Katie Sullivan Borrelli Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin Published 8:00 a.m. ET April 14, 2019 | Updated 8:53 a.m. ET April 14, 2019
John Perricone promised his students he’d pay for the meal if they ever wanted to catch up after graduation and 1000 did. Katie Sullivan Borrelli, [email protected] | @ByKatieSullivan
Over there in a booth by the windows, retired Maine-Endwell high school teacher John Perricone sits across from two of his former students: Jamie Hess Sr., class of 1987, and his son, Jamie Hess Jr., class of 2014.
They order eggs and toast, a cup of coffee and a glass of tomato juice. Perricone asks for a bowl of sliced bananas.
If he ate a full breakfast every time he hosted one of these meetings at Endwell’s Broadway Diner, he says, he wouldn’t be able to fit into the booth.
Hess Sr. and Hess Jr. are the 999th and 1,000th former students who’ve joined Perricone’s Breakfast Club, taking him up on an offer the former health and psychology teacher made on the last day of classes for each of his 31 years of teaching.
If ever they wanted, he told his graduating students, he’d treat them to breakfast at the Broadway Diner — owned by the Anastos family, some members of which are also former students — to catch up “in real time.”
“If I can ever be of service to you beyond today, it would be my honor,” he’d tell them, writing his personal contact information on the board behind him. “The bell may end class, but it doesn’t necessarily have to end the relationship.”
Retired Maine-Endwell High School teacher John Perricone, right, chats with former students Jamie Hess (Class of 1987) and Jamie Hess Jr. (Class of 2014) at the Broadway Diner in Endwell. (Photo: Katie Sullivan Borrelli / Staff Photo)
Mr. Perricone’s Breakfast Club
Since Perricone’s retirement from teaching — Hess Jr.’s 2014 class was his last — he’s launched a speaking career to inspire students and teachers, which has taken him to all 50 states and expanded his Breakfast Club to include reunion dinners at hosts’ homes and lunches at local haunts in the cities he visits.
A simple, sincere offer to catch up on life has sparked hundreds of reunions through the years, packed Perricone’s Facebook timeline with posts of posed photos in front of the chrome bar at the Broadway Diner, and proved just how profoundly this high school teacher impacted his students’ lives.
It was three or four years ago — neither of them can remember the exact date — when Perricone, who’s kept count of how many meals he’s shared with former students, posted on Facebook that he had reached 600, and that’s when Hess Sr. picked up the phone.
Retired Maine-Endwell High School teacher John Perricone, center, chats with former students Jamie Hess (Class of 1987) and Jamie Hess Jr. (Class of 2014) at the Broadway Diner in Endwell. (Photo: Katie Sullivan Borrelli / Staff Photo)
“Mr. P,” he said, “we want to be your 999th and 1000th.”
For Hess Sr., it would be an opportunity to thank the man who he says genuinely wanted to see him succeed and for his son to thank the teacher who he said “really tried his best to make everyone comfortable and excited to go to class.”
“That’s not normally something you’re going to get from a high school health class,” Hess Jr. said.
On the last day of classes, retired Maine-Endwell High School teacher John Perricone promised his students breakfast on him at the Broadway Diner and elsewhere. So far, 1000 former students have taken him up on that offer. (Photo: Photo provided)
How a teacher learned from his students
At this breakfast, planned years in advance, for which Hess Sr. flew up from Florida and Hess Jr. drove home late the night before from the University at Buffalo, where he’s a junior, the trio quickly fall into easy conversation about how their lives are going.
Perricone asks Hess Jr. about the best and worst things in Buffalo — he likes all the events and activities, doesn’t like the winter weather — and asks Hess Sr. how long it took him to get acclimated to life in Florida — not long, since he’s not a fan of cold winter weather either.
Perricone recalls how proud he felt the day Hess Sr., who was the senior class president in 1987, delivered his speech at graduation 32 years prior.
“He so seized the moment,” Perricone said. “Jamie revealed a part of him that night we knew was there.”
Hess Jr.’s class, Perricone says, goes everywhere with him when he travels, thanks to the photo he shows teachers at his speaking engagements. It’s a group photo of Perricone’s last class he ever taught, one of many from each of his classes he keeps in an album. Every student in the photo is shown laughing, though Perricone won’t reveal what he said to get them to laugh.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever laughed harder than I did in my class,” Perricone said. “I looked forward to it every day.”
John Perricone looks at a photo of his last class on his phone. Jamie Hess Jr. was a member of the 2014 class at Maine-Endwell High School. (Photo: Katie Sullivan Borrelli / Staff Photo)
With Perricone, conversation never veers too far away from his love for teaching; he’s moved by gratitude for what the profession — and specifically his students — has given him.
He’s touched to learn Hess Jr. forwent a lunch period his senior year so he could be in Perricone’s class, thanks him and his father for being part of those classes near the beginning and at the very end of his career, for making the trip to share this meal.
“You have no idea what it means to me,” he tells them.
On the last day of classes, retired Maine-Endwell High School teacher John Perricone promised his students breakfast on him at the Broadway Diner and elsewhere. So far, 1000 former students have taken him up on that offer. (Photo: Photo provided)
‘Not to waste a single heartbeat’
Earlier in the meal, a 4-year-old girl stopped by to say “hi” to Perricone. She’s a student of Hidy Ochiai’s Little Panda class in Vestal, which Perricone helps teach, having also been a student of Ochiai’s for 45 years.
In fact, Perricone credits Ochiai’s influence for his decision to become a teacher.
“He had such a profound impact on me growing up that when it came time to choose a profession, I literally couldn’t think of anything higher to aspire to. I thought if he had the kind of impact on my life, I wanted to try, with my one and only existence, to make a significant difference in the lives of others as he had mine,” he said. “If there is one lesson that he has imparted to me over the span of my training with him, and this is by his actions and not his words, it is to endeavor to live my life so as not to waste a single heartbeat.”
Retired Maine-Endwell High School teacher John Perricone reads a message he plans to post on Facebook, announcing the 999th and 1000th breakfast he’s shared with a former student. (Photo: Katie Sullivan Borrelli / Staff Photo)
That’s a message he uses to inspire the teachers he works with now on their staff development days, to prove high academic standards and impassioned teaching don’t have to be mutually exclusive, “they can beautifully coexist.”
He has 1,000 Breakfast Club students to prove it.
“It’s been a beautiful, beautiful journey that I get to continue in the speaking work that I do,” he said. “I could not have envisioned a better quote-unquote retirement.”
Before they pay the bill — Perricone always treats — and go their separate ways, Perricone reads from a post he’s drafted for the occasion of his 999th and 1000th Breakfast Club reunion, ready to publish on Facebook once he and his two former students take a photo together in front of the chrome bar.
“May these two men, who represent almost the entire span of my career,” he says of Hess Sr. and Hess Jr., “represent all of you who have graced my life with yours and who have made my life so worth living.”
So what’s next now that Perricone has reached 1,000 reunions?
“One thousand and one,” he says.