Ensconced in the shadow of the Hall of Languages, there’s a bench that always seems to be unoccupied – almost as if it’s waiting. Its stone matches the typical gray Syracuse skies, and snow buries its surface each winter. As its only ornamentation hints, the bench’s relationship with SU began in 1912. According to Daily Orange records, Eldon Miller, chairman of the Senior Memorial Committee, proposed on March 8 of that year that a ‘rather plain’ bench be placed on campus to commemorate the senior class. University trustees and students hoped it would be the first of numerous annual gifts seniors left the school. During graduation ceremonies that May, the senior class president, Harry Kallet, and Chancellor James R. Day led the formal dedication of the bench. No one seems to know when it became the ‘Kissing Bench’ and earned a variety of legends, including its present: a couple’s kiss on the bench will ensure marriage. The legend has also been that people who kiss on it will become engaged before graduation, said Mary O’Brien, reference archivist for Syracuse University Archives. ‘It’s just little different things that people have sort of evolved, you know,’ O’Brien said. ‘Someone starts a legend and someone adds on to it, and before you know it you have a whole tradition.’ With time’s passing, the school relic witnessed nearly a centennial of changes for not only SU, but also the many lives it has encountered and entwined, for better or worse.

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Jon and Helene Cincebeaux will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary on Saturday, Sept. 5, 2009. The couple sat on the bench after dates at Varsity Pizza and trips to the library during their junior and senior years at SU. ‘It was just so romantic and so special, and in the fall all the leaves were golden all around it. It was just beautiful,’ said Helene. ‘You had to kiss, it was part of the fun.’ She was a cheerleader at the time, and Jon was a star basketball player. ‘He saw me and asked one of the other cheerleaders to fix us up,’ Helene said. ‘We’re a Syracuse match.’

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Stuart and Kathleen Sacks met in marching band. He was a bass drum player and she was a flag girl. After graduating in 1983 and 1985, respectively, Homecoming brought them back to SU on Nov. 7, 1986. They stopped to sit on the Kissing Bench after walking around campus, giving Stuart the perfect opportunity to propose.

More than 10 years later, the couple still has a soft spot for SU. After dropping their son off at SUNY Geneseo last week, they stopped to eat at Varsity Pizza – the exact place they celebrated their engagement with friends in the marching band.

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Jonathan Matthew Taylor had the same idea when he decided to propose to Kelly Lynn Swan six years later. For a couple who met at Lucy’s Retired Surfers Bar, spent their first months dating on campus and were both involved in University 100, the Kissing Bench seemed appropriate, Taylor said. On Oct. 5, 2002, during Homecoming, Jonathan and Kelly stood outside what is now known as Tolley Hall and began making their way to Hendricks Chapel, where the SU Marching Band was poised to play. The glaring sun gave Jonathan the need to dig through his bag for ‘sunglasses’ and a reason for the couple to stop at the bench. ‘It was fabulous because a lot of our friends were on the Quad, so a few seconds later we were able to share the news,’ said Taylor, who graduated from Syracuse in 2000, a year before Kelly. They returned to Hendricks Chapel for the wedding in October 2004 and posed with the bench for wedding pictures, a trend among SU alums who marry in Hendricks, said O’Brien. ‘When you say ‘the Kissing Bench,’ every alum really knows where the bench is and you’re automatically connecting to the history of the university in many ways,’ Taylor said. ‘The Class of 1912 gave more than a bench. In a way, they’ve given many, many alumni memories.’

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Colette and Ian Smith met at the Rochester Institute of Technology while she was visiting her cousin who lived on the same floor as Ian. The two began dating shortly before Colette started her freshman year at Syracuse in 2002. Thinking it’d be fun, the couple kissed on the Kissing Bench that fall, both aware of the legend, though neither of them being superstitious, Colette said. Five years later, on Feb. 24, 2007, Syracuse’s typical winter chill and snowfall surrounded the Kissing Bench, making Ian’s engagement proposal to Colette ‘really short.’ The snow pile deterred them from sitting on the bench that time, but they were married later that year.

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Joe Raffa and Angela Pallone also bound their futures together at the Kissing Bench. It was July 3, 2006 -Angela’s birthday – when Joe proposed during junior year. They were around the SU campus often that summer since both lived nearby. The couple held their wedding in Hendricks Chapel on May 26, 2007 – just two weeks after graduating from SU.

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Sara Campbell and Jason Clark kissed on the bench around Christmas 2008 after watching an SU basketball game in the Carrier Dome. ‘It kind of just happened,’ Campbell said. ‘I made a joke out of it, like, ‘Oh, my feet are tired.” The fact that the couple was on the Spirit Squad together contributed to their interest in SU traditions, Campbell said. The Syracuse natives met while Jason was on the cheerleading team and Sara was on the Dance Team. ‘We had talked about it, and we knew it was a tradition,’ she said. ‘We kissed on [the bench] with the intention that [the legend] would come true.’ It hasn’t yet, though the couple is still dating and Campbell says she hopes to join the list of alumni who have found truth in the allure of the Kissing Bench.

bmdavies@syr.edu

Published on September 1, 2009 at 12:00 pm