CLASS OF 1996 | 2023 | SPRING ISSUE
Hello, fellow ’96ers! Hope this issue of the magazine finds you well.
Shereem Herndon-Brown has co-authored the book The Black Family’s Guide to College Admissions: A Conversation about Education, Parenting and Race (https://understandingthechoices.com/book/). He lives outside D.C. with his wife and children. He wrote: “I’ve had lots of great support from ’96 Wesleyan alums (thanks, Shola Olatoye and Dacque Tirado) and can use more!”
Speaking of Shola, she is looking forward to hosting Shereem in February at her kids’ school to feature his new book. Shola and Matthew Strozier live in the East Bay with their “newly licensed 16-year-old driver, a soon to be driving 15-year-old, and a pirouette-and-gymnastics obsessed 7-year-old.” They manage to see friends Susan Yee, Jake Ward, and Diana Ip ’95 frequently. Shola made it back to NYC in September and saw her sorors Tracey Gardner and Aisha Cook. She also did a drive by Donna Temple’s ’95 place in Harlem. The biggest news is that Shola recently left the public sector and joined an affordable housing developer as their chief operating officer. Before she left the City of Oakland, she had the good sense to hire Emily Weinstein ’97 as deputy director for community development.
Chris Meredith wrote: “COVID brought a lot of changes to my world in medicine. What do people do when changes happen? Seek out new changes! I’ll be finishing up law school in May, though I’m still practicing neurosurgery in Kansas City. My boys are 8 and 10 now and loving school.”
Bill Macomber shared: “Tracie Broom and her travel companion Mariah McLaughlin came to Los Angeles and got a minireunion going on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Annie and I threw the first, flat-out rager that I can remember, since all of that paused in 2020, right as we finished a house that was designed for this kind of shenanigans. . . . In attendance were Emma Jacobson-Sive, Liam McNiff ’97, Tony Schloss ’97 and Juno Shay ’98 and their three kids, Diego Gutierrez ’97 and Kim Diaz ’97 with their two kids, Katie Wright ’95 and Jason Agard ’94, Pam and Jason Walchli and their two teenagers, Sam Laybourne ’97, Billy Kheel and his wife Marina, Ed Lee ’95 (who just announced his engagement), Bill Wolkoff ’95, Koyalee Chanda and Neal Brandenburg, Ben Stout and his wife Masha and their two girls, Jason Blalock ’94 and his adorable daughter, Morgan Fahey ’95, Anuj Desai, and Jake Ward with his wife Julie and their kids.”
Another gathering happened in September in NYC. Sam Effron wrote: “This past summer I received a note from Barrett Feldman and Sabrina McCormick, lamenting the fact that we did not have a 25th Reunion. They came up with the great idea to host an unofficial reunion (30th anniversary of our frosh year) for anyone who was near, or could travel to, NYC, and another great idea to get me to organize it. And so . . . I did. On September 17, Barrett, Sabrina, Elijah Hawkes ’97, Glennis Matthews, Brad Roberts, Remy Auberjonois, Dara Federman, Adam Peltzman, Elizabeth Seuling, Anne Swan, Mia Lee, Ben Meyers, Dana Holohan, Ingrid Wong, Omar Rahim, Lee Beresford, Thom Loubet, Debbie Marcus, Jeremy Owens, and I (along with some partners and children) all gathered in Central Park for a beautiful afternoon of lazing, snacking, people watching, reminiscing, catching up, and making new memories.”
A smaller gathering to report: Cora Jeyadame, Nina Erlich-Williams, Hilary Hoeber, Darrah Carr, and I (Dara) spent a weekend in October at an Airbnb. The house was in Vegas, but we did not go to any shows or even spend any time on the strip. It was the first time we had all been together since our reunion in 2016—so we spent the weekend laughing, talking, and comparing notes on how we are different and the same as we were in our senior year, when we all shared a house together.
Hope 2023 is a good year for all, filled with adventures (that you share with the Wes notes)!