A Weedsport alumna that many students may remember from recent years is Kim Cieri. This sunny and successful grad is doing big things after her high school career, and her adventures are remarkable.

You don’t often think of Weedsport Alumni and associate them with fairy tale-like lives, but Kim has led the closest thing to it since graduating in 2013. In Weedsport, she was involved in numerous activities such as the Johnny Green (back when we were a printed newspaper) and the Weedsport Theatre Program. The roles she played ranged from a silly bird from “Seussical,” to Marian the Librarian in “The Music Man,” and she even portrayed Cinderella once in “Into the Woods.” Her life as a fairy tale character didn’t end there.

In Walt Disney World in Florida, it is a known characteristic that employees refer to themselves as “cast members” to give visitors a sense of being entertained rather than just serviced in the Disney park experience. As you can imagine, the music-loving Kim flourished in such a performance-based atmosphere.

While chatting with her, I stared wide-eyed as she recounted all of the wonders that working for such an esteemed company brings. Kim couldn’t say enough how much she loved the experience, and she even shared some Disney magic secrets from an insider’s perspective. She beamed as she recalled getting to dress the Princess characters as a costumer at the park, and her admiration for her coworkers showed through as she described how hard they work behind the scenes. It seems like a dream to work at such a world-famous place, although it seems more like a labor of love after hearing about the amount of knowledge and detail that goes into being a Disney employee- sorry- cast member.

Kim was in Florida from August 2014 to January 2015, and she is currently attending Onondaga Community College in her first semester. She plans to return to Disney in the future, and possibly even audition to portray a Disney princess or character, (as her coworkers have urged her to do, because um, hello, the girl’s got some major talent!)