own events, and each Alumni weekend is different from the last. Hilary Burrall, director of alumni relations explains that is the alumni who do most of the event brainstorming. It makes sense, she explains: “Alumni are much more likely to respond to each other than some stranger in Wallingford.”

This year, in tune with the public’s embracement of environmental issues, the reunion schedule reveals a green theme (but not Deerfield green). On Friday night, Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth will be screened, and Saturday, the class of 1957 is sponsoring a climate change forum featuring Dr.. Jan Beyea, ‘57 (director of conservation organization California Interfaith Power & Light) and Peter Goldmark ‘58 (director of Environmental Defense).

While the class of 77 will engage in a nostalgic campus tour, entitled “What Wasn’t Here,” not all classes are so serious. The class of 97 will have a form meeting with former deans Gordon Armour and Harriet Blanchard to facilitate power catching up. To give a sense of how different events are each year, notable events from the past have included a film festival featuring short films created by the class of ‘96 and a forum on Choate entrepreneurs. Ms. Burral reports that this year, all the classes have been doing an efficient job rallying their classmates to plan and attend the weekend.

The Development Office plans on taking advantage of reunion weekend to support Choate’s fundraising campaign, An Opportunity to Lead. Ms. Burral explains, “There is a fundraising component to Reunion Weekend. For all classes, we encourage alumni to increase their financial support of the Annual Fund, which counts toward the capital campaign.”

The alumni reunion webpage promises that alumni attending the reunion “will come away with a renewed sense of self, in addition to an expanded network of valued contacts and a new collection of wonderful memories.”