More than five decades after students at Jacob Gunther Elementary School helped turn a lunchtime activity into a creative arts program — and years after the school itself permanently closed — the classmates who started it all are getting back together.
Former students who participated in Gunther’s Blue and Gold program between 1969 and 1979 are invited to a reunion Oct. 17 at the Merrick Golf Club, 2550 Clubhouse Road. The event will run from 4:30 to 9 p.m.
For former Gunther art teacher Gary Gaccione — known to generations of students as “Mr. G” — the reunion is as much about recognizing the program’s beginnings as reconnecting with students he first met when they were about 12 years old.
“Now they’re 65 years old,” he said. “So it’s kind of exciting.”
Blue and Gold began shortly after Gaccione started teaching at Gunther in 1969 — the same elementary school he attended as a child. He recalled seeing students sitting in the lunchroom with little to do and proposing an activity built around the school’s blue and gold colors.
What started as two teams grew beyond a competition. Students developed themes and stories and took on acting, writing, dancing, choreography, costumes, lighting, sound and stage management. Rather than directing every aspect himself, Gary said he wanted students to develop and pursue their own ideas.
Parents and other community members became involved as well, volunteering their skills and working alongside the children.
“The children had their choice of where they wanted to, what they wanted to work on,” Gaccione recalled. Students could also move between activities as they discovered new interests.
By the end of the 1970s, the program had evolved further. Inspired by the Broadway musical “A Chorus Line,” Gaccione and his students developed a production around the children’s own experiences. Students wrote stories about school and growing up, and some were transformed into scenes for the stage.
That work ultimately helped inspire the district’s Creative Arts Program, which Gaccione said he ran for the next 25 years and which involved more than 4,000 students. He credits the original Blue and Gold students with helping make that expansion possible.
“If it wasn’t for you, and helping me develop this as we went along,” he said of those early students, “we would have never had that program for those 4,000 kids.”
The Oct. 17 reunion will include a meet-and-greet, appetizers, dinner, games based on phrases participants remember from their school days, a DJ and dancing. Displays will feature photographs and memorabilia from the program, along with life-size figures representing characters students portrayed in past productions.
Organizers are particularly hoping to reach former participants who may not have heard about the reunion through social media. Gaccione said a previous gathering attracted roughly 95 to 100 people, while about 60 had signed up for this year's reunion at the time of the interview.
The cost is $100 per person, and organizers have set aside assistance for former students who may have difficulty covering the full cost. The requested RSVP deadline is Oct. 5, although Gaccione said organizers may be able to accommodate responses shortly afterward.
Those interested in attending can call or text Antoinette at (631) 375-0810 or Lori at (718) 496-3645 to reserve a seat.
