Skip Adamek is enjoying competitive golf, tennis, and fishing in North Carolina, and looking forward to a visit from Steve Farrell, Jim Cornell, Paul McDermott, and, just maybe, Teddy Shaw.
Lois Becker, Mark Stratton, Joanne Lukitsh, and Reilly Shannon are traveling in Europe together where the first stop was the London production of Hamilton. Next up is Paris, Provence, and points east!
Jon Cleworth, former captain of the Wes crew team, is doing his best to stay in shape and keeps in touch with Jimmy Joy MALS ’72, former crew coach at Wes, who recently was honored by the NYAC.
Bruce Demple and his wife, Sue, met up in February with Rich Gallogly and Bonnie Katz ’77 for a long weekend of skiing at Sunday River Maine. Bruce’s daughter, Marie, lives in Brooklyn and works for Comedy Central, while his younger daughter, Zoe, has moved to Pittsburgh. Bruce published a complex NASA-funded research study on the unique qualities and toxicity of moon dust.
Mike Donnella was a guest on an NPR affiliate and was interviewed about his photography. Check out redriverradio.org.
Jeff Frank’s daughter got a fellowship to work for the education department in Israel for one year, and his son, George, is training to fly F-16s for the Air Force. His oldest son works for the FBI in D.C.
Joellyn Gray is just back from a 12-day tour of gardens and cathedrals in Southern England and is happy to share travel tips.
Peter Hansen and his wife, Gail, are in Madagascar for a month, visiting friends who work for the World Bank. They plan to stop in Kenya before coming home.
Libby Horn’s daughter, Stephanie, got married in April on the Oregon coast. She was an infant at our 10th Reunion!
Jeffrey Kahn, fellow CSS classmate, reports that on May 31, he retired from the Office of the General Counsel at the Department of Agriculture after 40 years of government service. Jeff is now traveling to Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. Jeff, the Kazakhstan chocolate is great!
Tom Kovar had a June mini-reunion with Mel Blake, Karen Gervasoni, David Harmin, and Karen Williams Harmin at Mel’s house in Portsmouth, N.H. All are doing well.
Wendy Lustbader attended a psychotherapy training program in Seattle where the keynote speaker was Ron Siegel. Wendy thanks Ron for the advice and encouragement he gave her years ago and compliments Ron on his many achievements.
Peter McArdle went to Foxboro Stadium in May to watch Wes take on defending national champ Salisbury College in the Men’s NCAA Division III Lacrosse Finals, which Wes won! Dave Campbell ’75, Jeff Gray ’77, Charlie Cocores ’74, Jim Daley ’75, Pete Guenther ’77, Dave Thomas ’77, Gary Breitbord ’79, Jock Burns ’72, Mark Fredland ’74, and Pat McQuillan ’75 and his son Casey joined Pete for the game. Bill Belichick’75 was unable to attend, but graciously hosted everyone in the Belichick family box. Pete also saw Jeff Nesson ’78 and Seta Nazarian ’79 there. A great win for Wes witnessed by a great group of folks. Just a week earlier, Pete and his wife Mary’s daughter, Brittany, graduated from Simmons College with a master’s in special education.
Jaimee Mirsky is about to retire from her second career as a high school English teacher, and her husband, Jay, is also retiring. They will have welcomed their first grandchild in July. Congratulations on both fronts!
Debra Neuman is enjoying what may be her final career chapter as the executive director of development for Enders Island, a Catholic retreat center in Mystic, Conn. Her son, Josh, is pursuing a master’s in agronomy at Oregon State, and Josh’s wife, Meagan, is enjoying her first nursing job in Corvallis.
Michael Stopa has moved to San Mateo to be a senior manager for artificial intelligence and machine learning research for Konica Minolta. Daughter Randy graduated from Oberlin last month, daughter Robin graduated from Haverford last year, daughter Kaileigh will soon be a junior at Tufts, and son Kip will be a high school senior.
Cheryl Alpert and her son, Eben, had a great time on a trip through Portugal to celebrate his 25th birthday. Eben is a business analyst with PricewaterhouseCoopers in NYC and younger son, Chason, is working in D.C. as analyst for Booz Allen Hamilton. Cheryl recently has changed firms and is now with William Raveis Real Estate in Brookline, Mass.
My personal news is slow right now, but a lot is happening in the next few months. I hope that you all enjoy the summer. If you meet up with a long-lost classmates, ask them to write in. Best regards.
After what seemed to be a long cold winter, we’ve managed to cobble together a surprising number of beautiful days to provide the Northeast with a real spring season. In short-sleeved polo I write to you with the latest news from our class. There often appears to be a theme running through groups of notes I receive. This time around, it was grandchildren.
George Fredric Jones Cruickshanks is the new grandson to proud grandparents Karen and Don Cruickshanks ’75, born in April.
Jonathan Gertler’s first grandchild was born to his oldest son, Chessin. Son Charles, 28, is getting his PhD in climate physics and chemistry at MIT, and youngest William, 23, just spent a year in Kenya working on sustainable agriculture and technology infrastructure for a firm with an office in Nairobi. Jonathan and wife Jane are doing well; he has a third album of all new songs due out around September.
Iddy Olson loves the mixture of entrepreneurship with her consulting practice two days a week and working the other three days a week for a boutique executive coaching firm in Chicago. Iddy moved into a beautiful rental house with her fella in May. Her son, Des, and her daughter-in-law have given her a grand-puppy and are expecting their first child in December.
Hope Neiman reported on the history made in Wesleyan sports. Men winning lacrosse was noteworthy. Women’s tennis team went to the NCAA tournament, and they made it to the round of eight—best finish ever by a Wes team. Then, Wesleyan sent two men and two women to the individual tournament. All were played at Claremont McKenna. Eudice Chong ’18 and Victoria Yu ’19 had made it to the NCAA finals to play against one another and were in the semis for doubles. In fact, for the first time ever in NCAA history, one person, Eudice Chong, took the championship in all four of her years. [see p. 14]
Jeff Gray reported Gamma Phi DKE held its annual open house during Reunion and Commencement. Dave Thomas and Tom Roberts were part of the crew of alumni who helped set up. After the open house, while the folks who actually had Reunion went to their respective class dinners, all headed down to La Cantina Restaurant in Middletown. They were joined by Jeff Shames who was on campus for the next-day graduation of his nephew.
Jane Goldenring was at Wesleyan in May to teach a two-day seminar to the film department’s graduating seniors about working in the film and television industry. Jane was joined in Middletown by Kate Seeger.
Laraine Balk Hope writes that in retirement, the cliché that there’s never enough time to do everything is very true. She is consulting on a limited basis and generally enjoying the flexibility to exercise more, improve her French and take other classes, read, and catch up with far-flung friends and family, including Arlene Lappen and Janet Malkemes.
Lisa Brummel’s son, Adam, graduated from high school; he plans to attend American University in the fall. Son Noah is spending time in Israel. Lisa and husband Joel will be visiting him this fall.
Michael Rittenberg is the last of six original partners of his urologic practice. He is working way harder than anticipated but thrilled to report that son Daniel will complete his urologic residency and join the practice in July 2019. His other three children are grown, independent, and prospering in their professional lives.
Michael Foxall is trying to get in touch with Bob Rees.
Peg Batchelder has retired from veterinary practice and pharmaceutical research and is living the good life on Maui with May Coryell, her partner for over 30 years.
Peter Guenther is attending his son Geoff’s medical school graduation from Tulane; he’s going into pediatrics and will be at Children’s National Hospital in D.C. for residency.
A couple of sad notes: Sarah Kendall wrote that her partner, Wolfgang Natter ’78, passed away suddenly. He was VP of academic affairs at the College of St. Scholastica. They had wonderful times in their brief time together—especially exploring the northland of Minnesota. They were fortunate to have found each other after a 40-year interlude from being “siblings” at Alpha Delta Phi. Sarah will be moving back to New Hampshire this summer. Mary Rindfleischpassed away in April. Mary was a long-time community and arts supporter, in particular building the Ridgefield, Conn., library. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Sarah and to the friends and families of Wolfgang and Mary.
Summer greetings, classmates! Hopefully everyone is enjoying all the pleasures of the season. The most important news would be our successful and well-attended 40th Reunion over Memorial Day weekend. Thanks to a lot of organizational and creative effort on the part of our Reunion committee and university liaisons, all the activities went off without a hitch. Our first class gathering took place on Friday in the new resource center where the library was dedicated and named for the class of 1978, in honor of its generosity during its 40th Reunion year. A plaque commemorating our gift includes a quote by Toni Morrison, which reads, “If there’s a book you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” As to our generosity, it’s a pleasure to report that we met our 40th Reunion fundraising goal of $400,000 for the Wesleyan Fund and $5,000,000 in multi-year commitments.
Saturday kicked off with an organizing breakfast meeting for women athletes (thanks to Suki Hoagland and Fran Rivkin). An energetic group of ’78s rallied for the class march to Memorial Hall and many attended the box lunch under the big tent afterwards. Eclectic held an afternoon party with many ’78s in attendance. Our well-attended class dinner was held in the ’92 Theatre. Irma Gonzalez did a fabulous job of MCing the evening and we had a hot-off-the-press university update from Michael Roth. During our meal, the mic was passed around and classmates shared their Wesleyan experiences. An added bonus to the weekend took place off-site up in Foxboro, Mass., on Sunday where our own Men’s Varsity Lacrosse team competed in and WON the Division III National Championship! There were many alumni and students in attendance to watch the exciting game.
To the 63 classmates who were able to attend our Reunion, surely you are treasuring many special moments—and to those who weren’t able to attend, you were missed. For everyone’s enjoyment, Kathy Mintz put together a photo album. Thank you, Kathy.
Andrea Gabor sent in news of her new book, After the Education Wars, published in June by The New Press. Her earlier books include Einstein’s Wife, The Capitalist Philosophers, and The Man Who Discovered Quality. Andrea is Bloomberg Chair of Business Journalism at Baruch College.
Ken and I celebrate 15 years as co-secretaries and are on board for the foreseeable future. However, the columns are only interesting if you send us news!
It’s officially summertime. Not that many submissions this issue. C’mon, send in your news please. Or are you saving it for our 40th next year?
Tina Binns Palmer: “We became grandparents in October for the first time as son #1 and wife became parents of a wonderful and happy son. Early this November, son #2 and wife will join the club and welcome their first child. Meanwhile son #3 is digging in various parts of Greece while pursuing his master’s in archaeology.”
Jane Marcellus: “I am part of an American Journalism Historians Association team building a database in anticipation of the centennial of the 19th Amendment. I had an essay ‘The Growing Rock’ published in the Gettysburg Review and a #MeToo piece in the Washington Post.”
Caroline Norden: “After working for 25 years on land protection and stewardship projects for various land trusts, I am now a stay-at-home mom, caring for two teenage daughters. I am excited that my eldest will be entering Wesleyan as a freshman this fall. I’m looking forward to becoming reacquainted with the college.”
Kimberley Carrell-Smith: “I’m still a professor of practice in public history at Lehigh University, where I also direct the interdisciplinary Community Fellows Graduate Program. As a former dumpster diver with 20 years and counting since my first university ‘garbage’ forays, I run a huge university-community sale project that collects student castoffs at the end of the year and turns them into gold through an enormous community sale. The aim is to channel high-end reusable goods into a sale in my low-income neighborhood surrounding our campus, inviting folks to buy with dignity at bargain prices. We made $20,000-plus this year for school field trips and programs for neighborhood kids! Pretty good haul for all items at about 25 cents to a dollar or two. Where else can you buy Prada or Versace apparel, a fan, a bucket, a pan, and a chair, and walk away with change from $20?”
Andrew Tanzer: “My book, Robert Kuok: A Memoir, has sold about 160,000 copies, mainly in Southeast Asia, and will go on sale in the U.S. market in September.”
Mecklenburg County Manager Dena R. Diorio announced that W. Lee Jones Jr. has been named as the new park and recreation director. Jones, a licensed architect and member of the American Institute of Architects, currently serves as the division director for Park and Recreation’s Capital Planning and Alliance Development Services. He is responsible for coordinating the planning, design, and construction of the department’s facilities and overseeing the development of many partnerships. Over the years, Jones worked on several notable park projects, including First Ward Park, Romare Bearden Park, and the Mecklenburg County Sportsplex at Matthews.
From my partner in notes, Ann Biester Deane: “So proud of my son, Carter ’18, the sixth member of our family to graduate from Wes! Off to Cologne next year on a DAAD fellowship.” Six Wesleyan grads! It’s a dynasty.
Yours truly, Gary Breitbord, has been spending time with the usual cast of characters from DKE/Wesleyan. I know I keep writing about this group, but the bonds are stronger than ever, even 40 years later, and since no one else wrote in, I figured I’d bore you one more time. Many impromptu get togethers surrounding two noteworthy highlights: A fun reception at the DKE house on the Saturday of Reunion weekend then the next day at Gillette Stadium where the Wesleyan Men’s Lacrosse team won the NCAA Division III Championship!
The Reunion reception didn’t disappoint with classes from 1958–2013 (like Bart Bolton ’58 to Zach Binswanger ’13) and those in between well-represented. From our time on campus, the class of ’78 was in the house: John McDermott, Ralph Rotman, Bill Ahern, Paul Nelson, Jeff Nesson, Bill Weiss, Jeff Binswanger,and Michael Klingher. Also, in attendance representing the DKE Alumni Board of Directors: Jeff Gray ’77, Dave Thomas ’77, Tom Roberts ’77, Dave Bagatelle ’86, Scott Karsten ’74, and the illustrious Joe Britton.
There was a large Wesleyan contingent (the graduation ceremonies in Middletown precluded a much larger showing) cheering on the men’s lacrosse Cardinals in their unprecedented accomplishment. I was fortunate to join a legion of lacrosse luminaries including Pat McQuillan ’75, Jim Daley ’75, Charlie Cocores ’74, Bill Devereaux ’75, Jock Burns ’72, Al Poon ’76, Dave Campbell ’75, Pete McArdle ’75, and Peter Guenther ’77 in celebrating this Wesleyan milestone. And to our own class of ’79 lacrosse playing stud, Jono Cobb, it’s a different game than when you and I played, my friend.
Thank you, Wes ’80 for writing. There were so many first-time and return writers that I had to cut the print column to half the size of what was submitted. In the print version, I urged you to put that magazine down and I hoped you would pick up your phone, tablet, or laptop and go straight online to view the notes in their entirety. Here, online, you will learn more about the lives of our classmates and can click on a few links they sent. I hope that the level of engagement in writing for our class notes column is an indicator that there will be many who, for the first time, will join us “Reunion loyalist” and attend our 40th in May 2020—where we can look back with perfect vision to what one of our classmates who recently wrote called, “a simpler time.”
Cheryl Salden Green writes: My husband, Jim, and I are very excited that our son, Mitchell, was admitted to Wesleyan early decision this year and will entering as a freshman this fall. Mitchell fell in love with the school when we visited during Alumni Sons and Daughters Weekend during his junior year (in spite of the fact that Jim and I went there)! Jim and I met in Foss 7 the first day of freshman orientation in August 1976 (and got married 15 years later, after Jim finished his medical residency and I was out of law school). We have been on campus more during the college application process in the last two years than we have since graduation. I am a real estate attorney in Rhode Island working in-house for CVS Health. Jim and Mitchell (who recently became an eagle scout) are both active volunteers for Boy Scouts and other groups. We live in Foxborough (home of the Patriots). I would love to hear from some of our Wesleyan friends.”
Bruce Post writes: “My second novel, Eris Adrift, was published in May and is available at Amazon, as a paperback and also on Kindle.”
Nancy Stier writes: “I recently spent a wonderful evening here in NYC with classmates Art Feltman, Thom Kleiner, and David Kohane, a dinner we arranged to celebrate our big birthdays this year.”
Paul Edwards writes: “In July 2017, I moved to San Francisco with my family to take up a new position at Stanford University, where I am William J. Perry Fellow in International Security at the Center for International Security and Cooperation. I’ll be a lead author on the next Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, a four-year task that’s both an honor and a ton of work. My wife, Gabrielle Hecht, also took a Stanford position in the history department. Our 15-year-old son, Luka, is finishing his first year of high school, playing soccer, and writing poetry, fiction, and rap. Two sightings of the aggressively shaven Alan Jacobs, on his way to Norway to make a film about the 1911 race to the South Pole. (Memo to Alan: Norway is nowhere near Antarctica.)”
Jacquie and Andrew McKenna writes: “Greetings from Boulder, Colo. Our family is back in Boulder after our girls, Xan (16) and Juliana (14), lived for five months in Monteverde Costa Rica with local families and attended the Monteverde Friends School for a semester. They are both basically fluent in Spanish and much more aware of their own traditions after living in a very different culture. They also survived the eye of Hurricane (in Spanish “Tormenta”) Nate—cut off for a week from water and electricity, surrounded by mudslides in every direction but well taken care of by an amazing community.” During these five months, Jacquie and Andrew lived in Monteverde for a couple months volunteering with the local community on solar and conservation, traveled throughout Central America for a couple months and returned to the States for a month as empty nesters (very strange)! Speaking of empty nesters, we sure are aware how time is passing as our oldest daughter obtained her driver’s license this month and is talking about colleges and our younger daughter graduated from middle school and heads to high school next year. As we all say, “where does the time go?!?!” Before we know it, we’ll all be back at Wesleyan celebrating our 40th Reunion year—FORTIETH! Yikes!”
David Claman, PhD, writes: “I recently earned tenure at Lehman College in The Bronx, one of the senior colleges of The City University of New York. I teach music theory, composition, and electronic music. With tenure comes a much-needed sabbatical. I’ve fortunately been awarded a Fulbright-Nehru grant for research and teaching in India next year. So, in September my wife, Sunita, and I will once again relocate to India for many months, this time to Delhi. I will be affiliated with The University of Delhi, composing, teaching, and learning more about Hindustani music. The experience I had learning South Indian music at Wes with T. Viswanathan PhD’75, T. Ranganathan, and K.S. Subramanian PhD’86—among the finest musicians I’ve ever worked with—has stayed with me and continues to play a part in my life. But at this point I’m interested in learning more about music in North India which is significantly different.
“The rest of the time, we live in Jackson Heights, Queens, N.Y., with our dog named Boffin who was rescued off the streets of Delhi three years ago. I’m also in the final stages of putting together a CD of my music for Albany Records. Several of my compositions are posted here, as well as on YouTube and Spotify.”
Peter Scharf writes: “I continue my itinerate life as a visiting professor at various institutions. Last November I completed a three-year appointment at the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay, and at the end of July I take up an appointment in the Language Technology Research Center at the International Institute of Information Technology in Hyderabad. I’ll teach a course on Paninian linguistics for non-Sanskritists, the aim of which will be to get the future writers of machine translation of Indian languages to include concepts from their own currently neglected Indian linguistic traditions. In the meantime, I keep adding texts, lexical resources, and linguistic technology to the Sanskrit Library website.”
Jeff Green writes: “I started working part-time in the emergency department of a new hospital in Ashdod, Israel, and continue to work in a couple of ERs in Wisconsin sporadically, dividing my time between Israel and Milwaukee. Our oldest daughter is a doctor in Australia, our youngest is in the Israeli intelligence service, and our son (Wesleyan Class of 2015) just got a record deal in LA. Check out his tune—Bring Me Down by Double Twin.”
Walter Calhoun writes: “I presently live in Highland Park, Ill. I have not had steady employment since I was hit by a car as a pedestrian on May 22, 2002 when I was sent 30 feet in the air and suffered a severe head injury after landing on my head and face. Miraculously, I did not break any bones. I was, however, in a coma for close to 30 days and then further hospitalized for another six to seven months as I attempted to recover from my various injuries.
“After I was discharged from the hospital, I continued to try and develop civil defense business in the mid-size defense firm where I was a partner. Ultimately, I was no long able to try lawsuits to verdict like I had before and by 2008 left the practice of law for good. By that time, I was living with my daughter, Sammy, who had obtained her degree in religion from St. Anselm in Manchester, N.H., and had begun work at CDW Corp. We lived in Glencoe, Ill., together for three years until we were joined by my son, Daniel, who was then taking a break from college. Sammy has been working at CDW in Bridgeport, Conn., while living with her fiancé, Brian. They plan to marry on Oct. 12, 2018 art the Bronx Zoo in NYC. Daniel graduated from Lake Forest College in Illinois cum laude this past June and has accepted a position in finance at Ayco. I have tried to keep in contact with Steve Freccero who was nominated to serve as a California state judge after a position as an assistant U.S. attorney and becoming a partner in private practice and Labeeb Abboud who is a general counsel for a company in NYC Blessings in joy.”
Melissa Stern writes: “My mixed media installation project The Talking Cure just finished up a fabulous run in St. Louis at The Kranzberg Center for Contemporary Art. It goes back on the road again in a few months. Stay tuned for details on where and when. Right now ,I’m working like mad getting ready for my solo show at Garvey Simon Gallery in NYC, which opens in October. Hope to see some Wes Tech folks there. I also start teaching at Parsons School of Design this Fall, so it’s going to be a jam packed couple of months!”
Cindy Ryan writes: This May I received my second master’s in clinical mental health counseling – expressive arts therapy from Lesley University. Along the way I had the fortune to be supervised by Deb Madera ’95, who founded one amazing mental health treatment facility, Cultivate Care Farms, where I interned. Expressive arts therapy combines beautifully with animal and farm-assisted therapy! This past year I Interned at an exceptional integrative care facility with cancer patients and their families. As my two adult kids, Juliet and Jonah, have long since found their successes, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed getting back to the books, finding a new passion, and reinventing myself by harnessing the power of creativity to help others.”
Ellen Haller writes: “I’m writing this while completing my sixth AIDS/LifeCycle, a seven-day, 545-mile charity bike ride from San Francisco to Los Angles. I ride because I was in medical school in 1982 when the AIDS crisos first hit, and I’ve lost countless patients to this disease since those dark days. I ride because AIDS is still here. I ride because California is beautiful. And, I ride because I love cycling! My main news is that, after 30 years on the full-time faculty at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, I’ll be retiring as of June 30, 2018! I’m looking forward to more cycling and also to continued ice hockey playing; yep, I still play! Huge thanks to Wes where my hockey addiction first began.
David Luberoff, Jenny Boylan, Eric Segal
David Luberoff writes, “At the urging of Jenny Boylan, Eric Segal and I traveled down to Middletown on May 26to join her for the gathering of former Argus editors and writers that marked the paper’s 150th anniversary. We had a wonderful afternoon starting with lunch at O’Rourke’s and then a long stroll around the campus, highlighted by a visit to the Argus’ former home at the corner of Church and High Streets, which now houses the school’s Office of Religious and Spiritual Life (and looks a lot better than it did when it housed the Argus). After taking some selfies there, we strolled through the Butterfield dorms and around campus, including a recollection-filled hiatus sitting on Foss Hill, where we ruminated on the unexpected paths our lives have taken. We ended at Russell House for a reception where several decades of Argus alumni told similar tales of late nights, crises, take-out food, and a variety of important experiences and lessons that we’ve taken forward, even as most of us moved into non-journalism professions. All in all, a fun and touching day.”
Greetings from Brooklyn. We will start with an erratum: My fellow SiSPer Ariel Rubissow Okamoto wrote last issue that she is with her husband in the Bay area, which is decidedly on the left coast, not the east coast. I’m sure most of you had figured that out. And daughter Tira is working on the San Francisco Pre-Disaster Challenge of Resilient Design. Our apologies for sloppy proofreading.
Good news department: Paul DiSanto and Gordon Cooney joined former Wesleyan Lacrosse teammates Peter Guenther ’77, Dan Lynch ’80, Bruce Bunnell, and number-one fan Seta Nazarian ’79, along with thousands of Wesleyan faithful at Gillette Stadium, to watch the Cardinals win their first NCAA National Championship.
Joan (Fishman) Herrington is chair of the department of theatre at Western Michigan University. She works professionally as a director and dramaturg, with a recent stint at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
David Lynch joined the Washington Post in November as global economics correspondent and writes about trade and globalization, including the various fronts in the president’s trade war.
Steven G. Blum spends most of his time worrying about other people’s financial lives, teaching other people’s children (at Penn and Wharton), and fending off challenges from his own kids. He would love to hear from any classmates who live with teenagers and have any ideas whatsoever.
Lora Brown Premo is a freelance writer in Colorado Springs. “I have gotten it together again after being widowed in 2011 (my second husband).” She is very proud of her son, Jason, who spent six years in the Air Force as a cryptolinguist with multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. He took six months off to run the get out the vote effort for Bob Kerrey of Nebraska’s Senate run in 2012. He attended Amherst College on a full scholarship and graduated in 2016, Phi Beta Kappa, with the economics department prize for best thesis. He double-majored in economics and math has accepted a full scholarship for the economics PhD program at Northwestern University. Makes a mother proud!
After five years enjoying all that Japan has to offer, especially the glorious hiking just a short train ride away and rambles by the river nearby, Elaine Kurtenbach has moved to Bangkok to continue as Asia business editor for The Associated Press. It’s a first time to live in and explore Southeast Asia after a career spent mainly in China and Japan.
Dan Greenberger won a third Writers Guild Award for his work on CBS, and by sheer coincidence, the award was presented by his Wesleyan roommate, Bradley Whitford. He said, “It really was one of the proudest moments of my life. Go Wes!”
Brenda Zlamany’s 100/100, an exhibit of 100 watercolor portraits of residents of the Hebrew Home at Riverdale,is scheduled to open on September 17 in NYC.
Charlie Spiegel reports on the June wedding of Nancy Traub Chirinos to Greg Larson. The wedding took place on Billy Goat Hill across from the couple’s San Francisco home. Nancy is a licensed marriage and family therapist. Happily, Charlie’s family law mediation office is only one block away from Nancy’s office. He’s also active in promoting resistry.net and travels to Republican congressional districts in California’s central valley once a month thrrought November. His partner’s grand=niece starts at WESU this fall so he expects to travel back in September
Picking up his daughter from her junior year at Hofstra, Charlie found himself saying, among other wishes for her senior year, that he hopes she graduates before her school has its mass gun shooting, a sentiment he wrote about to Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. “Sigh. Resist.”
Alyson Myers directs a scientific team in the Gulf of Mexico to farm seaweed at large scale for carbon-neutral fuel, feed, and other products with the Department of Energy. She’s yet to be swept overboard in spring seas.
On a sad note, Mitch Briskin died on May 27, after a long illness. Mitch’s son, Will Briskin ’21, just completed his freshman year at Wesleyan. His wife, Laura Gardner, notes that “I lost the love of my life, the sharpest man I’ve ever known, the best companion ever. Our children lost a thoroughly devoted, fun-loving father, a constant in their lives (and occasional nudge). Friends lost one of the funniest and most dynamic intellectual sparring partners they’ve ever known. Yet we also gained insight into true courage and grace; how love eases even the worst suffering; how being present is all that is needed.”
Ellen Jewett, Katie Fox, Jessica Barton, Alyson Myers, and several of Mitch’s sophomore roommates, got together in D.C. Ellen said, “We toasted Mitch and all our fond memories of that year.”
Amidst this morbidity, I’m reminded that Annie Dillard called art “anti-entropic.” Things fall apart, yet art pushes back with creation of more things as others decay. We, too, fall apart. We decay. Yet many of us continue to create, through our work and our art. We become anti-entropic forces in our own right. And, we have procreated. Our children continue to defy entropy with their works and deeds, whether at Wes like Will Briskin and many others, or in cryptolinguistics, or in whatever your children do.
And, just before going to press, we also learned that Kevin Osborn and Peter Wojnar passed away. We will have a more complete entry on Kevin and Peter in the next issue.
Here’s to fighting entropy. And, to “less-bidity.”
Greetings, classmates! For those of you who have pondered what you can do with a degree in philosophy, Jonathan Weber has been named global industry editor, technology for Reuters—based in Singapore. To recap, Weber has had a string of tech journo jobs, including stints at the LA Times, editor of the Industry Standard, founder of New West Publishing in Montana when San Francisco’s first dot-com balloon burst (we’re waiting on the second), and founder of the nonprofit news startup, The Bay Citizen, in San Francisco. He joined Reuters in 2011 as West Coast bureau chief and then technology editor. Through all this, he has kept returning to San Francisco, which his friends there hope happens after this Singapore gig . . . but meantime, prepare the guest room; there’s a lot of Southeast Asia to explore.
Literary news: Peter Blauner has a new crime novel coming in September, Sunrise Highway, hard on the heels of his last book, Proving Ground, which came out last year and was the first novel he’d published after more than a decade of focusing on TV writing. Patty Smith’s novel, The Year of Needy Girls, is a LAMBDA finalist. She and her partner and are excited to become grandmothers in October; Patty teaches American lit and creative writing at the Appomattox Regional Governor’s School in Petersburg, Va. Chris Garson retired a few years back from Progressive Insurance and now writes fiction; his novel, Perk Noir, a cozy mystery, is about a retired NFL lineman who writes trashy spy novels but covets a Pulitzer. Virginia Pye’s collection of short stories, Shelf Life of Happiness, was published this fall. Suzanne Kay wrote “Not Talking About Race is Not Helping Any of Us” for the Huffington Post. Maya Sonenberg published a chapbook of fiction, nonfiction, and photos, After the Death of Shostakovich Père, with PANK Books this year. She is surviving her second stint as director of the creative writing program at the University of Washington and will be associate chair of the English department next. She and John Robinson are proud that their son has completed his first year at USC’s film school.
Josh Fischman wrote that in the midst of writing and editing about hurricanes and earthquakes (senior editor, Scientific American), he and his wife, Huichong, took in a dog that was displaced by the storms. Josh is in a cooking club with intrepid reporter, Tom Frank ’84, who is now on the investigative beat for Buzzfeed.
Anne Wise has been a staff physician at Neighborhood Family Practice, a community health center in Cleveland, Ohio, since 1995. They’re the designated refugee arrival provider for their county for families from Nepal, Somalia, Congo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, among others, and provide sliding scale coverage to patients without adequate insurance. She says her converted factory loft overlooking Lake Erie is so hip she should grow a beard.
Various tidbits of news: Bob Russo has become a certified archery instructor and teaches at his local Y. Carson Milgroom celebrated his 20th wedding anniversary and is still playing lots of amateur adult baseball in Newton, Mass., albeit on a shiny new titanium hip. Richard Klein celebrated his one-year anniversary as partner at the law firm Romer Debbas LLP, heading up its co-op/condo department. Jim Dray is chief information officer at an engineering firm called Thornton Tomasetti, based in NYC. Terri Seligman is a partner at the Frankfurt Kurnit law firm, practicing advertising and marketing law. She’s been married for over 30 years and she and husband, George Hagen have three kids—30, 27, and 17. Terri plays squash, does volunteer work, frets about the state of world, and occasionally sees Wesfolk: Sabrina Allan, Ellen (Friedman) and Sam Bender, Kathy Grunes, Elissa Jablons ’83, and Peter Blauner. Tricia Beard Mosher’s three children are launched, and she continues to have her own company consulting on child abuse and neglect systems in the U.S. Her empty-nest family (husband and two dogs) is happily enjoying Orlando without any snow in the forecast, but perhaps rising oceans. Susan Read is VP, portfolio administration, with an equipment leasing company, where she was the first employee when it started up in 1995 . . . which shows what you can do with a degree in social and cultural anthropology!
As for me, I recently danced in the Latin Dance Grooves contingent in San Francisco’s Carnaval parade. Studies show that dance is the best thing to keep you young, both mentally and physically, so I’m putting Intro to Dance with Cheryl Cutler MA’71 and a lot of African drumming and dancing to good use.
A great big thank you to our Reunion committee for planning the festivities: Cori Adler, Carlton Barnswell, Ben Binswanger, Jeffrey Burack, Michelle Deatrick, Richard Eaddy, Peter Gilhuly, Eve Hall, Paul Halliday, Darrick Harris, Lewis Ingall, Ruth Jaffe, Lisa Mould Kennedy, Tom McKibbin-Vaughn, Megan Norris, Orin Snyder, Kim Beede Soule, Paul Spivey, Adam Usdan, Mike Whalen, Michael White, and Ellen Zucker. I echo the sentiments in their class e-mail: “A good time was had by all. I would like to give a special shout-out to Ruth Jaffe, Matt Ember, and Laurie Ember ’84 for receiving Wesleyan’s Service Awards and Megan Norris for receiving Wesleyan’s Outstanding Service Award” (contact Kate Lynch ’82 for the e-mail: klynch@wesleyan.edu).
Ken Schneyer and Janice Okoomian have a college graduate (Phoebe from Marlboro College) and a high school graduate (Arek). Arek will attend Sarah Lawrence College in fall. Ken’s latest novelette, “Keepsakes,” appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact in November. He added an introductory logic course and a criminal procedure course to his teaching repertoire. Janice now uses Reacting to the Past in her gender studies teaching.
Eve Silverman is moving to the Mad River Valley in Vermont. Son Alex finished sophomore year at Tufts and daughter Libby will be a high school senior. She is looking ahead to the next chapter of empty nest life and is getting geared up to start a new career in wildlife conservation.
Kirsten Wasson is finishing a memoir about her midlife move to the West Coast. See her work at storytelling venues around LA. Find her hiking in the Santa Monica Mountains, camping in the Sequoias, walking the beaches of Malibu, and eating trendy fermented food in dark and silly spots around town. Weekends are spent with son Noah, who is recovering from addiction.
John Fixx is serving his third school, Country School (Madison, Conn.) as headmaster and cross-country coach. Living 20 minutes away from Middletown, John trains with alumni runners at Wes. He says, “Foss Hill is steeper than it was during the early 1980s!” Wife Liza owns Breakwater Books, an independent bookstore, in Guilford, Conn. Son Nat is an admissions officer at Belmont Hill School in Boston, and daughter Emily is a behavioral interventionist at Essex High School in Vermont. John wrote a children’s book, Things That Aren’t, illustrated by Abby Carter.
Anne Adelman’s edited book, Psychoanalytic Reflections on Parenting Teens and Young Adults: Changing Patterns in Modern Love, Loss and Longing, came out in March from Routledge. Anne lives in Bethesda, Md., and has a private psychotherapy practice.
Susanna Sharpe works for the Latin American studies institute and library at the University of Texas at Austin. She loves getting to know the activist-scholar students and publishing faculty and student writing in the annual review. She performs Brazilian music in Austin and lends her voice to the immigrants’ rights movement. She is the extremely proud parent of two student-musicians at the University of Texas Butler School of Music, Corina Santos (violin, ’19) and Paulo Santos (jazz saxophone, ’21).
Mark Kushner started an ed-tech company to help worldwide teachers teach better and save time by providing student online assessment data. He has two kids.
Jan Elliott has pieced together a career in teaching and performing. One foot is in early classical music, the other in folk and world music. She dances, plays, and coaches for several groups specializing in traditional Morris and sword dancing from England.
Mary Becker lives in Yarmouth, Maine. She is a partner in a physician group doing emergency medicine and palliative care. Her passion is improving communication skills between health care clinicians and patients and families with serious illness.
Anath Golomb is a clinical psychologist in New Hampshire, and David Frankfurter is chair of the religion department at Boston University. His fourth book, Christianizing Egypt, came out last fall. Son Rafael is in an MD/PhD program at Berkeley/UCSF and daughter Sariel will pursue a PhD program in dance at Stanford.
Stuart Servetar will be at Wes for Sons and Daughters Weekend with Kid 2. Kid 1 chose the University of Chicago instead. Wife Beth will start her second year as parent coordinator at East Side Middle School. Karen Adair Miller and classmates Tammy Rosengarten Darcas, Sue Stallone Kelly, Barb Bailey Beckwitt, and Gretchen Millspaugh Cooney got together in June. Shana Sureck had really hoped to attend Reunion, but as a photographer, Memorial Day weekend is one of her busiest weekends of the year.
Amy Appleton sent in a beautiful family photo. “From left to right, my brother, Bill Appleton ’88, my daughter, Charlotte Sarraille ’16, my brother’s wife, Jane Donahue ’88, my son, Ben Sarraille ’19, and myself, Amy Appleton.”
Megan Norris wrote, “It was great to see so many old friends at our Reunion . . . Weather ranging from 93 without a cloud in the sky to 53 with a cold drizzle made for many wardrobe changes, but Anita Hill challenging the graduating class to speak truth to power made sitting in the rain worthwhile.”
After completing these class notes, Laurie Hills feels quite ordinary with three relatively happy 20-somethings. She is five years post-divorce and back in the light, and is a data analyst at Elizabeth Public Schools in New Jersey.
On a final and sad note, classmate Daniel J. Taub passed away on April 11. After graduating from Wesleyan University and the University of Chicago Law School, Dan practiced law in Chicago as a guardian ad litem for abused and neglected children before relocating to Vermont in 1992. Dan leaves behind his wife of 39 years, Jean Bacon, and his daughters, Lily and Claire Taub.
Jeff Hush, together with Dar Williams ’89, Banning Eyre’79, Professor Chris Chenier, and George Perez ’20, has launched the Middletown Green Community Center in Middletown, Conn., with the intention of taking over the building at 51 Green Street, a building that Wesleyan previously operated. MGCC is in negotiations with the City of Middletown over this building. Dar held a benefit concert for MGCC on Mother’s Day at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
MGCC is a collaboration between Wesleyan alumni and Middletown community leaders. Its mission is to improve the lives of underserved people and families in Middletown and the surrounding towns by developing high-tech skills, instilling healthier lifestyles through training in food and movement, and instruction in the musical, visual, and performing arts. To find out more, visit middletowngreencc.org.
Effective April 5, Jeff Neuman was named senior vice president, corporate secretary, and general counsel of Tronox Limited, a global mining and inorganic chemicals company. Jeff previously served as vice president, corporate secretary, and deputy general counsel of Honeywell International Inc.
In May, Arthur Haubenstock started as executive director of the California Efficiency and Demand Management Council. The Council is the trade association for energy efficiency and energy demand-side management in California, which has one of the most advanced markets for the demand side of the energy equation but, according to Arthur, still has far to go as one of the last major sectors of the economy to be disrupted.
Vicky Fish and her husband, Hugh Huizenga (Williams ’84), are excited that their twins, Andrew ’18 and Noah (Hamilton’18) graduated from college. Their youngest, Peter, is in Chile for a semester abroad. They live in Vermont, and Vicky completed her MSW and is a therapist at a community mental health clinic, working with the seriously mentally ill, which she finds very challenging and worthwhile.
Lee McIntyre has a new book out called Post-Truth (MIT Press, 2018), which is about the problem of “fake news” and “alternative facts” in today’s political arena. CNN named it a Book of the Week in April and it is an Amazon best seller.
Paul Gross is living in Seattle but has moved from software and not-for-profit board management to full-time work in clinical research for cerebral palsy (one of his son’s two neurological conditions). Paul is running a 21-center clinical research network with sites and multiple medical disciplines across the country. With this work came an adjunct appointment as an associate professor at the University of Utah School of Medicine. As a self-described “old dad,” Paul is trying his best to keep up with his first kid, who enters high school next year.
Jeddy Lieber spent a great year with his family in New York, where his daughters did a sophomore high school year at Saint Ann’s. He saw his son graduate from Penn. The family will be moving back to Paris in the fall.
Since 1999, Randy Frisch has run LoveCat Music, a music publishing company specializing in placing songs in films and TV shows. He’s had success with the music of Wesleyan alumni, including Caroline Horn, Gary Mezzi ’83, Bill Anschell ’83, Chris Erikson ’87, Dimitri Ehrlich ’87, and Brian McKenna ’04.
We are sad to report that our classmate, the Rev. Virginia H. Wilcox, died on Dec. 28 at Saint Vincent’s Medical Center in Bridgeport, Conn. After receiving her undergraduate degree in religion, Ginny received her MDiv degree from Yale Divinity School. She was ordained in the New York Conference and served the following United Methodist churches in Connecticut: First UMC in Stamford, Summerfield UMC in Bridgeport, Middletown, Winsted, and Derby. She retired in 2016. According to her friends, she was a gifted preacher, an eloquent writer, and a talented artist. She was proud to receive the Reneen Steinberg Humanitarian Award for excellence in human services.
Heidi Ravis reports that efforts remain underway to collect donations to have a tree dedicated to our dear friend, Nancy Crown who died, on the Wesleyan campus. The plan is to have a ceremony at our 35th Reunion in 2019. Funding for this is being handled by way of donations to Wesleyan. Heidi advises that if you would like to contribute, you can do so through Wesleyan’s website, or by mail or phone. Just be sure to indicate that your donation is in memory of Nancy Crown, Class of 1984. A contact in the alumni office will track the donations. If you know of anyone else who might want to contribute, please share this information with them. Feel free to contact Heidi with any questions at hbravis@gmail.com.
We have fewer submissions than usual for this issue, so as class secretary, I am using the extra space to mention our cohort of class agents. John Gannon, David Hill, Michael Levin, and John McIntyre were in touch asking if I might put the word out that they’d welcome some help connecting with and contacting fellow members of our class. Perhaps some female members of our class might wish to help diversify the volunteer leadership! Please e-mail me if you’d like more information.
Here are some notes from several classmates: Down in D.C., Scott Michaud is the senior speechwriter for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. He has a 5-year-old daughter (Class of 2032!) and another little girl due in July. He is still playing ultimate, still seeing other members of Nietzsch Factor at ultimate tournaments, and still playing summer league ultimate on the D.C. Wesleyan alumni team. He says, “Best wishes to all my Class of 1986 classmates and to the Class of 2018!”
Lisa Porter is living in Berkeley, Calif., where she is the head of voice and dialects at the American Conservatory Theatre and a lecturer at UC Berkeley. “I act professionally and just finished productions of two very successful new plays—Eureka Day by Jonathan Spector at the Aurora Theatre and The Eva Trilogy by Barbara Hammond at the Magic Theatre. My daughter, Maggie, will start at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in the fall. I also am the lead artist in a participatory Shakespeare theme camp at Burning Man. I keep in close touch with Melinda Newman and Shawn Cuddy.”
Monica Jahan Bose is busy with art and advocacy work around gender issues and climate change. She is working on a long-term feminist project called Storytelling with Saris and had a solo show, Weather the Storm. She is collaborating with homeless women in D.C., One Billion Rising in Miami, and women from her ancestral island village in Bangladesh, making saris about climate change and doing elaborate outdoor performance art actions. On a trip to Athens, she hopes to reconnect with Nada Bahu Pentaris. She wrote, “I’m so happy that my spouse (Michael S. Bennett ’87) will join me in Athens for a week so that we can relive our visit there in our 20s! Our older daughter, Tuli (“paintbrush” in Bangla), attends UC Berkeley and loves it. She is active with the Cal Dems and has started the Bangali Student Association. Our younger daughter, Koli (“flower bud”), is finishing eighth grade at a Spanish-English bilingual public school.”
Peter Crivelli is on the board of the Serviam Girls Academy. Based in Delaware, where he lives, Serviam is tuition-free, independent Catholic middle school in the Ursuline tradition for young women of all faiths from low-income families. The school has been very helpful in preparing the young girls for success in high school and beyond.
The film made by Ralph Savarese’s son won a Peabody Award. According to the jurors, the film is “a bold step forward in inclusive filmmaking that allows David James Savarese, a nonspeaking young man with autism, to tell his own story, focusing on accomplishment and possibility, not limits and barriers.” One of nine winners in the category of documentary films, Deej is the story of his journey. Last year he graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Oberlin College.
Belinda Hanson, founding partner of Hanson Crawford Crum Family Law Group based in Silicon Valley, has opened a second office in San Francisco. Her firm is celebrating their 20th year in business.
