GUILDERLAND — A group of high-school seniors looked back to a time that seemed distant as they stood in the bright sunshine Thursday afternoon in a place that was once very familiar — the courtyard of Pine Bush Elementary School.

The school was brand new when they were kindergartners.

Katie Moran stood with a group of three girlfriends and reminisced.
"I thought the teachers were taller," said Moran, who is now a willowy 5 feet, 9 inches tall.
She had fond memories of her teacher, Mrs. Lawrence. "I would ask Mrs. Lawrence if I could put stickers on the test; that was my favorite thing," she recalled.

Moran now plans to be a teacher herself. She’ll be attending the State University of New York College at Fredonia in the fall to study early childhood education with the goal of becoming a first- or second-grade teacher.
"It’s cool," said Anneli Karmo of the reunion. "I like seeing everyone. I forgot who went here," she said.

Pine Bush, built in 1994, was the fifth of the Guilderland elementary schools. The students then converge to go to the same middle school and high school.

Karmo, as she stood Thursday with Moran, Cortnee Gillson, and Sonia Mayta, said the group had remained friends through their 13 years of school. They live near each other.

She will be attending Hudson Valley Community College in the fall as will Mayta, who plans to study business and then hopes to go on to Syracuse University to take courses that will lead to law school.

Gillson will be going to Siena College, definitely to study science and perhaps to take courses leading to medical school.

Near the cluster of young women, Brian Harrington looked at a Pine Bush yearbook. He noted how much everyone, including himself, had changed.

Now a slim young man with short-cropped hair, his elementary yearbook photo showed a round-faced boy with a bowl cut over wide eyes.

Asked what he remembered from his days at Pine Bush, Harrington recalled filling jugs with water of different colors and arranging them to make a picture when viewed from above.
Harrington’s favorite teacher at Pine Bush was Mr. Horan. "He was always fun," Harrington recalled of his fourth-grade teacher, Timothy Horan. "He had a Wheaties box collection," featuring the athletes of the day.

Harrington will be going to SUNY Plattsburgh in the fall to study sociology.
"I’m going to become a State Trooper," he said with confidence. "I’m looking for excitement in life."
One of the teachers at Thursday’s reunion, Catherine Pickett, carried a class picture with her. "This is my first-ever class," said the third-grade teacher.
Although she said she had trouble recognizing some of her long-ago students, Pickett really enjoyed talking to them. "They’re so beautiful and just have so much promise," she said.
Martha Beck said she recognized some students right off. "You look into their face and you see that smile and you know who it is," she said.

Beck mingled with the students on Thursday as they munched on pizza and sipped soda. Beck was principal of the school when it opened, a job she still has today.

She had been principal of Guilderland Elementary School when it re-opened in 1987; it had closed just as Fort Hunter Elementary, near the new Pine Bush Elementary, had closed as the student population dipped after the baby boomers went through.
"So many of our children were moving over," said Beck of the Guilderland students who would come to Pine Bush, "I thought it would be fun to do over again."

The district superintendent at the time had called Beck a consummate host.
One of the hardest parts, Beck said, was dealing with the anxiety that some parents had about the switch. "The children adjust well," said Beck.
Beck was surprised Thursday by some of the memories former students shared with her. "I had ducked," said one student who was sent to her office after another student got hit in the eye.

Beck said the reunion was the brainchild of the teachers who planned it and funded it.
She went on, "A day like today makes you feel good about it all, listening to their plans for the future...It’s what’s important in education."
Beck concluded, "This school has always built a nice community."