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57th Annual Initiation: 2016

Thank you to all who joined us on Saturday, May 14 at the Sheraton Syracuse University Hotel & Conference Center to initiate our newest members of Pi Lambda Sigma.

2016 Pi Lambda Sigma In Person Initiates (L to R): Carl Haynes, Katrina Maust, Anjali Parasnis-Samar, Kenneth Roman, and Joshua Schulman. Initiates In Absentia include Annamichelle Chovanec, Staci Costello, Alexandra Heidler, Juan Rivera, Roger Schonfeld, and Kathleen Swingly.
2016 Pi Lambda Sigma In Person Initiates (L to R): Carl Haynes, Katrina Maust, Anjali Parasnis-Samar, Kenneth Roman, and Joshua Schulman. Initiates In Absentia include Annamichelle Chovanec, Staci Costello, Alexandra Heidler, Juan Rivera, Roger Schonfeld, and Kathleen Swingly.

The initiation was followed by lunch and our featured speaker, Chuck D’Imperio, author of A Taste of Upstate New York: The People and the Stories Behind 40 Food Favorites

A Taste of Upstate New York book cover

“Big Chuck” D’Imperio is one of Upstate New York’s longest tenured morning drive radio broadcasters.  He has been helming his #1 rated radio show on WDOS in Oneonta since 1989.  He is also a prolific author, with several books about New York published by Syracuse University Press and others.  He is also a longtime newspaper columnist for Gannett Newspapers.  In 2000 “Big Chuck” was inducted into the NYS Country Music Hall of Fame as ‘New York’s Broadcaster of the Year.”  In 2011 he was the recipient of the NYS Daughters of the American Revolution “NYS Media Award” in recognition for his “eminence as a New York Historian, for being an Award-winning Radio Broadcaster and for being a celebrated author and columnist.

Chuck discussed his latest book “A Taste of Upstate New York: The People and the Stories Behind 40 Food Favorites.”  This book was a finalist for CNY Book of the Year in 2015.

He is married to Trish, an English teacher, and they are the parents of 4 children.  Chuck lives (of course) in Upstate New York!