CLASS OF 1987 | 2026 | FALL ISSUE

1987 ARCHIVES | HOME
← 1986 | 1988 →

Hi, classmates! We are headed into a Reunion year, so we’ll be back on campus this spring before we know it.

Here’s what’s happening as we enjoyed the summer in the Northern Hemisphere. Josh Bellin reports, “The highlight of my summer was a long-delayed Foss 10 roommate reunion with Eric Peterson, Brad Karsh, and Steve Pereira at Brad’s home in Chicago. We played pickleball, took a river tour, ate deep-dish pizza, and had almost front-row seats to watch the Cubs dismantle the Dodgers at Wrigley Field.

“Props to Eric for traveling all the way from New Zealand, Steve for taking time away from his surgical practice, and Brad for hosting. (I retired in May, so all I had to do was hop on a plane.)”

Elizabeth Kromelow writes, “My son, Maxwell Dietz ’16, and his wife, Anna Cocuzzo ’16, welcomed baby boy Solomon (I call him ‘King’), possibly ’48, in June.”

Amy Baltzell has exciting cinema news. She writes: “In 1995 I was a sailor on the America’s Cup all-women’s sailing team. We were very competitive and just got nipped out to defend the America’s Cup against the top non–USA boat. We spent a year training every waking hour—50 Eggs production released the documentary, entitled Mighty Mary (the name of our boat), to AMC theaters on September 11. It was a wild year, and Mary Mazzio, the director, captured the incredible challenge and story of women coming together to do the impossible. I had been on the US Rowing Olympic team and was recruited to serve as ‘grinder.’ There were over 800 applications and about 23 of us ended up racing. A great story.” Reflecting on her Wesleyan experience, Amy says, “It made me believe in myself when nothing else ever did. I could never had made that Olympic team or the professional sailing team without first being in an environment where it was good to be your best self and pursue whatever you wanted. I loved my rowing team at Wes and my coach Pat Callahan.”

David Perryman and his wife, Laurie, have moved to Blacksburg, Virginia, Laurie’s hometown where they were married 29 years ago. Two of their three children are in graduate programs at Virginia Tech, and Laurie’s parents live in Blacksburg, so it’s a family reunion of sorts. David leads the marketing and communication office and teaches a class for first-year students at Radford University, 15 miles from Blacksburg in the heart of the New River Valley. They enjoy hiking in the Blue Ridge Mountains and recreational activities on the New River. He says, “Not a day goes by that I do not think about Wesleyan. I am truly grateful for my friends, professors, and the experiences we shared, all of which changed the way I think about the world and instilled in me a desire to keep on learning.”

David Abramson tells us he’s still in Washington, DC, and enjoying retirement from the State Department. He continues to publish part-time on Russian foreign policy, travel, and do occasional live storytelling performances. He and his wife, Kelly, were in Europe in the spring, where they saw Tierney Sutton ’86 in Paris. While there, he performed a live story at a local coffee shop, and he indulged in his obsession with genealogy. He met some distant French cousins, with whom he shares great-great-grandparents in Russian Poland, learning family stories about who emigrated, who stayed behind, and how they survived the Nazi occupation of Paris. It turns out that June March ’83 is also from that branch of his  family.

David was looking forward to a campus visit in September to give a talk on the United States and the world in the post-post–Cold War era. He was planning to combine the visit with a trip to Boston to see Skip Lockhart, Becky Riccio,and Jessica Miller. He saw Becky in May in Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, where they met up with her son, Griffin, who, at the time, was halfway toward completing the 2,200-mile, Georgia-to-Maine, Appalachian Trail in 100 days! 

Ken Mathews is over the moon with the recent birth of his granddaughter, Faith.

I had a busy and joyful summer. My son, Sam, was married in May, and Amy Mortimer, Eric Lotke, and Grier Mendel helped us celebrate. This August, Grier and I took in a Rockies-Dodgers game when I was in Denver for a Certified Senior Advisor conference, and soon after, my husband, Andy, and I attended the National Book Festival with Amy and Eric in DC.

Michael Morris is actively preparing for Reunion. He reports his WESU Black Alumni’s 40th Milestone Reunion ’87 Zoom was a great success. They secured 11 verbal commitments for Reunion and had about five to seven others interested who couldn’t join the Zoom. 

Reunion anticipation is in the air. Please plan to join us in May.

REBECCA ZIMBLER GRAZIANO | rebecca.graziano@hotmail.com