Class of 1966 | 2014 | Issue 1

Aloha, all. Well, we are now on the upwards swing towards summer and hope that your winter months were not too bleak.

First, all of us in the class take our hats off to Essel Bailey and his wife, Menakka, for the wonderful support they have given Wesleyan this past year. Thank you, Essel. There will be many Wes men and women today and in the future who will benefit from your generosity and whose efforts will impact us, our children, and our grandchildren.

Congratulations, also, to Coach Mike Whalen ’83 and the Cardinals this year, with 12 of his players being named to the all-NESCAC team for 2013… and, of course, the Little Three Championship. Needless to say, the Williams and Amherst alums here in Hawai`i have a new appreciation for us folks from Middletown. Also, I need to put a plug in for the webcasts from Wesleyan for all its sports programs. It’s almost like television and it has no commercials. Wonderful for us old folks who, on weekends, enjoy looking in on campus sports activities… my advice to you all is try it if you haven’t done so already.

A fellow Punahou alum, Gifford Lum, wrote me and gave me a wonderful update on his family. He noted: “Our son, Elliot Lum, is presently living in Manhattan where he is vice president of strategic marketing for Columbia Records. He completed an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management before joining Colgate Palmolive in New York and then migrated to Columbia Records, a division of Sony. Elliot was married in Sept. 2011, in New York at the Museum of Natural History, followed by a reception in New York City at the Museum (Powerhouse) and a reception in Singapore, the home of his bride, Denise Lee. In 2011 we traveled to Singapore from Boston for the reception and then continued on a tour to Southeast Asia, visiting Vietnam, Cambodia, and Myanmar (Burma). Our daughter, Deirdre Lum, is presently living in Palo Alto, where she is clinical assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Stanford Medical School specializing in minimally invasive gynecological laparoscopic surgery and responsible for the fellowship program in that speciality at Stanford. In addition she is a peer reviewer for the Journal of Minimally Invasive Gynecology. Deirdre married in Sept., 2007, in Hanover, N.H., where she and her husband, Daniel Markman, both graduated (Dartmouth College). Audrey and I continue to live in Newton, Mass., and I continue on the clinical staff at Harvard Medical School while Audrey enjoys her time at Harvard Neighbors, actively involved in its art and calligraphy programs.”

Some final thoughts: All of you should have received my letter for this year’s Wesleyan Fund. Let’s all try to get as close as we can to making our goal. Finally, we’re only a few years away from the Big 50, so start planning now. t would be wonderful to see all of you again on what now is Corwin Field, the site where our post-Wes lives all began.

And a Hawaiian proverb to close: E kanu mea `ai o nana keiki i ka ha`i. (Plant edible food plants lest your children look with longing at someone else’s.) We have all been so fortunate to have eaten from the Wesleyan garden!

Hardy Spoehr

hspoehr7@GMAIL..COM; 808/944 8601