Author: Randi Alexandra Plake

ANDREW F. WILLIAMSON, a high school English teacher and camp director, died May 5, 2017, at age 40. After receiving a master’s degree from Brown University in secondary English education, he taught high school English, most recently at Rolling Hills Preparatory School in San Pedro, Calif. A gifted athlete and lover of the outdoors, for many summers he shared this spirit with children as a staff member and director of Shire Village Camp. He is survived by his wife of two months, Erin Lanahan; his mother; his father; his brother; and a close friend, Abby Levine.

OBIDIMMA O. OKOBI, an educator who was a school principal in addition to being a mentor, motivational speaker, and outreach coordinator, died Apr. 3, 2017. She was 40. After receiving her degree in art with an interest in architectural history, she received a master’s degree in urban studies from Southern Connecticut State University, certification in elementary education from John Hopkins University, and a master’s degree in school leadership from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education. She was the principal of City Neighbors Hamilton School, in the Baltimore City public schools, and had also worked in various capacities in schools in the Baltimore area and in Connecticut. She personified the love of learning, commitment to students, and dedication to the principles of equity and justice that are the hallmark of a great educator. An active member of many organizations and communities, she focused on arts and culture, children, civil rights and social action, education, health, human rights, poverty alleviation, and social services. She served as mentor, motivational speaker, outreach coordinator, and girl’s lacrosse coach. An avid runner, she also captained lacrosse at Wesleyan. Among those who survive are her mother, Elsie Halliday Okobi, Ph.D., three brothers, her sister, and a large extended family and group of friends and colleagues.

JENNIFER F. LINK, an artist and poet, died Mar. 10, 2017, at age 54. After receiving her degree cum laude, she moved to San Francisco, where she worked for the Jewish Community Relations Council for almost 10 years while also pursuing her training in fine arts. She received an MFA degree from the University of San Francisco. Her work has been exhibited in numerous shows and online journals across the county, and she was a master of printmaking and collage. She taught art to children and collaborated on poetry and photography projects. She was also an avid genealogist. Survivors include her mother, Deborah S. Link, M.D., two sisters, six nieces and nephews, her aunt, and three cousins.

DALE P. ANDREWS, a scholar in homiletics and a teacher, minister, and social activist, died June 23, 2017. He was 55. A double major in religion and sociology, he received a master’s of divinity in 1991 from the Princeton Theological Seminary with a concentration in clinical social work. He then was a visiting research fellow at the University of Oxford, where he conducted independent research in historical studies on Methodism and preaching in the early church. He earned another master’s in 1997 and a PhD in 1998 from the Vanderbilt University Graduate Department of Religion, where he was a Dorothy Danforth Compton Fellow. Enrolled in the homiletics and in the religion and personality degree program, he was awarded a dissertation fellowship from the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. He taught at the Louisville seminary and at the Boston University School of Theology prior to coming to Vanderbilt University in 2010, where he was the Distinguished Professor of Homiletics, Social Justice, and Practical Theology, and the Cornelius Vanderbilt Chair. For the past year he had been developing a curriculum for training activists and scholars on how to address ongoing and emerging issues related to racial justice, and he was the co-founder of a program funded by the Lilly Endowment to train coaches who help preachers improve and enrich their sermon preparation and communication skills. The author or editor of numerous books, he was also an ordained minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Zionist Church. Survivors include his wife, Barbara, and two children.

DEBORAH CIBELLI, a certified nurse midwife for 35 years, died Feb. 7, 2017, at age 61. After receiving her degree cum laude, she completed a master’s degree at the Yale University School of Nursing. A pioneer in her field who advanced nurse-midwifery in the New Haven, Conn., area, she was the co-founder of Women’s Health Associates, LLC, Connecticut’s first private midwifery practice. Among those who survive are her life partner, Helen Lope de Haro, M.D., an aunt, several uncles, and cousins.

ROBERT MANKIN, a professor of British History at the University of Paris, died Jan. 28, 2017. He was 64. A member of Alpha Delta Phi, he received his degree cum laude from the College of Letters. He then spent a year at Johns Hopkins University before joining Yale University, the center of “deconstruction,” where he received his master’s degree in comparative literature in 1979, having credited Wesleyan as being the place where he acquired his intellectual identity: rigor of the philologist, taste for poetry, unlimited pluridisciplinarity, including sciences. He then went to Paris as a free auditor in philosophy at the ENS (École normale supérieure). Departing from the university path in the 1980s, he became a lecturer, a translator for UNESCO, a librarian at the U.S. Embassy, and a scientific publisher for an international organization. He returned to Johns Hopkins to study at the Humanities Center and under the direction of the historian of ideas J.G.A. Pocock. There he completed his Ph.D. on the English thinker of the Enlightenment Edward Gibbon, who remained a source of inspiration for him. At the age of 45 he entered the French university system, first with an ATER (teaching and research assistant) post at the University of Provence, near the village of Gémenos, where he also raised bees, and then, as of 1998, as lecturer at the UFR (training and research department) of English studies in Paris 7, then the Charles V Institute in the Marais district. It was at Charles V and Paris 7—Denis Diderot—that he made his entire academic career, becoming a professor in 2005 and director of the UFR for a short period of time (after his proficiency in Aix-Marseille in 2004). In 2009 he was appointed director of the Deutsch de la Meurthe Foundation at the Cité Internationale Universitaire in Paris, a graduate student residence and cultural center, which flourished under his leadership. He retained this position until his death. As a committed teacher, he shared his immense knowledge and his love for thought with all, from young L1 students to aggregates or doctoral students. It is this deep humanistic commitment that led him to work towards the creation of a multidisciplinary curriculum in Humanities at the Institute of Humanities in Paris. At the same time, from 2009 to 2013, he headed the Anglophone Culture Research Laboratory (LARCA), founded in 2008 by merging two pre-existing groups. He infused this group with an exemplary interdisciplinary dynamic. Having become a UMR (research center located in a public university that is affiliated with a French scientific and technical research establishment) on the basis of this work, LARCA as it exists today owes almost all to him. He also initiated the work on the documentary film that has just been completed, L’Abécédaire, filmé du LARCA, in which one can see his beautiful lesson in images, words and gestures. He was in the midst of working on an international project on the complete works of Edward Gibbon, when he became ill and could not continue with his colleagues from Oxford, Lausanne, Los Angeles, and elsewhere. He was truly the voice of Gibbon for all those who had the chance to hear him. Survivors include his wife, Danielle Torren, his son, and his mother, sister, and brother.

RICHARD B. SCHENK II, M.D., a pathologist, died Jan. 4, 2017, at age 67. He received his degree magna cum laude and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. After receiving his medical degree from Stanford University School of Medicine, he trained there and at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. He worked at the Carle Foundation Hospital in Champaign, Ill., and at S.S.M. Health Good Samaritan Hospital in Mount Vernon, Ill. Among those who survive are his wife, Gina Smith Schenk; two children; one stepson; two grandchildren; his mother; his brother, Christopher R. Schenk ’75; and several nieces and nephews.

NICKOLAUS E. LEGGETT, a proponent of the low-power FM movement in the U.S., died Apr. 26, 2017. He was 72. A member of Kappa Alpha, he was an electronics technician, analyst, technical writer, and inventor who held multiple U.S. patents and may be best known as one of the original petitioners for microstation radio broadcasting, which grew into the low-power FM movement (LPFM). He also lobbied for reform to amateur radio antenna rules, as well as petitioning the FCC to look into very low-power localized radio signals, which could be helpful in case of emergencies when electric power is unavailable. He suggested that the agency use AM radio to enable inner-city neighborhoods to provide local neighborhood broadcasts. This would help minority groups organize and utilize the talents of local residents. His wife, Judith Fielder Leggett, survives.

STEPHEN P. HORVAT JR., a corporate attorney, died May 19, 2017, at age 70. A baseball player at Wesleyan, he served as team co-captain in his senior year and won the Walter MacNaughten Award. After four years in the U.S. Army he attended the Northwestern University School of Law, graduating with honors in 1973. He began his law career at Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co., where he was vice president and general counsel until 1985, when he joined the Franklin Life Insurance Co., and served in several administrative capacities. After a short time in private practice he joined the Sammons Financial Group as senior vice president (legal) for Midland National and the North American Co. for Life and Health Insurance, where he remained until his retirement. He was the chairman, secretary, and former president of the Association of Life Insurance Counsel, and also served as a board member of numerous insurance and bar associations. In addition to his legal practice, he served on the boards of several local businesses and school board committees. He is survived by his wife, Kathleen Meehan Horvat, two children, two grandchildren, and was awaiting the birth of his third grandchild.

JOHN J. HARTER, a career Citibank employee, died Aug. 29, 2016. He was 72. A member of the Commons Club, he served in the U.S. Marine Corps during the Vietnam War. He spent his entire career in a variety of roles with Citibank. Among those who survive are his wife, Lynda Harter, four children, eight grandchildren, and a brother.