The caption read, “Nicolas Tragesser, 2, of West Chester, colors his creation in the papermaking class during the Great Miami Arts Jam at the Fitton Center for Creative Arts in downtown Hamilton, Ohio Sunday, May 16, 2004.”
The Fitton Center shared the original Journal-News photo on its social media channels and asked for assistance finding its subject. It only took a day for the internet to come through, providing contact information that led to his mom — Julie Tragesser — who works in human resources for Butler County.
“Awwww, that makes my day,” she wrote when contacted by the Fitton Center with the photo. “Thank you so very much for sharing!”
Nicolas, now a college graduate, was convinced to come back over to the Fitton Center to re-create the photo.
“I was pretty young,” the West Chester resident said with a shrug and a smile. “But just the fact that you guys reached out, that felt like a fun thing to do,” he told them.
Tragesser leaned more toward athletics than the arts growing up. He eventually played on an Ohio Division I state runner-up volleyball team at Moeller High School and just earned his bachelor’s degree in sports leadership management from Miami University.
Tragesser begins a sales job with Motus Freight — a logistics company based in Bellevue, Ky. — this week.
If you see yourself in one of our “Photo Flashback” galleries, please reach out and tell what you have been up to over the last two decades, we’d love to hear from you.
Here are a few of our most recent monthly galleries.
PHOTOS: 20 years ago in Butler County in scenes from June 2004
PHOTOS: 20 years ago in Butler County in scenes from May 2004
PHOTOS: 20 years ago in Butler County in scenes from April 2004
PHOTOS: 20 years ago in Butler County in scenes from March 2004
The Fitton Center for Creative Arts contributed to this story.
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