Obituaries

Roger Paget, a professor emeritus, died on April 1, 2018 at age 81 after battling ocular melanoma for over two years. He was a premier world specialist in South East Asian politics, an international educator for six decades, and a prolific writer. He taught political economy and Asian studies at Lewis & Clark University. At Wesleyan he majored in government and earned a PhD from Cornell University. He served in the U.S. military in Indonesia where he worked as linguist and Southeast Asia specialist. He is survived by his wife, six children, including Rebeccah Paget ’81, nine grandchildren, and his first great-grandchild.

We thank the daughter of Mr. Paget for this information.

Glenn W. Boynton died on Feb. 28, 2018 at age 83 in Middlebury, Vt., after a recent illness. He was born on June 23, 1934 in Jay, N.Y. He attended Lake Placid High School before graduating from Northwood School in 1952 and received his bachelor’s degree from Wesleyan University. On June 11, 1955, he married Rose Wilkins. After graduating from Wesleyan, they settled in Lewisboro, N.Y., where he worked in the petroleum industry with Esso. Glenn changed careers and served as vice president of Bard College, then as associate dean of the Harvard University Divinity School, on to the development office at Belmont Hill School, and as the development director of the Groton School. Glenn was a lifelong lover of winter sports. He played goalie on the first Wesleyan University hockey team, mentored Wesleyan hockey players, and was an avid supporter of the team for his entire life. He leaves behind his wife, two sons, and several family members, including a nephew, Russell Bradshaw Jr. ’70.

We thank the nephew of Mr. Boynton for this information.

James B. Shuman, a writer, died on Aug. 31, 2017 at age 85. At Wesleyan, he was the editor-in-chief of the Argusand a member of Psi Upsilon. He was an award-winning newspaper reporter and an editor for Reader’s Digest. He later worked as an aide to President Gerald Ford. He was the author of several books. His latest book was a memoir, In Pakistan: Journeys in the Land Beyond the Headlines, where he shared his personal observations of the people he met and the country’s history and politics.

John S. Brownson, a scientist, died on Feb. 26, 2018 at age 85. He earned a master’s degree from Columbia University and a PhD from Boston University. He retired from the MIT Lincoln Laboratory in 1993, where he worked for 30 years. He served in the U.S. Army in Korea. At Wesleyan, he majored in economics. He leaves behind his wife Sonya (Mayer) Brownson.

Dr. Roger W. Haskell died on Dec. 28, 2017. He was 88. Roger was born in Hempstead, N.Y., on March 11, 1929, the third child to Merritt S. and Kathleen (Rayner) Haskell. He attended the Hempstead school system, graduating in 1946. From there he went on to Wesleyan University, graduating in 1950 with a bachelor’s degree in bio-chemistry. He entered the medical school at the University of Liege in Belgium in 1952 for a six-year program of intensive medical studies given in the French language. Only an intense dedication to his dream of obtaining that degree in medicine saw him through the rigorous days of study for which he also had to learn French.

Upon graduation with honors, Roger returned home to serve his internship at Mercy Hospital in Toledo, Ohio. He honored his military draft obligation by joining the U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS) and was assigned to the Indian Health Service (IHS). He was posted as the sole on-site physician at the clinic of the Warm Springs Indian Reservation in central Oregon. There, with only a one year of internship experience as a licensed physician (as was typical in that era for incoming IHS) doctors), Roger served a population of 2,000 Native Americans from 1959-1961. In his autobiography, written over 50 years later, Roger vividly described this time as an intense personal and professional experience.

He went on to complete a USPHS general practice residency in Galveston, Texas, in 1963. Roger was then posted as service unit director to the Tuba City Clinic on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona. In this combined clinical and administrative position, Roger demonstrated remarkable skill in health care planning. He saw the critical need for data on which to base assessment and improvement and became the prime mover for development of a large computerized health data system, which was ultimately implemented nationally throughout the entire Indian Health Service. For this achievement, he was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal of the USPHS by C. Everett Koop, U.S. surgeon general. While serving on the Navajo reservation, Roger also completed his master’s in public health at the University of California Berkeley in 1966, deepening his expertise in health care planning.

In 1969, Roger was appointed deputy area director of the IHS Portland area office, responsible for the health care services of tribes throughout Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. There he became an early adopter of problem-oriented medical records in that three-state service area. Along with a pediatrician colleague, Dr. Jean Gorman, Roger developed an innovative set of well-child clinic forms and preventive health care records, which both implemented a standard of best practice and allowed for data collection for subsequent rounds of improvement. Problem-oriented records and the use of standardized preventive medicine forms were early and extremely valuable innovations, which heralded a revolution, still ongoing 50 years later, in the deployment of electronic health records. We now recognize data management and information processing as among the fundamental challenges of our society. Roger was among the innovators in applying these ideas to medical care.

The preventive health care templates developed by Roger and Dr. Gorman proved so valuable in what came to be called primary care practice, that they were eagerly adopted by young IHS physicians who, after two or three years in the IHS, returned to primary care residencies and then to clinical practice. Thus, these useful forms were disseminated to other health care settings, including the Department of Public Health Primary Care clinics in San Francisco, which later became the citywide  universal health care program known as “Healthy San Francisco.”

In his final eight years with the USPHS, Roger served as director of ambulatory care at the USPHS Marine Hospital in Seattle, and subsequently at the USPHS outpatient clinic in Portland. Roger was justifiably proud of these  accomplishments and considered his Indian Health Service years the most productive and creative of his work as a physician.

Music of all kinds was most important to him, from his high school days through college and medical school. He played trumpet, and while in medical school, he often sat in with a jazz group that played in a lounge in Liege. He also had a love of classical music, attending recitals and concerts as often as possible. Throughout his travels, his trumpet accompanied him.

While living in Europe, Roger married his first wife, Muguette, who predeceased him. His second marriage to Edna Alfonso, lasted through Roger’s last days; they made their home in Greer, SC.

Roger completed his autobiography, A Rewarding Life, shortly before he died. It is a surprisingly complete account of his life, from his earliest years to the present, showing an amazing memory for events and people, and a wonderful glimpse into his innermost thoughts and feelings. He shared his love and care for his nuclear family—mother, father, and siblings, Merle and Stratton. His career with the Public Health Service is thoroughly recounted, many details of past experiences beautifully told. He had the book printed, published, and distributed to many friends, family, and professional acquaintances. A Rewarding Lifeis perfectly named—his life was just that. Those who have read his story have to be grateful for its timing.

Roger leaves his wife, Edna, his brother, Stratton (Virginia) Haskell, nephews, Robert (Kathy) Miller and Warren (Lynn) Haskell, and nieces, Priscilla (Jim) lvler and Holly (Kenton) Youngstrom, along with many grand-nieces and nephews and great-grand nieces and nephews. A memorial service was held in San Francisco and in Greer, S.C. 

We thank the family of Dr. Haskell for this information.

James E. Riley died on Jan. 29, 2018. At Wesleyan, he majored in government then earned an LLB from Yale University. Before retiring, he was the senior vice president, secretary, and general counsel of the Electronic Industries Association.

George Withey Jr., a former assistant VP for business affairs at Wesleyan, died on June 8, 2017 at age 93. After he transferred from Wesleyan, he earned a bachelor’s degree from the United States Military Academy. He received a master’s degree from the University of Connecticut and an MBA from Syracuse University. George and his wife, Nancy Roe Withey, had a very interesting life together for 73 years. A favorite memory for son Bob ’72 was marching with his parents during Reunion in 2010 beside fellow World War II alumni up High Street past Eclectic House where George lived as a student and North College where he worked.

We thank the son of Mr. Withey for this information.

April E. Cotte, an outdoor educator and advocate for the rights of indigenous people, died Jan. 25, 2018. She was 49. After graduation she worked in the Connecting with Courage program at Outward Bound in Boston and then moved to the Bay Area to work with adolescent girls as the first program director at Girl Ventures in San Francisco. Her association with Outward Bound continued as she facilitated courses in the Chihuahuan Desert, and she became an advocate for the rights of indigenous communities along the U.S. border with Mexico. She divided her time between her home in California and working as a community activist in Texas. At the time of her death, she was also involved with Gaia Girls, a Bay Area organization that provides long-term mentoring for girls through nature-based programs. She is survived by her partner, Brian Young, their 7-year-old son, her mother, and a brother and sister, as well as the countless friends and young people whose lives she enriched.

Lisa S. Chedekel, a journalist and educator, died Jan. 12, 2018. She was 57. After graduating with a degree in English, she worked at the now-defunct New Haven Advocate. Two years later she joined the New Haven Register. In 1992 she moved to the Hartford Courant, and a year later she was a member of a team of Courantreporters who won the Pulitzer Prize for breaking news coverage of the deadly shooting rampage at the Connecticut Lottery Corp. She also traveled to a Mexican sweatshop that produced apparel for the University of Connecticut and revealed that the university’s athletic director and coaches were swapping game tickets for cars with a sponsor. She switched to political coverage in 2000. In 2002 she spent 10 days in Saudi Arabia to gauge the country’s sentiment towards the United States a year after the 9/11 attacks. One of her most championed pieces was “Mentally Unfit, Forced to Fight,” a 2006 investigative series with another Courant staff writer that exposed the military in violation of its own rules by sending mentally ill soldiers to war in Iraq and Afghanistan. The series won many awards and was a finalist for another Pulitzer Prize. In 2008, she left the Courant and began writing for the Boston University School of Public Health and teaching journalism at Northeastern University. Survivors include her wife, Dr. Isabel Morais; two children; and a cousin, Alexander Rosen ’08.