Duke Reunion Weekend brings together more than 5,000 graduates and friends

BY ADRIANA V. DIFRANCO

Brent Powers ’06 flew around the world for the chance to reunite with his alma mater.

The long haul from his home in London to Durham, N.C.,—3,860 miles to be exact—was more than worth it, he says.

That’s because Powers was celebrating his twentieth class reunion at Duke Reunion Weekend, held on campus every five years in April for undergraduates.

“What’s amazing being back on campus is that you can turn a corner and serendipitously bump into someone you used to know,” he said.

Powers was among the more than 5,000 undergraduate alumni and friends who came back to campus April 10-12. With sunny weather throughout the weekend, attendees joined class parties, went on behind-the-scenes tours of campus, learned about the university’s cutting-edge research through back-to-class sessions and celebrated a collective commitment of more than $20 million through a special class campaign to mark milestone reunions. The contributions will benefit 15 annual funds that provide flexible support to schools and units and expand the Duke student experience.

The class of 2001, celebrating their twenty-fifth reunion, won The Benchmark Challenge, a friendly competition between reunion classes to drive both the highest number of classmates who make a monetary contribution and the highest number of class attendees. As the winner, 2001 classmates won a private catered party and a custom painted class bench.

The weekend coincided with the opening of a new welcome center and café at the Sarah P. Duke Gardens, which provided thousands of alumni and friends an opportunity to experience the blooming gardens in a new way.

“Seeing generations of Blue Devils reconnect with one another and with the Gardens in this new chapter was truly meaningful,” said Bill LeFevre, executive director of the gardens.

Abbey Ness ’11, her husband Eric Ness ’10 and the couple’s two daughters traveled from their home in Colorado Springs, Colo., for Abbey’s fifteenth class reunion.

The family found themselves in familiar spaces throughout the weekend—the McDonald’s in the lower-level of the Bryan Center, where as a Duke swimmer Eric Ness was known to load up on chicken nuggets, and on the Bryan Center Plaza with Rhythm & Blue, a Duke a cappella group Abbey sang in.

Abbey said she was thrilled to sing along with fellow alumni, but she was even more thrilled to talk to the students in the group.

“I could tell that they feel the joy of singing with their friends the same way that my friends and I did 15 years ago,” she said. “It was incredibly meaningful to see the group’s legacy living on.”

All photos by Spark Photo.