Annual gathering keeps Pennsauken memories alive
As the "Sauken by the Sea" reunion gets rolling, I ask Brian Barg to define Pennsauken. "We're the 'Rocky' of South Jersey," the veteran Pennsauken High School math teacher declares.
As the "Sauken by the Sea" reunion gets rolling, I ask Brian Barg to define Pennsauken.
"We're the 'Rocky' of South Jersey," the veteran Pennsauken High School math teacher declares.
"We're the underdog," says PHS head soccer coach Billy Snyder, who along with buddy Dave MacDonald helped organize the annual all-alumni reunion a decade ago.
"We don't always win," Snyder adds. "But there's a lot of pride in Pennsauken."
That distinctive, blue-collar Camden County township of about 35,000 was eclipsed by trendier suburbs long ago.
But on Saturday, Pennsauken pride ruled the Flip Flopz Beach Bar & Grill in North Wildwood as more than 100 PHS alumni - most from the '70s, '80s and '90s - gathered to reminisce, raise a glass, and raise money.
Many, like Barg, sported the event's nifty new "Straight Outta Sauken" T-shirts; modeled on Straight Outta Compton (the recent movie and classic hip-hop album), the tees perfectly captured Pennsauken's down-to-earth character.
"You cannot be pretentious in Pennsauken. You'll get your a- handed to you twice," says Steve Gledhill, 40, a benefits consultant who played Pennsauken soccer and now resides in Center City Philadelphia.
Open to adults from any PHS graduating class, "Sauken by the Sea" helps underwrite college scholarships awarded in memory of beloved South Jersey soccer coach Bill Winegardner, who coached at PHS and elsewhere and died in 2008.
Winegardner also worked as a guidance counselor at the high school and in the school district for 34 years.
"He was a consistent force in a lot of our lives growing up," recalls Eric Mossop, who graduated from PHS in 1999, has taught and coached there for a decade, and last year became director of the school's athletic programs.
Loyalty to the township, the high school, and, particularly, its sports programs inspired MacDonald to set up Sauken by the Sea in 2007. "I moved to Wildwood 16 years ago, and I kept running into guys from Pennsauken," says MacDonald, 46, a wine and liquor salesman. "And I kept seeing all these big reunions of Philly high schools down here."
He reached out to fellow alum and former soccer teammate Snyder, "and we put posters up in Pennsauken advertising an 'all years' reunion," MacDonald recalls.
"This was before Facebook, so we grassrooted it. We went around town . . ."
"And we actually talked to people face to face," says Snyder, 45, who still lives in the township.
"We had 133 people that first year," says MacDonald. "One year we had more than 300."
In the last decade, enough money has been raised to award scholarships of about $500 each to 18 graduating PHS soccer players who demonstrate "excellence on and off the field." This year's recipients are Alex Rodriguez and Malek Maddah.
"It's rewarding to be recognized," says Maddah, 17, who emigrated to the United States from Venezuela with his family five years ago and will attend Rutgers-New Brunswick.
Rodriguez, 18, will be a freshman at Philadelphia University. "I hope to use the money to do the best I can to give Pennsauken a great name," he says.
Older alums who no longer live in Pennsauken still have ties to the town. "Every Sunday I have spaghetti with my parents in the house I grew up in," says Joe Giletto, 54, who graduated in 1980, lives in Cherry Hill, and works on Wall Street.
For two sisters who now live in the South, it was worth driving hundreds of miles north to catch up with old Pennsauken friends Saturday.
"We all grew up together and hung out together," says Michelle Hughes-Tompkins, 58, a jewelry designer from Woodbridge, Va.
She traveled with her sister Peggy Hughes-Tosner, 56, a retired casino dealer now living in Surf City, N.C., and they were catching up with Kim Kurtz, of Williamstown.
As girls, the trio lived in the township's Delair section - "we're river rats!" they say, in unison - and at Sauken by the Sea, they're ready to rock.
"Even if we haven't seen each other for years," Kurtz says, "people from Pennsauken have all got each other's backs."
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