CLASS OF 1989 | 2023 | FALL ISSUE
Before we get to all the awesomeness going on with all you awesome people, Michele and I want to remind everyone that our 35th REUNION is coming up this spring! Clear your schedules, reserve your rooms, and prepare to descend on Foss Hill en masse! Now to our updates.
Alex McClennen Dohan got into the sheep spirit, writing: “Well, I don’t baaa-lieve I have anything too quirky to report, but Dave Dohan and I just celebrated 30 years of marriage in June. Our lambs are grown—daughter is an attorney and son a grad student—and our current home flock consists of a dog (part shepherd!) and a cat. Vacations are more fun than work, but we are both still happy in our jobs—me knitting various programs together in the Education Department of Mass Audubon, and Dave spinning along as a physician.”
Amy Redfield is loving living in Lisbon. Holler if you’re in town.
Marisa Cohen still works at Hearst with Stephanie Dolgoff, even though the chatbots keep threatening to take all the magazine jobs. Her daughter, Bellamy, graduated from Williams last spring and is living at home while launching a journalism/songwriting career (another daughter, Molly, is a junior psych major at Bowdoin). She and her husband have been spending more weekends in the Berkshires. (If you’re near Richmond, Massachusetts, look them up!) She’s also been making up for lost theater time during the pandemic by seeing a lot of Broadway shows this year, often with Sarah Chumsky, and David Averbach when he’s in town.
Sam Glazer was featured in an article in The Wall Street Journal entitled “Sex, Drugs and Spreadsheets.”
Karen (McClafferty) Jarsky is living in Acton, Massachusetts, with her husband and son, who is headed off to college in the fall. She is loving teaching writing (remotely) for UCLA. Her local friends include a surprisingly large number of Wes alums ranging from Class of 1983 to Class of 2016. Clearly age doesn’t matter when you have Wesleyan in common!
David Levine convened with Stu Berman, Neil Blicher, and Alan Cohen, at Rick Kotler’s beach house in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, for their annual summer retreat. Joe Biden was a no-show and no classified documents were found in Rick’s garage. They nonetheless had a good time commiserating about how old we are. Likely more was discussed, but who can remember?
John Hlinko is still living in Georgetown in an old church that was converted about 100 years ago. It’s right next to a park that used to be a cemetery and given that property lines weren’t that well delineated a century ago, he’s been urged “don’t dig too deep” when planting stuff in the yard. Amazingly, the house doesn’t seem to be haunted. His wife, Leigh, is an architect and has written two books—The Green Workplace and The Healthy Workplace (especially relevant in the COVID era). They also collaborated on Pandemic Pickup Lines, which has raised funds for pandemic-related relief efforts. One daughter is a high school senior looking at colleges and the other still has a ways to go for that. He is still working with Left Action, an activist community aimed at promoting good causes and candidates, and opposing things like fascists overthrowing democracy. It is likely to be a very busy year, with 2024 elections coming up quickly. . . .
In the same vein, Chris Zurn just published a book entitled Splitsville USA: A Democratic Argument for Breaking up the United States (Routledge: 2023). He makes the argument that there is a real danger of the end of basic electoral democracy in the United States in the next few years and suggests that the only way to avoid that is to negotiate a peaceful political divorce of our single nation and reconstitute several new nation states in its place.
Jessica Glass writes: “Hard to believe it’s been two years since we lost our beautiful comrade, Dominique Jones ’91. That was a very sad thing about 2021. But getting together at Lewis Canfield’s (’90) home in NYC to celebrate Jonesy’s life and memory helped a little. Drove to Brooklyn and cried in Deirdre Simon’s (’90) car. Commiserated with members of her family, and many Wes friends from several different graduating classes. Dominique had an amazing way of transcending age, race, class, whatever divides. She had a spirit that was genuine and positive and truly interested in people. We all remembered her interest in fashion and artistry in knitting, her deep appreciation of books and libraries, magazines and reading, her love and support of her friends, her infectious laugh. Many folks who knew and loved Dominique have made donations to a fund at the Brooklyn Public Library called Shine on Me, a program that supports unhoused adults with life coaching and resource advice. Dave Raymond ’87 and I trundle on with our historic sheep farm in northern Connecticut, with 60 adult woolies and 30 lambs each year. Producing wool blankets, sheepskins, and our inimitable Hildred’s Farm Sheep Calendar keeps us busy when we’re not producing video and engineering audio. Sheep on Earth, Good Wool to all!”
Camille Kotton reports having a wonderful visit with Sandeep Wadhwa when he came to stay with his daughter when they were touring colleges. Same when David French was touring with his son. She is on the CDC advisory committee on immunization practice (ACIP) and has been making national decisions on vaccination for the past three years.
Dave Keller released his 10th (!) album, It’s Time to Shine, featuring a bunch of new original soul- and blues-inspired songs. He’s also going to be featured in a full-page story in the French edition of Rolling Stone! Away from the rockstar world, he is preparing to be an empty nester, as both daughters will soon be in college; the oldest at Bard, the youngest at New York Conservatory for Dramatic Arts. He has a three-week East Coast tour in November. Details at www.davekeller.com.
Stephan Kline reports on his daughter Batya ’23 just graduated from Wes, joining her brother Noah ’21 as an alum. Batya will remain in Middletown for the next two years for a Wesleyan master’s program in ethnomusicology. She is excited to continue her studies on guitar and percussion and they are excited that her tuition is waived for this world-class program and she receives a stipend.
If you’re in the Philly area, drop Josh Drew a line. He is living there with his spouse of 20-plus years who is a Philly local, three kids, ages 16, 16, and 17, two elderly cats, and a pandemic-adopted mutt. They relocated about three years ago after a four-year expat stay in Amsterdam, which coincided neatly with the period 2016–2020. He is practicing law with a Washington, D.C., firm, after spending most of his career with the government and in house. They are visiting campuses, including Wes, helping their high school senior with the daunting college application process. He is in regular contact with Greg Berman, Carolyn Vellenga, Kelem Butts, Mark Saudek, and Kevin Majewski; would love to hear news of others.