Chili Fest Brings Alumni to Town

From left, former editor-in-chief Erin Geismar ’09, former
multimedia editor Kaydi Poirier ’11, former managing editor
Casey Musarra ’11, and former design editor Michelle Barrie ’10

Erin in the big chair.

This year's Great Downtown Ithaca Chili Cook Off — better known as Chili Fest — brought crowds of people from near and far to The Commons, including Ithacan alumni. Erin Geismar ’09, Casey Musarra ’11 and Kaydi Poirier ’11 — “Team Newsday,” as we affectionately think of them, since all three of them are working there — made their annual pilgrimage on Feb. 15 to sample the city’s best chili. Former design editor Michelle Barrie ’10 came to town that night as well to join them for drinks and dinner. 

Assistant multimedia editor Stephen
Adams ’16 discusses digital media trends
with Kaydi and Casey.

The next day, Erin, Casey and Kaydi stopped by the Ithacan office to check out our new digs and say hello to current students. Erin even got to sit at the new editor-in-chief’s desk, a far cry from the desk crammed into the corner of the small office off 269 that she ran the paper from back in 2008–09.

Chili Fest, Team Newsday and Others

Team Newsday, from left: Casey
Musarra, Kaydi Poirier and Erin Geismar

Chili Fest last Saturday brought students flocking to The Commons — and alumni returning to town. Among those who came in for the event were our three alumni at newsday.com: former Ithacan Editor in Chief Erin Geismar ’09, now newsday.com's online community news editor; former Multimedia Editor Kaydi Poirier ’11, now newsday.com's assistant entertainment news editor; and former Managing Editor Casey Musarra ’11, now a newsday.com sports web producer. They drove up from the city with former Multimedia Editor Andy Swift ’09, now senior entertainment editor at hollywoodlife.com.

From left: Kaydi Poirier, Andy Swift,
 current Editor in Chief Kelsey O’Connor,
Aaron Edwards and Erin Geismar.

We made the rounds of chili stands (VIP tickets are the only way to go) and later ran into Aaron Munzer ’08 and   Kara Cusolito ’08. Last year’s editor in chief, Aaron Edwards ’12, was here for the weekend as well. He’s currently a news producer at Digital First Media in New York. In addition to attending Chili Fest, he spoke to a group of our feature writers on Sunday, spent some time in the Ithacan office and gave us all his cold. Thanks, Aaron.

Aaron Munzer and Kara
Cusolito

Kerry Tkacik ’12, who’s living in Queens and freelancing in Manhattan after interning at Rolling Stone last fall and graduating in December, stopped in on Friday on her way to visit her family. And former Managing Editor Deepa Shah ’06 was in town this weekend as well, although we missed each other.
One highlight of Chili Fest was watching our current sports editor, junior Taylor Palmer, compete in the  hot pepper–eating contest. He’d won the competition the past two years, but finished second this year. You can read his first-person account of the experience in this Thursday’s Ithacan.
Seeing these former students was a pleasant preview of next month’s annual dinner with the New York alumni in conjunction with the spring National College Media Convention at the Sheraton Hotel and Towers in Manhattan. Eight students and I will be attending.

Taylor Palmer competing in the hot pepper–eating contest.

Movin’ on Up

Some recent job changes among Ithacan alumni: 
Aaron Edwards ’12 is now a News Producer at Digital First Media in New York.
Charlie Ellsworth ’04 is now a Senior Advisor at Baker & Hostetler, LLP in Washington, D.C.
Lindsey Hollenbaugh Griesemer ’10 is Online News Editor at the Glens Falls (N.Y.) Post-Star.
Erica Hendry ’09 has been promoted to Associate Regional Editor for Patch.com in Virginia.
Andrew Lovell ’08 has been promoted to Associate News Editor at ESPN.
Casey Musarra ’11 is now a Multimedia Sports Reporter at Newsday on Long Island.
Jackie Palochko ’11 is now a Reporter at the Keene (N.H.) Sentinel.

Casey Lands at philly.com

Casey Musarra writes:

“You can take the girl out of Jersey, but you can't take the Jersey out of the girl. I think this just about every day as I travel over the Benjamin Franklin Bridge into Philadelphia. I'm currently commuting about an hour and a half from North Jersey to the City of Brotherly Love where I'm working as a sports content producer for philly.com, an aggregate site of The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News, which oddly enough are housed in the same building and owned by the same company. I work on the back end of the site posting stories, writing headlines and captions, cutting photos, etc. I've only been there for four days, but I'm loving the excitement of a fast-paced newsroom that for me is all sports all the time. It's a dream come true to be in a position where working on Sunday doesn't take away from watching football on Sunday.

“I'm hoping to move down to the Philadelphia area to nom on boatloads of Philly cheesesteaks in the next month or so, but for now I'm enjoying my long car rides to have solo karaoke sessions and get my fill of Mike and Mike in the Morning.”