Class Notes | 1960s

Dear Classmates, thanks to those responding to the request for news!

Class conveners Mark Edmiston and Hugh Wilson write: “Although we have nothing planned for Homecoming 2016, we hope to meet at Reunion 2017. We’d like to consider the following opportunities for the class to pursue:

• East Africa safari trip centered on Kenya combining sightseeing with time at Shining Hope for Communities (SHOFCO).

• Cuba trip focused on higher education and the opportunities for ’65 to assist students there. We also talked about a $100,000 scholarship endowment to fund a Wesleyan student’s study in Cuba.

• Fund the compilation of a directory of alumni willing to mentor students in various ways.”

They add, “These are not mutually exclusive and feedback is encouraged. Also, detailed information would be available at the meeting.”

Bill Trapp writes, “Marilyn and I, the three kids, and eight grandkids are all doing fine, and I am headed out this morning for a round of golf. Could it get any better? We are enjoying some crisp Pacific Northwest fall weather and will soon drive to Southern Cal to visit friends. I certainly wish I could be there for Don Russell’s induction ceremony. He means a lot to all of us who were lucky enough to have had him for a coach and mentor. We will never forget his kindness and patience!”

Bob Block writes, “After retiring in 2011 following 36 years with the department of pediatrics at the University of Oklahoma School of Community Medicine, I am now an emeritus professor and chair. I served the American Academy of Pediatrics as president-elect, president, and past president between 2010 and 2013. Since then, I have been spending more time with my wife, Sharon, and my woodcarving hobby. We are enjoying our three grandchildren who live nearby.”

Bruce Patterson writes, “I’m semi-retired. My wife, Martha, who is fully retired, and I bought a condo south of Sarasota last year after the horrible February 2015 in the northeast. We spent five months there last winter and had a ball. Just about every night we walked to Casey Key Beach to watch the sunset. Fabulous! While home in Stamford, Conn., I still do marine surveys, and am now doing one for the Darien Police Department. Both our kids now live in Stamford, so we’re very lucky. Our son works for a hedge fund in Old Greenwich and our daughter is a buyer for T.J. Maxx.”

PHILIP L. ROCKWELL | prockwell@wesleyan.edu

I’ve settled down in my recliner, with the sound of raindrops on the roof of my man cave, and it’s Labor Day weekend. My wife, Becky, is out having lunch with her BFF, and our cats are napping, leaving me with the opportunity to do notes for about the 120th time. The television is muted with college football back again, and there is an assortment of games to watch in this information and entertainment age.

I think back to our years at Wesleyan, with the intimacy of our portable football field provided for our gallant squad of Cardinals. Eight games each year with the likes of Worcester Polytechnic Institute, the Coast Guard Academy, and those other two schools of the Little Three, creating a much-needed break from studies. There were also soccer games and cross-country runs to entertain us. Dave Ransom and Jack Buttles toiled on the gridiron, and athletes such as Lou D’Ambrosio and Peter Sipples powered our soccer teams to successful campaigns.

I frequently think about the why when it comes to a liberal arts education at a place like Wesleyan. I learned to trust my capacity for learning, and the ability to translate the knowledge to answering questions. I can’t imagine how many answers I have given in the domain of exams or in my career in obstetrics and gynecology. There came a time at Wesleyan where I studied for an exam, and found myself prepared to give the answers. I found the capacity to choose the moment that I was prepared to handle whatever was asked of me. I trusted that they would ask me questions that I had the right answers for. My Wesleyan experience led me to trust my abilities to handle the tasks that were ahead in medical school, and as a practicing physician, to answer requests by patients, nurses, and other medical professionals. I believe I learned not to fear making the wrong replies after four years at Wesleyan.

News from alumni: Garry Fathman is still active as a professor of medicine at Stanford. He has three children, all married and employed, and three grandchildren ages 4-6. He celebrated his 74th birthday last week and says, “All is well in my world.”

Wink Davenport: “It has been a few weeks since the Olympics have been over and I still think about them and what they mean to me. You will remember that they have been a big part of my life: Player in 1968 in Mexico, referee in 1984 in LA, and administrator in 1996 in Atlanta where my daughter, Lindsay, won her gold medal in tennis. Watching our athletes compete and win was amazing and made me proud to be a part of the games.

“This summer has been very quiet. Jay McIlroy has been in Poland with his wife for several months and won’t return until November. Louie D takes off to his place in Montana and Palm Springs. We will all get together around the election and try to figure out where our country is going. It doesn’t look too promising.”

Rusty Messing: “I have finished my second book of poetry, Midnight’s Breathing, and am very pleased with it. I am still writing and hopefully will come out with a third book sometime next year. There have been other big events in my life. Our daughter, Ali, now has a beautiful little girl, Rumi. Our son, Jake, also has a beautiful little girl, Goldie. Jake and his wife will soon be leaving their condo in Brooklyn and moving cross-country to Healdsburg. Our other two grandsons, Joe (16) and Solly (14), along with our daughter, Jeanne, are dealing with the challenges of being teenagers. My health is good (knock on wood), my mind is slower, my smile is as wide.”

Brooke Jones: “I’m retired from 30 years at Rockwell, International, and doing some part-time work with a start-up. Now doing part-time math instruction for kids at the North Orange County Community College District. My wife, Judy, and I toured Italy last year to celebrate our 51st anniversary. This year, we’ve been enjoying our children and grandchildren, who all live within a couple hours’ drive. I’m also running for the local water board to run out the bums who used the drought to raise our rates last year to 250 percent of the previous rates, with promises of more to come. See facebook.com/Jones4YLWD.

“Sadly, we lost Spurgeon Leon Robinette who died in his sleep in June. A memorial service was held in September at Triple Creek, his home for many years in Arkansas.”

Allen Ames: “I am still alive and able to sit up and take nourishment. I live in a condo in Clinton, Conn., near the water with my ADHD dog. I have renewed friendships with a number of former students through social media. I have ’swallowed the anchor’ this spring and I am boatless for the first time. I have five children, 10 grandchildren, and one great-grandchild, if I am counting correctly. All are beautiful and/or handsome, talented, and brilliant.

“Finally, coach Don Russell is being inducted into the Wesleyan Athletic Hall of Fame. He arrived at Wesleyan in 1960 and always related to our class of 1964. He was my freshman basketball and baseball coach and did a great job. He eventually was athletic director at the powerhouse that was and is Wesleyan sports.”

Harry Lanford has lived in Maine since 1979 and in Bangor since 2005. He retired from a career doing marine electrical and electronics for the Hinckley Company in Southwest Harbor. He married Ann Davis in 2005 and has children from an earlier marriage to Sheila Wilensky: Brook Wilensky-Lanford (married and in a PhD program in American religious history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) and Ethan Wilensky-Lanford (married and PhD student in anthropology at Rice). Ann and Harry enjoy traveling in a motor home.

TED MANOS, M.D. | ted_manos@yahoo.com

In response to a plea from the Alumni Office for information, Bill McCollum e-mailed a note: “My wife, Janice, and I live in Kansas City. I retired from the practice of law three years ago. We have three children and three grandchildren.” While admiring his brevity, I thought that there might be more there so I called. He is a Blue Devils fan due to his having gone to law school at Duke and he still goes to at least one basketball game a year. He and Janice were married in 1970. After a career in childcare, she, too, retired, but they both still do volunteer work with needy children. While they have been “all over Europe” their travel now is mostly to visit their children (in Rochester, N.Y., Georgia, and D.C.) and grandchildren (two in high school, one in grade school). Bill is very interested in history and devotes a lot of energy and time in helping with the restoration and maintenance of two nearby historical houses. One is where wounded Civil War soldiers from both sides were cared for, and the other was a way station for people migrating west, way back in the really old days. From 1968 to 1970, BiIl was in the U.S. Navy. After OCS, he was trained, sent west, and served as commander of a small, really fast air-cushion craft in the Delta of South Vietnam. He left the Navy with the rank of first lieutenant.

Samuel “Bo” Grimes writes, “My wife, Sabra, and I have just been accepted for admission to a very nice retirement community called Tel Hai in Honeybrook, Pa. By a set of unexpected circumstances, we have obtained exactly the cottage we had hoped for in the community.

In December, we will move about 70 miles from our present home outside Baltimore to a small town in the Amish and Mennonite farm country halfway between Lancaster and Philadelphia. It will be a considerable change in our lives, but my younger sister has been living in the area for 10 years, which will help us to connect, and it’s close enough that we can be back in Baltimore in less than two hours. The present challenge is to clean out the house before embarking on a new life in a new place. We’ve been accumulating stuff far more than we need for the last 20 years.” Bo retired in 2012 after 49 years of teaching English and computer skills at the Gilman School in Baltimore. After graduating from Wesleyan, he got his teaching degree at Johns Hopkins. Since the draft existed then, I asked him how he’d avoided it. He said the headmaster of the Gilman School wrote a very persuasive letter to his draft board, which “convinced them that I was needed more there than as cannon fodder.” Sabra is also retired. She had worked as a scheduler at Gilman for years until she was replaced by technology. She sings in a local choir, plays the piano, and they both like music. They have two daughters who are 38 and 34. Once they get settled at Tel Hai, they will continue to travel.

Pete Smith wrote: “I think that this is probably my first communication with Wesleyan since, oh, maybe 53 years ago. I became disaffected during the craziness of the late 1960s and have not felt the urge to reconnect, though I did stop by the campus a few years ago in the late summer with nobody around at Alpha Delt. My professional life in brief: I spent 15 years in the foreign service, then moved to NASA, and retired as director of international relations in 1996 at 55. I lived in West Virginia for 22 years, then moved this summer to a smaller stone ranch house in upper Baltimore County. I’ve been married to my wife, Lynn, for 52 years this summer. We have two children, a daughter, 50, and a son, 48. Our daughter lives in Baltimore and has five children. Our son is in Charlotte with two daughters. I am still pursuing ham radio after 62 years and writing for various magazines in the field. Morse is probably my second language by now at probably 35-40 words per minute. The fascination continues to be that it’s just me, the ionosphere, and my station. No Internet, so the challenge continues.” Pete got into ham radio at 13, thanks to a radio club at his middle/high school. “My parents were quietly supportive, although there wasn’t much money for that purpose. I remember buying a second-hand Hallicrafters receiver and a Heathkit transmitter and just kept floundering around. In those days you had to know Morse for even the lowest class license, which is no longer the case for any licensing level.”

Richard Currie reports that he and “my lovely wife, Suzanne” just celebrated their 50th anniversary this year with trips to St. John, Virgin Islands, in January and a riverboat cruise up the Rhine during their anniversary month of April. And now a Trekkie alert! Their son, Tom, is working on visual effects for a new Star Trek series for CBS, while daughter Karen is stage managing for several professional companies in the D.C. area. Both visited Dick and Sue during their year-long anniversary celebration. Sue continues to work as a pastor in the greater Pittsburgh area while Dick volunteers with Meals on Wheels and Food Bank to combat hunger in the Monongahela River Valley. His food pantry received the 2016 Outstanding Agency award from the county bank office.

BYRON S. MILLER | tigr10@optonline.net
5 Clapboard Hill Rd., Westport, CT 06880

In April, Hank Fotter moved into the Elim Park Health Care Center in Cheshire, Conn., where his wife, Harriet, moved into the adjacent independent living center, Elim Park Place, a two-minute walk away. She writes that Hank started falling in October 2015, and by January 2016, he was in a wheelchair and needing around-the-clock care because of a “devastating combination of long-term physical illnesses and steadily declining cognitive abilities.” She says that Hank would enjoy receiving notes at 150 Cook Hill Road, Apt. #6110, Cheshire, CT 06410, and seeing visitors. Her cell phone number is 203-592-2733 if you’re in the area.

Bob Gause writes, “I’m still working at my first job, pediatric orthopedics, simply because I love it. Children I operated on 35 years ago return with their children and I can recall each case.” He spends time “on that same Winterport, Maine, farm” and at a camp on Moosehead Lake, and has written four fiction books. He says, “The last 75 years have been so exciting, I can’t wait to see what the second half has in store.”

Gary Wanerka was honored for his long service as a pediatrician and allergy specialist by receiving a Distinguished Service Award from the town of Branford, Conn. After his pediatric training at Yale, he served four years in the U.S. Army in Germany, and then began his practice in New Haven in 1974. He started up Branford Pediatrics and Allergy in 1982. Just like Bob Gause, he says he has many “grandpatients” and even some “great-grandpatients.” His wife, Chris, children Laura and John, and grandchildren, Trey and Reese, were present when he was presented with the award.

This year, Len Wilson was inducted into the National YMCA Hall of Fame, located on the campus of Springfield College, joining 130 other members. An interesting note: The YMCA Hall of Fame is housed in the building where basketball was invented, which had been the original YMCA training center for directors. Len has been retired for 10 years and says that he and Joyce “have settled into spending summers on the Jersey Shore with family and friends, and enjoying the rest of the year doing a little traveling away from our condo life in South Philly.” He is the first classmate to write (or admit) that he’s “caught the pickleball bug.”

And sad news on the passing in March of Dirck Westervelt in Brewster, Mass. He was retired after a long career as a psychiatric social worker. He spent two decades with the New York State Office of Mental Health, and specialized in the treatment of adolescents. He also volunteered for years as a counselor for Vietnam veterans. Our condolences to his family.

Reunion coming up: With the calendar turning to 2017, we are reminded that our 55th Reunion is coming up—May 25 to 28. Mark your calendars now, and we hope to have a good turnout once again. I hear that Len Wilson will be offering pickleball lessons.

DAVID FISKE | davidfiske17@gmail.com
17 W. Buckingham Dr. Rehoboth Beach, DE 19971

“Thanks for the e-mail,” writes Eric “Swede” Wilson, “to ’nudge’ me to recall some items that may be of interest for the class notes. I am still gainfully employed in my second job as in-house counsel for a Tuscaloosa-based holding company, after retiring from the FBI after 26 years in 1989. Margaret and I continue to have good health, and she is very busy painting and volunteering for various organizations in Tuscaloosa. My daughter, Avery, is now back living in Nashville, after moves to Del Mar, Calif., and Atlanta within the last five years. My son, Eric, is still gainfully employed as an attorney in Tuscaloosa. He has one son, who will turn 13 in November. My other son, Martin, is still working in NYC, and will have his second young adult novel published by Harper Collins in 2017. So, everything is good. Looking forward to our 60th in another five years.”

Howie Morgan claims: “Not much new here. Changing home address to Florida, but Betsy and I will still be running up and down the East Coast. Kids and seven grandkids are all well. None are looking at Wesleyan. Looking forward to Reunion in 2017.”

Jack Mitchell proudly proclaims: “My grandson, Lyle Mitchell ’16, just graduated from Wesleyan and granddaughter, Dana ’18, is a junior at Wesleyan!” In addition, Jack relates: “I’m in the process of partnering with a global firm to do workshops re: personalized customer service using my Hug Your Customers book as the centerpiece. We added Mario’s stores in Portland, Ore., and Seattle, Wash. We now have eight men’s and women’s clothing stores. It all started with Mom and Dad when we were sophomores and is led by our third generation of sons and nephews! Still having lots of family fun with Linda—married over 55 years!”

Calvin “Pete” Drayer informs us: “Sandy and I have moved into a retirement home. I am still serving as a senior judge about 10 days a month. I am saddened by the loss of members of our class and my fraternity.”

Soon after receiving Pete’s expression of grief, the loss of another classmate was sent to your class secretary. William N. Schultz, a former Navy man and a graduate of Westtown Quaker School in Pennsylvania prior to his attendance at Wesleyan, died on Aug. 6. Bill worked as an art and antique appraiser in Philadelphia, and was a Philadelphia Eagles and jazz enthusiast.

News from Foster Morrison: “I have a little consulting job editing the maps for a biography of a Liberty Ship captain. Those vessels were mass-produced in WWII to move masses of material to the European theater. Captains and crews were trained PDQ. When the war was over, most of the ships were scrapped and the captains and crews had to find other work. But it all ended the Great Depression by putting much of the foreign competition, specifically Japan and Germany, out of business for a while. So we’re back there again, but with a China converted to capitalism of a sort.”

Foster continues, “I actually worked for two mapping agencies, but know little about making maps; mostly I programmed computers using Fortran, which looks kind of like algebra instead of zeroes and ones (binary numbers). Fortran converts the algebra to the binary numbers, but other computer languages have largely displaced it after all these decades. But with PCs you can now run your computer jobs every few minutes instead of once a day on those huge machines that cost millions of dollars.”

Respectfully submitted,

Jon K. Magendanz, DDS | jon@magendanz.com
902 39th Avenue West, Bradenton, Fl 34205 

John Berry wrote the following: “Our daughter, Clay Berry, returned from Russia last year after spending two years as the treasury attaché in the U.S. Embassy in Moscow with numerous trips to Kiev, Ukraine. This spring she was appointed a deputy assistant secretary of treasury, the department’s highest non-political position, with responsibility for Europe, Russia, and all the former Soviet republics. Meanwhile, my wife, Mary, continues to row competitively with the Vesper Boat Club in Philadelphia—a substantial commute from our home in Alexandria, Va. She will be rowing this fall in the Head of the Charles Regatta and plans to compete in the International Masters Regatta next year in Bled, Slovenia.”

Ed Chalfant wrote the following: “Not much going on. Nice lazy summer, with trips to North Carolina and Maine to help with the lobster crisis. Winkie is doing a lot of really good painting with acrylics and showing locally. I am working on a theology and set of liturgies for end-of-life issues and events. Continue to hold services every week at our little ’start-up mission’ which is able to give about 75 percent of offerings to mission outreach partners due to really low overhead and generous people. Both of us are very well and just celebrated 57 years of marriage this week.”

Dan Freedman is retired completely from MIT after a multi-year phase-out. Dan and Miriam now live in Palo Alto, Calif., near their two children and granddaughter. Although retired, he works nearly full-time in the physics department at Stanford. This is the 40th anniversary year of the discovery of supergravity, and his original paper (with two co-authors) was honored in June by celebrations at the Majorana Institute for Physics and Culture in Sicily and at CERN Laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland. Dan also presented lectures describing his research at the Supergravity: What Next? Workshop held in September and October at the Galileo Galilei Institute for Theoretical Physics in Florence, Italy.

In March 2016, Peggy and Dave Hale traveled to Croatia, where they cruised down the Dalmatian coast, with stops in Montenegro and Albania, to Athens. A bus tour took them to Olympia and Delphi.

Congratulations to Jay Levy for receiving the 2016 Global Citizen Award from the Global Interfaith AIDS Alliance, an international organization that does pioneer work against HIV/AIDS in Africa, particularly Malawi. During the last three decades, Jay has investigated the mechanism of HIV infection and has contributed to the development of anti-retroviral therapies. In response to sad news in the last issue, Jay recalled that he, along with Wink Adams and Powell (Al) Johns, were among the few who lived at Soest House the first six months of their freshman year. Jay recalls that “it led to a real bonding of that group. It is with great sadness to us all that Wink now joins Al with his passing. Their spirit and memory will always be with us.”

Bob Sade edited The Ethics of Surgery: Conflicts and Controversies (Oxford University Press, 2015). Most of the authors of the articles are surgeons, giving a real-world cast to the discussions and arguments; the exchanges are enriched by an admixture of lawyers, sociologists, philosophers, and others with expertise in ethics.

Charlie Smith is the author of What the Market Teaches Us (Oxford University Press, 2015). Rather than attempting to explain and predict how the market functions—a futile endeavor—this book focuses upon the rich teachings that the market offers us for dealing with ambiguities and unexpected and contradictory happenings.

Bill Walker is the author of Danzig (Create Space Independent Publishing, 2016), a novel of political intrigue set in Central Europe in the 1930s. Richly atmospheric, it is gripping historical fiction in the grand tradition that has received rave reviews. Bill has a website at authorwilliamwalker.com that describes the book and provides a convenient link to buy it from Amazon in electronic or print forms. You are encouraged to read the novel and then to submit your review.

On a personal note, one of the highlights of my summer was taking part in the annual ferry boat contra dance in July. An enthusiastic 150 dancers, along with caller and musicians, took a regularly scheduled Washington State ferry round trip from Anacortes to Friday Harbor on San Juan Island. It was great fun, especially when the ferry encountered strong currents that tipped the dance floor!

SAL RUSSO | salandjudy@hotmail.com
2700 Kentucky St., Bellingham, WA 98229

This column begins with the sad news that Wink Adams died on March 19, 2016. He spent the last eight months of his life in the skilled nursing unit of The Glen at Willow Valley in Lancaster, Pa., where he received kind, loving, and compassionate care. His last job before retirement was to train salespeople to sell investment products for MetLife. Wink loved the beach and water at Cape Cod. He also derived great pleasure from his collection of classic cars. He is survived by his wife, Carroll, son Richard ’85, and daughter Tracy. On behalf of the class of 1960, I express our condolences to his family and friends.

Another sadness for our class is the death of Herm Golnik on Oct. 12, 2015, after a short illness. While teaching and coaching at Monson Academy in Monson, Mass., and later Middletown High School, he received his master’s in education from the University of Hartford. He attended Vanderbilt Law School and received his JD in 1967. Throughout his career he worked for a series of financial institutions in New York City, Detroit, and Orlando that included American Express, National Bank of Detroit, and Sun Banks of Florida. He also worked for Chrysler at their Eight Mile Plant as a tool and die maker and taught in the Detroit Public School System. After retiring, he moved back to Middletown, where he occasionally was a substitute teacher. He enjoyed politics and baseball and loved the New York Yankees. Herm was predeceased by his son Alexander. He is survived by his sons Karl, David, Jonathan, Benjamin, daughter Katie, and their respective spouses. He leaves nine grandchildren. On behalf of the class of 1960, I express our condolences to his family and friends.

Roland Bassett wrote: “Adrienne and I are truly blessed. We travel a good bit, just back from a tour of India, and Adrienne is headed back to Europe with a grandchild in June. I am (almost completely, but not quite) retired from my law practice. We still live in Galveston, along with our three boys, our daughters-in-law, and all of our grandchildren (except for those who have headed off to college), but we also spend a good bit of time watching pine trees grow on our small tree farm in East Texas.”

Bill Murphy wrote the following: “I’m happy to add a few lines to the notes since recovering from a second hip replacement is restricting my other activities. I’d rather be in school, but the doctor has grounded me temporarily. I continue to teach at Hanover High School where I started in 1961, but now it is only two courses. I have the satisfaction of teaching some bright juniors in a course called Contemporary American History, which I sometimes call the course of my life, since it begins in 1941 and comes up to today. I also include Wesleyan in the course as I push the students to try to determine what causes change. The big question is why did the Civil Rights Movement come when it did, and the little question is why did EQV and other fraternities at Wesleyan challenge their discriminatory clauses—a question that I tried to pursue at our 55th Reunion. Many good discussions have resulted.”

The history of Wesleyan University (1910–1970) written by Dave Potts has gone into a second printing and has been assessed in the premier journal for reviews of books in American history as “a genuinely enjoyable read” with extended sections that are “page turners.” The reviewer goes on to observe: “The second half of the book is a gripping account of the struggle to realize” President Victor Butterfield’s “distinctive vision of what a liberal arts college should be.”

Gil Seeley wrote: “I have re-invented myself, so to speak, living in Port Townsend, Wash. Will conduct the Rainshadow Chorale in the spring concert and am teaching my world music/poetry class. It’s called ‘a Victorian seaport and arts community’ by the chamber of commerce, but for me it is a place where there are an extraordinary number of retired folks who have done fascinating things with their lives. I highly recommend a visit to Port Townsend, as you will not be disappointed! Cheers.”

Paul Tractenberg wrote the following: “I retired as of Jan. 1, 2016, after 45-and-a-half years of law professing at Rutgers Law School in Newark. My wife, Neimah, and I recently moved to a new condo townhouse. The impetus for the move was to have a place with a first floor master bedroom—just in case—even though walking stairs isn’t an issue for either of us yet. In fact, I still do bicycle rides of 30–50 miles and sometimes more. Retirement from law teaching doesn’t mean the end of projects about which I care deeply. To the contrary, the time I’m not spending on teaching and attending to faculty business is largely being consumed by project work. To accommodate my major project, I’ve created a new nonprofit organization known as the Center on Diversity and Equality in Education (CDEE) and, to my gratification, have received a number of generous grants to support my work. As the new organizational name suggests, my work continues to focus on improving the educational opportunities for children, and especially low-income children of color. The project is centered on the Morris School District, a consolidation of predominantly white, upper-income and suburban Morris Township and predominantly black and Hispanic, lower-income and urban Morristown. This merger, which took place in 1971 by order of the state commissioner of education, produced one of the most diverse school districts in New Jersey despite opponents’ claims that it would trigger massive white flight. In late June, we head out to our house in Hampton Bays and look forward to a summer of sun and sea. We hope that our grandchildren will join us before and after their summer camp (and their parents can come along, too). So, all in all, life is good. We wish our classmates and their partners the same.”

The “noble nine” classmates galloped onto the Wesleyan Campus to renew, reunite, and restore acquaintances from memorable times past. In attendance at the events, including luncheon, seminar, reception, and dinner were Richard Corson, Jack Mitchell, Emil Frankel, Stephen Wainwright, Spike Paranya, Peter Funk, Neal Schachtel, Bob Patricelli, and Jon Magendanz. Special thanks to Peter for his exceptional photographic talent (The reader is referred to: flickr.com/photos/funkphotographs/sets/72157668442387901).

“I was the guest preacher for the Martin Luther King, Jr. service at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine,” writes Bob Carey. Although it is impossible to include all of Bob’s presentation, a few excerpts are inserted here: “What was new in the New World was that slavery was not a system of work alone. Slavery now defined an individual. In fashioning the racial ideology that rationalized the slave trade, the violence and control of enslaved life in America, whites argued that enslaved Africans were fulfilling their destiny; that white and black were utterly distinct. …The push for a more open, more inclusive society is a permanent piece of work. This day, above all of our national holidays, should bring us back to ask—Are we there yet? What is the work that still needs doing? It was the genius of Dr. King not only to see how the Constitution could become a people’s document; to argue that the Declaration of Independence included all who sought to grow and thrive and contribute to their communities; he also called us to remember that the structures of privilege have been well fashioned; that the rich and those who benefit from structures of exploitation and exclusion will be working to protect what they have. …I suggest …..that we use the metaphor of a feast—all are welcome, all can come to the table.” After Wesleyan, Bob finished his M.Div and S.T.M degrees at Union Theological Seminary and his doctorate in American history at Columbia. He is professor of historical studies, SUNY/Empire State College.

Ed McClellan writes from Bloomington, Ind.: “One the great pleasures of my retirement has been to become reacquainted with Glenn Hawkes. Glenn and I share a lifelong interest in K–12 education. I have especially come to appreciate Glenn’s work in Africa, where he has created a school for Rwandan children.

An update was received from Bob Reiser: “Life in Atlanta continues to be volunteering for several nonprofits and doing consulting work for Balentine, an Atlanta based investment advisory firm. Recently, after 40-plus years of writing investment commentary for clients, I took up two writing projects. Last year I finished writing a history of Georgia Shakespeare, a nonprofit theater in Atlanta, that went out of business after 28 years. I questioned why a theater with an excellent reputation for artistic excellence should suddenly fold. There were many contributing factors but by far the most important was the unwillingness of the staff and board to adopt budgets that were attainable. It makes an interesting case study for nonprofits in general and I hope to turn it into a college level case study. My other project was the completion of a first draft for a book, An Investment Guide to the U.S. Markets for the Foreign National. With the increasing wealth of investors outside of the United States it seemed to me that much of that money would flow into the U.S. as countries open up their capital markets. While it is true that there are literally thousands of investment books, I could not find any that specifically targeted the foreign national.

“My wife Margaret and I spend over a third of the year in Boothbay Harbor, Maine. Margaret chairs the board of the Coastal Maine Botanical Garden and I have joined the board of the YMCA. We find the contrast between small town living in New England and big city living in the south to offer a wide range of experiences.

The Wesleyan connection never seems far away. We visited with Neal and Tricia Schachtel at their home in St. Petersburg, and we were joined by Joan and Bob Chase ’59, who were passing through. We have gotten to know Bob and Joan through the Boothbay Harbor Yacht Club, which fortunately, does not require owning a yacht to be a member.”

The unexpected death of Thomas R. Patton III occurred on April 1, 2015, while traveling with his wife, Pam, in Australia. He was a long-time resident of Chatham, and formerly lived in Sudbury, Mass. Tom, born in Philadelphia, Pa., served as an officer in the U.S. Navy, worked for F.S. Moseley, joined a real estate development company and eventually formed his own real estate management company, The Alden Group, in Burlington, Mass. Tom was a resident and an engaged community member in Sudbury from 1969 to 1993. Tom and his family moved to Chatham in 1993 and opened the Carriage House Inn, which he and Pam sold in 1997. He was a realtor with Kinlin Grover Real Estate until his retirement in 2014.

Foster Morrison concludes this Class’61 column with some words on climate. “Being an environmentalist does not mean accepting a low standard of living. It means knowing that planet Earth can support only so many people: a few with a high standard of living or a lot more with a lower standard of living. It also means leaving a lot of land undeveloped and some underdeveloped to preserve the natural world and also assure environmental stability. For example, if global warming does not destabilize Earth’s life support systems, something else will. It’s just an obvious consequence of the Earth being finite. Strangely enough, or not so strangely if you understand them, economists think the global economy can expand exponentially forever. Anyone who has taken high school math (geometric series) should know better. Factoring in the fact that growth does vary takes a little calculus, which economists must do, but obviously they didn’t understand it.”

Respectfully submitted,

Jon K. Magendanz, DDS | jon@magendanz.com

902 39th Avenue West, Bradenton, FL 34205

Bob Gelardi reports that he is chairing the charity relations committee of the Destin Charity Wine Auction Foundation and is pleased that they just raised a record $2.65 million that will be donated to 14 local children’s charities. He says it has been the number four and number six wine auction in the country in the past two years. He writes, “It truly is greater to give than to receive, as we add smiles to the faces of thousands of kids in need.”

Eric Greenleaf and Lori have been living in Larkspur, Calif., in the redwoods for almost 30 years now. He says he is “still doing psychotherapy and training therapists, which lets me travel some.” Lori is producing shows for the local TV station. His son, Tatian, and daughter-in-law are both teachers and two grandsons (“9 and 6 and the delights of our lives”) go to his school. “I’d love to hear from classmates,” Eric writes.

Mike Riley and his wife, Sally, have moved from St. Augustine, Fla., where they’ve been since 2004, to the San Francisco area (Brentwood, in the East Bay area) to be nearer their son, Chris, and a brand new granddaughter, and to their daughter Roxane Williams ’95, who’s in Palo Alto with their other two grandchildren.

Milt Schroeder writes: “Retirement is still treating me well.” He says that he and Mary “are enjoying some traveling,” and he recounts a recent eight-day trip to Rome, with highlights being an excursion to Ostia Antica, an ancient port city not far from Rome, established around the 4th century BC, and attending a Mozart Requiem concert “performed in a historic church by a superb local group and orchestra.” Back in the USA, he says, “Now we are bracing for another hot Arizona summer but hope to escape some of the time to cooler climes.”

After dealing with medical challenges for nearly six months, Phil Putnam is recovering at home. He would enjoy hearing from his many friends and classmates: pgputnam@me.com, or feel free to send a note: 34 River Road Drive, Essex, CT 06426.

DAVID FISKE | davidfiske17@gmail.com

17 W. Buckingham Dr. Rehoboth Beach, DE 19971

David Youngblood of Lexington, Ky., retired last June after 48 years teaching English. David got his MAT at Harvard and then taught at Newton South High School for 20 years, enjoying the New England area. But all that changed in ’87, while grading AP tests in Princeton, N.J., when he noticed another grader, one Ellen Rosenman, then teaching at Dickinson College. After 5 p.m. they adjourned to the Bamboo Lounge. When she took a job at the University of Kentucky, he traveled there to “check the relationship out.” Marriage ensued. He moved to Lexington, got a job at the Thayer School and taught there for 28 years. They have two daughters, one in D.C., the other studying design in Richmond but studying in Copenhagen this summer. They hope to visit her this summer. In retirement David plays a lot of tennis, reads, and watches TV. Ellen loves horses, rides and takes lots of lessons. David said, “The core of my life was teaching high school and I’d still be teaching today but I hated grading papers!”

After graduation Robert Rideout joined the USAF, serving most of his tour as an air police officer at Ellsworth AFB, S.D. Thereafter he joined the CIA, focusing on economic analysis. He earned an MPA at Woodrow Wilson School, then spent 28 years in four different branches of the Bureau of the Budget and OMB as a budget examiner and later a branch chief. “To summarize my career: In 28 years there, we only balanced the budget 28 days!” He continued: “In ’97 I retired so I could spend more time working with the senior high youth group at our church, visiting youth group members who were hospitalized. Thus I discovered the lay chaplaincy visitor program and continued to serve in pediatrics until we moved to Columbus, Ohio, in ’04. There I took 1,600 hours of clinical pastoral education at Children’s Hospital, was ordained a vocational deacon in the Episcopal Church, and served a couple of nights a month as a chaplain.” He and his wife, Marti, are less that 10 minutes from their daughter and her three sons. They also have a son, married with three children, a lieutenant colonel in the USMC. He’s just finishing Naval War College and they often travel to visit his family when he’s not stationed in a war zone. Robert met his wife in ’69. She is now easing herself out of a 25-year career as a parish musician at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Columbus. Robert is proud of her: she’s quite well know for the extent and quality of her church music work throughout the Episcopal Church. For relaxation Robert likes to garden: “plant stuff and see if it grows”.

Larry Shultes, who lives in Doylesown, Pa., retired 20 years ago after 35 years as an actuary with Prudential. He volunteers with Meals On Wheels, but his primary focus is the group his wife, Anne, was working with, which was making recordings for people who are either blind or dyslexic. They record books for schools and he does post recording work. Larry and Anne went to the same high school. Her freshman year of college, she went to Stanford—but cross-country air fares vs. weekend car trips back and forth from Mt. Holyoke? So she transferred there and they saw a lot of each other, both graduating in ’63. They have three grown sons, 49, 51 and 53, and nine grandchildren. Besides volunteer work, Larry plays bridge and golf, which he started at age 10, playing with his parents. His former five-handicap is aging, too.

David Brill, of Chambersburg, Pa., retired four-and-a-half years ago from his practice in radiology and nuclear medicine: “I’m not a doctor anymore.” Throughout all his studies he was totally focused on learning medicine and the “new technical language of 40,000 words that came with it. And I’m finally getting my parents’ money’s worth out of the liberal arts education I missed!” He’s reading classics like The Iliad, The Odyssey and Ovid’s Metamorphoses. “Now I can take online courses in art or calculus. And to understand classical art, which has so many mythological figures, I felt I had to study Greek and Roman mythology.” David is also a Rotarian and goes to the gym a lot. For the first 28 years of his medical practice David worked at the Geisinger Medical Center in Danville, Pa. The next 12 years he worked with a private radiology group. As he was in nuclear medicine, he became very interested in the safe storage, recycling or re-use of nuclear material. It’s a second marriage for both he and Anne; their children are two dogs and a cat. They don’t travel much, as reliable dog sitters are sometimes not so reliable.

From Greenwich, Conn., Ron Wilson and his wife, Eddie, have two children, a daughter, 48, and a son, 45. Their daughter recently got remarried, bringing three new grandchildren into their lives. Now they have eight grandchildren, ages 27 through twins, age 10. They are do-it-yourself caretakers of their venerable, 113-year-old home. In fact, when we were scheduled to talk, I called but Ron was rushing to take Eddie to the hospital, because she’d just cut herself as they were doing some repair work. Happily, it turned out to be minor and within the coverage of her last tetanus shot. He says that they’ve done so much home maintenance that they could probably hire themselves out for odd-job work. Ron, a constant gardener there for 43 years, now has to start cutting out some overgrown things. They also enjoy visiting museums and old mansions. When young, he and Eddie were neighbors in Brooklyn and their mothers had been good friends. High school sweethearts, they took some time apart but reconnected in college (though she was at the University of Miami. [Ed. note: For a great story of their courtship and marriage, go to classnotes.blogs.wesleyan.edu/.] In ’03, Ron retired from his ophthalmology practice. Eddie also retired the same year, as she had been his office manager in their in-home office.

Sad news: Last May, Wesleyan received an e-mail from Philip J. Miller ’67 that Bruce Miller died Dec. 6, 2014. After graduation Bruce spent the summer in Kenya with Operation Crossroads assisting with health and medical projects. He got his MD in ’67 and specialized in ophthalmology. He then served four years in the USN at Charleston Naval Base, achieving the rank lieutenant commander. Thereafter he spent his entire medical career at the Corpus Christie Clinic in Champaign-Urbana, where he served as president of the medical board at the Christie Clinic and was professor emeritus at the University of Illinois Medical School. Afflicted with cancer for 10 years, he gradually retired to Banner Elk, N.C., where he and his wife, Marinette, became residents. They also spent half their time in Baillé, France, and Bruce became very proficient in French, Marinnete’s native language. They had many mini-reunions with Dave Allen and his wife, Kathy, at the Allen’s home in Pinehurst. Bruce was greatly respected and loved, and is deeply missed.

BYRON S. MILLER | tigr10@optonline.net

5 Clapboard Hill Rd., Westport, CT 06880