Class Notes | 1980s

Please write your class secretary.

Hey classmates. We are thankful that if you’re reading this, you have made it this far through a historically meaningful, utterly challenging (and traumatizing/RE-traumatizing), and in some ways hopeful time.

We are with you. We want to hear from you; and we can’t wait to roll or slide down Foss Hill again—shout out to Mocon trays—with you someday when we can “reunion” again in person. Until then, please keep being “here” and take good care.

Peter is writing for this issue.

     Hillary shares “I hope you are all well and safe during this supremely challenging year-plus. I feel grateful to be able to work from home for MIT. Despite Zoom fatigue, I enjoy catching up with friends to share meals virtually, and recently participated in a virtual trivia night with Rick Stein to raise funds for an organization he is involved with. Leading up to the November election,  I spent much of my spare time volunteering virtually to help elect Biden-Harris and down-ballot Democrats, and this work helped keep me from doomsday scrolling and rage tweeting. I was so energized by what I was doing that I joined Movement Labs as a volunteer after the election, and now take on regular texting assignments for a diverse mix of progressive candidates and campaigns.”

     Deirdre Davis writes, “One of the main things that helped me get through 2020 were COVID happy hours with a Wes crew that allowed me to stay connected (and in some instances, re-connect) with good friends. Attendees at various points throughout the year included Justine Gubar, Sid Ray, Patrick McDarrah, David Davenport, Karen Yazmajian, Mark Niles, Phil Marwill, Joanna Berwind, Sandro Oliveri, Jono Marcus, Mike Shaffer, and Dylan McDonald!”

     Hannah Doress advises “Celebrating the end of a grueling four years. Thanks for changing our lives for the better to all the Wes folks who stepped up—I enjoyed connecting with election volunteers like Hillary Ross, Monica Jahan Bose ’87, and Liz Pelcyger, and political professionals like Mark Mullen ’89 and John Hlinko ’89.

     Earlier in the year my wife Emily Bender co-founded Voices for Liberation, a coalition of performers for racial justice. We temporarily forgot we were middle-aged and promoted and produced a 12-hour marathon raising $12,000 for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund with the help of Dar Williams ’89, Michele Barnwell ’89, Judith Sansone ’89, Jaclyn Friedman, Anoosh Jorjorian and Eric Hung with an assist from Algernon Austin ’89 (who works for NAACP Legal Defense Fund).

     I’m continuing to work at the intersection of climate resilience, community engagement and equity and inclusion for the County of San Mateo. 

     I’ve recently been on a social media diet (one of my alternative activities was to write an article about voting rights on Medium) so I encourage anyone who wants to get in touch to call (my phone number is easy to find).”

      Chris Galati reports “I’ve found joy during pandemic ennui in little pleasures: a glass of wine at 5:00 p.m., an exciting new Spotify channel, a Korean drama on Netflix, and Friday night sushi takeout. I also have found the courage to pursue one of my childhood dreams: to learn how to play ice hockey. After watching my two sons, Dylan and Geoffrey (10 and eight years old), practice at an ice rink in Yonkers for 10 weeks, I could no longer resist. I bought a new stick and skates, borrowed my son’s helmet and joined a Saturday morning stick and puck session at the LeFrak Rink in Prospect Park. It was 15 degrees and windy the first morning. My fingers and toes were cold. But as the sun glinted off a corner of the ice, I skated across the blue line and took shots on goal. Like a boy playing pond hockey for the first time, I warmed up and smiled. The other players skated circles around me, but I was glad just to be on the ice with them.”

     Linda Brinen-Stout notes: “Reporting from Mill Valley, California. Besides trying to keep the whole human and canine family well—physically and mentally—during the pandemic, I’ve taught myself to sew reusable cloth masks (thank you YouTube). I’ve made more than 5,000 masks and straight up donated more than 4,800 of them to local community members in need. I’ve partnered with Canal Alliance in San Rafael to support the Canal District community, which has been particularly hard hit by COVID-19. Looking forward to getting vaccinated!

     Christie Trott Adelberg writes in “The year 2020-21 has been a wild year for me and my loved ones, with many highs and lows (as I am sure it has been for many of you out there!). Overall, I am filled with gratitude that my family and I are all doing pretty well these days. Since last March 13, the four of us have been at home in the Bay Area zooming all day in four separate rooms. My husband Brad works for SAP, so he arises pretty early to Zoom with co-workers and customers all over Europe. Sam, my musical/artistic high school freshman, attends school all day virtually from her bedroom. It’s crazy to me that she has only set foot once on her new high school campus, but I feel fortunate that she’s been able to do a lot of hiking, biking, and studying with a few of her close friends outside. Hailey, my sporty eighth grader, has just this past week finally started attending school in person every other day. Her ice hockey hopes were dashed as her team has been unable to practice since early fall, but luckily she has picked up lacrosse and they have been able to practice outside. My dad finally retired after 33 years on the bench as a Ninth Circuit Federal Court judge. As for me, I have embarked on one of the most exciting and difficult endeavors of my life thus far: I have co-founded a new private K-8 grade school! Tessellations is an independent, progressive school tailored for gifted students, dedicated to serving the needs of the whole child. We received our nonprofit status (after filling out about 19,387 pages!) and have just secured a beautiful, six-acre campus in nearby Cupertino. Lastly, I have been fortunate to live near many wonderful friends and family during this strange year. I wish the best for all my former ’88 classmates and I am hopeful for a less chaotic, safer and kinder 2021!”

     As for Peter, “I’m busy managing the phenomenal success of my podcast The CPG Guys, which I launched last summer. As of this writing, we have published over 75 episodes and generated 30,000 downloads. The podcast is available on all major platforms and home virtual assistants.”

Hello all! The common denominator in your news this winter was how many of us have connected with classmates in virtual ways. A true benefit of the pandemic which offers so few bright spots! We’ve got a lot of boldfaced names in our column this time around!

     While at home, I’ve been zooming with Grier Mendel, Liz Rabineau, Amy and Eric Mortimer-Lotke, Allegra Burton, Wendy Banner, Barbara Becker ’86, Randi Levinson ’86, Michael Clancy ’88, Chris Roellke, and Dave Robinson for some great Butterfield memories. I’ve also spent some time paring back collected souvenirs and memories, and I’ve found some truly Wesleyan artifacts! Picture the poster built off this text: This is Howard. Howard lives at the Bayit. Howard lives with seven women. Howard’s grandmother is very happy, but How’s Howard? This ad for the “first-annual How’s Howard party at the Bayit” led me to reach out to Howard Bochner, who says he’s hanging in there, and was happy for the memory.

     After six years as a disability rights lawyer with the ACLU, Claudia Center became the Legal Director with the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund where she focuses on the rights of people with disabilities during COVID-19. She writes snail mail postcards as a pandemic activity. Recipients have included Cal Coolidge, Anthea Charles, Becca Gallager, Natasha Kirsten Kraus, Jack Levinson, and Laura Thomas.

     John Katz reports from the Katz/Dipko household. John works with the Environmental Protection Agency in San Francisco, focused on sustainability standards for electronics and other products, and supporting efforts to promote business sustainability. His wife, Lisa Dipko ’86, is a social worker at the Veterans Administration nursing home in San Francisco where families have not been able to visit for nearly a year. In November, the family enjoyed a virtual trip to Wes with their high school junior son, where they enjoyed “chatting” with Doug Koplow and George Cabrera ’86. John keeps in touch with Michael Foster, who chairs the East Asian Languages and Cultures Department at UC Davis. They took a three-day backpacking trip together last summer in the Sierras. COVID has given John the opportunity to connect online with Wes folks including Pauline Frommer ’88, Sumana Rangachar (Chandrasekhar), Matt Pollack, Michele Ahern, Jessica Miller, Lael Lowenthal, Lucille Renwick, and Bruno Oliver (Weinburg).

    Darya Mead is a longtime reader, rare participant in our class notes, but she wrote in to report on her activities. She is juggling content creation, strategy and media jobs, jumping through a lot of hoops to work at home. Like most of us, she’s been finding new ways to keep up fitness and enhance mood: hula hooping, Zoom yoga, hikes, kayaking, boogie boarding, camping, Netflix, watercolor projects, and plenty of walks. Darya works mostly for HairToStay, an organization that provides subsidies to low-income cancer patients. She also writes for various outlets including Roam Family Travel and the San Mateo Daily Journal. Her current passion project is a podcast called Hippie Docs 2.0 Re-Humanizing Medicine. Her boys are 21 and 17 and both are history/social science, satire, and soccer buffs. Before COVID, Darya traveled with family in five trips together all over the world as her cousin covered UN Climate Conferences while Darya provided Mary Poppins–level care to her young cousins and wrote about their adventures. Darya’s husband’s job as an event designer has evaporated in the pandemic, so a return to life might be a huge pivot for them. She’s feeling a bit better since January 20th and continuing her bag-of-tricks approach to reality.

     Michael Bennett published his debut novel, Young Donald, with Inkshares (a Wesleyan alumni–run publisher) in October. It’s an imagined biography of Donald Trump in high school.

     Daniel Rauch published Challenging Cases in Pediatric Hospital Medicine (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2021), his second medical book.

     Chris Lotspeich sent greetings and good wishes. In 2016 Chris was diagnosed with ALS, an incurable fatal motor neuron disease. He says that fortunately his progression is very slow and he remains mostly independent. He says otherwise, his life is pretty much perfect with his wonderful wife Amy Dunn and their 12- and 16-year-old daughters in Connecticut. Chris works part-time as the director of sustainability services at NV5 Energy Efficiency Services (formerly Celtic Energy), focusing on resilience, renewable power, and efficiency. He is hoping to complete long-deferred nonfiction books and novels in the years to come. Chris stays in touch with classmates including Rob Campbell, Clarinda Mac Low, Scott Pryce, Dan Sharp, Jason Stell, and Adam Willner.

    Finally, I recently heard from Ira Skolnik who relayed some sad news from his buddy, Dan Levy ’88. Sadly, Dan lost his 22-year-old son last year. Alex Levy was an avid organic farmer and Dan is setting up an endowed fellowship to support a Wesleyan student to work on Wesleyan’s farm each summer. Please contact me for details if you would like to support this memorial fellowship.

     You are reading this many months after I write it, so my close is a little wish for good things for us now. Sending love.

For this issue of Class Notes, rather than share stories about individual members of our class, your class secretary would like to celebrate us as a community and celebrate our journey through life. This spring marks 35 years since we graduated, which puts us at about the halfway mark from 20 to 90. We’ve done so many interesting things; there are so many interesting things still to come.

      In the interim, we have certainly gotten dispersed geographically: we can be found in 44 states and several foreign countries, though there are 15 states where a couple of us can be found (AK, AL, AR, DE, ID, KS, KY, LA, MO, MS, NE, OH, SC, TN, WV). At the other end of the scale, there’s New York City where more than 80 of us have congregated. When reviewing our class list and our majors, I had not realized that nearly 1-in-7 of us were English majors (about 100 out of about 750) and that 200+ others were nearly equally distributed among four other majors: Art, Biology, History, and Government. If those five majors made up half the class, maybe we weren’t that diverse after all? Though in each of the five there are quite a few subdisciplines. In any event, what we did at age 18–22 may have helped set the trajectory for our lives, but those majors don’t fully encompass who we are today and why we are loved and appreciated, and while there probably were some broken hearts along the way, hopefully we didn’t accumulate too many enemies.

      In recent years through this Class Notes column we’ve learned about spouses, children, parents, jobs, hobbies, trips, and various passions. We’ve heard of deaths, illnesses, divorce, intermittent retirement, and career shifts. At my urging, you’ve also told of local, often unrecognized, things such as coaching youth sports, serving on the school board, or volunteering at a church or food pantry. These things may not be splashy, but they make a difference, and so it was a pleasure to honor and recognize you for them.

      For myself, on New Year’s Day of 2020, I decided that I would make a conscious effort do at least one additional good deed each week­—sometimes it was mailing a check to a small, under-resourced charity, other times I added things such as hacking back at invasive plant species and picking up trash on the beach. In January 2021, I looked at my list of the 52 things from 2020 and decided to continue this weekly tradition for another year.

     To help broaden our horizons, please continue to share your stories. I’d love to hear about what you are doing and your community involvement. My email is easy to remember (ehoward86@wesleyan.edu), but note that your notes to me won’t be shared with the class. With this issue I’m stepping down from my role as class secretary, and I also asked for others to serve as co-administrators of our Facebook group. As secretary for the past decade, I’ve enjoyed corresponding with many of you, but after 10 years, it is time for someone else.

     I have the honor to be your obedient servant.

Hello again, Classmates. It has been a long winter and hopefully by the time this issue arrives the worldwide health situation will be improving.

     During this long turn inwards, Stephanie Fleischmann has been co-creating The Visitation (here.org/shows/the-visitation/), a sound walk produced by Here, set to launch March 26, which can be experienced anywhere. She has also been writing libretti and texts commissioned by Los Angeles Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Brandeis University, and developing new works supported by West Edge Opera’s Aperture and Opera America. Poppea, with composer Michael Hersch, premieres in Basel and Vienna this fall.

     Mark Randles did not get to go on his annual summer trip to see baseball games at a few different stadiums (and to take in the local history), a tradition he shares with Michael Bailit, Jim Glickman, Bill Barry, Hans Schweiger, and Melany Kahn ’86. Dallas and Houston were supposed to be on their 2020 itinerary, and they are hoping to resume this coming summer.

     Annmarie Zimmerman is taking the time and space afforded by the pandemic to move on from the end of her 35-year marriage. Her kids are supportive and helping complete long-standing house projects. She is reconnecting with old friends, playing the piano, reading more and doing less laundry. She is a physician so her work life has not changed much, just more safety precautions, and she is hopeful about the vaccines on the horizon. As she says, “A fallow time is sometimes what we need to create anew.”

     Karen Rosenberg gets together with a large group of Wes Friends for regular Zoom cocktails, mostly from West College or off-campus on 69 Oak Street. One recent gathering included Maria Mead, Charlotte Sonnenblick Van Doren, Dima Litvinov, Dana Sachs, Heidi Wasch (and her husband Bob), Monica Elias, Sara Jamison, Jim Wasserman, Eric Caplan, Tony Richter, Eileen Kelly, Andy Tauber, Mike Kaplan, Jennifer Colton, John Miya, and Arthur Haubenstock.

     Rob Leland came back from China at the end of 2000, with his wife, and has been living in the Bay Area since. His eldest son began studies at UC Berkeley but has been stuck in his dorm for the pandemic. His daughter will launch next year, and California may or may not be in his future plans.

     Paul Baker continues his work in sculpture, available at his website c-clampstudios.com. During the pandemic, he has been rereading the Hardy Boys series, and is marveling at the vocabulary in these otherwise young adult books. Inspired by the books (and by Professor John Risley’s Visual Connections art class) he has been imagining what camera the different characters would use. He has created a 1959 style Leica camera for Laura Hardy (the mom) and a family movie camera (1961) for Fenton, the dad; and has works in progress for the boys and their friends.

     Gail Farris is excited about becoming a grandparent (daughter Kim, class of ’14 is expecting in April).

     Paul Gross writes from Seattle about his high schoolers in remote (now hybrid) school, and the long wait for the vaccines. They expect to be on the East Coast shore for the summer, following expected orthopedic surgery for their son. He has reconnected with senior housemate Rich Macy and Brian Whittier during the pandemic, as well as his freshman year head resident Joe Barrett ’82. When he connected with RA Janet Cranshaw (Mink) ’82, he found that her husband Jonathan Mink ’81 was also an advisor to the NIH and they have collaborated on research together.

     Lee McIntyre has a new book, How to Talk to a Science Denier, to be published by MIT Press in August 2021, and yes, will include a chapter on COVID denial.

     Finally, I received a late note from Sally Bromage (Suhr), who was one of my fellow denizens in Gingerbread House. Everyone in her house is healthy and employed, and she is one of the people who actually did get to long-term projects and cleaning out. She and husband Scott are empty-nesters in Atlanta, and have children in Denver and both Portlands (Oregon and Maine). She will be giving Delta Airlines a lot of business when we are all able to fly again.

     Time marches on. Talk to you all soon.

Greetings everyone! Here we are about to pass the one-year mark for COVID. Who would have believed such a year could happen? Judging from your emails I see many have adapted to a COVID lifestyle and are making the best of it. Flexibility, creativity, and a sense of grace and gratitude permeate your news. Thanks to all who have contributed. Here we go . . .

     Kate Rabinowitz lives in East Hampton, Long Island, teaches at local schools and runs a memorial arts and wellness foundation for her daughter, Anna. The foundation recently joined forces with Kathy Eldon, the founder of Creativevisions.org, a nonprofit organization that supports creative activists who use arts and media to ignite positive change. During the lockdown Kate teaches online and has time to read again, practice yoga, make art, and take a few writing courses at Stanford University extension. Kate lives with Rameshwar Das ’69, who just finished the memoir Being Ram Dass (Sounds True Publisher). Das met the late Rameshwar Dass at Wesleyan while Dass was teaching in the graduate psychology department.

     Frank Wood has lived in New York City since 1984 with his wife, Kay Gayner, who teaches dance for the National Dance Institute, and three cats. He sits on the advisory board of the Workshop Theater (artistic director Thomas Cote), which supports new works by writers of color. Though performance is mostly shut down in New York, Frank has been cast in episodes of a few of the TV shows following strict COVID protocols. He and friend Maddie Corman teach acting class on Zoom under the auspices of the Atlantic Theater Company.       The memory of his dad, Robert C. Wood, Government chair for 10 years at Wesleyan, reminds him to fight the good fight every day.

     Tim Brockett’s Wesleyan degree in earth science enabled him to mine more precious metals from the Rocky Mountains than he will ever need. And, now that he is retired, he is re-reading wonderful books written by incredible authors Hawthorne, Dickens, Defoe, Kipling, Scott, Hemingway and many more. All are included with the 1950s-era “Great Books of the Western World” and deal with the Human Condition in countless imaginative ways. He writes “Now that I have 40 years of adult living and experience, I can understand the authors so much better.” He has enough to read to keep busy for the next 40 years.

      Jan Elliott and her early and world music group Ensemble Passacaglia released its second CD, A Tune for All Seasons in December. She bides her time during the pandemic teaching and rehearsing online. Ken Schneyer’s second short-fiction collection, Anthems Outside Time and Other Strange Voices, was released and received some very nice reviews. He is adapting to teaching remotely and writes he has very little time for much else.

      Karen Adair Miller writes she is safe and healthy during these tough times and is fortunate to keep up with friends and family with Zoom. The fire pit, too, has provided opportunity for small get-togethers! She has taken advantage of the outdoor winter sports and keeps busy with downhill, cross-country skiing, skating, and snow shoeing.

     Wayne Logan has recently published a number of books about the law, including the forthcoming Sentencing Law, Policy & Practice (Foundation Press), The Ex Post Facto Clause: Its History and Role in a Punitive Society (Oxford University Press), and Sex Offender Registration and Community Notification Laws (Cambridge University Press).

Greetings, classmates.

      We’re seeing light at the end of the tunnel here . . . hopefully, by the time this comes out we will be vaccinated and returning to our normal lives, or the new normal.

     Notes are sparse this time. Gary Wishik, an anesthesiologist in upstate New York, writes, “Intubated many people, most of them died,” which is the saddest six-word memoir since Hemingway. He says he’s hoping that the New Order/Pet Shop Boys concert in September in Toronto won’t be cancelled—me too; he deserves a fun night out. Thanks to you, Gary, and to all the members of our class who have been on the front lines during COVID.

     Scientist Greg Lewis has contributed on a different front—he designed and invented the air sampler that can detect coronavirus in air particles, originally developed for the flu. Meanwhile, he and his coworkers have built an air sampler for the International Space Station. Cool!

      We’ve been seeing each other on Zoom a bit. Bob Russo writes that Mark Sirota hosted a gang (John Brautigam, Joe Barrett, Joe Fins, Anthony Pahigian, Mike Greenstein, Mike Levine and Tom Davis) for Zoom trivia, and I’d like to know who won. Meantime Bob and his wife Carol have enlarged their garden and are planting and pickling all kinds of veggies.

      Paul Meltzer writes that due to COVID-delayed municipal elections in Texas, plus a runoff, he wound up spending over a year getting re-elected to a second term on Denton City Council. But he did ultimately manage to defeat the challenger, “a popular local evangelical minister heavily supported by real estate PACs who was running because he is opposed to an anti-discrimination ordinance protecting LGBTQ residents. He’s anti-mask too.” In other words, he writes, “Worth it. Now on to trying to accomplish something worthwhile.” Good luck, Paul.

     Susan Cole is missing her women’s writing workshop at York Correctional Institute, and is glad, at 80, that she has received her vaccine.

      Life during COVID has brought a lot of changes for Karen Paz. She and her husband moved to their place in Maine in March and decided to sell their house in New Jersey and make Maine a full-time thing. They’re enjoying being in a rural spot with a frozen lake. “One of the very few blessings of COVID!”

     Joe Fins has used his time during the pandemic to play cello! He began taking lessons at Wes, “a lifelong dream inspired by playing Schubert’s String Quintet on WESU one winter afternoon when I hosted Classics for Lunch,” he says. On a lark he asked Paul Halliday, a cellist in the Wes Orchestra and classmate, for a lesson, but decided it was too much to combine cello with the College of Letters and pre-med. “So fast forward a few decades and I started. I am an errant student and don’t practice as much as I should or want but I do love the instrument and am committed to doing this as long as I am able.” Now we know whom to tap for our next Class Notes Live.

   On a sad note, Vernon L. Martin, originally from Oxford, Mississippi, passed away September 28, 2020, in Brooklyn, NY, where he had been a resident since graduating Wesleyan with a BA in theater in 1982. He later studied fictional character development at Columbia University, and screenwriting at New York University. Vernon worked for the New York City Public Library for years, and intermittently at Seward and Kissel, LLP, while pursuing his passions for theater, writing, poetry, and fashion.
In the mid-1980s he worked with the Wesleyan-grad-based Mumbo Jumbo Theatre collective, an early and earnest attempt in New York City theater to model what was then called “multi-cultural” representation. Vernon worked diligently behind the scenes and as an active participant in workshops developing content. The group was co-founded by his friend Vashti DuBois ’83 (with Tim Raphael ’84 and Akiva Goldsman ’83, all Wesleyan graduates) and included Vernon’s life-long friends cf blackchild (Carlia Francis, ’82) and Renée Bucciarelli, ’83, among others. Later in life, Vernon had his “thirty-minute claim to fame” as a contestant on the television game show, Jeopardy.

    He is survived by his sister Barbara Ann (Wadley), and brothers Raymond, Sammy, Danny, and Barry, along with their families; he was preceded in death by his parents, his sister Vickie, and brother Larry.

Vernon is remembered lovingly by his family and his friends, including Audra Edwards, Sharron Edwards, Margie Wilder, Curtis Brown, Roxanne Fagan, James Jones, Renée Bucciarelli, Carlia Francis, Vashti DuBois, Sharon Alves, Russell Tucker, Pastor Timothy P. Taylor Sr. of the Hebron Baptist Church in Brooklyn, NY and his congregation.

     I had a fun 60th birthday in February seeing a few Wes faces on Zoom, including Jonathan Weber, who has returned to San Francisco from Singapore; Steedman Hinckley and Lisa Farnsworth (she’s been painting up a storm during the pandemic, with gorgeous work); Danielle and Jordan Rudess; Marc Mowrey ’83 and his wife Susie Davis. My husband Peter Eckart ’86 and I are playing music with virtuoso jazz pianist John Baker ’84 and others in our Socially Distanced Jazz Band (I get to sing with the band because I feed them soup). Meanwhile, I had a piece in the Washington Post about how Zooming with my emotionally crusty dad has made him open up after all these years. Also during the pandemic, Peter and I renovated the house next door to the one I’ve had in San Miguel de Allende for several years, giving a Mexican artist and designer the chance to let his imagination run wild, with cool results.

     Here’s to silver linings.

Greetings from Brooklyn! I write this on the first day of March. I’m still working remotely for the most part (I love my commute, but . . .).
By now I hope that many of you have enjoyed our rolling virtual reunion. Some of you have earned prizes and awards, which you will see below.  I also hope you all will have received the “vaccine prize” by the time this magazine finds its way into your mailbox.

  Speaking of vaccines, Chris Graves writes, “My behavioral science work has been full-on, focused on vaccine hesitancy and pandemic behavior. I have been working with WHO, UNICEF, and supporting fellow Wesleyan alum John Borthwick ’87 who is CEO of Betaworks, and a founder of COVID Tech Task Force, which supports the rollout of the Apple-Google Exposure Notification app. And I have been working with our own nonprofit called NOCOVID (https://nocovid.us), which engaged stars like Chris Rock and Wanda Sykes for healthy behavior messaging. NOCOVID also put Matthew McConaughey and Tiffany Haddish each one-on-one with Dr. Fauci to ask tough questions their fans wanted to hear answers to.” His CNN appearances can be found on Vimeo.

     Charlie Spiegel writes, “I’m a teaching assistant in a University of San Francisco class called Queering Religion, taught by the former rabbi of my congregation who is now a chaplain at this Jesuit institution of higher education. Repeat that sentence a couple of times for effect. It’s an online hour-long weekly discussion group, with them prompting me with questions they feel are relevant to their class sessions, which I do not attend. It’s a very smart way to make remote learning more engaging, with six of us TAs (all Jewish) running separate groups.  My three undergraduates range from 21 to 29 with several different sexuality identities. Since they are asking about for example what it was like for me to come out, which was at the beginning of my sophomore year at Wesleyan, some of you are playing roles in my remembrances (known or unbeknownst to you!) At its best, our discussions look at the overlap of experiences, like growing up Jewish in a non-Jewish country being one experience that gave me the strength and personal confidence to come out as gay and an activist in a predominately heterosexual world. All seems a very Wesleyan-type experience.”

      Leslie Sundt Stratton and her husband are empty nesters. “Our older daughter is now a licensed vet working an internship in hopes of becoming a veterinary surgeon. Our younger daughter is a forensic chemist in Vermont who spends one day a week testing COVID samples and just signed a contract to buy a condo. How time flies!” 

     Leslie is still an economics professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, also serving as department chair. “Like so many academics, I have moved classes online and am working hard to keep my students engaged. Our chief hobby/vice is travel—of course that is still on hold. We are glad we went on safari in Tanzania in 2019.” Leslie is in touch regularly with classmates Diane Goldstein Stein, Karen Zallen and Heidi Falk. “Zooming can be fun.”

      Mark Saba’s latest book, A Luke of All Ages / Fire and Ice (two novellas), was recently published by Adelaide Books (New York/Lisbon). “Also, I will be retiring in June after 33 years as a medical illustrator and graphic designer at Yale University. My wife and I are building a house in Maine and plan to settle there.”

    Kenneth Michael Bent (noting that he was “originally 1980, but finished mid-year with the group then known as 80.5”) was recently elected to Eastern Massachusetts’s Episcopal Diocese Executive Committee as a lay representative. He is a two-time past master of the Freemasons of Massachusetts, in addition to spending the past 17 years as a software engineer.

    Now to prizes and awards:

   The National Press Foundation has named global economics correspondent David Lynch and three Washington Post colleagues as this year’s winners of the Hinrich Award for Distinguished Reporting on Trade. “The award carries a $10,000 prize, divided among the four of us.”

   Brian Tarbox got his 10th patent. Also, Amazon Web Services declared Brian a Community Hero. “There are less than 200 of these worldwide.”

     Amy Feil Phillips is transitioning from creative director and graphic designer to fine artist, and was recently selected as one of 15 finalists for the 51st Raymond James Gasparilla Festival of the Arts’ Emerging Artist Program in Tampa. The annual festival draws artists from across the country to vie for the $15,000 Raymond James Best of Show Award and an additional $65,000 in awards. Phillips has a collection of awards, such as Best of Show in the International Society of Acrylic Painters 11th Annual Exhibition in 2017 as well as local, regional and national American Advertising Federation ADDY Awards. Phillips was recognized nationally in the Print Regional Design Annual and has developed branding for Tampa Electric, Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa Bay Water, Eckerd Connects, and Heartbeat International, among others.  With an MBA in Marketing, Phillips has also taught Advertising and Graphic Design at the University of South Florida.

     Congrats to all!

     Finally, on behalf of our class, we send our deepest condolences to Wendy Kosakoff, whose husband, David Kohane ’80, passed away in February. Read her beautiful tribute in the Class of 1980 notes.

Thank you, wonderful Wes ‘80 classmates, for all your responses to my late request for submissions – maybe a benefit of our all being stuck at home after a year of the Covid pandemic.

David Garfield was the first to send his update and save the day: “I am still alive. Still an immigration attorney. Still living with my wife Jung Hwa and youngest daughter 17 in Honolulu. She is attending Iolani and loves musical theater and hates ultimate frisbee. Up to 4 grandkids, my granddaughter #4  born last month on my birthday..yay. no more ultimate ugh.” 

For many around the world, this past year has been a period of time of great loss. On behalf of our class and Wesleyan, I send our deepest condolences to Wendy Kosakoff ’81, “I share with profound sadness that my husband, David Kohane, passed away at the end of February from pancreatic cancer. David and I met at Wesleyan in Clark Hall in 1977 and got married at Russell House in 1982. He was my best friend and the love of my life and the father of our three wonderful sons.

And to Demie Stathoplos, “It’s been a time of loss for my extended family: my close cousins, sisters and I lost my mom, two aunts and an uncle in a 3 month period, between November 2020 and February 2021. All were close to or older than 90 years old, but it was still a lot to experience, especially needing to be distanced from each other. I’ve spent the past 6 years managing my parents’ medical and financial affairs, so the death of my mom (after the passing of my dad 3 years ago) has ended a significant part of my day-to-day work. My husband Dan has been working for Boston University from home since March, and my 21-year old son Alex tried online college courses, but found the experience was not for him. It’s rough launching as a young adult in the middle of a pandemic. Our dog Karma has seen a lot more of us, but much less of our friends she used to play with. I’m a volunteer climate activist, and have been busy (on Zoom) with 350Mass in my hometown of Newton, as well as with UU Mass Action. I’m also leading a group of city staff and civic volunteers in implementing communication of the city’s Climate Action Plan. This past year I gave (Zoom) talks at my church as well as to the greater Boston area about taking action on climate change. I’m also on a leadership team at my church teaching an anti-racism curriculum (The Richmond Pledge to End Racism). I stay in touch with Nancy Stier and Sharon Grady. For Dan and my 20th wedding anniversary, we traveled in July 2018 to Alaska, and got to spend time with Scott Taylor in Anchorage. The trip was amazing, and included both seeing Mt Denali from below, and taking a plane ride to a glacier on the mountain.  Given the work I’ve been doing on the climate, I’m thinking about how to minimize my air travel in the future. I hope we get to see each other in person in the near future.”

Jay Borden, “Amazing what difference in mindset a vaccination can create. Somber to upbeat. Dimly present to planning for the future. The change in Administration helps. I can read again instead of ceaselessly doom-scrolling. Now, I’m right in the middle of planning our first post-vaccination trip to go see my brother in Albuquerque and my youngest daughter in Santa Monica. My wife gets her second jab early April, so we can start looking forward to a little more light. 

Carolyn Sullivan, “This time last year I was visiting relatives in England when I had to cut my trip short due to COVID. Everyone has COVID tales to tell, I’m sure, so I won’t go there, but suffice it to say that as an introvert I have been doing just fine. My husband and I have evaded the dreaded virus (knock on wood), I’m happy to report, and are looking forward to getting vaccinated and seeing our similarly vaccinated friends and family SOON! My sister and her husband recently moved to Nashville–it’s been almost 25 years since I had family on my doorstep, so that’s wonderful. My husband and I are working on our third self-produced album of original songs in our home studio–these projects are always fulfilling, but especially so during the pandemic. Our music falls into (or between!) different genres… Rock, pop, blues, even a little bluegrass/folk… We studied songwriting in Nashville but apply the principles to just about everything but straight-ahead country! You should be able to find us on iTunes or Spotify under Carolyn and Dickie Sullivan. Our last two CDs are “Love and the Cold, Hard Ground” and “Sail On Through.” I’m trying to up my audio engineering game via lots of YouTube videos and online courses, which is definitely keeping me out of trouble! I’ve lost touch with most of the people I knew while at Wesleyan, I’m afraid, but I always like reading the Class Notes!”

Chris Carey, “I wanted to shout out to all my Psi U Brothers from Cleveland, Ohio. I have resided here with my wife Donna since leaving ol’ Wes and have two grown boys who both reside and work at opposite ends of California in San Diego and San Francisco. We are scheduled for our Pfizer two shot this week and are excited to go visit them in the coming months. We hope to head east to Middletown sometime this fall and pay a visit to our Connecticut friends Earl Mix and Marshall Stearns, not to mention Bruce Bunnell in Boston where my brother resides. I continue to manage money for my clients providing Financial Planning services as an Independent Advisor and made the switch to independence after 30 years working for the man. I can see this continuing for another 15-plus years God willing. Keep us posted on our reunion timeline, as I would love to see everyone on the grounds of Foss Hill. Maybe Orleans or Todd Rundgren can pay us a surprise concert visit!”

Prompted by cabin fever and a lack of exercise, Faith Fuller (started with class of 1980, diploma reads 1981) wrote: “I am in Mexico, travelling around the Puerto Vallarta area, swimming in the Pacific, taking long walks, and working from my laptop. In 2020 I surpassed my goal of raising $10 million for nonprofits (partly due to the CARES Act releasing additional funds) so I had a productive year, but felt physically run down.  I’ve been out of the country since January and am taking all the precautions to stay COVID safe; which is not hard with all of the out of door markets.  I work as an independent consultant/contractor and my clients are 3 Substance Abuse Treatment providers in the Oakland/Berkeley area, 2 providers of services to the homeless (one to adults, the other to youth) in Alameda County CA, 3 nonprofits working with black youth in Compton CA and Oakland CA, the National Prevention Science Coalition to Improve Lives; and another who provides in prison programming. Love it!” 

Peter Scharf noted that he came to Pune, Maharashtra after his fellowship at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study in Shimla ended at the end of December. He and his wife are teaching Sanskrit on-line and just announced their spring and summer course in Sanskrit and Prakrit (sanskritlibrary.org/coursesnow).  They plan to return to their home in Iowa in April.

David Claman, “My wife, Sunita Vatuk, and I have been enduring the pandemic in Queens, NY. I’ve been teaching music online at Lehman College-CUNY since March 2020, and for 12 years before that. At this point I’m thinking of retiring to have more time to write music. I’ve been able to complete two projects in the past year, although not because the pandemic allowed me more time to do so. In October 2020, I released a CD of my own compositions entitled “Gradus” on Albany Records. I’m quite happy with the variety of music and the quality of performances. It can be streamed on Spotify and other platforms. More information is available at: https://davidclaman.com. More recently, I released something entirely different (for me) on YouTube, which is an arrangement of Wes Montgomery’s classic “Bumpin’ on Sunset.” Aside from me faking that I can play jazz piano, the four other players are excellent young Hindustani classical musicians who I worked with for several months in New Delhi in 2019 while I was on a Fulbright grant and a visiting professor at Delhi University. Their interpretation and improvisations bring new dimensions to the tune. It is on YouTube with an accompanying music video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhwH0cPkAJA.

Vic Tredwell, “I remain as Station Manager for the community radio station of Belfast, Maine (WBFY).  We’ve survived the pandemic well. I set the station up from the start to allow remote programming of shows, so I was seen as prescient when the bug came along and made it required.  Not true, but I’ll take it. We have replaced a number of cancelled events with radio versions, such as Belfast’s monthly contra dance and the New Years Eve concerts. The station’s latest fund-raising project is selling off an amazing collection of 78-rpm records that were donated to us.  Any collectors out there?….”

Alan Jacobs, “I just returned from what was supposed to be a one-month trip to visit my daughter, Avia, in Tel Aviv but it turned into three months because my friends in New York said stay there, the beach beside my apartment agreed, and then I heard that because I’m over 60, I could get vaccinated. I was never so happy to be this age. After the second jab, I had a lovely dinner with Jeff Green ’80, who lives in Tel Aviv part-time, and our two daughters, who are about the same age. While Avia and Lia were chatting it up, I turned to Jeff and said, “That’s our daughters.”  Jeff nodded, “Yep.” As for Israel, the good news is it’s a democracy — the only one in the region — and as Jews, we can get involved and have real influence. I’m not interested in politics but many of my friends there went out every Saturday night to join protests in Jerusalem demanding Netanyahu’s resignation.  The country has many challenges and social ills, but democracy itself is alive and well and Israelis are very active participants in it.“

My daughter and I are on right.

Mark Zitter, “I’ve taken advantage of COVID isolation to reconnect with some old friends. I have regular 3-way Zoom calls with Scott Hecker (still working in biotech in San Diego) and Paul Singarella (a retired attorney who just moved to Florida). I do the same with Irene Chu (still a graphic designer in the Boston area) and we’re trying to rope Julie Burstein into those calls. Julie is working with my wife, Jessica, on some radio programs and podcasts related to end-of-life issues. Julie also has worked with my daughter, Tessa (Wes ’21), on two podcasts. My wife and I recently hosted a virtual cooking class and dinner party with four couples, one of which included Daryl Messenger. Last month I chatted with Rick Smith, who lives in DC and is a top pharma consultant. I’m also in touch with Paul Oxholm, Jane Polin, and Melissa Stern (as well as her husband, Jim Friedlich ’78). I’m in a busy semi-retirement phase, hosting many COVID-related programs for the Commonwealth Club (https://www.commonwealthclub.org) (including Biden senior advisor Andy Slavitt this month). It was great seeing so many of our classmates during last year’s reunion calls. Hope all are staying healthy and sane.”

Halsey Frank, “Here’s my decennial update: After 34 years with the Department of Justice, I retired as US Attorney for the District of Maine this past February. I never expected to stay that long but found I liked the people and the work, and before I knew it the years were gone. I am taking a break to decide what to do next and would like to find a way to continue some of the civic education initiatives I started as US Attorney. Otherwise, our daughter Laura just moved back to New York City to resume her independence and continue working for a startup.  Our son Alex is on track to graduate from college this May, albeit likely without the customary pomp and circumstance.  My wife Eva continues to do the many manner of things that she has done since she stopped practicing law when we moved to Maine years ago. Our dogs, Jeeves and Henry, keep each other company and us entertained.”

Ellen Haller, “I happily retired in July 2018 after 30 yrs on the full-time faculty in the UCSF School of Medicine and am so relieved to not be Director of a Psychiatry Clinic during a pandemic! My wife is Chief of Infectious Disease at UCSF, so it’s been a rather busy time for her…The only silver lining in this pandemic is that our son unexpectedly moved back home after recently graduating from college, and he has become a quite successful professional magician including a performance on the Penn & Teller TV show, “Fool Us,” and regular Zoom shows for corporations, private parties, and ticketed audiences (danielroymagic.com).”

Amy Natterson Kroll, “All is well here. I’ve been very lucky as I had a home office set up from when I had a home business 20 years ago, so when my office went remote over a weekend in mid-March, I missed nary a beat. We had our son with us for the first seven weeks of the pandemic, then he drove across the country to start his new job in Utah when things seemed to be getting under control, and two weeks later our daughter and her then 2 year old arrived for 7 weeks. It was wonderful, and exhausting! In the autumn we decamped for the mountains of Idaho where I worked remotely for 5 weeks, and then back to DC, where we have been increasingly reclusive, pending my getting a vaccine. There have been wonderful silver linings, and lots of reminding ourselves of our great fortune in staying healthy (so far).  I have hiked weekly in the parks in DC that I had driven through for 38 years; I have walked through numerous neighborhoods now quiet as life in northwest DC remains pretty much WFH; I have become very proficient at building a campfire in our two firepits; and over last the summer I grew a bumper crop of string beans, onions, rosemary and radishes. Hopefully, society will stay slower, children will continue to play outside and the air will stay a bit clearer once we can all fully emerge.”