Those Irondequoit Folks Just Love That MTV

I have to giggle a little over how many "locals" are on MTV's Sorority Life or Fraternity Life. I've copied a news story from the Irondequoit Post (my hometown's weekly newspaper) below:

IHS grad featured in MTV sorority show
By Linda Quinlan/Messenger Post Staff

You might have caught six Irondequoit High School athletes if you were watching the MTV series "Sorority Life 2" recently.

No, they weren't joining a sorority, but they were featured in a segment on a scavenger hunt the SUNY Buffalo sorority, Delta Xi Omega – "DZO" for short – held last fall.

One of the athletes, Chris Amico, a senior at Irondequoit High School, also happens to be the younger brother of one of the show's key sorority sisters, Stacey Amico, who was the "pledge mom" this past semester.

The recent scavenger hunt segment also featured IHS students Jason Giaconia, John York, Mike Zaccardo, Joe Centofonti, and Mike Giordanella. It was filmed at the Woolacott Road home of Paul and Sue Amico, parents of Stacey, Chris, and older brother Paul Amico Jr., a 1998 graduate of Bishop Kearney High School.

Stacey is a 2000 graduate of Irondequoit High School, where she played field hockey, track, and soccer, and is pursuing a bachelor's degree in English at SUNY Buffalo, where she's a junior.

Her sorority was contacted last year by Lauralee Jarvis, a coordinator for the MTV show, Stacey Amico said, and was chosen for the show after a visit with MTV executive producer Russell Heldt.

As pledge mom last fall, "It was kind of hard sometimes, because I felt like I not only had my pledges to educate on the history and ideals of DZO, but also MTV," Amico said. "My phone rang off the hook last semester, and it was either pledges with questions, a sister with questions, or MTV with questions."

The sorority, she said, has just 14 active sisters, but celebrated its 15th anniversary this past February.

"I think that a lot of people are confused as to what Greek life is really all about," Amico said. "This is one of the reasons why we chose to do the MTV show . . . We really wanted the cameras to focus on aspects of sorority life other than partying."

The sorority does a number of service projects and fund-raisers every semester, she said.

Amico confessed that she initially felt that doing the show would tear the sorority apart, "but in fact, it has only made us stronger. We are now a larger, stronger and more united sisterhood than ever before."

The half-hour show, which was filed last fall, started airing in February and has about a month to go. A new episode is shown at 10 p.m. Wednesdays, then is repeated regularly throughout the week. Locally, MTV is on cable Channel 28.

"Watching the show so many months after the filming ended is weird," Amico said. "I feel like it's just a home video that one of us shot."

Her mother said she watches it every week and is pleased with how her daughter and the sorority are portrayed.

"It was a good experience for her and she also got to talk to a lot of the directors while they were filming," Sue Amico said.

"It's OK," Paul Amico said of the series. "I think she (Stacey) does a good job on it . . . but I don't watch it every week."

It was an amazing experience, Stacey Amico concluded.

"I would do the whole thing over again," she said.