CLASS OF 1976 | 2025 | FALL ISSUE
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Mark your calendars! The 50th Reunion will be held May 21–26, 2026. Because it’s our 50th, there will be special events on Thursday night just for our class. You have the option of staying in one of the dorms (or at a local hotel). Reservations for dorm rooms will open one day early for the Class of ’76. We should know late next winter/early next spring when we can register for rooms.
Changes to class notes: From this point forward, the alumni magazine (and, obviously, class notes) will be published only twice a year. Everything else remains the same, including the 800-word limitation for the published version.
Nicolas Collins published a new book this year. This one wins my personal award for best title of 2025: Semi-Conducting—Rambles Through the Post-Cagean Thicket. You can find it on the Bloomsbury website. There’s a companion website featuring audio and video files mentioned in the book: https://www.nicolascollins.com/semi-conducting/.
B.J. Buckley tells us about her latest book of poetry, Night Music: “My latest book of poems is just out in December 2024 from Finishing Line Press. It’s available on their website, on Amazon, and directly from me at wild4verses@yahoo.com. The gorgeous cover is by Wyoming artist Dawn Senior-Trask.”
Tom Kovar reports: “My son is now a college graduate. Oh, and I’ve run into Jay Kilbourn ’77, our former classmate (now ’77), a couple of times, as he now lives here in town. Other alums I’ve seen include Jonathan Gertler ’77 and Randy Austill ’81, who started as ’77. And John Daniel ’75 and Cynthia Ulman ’75. Maintaining email connections to a host of others, from ’75 through ’80.”
Tom performed with his band, The Retroverts, at Luthier’s Co-op in Easthampton, Massachusetts, last April; Randy Austill sat in and recorded the gig. You can hear them at https://bit.ly/Retroverts-2025-04-26_at_Luthiers.
Matt Cartter writes: “My daughter Eileen is a staff writer at GQ magazine. Last week, she asked me if I would be willing to be interviewed for a Father’s Day article: “14 Style Rules GQ Editors Learned from Their Dads.
“Eileen’s post, near the bottom of the article, starts with a photo of me and my brother, Chris, standing outside of the Butterfield Colleges in the fall of 1972. What a great Father’s Day present!”
Thanks, Matt, for including the photo!
David Cohen writes: “I just published my book entitled Reflections on Goose Pond—Stories of a Berkshire Mountain Lake. This book was the culmination of a 50-year love affair with this little lake nestled high in the mountains of western Massachusetts—now very happily my full-time home.”
Tom Army tells us: “Dave ‘Duke’ Snyder died in October 2024, and the Wesleyan community, especially the ice hockey community, feel a great absence at the loss of such a remarkable coach, mentor, and friend. His memorial service was held in April in the Memorial Chapel. Don Lowery ’77 heads a committee of former players that established the David F. Snyder Memorial Endowment Fund to honor the legacy of Duke. We are very close to our million-dollar goal. My own family is well. My wife, Virginia ’79, and I live in Little Compton, Rhode Island, where Virginia serves as rector of the local Episcopal church. I continue to teach part time at a local community college. After retiring from the headmaster business, I went back to school full time and earned my PhD in history from UMass Amherst. Our five daughters, two granddaughters, and son-in-law are a constant source of joy and blessings.”
Susan Avitzour and Martha Meade had a mini-reunion! Susan was visiting family in Northern California and Martha made the most of the opportunity. Susan writes: “Martha Meade flew up here on Monday and stayed with us overnight. I hadn’t seen her since we graduated 49 years ago! We talked, inter alia, about our both being (kind of) refugees, albeit with good temporary homes and thus on the luxury track. Yesterday we went together to San Francisco MOMA. It was truly wonderful to have such a good chunk of quality time with her. Here we are at dinner Monday evening.”
Debra Haffner shares her good news with us: “My news is that I’m getting married to Joel Miller on October 19 this year in Boston. We are currently serving as the co-ministers of the First Unitarian Universalist Society in Newton, Massachusetts, and I’d love to hear from Wes classmates in the Boston area!”
Elyse Grasso says: “I have started a small publishing company, Superior Magpie Press, mostly to publish my own stuff. So far this year I have published two fantasy novels: Heir of the Bindings: Elderkin Chronicles Volume I and Broken Oaths and Boundaries: Elderkin Chronicles Volume II. Both are available in e-book and POD paperback from most online books sources. The third book is progressing and may be out by the end of the year.”
Deborah Lyons tells us: “After 21 years of teaching at Miami University (in Ohio), and quite a few years bouncing around from one institution to another before that, I have retired. Sadly, all signs point to this being an excellent time to get out of academia, especially for those of us in ‘unprofitable’ fields like classics. The trend away from the humanities led to my university getting rid of nearly all the language majors. At the same time, the Ohio legislature has banned DEI, making it hard to keep teaching my courses on ‘dangerous subjects’ like sex, gender, and religion. I hardly need to add to this the all-out attack on higher ed carried out by the current administration. Amid these depredations, I have been heartened by the eloquent and courageous statements by Wesleyan’s own Michael Roth ’78.
“On a happier note, our long campaign to unionize bore fruit and we just got our first faculty contract.
“I plan to relocate to New England within the next year. I am considering my native Massachusetts but also Connecticut and Rhode Island. Middletown is on my list. Advice is welcome! (lyonsd@miamioh.edu).”
Pam Raab reports: “Warm greetings to my classmates of 1976, from Pam Raab, who came to Wesleyan on the Twelve College Exchange and stayed for the rest of the college ride. I’ve been ever more grateful and proud of my WesU heritage as the years have drawn on. I live in Manhattan and have been a practicing psychotherapist (now part time, as I cruise toward retirement) for 45 years. Special memories of living in Michael Millen’s crazy house and screenings of Casablanca organized by Jay Kilbourn ’77.”
Michael Sachs reports: “Met Jay Abramowitz at Love Coffee on Ocean Park 90405. He had a cappuccino. I had the drip.”
Elisa Davis writes: “One of the best film art houses in the country is the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville, New York. They featured part of a video interview with me, [which was played] before some of the films shown in May 2025.
“It’s on the main website right now (scroll down to the second video on the page), at https://burnsfilmcenter.org/support/connecting-our-community-film/ but after this month, I think the only way to see it is through this link: https://vimeo.com/1080226296
“There’s also a tiny clip of me in this video, made for the year-end. Blink and you’ll miss me, but I can say I was in a video with Ron Howard: https://vimeo.com/1032417262.
“Last month in Philadelphia, I had a chance to have dinner and catch up with my Wesleyan roommate Connie Bodine McCann. What a treat!
“In January 2021 (remember the pandemic?), I started a weekly virtual discussion group in which we each took turns choosing a film from the Criterion Channel to watch on our own and then discuss on Zoom on Friday nights. Remarkably, it’s still going on, more than four years later—although we now meet on Sunday evenings. There are a few Wes folks in the group, including David Low and Joe Reiff from our class, and my husband, Seth Davis ’72.
“Here’s a link to the films we’ve seen: https://letterboxd.com/elisadavis/tag/criterion-film-club/films/.
“Finally, Seth and I were delighted to host one of those Wesleyan alumni meetups in February. We had a light supper followed by a screening of Jean-Pierre Melville’s Army of Shadows. None of the attendees were at Wes at the same time. They included Dylan Osborn ’05, Sabine Celestin ’00, Peter Treffers ’63, and Matthew Spain ’95. It was a wonderful evening, and I hope there will be another opportunity to do something similar.”
Nat Needle says: “At my piano students’ annual recital on June 7, 30 students, kids, teens, and adults, all brought their authentic personalities to the keyboard and made a lot of beautiful music. During our international potluck reception afterward, many students and their parents remarked on the sense of community they experienced within this artistic group. Naturally, I was pretty happy to hear that! The theme of genuine community continued over the July 3–6 events celebrating the 50th anniversary of Oddfellows Playhouse. I got to spend precious hours with old friends, most intensively with OP co-founder, Alida Jay Boye ’76, down the hall from me in the same lodging! For the Oddfellows Playhouse 50 documentary, reunion photos, and more: https://www.oddfellows.org/.”
Joe Fisher was named the 2025 Hinghamite of the Year: https://www.hinghamanchor.com/joseph-fisher-named-2025-hinghamite-of-the-year-he-does-so-much-for-the-community/
See you in May 2026!
KAREN HARMIN | karen.harmin@gmail.com