College Radio Reunion
Matt Seinberg

I've been to two reunions in my life, one of which I planned. The first was my High School's tenth reunion, which I didn't enjoy. I knew many people there and I went with a friend and fellow classmate. I just didn't have a good time.

The second reunion was the one I organized and hosted for the late radio stations WNBC-AM and WYNY-FM, at the Hard Rock Café, in June 2004. I can't believe it's been ten years already! How time flies.

That party took a year to organize and only Lauren helped

That party took me a year to organize and I only had one person helping me. My friend Lauren, in Connecticut, designed the invitation and helped me track down people so we could invite them.

All that was way before Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or Foursquare were even little thoughts in the heads of their inventors. It was an exercise in looking hard, searching and networking; finding one person usually lead to finding more people.

Let's fast forward to now. I'm on Facebook and found an ex-girlfriend from college. I hem and haw about friending her and chatting. I do it and we chat for a bit. I apologize for the way things ended those thirty-something years ago. Gail also helped me pass my math class; I thanked her for that as well.

We get to talking about college and the idea of a reunion for our radio station, WNYT comes up. I had some great times at the station. I would love to see the people I used to work with. Many are on Facebook, so it's easy to start a group.

This past Thursday, I finally started the group and. four days later. we have almost seventy members! I must admit that I don't know many of them, since many came after I graduated college. I was a member of WNYT for three years, from 1976-1979. My last year of college, I spent most of my time interning and working at WGLI-AM in Babylon.

The hardest part of planning a reunion, without the help of an expert, is getting everyone to agree on a date, where to have it and how much to spend per person. Then, of course, there's the most important question: do we want to bring significant others? More often than not, that person will be bored out of their minds listening to old stories and what everyone is doing, now.

Marcy doesn't show any interest in my radio stuff, so I don't know if she would want to go. I put those questions to the group and let's see what happens.

Will a College Radio Reunion happen?

I have kept in touch with a few of my college friends over the years and found others along the way that I'll chat with occasionally. It's hard to maintain friendships over a long period of time when lives change.

Do we do something simple this year for anyone in the New York Metropolitan area or wait a year and hold a party that no one will forge?