MOUNT VERNON — The biggest party of the Cornell College sesquicentennial celebration will bring together more than 600 people for a homecoming gala all-alumni dinner and dance Saturday, Oct. 18, at Cedar Rapids’ Collins Plaza Hotel.
The evening will include a screening of Cornell’s sesquicentennial video, an enormous drop of school-color purple and white balloons and multicolored confetti, special presentations, a banquet and a dance.
Cornell’s homecoming celebration, with the theme “It’s Everyone’s Reunion,” runs Oct. 16-19 with events in Mount Vernon, Cedar Rapids and the Amana Colonies. Due to the record number of alumni expected, the college will host Saturday evening activities for older alumni and reunion classes at the Collins Plaza Hotel; for students and younger alumni, a concert by Better Than Ezra will be followed by a dance and casino night, all at the Richard and Norma Small Multi-Sport Center on campus.
Two facilities for the fine arts will be dedicated Friday at 3 p.m. Kimmel Theatre is Cornell’s new 266-seat, state-of-the-art venue for stage productions and lectures. Armstrong Hall, built in 1938, reopened this fall after renovations to modernize it for music and theater.
Cornell will honor several alumni at homecoming. John Mark Dean, a 1958 graduate, professor emeritus at the University of South Carolina and internationally known marine scientist, will receive an honorary degree in a ceremony at 11 a.m. Thursday in King Chapel. In a separate ceremony at 10 a.m. Saturday in King Chapel, Distinguished Achievement Awards will be given to Susan Shillinglaw, a 1973 graduate, director of the Center for Steinbeck Studies at San Jose State University and a world-recognized expert on John Steinbeck; and Larry Dorr of Los Angeles, a 1963 graduate and world leader in hip and joint replacement surgery who founded Operation Walk, an international mission in which operating crews travel to developing countries to perform knee and hip replacements and teach native doctors how to perform the operations themselves. Lu Ann White, a class agent for the class of 1978 for 25 years, president-elect of the Cornell Alumni Association and a Des Moines attorney, will receive a Leadership and Service Award.
Other homecoming highlights on campus are a Friday night pep rally and fireworks at Ash Park (9:30 p.m.); parade along First Street before the football game Saturday afternoon (kickoff at 1:30 p.m.); reception Saturday afternoon (3-5 p.m.) for the art exhibition, “Grant Wood and the Iowa Landscape,” in the Peter Paul Luce Gallery of McWethy Hall; campus tours featuring actors in period costumes Friday (1-2 p.m.) and Saturday (1:30-2:30 p.m.); book signings Saturday with Charles Milhauser (“Cornell College: 150 Years From A to Z”) and alumna Nancy Price (“Sleeping with the Enemy,” “No One Knows”), at The Commons (11 a.m.); and the “Rams All Around” public art project display.