CLASS OF 1971 | 2019 | ISSUE 3
Aloha. Here are the long notes I received last time but did not publish or cut severely.
Dave Lindorff writes: “On April 15 I received a 2019 Izzy award from the Park Center for Independent Media for outstanding independent journalism for a cover story run in the December 2018 issue of the Nation magazine titled “Exclusive: The Pentagon’s Massive Accounting Fraud Exposed.” It is really exciting for me to have finally, after 47 years working as an investigative journalist, won a national award that recognizes my work! Especially exciting is that it’s an award honoring the memory of I.F. Stone, one of the people who most inspired me to get into this profession and to pursue it independently rather than working on the staff of some corporate media organization, with all the compromises inevitably involved in that kind of thing.
“Moving on to more things now. At the moment I’m working on a documentary film project about the and death of Ted Hall, the man who, at the tender age of 18 as one of if not the youngest scientist working in Los Alamos on the Manhattan Project to build the atom bomb, decided, even before the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that the prospect of the U.S. coming out of the war with a monopoly on nuclear weapons was too horrible to permit, and so, on his own with no connection to any Soviet spy ring, he walked the plans for the implosion device to the Soviet Consulate in New York, significantly helping the Russians to catch up and explode their own bomb in August 1949. Ted was never caught, but went public in 1996 as he was dying of cancer. U.S. government documents prove that the U.S. was planning, since even before the end of WWII, to obliterate Russia as an industrial power using its atomic bombs as soon as it got enough of them. Ted, it can now be proven, by his youthful courage and impulsivity, saved the world from a holocaust even worse than the one Hitler caused, and into the bargain helped give us 75 years of no nuclear weapons being exploded in war despite the existence of thousands of them in the hands of mutual antagonists (admittedly at enormous cost to all sides!). I’m still looking for more funding so if anyone wants to be a backer let me know.”
William H. “Bill” Hicks is a graduate of Wesleyan University who also holds a master’s in public health degree from the University of Oklahoma College of Public Health (1973). Bill also has studied at the Dallas Theological Seminary. He grew up in Harlem during the 1950s and 1960s before going away to prep school in Massachusetts, Mount Hermon School. He has spent most of his professional life in the public health arena in areas including policy research and analysis, health systems planning, and health systems and facility administration while being constantly in ministry. He received his license to preach the Gospel at Oklahoma City in 1971. He has written extensively on Christian topics including two books, Discipleship and Discipline: Second Edition and Sermon Outlines and Study Guides: Simple, Self-Directed Instructions On Being A Disciple (From The Perspective Of The Pew), with a third book pending publication. He enjoys life in Chattanooga with former District Public Defender Ardena Garth Hicks, his wife of 29 years and his two daughters, Rachel (BA, University of Memphis magna cum laude, 2014) and Sarah (Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude, Global Scholar, University of Tulsa, 2017).
Randy Stakeman is moving to Humble, Texas, north of Houston, to live with his son and family. He will have a small one-bedroom apartment in the house and access to his granddaughter.
First timer Mike Ronan writes: “I’ve retired to Panama, where Pam and I have a small craft coffee farm in the mountains near Boquete. It’s quite beautiful. After years of experiments—taxi driving, banking, Peace Corps, bartending, grad school, and marketing, in that order—I settled down as a comp and lit instructor at Houston Community College. I had never dreamed of teaching, nor administration, but it was very satisfying career, fulfilling a need to serve. Coffee farming is its own pleasure. A lot of effort goes into every bean. My two kids are writers and filmmakers. Before leaving the States, I had a chance to catch up with a couple of fellow oarsmen, Michael Mullally in Montreal and Buddy Coote in D.C. and I stay in touch with Roy Cramer.”
That is all the news this time. Remember the 50th Reunion is coming up. Contact Kate Quigley Lynch ’82, P’17, P’19 at klynch@wesleyan.edu or 860/685-5992 to get involved. We need your help! Aloha.
Neil J. Clendeninn | Cybermad@msn.com
PO Box 1005, Hanalei, HI 96714