Courtesy of Bill ChristophersonNeilia Biden's 1966 seventh-grade class at Bellevue Heights School in Syracuse. Neilia is in the back row, second from the left; Bill Christopherson of Watertown, who submitted the photo and was a student in the class, is third from the right in the last row of students.

Syracuse, NY -- In the late 1960s, Joe Biden would often stop at the Bellevue Heights School in Syracuse to meet his wife, Neilia, at the end of her working day as a teacher.

More than 40 years later, as vice president of the United States, Biden is expected to meet Sunday with a group of children from the Bellevue Elementary School, a successor to the now-razed Bellevue Heights. Biden is coming here to offer the commencement address for Syracuse University, where he attended law school.

"It's awesome," said Joanne Harlow, principal at Bellevue. "To see the excitement on the kids' faces when I told them they were going to meet the vice president ... they were beside themselves."

After learning weeks ago that Biden would be in Syracuse, many children at Bellevue sent letters to the vice president, asking if he would visit. Since Biden is coming on a Sunday, Bellevue will be closed. But Harlow said the school has received official confirmation from the vice president's office that Biden will meet Sunday with some of the boys and girls.

"The vice president always loves going back to Syracuse and he is touched by the Bellevue Elementary School students' invitation," wrote Elizabeth Alexander, Biden's press secretary, in a statement last week.

Where and when the meeting will happen Sunday is still being arranged.

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Joe and Neilia Biden lived in Syracuse, as newlyweds, from 1966 to 1968. Neilia, an Auburn native, taught middle school English at Bellevue while Joe studied law. They rented an apartment at 608 Stinard Ave., close enough to Bellevue for Neilia to walk to work.

The couple moved to Delaware in 1968. They had three children. On Dec. 18, 1972, shortly after Biden was elected to his first term in the U.S. Senate, Neilia and Naomi, an infant daughter, died in Delaware when a truck crashed into their car. Two young sons were seriously injured in the accident, but survived. Biden took his oath of office in their hospital room.

Biden, who later remarried, has described his years in Syracuse as "magical." He returns to Syracuse on Mother's Day.