CLASS OF 1996 | 2024 | FALL ISSUE
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Congratulations to Mara Kailin and Dan Cohen, who dropped their son, Eli, at Wes for his first year!
Congratulations also to John Crockett, who received the Wang Family Excellence Award! The honor is the highest award in the California State University system. John, associate vice president for research advancement at San Diego State University, was presented with the award for his support for early-career faculty and their research funding. He was appointed to his current position in the Division of Research and Innovation in April 2020. He joined SDSU in February 2006 after seven years as a researcher at the University of Washington. To see more about his work and the award, check out:
https://www.sdsu.edu/news/2024/01/scholar-research-administrator-receive-highest
https://www.calstate.edu/csu-system/faculty-staff/wang-award
Rallie Snowden is starting her 11th year at a university counseling center in the Shenandoah Valley. Her two daughters are in first and eighth grade this year.
Elena Pavloff has returned to NYC, where she is leading marketing for a nonprofit health care company. She is looking forward to the next in-person Wesleyan event.
Speaking of in-person events, Mark Davis is already planning for our 30th Reunion! He works at Wesleyan and says that Wes is “hoping to encourage a big, record-breaking group of ’96ers to come back for our 30th in 2026, since the pandemic prevented us from celebrating our 25th in person.” His wife, Megan Fennessy, is a Middletown native, and their daughter Minerva (14) and son Oliver (12) are the fourth generation on their mother’s side to attend the Middletown Public Schools.
Danny Atwood writes: “Things have been progressing well with my new career as a professional Santa Claus. I’ve become president of my local IBRBS (International Brotherhood of Real Bearded Santas) chapter, S.C. Santas & Co. I got to be Santa with the Tipsy Elves (makers of ugly Christmas sweaters) in the San Diego Pride Parade, which was an absolute blast. I’m finally getting around to editing and rewriting the first draft of my middle grade fantasy novel, and that process is progressing smoothly.”
Tracie Broom was elected 2024–25 president of an invite only, national network of boutique communications and marketing agencies called PRConsultants Group, and the agency she co-founded in 2010, Flock and Rally, recently earned two “Best in Show” awards from AAF Midlands chapter and from South Carolina PRSA.
Jonathan Metcalf continues to run the martial arts school in Enfield, Connecticut, that he started the week after our Wesleyan graduation. His oldest child is in college, studying immunology, and his younger child, now 18, is continuing with transition services to help him find employment. He has a new home and recently got married. He is traveling to Nepal for his honeymoon soon, so he has been reaching out to people there that he met during his junior year abroad.
Arika Lisanne Mittman shares, “I created a series for NBC called The Irrational and have been spending most of my time working on that and developing other projects for Universal Television. My twins are 14 now, and I have five cats running around. All is well!”
Dacque Tirado writes that he enjoyed a wonderful summer down on the Chesapeake Bay, enjoying life at one of the best beach towns on the Eastern Shore of Virginia (town of Cape Charles)—“a hidden gem on the East Coast.” He also mentioned he met up with Dan Mirsky ’97 in nearby Silver Spring, Maryland, for a nice summer evening of drinks, dessert, and fellowship and sharing memories from the Wes days.
Hilary Hoeber, Darrah Carr, Cora (Stubbs-Dame) Jeyadame, Nina Erlich-Williams, and I (Dara Federman) flew from California, New York, Massachusetts, and Oregon to gather in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, to jointly celebrate our 50th birthdays. We started planning months in advance and managed to find six whole days in July when we were all able to escape our daily lives. We had a great time sitting poolside, eating, laughing, and marveling at the fact that it has been 32 years since we met and 28 since we lived together at 8 Warren Street, across from Freeman Athletic Center.
DARA FEDERMAN | darasf@yahoo.com
DACQUE TIRADO | dacquetirado@yahoo.com