Tag: 1975

What a Reunion! The Class of 1975 beat Wesleyan’s attendance record for a 50th Reunion with 123 present! 

I can’t possibly capture and convey the weekend’s joy. It felt like the last week before graduation, when our time together seemed so precious because it wouldn’t be guaranteed once we left the Wes womb.

My apologies for not soliciting your news and Reunion stories in time for the Class Notes deadline, but my life’s been a whirlwind. My husband developed complicated vision problems requiring new doctors in arcane specialties and countless tests and visits. Our son’s wedding celebration in July—a beautiful event in an exquisite setting on a lovely day—required weeks of increasingly frenetic planning and errands in preparation to host dinners, brunch, and several houseguests.

So, this column shares some of my personal Reunion memories:

Driving into Middletown brought a wave of nostalgia . . . until I realized it’s not the Main Street I remember. It now bustles with offices, good restaurants, and shops, including the Wes bookstore located near where we hunted bargains at Bob’s Surplus.

Wesleyan is busy replacing or adding to buildings that it bragged about in 1970. Facilities staff led fascinating tours of the old, the refurbished, and the new. Highlights: the almost-finished Science Center; inside scoop on challenges and renovations at College Row and the Center for the Arts; evolutions in campus planning and architecture to promote learning and reduce costs and environmental impact.

In a lively co-education session, Bruce Tyson cracked us up reading from Where the Boys Are, a 1966 Mt. Holyoke/Smith pamphlet on road tripping. Erica Udoff observed that when she transferred in 1973, Wes felt like “it had always been co-ed.”  

Our welcome dinner started with a soggy bang under a tent at Pam and Paul Gionfriddo’s house. There were hugs, shouts, and lots of laughter as folks trickled in from the rain. No one sat still for very long; we were each trying to connect with everyone else at once.

Charlie Stolper had been absolutely determined to be at our 50th. Christy and their son, Chad, came along from Texas to help him navigate the weekend in a wheelchair. It was wonderful to have Charlie with us, and he was seated front and center in our 2025 class photo!

What those of us staying in the air-conditioned dorm atop Foss Hill most wanted was heat. Coats and umbrellas were essential with May rain and high temperatures barely reaching the 60s! After dinner each night, dorm dwellers, including Janet Brodie, Andrew Barnes, Martha Meade ’76 and Steve Miller, Karin Johnson, Risa Korn, Martha Faller, Susan Gans, Bruce Paton, Cutty Wilbur, Mark Nickerson, Jim Daly, Clif Grandy, his wife, Nancy, and others gathered in the common lounge for continuing conversation. There was probably a similar (but more comfy) scene at the hotel.

Friday morning we passed microphones around so that 100-plus of us could each share something from our lives. Stories were by turns inspiring, funny, sad, surprising, impressive, and profound. WESeminars provided opportunities to learn more about some classmates: how Jeff Morgan went from music major “dropout” to kosher winemaker; Beverly Daniel Tatum reflecting with Michael Roth ’78 about college presidency; Amy Bloom’s path as a writer and teacher; Roberto Powers’s foreign service career and life as an expatriate. Saturday breakfast featured short heartfelt talks from Andrew Barnes, June Jeffries, Paul Gionfriddo, Bruce Weinraub, Doug DeNatale, and Erica Udoff about the difference Wesleyan made in their lives and how Wes propelled some of them down unexpected paths. The ability to study and perhaps become anything one could imagine, plus the resilience to change directions and continue learning were frequent themes about Wesleyan’s impact. Another frequent comment was how much everyone enjoyed talking to classmates who they’d lost touch with or hadn’t known well.

For many folks, the most moving session was a WESeminar performance by David Leisner and Elissa Ely ’78, called “Kindness, Sadness, and Steadfastness.” It evoked laughter and tears by combining David’s guitar interludes with stories drawn from Elissa’s personal and professional experience as a community psychiatrist. A small group of us had a video call afterward with Joost Brouwer in the Netherlands, bringing him briefly to Reunion.

My two most surprising highlights? 

1. Lining up for the campus parade, I was surprised and delighted to run into my freshman-year boyfriend, Tom Wu ’72, for the first time in decades. 
2. A group of 2020 grads back for their fifth reunion stopped a few of us to chat. They noted we seemed surprisingly healthy and young—not something it would have occurred to us to say about the Class of 1930! Looks like we’ve held up rather well, after all.

Please share your memories, send me your news, and add your Reunion photos to our Google album.

Sometimes it’s fun to watch the sausage being made, so to speak! That’s how I am feeling about Reunion planning. We have a fantastic, dedicated committee of classmates working incredibly hard to have the best 50th ever. By the time you read this, I hope you have registered and made your travel plans to come to Middletown.

With any luck, you have already received the Class Book that Susan Gans, Cathy Gorlin, Arthur Gaither, Ellen Wayne, and I are devoting countless hours to developing. Clif Grandy has also been a great resource. It’s the yearbook we never had, filled with topical essays, photos from then and now, Argus clippings, bios of as many classmates as we could entice, cajole, and nag into writing (a record number!), and remembrances of some who are no longer with us.

Until then, here’s the pre-Reunion news:

Congratulations to Deborah Marion Brown and Mitch Brown ’73, who celebrated 50 years of marriage in October with a joyous family weekend that started with their eldest grandson’s Bar Mitzvah. The next day, all four children, with their spouses, and all seven grandchildren held the chuppah while the rabbi blessed Deborah and Mitch. Then Deborah headed off (sans Mitch, who doesn’t like group travel) on a congregational trip to Morocco.

Juliet Schor (who we were glad to see on our January virtual social event) still lives in Newton, Massachusetts, with her husband. They both teach at Boston College, and Juliet has recently finished a book on the four-day workweek after three years of research. (Was that three years of four-day weeks?) Check out her TED talk on the subject. She’s also speaking at Wesleyan in February. It was great to see another Massachusetts alum, Rachel Adler Hayes, at our January Zoom as well.

Emely Karandy retired in 2023 as Thanksgiving host, and now one of her kids invites her to the annual celebration. She says, “Somehow this feels nearly as good as getting them through college!” Emely is planning to be at Reunion and looks forward to seeing folks who haven’t been back in a while.

The news is unusually slim this time because so many of you were busy writing your bios for the Class Book and because my request came amid the Thanksgiving to New Year’s swirl.

But back to the pre-Reunion sausage making. It’s been a joy to socialize or work with many old friends and acquaintances. Karin Johnson, who has lived for most of her post-Wesleyan life in Japan, surprised us by calling into the January Zoom . . . from Sweden. Pat McQuillan delivered a great 11th-hour essay after we talked on the phone about needing something on football and DKE in the Class Book. Thanks to persistent Book Committee members, Karen Seymour Leftridge and David Terry both came through with bios and photos at the last minute. I enjoyed year-end phone calls with Joost Brouwer and Brad Kosiba to seek and follow up on book submissions and hear their year-end reports.

Thanksgiving weekend brought an extra and very welcome visitor this year. Susan Gans was in the Bay Area to spend the holiday with family. After all the online time we’d spent by then on Reunion planning, she accepted my invitation to drop by for our family’s traditional post-Thanksgiving leftovers potluck. We had a great time, and I expect her attendance may become an ongoing part of the tradition. 

More recently, I reached out to Susan Moldaw, who I knew lived in the Bay Area but hadn’t seen in decades. After several emails and a video call, we decided to get together for lunch.  Turns out we live 20 minutes apart, and we have a mutual friend who was formerly married to (and is still friends with) Henry Schumaker. It is, indeed, as small a small world as the Disneyland song says!

Steven Miller and Martha Meade ’76 lost their home in the Pacific Palisades fire in January. Fortunately, they are safe and grateful to be able to live in Steve’s mother’s former house that they were going to put on the market.

Looking forward to seeing many of you in Middletown!

You may recall that in our last notes I reported on David Harrison’s unexpected death. I had an amazing experience in May attending his memorial service at the base of the Golden Gate Bridge. I arrived just after it started and stood in the back for a while until I spied a seat closer to the front that I could slip into unobtrusively. When Mark Allard ’74 started speaking, he named other Wesleyan friends in attendance, and I realized I had plunked down in the midst of four DKE brothers—Bill “Zim” Zimmerman ’74, Jim “Fats” Farrell ’74, Jim “Jumbo” Daley, and Dave “the Rave” Terry, all of whom had come from afar to be there. It feels odd to say that such a sad occasion turned, afterward, into a great time talking about what a complex and wonderful guy we had come to honor, our memories of life in the early days of coeducation, and half-century friendships that followed. The whole day reminded me what great company we were in during the early ’70s at Wes, how easy it is to kindle or rekindle friendships from those formative years, and what fun it is to connect with one another when we can. Dave Terry described the day as a “mixture of grief, remembered hijinks, and joy at reconnecting.”

Speaking of Dave Terry, his health report is that a TAVR aortic heart valve replacement in July had him in and out of the hospital in 24 hours and left him feeling “as if I have been gifted an additional 50 to 100K miles!”  It was the wake-up call he needed to close his criminal defense practice after 45 years and more than 1,200 jury trials. Dave decided to “close up shop, live in Loreto/Ligui, Baja Sur, five or six months a year. Proud to announce I will be teaching beginning inglés classes on Fridays to the primary students in Ligui every Friday!” 

The first reply to my call for Class Notes was Cathy Gorlin, who has seen separately her Kappa Alpha housemate, David Drake, and her 22 Lawn Avenue housemate, Tory Rhoden Cohen [a Smith exchange student], at the Clark Institute in Williamstown. “Both were in fine fettle,” she observed.  

Michael Lehrhoff and his wife, Lisa, have raised their family and lived in the D.C. suburbs for the past 36 years. She is a retired teacher, and Michael is a (mostly) retired government attorney.  They have some big plans. “We have decided to move to Santa Fe and will be bidding adieu to Maryland next April. It is an area we have visited many times, and we’re looking forward to embracing it as our new home for the balance of our retirement.” Hopefully they’ll be able to work in a visit to Middletown in late May, despite the big move. Did I mention it’s our 50th Reunion yet? 

Update from Professor John Cavadini: No changes on the professional front at Notre Dame, but the grandchild count is increasing to 19 in the Cavadini clan. Can anyone top that? He reflects, “I have occasion to teach texts that I first read as an undergraduate at Wesleyan. I’m a little amazed and also grateful that someone had the patience to teach such texts to us undergrads.  I am amused by the marginal notations of my 19-year-old self. It’s also poignant because I don’t think the Wesleyan that I knew exists anymore, judging from the materials we receive.”  That sounds like an interesting conversation to explore at our Reunion. Will we see you there, John? 

Also in academia is Andrew Barnes. His two news items are:  1) publication of his co-edited (with Toyin Falola) volume, The Palgrave Handbook of Christianity in Africa from Apostolic Times to the Present; and 2) his recent appointment as head of the history faculty in Arizona State University’s School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies in Tempe.  He adds, “I look forward to seeing everyone next spring.” 

Back in Middletown, here’s what’s going on with Amy Bloom. “I’m glad to be alive and healthy.  Still working and writing and now retired from teaching at Wesleyan, after a long, wonderful run. Just sold a mystery that is set at “Cromwell University” located in “Centerville.” An unpopular English professor is bludgeoned to death with a bronze bust of Nathaniel Hawthorne. THAT was fun! I’ll see folks at the reunion, including, I hope Leslie Brett ’76 and June Jeffries, my beloved roomies.” 

Across the country, Bonnie (Hunter) Samuels sent me some of her highlights. She retired from the geophysical fluid dynamic lab in Princeton, New Jersey, in 2016 and almost immediately moved to Creswell, Oregon. Bonnie and her husband, Stewart, have been traveling as much and as safely as possible. But most importantly for her, their son, Ryan, and his wife, Zara, married in 2022 and now have a little boy, Leon.  Bonnie’s delighted that Leon and his parents have relocated to Oregon, because she loves being an active grandma. She and Debbie Kosich keep in touch with phone calls and, better yet, visits when possible. 

I was so pleased Deborah Appel wrote this summer: “HelIo, Class of 1975! I live in Burien, Washington, a small town south of Seattle overlooking Puget Sound. My husband, Sam, and I moved here from Modesto in 2007 and love living in the Pacific Northwest. We have two kids, Sara and Ehud. Sara lives in Israel with her husband and two boys. Ehud lives in California with his wife and daughter. Sam is mostly retired from a career in psychiatry. I never had much of a career beyond teaching ESL and basic skills classes for a few years, but I did a lot of volunteering in the community and was active in our synagogue and our kids’ schools. I love walking in this beautiful and scenic area, cooking, and spending time with friends and family, and I’m involved in two storytelling groups. We visit our daughter in Israel once or twice a year and our son in California every three months, but now that granddaughter Sophia is getting bigger, they will be coming up here to visit starting at Thanksgiving. YAY! I look forward to reading about all of you and seeing your photos.”

Dennis Chin provided a full report on his career and family. An orthopedic surgeon, he retired from Kaiser Permanente after 31 years and then has worked part time for the Veteran’s Administration for the past eight years. Dennis has volunteered as an Oral Board examiner for the American Board of Orthopedic Surgeons and participated in giving their annual exam for 25 consecutive years. He says, “I joined the navy reserves two months shy of age 63 while still working for the VA . . . . Updated retirement rules have recently allowed me to return to Kaiser four days a month. I now enjoy working with some of my former colleagues, as well as one of my daughters who is a physician assistant in the same orthopedic department that I was in for so many years!   

“In the navy, I was promoted to the rank of commander some years ago, equivalent to lieutenant colonel in the other military branches. The military has definitely been an adventure!  In April 2020 I was called up with about 48 hours’ notice to quarantine in San Diego for two weeks before heading to Gaum to care for sailors of the aircraft carrier Roosevelt. I packed my tropical clothes, limited to a backpack and sea bag. After five days, however, they released me from quarantine and sent me to New York City instead, arriving in late April.  Definitely NOT tropical weather! I was in a group called Operation Gotham that deployed to seven NYC public hospitals, and I worked in the Coney Island overflow ICU. Great experience, but at age 66 I was VERY worried about contracting COVID. Fortunately, despite hit or miss PPE and no vaccine, most of us escaped infection. More recently I returned from a three-week deployment to the Solomon Islands for the Pacific Games, berthing on the USNS Mercy hospital ship from mid-November until December 2023. Sadly, I will be separating from the navy this November after eight years, but it has been a great experience serving alongside our sailors and marines!

“My family continues to grow. Five of our eight children are now married. There are six grandchildren, and I am sure there will be more to come! The kids ask me when I will retire. I tell them ‘When it is not fun anymore!’ Truly, it is satisfying to make people better with one’s hands and knowledge, and to mentor younger doctors, nurses, medical and nurse practitioner students, and navy corpsmen.” 

I’m seeing a lot of Reunion Committee members on Zoom these days, including the indefatigable Steve McCarthy. He’s quite involved in documentary filmmaking these days. “For the past 13 years, I have been one of three partners at Quixotic Endeavors (www.quixoticendeavors.com) where we have funded/produced/distributed eight movies—all on iconic brands (e.g., Bergdorf Goodman, Tiffany, The Carlyle Hotel) or iconic individuals (e.g., Harry Benson, Alan Pakula). This fall/winter, we are releasing two 90-minute films on Bob Mackie (the costume designer associated with Cher/Carol Burnett) and Bernie Taupin (Elton John’s lyricist/musical partner of 53 years). Oddly enough, when I first got involved in 2011, it was our late classmate Seth Gelblum who I sought out for advice and guidance. Seth’s partners at Loeb and Loeb still represent us!” 

As for your class secretary, I enjoyed a visit in May from Risa Korn, and we got Martha (Faller) Brown to come over from Berkeley for brunch. Professionally, I’m happily continuing my consulting practice that guides nonprofit organizations on strategy, policy, board governance and development, leadership training, and transition planning. I believe that consulting is best done by those who actually also get their hands dirty in the type of work they advise others about, so I joined the Board of Trustees of Hidden Villa (https://www.hiddenvilla.org/) and was elected chair in June. Celebrating its centennial this year, Hidden Villa is an environmental education, regenerative farming, and wilderness preservation organization that manages 1,600 mostly undeveloped acres. It serves about 50,000 people a year and sits at the edge of Silicon Valley. The mission spoke to me, the history and commitment to social justice inspired me, and the people and place delight me. On the personal front, after five years of closure for COVID, fire, or massive snow problems, Yosemite reopened its Tuolumne Meadows High Sierra Camp, where we’ve spent a week or more almost every summer of the past 25. Our stay this year was extra special, both because of the years we couldn’t go and because we celebrated our son Ethan’s wedding to his beloved Amanda on the banks of the Tuolumne River. We did it in high style for the wilderness—our small family and two guests walking to the site in wedding finery and hiking boots, carrying our own picnic lunch (including a wedding cake in the shape of a bear). The evening “reception” was dinner at the Whoa Nelly Deli, otherwise known in our family as the Gourmet Gas Station (Mobil), a 45-minute drive away at the eastern foot of the Sierras. We’ll have a larger wedding celebration with family and friends in a more accessible spot next summer, though the river and gas station venues were very meaningful for us and will forever be part of family lore.

Late-breaking item: Retired Judge Moore, known to us as JD, has published a very readable article in Bloomberg Law on principles for successful mediation at https://news.bloomberglaw.com. 

Keep those news items coming. I hope that these notes help remind you of the people, experiences, and intellectual growth that Wesleyan brought to your life.  And I hope that will inspire you to take advantage of virtual and in-person opportunities to reconnect and continue our learning in our 50th Reunion Year. I’m looking forward to seeing as many of you as can make it next May.  

Spring is sprung, and the emails are blooming, and our 50th Reunion is a year away! I’m looking for at least 100 classmates to help me blow up the Wes record for 50th attendance.

I heard from several new or long-absent contributors. David Arrick calls his five grandkids under age four “my current joy.” After post-Wes years that included business school (UCLA), a CPA career, and 40 years of marriage to his late wife, Andi, the lifelong San Franciscan is trying out living in NYC—a new neighborhood with a new girlfriend. “Work thoughts are rapidly receding. Life is about connecting and reconnecting with friends, adventures, and health on both coasts. Happy to hear from any and all!”

Cindi Aronson Silverman and her husband of 45-plus years, Rick, were in business as owners and operators of a home decorating center in North Chelmsford, Massachusetts, for over 35 years. They raised two sons and have three grandchildren. Cindi and Rick have been very involved in social/political action, immigrant resettling, and the Living Water Children’s Fund NGO. Cindi still plays piano, accompanying her synagogue choir and local community theater productions. Rooming freshman year with Ellen Kabcenell Wayne, started a 50-year friendship, and they surprised one another for [their] 70th birthdays last June and January.

Richard Hume wrote from the edge of semi-retirement after 41 years on the molecular, cellular and developmental biology faculty at the University of Michigan, where he ran the undergraduate neuroscience major, which graduates about 200 students a year. He plans to keep some lab space through 2025 to finish research projects. Up next? Travel (including the Paris Olympics with his wife, Lesley, and his brother, Martin Hume ’78) and spending more time with their kids and grandkids. He reports, “Our daughter, Rebecca Hume ’01, lives in Brooklyn and recently took a new job at Protectdemocracy.org. The group was founded by experienced members of both political parties who are committed to having the U.S. remain a functioning democracy. Rebecca is the leader for media design strategy. One of the co-founders of the organization is Ian Bassin ’98. Our son, Michael, and his wife, Ashley Murray, are both attorneys in Chicago. They had a daughter in April, and Mike has two kids from his first marriage, Jackson (11) and Olivia (9). Michael and his ex-wife have a 50/50 shared custody arrangement and live only about a mile apart, so the kids can play with friends regardless of which parent’s house they are at.”  

David Garrow writes, “I’ve been in Squirrel Hill (Pittsburgh) since 2011, after six wonderful years in Cambridge, UK. I stopped teaching at Pitt Law School several years ago, when I anticipated feeling stale in the classroom. My big 2017 pre-presidential Obama biography, Rising Star, made The New York Times and Publishers Weekly bestseller lists and was a WaPo Top 10 Books of the Year. Notwithstanding a major brain hemorrhage and emergency surgery in early 2022, I’ve continued to write quite regularly, mainly for WSJ and The Spectator, and I vet book manuscripts for various publishers at least monthly, so I’m not truly retired. This northwestern quadrant of Squirrel Hill is a gorgeous place, Pittsburgh public transit is free for seniors and academics, and it’s a great city for craft beer. My three years in CSS were a formative experience, and I’m probably the only ’75er who owns neither a car nor a cell phone!”

Charlie Stolper lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife, Christy, and near their son, Chad, and his family, which includes the Stolpers’ first grandchild. Charlie has had some health setbacks recently but is still pursuing as much travel and golf as possible.

John Cavadini, director of McGrath Institute for Church Life at Notre Dame, couldn’t resist my invitation to write. He is still professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame, and also the director of the McGrath Institute for Church Life there. “I still live in South Bend. With six of our seven kids and all 18 grandchildren.”

Andy Barnes has been teaching history for the past 27 years as a professor at Arizona State University in the School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (SHPRS), where he will be taking over as head of the history faculty starting in June 2024. He has written three monographs and edited two anthologies, the latest of which, The Palgrave Handbook on Christianity in Africa from Apostolic Times to the Present, just came out in March 2024. Andy and his wife, Scarlett, have three sons. “I am still actively doing historical research and I hope to publish one last monograph before I retire.”

Karin Johnson has nice news: “My wonderful first grandchild was born in October and I’m having such a good time; looking forward to 50th!” Karen should snag the distance traveled award, as she’ll be coming from Tokyo!!

Nancy Luberoff is happy to say, “My partner and husband, Bruce Boehm, and I have been together nearly 50 years! We started as two and now we’re a family of 11, including four grandkids, all of whom are bilingual (German and English for the Berlin-based family; Spanish and English for the North Carolina family). We spend two months every year in Berlin and tackle two long-distance hikes in Europe every year. Much of our volunteer energy is focused on managing a small green Jewish cemetery.”

A note from Roger Weisberg brought news that he has significantly cut back his film production work during the past three years. “I didn’t want to be on the road during the COVID pandemic, and I needed to look after my frail elderly parents. Instead, I’ve been focusing on taking advantage of new distribution opportunities for the 33 documentaries I’ve made over the past four decades. Karen (Freedman) is still going strong. The law practice she founded, Lawyers for Children, celebrated its 40th anniversary in April. As the company’s president, she still manages much of the firm’s most important impact litigation involving children in foster care. Our three children—a lawyer, a doctor, and an art professor/administrator—all live within three blocks of one another in Brooklyn. And, between them, there are four grandchildren, and a fifth one is on the way. We are incredibly lucky to visit them all at least once a week.”

At Yale, where she did graduate work, Gina Novick teaches midwifery students, and her husband, Shelly Kagan ’76, teaches philosophy. Their three kids live in Boston and San Francisco. Gina and Shelly recently got to visit with Bobbie Spellman ’78 in Virginia and Michael Hardimon ’79 in San Diego. “I hope to see many of you soon!”

Clif Grandy retired in June 2023 after a career in the legal/judicial/court administration arena, and his wife, Nancy Lucas, retired in July 2023. Clif reports, “In May 2023, we hosted a brunch in D.C. for some 1975 classmates and college mates from ’74 and other classes. We reflected upon our Wesleyan experience and the need to support Wesleyan with financial contributions if able. Those who attended included: June Jefferies, Denise Fures, Karen (Seymore) Leftridge, Hampton Cross ’72, Robert “Bob” White ’72, Antonio “Tony” Michell ’74, Jerry Thomas ’74, Debbie Conner Mitchell ’74, and Hope Hill ’74. Another 2023 highlight was a December trip to see Purlie Victorious on Broadway. They also had a visit from Gail Robinson-Oturu, a classically trained vocalist who was with our class at Wes during freshman year and is now a music professor in Tennessee and Florida.

Jeff Morgan, founding winemaker of Covenant Winery, sent in an update: “With our 50th approaching, many of us have passed our 70th birthdays. I’m surprised at how young I (still) feel. My urban winery in Berkeley, California, produces about 8,000 cases of topflight wine per year. Alas, after nine years making Covenant wine in Israel as well as California, we stopped the Israeli program back in 2021. It had nothing to do with the current situation in Gaza and the Galilee, but rather, simple financials compounded by the COVID pandemic.  However, the isolation brought on by COVID inspired me to pick up my saxophone again after a 25-year hiatus. I played a gig with old musician friends at City Winery in New York last year.  More recently, I performed at a jazz club in Paris called Le Cercle Suedois with pianist Franck Amsallem’s quartet. Yes, I guess there is indeed life after 70. Both my daughters live nearby in Oakland, and each one recently made me and my wife, Jodie, grandparents for the first time! Feeling the love.”

Corinne Kratz submitted the final manuscript for her next book, Rhetorics of Value: Exhibition, Design, Communication, to Duke University Press, which should be out in early 2025. She’s just back from Cape Town for a workshop in the African Critical Inquiry Program that she helps to direct. She’ll be back there again for May and the next events in this year’s workshop series.

As for my own news, Deb Kosich and I are the youngest members of the class, as far as I know.  We always bring up the rear in the birthdays department. I celebrated my 70th in late March on a family trip to the Bahamas with my husband and kids. In addition to my birthday, we were celebrating the wedding of my only niece. It was a beautiful week, and we took full advantage of the warm weather, irresistible ocean, and island vibe. Our kids came up with the best birthday gift ever—my first SCUBA dive, a challenging and wonderful experience. Bob supported and watched our bubbles from the boat. The trip was dramatically capped off with a tropical storm and power outage on the day after the wedding. The other news we are celebrating the engagement of our son, Ethan; he and his fiancée, Amanda, plan to marry later this year.

I hate to turn to sad news, but Karen Sims, a resident of Waterford, Connecticut, since 1978, sent word that her husband of 48 years, Charlie Sedell ’76, died of ALS in January 2024.

Jeff Cox learned last winter of Don Perman’s death in December 2022. Jeff and his wife, Amy, knew Don from childhood and last saw him in early 2022. “He was as always full of plans—writing, learning a language, working on his drumming—and as always full of jokes and caustic comments on the world. He was always eager to hear about and joke about any latest excesses in higher education. He still loved his time at Wesleyan—but maybe not as much as he loved living in New York.”  Don worked as a brilliant copy editor for major publications including The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, and The New York Times.  He was a jazz lover and drummer, a creative writer, and even a comedian who performed on David Letterman. Infectious enthusiasm for life! There are some lovely tributes to him at Don Perman Obituary.

David Harrison passed away unexpectedly in March, just shy of his 71st birthday, while on vacation with his wife in Mexico. A friend wrote, “Smart, funny, athletic, generous, and a lifelong advocate for social justice, David ran his own criminal defense legal practice in San Francisco for over 35 years, focused primarily on representing indigent clients. He had just won a major case when he passed away. Before entering private practice, David worked for the San Francisco Neighborhood Legal Assistance Foundation, Marin Legal Aid, and the Legal Aid Foundation of Long Beach, where he was a distinguished Reginald Heber Smith Fellow. He also served two terms on the board of the New World Foundation.

As a Wesleyan undergraduate, David played on the club rugby team that competed against other small colleges and helped friends put on popular campus rock concerts featuring the likes of Jackson Browne, Lou Reed, and Orleans. He was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon, a diverse fraternity where “David fit right in with his progressive thinking,” said longtime friend Mark Allard ’74. In addition to his wife, Colette Brooks, David is survived by daughters Simone Harrison ’18 and Marie Claire Harrison.”  There was a memorial gathering for David in the Bay Area in May.

Where’s WES-O?  This is our detective game to locate and reconnect with classmates who have dropped off Wesleyan’s radar. So far, we’ve had two successes, but that still leaves a lot of missing persons. 

FOUND:  Deborah Appel in Burien, Washington, thanks to Jill Rips. Paul Margolin sent me on a hunt for Harris Pitnof, who I found.

STILL MISSING: We have 80 more classmates with NO contact information. They won’t be invited to Reunion unless we can find them. If you know or can find out how to reach anyone on this list via email, phone, and/or snail mail, please let me know! Even better: have them reach out to the Alumni office so they may update their current contact information (alumni@wesleyan.edu).

Debby Addis, Ramon Alonso, Steve Anderson, Mark Anderson, Robert Baratt, June Hatton Barr, Rita Bauersmith, Susan Baugh, Thomas Berry, Andre Bourque, Willie Brown, Terry Button, Jacob Calm, John Caro, Alice Clark, Elaine Bourret Coleman, Andrea Cramer, Arthur Curtis, John Daniel, Steve Dixon, Leroy Doar, Richard Eisenberg, Harriet Farah, Kevin Fickling, Leo Fuchs, Larry Goodwin, Arlene Harris, Juliette Haynes, Colette Marie Goedde Hernandez, John Hulsebos, Frank Isaacs, Chris James, Brenda Jimenez, Richard Johnson, William Johnson, Norah Jones, Michael Kannan, David Kellogg, Genevieve Kerr, Tracy Killam, Didi (Stephanie) Lamm, Victoria Lauren, Sojin Lee, Molly Leong, Leonard Linden, Laura Livingstone, Nikki Makris, Andrew Maxwell, June Melton, Niles Murphy, Carol Parker, Deborah Paul, Kirk Pawlowski, Robert Phelps, Roberto Powers, Maurice Reidy, Ramona Reyes, Steve Riegelhaupt, Susan Riley, Digna Riva, Frederika Robinson, Michael Robinson, Bob Rockefeller, Charles Rose, Alida Santiago, Charles Shippee, Bill Smith, Carl Stevens, Don Strachan, Doug Stuart, Margaret Sullivan, Andy Sussman, Deb Thomas, Mary Tibbets, Rachel Trubowitz, Erica Udoff, Joseph Vaccaro, Sue Wieser, Bonnie Williams, Randy Hunter. 

I’ve fallen down on the job a bit, but here’s your secretary back in action. Thanks to all who sent me notes in the bustle of winter holiday season. Gina Novick is MIA too, though for good reason—email autoreply says she’s on sabbatical from Yale, July 2023 to January 2024.

Dr. Dennis Chin sent photos of his tour of duty as a retired orthopedic surgeon in the Navy Reserves. In early December, he was in the Solomon Islands as part of the Pacific partnership 2024 on the USS Mercy hospital ship, with a stop at the 2023 Pacific Games.

A note from Jeff McChristian reported on his first year of retirement. He and Pat spent 2023 making up for travel lost to COVID. Their itinerary: A three-week trip to Steamboat Springs to see their son, daughter, and families. Then off to Guatemala, where Pat has participated in community mosaic projects since 2020. Jeff carries luggage and plays music for artists making beautiful mosaics to install along public streets in a small, traditional Mayan town. April was Italy, enjoying the pleasures of Rome, Florence, and Tuscany. Late June took them to Wisconsin’s Northwoods to see Jeff’s sister. Jeff celebrated his 70th at a weeklong guitar camp in Puget Sound in August (a gift from Pat), followed by 10 days of driving and hiking with Pat in nearby national parks. October found Jeff and Pat, with their daughter and son-in-law, exploring Morocco’s charms. In between trips, Jeff does projects around the house, sees friends and former colleagues, and has arbitrated a few cases. His summary? “Retirement suits me!”

It appears that after declaring retirement in December 2023, Judge J. D. Moore amended his decision within 30 days. In January, J. D. joined the Alternative Dispute Resolution Practice at Pullman & Comley, LLC in Hartford. With 10 years on Connecticut’s Superior Court bench, preceded by a career in litigation, he’ll bring vast experience to mediating or arbitrating a wide range of civil matters and family disputes. (With all due respect, J. D., this prompts the question of whether when a judge retires, one can say he has disrobed.)

Meanwhile, David Leisner is going strong as a performer and composer. Recent highlights include performing a program of Shakespeare readings with solo guitar music with actor Anthony Heald. September 2023 saw the world premiere of Wayfaring, David’s concerto for guitar and orchestra, commissioned by the legendary Pepe Romero. In October, David and soprano Katherine Whyte performed in a tribute to the late Wesleyan professor Richard Winslow. The tribute at Crowell Concert Hall was directed by Neely Bruce, who joined the Wesleyan music faculty in 1974.  David has a new solo recording coming out in February and is grateful for good health and 42 years with his husband, Ralph Jackson.

On another musical front, Bruce Weinraub closed his medical practice in Northampton, Massachusetts, to move to Clarksdale, Mississippi, home of the crossroads. He’ll work at the community health center and pursue his interest in blues. “Bennie Thompson is the congressman, Morgan Freeman has a club there, and 60 Minutes recently profiled the city— check it out!”

Some of us are getting a head start on reunions. Steve Levin sent a photo from fall 2023 “at Wes celebrating the 50th anniversary of our ECAC championship season in 1973.” Check out the formidable reunited team of Carl Cavrell, Mark Nickerson, Gary Steinel, Jeff Van Nest, Perry Cacace, and Steve:

Jill Rips and Carole Evans Sands, freshman roommates, did a road-trip reunion visiting New England museums, lakes, nature walks, a powwow, and Dana Asbury and her husband, Richard Levy, in Maine. Jill’s working in San Antonio with resettled Afghans who fled the Taliban.

Out on the Pacific fringe, Martha Faller Brown, Bruce Paton, and I have a get-together to hike and dine whenever Colorado-based Tim Brown ’72 and his wife, Rosie, visit their Bay Area grandkids. My husband, Bob, usually joins us.

I’m introducing a new game for the next year. It’s called (apologies to Waldo) WHERE’S WES-O?  A number of classmates seem to be hiding. Let me know if you find Debby Addis, Ramon Alonso, Steve Anderson, Mark Anderson, Deborah Appel, Robert Baratt, June Hatton Barr, or any other ’75ers who are out of touch with our class. There might be prizes at the 50th for our best detectives.

A great Reunion Committee has begun planning for our 50th. There’s still room to join this team, and we’d love to have you. See you in 2025!