On May 13, Tyrone Saunders, who started volunteering with Options for Independence when he finished the fifth grade at Genesee Street Elementary School, graduated from Syracuse University's School of Engineering with a degree in aerospace engineering. Our executive director, Guy Cosentino, who graduated from Syracuse in 1985, joined him and his family for his school's graduation.

When Owasco Elementary School Principal Mickie Post (a 2003 Options Volunteer of the Year award recipient) was a fifth grade teacher at Owasco Elementary School back in the mid-1990s, she asked if we had a spot for a young man, who could volunteer for us. The young man, who happened to be at the top of her class, both academically and athletically, was Saunders.

He started working with us as an unpaid volunteer doing filing around our office and running errands, in between doing his homework for several years. In 1999, he was given one of Options' Volunteer of the Year awards. By the time he left Options, he was our first paid intern and the model for every intern who followed him.

After he left Options to go off to college, Saunders made it a point to stop in from time to time to say hello and give us an update on what he was doing. Two years ago, we were thrilled to hear that he was going to London for his junior year to study abroad #) he even called a couple of times to let us know what he was studying and how he liked England.

Saunders will be joining the Carrier Corporation in Syracuse, where he has interned while at Syracuse University, as an engineer. We couldn't be more thrilled for this young man who came to our office as a shy and quiet fifth-grader and has grown into an outgoing and thoughtful adult who hopes to get his masters in business administration in the not too distant future.

Options has been very lucky over the years to have a great group of student interns. Many of them have kept in touch over the years to tell us what they are doing. Here is a snapshot of what a couple are now doing:

€ Rob Bergan, who now works for Clear Channels Communications, is getting married later this year.

€ James Galvin III will soon be in his second year at the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis.

€ Jennifer Kilmer graduated from Ithaca last year and moved to Fort Myers in 2006 where she works as a news editor for wink Communications, a CBS affiliate.

€ Meghan O'Conner, who was with us last summer, is now an intern at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington and returns for her Junior Year at Notre Dame this fall.

Our intern for this summer is Elisha Law-Simmons, who just completed her sophomore year at Hobart/Williams-Smith. She has dived right into a number of projects as we transition with staff. If you stop in at our office you can find her usually doing computer work or helping out our consumers and staff.

Amanda Derby is the housing advocate for Options for Independence, located at 75 Genesee St., Auburn. She can be reached at Options at 255-3447.