Charles “Chip” Stone Jr. ’49 was named a Middlesex County Chamber of Commerce Distinguished Citizen. The president of CB Stone Venture Company, engaged in securities, real estate, and business investments, he was previously president of CB Stone, Inc., a heating and air conditioning company. He has long been active in the Middletown community, serving as general manager of a United Way campaign and as co-chair of a capital campaign for Middlesex Hospital. Additionally, he was a director of the YMCA and a trustee of Wesleyan. In 1979, he received the university’s Distinguished Alumnus Award.
Peter Sipples ’64, an attorney and standout athlete in high school and college, was inducted into the Middletown, Conn., Sports Hall of Fame. He coached both soccer and baseball at Xavier High School, soccer at the University of Hartford, baseball in three different twilight leagues, and officiated high school and college soccer for 20 years. He is a three-year letter winner in both soccer and baseball at Wesleyan, and his scoring record of 33 goals in one season stood from 1963 to 1995. He was an English major at Wesleyan.
Gil Seeley ’60, the James W. Rogers Professor of Music at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Ore., received the Governor’s Arts Award for his dedication to furthering choral arts in the state, including his artistic direction of the Oregon Repertory Singers. “Music may be the most intangible of the arts, but in my years at Lewis & Clark, I’ve enjoyed teaching my students about what an exciting and uniquely challenging study it can be,” Seeley said. He also noted: “It’s great to see that the state is invested in supporting the artistic community.”
Ramon Rivera ’95, a government major at Wesleyan, was named one of “New Jersey Super Lawyers Rising Stars 2007,” based on peer recognition and professional achievement. Additionally, The New Jersey Law Journal named Rivera to its “40 Under 40” list for 2007, featuring lawyers “worthy of attention” for their accomplishments to date. Rivera, a senior associate with the firm of Scarinci & Hollenbeck, LLC, works on both labor and employment issues, as well as practicing in the areas of land use law. He received his JD from Rutgers, where he served as articles editor for the Rutgers Race & Law Review.
Geof Rips ’72, whose book, The Truth, was published in January, received a prize for the novel from the Associated Writing Programs (AWP), the organization of graduate writing programs around the country. Now serving as director of special projects for Austin, Texas, public schools, he was an English major at Wesleyan and holds an MA in English/creative writing from Indiana University. Writer Nicholas Delbanco, an AWP judge, said: “This is a hard book to describe and an impossible one to forget. The Truth is—that rarest of things—an original vision and text.”
Linda Corwin Palmer ’77 was appointed director of corporate compliance at Network Health, a Cambridge, Mass., company that provides healthcare access to low- and moderate-income families. She will oversee the company’s compliance with federal and state laws, as well as with contract requirements, access to information, and privacy issues. Previously she was director of corporate compliance and senior associate general counsel at Harvard Pilgrim Health Care. A government major at Wesleyan, she received her doctorate of jurisprudence from Boston University.
Former Wesleyan hockey teammates Will Hobert ’85 and John Gannon ’86 were executive producers of In the Crease, a documentary film that is the first to take an inside look at the world of youth sports and their impact on kids and families. The film chronicles an underdog California hockey team’s pursuit of a national championship and also co-stars 15 of the National Hockey League’s biggest names, who share their own early playing experiences. In the Crease has topped Amazon’s bestseller lists in both the US and Canada as the #1 sports DVD. It was directed/produced by Matt Gannon ’91, and co-produced by Sarah Killough-Dhar ’88 and Stephen Gannon ’88. The film was screened at the Boston Film Festival in September. Check out the trailer at www.InTheCreaseMovie.com.
Edmund Sonnenblick ’54, MD, received the Research Achievement Award from the American Heart Association for his lifetime contributions to cardiovascular science and medicine. A chemistry major, summa cum laude, who earned his medical degree with honors from Harvard University, he is the Distinguished University Professor of Medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University. He is the author of nearly 700 papers reporting on his field-related research and has served on the editorial boards of numerous journals. Among his greatest contributions to the field of cardiology was the application of muscle mechanics to evaluation of cardiac performance, now central to clinical practice in measuring cardiac function throughout the world.
Hugh Wilson ’65 has recently received the Helmholtz Award from the International Neural Network Society for his neural network studies of sensation and perception. A chemistry major while at Wesleyan, Wilson further pursued his education with a PhD in chemical physics at the University of Chicago and then spent more than 25 years as a professor in the Ophthalmology and Visual Science department at the University of Chicago, before moving in 2000 to York University in Toronto. A widely published researcher, Wilson is now associate director of the York Centre for Vision Research.
Meeth Soni ’01 and her companions on the mock trial team at American University’s Washington College of Law made it to the finals of the 16th Annual Cathy Bennett National Criminal Trial Competition, held in Boston last fall. The competition, sponsored by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, is one of the most prestigious, with law schools participating by invitation only. This was the first year that Washington College of Law received an invitation, making their final standing particularly noteworthy. Additionally, the judges specifically commended them for their excellent work throughout the competition and for placing second overall. She is a graduate of Wesleyan’s College of Social Studies.
