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MORNING STAR • MAy 6 - 12, 2010
Carolyn Calio serves at helm of fundraiser for 20 years By James Diehl
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arolyn Calio has a special bond with the town of Laurel; a place very near and dear to her heart, she never plans on leaving her beloved hometown, no matter who or what tries to make her do so. “I’ve been disgruntled with the town before, and [my husband] Frank actually talked about moving out of town one time,” says Calio, who was born and raised in Laurel and is a graduate of the Laurel High School Class of 1960. “But I said we weren’t going anywhere. I was born in this town; this is my town and nobody who comes in is going to tell me what to do because I was here first.” A mother of five children – all graduates of the Laurel Public School System – the Calios today live a quiet life in the home they have occupied for decades. Frank Calio is a businessman and former state elections commissioner, while his wife has devoted much of her life, at least the last 20 years of it, to the Laurel Alumni Association. Founded in the late 1980s as a way of bringing graduates of Laurel High School together for one night each year – and awarding scholarships to as many deserving seniors as possible – the association today boasts more than 1,000 members from LHS classes spanning 80 years. This year marks the 20th consecutive year the alumni association has held its annual banquet at the Laurel Volunteer Fire Department, and the 20th year that Calio has been in charge of the event. The 2010 banquet on May 15 also marks the final time she will be in charge of the festivities. “This is my final year and I’m going to miss a lot of the people who are on my committee,” says Calio, who feels it’s time to give someone else a chance, though she still plans on being involved with the event moving forward. “I’ve always looked at the banquet as sort of a large class reunion. I’m very happy about the ones who keep coming, and can come, year after year.” Her husband has a much different perspective about his wife giving up her role as banquet chairperson after two decades. “I’m just looking forward to her finally being able to sit down and eat with me,” he says with a chuckle. At its first banquet in1990, the Laurel Alumni Association awarded three $1,000
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If you know of someone who has dedicated his or her life to service to others, suggest their names for this series. Contact James Diehl at 302-222-2685 or email Bryant richardson, brichardson@ mspublications.com scholarships to graduates of Laurel High School. Twenty years later, with the help of Calio and scores of other committed volunteers, more than 400 attendees will watch as the association hands out nearly 30 scholarships, some totaling several thousand dollars. “This banquet is just so good to see,” says Calio. “We’ve put in the newspaper before that this is the highlight of Laurel’s year because there are so many people who come to it that went to school together. People may even come for the first time and find out that, not only are some of their friends still alive, but they are there at the banquet. That’s really special.” Through the years, there have been happy times, there have been emotional times and there have been countless occasions that have stuck in the collective memories of organizers and attendees. A favorite tale involved Laurel alumnus, and infamous scalloped oyster connoisseur Pat Murphy, vice president of Morning Star Publications. “The ladies auxiliary knew that Pat loved scalloped oysters, so they came out of the kitchen near the end of the meal one year with this great big pan of scalloped oysters and put it right in front of him,” Calio remembers. “I thought that was pretty funny.” A tradition at the annual Laurel Alumni Association banquet is seating honored students as a group, at tables apart from their family members. It has been designed that way since its inception, and Calio doesn’t plan on it changing any time soon – at least if she has anything to say about it. “We like to let the students have their own tables; we don’t want them to sit with their mommies and daddies,” says Calio matter-of-factly. “Most of the time, parents cooperate and it works out really well. I know that they’re proud of their child, but it is their child who wins the scholarship.
Carolyn Calio has been organizing the Laurel Alumni Association’s annual scholarship awards banquet every year since 1990. May 15 will mark her 20th, and final, event as head of the association’s banquet committee.
It’s their night and we want them to have fun.” Long before she became the driving force behind the annual alumni association banquet, Calio was a student at the old Laurel High School, currently the town’s middle school. She was a freshman there when her future husband was a senior. But she never really paid much attention to the dark haired young Italian roaming the hallways, at least in those days. “It was [Charlene] Whaley who got us together; I either love her or hate her most days for doing that,” says Calio with a sly grin. “Frank and I knew each other in high school, but I had other things on the fire then.” After having two children and losing her husband suddenly in a car accident, Carolyn Calio eventually went to work for her brother in his Laurel-based dental practice. Several years later, she met Frank Calio and eventually left her job as a dental assistant. “After I married Frank [in 1969], he said that I didn’t have to work anymore. But that was a big joke,” Calio says with a chuckle. “I just went from [working
on] the teeth to [working on] the feet at Frank’s shoe store.” In the late 1980s, Calio attended the first meeting of the soon-to-be Laurel Alumni Association, an organization that was the brainchild of Laurel High School graduate Brad Spicer. Ralph Gootee, the association’s first president, soon asked her to chair the banquet committee. The rest, as they say, is history. “We just wanted to have a social event once per year where we could present scholarships to worthy graduating seniors,” she says today. “We had cash donations, fundraisers and things like that to raise money.” Twenty years later, even through the country’s worst economic downtown since the Great Depression, the Laurel Alumni Association continues to thrive and continues to follow through with its original mission. Dues are today the same as they’ve been since day one – a staggering $5 a year. This year, there will even be a member representing the class of 1930 at the annual banquet – Marie Johnson Waller’s unofficial 80th class reunion. Continued to page nine
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