Generations of Oswego alumni have had a common beacon home to campus. Grads from the ’60s, ’80s and 2000s all agree that the Oswego Steam Station smokestacks led them home through “snow and rain and dark of night” up the hill from town.
What they called those stacks varied, depending on when they graduated. Most everyone agrees on Huey, Dewey and Louie, but the last one gets various names.
Pat Heafy Santoro ’61 recalls it as “Frank.” Sharon Piersanti Wappman ’61 says her crowd finished up with “and Sylvester doesn’t smoke.” Graduates of President James Perdue’s presidency in the late 1960s-early 1970s remember the phrase “Huey, Dewey, Louie… and Perdue-y.” Whatever they were called, the ’stacks have long meant safe passage home after a trip downtown.
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