CLASS OF 1974 | 2014 | ISSUE 3
Lloyd Komesar reports: “life in Vermont continues to expand in rewarding ways. With equal measures of available time and true motivation, I have founded the Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival which will have its inaugural rollout Aug. 27–30, 2015. Bill Pearson is joining me in this endeavor. The Festival will focus on new filmmakers who are creating either their first or second full-length feature or substantive short film. Our website is middfilmfest.org and I can be reached through the festival at midd.filmfest@gmail.com should folks have questions.”
In July, Bill Burton saw the play, Stupid F#cking Bird, at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre, directed by Howard Shalwitz. Howard founded the theater 34 years ago and is its artistic director. The play was developed for Woolly Mammoth and won the Helen Hayes award for best new local play last year. After the play, Howard talked about its creation and direction to audience members. At the end, Bill introduced himself to Howard and wondered aloud why they had not met before—Howard said that at Wesleyan he was “buried in the philosophy department.”
Monique Witt and her family are still making jazz records, but are now getting more blues, hip hop, and rap in the recording/mixing facilities. Recently, they have been doing more video pilots for television arcs. The most recent is a trailer for “the ease of access.” They have a couple of pilots going out to studios in LA, and a new genre crossover video Monique is excited about.
Marion Hancock Fish ’76 has been selected as an Upstate New York Super Lawyer for 2014. Marion is a partner of the Syracuse, NY-based law firm of Hancock Estabrook, LLP. Super Lawyers is a rating service of outstanding lawyers who have attained a high degree of peer recognition and professional achievement and is limited to 5 percent of the lawyers in the State.
Paul Liscom and his wife, Kim Pierpoint, hosted Rip Dauster, Mark Decker, and Jim Gilson, as well as their spouses (including Rip’s wife Marjorie Allen ’76) for a terrific several days in West Yellowstone. They hiked, laughed, caught up, cooked, read, laughed, saw the sights, laughed, … you get the idea. The three couples (other than Jim and his wife) first went to Grand Teton and between the two parks and four couples they saw moose, elk, bison, pronghorn, coyote, mule deer, eagles, osprey, Sandhill cranes, and lots of other wildlife, amazing geological activity, waterfalls, geysers, rivers, mountains, and canyons. They’re starting to think about next time.
Al Mydlinski reports that he visited Wes for the first time in 35 years this summer. Was interesting to say the least. He took his great-niece to visit, since it was on her list of schools. She liked it a lot.
David Rynick and Melissa Blacker ’76 continue to be the resident priests at Boundless Way Zen Temple in Worcester, Mass. They have lots of extra beds and a one-acre garden and invite any Wesleyan graduates in the area to stop by. Excerpts from David’s book This Truth Never Fails were featured in Best Buddhist Writing of 2013 and Melissa’s essay was part of the recently released book of stories of women and Buddhism: The Hidden Lamp.
Jim Farrell went to Wesleyan one weekend in August to sponsor a clean-up of the DKE house basement and kitchen. They want to try to start the DKE eating club all over again.
Jim Krantz is a principal of the consulting firm Worklab in NYC and is involved with a program in the Peruvian Amazon centering on sustainability of indigenous tribes and communities. Their son, Daniel ’11, is at NYU law school for a joint law and business degree after working in the technology start-up field. He remains active in the Eclectic alumni community. Their daughter, Sarah, is a junior at Barnard, majoring in art history and anthropology. Jim’s wife, Annie Boland, continues to practice as a child and adolescent psychiatrist, near their home in the Village.
Mike Heard was named US Forest Service National Volunteer of the Year for his work on trail projects on forest service land near the Big Sur coast of California. He thanks Tom Frei and the others who signed the photo at Reunion of Mike in his volunteer gear. He will be the volunteer representative in the Forest Service contingent in the 2015 Rose Parade. After that, Mike will re-enter the work force.
Pam van der Meulen had a wonderful time at Reunion, re-connecting with old friends, and particularly enjoyed the Women’s Gathering. She hopes the women from our class can re-convene sooner than five years. Pam continues to run a legal clinic at the Adolescent Health Center in New York. Her older son, Brian, graduated from NYU Law School last spring and now works as a tax lawyer in NY. Her younger son, Jeremy ’14, graduated from Wesleyan in May.
Pam writes, “Planning for Reunion put me in touch with old friends, and gave us a chance to catch up. In particular, I renewed ties with a fellow philosophy major, David Gillespie. He is a tax partner at Norton Rose Fulbright; he lives in Brooklyn Heights with his wife, also a lawyer, and has a daughter and son, both in their 20s.
Lindsay Wilson couldn’t make it to Reunion, as she was presenting at a Women in French conference in Ontario, and Randy was also traveling that weekend on business. Their daughter, Caroline, just graduated this spring from the University of Arizona in Tucson with degrees in French and accounting.
Bob Baum is now a professor in the religion department and African and African-American studies program at Dartmouth.
Despite just a week away from hip surgery and on crutches, Henry Avis-Vieira made it to our 40th Reunion (a major adventure, since the train he took from D.C. was delayed about eight hours). Henry managed to reconnect with quite a few classmates, including some of his old anthro buddies like Henry Willis.
SHARON PURDIE | spurdie@wesleyan.edu