CLASS OF 1991 | 2020 | ISSUE 1
To start this column, I have the terrible responsibility to inform those who have not heard that Scott Timberg died by suicide on Dec. 10, 2019. The obituary from the Los Angeles Times only begins to tell of the loss of his wit, intellect, and passion for arts and culture. Michael Lill responded to my invitation to add memories and comments about Scott for the column:
“Scott was one of the first friends I met at college. He was brilliant, witty, and an engaging conversationalist. He had a remarkable depth of knowledge of all the liberal arts—especially music and culture—that rubbed off on all who knew him. It was Scott who first introduced me to jazz and other music. I remember hours spent hanging out listening to Scott expound the virtues of Sam Cooke, Chet Baker, and John Coltrane. Scott and I shared our first college road trip together, the first of many. We lived together for two years, first in Butterfield, later in High Rise. We studied abroad in the same semester and visited each other in our respective destinations. My wife and I celebrated with Scott and his wife, Sara, at their wedding. And I visited with Scott and Sara in April 2019 for a 50th birthday getaway to L.A. Scott will be missed by all who knew him, and my heart goes out to his family for this tragic loss.”
In these times, and always, it is important to remember that people care for you. You are not alone. The National Suicide Prevention Hotline is available 24 hours every day, at 1-800-273-8255.
There is no easy transition from this to other class news, but I do have a few additional items to share.
Cheryl Gansecki hit two bucket-list items in 2019. She was interviewed on NOVA for the episode Kīlauea: Hawai’i on Fire, fulfilling a “nerdy childhood dream,” as well as a first-author paper in Science, “The Tangled Tale of Kīlauea’s 2018 Eruption as Told by Geochemical Monitoring.”
After seven years as the planning and urban development director for the City of Portland, Maine, Jeff Levine started a new position in August as a faculty member in MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning. “I’m excited to be teaching and mentoring the next generation of planners, as well as consulting with cities, towns, and developers in New England on best practices in urban planning.”
Joshua Samuels works as a professor of pediatrics at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth in Houston, specializing in high blood pressure in kids, both clinically and in research. The work takes him around the country and world to present talks, a bonus for Joshua.
Dana and Jeremy Stacks and Nicki and Jim Miller are working on their expert badge for the National Park Service, traveling to Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks in 2019. They confirm that the trees are so incredibly large there is no way to prepare for it, and that the night sky is refreshingly dark. Jeremy also checked off Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota (twice!) on the frolic-and-detour theory of work travel.
Julia Fischer and husband Vincent Collazo celebrated the birth of Cassidy Inanna Fischer on Sept. 10, 2019. Julia writes, “Like any couple, we are amazed and in wonder at the fact of the tiny human who has moved in with us, but the most remarkable thing in our case is our collective age. Some jaws dropped when presented with our news, but our focus is on hopefully passing on a bit of the wisdom we may have collected in our combined 112 years of life experience. I’m finding motherhood to be a real joy, and back to working full-time (from home in Brooklyn) while Vincent is able to be a stay-at-home dad. We are very happy!”
Renée K. Carl | rcarl@wesleyan.edu