CLASS OF 1981 | 2026 | FALL ISSUE

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Greetings from Brooklyn! It was great to see so many of you at the reunion. Here is the digital version with your (mostly) unedited notes and pictures!

Some of us are already retired. We are qualified for full Social Security. But some of us continue to work and grow. 

For example, in May, Paul Robinson received his MFA in creative writing. “My ‘thesis’ novel is a near-future, sci-fi, police procedural. If anyone is or knows a literary agent who’d be interested, drop me a line!”

Brian Tarbox has a new book and new titles. He writes, “Great to see folks at Reunion. Amazon World Services declared me an ‘AI Hero.’ Anthropic declared me an ‘AI Subject Matter Expert.’ I published a book merging AI, neurodivergence, dolphins, and theory of mind. My talk at the AWS New York Summit had an overflow crowd and highest customer satisfaction score of the show.”  Congratulations, Brian!

Brenda Zlamany also had an eventful year, to say the least, with her work increasingly divided between Brooklyn and Calabria, Italy.

“I recently received my second Fulbright US Scholar award,” she tells us.  “During the 2026–27 academic year, I will work with the University of Calabria on 108 Letters: Portraiture, Music, and Cultural Survival in Calabria. The project began with 108 family letters exchanged between Calabria and members of my family in New York City and has grown into an interdisciplinary work combining portraiture, translation, oral history, archival research, music, and performance.”

She adds: “I will develop much of the project in the mountain village my grandfather left for the United States a century ago. I recently established a studio there in a former sausage factory overlooking the mountains. Hyperallergic featured the studio and my return to my ancestral village in its A View from the Easel series:

“Interdisciplinary collaboration has become increasingly central to my work, an approach that began during my time at Wesleyan. In March, my first ballet collaboration, self/PORTRAIT, created with choreographer Julia K. Gleich, premiered at CounterPointe13 at the Mark O’Donnell Theater in Brooklyn. It was my first time taking portraiture off the wall and onto the stage. The dancers wore fragmented images of their own faces across their costumes and gradually activated large sculptural portraits through movement, becoming both the subjects and authors of their own images. I am interviewed in The Dance Enthusiast here.”

Brenda continues: “I would be very interested in hearing from Wesleyan alumni working in music, theater, opera, Italian American studies, migration, translation, archives, digital humanities, or related fields. Wesleyan inspired my interdisciplinary approach, and I owe a great deal of my thinking about collaboration to my time there.

“My painting Two Dogs: Portrait of David Hockney Inspired by Whistler’s Mother was selected for the 2025 Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery in London. The portrait is traveling with the National Portrait Gallery exhibition and is currently on view at the Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle through September 5, 2026.

“David Hockney was a dear friend, and his recent death was a profound personal loss. I was deeply honored when The Observer invited me to contribute to a special section celebrating his life. My essay, “My Last Painting of Hockney Has Become My Goodbye,” reflects on our long friendship, our conversations about seeing, and the making of my final portrait of him.”

This year, Brenda also originated and curated Seven Women Chase Icebergs at The Re Institute in Millerton, New York. “The exhibition grew out of a monthlong residency I organized in Pouch Cove, Newfoundland, bringing together seven women painters whose friendships span decades. My contribution was A Rake’s Progress (Pouch Cove), a series of eight self-portraits that recast figures from art history within the Newfoundland landscape. The exhibition received coverage in The New York Times, an interview in Art Spiel, and a review in Two Coats of Paint.”

Brenda concludes: “I remain based in Brooklyn while spending longer periods painting, researching, and rebuilding in Calabria. It is an exciting new chapter, and I would be delighted to reconnect with classmates whose work or interests intersect with mine.”

David Miller invited retired astronomy professor Bill Herbst, who was David’s thesis advisor, to our class dinner at the reunion. He writes that “I met Delcy (Ziac) Fox at a reception Friday afternoon (along with David I. Block and family), and Delcy drove me downtown to the dinner (I was recovering from hip surgery and did not have a car (unrelated)). Ned Lerner (with some help from Steve Blum) helped ferry me around the rest of the weekend. I got to have substantial conversations with Paul Neurath, Brian Tarbox, Steve Ritz, Ned, and others.”

Of Professor Herbst, David adds, “It was wonderful to have another chance to chat with him. A decade ago, Bill organized what is still my favorite Wesleyan Reunion activity: celebrating the 100th anniversary of VVO. He had recruited every astro major and faculty member still alive and a bunch of character actors giving atmosphere and pretending to be famous people in astronomy from 100 years ago. I, like many in our class, have friends in classes before and after the Class of 1981. Unlike many majors, every astronomy student and faculty member spanning 50 years is still a manageable number. Nonetheless, some schools have reunions that are more group related. It would be nice to see Wesleyan be more innovative than just having standard class reunions every five years.”

Delcy Fox expresses gratitude to all who attended our 45th Reunion. “The rain could not dampen our Wesleyan spirit! We had 70 attendees from 20 US states and one alum all the way from London. I appreciate all the work the committee did (although there was no committee, according to Wesleyan) leading up to and during Reunion. It was a great show of Cardinal pride! At risk of missing someone, I’d like to thank the following classmates who went “above and beyond” to make our 45th Reunion stellar: Barb Martin Herzlich, Sandy Herzlich, Matthew McCreight, and Barb Slagg for hosting virtual events prior to Reunion to connect classmates and build excitement; Kathy Prager Conrad, Beck Lee, Livia Wong McCarthy, and the other members of the hat subcommittee for designing our eye-catching regalia; Chris Graves,Beck Lee, Matthew McCreight, and Tony Marx for facilitating/participating in fascinating WESeminars; Belinda Buck Kielland and Livia Wong McCarthy for hosting the class-specific, casual welcome reception at Puerto Vallarta Friday evening; Nancy Parker Wilson for providing her wonderful wine at our class dinner on Saturday; David Resnick for his gift to the comprehensive campaign to support re-naming the new, beautiful forum space, the Class of 1981 Forum in the Frank Center—what we used to call the PAC and where we held our class dinner on Saturday night—and for encouraging other class members leading up to our 50th to join him as “namers;” Sharon Sabba Fierstein and Ellen Jewitt for all that they do for Wesleyan—congratulations on your Wesleyan University Service Awards!; and to a member of the class for generously and touchingly endowing a $100,000 scholarship in memory of our classmate Kevin Osborn, which has led numerous other classmates and folks from adjacent classes, friends, and family to add donations to the endowment.

“If you’d like to learn more about either of these Class of ’81 endeavors, please reach out to our classmate Paul DiSanto (pdisanto@wesleyan.edu), call the Office of Advancement at (860) 685–2200, or email alumni@wesleyan.edu. I look forward to seeing everyone at the 50th!” 

On the more personal side, Delcy adds her news for spring and summer 2026: Delcy and David Rhodes (who went by Rosenbaum when we were at Wes) got together in Provincetown, Massachusetts, to promote Provincetown CabaretFest, a weeklong combination of performances by local and national cabaret artists, with workshops and master classes, to help emerging and seasoned performers hone their craft. David called their collaboration a ‘Cardinal coalition.’ David is the new artistic director and producer of the ’fest, which is receiving critical acclaim and destined to grow and develop further with him at the helm.

As for me, I caught up with Deirdre Finney Boylan ’82 when her wife, Jennifer Finney Boylan ’80, was interviewed by Ali Velshi at a Manhattan Barnes & Noble back in February, for the release of the paperback version of her memoir, Cleavage: Men, Women, and the Space Between Us. 

After the reunion, my family stayed with Nicholas Herold ’83 at his beautiful place, which is on the historical register in Maine, that doubles as an Airbnb with luxurious accommodations.

Finally, and sadly, Doug Hiscano passed away on February 28.  Joanne and I both agree that the hardest part of our job is to announce that we have lost another classmate. His full obituary, along with a picture, follow.

Coincidentally, the weekend after the reunion, my wife and I were having our weekly date-night when we discovered that the summer hostess at our local restaurant is a rising senior. Over the coming weeks we spoke of Wesleyan, old and new. So now, here is likely the first mention in these class notes of government major and future lawyer, Laila Azmy ’27.

Douglas Ralph Hiscano of Stag Lake, Andover, New Jersey, passed away unexpectedly at his home on Harbour Island, in the Bahamas, on February 28, 2026. He was 66 years old.

The third of four children, Doug was born on December 4, 1959, to Margaret Hiscano (née von Lengerke) and Ralph A. Hiscano in Orange, and later raised in Short Hills, New Jersey. He attended The Pingry School starting in 1971 and graduated with the Class of 1977. There he developed into a standout athlete, competing at the varsity level in soccer, winter track, and lacrosse. His 1977 Pingry men’s lacrosse team stands in the school’s esteemed Athletic Hall of Fame for their winning record. After Pingry, Doug attended Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, where he majored in economics and continued on as a three-sport collegiate athlete, adding squash to his repertoire. Doug was an active member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity and was elected captain of both the varsity soccer and lacrosse teams his senior year. He graduated in 1981.

Shortly afterward, Doug moved to New York City to pursue a career on Wall Street. He worked first at Chemical Bank, then Shearson Lehman Brothers, where he began to specialize in OTC options. In 1986, he joined Smith Barney, where he founded an OTC debt options trading desk and was later promoted to the newly formed Derivatives Products Department, where he was quick to excel. In 1995, Doug was hired as a managing director in Derivatives at Bear Stearns. He left for Comerzbank Securities in 1999. In 2000, he was hired as managing director of Marketing for Corporate Equity Derivatives at Banc of America Securities. He took his final position on Wall Street in 2002 as a senior equity structurer at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein. Doug retired in 2003 at the age of 43.

In his retirement, Doug was a state champion varsity ski team coach at The Pingry School (2008–2010); the owner, operator, and sole proprietor of Black Bear Maple Syrup (at the time, New Jersey’s largest operation with over 700 taps); and a patron of numerous charitable endeavors—largely focused on historic preservation and land conservation. He spent countless hours working on the family farm in Andover, New Jersey, and restoring his historic homes in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, Nantucket, Massachusetts, and in the Bahamas. Primarily self-taught, Doug was a confident and determined craftsman, an expert stone mason, accomplished carpenter, and a devoted gardener. A lifelong athlete, Doug played competitive soccer well into his 40s on the elite Mendham Arsenal team, hiked almost daily, and was a gifted skier (particularly moguls) up until his untimely death. Among his many, many talents, Doug was also a skilled investor, thoughtful chess player, capable sailor, voracious reader, and a loving father. Doug Hiscano will be remembered for his tireless work ethic, innate charisma, generous spirit, mischievous sense of humor, and his love of fireworks.

Doug is survived by his two children, Kelsey Hiscano of Brooklyn, New York, and Garrett Hiscano of Andover, New Jersey; three siblings: Margaret “Peggy” H. McDermott (Jack McDermott) of Riverside, Connecticut; Peter Hiscano (Lisa Hiscano) of Madison, New Jersey; and Dwight Hiscano (Nancy Hiscano) of Summit, New Jersey; six nephews; two nieces; and many cousins and friends both in the US and the Bahamas. He is predeceased by his parents, Ralph and Margaret Hiscano. Doug will be greatly missed.