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ROBERT KIRKHAM/Buffalo News
Western New Yorkers who returned after living elsewhere talk about why they're
happy to be back during the program in Chef's Restaurant on Thursday. From left, they are Patrick Fagan, Vince Evans, Bernard A. Tolbert and Jeannette Johnson Wiede.
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By KAREN BRADY
News Staff Reporter
1/5/01
Vince Evans and Bernard A. "Bernie" Tolbert
earned master's degrees together at the University at Buffalo.
Then, like many Western New Yorkers, the two men took career paths out of town.
They met again Thursday, as members of a brand-new "Happy to Be Back in Western New York" club.
"I missed the area, the people primarily," said Evans, a returnee of 15 years who is now
director of marketing for the home health care company Willcare.
"I never expected to have my dream come true in my own hometown," said Tolbert, special
agent in charge of the Buffalo office of the FBI since 1998.
"My goal was to become an agent in charge. I just happened to be in the right place at the
right time when the opportunity in Buffalo came."
Close to 40 Western New Yorkers, several of them, like Tolbert, well-known, shared their
return stories during the first meeting of the group at Chef's Restaurant.
Mayor Anthony M. Masiello was on hand to help kick off the group's effort to heighten
awareness of residents who are returnees to the area and to learn what brought them back.
"There's no place like home, and there's no place like Buffalo," Masiello said.
"You can take the person out of Buffalo," he said, "but you can never take Buffalo out of the
person. You all did go somewhere else. Obviously, the grass is not greener on the other side of the fence."
Patrick Fagan, president of Shea's Performing Arts Center, said he was born and raised in
Dunkirk and was away from the area for many years before returning in 1985.
"I was in the Washington, D.C., area, where there was no sense of neighborhood," he said.
"I returned to Western New York because I wanted to make a difference."
Jeannette Johnson Wiede, a former speech pathologist in local schools who also served for
many years as a consultant for Certified Travel here, said three years in Sierra Vista, Ariz., showed her that "home is best."
At 84, probably the oldest returnee at the gathering, she said she came back to this area a
year ago for its "really friendly environment." Her husband, Richard W., died Nov. 7.
Audrey Hennig, 11 months, was the youngest person present. Her parents, Marc and Lisa,
returned to the area this summer after being away for 20 years. Audrey was born in Berkeley, Calif., and the Hennigs, with 6-year-old Fiona as well, moved here from Oakland.
"When you have a family, it's financially difficult to live in the Bay area," said Marc Hennig,
now program administrator for People Inc.
Longtime broadcast personality Stan Roberts was on hand, as was Phil Haberstro, whose family goes back to 1819 in this area.
Haberstro's predecessors here were "brewers and gunsmiths," he said. "My family had the
Haberstro Brewery at Main and High (streets)."
Haberstro, executive director of the Wellness Institute of Greater Buffalo, is chairman of the
Greater Buffalo All-American Committee. He came back to Buffalo in 1980 after spending eight years in student services at Brockport State College.
"I came back for the job opportunities," he said.
Amherst native Bob Arkeilpane, athletic director at the University at Buffalo, returned to this
area in 1995, first working under former UB Athletic Director Nelson Townsend.
"I had also worked at UB in the early 1980s," he said. "Opportunity brought me back. UB is
a phenomenal place, an institution on the move."
Damon Adams, 33, was at Chef's on the recommendation of the Buffalo Urban League. The
Buffalo native, a 1985 graduate of Bennett High School and a Hampton (Va.) University graduate, returned to the area 15 months ago after three years working in Las Vegas.
"I missed my family, my friends, the four seasons and the kind of traffic that lets you get
anywhere in the city in 15 minutes," said Adams, a training coordinator and quality assurance assistant for Western New York Developmental Disabilities.
"One thing I learned from "moving where the grass is greener' is that it shows you the
things about Buffalo you were taking for granted."
Returnees to the area interested in joining in the Happy to Be Back effort can call 851-4052 or send e-mail to feedback@HappyToBeBackInWNY.com within the group's Web site, www.HappyToBeBackInWNY.com.
The group plans luncheon get-togethers, development of a speakers bureau and other promotions for Western New York.
Jerry Flaschner, publisher of Living Prime Time magazine, was among the organizers of Thursday's gathering.
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