CLASS OF 1972 | 2016 | ISSUE 1
I must begin with some sad news, as we have lost one of the true icons of our class. Dave Revenaugh died in February after a lengthy illness. Everyone will remember Dave as the star running back on Wesleyan’s undefeated team in 1969. The image of him scoring the winning touchdown in the epic win over Williams is forever etched in my mind. The following year Wesleyan repeated as Little Three champs—and we went through a very long stretch of time before that happened again. But let’s also remember Dave as a truly delightful, if Rabelaisian, individual. He was a constant, active presence on campus, someone who enjoyed life immensely and made everyone around him enjoy it too. He made a career as a builder, specializing in “green,” sustainable projects. No one who knew him will soon forget Dave. The world has now become that much duller.
Geoffrey Smith passed away last June in Virginia. Jeff worked for the IRS for 40 years. He was remembered in his Centreville community for his many years of coaching softball and basketball with men and women with special needs.
Fred Moore passed away Feb. 16. Fred earned an MBA from Columbia and qualified as a CPA, enjoying a long and varied career in the corporate world and in banking, most recently as vice president of Structured Securitized Products for ING Financial Services, Inc. We who remember him as a track star at Wesleyan are not surprised to know that he kept up with competitive running until he became ill.
Dennis Kesden is moving into a new phase. He and his wife, Sherry, sold their ophthalmology practice and office building, and became employees of OCLI, the largest eye group in the New York metropolitan area. They work Monday to Thursday for three weeks, then take a week off and go to Phoenix to see their daughter, Cindy; son-in-law, Jay; and grandchildren, Spencer and Hannah. Their son, Dr. Mike Kesden, is a tenure-track physics professor at U.T. Dallas, and the winner of a Sloan Fellowship. Dennis has targeted this December as his retirement date. Dennis plays a lot of golf, but Sherry’s idea of relaxation is performing 18 cataract operations a day.
Sherry Hilding is still working as a special education teacher at Windham Tech HS in Willimantic, Conn. She also was recently certified as a TRE-tension/trauma release provider, takes a lot of yoga, and continues to teach an eclectic exercise class. And last summer she attended a ‘super fantastic” workshop at Omega Institute led by Bobby McFerrin.
Pat Bailey is still living the dream in his home, Chateau Calypso, in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. “This past July I was the International Sailing Federation’s technical delegate in charge of the Sailing Competition at the Pan American Games. Our event was acclaimed the best ever in the history of the Games! Not too bad for a simple island boy and as always I am thankful for my well rounded education at Wesleyan ’68-’72.”
Paul Vidich’s novel should be published by the time this column is in print. I can’t wait to read it. Paul’s home town buddy Vin Suprynowicz has also transitioned to the fictive mode. To quote from the book jacket of his latest novel,
“Deep in the Nevada desert, in a hidden mansion full of old books and vintage clothes, guarded by five-and-a-half anthropomorphic cats and a family of Attack Roadrunners, Vin Suprynowicz went cold turkey from a 40-year newspaper career. They said he’d never write anything over a thousand words again. But with the help and encouragement of the Brunette and a few close friends, he came back. With The Testament of James he proved them wrong. Now comes the second drug-enhanced adventure of Matthew Hunter and Chantal Stevens, The Miskatonic Manuscript. In an earlier life, Vin wrote Send in the Waco Killers, The Ballad of Carl Drega, and the freedom novel The Black Arrow.”
Leon Vinci is back “east”—Roanoke, Va., to be precise, after 12 years as a county public health officer in Nebraska, Kansas, and Colorado. Two sons and a grandchild live nearby. (His daughter works on Madison Avenue in “the Big Apple.”) Leon is CEO/President of Health Promotion Consultants, a health and environmental consulting firm. In Colorado, Leon met up with Rick Berg for some mountain/trail hiking on the western slope. (Okay, Rick! Two consecutive issues!) Leon is proud to announce that this is the 175th Anniversary of the founding of Chi Psi, and he will be attending the conclave in Williamsburg, Va. The Lodge at Wesleyan is the third-oldest chapter.
Peter Schwartz works in a large geriatric medical practice in southeast Pennsylvania. He and wife Leigh celebrated 20 years of marriage and the birth of their 10th grandchild (six for him, four for her). Son Jonathan ’00 is head of the middle school at The Greenhills School in Ann Arbor. Son Jeffrey lives in Japan while the other children are closer by.
John Paul Maynard is completing his fifth year running the website, Islamic Civilization, hosted by the alumni office of Harvard University. In September, he completed Twelve Capitalisms: An Economic History of Civilization. In spring 2016 his second book of poems, Turning the Barbarians, will be published by the Levelers Press.
This from Rob Gelblum: “Trying to exit my 30-year environmental law career (including 25 with the State of North Carolina, ending three years ago), though music will take up a certain amount of time. Meanwhile, Mary Lou continues to render therapy part-time to the severely autistic. Reuben (29) is new to Seattle after relocating there with his partner (she’s starting medical residency there), and Morris (just turned 28) continues to grow Sweeps (sweeps.jobs) while living outside Chapel Hill. Both sons did that UNC-CH (where their parents met as 32-year-old grad students) undergrad thing. A downsizing scenario involving leaving Raleigh after 28 years for a few acres west of Chapel Hill, with ML’s handicapped older sister/ward and sister’s caregiver living in one little-if-not-tiny home and us in another, may be in the cards. It’s ironic to think that, when my parents announced in Philly in June ’68 they were moving the family to some place called Chapel Hill, N.C., I said something like, ‘Thank goodness I’ll never have to live down there with you, since I’ll be starting Wesleyan in the fall.’ Best to all ’72ers.”
And of course, a final word from Bob White: “An article is coming out soon, targeting me and my work on the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis. Ouch! It is a good thing that I went to Wesleyan and this is just business as usual to deal with such contention. Stay tuned.”
Thanks, folks! More in four months!
SETH A. DAVIS | sethdavis@post.harvard.edu
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