CLASS OF 1978 | 2019 | ISSUE 1

Class of 1978 Endowed Scholarship Fund
Matthew Grimaldi ’21, Florence, MA

Greetings, classmates. Hopefully by print time, the snow has melted and spring has sprung! Thanks all of you who answered the Lyris request for news this month. We had lots of material for our notes.

Doug Hardy and Roselyn Romberg ’79 returned to Concord, Mass., in 2018 where Roselyn continues her consulting business to nonprofits including Harvard Business School and several health-related foundations. Doug is at work on his 15th nonfiction book.

Gary Friedmann chairs the Bar Harbor Town Council and the board of A Climate to Thrive, a grassroots organization working to make Mount Desert Island and the state of Maine energy independent.

Our hearts are saddened by the news that Peter Kelley died of a heart attack on Oct. 8. His friend Casey Blake, wrote that “Peter’s creativity, kindness and gentle charisma are fondly remembered by his housemates at 49 Brainerd as well as other alumni.” Peter majored in studio art at Wesleyan, was an important participant in the University’s art history program, as well as captain of the crew team. After graduation, Peter took an MFA at Pratt Institute and embarked on a highly successful career as a digital artist. He is survived by his wife, Tracey, their sons, David and Aaron ’10, as well as other family members.

After five years, Bill Adler still loves living in Tokyo. He shares an apartment with “one cat, one girlfriend, and a view of Mt. Fuji.” He is busy writing novels as well as researching and writing about wristwatches at abetterwrist.com. If anyone is going to Tokyo, he’d be happy to show you around.

Nancy Chen reports on many joyful changes in her life recently. She moved to Bozeman, Mont., got engaged, and is launching a new division of her coaching business for women’s leadership: powertothequeen.com. Her older daughter is going for her PhD. in environmental engineering and her younger daughter will get her BA in English and communications this spring.

Suki Hoagland is happily back at Stanford University where she loves teaching and her students. Her husband is also at Stanford, co-directing the Center for Ocean Solutions. They rescued a Golden Retriever who seems to really like his new owners and has brought great joy and laughter into their home. Their eldest son, Ben, is a congressional fellow. Their youngest son, Jonathan, is completing a dual masters in transportation engineering and urban design at MIT. He has taken up Zouk, a Brazilian dance, and he choreographs, teaches, and performs all over the world.

Pete Lewis sent sad news that his father, George Lewis ’53, passed on Dec. 22. George was an Alpha Delt and loved everything Wesleyan. Pete said that if his dad could have sent a message to the Wesleyan alumni community it would have been, “Be generous to those in worse circumstances than yours. The next time you come upon a homeless person, instead of walking past, reach into your wallet and pull out a $10 bill.” Completing the circle of life, Pete’s grandson, Jameson, was born in September and George got to hold him in November uniting four generations. Pretty cool.

Wendy Kaufman sent greetings from Denver, where she feels lucky to celebrate 33 years of marriage, three great children, and two dachshunds. Their twin sons turned 30 in February and their 27-year-old daughter survived the 2015 Nepal earthquake at base camp. To be safer she started rock climbing. With a couple of JDs, an LLM, and an MBA later, Wendy considers her kids all “launched.” She is active with some Denver nonprofits, loves to travel, and is excited to be involved with John Hickenlooper ’74, MA ’80, Hon. ’10’s Giddy Up group.

Jim Kurose and Julie Johnson Kurose have been living in Northampton, Mass., since 1984 when Jim joined the computer science faculty at the University of Massachusetts. For the past four years, he’s been on leave working as an assistant director at the National Science Foundation and at the Office of Science and Technology Policy in D.C. He’ll return to UMass in in the fall. Julie is retired from her job of many years as registrar at Northampton High School. They have three grown children, Chris, Charlie ’10, and Nina, and a grandchild, Micah, all of whom they enjoy visiting in San Jose, Chicago, and Paris.

Over the past few years, George Raymond had been getting together annually with his friend and former CSS economics professor Peter Kilby. When George visited Peter at his summer home in Maine in June, little did he know that Peter would die suddenly on Aug. 2. Since 2002, George has been interviewing talented Wesleyan applicants who live in Switzerland.

Kevin Rose P’19 enjoys keeping up with our class via the notes and helped enhance this column with some news of his own. His son, Danny ’19, has thoroughly enjoyed his own Wesleyan experience. He loves the school, his friends, baseball, and all the University has to offer. Kevin will be attending as many Wes baseball games as possible this spring!

Jim Gubbins is a professor in the interdisciplinary studies department at Salem State University in Massachusetts. He is the president of the faculty and librarian union on campus. Jim remarks he is “fighting for fair pay and decent working conditions for employees—sounds very Wesleyan.”

We hope you enjoy keeping up with your classmates through this column and look forward to your updates.

Susie Muirhead Bates | sbatesdux@hotmail.com 

Ken Kramer | kmkramer78@hotmail.com