The first bite
John and Fred Baldini, children of immigrant parents from Lucca, Italy, brought pizza, a little-known novelty in America at the time, to town in 1936 when they opened Lucca Grill in Downtown Bloomington. A 1953 Vidette ad touted Lucca’s “choice steaks, Italian pizza, and spaghetti.”
Takeout options, such as Casella’s Pizza Palace, opened near campus in the mid-1950s. A 1955 Vidette article introducing Homecoming court nominee Mary Broomfield ’56 contained the paper’s first account of a college student enjoying pizza under the headline “Mary Likes Pizza.” Another Vidette story in 1957 described “a pizza party and dancing” at Smith Hall.
Charles “Tot” Baldini, son of Lucca Grill co-founder Fred Baldini
Delivering dough
By the late-1950s, pizza ads included phone numbers for delivery. “Have pizza, will travel” became Casella’s slogan. Ronnie’s Pizza boasted “fast, speedy delivery.” A 1962 ad for Pizza on Wheels described “a real Italian pizza completely prepared and baked in our spotless, radio-dispatched, mobile kitchen enroute to your door.” Mr. Kelly’s, across from the Normal Theater, offered “rush service on pizza.” And Tobin’s, which opened in 1963, assembled the largest fleet of food delivery vehicles in town.
Yet some students still preferred dining in. Ragusa’s Pizza Palace and Italian Restaurant opened in the early 1960s on Dale Street. Avanti’s opened a block north in 1971. It served pizza, pasta, and sandwiches on its famously sweet bread.
“If dad wanted to take me to dinner on Sunday night before he headed back home, we ate at Avanti’s,” remembered Barbara (Fairweather) Byer ’75. “Nothing else compares.”
Pairs well with beer
A pizza renaissance was set in motion on July 9, 1973, when previously dry Normal approved the sale of alcohol in town. Because establishments serving alcohol were also required to sell food, pizza was a tasty option for restauranteurs catering to the Illinois State crowd. Among the first to receive liquor licenses were The Gallery and The Welcome Inn (upstairs restaurant)/The Cellar (downstairs bar) in Downtown Normal, which featured pizza on their menus.
“Our friend, Patricia Cronin ’81, worked at The Cellar, and once in a while she would bring home a pizza for my roomie, Sue Mallonee Necessary ’79, and me, at midnight after they closed,” recalled Marguerite “Peg” Vahldieck ’79. “If we were already sleeping, we would get up and eat that wonderful deep dish.”
Josie’s Pizza Kitchen opened a two-story restaurant on East Beaufort Street in 1976 that served pan pizza and beer and featured trees and plants growing under a skylight in the center of the bar.
Newspaper feature
Vidette extras
Landing “The Flying Tomato”
Garcia’s, a pizza game-changer, opened its first Normal location in 1978 on Dale. Owners Ralph Senn and Joe Ream, known as “The Flying Tomato Brothers” for their iconic hot air balloon that occasionally floated over the Quad, pegged Illinois State’s campus as a prime location to grow their Champaign-based business.
Garcia’s differentiated itself with rectangular pan pizza by the slice. It also served sharable thick crust “pizza in a pan” and stuffed pizza available as a “Gutbuster,” heaped with cheese, sausage, green peppers, mushrooms, and onions.
A second location on Broadway Avenue invited patrons with an indoor waterfall, tropical greenery, balconies, and a 1,000 square-foot skylight from which patrons could see 10-year-old Watterson Towers rising high above. Pinball machines and arcade games including Centipede and Galaga added to the appeal.
“It was considered ‘cool’ to work there with our blue jean shirts and red bandanas,” said Karen Mordini-Schnorr ’82. “I met my future husband at a party after work. I was still in my work clothes and swore he was attracted to the scent of Garcia’s pizza.”
Many relationships were launched at Garcia’s. Others failed to take flight. “I remember being on a not-so-great date when my date announced he had the recipe for Garcia’s pizza sauce,” said former student Sandy Stolberg. “For that all-too-brief moment, the date improved dramatically.”
Garcia’s, also located on East College Avenue and inside the Bone Student Center, became “intermingled with the ISU college experience,” according to a 1988 Vidette article.
Explore more from Garcia’s
Ralph Senn, co-owner Garcia’s Pizza in a Pan
Normal twist on Chicago flavor
“My check register was: Micheleo’s, Micheleo’s, Micheleo’s, Kroger,” said Mick Hall ’89. “Those were priorities in the ’80s.”
As the food manager and treasurer for his fraternity, John Narish ’93 took full advantage of a Micheleo’s Sunday evening deal. “I looked at what the regular meal was going to cost versus taking the house to the pizza place,” Narish said. His favorite was cheese, sausage, and extra sauce. “Micheleo’s was far cheaper than the cost of feeding the guys through our service. Everyone loved it, and I was a hero.”
By the late-1980s, more than 25 pizza places served Bloomington-Normal. The list included Chicago Dough Company and Papa John’s, which was unrelated to the national franchise and located in a “small shack at the corner of Willow and Normal,” according to the Vidette.
Pizza World, which originated in Normal in 1970 and became a small franchise, was another student favorite. In 1979, the company paraded its fleet of 34 red and white AMC Spirit delivery cars through campus, and across Central Illinois, to mark its rise in the world of pizza.
Micheleo’s Pizza founders Mike and Geri Koch
Late-night pie
Grog’s joined the scene in 1989. Located on East Beaufort, it offered 12-inch pizzas for $3.99 and was open until 2 a.m. on weeknights and 3:30 a.m. on weekends. “We would walk in and order a small cheese—and onions and green peppers were always free,” recalled Scott Urbon ’94. “I can’t tell you how many times I burnt the roof of my mouth sitting on the curb outside.”
Grog’s later became Prime Time Pizza, which continued the tradition of baking affordable pizza into the wee hours of the morning. Jake’s, Rhino’s, and Dirk’s also served Downtown Normal.
Across campus, students living in Dunn-Barton and Walker halls needn’t go far to grab a quality slice. They had Chatter’s in the basement of Walker. “A whole pizza done to order, plus they sold pints of Ben & Jerry’s,” said Kathleen (Prohaska) Podraza ’09. “We used to walk across the road, from Hamilton, late at night and then have everyone over, crowded into someone’s room, watching movies.”
David Foster Wallace
In Bloomington, Monical’s Pizza was a favorite of the late David Foster Wallace, an Illinois State professor and author of the acclaimed novel Infinite Jest. His first interview with Rolling Stone reporter David Lipsky for his book, Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself, took place at the Monical’s on South Eldorado Road in 1996.
A fresh slice
The new millennium brought more options including ZaZa’s Pizza Palace, Redbird Pizza, and Gumby’s with its deliciously greasy Pokey Stix, while a few legendary pizzerias served their final slices. Garcia’s left Normal in 1999, and Micheleo’s closed in 2010.
For alumni craving nostalgia, Tobin’s also serves Micheleo’s, and Garcia’s still operates in Champaign. Avanti’s, Lucca, and Tobin’s remain major pizza players in Bloomington-Normal.
Uptown Normal’s transformation in the mid-2000s sparked investments in new restaurants such as Medici, featuring stone oven pizza, and Firehouse Pizza. One of Uptown’s newest restaurant’s, Pizza Payaa, serves artisan pan pizzas. A 2021 Vidette article noted “the menu includes square pies, gluten-free pies and more.” Flingers Pizza Pub is another community favorite.
Today’s Redbirds have more options for different styles of pizza than ever. But instead of thumbing through the phone book or dialing a memorized number like 888-9999 (for Prime Time Pizza), they’re more likely to order through a mobile app. And while the selection has changed, generations of Redbirds hold shared experiences of laughing with friends or cramming for an exam between bites of crispy crust, melted cheese, and their favorite toppings.
“We’d get our pizza by the slice at Jake’s, and we’d talk about classes and work and dreams and bucket-list vacations … and everything else you can think of,” recalled Ryan Elias ’04. Because when it comes to nourishing the college experience, pizza always delivers.
Guess the Pizza
Hover or navigate to images for the answers.
Avanti’s
Monical’s
Garcia’s
Micheleo’s
Tobin’s
Lucca
Garcia’s
Flingers
Avanti’s
Monical’s
Gumby’s
Lucca
Jake’s
Tobin’s
Special thanks to Julie Neville, M.S. ’12, Illinois State University senior archives specialist; Bill Kemp ’88, M.S. ’00, McLean County Museum of History librarian; Larry Carius, Bloomington-Normal Restaurant Scene founder; and Clay Jackson, Pantagraph photographer.
When Verneice Prince ’17, M.S.W. ’20, and her son arrived at his school, she’d open the trunk of her car, pull out a loaf of bread, and prepare his lunch: a beef bologna sandwich. They were homeless, living in a Detroit shelter where residents weren’t allowed to bring in food.
One night she asked if she could put his food in the shelter refrigerator and was told she could not. There were words, and Prince and her son were put out on the street that night. Seven months pregnant, with no money and a car that wouldn’t start, she and her son started walking until she couldn’t go any farther and laid down on the sidewalk. A police car slowed and pulled over. Her son thought they were in trouble, but Prince knew differently. Now they’d have a ride to another shelter.
Appears InFor the first 20 years of her life, Prince grew up in foster care, keeping her clothes in trash bags because she never felt secure enough to put them anywhere else. She never had a birthday cake, a sleepover, or a family vacation.
“There was no childhood for me,” she said. “I know what it is like to have needs but no one to call on to help meet those needs.”
In 2017, the single mother of four earned a bachelor’s degree in social work from Illinois State University, and in 2020, her master’s. At 51, she is the CEO of a nonprofit she founded in 2018 to help people facing homelessness, Cruisin’ Outta Poverty Services.
“If I can help one person, whether it is the children I work with or clients that come through, I would feel like I took back what was taken from me in my childhood.”
—Verneice Prince ’17, M.S.W. ’20
Prince provides an umbrella of services for those seeking emergency shelter, transportation, clothing, and food. She will enroll and tutor those interested in GED classes, has provided an address for job applicants, and temporarily cared for pets. As a counselor, mentor, and navigator, she moves people from homelessness to hope.
On the door of the nonprofit’s storefront in an outlet mall in Normal is a handwritten sign that reads, “If we are not here, we are serving the community.”
“We answer the call when someone is in need of help that they cannot get anywhere else,” she said, sitting in the back room she’s turned into a kitchen for those needing a place to sit, talk, or warm a meal. “This is where I want to be.”
Prince meets people where they are, and sometimes that’s standing outside their tent in a parking lot encampment. She understands not wanting help or not wanting to be seen. She’s been there.
“If I come to you and I haven’t showered, my clothes are soiled, I don’t want to be in front of you. I can’t come to you for help because I’m not in any condition to,” she said. “Once we get their basic needs met, we take it from there.”
Homelessness is a growing issue in McLean County, where 15.7% of the population lived in poverty in 2021, rising from 14.2% in 2016, according to data from the McLean County Regional Planning Commission. In 2023, there were 1,249 homeless adults and children.
When local shelters are full, Prince has driven people to a shelter 40 miles away. Last winter she shared her home with three people who had nowhere else to go.
Prince entered the foster care system when she was only a year old and was shuffled to so many families she has forgotten their names. She gave up hope of finding anyone to call mom or dad. Her goal was to survive childhood.
Aging out of the system at 20, she joined the United States Army, where she qualified as a truck driver only because a friend gave her a few driving lessons in a parking lot. The Army is where her education began when she took a college course. She always wanted to be a social worker.
After two years in the Army, Prince was honorably discharged as a disabled veteran. But homelessness followed her through two marriages and four children as she moved around, staying with family who didn’t feel like family. In 2013, she moved to Bloomington and lived at Home Sweet Home Ministries with her three youngest children.
Wherever she was, she found a church and called on her faith when hope waned. One Sunday she saw a church van in the shelter parking lot and climbed in. After the service, she met the pastor’s wife, Dr. Karen Stipp, who happened to be an associate professor in Illinois State’s School of Social Work. Prince shared her dream of becoming a social worker, and Stipp became her encourager.
“She said she was going to be my cheerleader, and I didn’t know what a cheerleader was,” Prince said. “But she showed me.”
The School of Social Work has had students who experienced homelessness and food insecurity, Stipp said, “but the confluence of factors in Verneice was unique. She had little margin for error. Her student days—like her life—were about surviving while thriving.”
Prince works part time as a counselor at the Bloomington nonprofit INtegRIty Counseling and supplements her income as a substitute teacher and Uber driver. Whatever money is left over at the end of the month goes to her nonprofit.
A year ago, she wrote on Cruisin’ Outta Poverty Services’ Facebook page that she was facing some hard times of her own, feeling like she was still trying to escape poverty. She asked people to donate $1 to the nonprofit. Some did, but not enough.
—Dr. Karen Stipp
“It takes a group of people to move the needle, and she’s one of the people who’s doing that in just incredible ways. With her faith and determination, she makes it happen every day.”
Prince has received grants and donations and hopes to someday have an overnight shelter. She has the beginnings of a food pantry, but only enough rice, pasta, cereal, and vegetables to fill two grocery bags. A small refrigerator holds homemade meals.
Every day she’s on her feet, sorting and organizing donations for the thrift store she opened next door. The disabled veteran doesn’t stop until she must. She keeps crutches and a walker close by but keeps the fear of returning to homelessness further away.
“Whatever I have to do to keep things going and be able to help people, that’s what I do,” she said. “I think I’ve finally let go of the fear of being homeless, but I know that it can happen.”
Stipp has had a decade-long relationship with Prince and sees her as a resilient and resourceful leader.
“One person can’t take on poverty all by themselves,” she said. “It takes a group of people to move the needle, and she’s one of the people who’s doing that in just incredible ways. With her faith and determination, she makes it happen every day.”
Prince is not only looking to change the stories of homeless people but also her own.
“I love what I do, and I will be here until I am not,” she said. “If I can help one person, whether it is the children I work with or clients that come through, I would feel like I took back what was taken from me in my childhood.”
Steve Pankow ’11 stands in the entryway to the Chicago Bulls equipment room deep inside the United Center holding a Nike Zoom Kobe 4 “Fade to Black” basketball shoe. There’s a five-inch gash above the shoe’s hard rubber midsole that Pankow wiggles four fingers through as part of an equipment manager’s postmortem examination.
Appears InLess than 24 hours earlier, the shoe was in fine working condition. It was on the left foot of Bulls guard Alex Caruso, who had helped engineer what was about to be a stunning upset of the Western Conference-leading Minnesota Timberwolves. But late in the game as Caruso and company were putting the finishing touches on the win, the 2023 NBA All-Defensive First Team selection jumped to contest a shot from Minnesota all-star Anthony Edwards. Caruso landed awkwardly as the shoe exploded.
Pankow was among the first to realize what had happened. He sprang into action, sprinting 40 yards to the locker room to retrieve a backup pair of shoes.
“When something like that happens, it’s an adrenaline rush,” Pankow said. “Whether it’s blood on a jersey or a blown-out shoe, that’s what we prepare for, and that’s what gets me cranked up.”
Amid a late-season playoff push, Caruso couldn’t wait even the few seconds Pankow needed for the retrieval, instead finishing out the game wearing teammate Dalen Terry’s Adidas models. The Bulls won the game, 109-101.
Pankow recounts it all the next day at the mouth of the equipment room as the Bulls prepare for a game against the Atlanta Hawks that’s still a couple hours from tipoff. Bulls players and personnel coming from every direction squeeze past Pankow as they complete their pregame routines. Eventually Caruso arrives, puts his arm around Pankow, and laments the demise of his favorite pair of shoes.
Pankow is the Bulls’ head equipment manager and team travel coordinator. At 6-foot-4, he’s as tall as some players but skinnier than all of them. A Sharpie marker clipped to the collar of his team-issued polo serves as his trademark piece of flair, indicating to fans who surround the team bus when the Bulls arrive in another NBA city or kids who line the tunnel when the team takes the court that Pankow is not one they’ll see on the court that night.
He doesn’t play for the team, but he’s an integral part of it.
Pankow got his start in sports at Illinois State University after sending an email to then-head football coach Denver Johnson the summer before his freshman year asking Johnson if there was anything he could do for the team. That led to four years as a student manager, internships with the NFL’s Green Bay Packers and Indianapolis Colts, and a job with Navy athletics before a full-circle moment when he returned to Illinois State as a full-time equipment manager.
Now in his “dream job,” Pankow travels full time with the Bulls, sits behind the bench, and loves every minute of it. He’s one of at least eight Illinois State alumni working full time for the NBA team. Though none of them are scoring points or dishing out assists, they form the team behind the team. Several of them got their starts in sports at Illinois State.
“It’s different every day,” Pankow said. “That’s the part I love about it, and that’s what I think most people love about it.”
Owen Ritter ’24 is a budding branch on a family tree with deep Redbird roots.
Appears InRitter graduated from Illinois State University in May exactly 50 years after his grandfather Bill Arbogast ’74, and 101 years after his great-great grandfather Chester M. Hammerlund, class of 1923. And they’re just three from a family that’s produced at least one graduate every decade since the 1890s. Ritter’s mother and many cousins, aunts, and uncles have also graduated from Illinois State.
“Pretty much everyone went to ISU, so I can talk about and connect with all of them about my time in college,” Ritter said. “I was brought to all the Homecomings, and we went to a lot of games. I still remember when Jackie Carmichael hit a game-winning 3-pointer when I was a ball boy.”
Such memories are shared when the family gathers, and Arbogast has many. He’s still making them.
“I love the Bloomington-Normal area,” he said. “It’s nice living in town and still being able to take advantage of the opportunities the University has to offer.”
Arbogast’s “Redbird family” extends even beyond biological connections.
“Living in the dorms, I gained 30 brothers all of a sudden,” said the former Manchester Hall resident. “I think ISU does a great job of making campus feel like home to people who don’t have a legacy here, who didn’t grow up in town.”
The grandfather and grandson exchange stories regularly, and that continued at Ritter’s graduation and pinning ceremonies when he earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing in May. Arbogast and other family members were in attendance.
Ritter may be leaving the nest and spreading his Redbird wings, but he’s certain he’ll return to reminisce and create more memories, just like his Redbird relatives before him.
Normal native Leah Marlene will join Peach Pit as their show opener during the 2024 Homecoming concert at Braden Auditorium on Tuesday, September 24, at 7 p.m.
Marlene was a finalist on American Idol in 2022. Since then, she has become a source of pride for the Bloomington-Normal community, having watched her grow as an artist from her high school years to the release of her most recent EP, “We’re All Buying Into a Dream.“ Marlene has continued her music career from her residence in Nashville, Tennessee, and is excited about returning to perform in her hometown during Illinois State’s Homecoming.
Tickets are $30 and $20 and can be purchased at Ticketmaster.com or at the Braden Box Office, located in the Bone Student Center, 200 N. University St. in Normal.
This event is sponsored by Event Management, Dining, and Hospitality and is open to the public. For more information, please contact EMDH@IllinoisState.edu.
Former Redbird diver Caroline Lecoeur ’21 joins Redbird Buzz to recount her experience as the deputy manager for diving at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. In this episode, Lecoeur, a native of Lyon, France, discusses her journey—from France, to Illinois State University, to the Olympics.
As a Redbird, Lecoeur was named the Missouri Valley Conference’s Diver of the Year in 2021 and 2019. Her knowledge of and passion for the sport led her to pursue a master’s degree in sport management after graduating from Illinois State and, ultimately, resulted in her role with the Paris Olympics where she oversaw the operations of all diving events and managed a team of four full-time staff and more than 90 volunteers.
Tune into this episode to hear more about Lecoeur’s experience at the Olympics, how Illinois State provided her with the support system she needed as an international student-athlete, and what’s next following the Olympic Games.
Redbird Buzz is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Amazon Music. Transcripts of each episode are available online at Alumni.IllinoisState.edu/Podcast.
The Department of Psychology will recognize Alumnus of the Year: Early Career awardee Dr. Christopher Wahlheim, M.S. ’06, on Alumni Day on Friday, September 27, 2024. An associate professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Wahlheim will present a talk titled “Updating Memory and Beliefs: Mechanisms, Application, and Cognitive Aging,” from 1:30-2:30 p.m. in DeGarmo Hall 551.
A graduate of the experimental psychology master’s program at Illinois State University, Wahlheim began his academic career as a first-gen college student with an A.A. degree from Black Hawk College (’02) in Moline, Illinois, and his B.S. at Illinois State in 2004. He then went on to complete his Ph.D. in cognitive psychology (’11) and two post-doctoral fellowships (’16) at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Dr. Wahlheim is an associate professor of psychology and the director of the Memory and Cognition Lab at University of North Carolina Greensboro. His primary research interests are in memory, misinformation, beliefs, cognitive aging, and metacognition.
The Department of Psychology will recognize Alumnus of the Year/Lifetime Achievement awardee Dr. Eric Wesselmann, M.A. ’05, on Alumni Day on Friday, September 27. Dr. Wesselmann is a professor in the Department of Psychology at Illinois State University and will present a talk titled “Stigma, Social Exclusion, Support & Serendipity: A Researcher’s Journey,” from 10:30-11:30 a.m. in DeGarmo Hall 206.
A graduate of the I/O-Social Psychology master’s program at Illinois State, Wesselmann went on to complete a Ph.D. in psychology in 2011 from Purdue University in Indiana and found his professional home back here at his alma mater in the Department of Psychology. His B.A. was also here at ISU in psychology with a minor in film studies in 2003.
Eric publishes research on social inclusion and exclusion, sexual harassment, social stigma, and the psychology of religion and spirituality. He has published in various psychology and interdisciplinary journals, including Aggressive Behavior, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, and Psychological Science. Eric has co-edited special issues in the Journal of Social Psychology, Journal of Prevention & Intervention in the Community, and Self & Identity. His research has been recognized both nationally and internationally by academics, practitioners, and popular press. The Association for Psychological Science recognized him with a Rising Star designation in 2015, and he has served as a grant reviewer for the U.S. National Science Foundation, as well as for funding organizations in Canada, England, Germany, and Poland. His research has been cited in public policy documents both in the U.S. and across the globe, including Australia, Canada, Germany, Finland, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Turkey, and the United Nations. He has been interviewed by media outlets in the U.S. as well as Canada, England, and France.
Dr, Wesselmann also has research interests on the interface of psychology, fandom, and popular culture, having published related work in the journals Psychology of Popular Media, Teaching of Psychology, and Journal of Fandom Studies. He has contributed chapters to ten volumes of the Popular Culture Psychology series (e.g., Spider-Man Psychology, Stranger Things Psychology, Wonder Woman Psychology). Eric regularly discusses the overlap between psychology and popular culture topics at conventions locally and nationally. Eric has contributed to several podcasts for WGLT Psych Geeks, co-curates an ongoing film series for The Normal Theater called FilmCULTure, and has a YouTube channel (Digital Golgotha Productions) where he hosts discussions on the dynamics of popular culture and psychology with scholars, creators, and actors.
Homecoming 2024: Relive the Moments is set for September 23-29, culminating with Redbird Football against North Dakota State on Saturday, September 28, at 2 p.m., at Hancock Stadium. Tickets, as well as tailgate and parking passes, are available at GoRedbirds.com.
Visit Illinois State’s Homecoming page for a full schedule of events.
Highlights of the week are below. All events are free and open to the public unless a fee is noted.
Sunday, September 22
Reggie Day at the Zoo canceled because of weather conditions.
Monday, September 23
NEW this year! Homecoming officially begins with a combo of two of our favorite events—the Kickoff and the Tree Lighting. Join us from 6-7:30 p.m., in Uptown Normal. Celebrate alongside President Aondover Tarhule and Normal Mayor Chris Koos as they light the trees with red and white lights. Enjoy inflatables, Papa John’s pizza, games, giveaways, entertainment, and Redbird pride. The first 500 Illinois State students to show student ID will also receive a free Homecoming T-shirt.
Tuesday, September 24
Get your tickets for the Peach Pit concert at 7 p.m., in Braden Auditorium. Peach Pit is an indie pop quartet from Vancouver featuring Neil Smith, Chris Vanderkooy, Peter Wilton, and Mikey Pascuzzi. The group formed in high school, and their first single “Peach Pit,” racked up 78 million streams on Spotify in 2016. Normal native and American Idol finalist Leah Marlene will open the show.
Tickets are $30 and $20 at Ticketmaster.com or at the Braden Box Office, located in the Bone Student Center.
Wednesday, September 25
Give the gift of life at the Redbirds Care Homecoming Blood Drive from 11 a.m.-3 p.m., in the Circus Room of the Bone Student Center. Registration is available at Homecoming.IllinoisState.edu.
Thursday, September 26
The Black Colleagues Association will hold a Virtual Scholarship Celebration at 6 p.m. (CST), via Zoom. Register by September 25 online.
Friday, September 27
Homecoming kicks into high gear with celebrations across campus. Start the morning learning about the achievements and big moments of Redbird alumni honorees at the Alumni Day Luncheon at 11:30 a.m. Cost is $25. Register by emailing Juliana Nelson at jedunca@IllinoisState.edu or (309) 438-2495. Deadline is September 18.
Cheer for Illinois State volleyball at 6 p.m. in CEFCU Arena when they take on Murray State. In between the second and third match, see the crowning of this year’s Reggie’s marshals. Get tickets at the door or before the games at GoRedbirds.com/Tickets.
End the night at the Black Colleagues Association “Club 4.0” from 7 p.m. to midnight, Holiday Inn Bloomington-Normal. Step tutorials, food, dancing all set for Redbirds. Register online by September 20.
Saturday, September 28
The Hybrid Town and Gown 5K/1-Mile Fun Run/Walk begins at 8 a.m. at the Student Fitness Center for those taking part in person. Virtual runners can begin wherever they choose. Registration is required.
The celebration continues with the annual Illinois State Homecoming Parade, stepping off at the corner of College Avenue and University Street at 10 a.m. Those who cannot make the parade can watch it live via the University’s YouTube channel.
Alumni, family, and friends are invited for free food, giveaways, and Redbird spirit at Redbird Village 11 a.m.-2 p.m. in Horton Field House. The Black Alumni Tailgate and the Latinx Alumni Tailgate will be taking place as well in Lot U91 and Lot G53 respectively.
After enjoying tailgating, get ready to cheer for the Redbirds as Illinois State takes on North Dakota State at 2 p.m. at Hancock Stadium. Tickets are available at GoRedbirds.com.
Catch another match when the Redbird’s volleyball team takes on Belmont at 7 p.m. at CEFCU Arena. Get your tickets at the door or before the games at GoRedbirds.com/Tickets.
Sunday, September 29
End the week with the Black Colleagues Association Brunch at 10 a.m., at the Holiday Inn Bloomington-Normal. Register online or call Alumni Engagement at (309) 438-2586 by September 20.
Find additional information on the Homecoming webpage.
Illinois State University Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost Dr. Ani Yazedjian joins Redbird Buzz to share the story of her personal and professional journey and her plans for the upcoming academic year on campus.
Yazedjian was named Illinois State’s provost in May 2024 after serving one year as acting provost. She started at Illinois State as chair of the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences and brings a wealth of knowledge and research focused on student success and adolescent identity development into her role as provost.
In this episode, Yazedjian recounts her own adolescence, her journey from undergraduate student to higher education administrator, and her vision for supporting faculty and students and fostering student success through new initiatives in Academic Affairs.
Tune in to hear Yazedjian discuss how Illinois State is responding to changes in the workforce and making strides to better prepare Redbird students for life after graduation.
Redbird Buzz is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Amazon Music. Transcripts of each episode are available online at Alumni.IllinoisState.edu/Podcast.
©
2024 Illinois State University, Normal, IL USA