In September 2011, record-breaking rainfall from Tropical Storm Lee soaked central Pennsylvania and damaged more than 16,000 homes and businesses. One of those: the century-old Knoebels amusement park.

The floodwaters damaged the lower portions of three large murals at the family-owned park's famed restaurant, The Alamo. The murals, as much a signature of the restaurant as its award-winning menu, depicted colorful scenes of war and peace and daily life around a fort. Fortunately, when the owners began searching for someone to replace the art, they didn't have to look beyond their own kitchen.

Jerry Sassani, an artist who graduated from Pitt with a degree in archeology, had searched for a position in his chosen field. He didn't have a car, however, and was limited in how far he could travel. So instead, he settled for a job in food service closer to home, at The Alamo, borrowing one of his parents' cars to get there.

It turned out to be one of the best decisions he could have made. When his supervisors learned he came from a family of professional artists, had been taught the craft by an uncle and had some experience painting murals and stage sets in high school, they asked him to help.

"I go, 'alright, yeah, I can do it.' I jumped into it. I started doing the mural painting," Sassani said.

Helping out during a time of distress showed Sassani was qualified, and in November 2012, he became the amusement park artist at Knoebels.

"I got this job through luck," Sassani said. "I knew what to do, and I was the best candidate."

Sassani (A&S '10) may call it luck, but it seems more like fate; the storm returned him to his first passion.

Today, as the amusement park artist, Sassani's day consists of 70% restoration of signage, sculpting, working on concept designs for the park and helping with other miscellaneous jobs.

Of the many aspects of amusement park art, Sassani said his favorite task is to work on concept designs, creating specific scenes and characters to align with specific park attractions and events.

"Whenever the Knoebel family presents me with a project they'd like to work on, it is very fun to try and pick their brain and figure out what elements are still traditional to the park, but what are other factors that they'd like to incorporate," Sassani said.

For example, in 2013, in his first year as the amusement park artist, Sassani redesigned the sign pointing visitors to where they could procure Zombie Fries, one of the park's seasonal food items. Sassani said the attention the updated sign brought to the deep-fried vegetables was immediate.

"Our opening day of that season, everybody just kept buying zombie fries," he said. "They didn't know what it was. They just saw the sign. They loved it."

Even as his art takes up more of his career, Sassani is finding that the archeology degree he earned from Pitt's Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences is coming in handy, too.

At Knoebels, he's examining old wooden structures and signage to understand how they were repaired in the past to understand how he can preserve and maintain the authenticity and integrity of the original material without having to replace everything.

"So, in a weird way, I am using an archeology degree to identify how these previous signs were manufactured and get a better understanding of their history," Sassani said.

Photography courtesy of Jerry Sassani