CLASS OF 1976 | 2015 | ISSUE 2

This summer Andrea Grubb Barthwell and her husband, David, are celebrating 35 years together. Their youngest son, Matthew, just finished Fisk and is headed to SUNY Stony Brook for graduate school in social work. Matthew plans to concentrate on social justice in relation to African-American teenage boys. Andrea keeps herself busy giving lectures on preventing and treating drug use by kids and advocating for more drug treatment centers.

Oliver Griffith is still working for International Finance Corporation, the private arm of the World Bank Group. Oliver runs communications and public affairs for Europe out of Paris. He plans to stay in France for the long term and has just bought a house in the country. He would welcome visits from old friends and classmates.

Dan Henry and his wife just returned from California, where they spent time with their granddaughter, Frazier Michelle Henry, who celebrated her first birthday. Frazier was born on Dan’s birthday last May—what Dan says is his best birthday present ever.

Jack O’Donnell is delighted that his daughter, Maggie, will be heading to Wes this September, the second of his four kids to do so. Jack also recently went to see Orleans in Tarrytown—a group that no ’76er could fail to remember for all the times they played at Wes. Jack spoke with John Hall afterward. Hall said he stays in touch with Fred Hollister ’73 and that he still vividly remembers turning around on an upstate N.Y. highway when a tollbooth attendant told him that his band was desperately needed at Wes to fill in for Marshall Tucker. Jack says the band still sounds good—and why not?

Martha Meade has a son who just finished his freshman year at Wes, and she and her husband visited the campus for her husband’s Reunion. Martha’s “Stream of Consciousness” won Honorable Mention at the Spring Juried Show of the Palisades Art Association and was on display at the Palisades Public Library. You can see some of Martha’s art on Facebook. Take a visit.

Libby Spader says that her Wes theatre degree comes in handy in her career as an international trainer in USAID’s legal regulations for foreign assistance. Libby travels the world delivering training workshops for a nonprofit called InsideNGO. Libby wrote from London and was heading out for a week vacation in Florence, but her trips more frequently take her to places like Nairobi, Addis Ababa, and Bangkok. In October, she takes her first trip to Myanmar.

I am looking forward to summer after a particularly long Chicago winter and to taking a trip to Greece in the fall. Two of my daughters are away doing internships. One is studying math and Chinese in Taiwan and the other is doing a NASA program in Huntsville, Ala., that includes sky diving. My oldest, who graduated from college a few years ago, is going for her master’s this September in biostatistics.

Meanwhile, the Chicago Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup for the third time in six years. Great ending to the season.