CLASS OF 1968 | 2026 | SPRING ISSUE

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Bill Heckman: “I am healthy and happy here in the Wild West, where I’ve been since 1980.  Retirement is great and many cruises keep us fresh. Jayne and I spend six months is Scottsdale and six in our mountain home near Flagstaff, Arizona. Three kids (60, 57, and 41, plus four grand and one great-grand . . .) all independent and doing quite well. First half of my career was in retail, ending as senior vice president of Goldwater’s Department Store, and then as senior vice president, retail division, for a chain of specialty stores. The second half was as president of Heckman Marketing Associates Inc., until I hung it up at the young age of 71. Our world has certainly changed over the decades and every place I ever worked no longer exists with many thousands of career jobs now forever gone. I feel very blessed to have always been out in front of the changes and managed to succeed, plus also made time to do a lot of community volunteer work along the way. 

“This past year my old bandmate, Dave Cain, reached out from his home in Pennsylvania, and he is doing well. He put me in touch with two other bandmates, Rick Hammer ’69 (retired psychiatrist in Vermont) and Josh Barrett ’70 (retired lawyer in West Virginia). All three still play, and I’m trying to relearn my drum kit with friends here in Arizona. There is a band in us all if we take time to listen for the music.

“Farewell, live long, be happy and always keep on dancin’.”

David Webb: “This January, as things turn out, we are flying to ‘our second home,’ a condo in Fort Myers, Florida. (We will fly back to the Cape on April 15 . . . after all, we wouldn’t want to miss entirely Cape Cod’s absolutely most miserable month of April, when it sounds like spring, but because our ocean gets so very cold in the winter, spring comes unusually late to the Cape because we are surrounded by c-o-l-d water! In my humble opinion, April is the worst month on Cape Cod!) We bought a condo in a development my dad retired to in 1986, but he died in 1988 quite suddenly and unexpectedly (at age 63 . . . and here I am, a nonsmoker, and now at age 79, with my 80th approaching in March 2026), and my sister and I sold his unit quickly. Barb and I rented our unit to year-rounders in Florida for 29 years before we took it over 10 years or so ago and started using it ourselves. We feel very fortunate to have retired to Cape Cod and be able to spend a large chunk of our winters in Florida. We return from [Florida in November] to Massachusetts for the holidays and the month of December because our younger son lives here with his family and our two grandchildren (Sophia, a junior at George Washington University, will turn 21 in February, and Charlie [who] will graduate from Tabor Academy, his father’s school, in June). Aaron and his wife, Samantha, run two very successful breakfast and lunch restaurants in Hyannis that are open every day except for both Thanksgiving and Christmas. . .  Aaron attended New England Culinary School (run then by our Wes classmate Rick Voigt’s older brother Fran (’62), also a grad of Wesleyan, ahead of us, and now, alas!, deceased), and he manages the kitchen and cooks at both spots, and Samantha manages the dining room and hostesses in the first of the two restaurants.”

Chris Palames: “It has been a bittersweet year. My wife, Judy, and I have been facing the daunting consequences of our daughter Lyza’s diagnosis with ALS and Judy’s identification as the genetic carrier with a high probability of onset increasing with age.

“I’m keeping my little home-based nonprofit, Independent Living Resources, puttering along—serving on a state anti-hunger work group charged by Governor Maura Healey with formulating recommendations in response to federal SNAP cuts and other food insecurity accelerants. I’m also on two disability policy commissions advising our Massachusetts attorney general’s office and another soon to be convened to advise the governor.

“A personal joy has been showing White Nine, a short documentary focused on the Center for Independent Living that I founded in 1974 at Mass General Hospital. The film, which was produced by Bill Martin, will have its festival debut in late February at the Southern Utah Documentary Film Festival. Once that debut occurs, the documentary will make the rounds of other festivals, and I’ll be able to share a Vimeo link more freely with classmates.”

Jan de Wilde: “My wife and I continue to divide our time among a house in a village near Geneva, a chalet in the Alps, and a house in East Hampton, New York. Silly, at our age, but it still works and keeps us near our two sons and families in Switzerland, and a son in New York.” Jan has been “astounded by the change in U.S. politics. . .” and says, “not much left to do but vote and pray, which I do at Anglican/Episcopal churches in Geneva and East Hampton.”

Bill Carter: “Just a note of appreciation to all of the Wesleyan graduates who have been and continue to be supporters of Ashoka: Everyone a Changemaker. Ashoka has elected five people to its fellowship who, later in their careers, have received the Nobel Peace Prize. The latest Nobel Prize recipient, Maria Machado from Venezuela, was elected to the Ashoka Fellowship in 1997 for supporting young people in the most extreme situations of risk on the streets and in the institutions of Venezuela.” Bill wishes everyone, “all the best.”

Richard Cavanagh: “I continue to fail retirement! I have two part-time gigs: teaching entrepreneurship at Harvard and advising a West Coast–family investment office led by three other WesTech alums (and current/former trustees). All of my other paid boards (BlackRock, Guardian Life, and the dreaded Educational Testing Service) have retired me in anticipation of senility.

“My Harvard students are extraordinary—three of them named as Forbes’ 30 Under 30 leaders; and over the past decade, nine of them have won the annual Harvard innovation competition (which raises ugly suspicions among the 35 full-time entrepreneurship professors at HBS that cheating is somehow going on). The answer to these jealous rumors—the Kennedy School admissions staff who find such exceptional talent that even a semester with me can’t stop them.

“I continue to volunteer with nonprofit service outfits (Ashoka, Boston Symphony, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Volunteers of America—the biggest charity you have never heard of). Not surprisingly, I have come to learn they treasure my financial support far more than my advice.

“Patricia ’79 and I agree we are proudest of our 28-year-old daughter who, despite her progressive left-leaning proclivities and ocean science education at Bowdoin, has turned out to be an accomplished international institutional investor!”

Bob Isard: “In August I retired for the third time. First was as president of a small bank in D.C., then as a regulatory consultant, and finally as a substitute teacher in Philadelphia. Over nine-and-a-half years, I worked my way up from daily assignments to, in the end, almost two years of my own special ed classroom. 

“Three professional highlights: dinner with Jeff Loveland and Janis Joplin; my own NASDAQ hearing; and seeing kids with serious challenges do better in my classroom.”

Jim McConaughy: “After not being a familiar face on campus these past 50-plus years, I seem to have found my way closer to Middletown. After living in Andover, Massachusetts, since 2000, my wife and I recently moved to West Hartford to be closer to our two kids and our one-and-only grandchild, age two. He is keeping us young.

“My Wesleyan experience as a music major (for one semester I was the only one) got me interested in South Indian vocal music, which I pursued on campus and in Madras. That eventually lead to a gig off Broadway in a musical with Meryl Streep, where I played the caterpillar among other parts in a production of Alice in Wonderland. Then, after teaching, working for Bell Labs, and creating and enjoying a position for 27 years building bridges between communities surrounding Lawrence, Massachusetts, I got back to what first interested me, writing choral music. My shtick is setting the Psalms to music. After 56 compositions, I’m more than a third of the way to the finish line but in no particular hurry to get there.

“In Andover, I belonged to an Episcopal church with a very good choir. I haven’t quite figured out whether to join the local version of that persuasion or maybe do something different in greater Hartford. I was quite impressed to read about Don Logie and his success in a summer choir, by the way.

“A year or two ago, I decided that it was high time I learned how to ballroom dance and joined the local Arthur Murray affiliate. Having been in West Hartford only three weeks, I found a local chapter only seven minutes away. My goal is to get good enough to properly dance with my wife, who used to teach dance in high school and doesn’t need lessons.

“I last showed up on campus at our 40th Reunion and mourned the passing of our beloved freshman dining hall, a sentiment not shared by the decision-makers. Classmates I stay in touch with include fellow Hewitt niners: Jim Meadors, who has made a name for himself in the lute and guitar circles, and Dave Minugh, America’s gift to Sweden; also Matt Vinikas, who lives atop a mountain in Colorado but is a familiar face in the Connecticut Valley, and Andy Gaus, the stalwart Alpha Delt and brilliant musician, composer, and wordsmith.   

            “The big move we just completed provided the perfect opportunity to downsize. It would be an exaggeration to claim we shed our stuff proportionally to the size of our new smaller abode, but at least we tried. If anyone has suggestions about what to do with 150 pounds of choral and instrumental music scores (the music department didn’t bite), please call collect.”

Wallace Murfit: “The grand adventure continues; my life is remarkably unchanged. In November my wife and I celebrated 52 years of marriage with a trip to London. In March we celebrated her birthday with a trip to Sicily. Last February my ski posse went to Jackson Hole for a week, keeping my 61-year skiing streak alive. Next month to Whistler-Blackcomb. I am still working part time with two very interesting real estate consulting projects. In October I rowed my boat in the Head of the Charles Regatta. I play a little golf (badly), and I fool around with my small collection of sports cars. All of this is possible because (so far) my wife and I enjoy good health. I was fortunate to go to Wesleyan and Stanford Business School, but everything I really needed to know I learned at Lawrenceville.”

Bob Knox: “I am doing what I can to reach out and connect with family, friends, neighbors, and communities in a conscious effort to strengthen ties in our society during the current political climate. I am thoroughly enjoying my growing relationships with our classmates on a bimonthly Zoom gathering that we have created together since our last reunion. I also host a monthly acoustic music gathering of friends, old and new. Music and food are magic in creating community. I volunteer regularly at San Quentin prison as one of several coaches for an inmate running club that has been recognized in a documentary, 26.2 to Life, which you can see on many movie platforms including Delta flights. I am blessed by two sons, their wives, and four grandchildren who are constantly expanding their horizons, and we are all planning wonderful vacations together. And, importantly for these class notes, John Mergendoller and I are continuing to grow the relationship that we started at Wesleyan by sharing responsibility for this small but rewarding effort and playing our guitars together with friends.”