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We celebrate the life of Irvin E. Richter who died on June 22, 2024. His son, David Richter, writes that before Irv retired in 2016, “he was the chairman and CEO of Hill International, Inc., a global construction management firm. Irv started Hill as a one-man consulting firm in 1976, and when he retired, it had nearly 5,000 employees,100 offices around the world, and was a publicly traded company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Irv was named a Distinguished Alumnus by Wesleyan as well as by Rutgers University School of Law, from which he received his law degree in 1980.” Irv served as our class secretary for a number of years, and as Rick Crootof memorably puts it in a note to David: “Irv was a BMOC in our class, seemingly running everything and known and respected by all. Like the James Garner character in The Great Escape, the Scrounger, he could get you anything! Most memorably he was the agent for our class rings. I was so glad to see him at our 50th, a real lovefest, and he looked enormously contented. I hope the last eight years continued that way. All of ’66 share in your loss.”
The Wesleyan Class of 1966 held its 58th Reunion on Zoom, May 24, 2024. Rick Crootof, Sandy Van Kennen, and Will Rhys were in Middletown, attending the Wesleyan Commencement and our reunion in person. Tom Broker, Larry Carver, Bill Dietz, Bill Fehring, Jack Knapp, David Luft, David McNally, John Neff, Barry Reder, and Sandy Shilepsky attended on Zoom. Rick prepared a perfect Zoom setting for our gathering, his nighttime photograph of the back of an illuminated Olin Library.
Each of us spoke, Sandy Shilepsky starting us off. Sandy and his wife, Carol, live in a cottage in Bishop Gadsden Episcopal Retirement Community, Charleston, South Carolina. Their daughters, Lisa and Beth, live close by. Sandy took up pickleball a few years ago, enjoying that and water volleyball too. A retired professor of mathematics, Sandy continues to follow higher education, reading The Chronicle of Higher Education and lamenting the troubles and challenges confronting college campuses. Wells College, where Sandy taught for 35 years, is closing, which I don’t think any of us knew.
David McNally recalled his 25-year career with what is now the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. He and his wife, Michelle, still live outside of Alexandria, Virginia. David talked, with good humor, about his coming down with ALS five years ago and what living with that vicious disease has been like, its deleterious effect on all parts of the body, save for the mind and eyes. David’s mind is as sharp as ever, his eyes keen and bright. Through it all, he remains remarkably active, grateful for all that his wife Michelle does. He meets on Zoom regularly with a group of former graduate students, and Rick Crootof has organized a Friends of Dave group—Rick, John Neff, Sandy Van Kennen, Alberto Ibargüen, Will Rhys, Andrew Kleinfeld, Paul Gilbert, and me—who gather once a month with David on Zoom. David, an inspiration to all, closed by telling us how much he is enjoying life.
Dr. Dietz chimed in next. Following his distinguished career as a physician and administrator focusing on treating childhood obesity, Bill and his wife, Nancy, are back in Washington, D.C., where he serves as director of the STOP Obesity Alliance and is working to make the world better through the power of food. He pointed out how reducing the consumption of meat would contribute to mitigating climate change. I kept thinking how I wish Bill were a candidate for the presidency of the United States and called attention to his speech upon receiving an honorary degree from McGill University, June 6, 2022. If you have not heard the speech, do so: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9V-LR9VxBy4
“Doing well for a man of my age,” opined David Luft. I’ll say, David looking like he just came from teaching one of his classes 40 years ago. I had a hard time believing David, given his publication record, when he told us that he finds retirement more intellectually engaging. But that seems to be the case. He has two books on the boil and is teaching himself Czech. His wife, Jennifer, breeds dogs, one making an appearance.
Bill Fehring, who has a PhD in behavioral biology, continues to do in retirement what he did while working: educating people about environmental issues. His latest endeavors include getting more minorities involved in the environment, including blind students. Bill hikes and bikes and is doing a good deal of wildlife photography, going out occasionally with Rick Crootof, another avid photographer.
Tom Broker and his wife, Louise, now professors emeriti at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, continue their pioneering work on HPV, the goal being to eliminate cervical cancer. They are also peripatetic, visiting Europe once or twice a year, venturing to Africa twice last year, Ghana for work, birding in Costa Rica, and traveling to New Mexico, where they visited among many places, Ghost Ranch, communing with Georgia O’Keefe. The Brokers have an astonishing collection of old master prints, some 6,000 to date, which they loan out for exhibitions. They are also engaged in environmental issues, and Tom and Louise power walk. Whew!
There was much joy and laughter in this reunion, none more so than when Sandy Van Kennentook the stage, wanting us to know two things. First, that he has now acquired two new knees, which are doing so well that he can work once again on cars. Second, Sandy’s long history of growing marijuana and his interest in medical uses of cannabis may have a bright future. It involves what he calls “bubble hash,” the marijuana buds being sent through a washing machine numerous times, the result being a product with 50% THC. Buy stock now.
Will Rhys reminded us that there are 43 4,000-foot mountains in Maine, and he continues to climb them. Though he cannot run anymore (he has a 2:47 marathon to his credit), he bikes. Central to his retirement is public service. He serves on the board of the library in Bridgton, Maine, which is a center for internet users. In keeping up with his lifelong love for, and work in, the theater, he continues to do a one-man show every Christmas.
Having worked six days and six nights a week for 43 years, Barry Reder, who all those years was a lawyer in San Francisco, is trying hard to do nothing. Well, not quite. He has become fascinated on how human beings learn words, how these words come to have meaning. But this once workaholic, runner (Barry has run the Bay to Breakers 35 times), and avid golfer has been slowed down by two ruptured discs in his back. As he drolly put it, he spends time on physical therapy and on making and canceling doctors’ appointments. Rick asked Barry about the reports of the deteriorating life in San Francisco. Barry said that the news is overblown.
Jack Knappbegan with a great story. Turns out he and Rick were roommates at Wesleyan. When COVID broke out, Rick invited Jack and his wife, Carla, longtime citizens of Chicago, to stay in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire. The Knapps have fallen in love with small town, rural life, and now have a home in Wolfeboro; the Crootofs recently hosting a celebration for Jack’s 80th birthday. Jack has a new book coming out: A Carpetbagger in Reverse: Arthur W. Mitchell, America’s First Black Democratic Congressman. Movingly, he dedicates the book to Professor Nathanael Greene and to the Wesleyan students who benefited from his teaching.
First grandson just graduated from the University of Virginia, and it has been 50 years since that grandson’s grandfather, John Neff, received his PhD from Harvard. And what is he doing now? Listening to music, being intensely interested in poetry. He attributes being a perpetual student who loves research to his Wesleyan education. Rick asked John about that haunting thought he made in his biographical sketch for our 50th Reunion book: “Still think I’ve not done what I’m here to do.” John continues to think he has not yet done what he is here to do.
Rick Crootof and his wife, Linda, split their year between Sarasota, Florida, and Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, and Rick, with gratitude of all of us, continues to be our class leader, organizing reunions, Zoom meetings, keeping us up to date on all things Wesleyan through email. He reported that he had to give up his lifelong love of playing tennis (and he was very good at it) because of a heart condition. The report is premature: Rick recently won a Wolfeboro tennis tournament. He continues to take great joy in photography and is looking forward to meeting James Sugar ’67. John Neff thinks the photograph that Rick took of the chapel at this last Commencement is a gem. It is (see below).
Tom Pulliam writes that “his granddaughter, Madeline, entering junior year at University of Hawaii has, with Hardy Spoehr’s assistance, landed a job as lifeguard at a Honolulu- area pool managed or owned by Hardy’s daughter.” Tom and his wife, Alice, spent “three weeks in Italy (Tuscany, Florence, Venice, Amalfi Coast) . . . lots of wonderful sights, but too many tourists . . . Stanford women’s rugby team, which I have been helping with for 13 years, surpassed all expectations. Without a player who had played rugby before coming to Stanford, they won the national championship in Houston on May 5. In that final game, they played nine players who had never played rugby until this year, and two key players played that game with, respectively, a broken wrist and a broken foot. I consider myself the team grandpa and absolutely love helping these young women learn the sport that has been a very large part of my life, starting at Wesleyan . . . Madeline’s brothers, Evan (17) and Jay (14), continue their MLSNext soccer. We were in Nashville 10 days in June for one of their tournaments, and both played exceptionally well. Jay had [a] badly sprained ankle (and it was also broken) in training 15 days before. I was commiserating with him as he was on crutches and in a boot a day or two after the injury. He told me he was still planning to play. I thought he was badly mistaken. Turned out, I was the one who was badly mistaken. On a heavily taped ankle, he played every game. In the final game he scored two goals to win the game. Both Evan and Jay will play rugby for their high school team, which will provide more spectating fun for us. In sum, life is good. One day at a time.”
Bud Smith has been fishing!
I thought Daniel Lang had retired, but read this: “Clare Warner (Mount Holyoke, 1974) attended her 50th class reunion with her husband, Tim [Warner ’73]. Our daughter, Kate, is director of Student Financial Services at Mount Holyoke. Result: Tim and I spent a long weekend together in May recounting the time that he and I were close friends while I was associate dean of admissions, and he was a student. We both left Wesleyan at about the same time, Tim for an MBA at Stanford and I for a PhD at Toronto. We both ended up in nearly identical careers: Tim as vice provost, Budget and Auxiliaries Management at Stanford and I as vice provost, Planning and Budget at Toronto. (That alone might be a factoid for Wesleyan alumni news: two Wes alumni, same job, same time, at two top 20 world class universities.) We kept in touch professionally and personally. When our son was born, we named him Timothy. When the Warner’s son was born, they named him Daniel. Talk about coincidence after coincidence! Everyone had a grand time at our personal reunion. . . . Other news, I finished teaching two graduate public economics courses in a row, finishing in June. Most of the students were top-notch, so there was as much stimulation as work. There is a lot of interest in Canada in the connections between immigration policy and fiscal policy in relation to higher education. So, plenty to talk about. Three papers that I had been working on for months finally went off for publication.
“Being a member of the board at King’s University College has taken up more time than I expected, some of it controversial but all rewarding and worth the effort. My work on the board of Saint Augustine’s Seminary lately involves mainly finance and endowment management, sometimes complicated. If you think university politics are full of intrigue, try three-way negotiation between the Vatican, an archdiocese, and a seminary. Most recently we spent a few days deep in the Adirondacks at the same time as Hurricane Debby blew through. Roads and trails washed-out, tall trees blown down, obviously no power, no internet, and no cell phones. A genuine and welcome getaway from daily life.”
“I wonder,” David Luft recently wrote, “if the admissions office could have predicted that we would be professors at major universities.” I replied: “You touch on a topic dear to me. As class secretary and well before then, I came to realize how talented, accomplished, and public-spirited members—an overwhelming number—of the Wesleyan Class of 1966 are. As you probably know, many would not have dreamed of such as assessment at the time, our class being maligned, as many put it: the class of Robert Norwine’s revenge. Norwine was the director of admissions from 1953 to 1964. Apparently, our class was his attempt to recruit and accept students that Wesleyan had not courted, such as the blacksmith’s son from Colorado Springs and, yes, even some African Americans, Jimmy Johnson and Thomas Shaw. Some saw this as a dumbing down of Wesleyan, our class being particularly cited. Some dumbing down, some revenge. I know of fourteen of us who became professors, one of whom, Tom Broker, should have won a Nobel Prize. I no doubt have missed some. Sam Carrier, who taught at Oberlin for many years, did a paper on where the professoriate comes from. It’s not from the UT Austins of the world, but small, liberal arts schools. I rather imagine Wesleyan is continuing to graduate students who came to love research, fell in love with a field, and went on to graduate school to become professors.”
I close with comment that David Griffith made about our class, a sentiment that I share: “I really like the class notes . . . within the tight confines of our class in terms of ethnicity and background, it is surprising to see the diversity. A great place at a great time.”
LARRY CARVER | carver1680@gmail.com
P.O. Box 103, Rico, CO 81332 | 512/478-8968