CLASS OF 1987 | 2024 | SUMMER ISSUE
Hello, Friends!
We’re in a transitional stage of our careers . . . some of us are winding down, while others changing lanes and revving up for more adventure.
After 35 years in K–12 public education, Tim Sullivan will be retiring in June from his position as superintendent of the CREC Magnet Schools in Hartford, Connecticut.
Linda Ryden is making career changes after 20 years as the peace teacher in the Washington, D.C., schools. While there, she created a curriculum integrating mindfulness, brain science, conflict resolution, and social justice. In 2018 she formed a nonprofit to share the curriculum. Now she works there full time as creative director, and the curriculum is in schools across the country. Linda has a series of books, a YouTube channel, and a podcast for kids. Check out TeachPeaceofMind.org.
David “Prahas” Nafissian has released an ebook, Becoming the Butterfly that you can download for free. Here’s the tag line: “Is humanity really doomed? I think not!”
This story features me in a surprising role. Steve Shackman, Ira Skolnik, and I often text about our beloved Queens-based baseball team. (If you know, you know. I’m still a little obsessive . . . will travel to London in June to see them play! I’ll see Liz Rabineau there. She is not interested in any of my “baseball shenanigans.” But I digress . . . .) In November, knowing Ira’s passion for U2, I asked if he planned to see the band in Las Vegas. At that time, it seemed a popular adventure. Inspired, Ira created his own Wesleyan reunion. He quickly had six Wesleyan friends signed up for a February weekend. He’ll take it from here: “We had Shack from New York City, Dan ‘Jughead’ Levy ’88 from Philadelphia, Scott Ades ’88 from New Jersey, Bill ‘Hooter’ Houston from Florida, Ed ‘Eduardo’ Thorndike ’89 from Connecticut, and, the biggest treat, Rich Pham ’88, who was traveling from Vietnam for a Vegas business trip that weekend. Since many of us had not seen each other in many years, it was three days of nonstop laughter and reminiscing. We are six ‘old men’ who still think we are college age. No arrests were made, no one went missing, and we made it back with our teeth intact.”
Kurt Lyn reports that he and his wife, Michelle Anderson Lyn ’84, MD,are still enjoying their professional careers, but they recently took a Wesleyan-type detour: launching a vineyard and winery close to their ranch about an hour from Houston, Texas. They invite all their Wesleyan friends to try their wines, Chapelton Vineyards, now available in local supermarkets and fine restaurants.
Erika Ranee (Cosby) checks in for the first time! She has been a professional artist since receiving a 1993 MFA from UC Berkeley. She started teaching at NYU in 2007, when Lyle Ashton Harris ’88 recommended her for the job. In 2023 Erika was one of 15 woman-identifying artists awarded a $25,000 grant from Anonymous Was a Woman. Her solo exhibition with the NYC gallery Klaus von Nichtssagend in 2024 was well reviewed in Artforum. This winter, Erika was selected to show in the 200th anniversary celebration of the Brooklyn Museum. That exhibit opens in October 2024.
You can findYouTube clips of David Abramson’s new storytelling skills. He talks about odd encounters with people from the former Soviet Union, finally tapping into a performance angle of his Russian major! David remembers a miserable foray into theater at Wesleyan when he played a tree in a rendering of Lorca’s Blood Wedding during sophomore year. He works as an analyst of Russian foreign policy at the State Department. His daughter, Hazel ’23, graduated from Wesleyan as an art history major —she lived next to his senior year home across from West Co and the science library. His daughter, Daisy, is a sophomore at Bryn Mawr. He’s in touch with Janet Ginzberg, Skip Lockhart, Jessica Miller, Cheryl Duncan, and Becky Riccio.
Grattan Baldwin files a slightly sarcastic report: “It is with deep shame that I report that my daughter, Annika, is a senior at Amherst; I console myself knowing at least it is not Williams. The good news, Amherst now has my last undergraduate tuition payment. Well, maybe not the very last . . . in 2023 my wife, Cristina, brought forth our own personal sleep disruptor. Maria Luce Frederica Baldwin is a beautiful bundle of “feed me now.” A few early photos suggest the need for an exorcism, so we found the perfect priest in Milan to do the job. We were pleasantly surprised that in front of God and family, lightning did not strike, an earthquake did not hit, and the holy water did not boil. I consider this a good start. Now that she was freed from original sin, we hoped our overnight tormentor would sleep better; apparently that is not how that works.”