CLASS OF 1967 | 2025 | SPRING ISSUE

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Classmates,

             Did you ever think we would use the word “octogenarian” about ourselves? Well, here we are celebrating, or soon to celebrate, our 80th birthdays. Happy birthday to those of you still here to celebrate, whenever in the calendar year your birthday comes around.

            Not all our classmates are going to become octogenarians.   

            Jim Sugar died of heart failure in Mill Valley, California, in July 2024. Jim was an accomplished photographer (he worked for National Geographic for 22 years), and his book, America’s Sunset Coast, based on photos he took after traveling the Pacific Coast from Canada to Mexico in a VW minibus, led to his being named Photographer of the Year by the National Press Photographers Association in 1979. Jim became a pilot, and he owned a single-engine Cessna that he often flew to go to assignments or for aerial photography.

            According to one obituary about him, “Jim slowed down in his last years but never lost his smile, his encouragement of others and his appreciation of life.” He is survived by his wife, Jan, his son and daughter-in-law, Sam and Gigi Sugar, and his grandson, Bo Sugar, all of Mill Valley.  

I remember Jim from our freshman year. He looked like he was 14 years old (he was 17).  Check out his photo in our freshman face book, which I’m sure you all still have in an easy-to-find place. There is baby-faced Jim, right after Jon Stover and Paul Stowe and right before Maurice Sullivan and John Suter. I also remember him at our 50th Reunion, looking rugged and handsome. Those of us who edited the 50th Reunion book (which I know is also close by your side) expressed a “special thanks to Jim Sugar for allowing us to use his beautiful photo for our book cover.” Check it out—it is a great photo!

             Fred Freije ’74 died in England in September 2024. Fredstarted with our class—he, too, is in our freshman face book, right after Howie Foster and Stephen Fotter and right before Jeremy French and John Frisbie.Fred then left Wesleyan (more than once it turns out), enrolled at Bard College (among other things), but ultimately returned to Wesleyan and graduated, I think with the Class of 1974. Bob Kesner notes in an email that at age 18, “Fred already had some impressive commercial fishing experience,” and Peter Waasdorp wrote that during his absences from Wesleyan, he worked on commercial fishing vessels out of New Bedford. At some point, he started a commercial seafood packaging firm in Long Island, and in England he was the owner of the Selsea Fish & Lobster Company. At the time of his death, he had sold the company but was still acting in an advisory capacity. 

Ted Smith, who roomed with Fred one semester, wrote that “I always had a soft spot for Fred—he was kind, funny, loyal, and appropriately disrespectful of authority that did not deserve respect.” Peter Waasdorp wrote the following to me about him: “Fred was one of those people I knew I could call anytime, anywhere, and he would be there for me if I needed him. A character for sure (he’s a member of three Wes classes, I believe), a devoted family man, friend to all, and as adept as anyone I know at laughing at himself.” 

He is survived by his wife, Celia, and two children, Tom and Kira.

            Another classmate, Jerry Smith, died in 2024. Jerry worked as a short-order cook for two years after high school before coming to Wesleyan. He became a certified arborist and a tree surgeon. At various times he worked in urban forestry, worked on projects in Central Park in NYC, and was a tree consultant for the Getty Center in LA. As a result of the work he did with one client who lived next to Marlon Brando, he became an arborist to various Hollywood stars.  He was also a part-time actor. Hoff Stauffer, Jerry’s lab partner in a chemistry class freshman year, emailed me that in 2017 Jerry got back in touch with him after a 50-year gap and came to visit him in Massachusetts. Hoff wrote: “At Wesleyan he was riding a Honda 50. In 2017 he was riding a BMW 1600.”  

            As I write about these three (Sugar, Freije, Smith), I find myself thinking about the immortal words of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards (both of whom were age 23 when the song came out in 1966): “What a drag it is getting old.”

            And a non-obituary, happier, message. I got the following email from Brooks Smith: “I was one of five from Wes in Freedom Summer. My roommate in Ruleville, Mississippi, was Len Edwards ’63. We lived next door to Fannie Lou Hamer. The Klan attempted to firebomb the church we held rallies in. Many of the civil rights workers were arrested during the summer and afterward. Our Freedom School was a great success, and we branched out to Indianola, Mississippi—home of B.B. King. This and other movements, including the anti-war movement on campus, were certainly energized by Martin Luther King’s speaking at Wesleyan three times during our four undergraduate years.  

            “Freedom Summer held a 60th reunion of volunteers and staff in Indianola in June. We rejoiced in the changes in Mississippi. Remember in 1964, 465,000 Black folks were eligible to vote—only 7,000 were registered. Now Black folks and white folks vote in about the same percentage. So great changes—but a long way to go.”

RICHIE ZWEIGENHAFT | rzweigen@guilford.edu