In addition to his involvement in planning class reunions, including serving as co-chair for his 50th reunion committee, Castellano and classmates started facilitating regular online gatherings during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Because everybody was kind of locked up all of a sudden, to stay social, we started having Zoom events, and they worked out really well,” Castellano said. “People enjoyed them. So we just decided, hey, let’s keep going right up to our 50th, and actually we’re continuing them on.”
The virtual gatherings with the Hamilton and Kirkland Classes of 1974, nicknamed “Hobnobs,” are not the only way the classes have stayed digitally connected in recent years. Castellano and fellow committee members built a website prior to their 50th reunion in 2024, hk74.org, to share recollections and reminisce.
Castellano and company called for photo submissions from their classmates’ years at the College for an online scrapbook, videos of their classmates sharing their excitement about attending reunions, Hamilton and Kirkland yearbooks and Commencement programs, archival issues of The Spectator, and more. All told, Castellano has curated a rich tapestry of memories that he and his classmates share.
The classes still Hobnob every other Thursday. Castellano said that these gatherings have led his classmates to both strengthen their existing relationships and forge new ones, which created touching moments when the classes convened for their 50th.
“Through the Zoom meetings that we’ve been doing, and I’ve heard this from the other classmates as well, we sort of not only rekindled friendships, but made friendships,” he said. “I mean, people knew the names — it’s a fairly small class, right? They knew everyone, but maybe not as well. And through the Zoom meetings, all of a sudden new connections were made, and then once they got to the Hill, they were able to, in person, keep that connection going. So that's been fun to watch.”
Castellano thoroughly enjoyed taking advantage of Hamilton’s liberal arts curriculum and the varied opportunities that campus life offered, studying both music and physics and operating the WHCL radio station over the summer. His familial connection to Hamilton runs deep – his father, uncle, brother, son, and three of his cousins are all Hamilton graduates.
“We pretty much had a Hamilton reunion any time we had a family get-together,” Castellano said. “It’s just always been a part of us.”
From playing the music of the ’70s with professors and fellow alumni at a FoJo jam session to hobnobbing with classmates late into the night on the Ferguson House back porch, for Castellano, the 5oth reunion felt like family, too.
“When we got to the reunion, there were people there that you hadn’t seen in such a long time — I mean, we had some people there that we hadn’t seen since graduation — and yet, when you get together, it’s like you’re picking right up where you left off,” he said. “And it was just fantastic. It’s something hard to put into words. You really have to experience it.”
