CLASS OF 1976 | 2014 | ISSUE 2
I was pleased to hear from Dan Bellegarde whom I last saw on a night out at a jazz club in New York City so many years ago. Dan and his wife, Marcia, are living in Vienna, Va. Dan has been with the State Department for 26 years and will retire Nov. 30 with 27+ years of service. Dan and Marcia met on Dan’s first tour with the foreign service, and they have two children. Stephen is 24 and an air traffic controller in the Air Force. Isabelle is 12 and in the 7th grade. They just moved to a new home and, after all the moving around for work, plan on staying put for a while. Good luck to you in retirement—please stay in touch.
Carol Bellhouse continues to write and seems to be more prolific with each passing year. She has four books coming out in 2014 and the seven books she has already published can be found in print or via download at Amazon or CreateSpace or in local bookstores (for those of you lucky enough to still have them). Emboldened by this year’s harsh Chicago winter, I suggested to Carol that we have an alumni snowfall competition. That was before I realized she lives in Leadville, Colo., at about 10,000 feet above sea level. Even with some poetic license (or outright lying), Chicago can’t beat the five feet of snow then in Carol’s backyard. But we are contenders of a sort. As I write this on April 14th , after the third worst winter in Chicago (recorded) history, it is snowing briskly. This is not supposed to happen.
Barbara Birney is working as a volunteer at the Lumo Community Wildlife Sanctuary for six weeks on the development of income streams for local residents as a way of mitigating conflicts related to wildlife-human co-existence. She would be interested in hearing from any other alumni who are working on similar conservation efforts.
Steve Goldman was recognized by The American Registry as one of North America’s top attorneys. Way to go, Steve! Steve recently has been doing the college tour with his son Zach. Unfortunately for me, Chicago area schools were not on the tour. However, Steve and I have tentative plans to get together in Northfield, Minn., later this year.
Alan Haus continues to carry the flag for the Class of ’76 in San Francisco. He became the head of the intellectual property practice at his law firm there. Alan has three daughters. He could not convince the first two to consider any college more than ten miles away from the Pacific Ocean, let alone a campus in Middletown, Conn. Two years from now he will have one last shot at that, with daughter number three. We shall see . . .
Chris Mahoney married Joan Barrett in Aug. 2012. They met at the UVA business school back in the day. They live on a farm near Gettysburg, Pa., and also have an apartment in NYC. Joan has a pack of beagles which she actively hunts. Chris, who retired from Moody’s in 2007, has a financial blog: capitalismandfredom.blogspot.com.
Alan Miller, the president and CEO of The News Literacy Project, is continuing his excellent work in educating young people on how to know what to believe on the Internet. A story about the organization he founded, which has programs in the Chicago, New York and D.C. schools, was featured in the Wesleyan magazine. If you missed it: magazine.wesleyan.edu/2014/02/26/news-literacy-project-launches-online-curriculum/.
Ted Shaw, as you no doubt have heard by now, was going to be this year’s Wesleyan commencement speaker. Congratulations, Ted! I am sure that you will inspire everyone.
Bruce Tobey ’75 a fellow DKE and an honorary member of our class, has started a real estate business with some of his family members. It is called Tobey Seaport Properties and its website is: tobeyproperties.com. Good luck with it, Bruce!
Byron Haskins writes that he is a proud father. His daughter, Anna R. Haskins, PhD, who married Steven E. Alvarado, PhD, both on the faculty of Cornell University, on March 29, 2014, also published her first solo article in an academic journal. It is “Unintended Consequences: Effects of Paternal Incarceration on Child School Readiness and Later Special Education Placement,” Sociological Science, April 2014. The wedding was wonderful and a great mix of sociologists and people doing the things sociologists study.
This is a big birthday year for most of us. Why not write in something about yourself or share some of your observations on becoming more worldly and wise? For my part, I pledge to reach out a bit more and find at least some of you on Facebook and other social sites. But don’t wait to be asked. Write something in about yourself, your family, or your friends for the next quarter.
Mitchell Marinello | mlmarinello@comcast.net