Fall 20I8
8 The plot thickens at the new Bates garden.
31 Beware the Supreme Court’s use of “dignity.”
54 Author Amy Bass ’92 tells an American story in Lewiston.
“You feel absolutely minuscule and unimportant. But it’s also such a vibrant place.” Page 42
2 Comments 4 Bates in Brief 24 Amusements 26 Features 58 Notes 91 History Lesson 96 From a Distance
Take a closer look at how this bizarre scene speaks to the Anthropocene. Page 18
OPENING THOUGHT: JOSEPH HALL ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF HISTORY Source: Hall’s Convocation Address, “Questions for Bates,” at bates.edu/hall-address.
In asking questions, it’s incredibly important that we remember that a quest for knowledge should not simply be a quest to prove yourself right, to conduct an inquisition that seeks to stamp out ideas that differ from your own. To be inquisitive, not inquisitorial, is what I’m talking about. Fall 2018
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c o mme n ts
Shakespeare in London Fantastic! (“Day in the Life of a Short Term in London,” BatesNews, May 18, 2018). I took this Short Term in 1987 with David Nelson, before the Globe was rebuilt, so luckily all our seats were actual seats. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and I still can’t believe I got to visit London (and Stratford and Oxford and Brighton) to see all those plays and just-beforethey-were-really-famous performances by Jonathan Pryce, Judi Dench, Jeremy Irons, and Anthony Hopkins — playing Lear and Antony at the same time. Anthony Grima ’89
Brookline, Mass.
I know that most schools offer study abroad, but speaking as a scholarship student who’d never even been on a plane before going to England for JYA in 1974, I think Bates is more committed to it than most. I’m forever grateful to the college for that life-changing experience — and to Dean Judith Isaacson for putting the idea in my head. Marge McCormick Davis ’76
Mount Juliet, Tenn.
James Hepburn Jim Hepburn — “JHep,” or “God” as we sometimes called him — arrived in my English literature survey class with a distracted air, as if he had just blown in on a zephyr straight from the British Isles. He spoke with a slight Anglo accent, a souvenir of his years in England spent researching the life and novels and letters of Arnold Bennett, and passed out a syllabus that was intimidating for a kid from suburban Connecticut. I was terrified of failing in college, and I feared that Hepburn’s impressive intellect might just sweep me out the door of Pettigrew, never to return. In practice, his effect was just the opposite. He fought for the right of each of his students to read by their own lights. So when we were discussing the Wordsworth poem “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,” and my classmate Liz Strout pronounced it “nauseating,” I was shocked — this was William Wordsworth! But Jim (as I came to call him, choking on it a little each time) pronounced her “quite right,” and followed with “it is nauseating.” Another shock, and lesson, came when we were
English professor Sanford Freedman adjusts his trademark fedora as he waits for his luggage-lugging students, just before their departure for London to study “Shakespeare in the Theater” during Short Term.
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analyzing the William Blake poem “The Sick Rose,” and he asked us, “What’s that invisible worm in the poem?” Silence and nervous glances all around. “Why, it’s a penis, isn’t it?” he answered. That was a lightbulb moment: Literature, at its best, is about real life. Those were the kinds of discoveries Jim encouraged in all of us — personal reactions, funny takes, human assessments. With his encouragement, I wrote a novel for my senior honors thesis. He encouraged and nurtured what talent I had and stood up for my right to try. He was God, for in one sense he created me as an adult thinker. I never forgot the encouragement Jim gave me, his belief that I had a writing voice worth nurturing. Thanks for that, for everything, Jim. Peter Moore ’78
Fort Collins, Colo. Hepburn’s obituary is in this issue. Editor of Men’s Health magazine for 10 years, Moore taught journalism at Bates during Short Term 2016. — Editor
Just Silence As other university leaders have raised up their voices in protest, Bates has remained silent regarding the forced detention and separation of asylum-seeking migrant children and families at our southern border. I am a public school teacher who has taught the very immigrants who are detained daily at our borders: undocumented, terrified, traumatized youth who are escaping horrific violence in Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala. This is our story, an American story of everyone with an immigrant ancestor who sought a better way of life, just as my grandfather and great-grandmother did. My students should be proud that they come from a long line of immigrants who built this country. Now, however, they are facing the
same persecution as those who came before them. My goal has always been to give as many skills as I can to my students so that they, too, can succeed in college or in the workplace, and I would not be able to teach them in the way that I do without the holistic and thoughtful education I received at Bates. I am proud of that education, and a Bates pennant hangs on my wall near the photographs of my immigrant family. Now, however, with its silence, the premise of Bates seems a bit hollow. Lindy Forrester ’00
Jamaica Plain, Mass.
Web Harrison ’63 I was a Marine Corps officer who served with Web Harrison at Camp Pendleton before we all went to Vietnam. I lost touch with Web after active service but reconnected with him in May 2017. We sat and talked about our lives, then and now, and all the wonderful (and tragic) things that happened since 1965. It was as if Web and I had never been out of touch. His soft and easy manner, refreshing candor, and the eloquent and articulate way he spoke — and the likelihood that what he said would be a perfect blend of sagacity and common sense — will be forever enduring. Reading that he was a prominent Bates figure brings home to me all that power. Immortality, a true union with God, is ultimately measured by how we touch people and by how much of our heart and soul is encoded in the human experience. As such, Web’s presence will remain in the consciousness for many generations to come. Robert Wagner Jr.
Houston, Texas
A Bates News feature on Harrison is at bates.edu/ web-harrison, and his obituary is in this issue. — Editor
e dit or’s not e
Unpacked Memories What memories you evoked with the article about students and their packages (“At Post & Print, a Window onto Bates Student Life,” BatesNews, Oct. 13, 2017): Fresh dandelion greens sent by Joan Perry Smith ’59’s grandmother. A large box of steamed lobsters (along with butter to be melted on our windowsills) from the father of Jeanette McDonald Topham ’59, a Nantucket fisherman. A humongous carton, maybe 5 by 3 feet, of Rock Cornish game hens, complete with the makings of the family’s special mustard sauce, from Mac Makowsky ’59’s dad, owner of famed Idlewild Farm and an original breeder of the hens. We rented a rustic cabin on Sebago Lake before graduation. I can still picture those dozens of hens thawing on the rafters, from the wainscoting, and every other available surface in every room. Sabra Scoville Vacca ’59
Washington, D.C.
Ted Walther Teddy Walther taught both me and my father, John Lyons ’68. One of my favorite memories of college was sitting in his monetary policy class and he says, “What would happen if Margaret Thatcher woke up and announced to her husband, “‘You know what, I’m a Commie’? What would happen to the pound?” John Lyons IV ’91
Centerville, Mass.
Sylvia Hawks’ work resume has no gaps: Fifty-one years,
all spent supporting Bates academics. Hawks joined what was then called the secretarial pool on March 4, 1967. She was 18 years old, and wherever you look, 1967 was a different world. The day she was hired, for example, the Lewiston Sun Journal reported that the Lyndon Johnson administration was avoiding the word “escalation” to describe stepped-up military action in Vietnam. At Bates, coed dining had just begun, as had something called “Short Term.” I visited with Hawks in June, three days before her retirement as an academic administrative assistant. After we talked, I asked permission to write a story, since she’s reticent about such things. She paused. “That’s fine.” Her first Bates job — mimeographing — no longer exists. She recalls an early technological innovation: an IBM typewriter with a “mag card” that stored a page of text so corrections could be made without retyping an entire page! I asked her to complete this sentence: “The more Bates changes....” “The more changes there are,” she said, laughing. Yet change never perturbed Hawks. “You have to keep up,” she says. “If you don’t change, then everything becomes stagnant.” And are students different today, too? “No. They’re still leaving Mom and Dad for a new world. So their friends become that much more important to them.” Hawks grew up in Lewiston when a young person could choose a local business — often a mill — and work there for decades. “And that’s what I did,” she says. “My mother said, ‘You don’t go jumping from job to job. That’s just not right.’ So I grew up with that mindset.” In Hawks’ case, the choice was Bates College, not Bates Manufacturing. She made the choice intentionally after a summer job in a mill. “I was very young,” she said. “You had all these bosses, and they would, if you want to say it now, harass the younger ones. It was that kind of a mentality, and I hated it. I wanted out of that.” Back in the day, one of her secretarial pool colleagues, briefly, was a justgraduated Elizabeth Strout ’77, now a Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist. “Liz was a character,” says Hawks, for whom “characters” are interesting people. “Not boisterous, but she always had something to say, just off, about different things.” Strout has equally vivid and fond memories of Hawks, whom she’s visited when back on campus. Steadfast and honest is how Strout describes Hawks — good words that sound good together. Since the dissolution of the Lane Hall secretarial pool years ago, Hawks has worked in Pettengill Hall, supporting the faculty in anthropology, history, politics, and digital and computational studies. There, she was indeed steadfast in supporting her faculty. “You build a relationship with a professor, and that becomes a bond. There’s trust.” So, what does “support” mean to Hawks? “It’s when you work with somebody, or there’s somebody you just care about or think about, then you’re going to be loyal to them. It’s just being there for them. “That’s what I’ve done at Bates. And it’s been so worth it.” H. Jay Burns, Editor magazine@bates.edu
A Bates News feature on Walther is at bates.edu/ ted-walther, and his obituary is in this issue. — Editor Comments are selected from Bates social media platforms, online Bates News stories, and email and postal submissions, based on relevance to college issues and topics discussed in Bates Magazine. Comments may be edited for length and clarity.
Email: magazine@bates.edu Postal: Bates Magazine Bates Communications Office 2 Andrews Rd. Lewiston, ME 04240
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This day-to-night view from Pettengill Hall’s Moody Room shows, from left, Commons, Roger Williams, the waxing gibbous moon, and Hedge Hall. The image is a composite of long-exposure images taken over a 52-hour period right before the autumnal equinox.
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STUDENTS
New students should bring bed risers, flashlight w/ batteries, and extension cords.
The student shuttle into Lewiston-Auburn is now called the Bobcat Express.
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BATES IN BRIEF FALL 20I8
As physics professor Aleks Diamond-Stanic listens, first-years Harkirat Lally of Yuba City, Calif., and Michael Ratsimbazafy of Elizabeth, N.J., discuss their roses, thorns, and buds.
Rosy Scenario
PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN
On Aug. 28, the day after they moved in, Bates’ newest students tested the academic waters, diving into various classrooms around campus for the first meeting of their First Year Seminars. In one classroom, the 14 students in “Race, Gender, and Identity in STEM” gathered in pairs, and Assistant Professor of Physics Aleks Diamond-Stanic invited them to categorize their Bates experiences so far. If something had gone well or felt good, the experience
was a “rose.” A “thorn” was something that didn’t go well or was a source of frustration. A “bud” was something they were looking forward to. Diamond-Stanic, who will also be his students’ adviser in their first year, says he’ll use the exercise throughout the year to help his students check in with each other about the good, the challenging, and the aspirational facets of their Bates experience.
FLANNERY “ I’m hoping I’m crazy!” That’s what mathematics major Flannery BlackIngersoll ’19 of Concord, N.H., was thinking after mathematician Carlos Castillo-Chavez, at Bates to deliver the Richard W. Sampson Lecture, said that “you have to be crazy to succeed” in the field. 6
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The Class of 2022 includes a competitive paraskier.
One out of I0 members of the Class of 2022 is a first-generation college student.
86% of 20I8 grads plan to work toward an advanced degree.
Catherine Butler ’22 of Galax, Va., wears these heels as she plays Elizabeth Von Ammon, wife of a ship captain who turns up dead in a murder-mystery party held in Chase Hall in October. (Yep, she did it.) The evening was sponsored by the Robinson Players, the college’s theater club.
THEOPHIL SYSLO
If the Shoe Fits
Third Roommate? Philbin said that when he filled out his Bates housing form, which tries to gauge compatibility (e.g., warm room or cool room, early riser or late sleeper), he added a “little note saying I do a lot of music, so if the other guy doesn’t then that’s going to be unfortunate!”
PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN
During move-in day for the Class of 2022 on Aug. 27, Peter Philbin ’22 of Bedford, N.H., shows his double bass to his new roommate and fellow musician, Noah Pott ’22 (left) of Great Barrington, Mass., who brought his keyboard. “It worked out well,” says Pott of their pairing as roomies.
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CAMPUS
The plaza outside the library’s main entrance has been restored and improved.
The Gomes Chapel is clad in New England seam-face granite, known for warm hues.
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Floored The basketball court inside Alumni Gym gained a new floor and bleachers last spring. Believed to be original to the 1926 building, the old floor had become too thin for another round of sanding and sealing.
Like the old floor, the new floor is hard maple and tongue-and-groove. (But it won’t have horsehair insulation beneath it.) The new bleachers are also wooden. While most of the old bleachers were installed as replacements in 1956, one section may have been original to the 1926 gym.
Growth Mindset
Right: After delivery to Dining Services, a batch of kale gets weighed.
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Tucked between Ware and Russell streets, Bates’ new vegetable garden isn’t the college’s first growing operation. For example, a century ago, Bates operated a tree nursery comprising 18,000 trees. Less formally, legendary dean Harry Rowe tended a garden along College Street. But “the Plot,” a quarter-acre garden within an overall 1.3-acre site, is the college’s first garden designed to immerse students in the realities of sustainable, commercial food production — and, one day, also to serve as classroom and lab for the academic community. Established by Dining Services and student EcoReps, the Plot’s inaugural season helped to supply Commons’ vegan station with tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, yellow squash, and kale. In turn, Dining paid market rates for the goods. “It’s a learning opportunity,” says Christine Schwartz, assistant vice president for Dining, Conferences, and Campus Events, whose budget funded summer internships for Josie Gillett ’19 of Seattle and Katharine Gaillard ’19 of Boston. “We want it to educate students on how to do a productive garden,” says sustainability manager Tom Twist, “not a pie-in-the-sky type of thing.”
The Bates library rents bikes from a stand outside its front entrance.
The memorial tree planted after Convocation is an Autumn Splendor horse chestnut.
PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN
Carnegie Science Hall’s HVAC system was overhauled this summer.
Seniors and garden interns Josie Gillett (left) of Seattle and Katharine Gaillard of Boston hold ripe tomatoes as they pose amidst some of the garden’s 180 tomato plants. Fall 2018 9
ACADEMICS
The First Year Seminar “Understanding Russia” is subtitled “Truth, Lies, and Bullshit.”
Julie Lythcott-Haims’ Real American: A Memoir was the Common Reading for 20I8.
JOP BLOM
BATES IN BRIEF FALL 20I8
A Moment of the Past
What I Mean When I Say: Testimony For most of us, a testimony happens in a courtroom. For scholars of Latin America, like Visiting Assistant Professor of Spanish Stephanie Pridgeon, it’s a literary genre. A testimonio is “an oral, written, or transcribed firsthand account of political violence and social issues,” Pridgeon says. “It’s a text whose social currency and cultural value are based on the fact that the person witnessed something firsthand.” 10
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THEOPHIL SYSLO
In 1912, for reasons of racism and eugenics, Maine evicted 47 residents of coastal Malaga Island. In 2018, to memorialize the departed community, Associate Professor of American Studies Myron Beasley organized Re:Past, a public installation in the form of a performative dinner, a powerful “integration of food and culture and community,” says Beasley. The July 12 event welcomed 47 participants to the island, one for each person evicted from their community more than a century ago. Theirs was an “interracial community, black, white, mixed, largely uneducated,” said a Maine Sunday Telegram story, “and for that, they were stripped of their homes.” Upon arrival, Re:Past participants walked past cutout figures representing Malaga’s residents and through a structure signifying the temporary nature of the island housing.
(Michael Reidy, managing director of theater and dance at Bates, provided art direction for the event, assisted by Saleha Belgaumi ’18.) They consumed a meal prepared from recipes and local ingredients the residents might have used. Malaga descendants spoke, and each participant called out a resident’s name. Performers recited biographical narratives. Maine poet Julia Bouwsma read from her new book, Midden, featuring poems about Malaga. Beasley told the Telegram that he’d wanted to memorialize the island community ever since he first heard its story, in 2007, on the very day he arrived in Maine to begin his teaching job. “This is a moment that I could finally really do something with it,” he said.
A goal of the First Year Seminar is to help students cultivate a “scholarly mindset.”
Faculty meetings are on the first Monday of each month at 4:I5 p.m.
Nancy Koven is the inaugural holder of the John E. Kelsey Professorship in Neuroscience.
Scholars Say Six young professors joined Bates as tenure-track faculty in the fall.
THIS JUST IN A sampling of recent faculty-authored articles.
Carrie Diaz Eaton
Incorporating Carbohydrates into Laboratory Curricula
Inclusiveness is intrinsic to Diaz Eaton’s calling. “Thinking about all the different kinds of people at the table, valuing everybody’s contribution, and looking at those differences is something that should be done in a really intentional way.”
Publication: Chemical Reviews • Authors: Jennifer Koviach-Côté (chemistry and biochemistry) and coauthor • What It Explains: Carbohydrates have long gotten less attention in college chemistry than proteins and nucleic acids. That’s changing, as it should: Carbohydrates increasingly provide real-world relevance — e.g., in food science — to students.
Jiyoung Ko
Politics
Initially interested in diplomacy, “I realized that I have a passion for research” after taking courses on international relations. “I was able to read between the lines in current affairs and understand them from my own perspective.” Marcelle Medford
Sociology
“I encourage students to come in, engage, and not expect me to tell them what they need to know. That’s boring, and it’s dangerous.”
Colleen O’Loughlin
Chemistry and Biochemistry “The college is excited about having people at the intersection of fields. People are studying interesting questions, and being able to utilize whatever tools you need is really important. Bates lets me do that.” Anelise Shrout
Digital and Computational Studies “How can we build a DCS program that is antisexist and antiracist, and working against the more troubling trends in the tech world more broadly? We have the opportunity to be attentive to those problems.”
Does Marital Status Affect How Firms Interpret Job Applicants’ Un/Employment Histories?
Publication: International Journal of Manpower • Authors: Margaret Maurer-Fazio (economics) and Sili Wang ’13 • What It Explains: In China, a woman with an employment gap who applies for a job online is more likely to get an interview if she’s single than if she’s married. Distributive Outcomes in Contested Maritime Areas: The Role of Inside Options in Settling Competing Claims
Publication: Journal of Conflict Resolution • Authors: Áslaug Ásgeirsdóttir (politics) and coauthor • What It Explains: When offshore resources like oil and gas are present, the need for legal certainty means countries are more likely to cooperate to successfully negotiate maritime boundaries. Analysis of the Size, Shape, and Modeled Age of Common Limpets from Late-Norse Middens
Publication: The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology • Authors: Carolynn Harris ’11, Will Ambrose (biology), Gerald Bigelow (history), William L. Locke ’08, Sarah Silverberg ’15 • What It Explains: Mollusk shells in an ancient Shetland Islands garbage dump got smaller over a century, probably because the Norse who lived there harvested bigger shellfish first.
TANGO22
Digital and Computational Studies
The Norse liked their limpets large.
Justine Wiesinger
Japanese
“I love the idea of a small student body that I can get to know, so that I can pay individual attention to learners and give them some of the tips and tricks that I wish I had known when I was their age.” Fall 2018
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THE CAMPAIGN
#BatesPlusYou is the social media hashtag for the Campaign.
The Campaign is $36M toward a $75M goal for Investing in Opportunity, including financial aid.
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The Class of 1993 marches in the Alumni Parade during Reunion 2018. The class broke fundraising and attendance records in celebration of their 25th Reunion.
‘It Snowballed’ After leading their classmates to a new 25th Reunion giving record, the Class of 1993 volunteers got a congratulatory note from Mike Bonney ’80 — and not just because he’s chair of the Board of Trustees. Back in 2005, his class set the old record. “I must confess that I’m surprised the outstanding Class of 1980’s record has been broken,” wrote Bonney, “but it goes to show how impressive your class’s Reunion effort was this year.” In addition to the largest 25th Reunion class gift to the Bates Fund ($253,293), the Class of ’93 set 25th records for highest attendance (32 percent) and highest Bates Fund participation (66 percent).
$28 Million in 2018
More about 2018 giving bates.edu/giving-2018 12
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Eighty-four percent of the Class of 2018 contributed to their Senior Gift.
THEOPHIL SYSLO
Alumni, parents, and friends contributed $28 million to Bates during the fiscal year ending June 30, including $10.87 million to the college’s endowment and $7.1 million to the Bates Fund. The annual dollar total includes the traditional Senior Gift. Encouraged by special challenges from Bates Trustee Lisa Barry ’77 and the College Key, the Class of 2018 made a gift of $13,950 with 84 percent participation — the highest since 2014.
Reunion Gift co-chairs were Mike Charland and Peter Bysshe. “We set a lofty goal of $250,000 at the beginning of the year,” Charland said. “As we began to reach milestones along the way, it snowballed, and we thought, ‘Wow, this is attainable. We really can break this record.’ And that helped motivate the committee and our entire class.” Charland (sort of) hopes 1993’s records are broken by the next 25th cohort. “I want them all to come about $10 and two people short of breaking our records,” he jokes. “Enough to still make a huge difference for Bates, but not to take our titles!”
The Campaign is $8IM toward a $I00M goal for Driving Academic Excellence, including STEM programs.
The Campaign is $I2M toward a $65M goal for Catalyzing Student Success, including student life.
The Campaign is $46M toward a $60M goal for Building Financial Sustainability, including Bates Fund.
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STEM Support Two major contributions to the college — one from a Bates family and one from a philanthropic foundation — are funding a key goal of The Bates Campaign: better support for any and all students, including students from underrepresented groups, who aspire to pursue studies in fields related to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).
April Hill is the inaugural Wagener Family Professor.
Howard Hughes Grant
Wagener Chair Announced A $3 million gift to The Bates Campaign has funded a new professorship dedicated to bringing greater equity and inclusion to the study of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) at Bates. The inaugural appointee to the Wagener Family Professorship in Equity and Inclusion in STEM is April Hill, an evolutionary developmental geneticist who joined the faculty in 2018. “April is a distinguished scientist, outstanding teacher, and successful academic leader who believes that creating diverse, inclusive, and equitable STEM communities is a prerequisite to redefining excellence in the sciences,” said President Clayton Spencer. Hill is a former member of the faculty at the University of Richmond, where she led high-profile efforts to improve STEM education at the university. “Helping to build communities of students who thrive in STEM is my vocational cornerstone, so it is a great honor to be the inaugural holder of the Wagener Professorship,” said Hill. The Wagener Professorship has been endowed by a $3 million gift from Deborah Heitz P’17 and Shaw Wagener P’17. “The idea for our gift came through our family’s experience at Bates,” said Shaw Wagener. “We are so pleased to see the convergence between our goals for this professorship and the college’s plans to create a more inspiring and effective experience for all students who wish to pursue studies in STEM fields.” About April Hill bates.edu/wagener-chair
A $1 million grant to The Bates Campaign will support the college’s efforts to better support all students in fields related to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The Howard Hughes Medical Institute grant will fund new strategies aimed at transforming how the faculty approach their work with students; expanding programs for student mentoring and leadership; and redefining the first-year science curriculum to introduce research experiences. “A Bates offer of admission has always stood as a vote of confidence in a student’s talent and potential to make important contributions to our world,” said President Clayton Spencer. “This grant will deepen our capacity and speed our progress toward making good on this promise for all students interested in science.” The largest private supporter of science education in the U.S., HHMI funding initiatives and grant choices are considered resounding endorsements of an institution’s potential for transformative impact. In receiving the grant, Bates joins the institute’s Inclusive Excellence initiative, a network of 57 U.S. colleges and universities committed to removing barriers to STEM — especially for students who arrive via nontraditional pathways, including underrepresented ethnic minorities, first-generation students, and working adults with families.
Up We Go $300M GOAL $190M
As of October 2018, The Bates Campaign has topped $190 million in gifts and pledges toward its goal of $300 million.
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BATES IN BRIEF FALL 20I8
This page: Decked in chef aprons and carrying puntastic signs, the Class of 1988’s Alumni Parade theme was “Cooking with Gas.” From left: classmates Mort Fearey, Greg Miller, Michael Cashman, Rufus Frost IV, and Steve Robbins.
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REUNION RENEWAL photography by phyllis graber jensen “I felt renewed, which I didn’t think was still possible at 91!” said Vivienne Sikora Gilroy ’48 after Reunion in June. She’s pictured below, with classmate Jean Holden ’48 (right), joining fellow alumni who posed for pre-parade photos.
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SPORTS
Bates has the lowest enrollment, about I,750, among NESCAC member colleges.
More than I0,000 nails were pulled during the replacement of the Alumni Gym floor.
Cat Quotes Bates Bobcast gobatesbobcats.com/podcasts
THEOPHIL SYSLO
Quotes from the Bates Bobcast, the weekly podcast on Bates athletics.
So Kim ’21 battles a Maine Maritime Academy player for the ball on Sept. 4 at Garcelon Field.
3. “It’s beautiful up here in Maine, especially when the leaves change. You’re surrounded by nature, it’s quiet, and you’ve got two days off campus to just focus your mind on golf.” — Golf co-captain Chelsea Anglin ’19 of Dayton, N.J., on traveling to away matches
4. “The idea is to help them see the bigger picture: the program’s significance in the lives of past runners and how they’re setting the stage for future runners.” — Men’s cross country coach Al Fereshetian on appointing former standout Justin Easter ’03 as an alumni captain
Face Value
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Rowing coach Peter Steenstra brandishes the July 26 issue of Sports Illustrated that selected him for its iconic “Faces in the Crowd” feature. Bates has won the NCAA women’s rowing title in three of the last four years.
1. “My admission tour guide wasn’t wearing shoes. That was a ‘wow’ — you can do that type of thing at Bates, and no one’s going to judge you.” — Soccer player So Kim ’21 of Thornhill, Ontario, on choosing Bates
2. “Our guys like the heat. But it was just a shock for everyone.” — Tennis coach Paul Gastonguay ’89 on a September tournament at Middlebury in unusual, sultry 90-degree heat that led to cramps among players on all teams
5. “I was one of those middle-school kids: not getting the best grades and having a hard time focusing. Running gave me something to work on every day.” — Cross country co-captain Henry Colt ’19 of Whately, Mass., praising his middle-school coach, Dave Belcher ’83, for introducing him to the sport
6. “Coach recruited another setter this year, and she and I’ve been going at it the past week. It’s good because it’s only made us both better.” — Volleyball co-captain Julia Penepinto ’20 of Buffalo, N.Y., on competition with Brettney Fuller ’22 of Temple, Texas
The first game of the year — women’s soccer — was a 2-0 Bates victory.
New football coach Malik Hall grew up in Detroit.
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Bates’ athletic podcast, the Bobcast, produced its I00th episode in April.
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In early October, former Bates rower Amelia Wilhelm ’18 was selected as one of nine finalists in the 2018 NCAA Woman of the Year program. As Bates Magazine was being printed, Wilhelm — and Bates — were anticipating the Oct. 28 announcement of the NCAA Woman of the Year. The NCAA Woman of the Year honors graduating student-athletes who have distinguished themselves throughout their collegiate careers in the areas of academic achievement, athletics excellence, service, and leadership. An honors chemistry graduate, Wilhelm helped Bates win three NCAA rowing championships in her four years and earned membership in both Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Xi, the scientific research society. Wilhelm was initially one of two NESCAC nominees, and among 581 women nominated nationally from all three NCAA Divisions, before becoming one of 30 finalists in September. She is the first NESCAC nominee from Bates since 2010, when track and field’s Vantiel Elizabeth Duncan ’10 was a top-30 finalists.
Two Bobcat programs gained new head coaches this fall, as Tyler Sheikh (bottom, in sunglasses) took over men’s soccer and Malik Hall assumed command of football. Most recently head coach at Knox College in Illinois, Sheikh played soccer at Quinnipiac University. “I’ve always felt a pull to NESCAC, the best conference in the country,” he said. Hall, who prior to Bates was the defensive line coach at the University of Pennsylvania, has been an assistant coach at Wagner College, Fordham, Hofstra, Central Connecticut State, and his alma mater, the University of Massachusetts. “People make programs great, and we want to coach the person, not the product,” said Hall. “Once you buy too much into the product, you forget that this is a people business.” Sheikh takes over from Stewart Flaherty, now an assistant at Dartmouth. Hall succeeds Mark Harriman, who stepped down in May after 20 seasons.
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Top 9 for Wilhelm
‘A Pull to NESCAC’
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BATES IN BRIEF FALL 20I8
ARTS & CULTURE
has no doubt: Witness its ‘Tangible, Visceral, Sensory’ winter exhibition, AnthropoEnvironmentalists tend to believe that we have entered a new epoch in geological history: the Anthropocene, a time in which human activity is transforming nature on a planetary scale. While scientists debate whether evidence warrants declaring a new epoch, the Bates College Museum of Art Right: Watering Hole (Social Species in the Late Anthropocene), is a 2017 oil painting by Laurie Hogin, whose allegorical paintings feature mutant plants and animals, posed as if for classical still life or portraiture, to explore interactions between nature and human nature. Below: Untitled 13 (2006), an archival digital photograph on satin matte paper, is part of the Mémoire series by Sammy Baloji, a Congolese artist who addresses colonialism’s legacy by juxtaposing archival ethnographic portraits with contemporary images of derelict postindustrial landscapes.
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The Village Club Series turned 25 years old in 20I8.
geologic record.” Bringing pathos, wit, and cenic: Art About the Natural a wild diversity of conceptual World in the Human Era. approaches and media, the The participating artists show is likewise comprehenmake “art about nature, but sive in its topics, from rising they do it from a place that rec- seas and climate change to ognizes the human impacts,” colonialism’s environmental says Dan Mills, museum impacts to private ownership director and exhibition curator. of the natural world. Driving the exhibition is “the Jane Costlow, Clark A. notion that our impact on the Griffith Professor of Environnatural world is so deep that mental Studies, helped Mills it’s actually evidenced in the develop the programming.
The Olin Concert Series offered a night of folk songs loved by the late Maine artist Dahlov Ipcar.
She says that even when facts and our own perceptions fail to drive home the folly of our ways, art remains persuasive. “There’s something about understanding the scope of the issues and connecting our own lives with things that feel separate from us — artists can address those challenges in ways that are really tangible, visceral, sensory.”
Strange Bedfellows is the student improv comedy group.
Novelist Jess Anthony ’96 (The Convalescent ) hosts the Literary Arts Live reading series
PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN
Student poetry and fiction readings are a staple at the Mount David Summit.
KIRSTIN
A Purposeful Work intern with the 2018 summer Bates Dance Festival, prospective mathematics major Kirstin Koepnick ’21 of Nashville, Tenn., had various responsibilities, from lights and electric to sound to stage management. The experience helped her align a budding interest with a potential career — the goal of Bates’ Purposeful Work initiative.
PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN
“This experience has made me think of technical dance and theater as a viable career option.”
Hartley Purchase The Museum of Art’s purchase of a painting by Marsden Hartley, a major figure in American Modernism, is one outcome of a $100,000 grant to the museum from a foundation in New York City. Half of the grant from the Mr. and Mrs. Raymond J. Horowitz Foundation for the Arts has helped fund the purchase of “Intellectual Niece,” a late Hartley oil painting depicting his niece Norma Berger. The rest of the grant will fund the documentation of items in the museum’s Marsden Hartley Memorial Collection, part of the development of a fully accessible online catalog of the collection.
Right: Marsden Hartley’s “Intellectual Niece.”
MARSDEN HARTLEY MEMORIAL COLLECTION/ BATES COLLEGE MUSEUM OF ART
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LEWISTON
What’s in a Name: Libbey Libbey Forum was donated to Bates by Lewiston textile mill owner W. Scott Libbey.
The 20I8 Great Falls Balloon Festival was the region’s 26th.
COURTESY PAUL LIBBEY
BATES IN BRIEF FALL 20I8
When It’s Libbee, Libbey, Libbe English originally, the name in America has been spelled Libby, Libbey, Libbee, Libbe, Lebby, Lebbey, Lebbee, and Lebbe. Big Break Born in 1851, W. Scott Libbey started off as a self-taught telegraph operator, and he made the news when he took 6,000 words of Morse code — tens of thousands of electric dots and dashes — without requesting a “break,” or a request for the sender to repeat a word. He Who Hews A Lewiston mill owner, Libbey also owned the Lewiston & Auburn Electric Light Co., built a hydropower dam above Lewiston’s Great Falls, and founded an electric railroad line, the Portland-Lewiston Interurban. Libbey “practically hews the fortune out of the very town in which he began,” said Americana. Libbey Legacy Libbey, who died in 1914, sent three of his four children to Bates, and many descendants are Bates grads. Libbey’s grandson Paul, now in his 90s, is a trustee emeritus who lives in Lewiston. The family’s mausoleum is at Riverside Cemetery near campus. Society’s Sake Dedicated on Oct. 1, 1909, Libbey Forum created space for the college’s three literary societies as well as the YMCA and YWCA. Today, the building houses two offices, Student Financial Services and the Registrar. Hit the Bricks The 1917 Bates Catalog said the new building was “probably the most solid and substantial structure in Lewiston.” Train of Thought After announcing his intention to give Bates a building, Libbey traveled widely, studying possible designs. While it’s been said that Libbey Forum was intentionally designed to resemble a train station, that’s probably apocryphal. It was modern for its time, yet in keeping with early-1900s buildings with large interior spaces, such as schools and, yes, train stations.
Right: A distinctive Bates building, Libbey Forum features a Romanesque entrance and hipped roof.
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JAY BURNS
Right top: W. Scott Libbey poses with his son W. Scott Jr. in 1911.
Isuken Food Truck, selling fresh local food and Somali Bantu cuisine, opened in September.
Lewiston’s two hospitals, St. Mary’s and CMMC, are within a mile of campus.
Walking and Talking
ELIOT
PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN
Sam Findlen-Golden ’20 of Amherst, Mass., leads a group of first-year students on a Labor Day walk through downtown Lewiston and Auburn. Here, they’re crossing the intersection of Lisbon and Pine streets. A Bates Mill building is in the distance. Each September during Orientation, all first-year students take part in the downtown walks, which are led by downtown-savvy students who are involved with the Harward Center for Community Partnerships. The groups learn about the sprawling and historic Bates Mill complex, new and old shops, businesses, and eateries on Lisbon Street, and opportunities to get involved in their new community.
The Greater Androscoggin Humane Society’s annual Dash for Dogs 5K is in April.
PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN
New mixed-income housing being built on Lisbon Street has a wait list.
“When the ‘instructor’ is as much out of their comfort zone as the ‘student,’ the learning dynamic is remarkable.” Eliot Chalfin-Smith ’21 (left) of Gainesville, Fla., who created a summer program to teach Lewiston youth how to fix bicycles and improve skills, explains his mindset of learning “with, through, and from others.” Here working with a volunteer, Chalfin-Smith was funded by the Harward Center for Community Partnerships and the Maine Cycling Club.
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THE WORLD
The spot opposite from Bates on Earth is 700 miles off Australia’s southwest coast.
Hermione Zhou interviews a Shenzhen restaurant owner.
Right to the Source Over the summer, Hermione Zhou ’21 pored over hundreds of restaurant menus in her home city of Shenzen, China. Research, not dining, was on her plate. From reviewing menus and interviewing restaurant owners, Zhou learned that while U.S. restaurants like to tout locally sourced food — diners want the information — Shenzhen restaurants do the opposite, emphasizing far-flung food sources, whether from distant provinces or abroad. “It was an eye-opening experience,” said Zhou, who was funded by a Bates Tanaka Research Fellowship. “Chinese people have been little-exposed to the environmental impact of food,” she notes, adding that she sees “potential for China to move towards a more sustainable and community-supporting food system.”
Rise Up By day during her fall recruiting trip to Singapore and Hong Kong, Associate Dean of Admission Liz Pinnie visited prospective students. By night, she once caught this sight: a rising phoenix, part of the famed Gardens by the Bay light show in Singapore.
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LIZ PINNIE
COURTESY HERMIONE ZHOU
BATES IN BRIEF FALL 20I8
This fall’s Bates Fall Semester Abroad is exploring science and identity in Santiago, Chile.
Students need two years of French, German, or Spanish to study where the languages are spoken.
30 of 37 majors were represented among last year’s study abroad students.
A first-year student persuaded a Hulu executive to add Japanese anime to its programming library.
Berlin, Germany “Two women sit and talk over a cigarette; behind them is a section of the old Berlin Wall, and through a hole one can see a woman walking. While abroad, much of my thought revolved around World War II’s impact on the global landscape. This picture to me is a simple sweet moment that reminds us to look backward in order to inform our forward thinking.”
PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN
Politics major Ryan Whittemore ’19 of Harpers Ferry, W.V., took this photograph while on the DIS Copenhagen abroad program. The image was featured in the 2018 Barlow Off-Campus Study Exhibition.
Wurst to First With sausages from Dining Services and homemade curry sauce from Russian professor Dennis Browne, the Department of German and Russian Studies hosted its “Wurst Day of the Year” open house on Alumni Walk in early September.
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am use me n ts b efo r e ou r eyes Book suggestions from the college’s annual Good Reads
BOOKS
summer reading list:
The Game by Jon Pessah Suggested by Assistant Professor of Rhetoric Jonathan Cavallero The games played by owners, politicians, general managers, and others behind the scenes might have been just as intriguing as those played on the field. A must-read for baseball fans.
Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker Suggested by Associate Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Matt Côté I’ve found its reliance on evidence to support an uncommonly optimistic perspective to be a tonic during pessimistic times.
When They Call You a Terrorist by Patrisse Khan-Cullors and Asha Bandele Suggested by Associate College Librarian Sharon Saunders A story of growing up in LA, surviving, and becoming a pivotal force in creating Black Lives Matter.
I Will Send Rain by Rae Meadows Suggested by Assistant in Instruction (Physics) Nicole Hastings It took turns that were unexpected and unpredictable, and it worked fantastically.
BATES HISTORY
JAY BURNS
QUIZ
Seventy years ago, Bates defeated 10 other schools — including the University of Alabama, Wake Forest, and Texas Christian — in a national debate tournament on federal aid to education. What made the debate’s format highly unusual? Answer: In the 1948–49 National Recorded Debate, colleges recorded their arguments on discs that were sent to opponents, who then recorded counter-arguments. All the records were then sent to judges around the country for ranking. 24
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Lost & Found A catalog of items recently left in Ladd Library: Residence Life water bottle • Red bead necklace • The New Yorker, with a wrapper telling the student that it’s her last copy • A-grade paper from an English course on literary study methods • Black ankle socks • Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure • Rubber wrist bands for lacrosse and for the LGBTQ support initiative Bates Allies • Mismatched leather gloves • Knit cap • Glow bracelet not glowing • Anthology Minding the Body: Women Writers on Body and Soul • Notebook with to-do list (“Go to the gym”) • Empty DITA sunglasses case • Assorted earrings • Senior Thesis Exhibition program • Daily organizer with a proverb: “The forest is the poor man’s overcoat.”
EMILY McCONVILLE
How strong is your knowledge of Bates’ quirky, cool, and colorful past?
Of Bobcats and Bigfoot Spotted on this Commencement cap: a “Gone Squatchin’” sticker, belonging to Bigfoot believer Kelly Philbrook ’18 of Auburn, Maine.
Something You Didn’t Know You Needed from the Bates College Store Mini Foam Football (6” long) $5.99 ADAM RICE, REGISTERED MAINE GUIDE
BATES.EDU/ST0RE
GRACE KENDALL
c r eat ure c o mfo rts
A Great Day to Be Me
Should I Stay or Should I Flamingo?
PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN
Last May, a wildlife camera in the coastal Maine town of Walpole captured this rare close-up of a bobcat — and his inscrutable expression.
Seniors Ben Roop, James Erwin, and Nate Stephenson were living large aboard their inflatable pink flamingo on Lake Andrews during Senior Week in May.
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FULL CIRCLE Who better to help launch the first liberal arts university in Vietnam? by em ily m c c onv i lle
QUINN MATTINGLY
At her high school in Hanoi, Vietnam, in spring 1997, Ngan Dinh ’02 listened intently as an admissions expert from the United States explained the concept of the liberal arts and described the college he worked for, Bates. The ideas that the Bates expert, now-retired Dean of Admission and Financial Aid Bill Hiss ’66, put to the class of high school juniors that day — studying in a residential academic community, taking courses across disciplines, and working closely with professors — diverged sharply from Dinh’s understanding of what college would be like in Vietnam, where higher education still followed the old Soviet Union emphasis on training and information, not critical thinking and creativity. It was, Dinh recalls, all about “everyone encouraging you to listen to your heart and go for it.” Two decades later, Dinh is a key figure in the creation of Fulbright University Vietnam, the first university to bring the liberal arts experience to Vietnamese students.
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A key figure in the creation of the first university to bring the liberal arts to Vietnamese students, Ngan Dinh ’02 sits before an architectural model showing the future buildings of Fulbright University Vietnam.
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QUINN MATTINGLY
“She is passionately devoted to Vietnam,” says Bill Hiss ’66 about Ngan Dinh’s work to establish Fulbright University. The two posed during the afternoon rush hour in Ho Chi Minh City last March during Hiss’ visit to help design the school’s program for admission and financial aid.
“What we want to do here is to create this university to be just like Bates, and build relationships so that students can learn to explore themselves,” says Dinh, the university’s founding director of undergraduate studies. Dinh’s experience with the liberal arts and her desire to bring it to her home country began with Hiss’ presentation that day at Hanoi – Amsterdam High School. Hiss and his wife, Colleen Quint ’85, were in Vietnam to adopt their daughter and decided to do some recruiting along the way. He found that the students were “anxious to hear about American higher education and what the options might be,” he recalls. At the time, such options were new for Vietnamese students. Just two years earlier, in 1995, the U.S. and Vietnam had normalized relations, 20 years after the North Vietnamese Army captured Saigon to end the Vietnam War. As Hiss recalls, those first students “did not know Bates from an engine block. But they were real clear that the windows were just beginning to open, and American higher ed was where the action was.” For Dinh and other children of parents who had fought for North Vietnam in the war, “the idea of going abroad and going to study in the U.S. was very, very new,” she says. But when she applied to Bates her senior year and was accepted — the first in a strong contingent of Vietnamese students to attend the college since 1998 — she found that, in her family, it was a muchwelcomed idea. “My dad was in the war, fighting against the U.S.,” she says. “I remember the moment he said, ‘When the father was 18, he was fighting against the Americans, and when the daughter was 18, she was getting all the kindness and generosity from the Americans to go to the best university in the world.’” For Dinh, the best part of “the best university in the world” was Bates people. She made friends with roommates, Associate Dean for International Student Programs James Reese, and Den staff alike. Dinh’s propensity for connecting with people influenced how she approached one of her majors, economics. For her, the discipline is “not just about numbers.
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“It’s not about money. It’s not about demand and supply. It’s really about people and people’s behavior. It’s about learning about the world, how things happen. It has stories. It has a lot of imagination.” Dinh adopted that approach for her honors thesis, looking at the wage gap between China’s rural migrants and urban workers and concluding that discrimination against migrants was the reason. Her Bates mentors included Jim Hughes, Thomas Sowell Professor of Economics, and Margaret Maurer-Fazio, Betty Doran Stangle Professor of Applied Economics. In her thesis acknowledgements, she thanked Hughes for being “my problem solver” and “my best friend in America,” and Maurer-Fazio for “thoughtfulness, care, and intellectual inspirations.” Their support went above and beyond, Dinh says. “It was like coaching, mentoring, showing me possibilities that I never imagined.” With majors in economics and Asian studies, Dinh graduated magna cum laude, was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, and won the Ralph J. Chances Prize as the outstanding economics major. She went on to earn a master’s degree from the University of Chicago and worked in economic consulting in Boston for several years. Dinh often thought of returning to Vietnam to work and contribute to her country. “But I didn’t know when, and how,” she says. She began to find her answers during a year back at Bates as a visiting faculty member, in 2007–08. Living in Boston at the time, she stayed with Maurer-Fazio during the school week. Watching her former student teach for the first time, Maurer-Fazio saw Dinh’s embrace of people, especially how she routinely invited experts and other practitioners into her classroom. “The way she found new materials and set up the course and brought in people who could address the issues they were talking about in class was particularly creative,” Maurer-Fazio said. And in her students, just a few years younger than she was, Dinh saw herself — “full of questions, [thinking] ‘I don’t know how this works,’” she said. “Economics is one way of looking at the world, and it’s really fun to share that piece of how you
whose 1997 presentation first sparked Dinh’s interest in liberal arts education. “She is passionately devoted to Vietnam and to bettering its young people’s prospects and their ability to contribute to Vietnam as a country,” Hiss said. “She has seen more styles of education than most people in Vietnam, and she has long experience as a classroom teacher.” With support from the U.S. State Department and Congress as well as Vietnamese sources, the university will offer an English-language, American-style liberal arts education to undergraduate and graduate students. Students will work closely with their academic advisers, they’ll have opportunities for off-campus and experiential learning, and they’ll live in dorms, eat together in dining halls, and play sports. And one element of Fulbright University Vietnam is fundamentally Bates. The university is test-optional — students don’t have to take the Vietnamese college entrance exam or any other standardized test in order to apply, making the university more accessible to students from poorer areas of Vietnam. “We really want students from different socioeconomic backgrounds,” Dinh said. For the last year, Dinh and her staff — which, for a month in the spring, included Hiss as a volunteer consultant for admissions and financial aid — have introduced the concept of the liberal arts to potential students, explaining everything from interdisciplinary learning to study abroad. “We’re telling stories — what it is like to go to the dining hall, what it is like to choose a major,” Dinh said. This fall, the first 50 Fulbright University undergraduates are taking part in a “co-design year,” where students and faculty will develop the curriculum together. Dinh said she hopes Fulbright University — and other liberal arts colleges that might be established in the future — can offer Vietnamese students in Vietnam the same experience she had to go to the U.S. to receive. “What we can do is to show them what’s possible by changing your mind and looking at things in life with a different attitude, with a different light,” she said. “Fulbright can be among many other people and places, to plant the seeds in young people.” n
With the new Fulbright University Vietnam in the final stages of selecting its first incoming class, Ngan Dinh, the director of undergraduate studies, joins prospective students during an admission reception last March.
During his visit to the country in May 2016, President Obama poses with Ngan Dinh and the rest of the Fulbright University Vietnam leadership during ceremonies announcing the school’s official opening.
PETE SOUZA/WHITE HOUSE
LE ANH TUAN
look at the world.” Dinh recognized that students in Vietnam could benefit just as much as their counterparts at Bates from an education that encouraged questions and creativity. “I loved the Bates students,” she said, “but I also thought, if students in Vietnam got a chance to do this stuff, what would it be like? What would it be like if I go back and teach economics in Vietnam?” The next year, Dinh accepted a faculty position at the Fulbright Economics Teaching Program in Ho Chi Minh City, established in 1994 as a partnership between the University of Economics in Ho Chi Minh City and the Harvard Kennedy School to teach public policy and other fields to Vietnamese civil servants and leaders. Dinh — who earned a doctorate in development at the University of Cambridge as she taught — saw government officials and others use her lessons to affect the lives of Vietnamese citizens. For example, the head of a provincial Poverty Reduction Office might be charged with doing a survey of household wealth in his community, but he wouldn’t know that statistical errors can crop up in such surveys. Guided by Dinh’s expertise, the head could “go back and implement changes right away in their office.” “The economics departs from being a textbook story and becomes real life.” In 2010, Maurer-Fazio and a colleague, biologist Pamela Baker ’69, visited Dinh in Vietnam as part of their Bates Fall Semester Abroad program, based in China. Maurer-Fazio’s husband, the late Ron Fazio, joined the group in Vietnam. He had served in the army during the Vietnam War, earning a Bronze Star in combat, and it was his first trip back to the country since fighting there. Dinh made it possible for Fazio and her own father, a veteran of the North Vietnamese army, to tour the country together. When Dinh has ideas, “they’re new and creative, and things come out of them,” Maurer-Fazio says. Dinh had ideas about higher education in Vietnam, and in 2016, she was tapped to bring those ideas to one of the country’s first private nonprofit universities, Fulbright University Vietnam, as its first director of undergraduate students. A trifecta of experiences and qualifications makes Dinh perfect for the job, said Bill Hiss,
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AP PHOTO/ CARLOS RENE PEREZ
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GREAT DIGNITY Stephen Engel’s new research unravels legal meanings of “dignity” — the taking of it during bathhouse closures in 1980s New York City, and its problematic elevation in Supreme Court decisions on gay marriage by d ou g h u bley If the government takes your house to make way for a highway bypass that will improve traffic flow, you’re entitled to (and may even get) fair compensation for that taking of your property. But not all government takings are followed by recompense. Nor are they even acknowledged as a taking. In the 1980s, for instance, municipal authorities in New York City closed gay bathhouses as a response to the HIV/AIDS crisis. They argued that the bathhouses were hot spots for transmission of the disease. Whether or not the closures were defensible from a public health standpoint, fair compensation never entered the equation. Instead, the closures not only deprived bathhouse owners of their business income, but also deprived clients of a sociocultural milieu that was important and irreplaceable. In short, the closures amounted to a “dignity taking” — a confiscation of property made without just compensation or legitimate public purpose and designed to infantilize or dehumanize the affected group. The bathhouse-dignity connection is one of the avenues Professor of Politics Stephen Engel has traveled in his ongoing exploration of dignity as a legal concept. Dignity as a legal phenomenon emerged in the wake of the atrocities of World War II — and it’s a phenomenon that has become more prominent because of its connection with retired Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. Kennedy made prominent and pioneering use of dignity as a basis for such high-profile decisions as Lawrence v. Texas, which overturned anti-sodomy laws, and the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges, which galvanized the nation by legalizing same-sex marriage in 2015. Such cases have been celebrated by LGBT advocates and by progressive-minded folks generally. Yet Engel identifies inherent flaws in this understanding of dignity that should give progressives pause. “LGBT rights went through, as I’m now exploring, on an emerging doctrine that can easily be used
to support conservative ends,” he says. “That’s interesting, because it broke with the far more liberal path that supported [decisions about] African American and gender equality.” Broadly speaking, Engel studies U.S. political and legal development and social movements, notably jurisprudence involving LGBT issues. His interrogation of dignity and the law has roots in work he did, as a pre-doctoral fellow at the American Bar Foundation, with political theorist Bonnie Honig. “She has this great strategy, which I now utilize with my students, where she basically says, ‘Flip some question — take some idea and invert it, and see how far you can go.’” In Obergefell v. Hodges, Engel saw a ripe opportunity for this approach. “Everyone was saying that this dignity rhetoric was so beautiful,” he said. “People were like, ‘Finally!’” So, à la Honig, he stood the notion on its head: “What if dignity has a dark side? How far can I explore that?” Engel has shared his research into dignity and law with Bates audiences on a couple of occasions this year. Honored by the college for excellence in teaching, he devoted his Kroepsch Award lecture to revealing dignity’s potential for producing conservative-friendly Supreme Court rulings, such as the 2007 decision that upheld a federal ban on partialbirth abortion. And the college production of Angels in America: Millennium Approaches last March gave Engel and research partner Timothy Lyle of Iona College a chance to present their bathhouse study to the campus. Offered as part of interpretive programming supporting the play, the presentation bore an eyebrowraising, works-on-so-many-levels title: “F---ing with Dignity: Public Sex, Queer Intimate Kinship, and How the AIDS Epidemic Bathhouse Closures Constituted a Dignity Taking.” (“Dignity taking” is a concept that originated with legal scholar Bernadette Atuahene.) What did the bathhouses mean to New York’s gay community in the mid-1980s? If many baths
Left: During the New York City Gay Pride Parade in June 1977, members of Dignity, a group focusing on LGBT rights and the Catholic Church, protest in front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Fall 2018
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“What if dignity has a dark side? How far can I explore that?” weren’t created “for the purpose of men to seek out sexual encounters with each other,” Engel explained, “by the turn of the 20th century, some became known as ‘favorite spots’ where same-sexual relations were not discouraged. “They provided space for men to socialize with one another as identifiably gay men,” Engel continued. “The gay bathhouse took on an even more symbolic value within the context of the 1970s when queer sex acts were articulated as a kind of liberation from heteronormative constraints.” In a way, the bathhouses served as community centers, offering films and live entertainment, hosting benefits, and providing voter registration and screening for sexually transmitted infections. (Bette Midler, Engel noted, still rates her early-career performances in the Continental Baths among her favorite gigs.) “In short, the baths were sites of community and kinship formation that helped gay men to interact beyond the carnal.” Yet that role was never considered by the authorities, said Lyle. The closures, as well as the public debate surrounding them, violated the dignity of gay men in multiple ways: The furor exacerbated a tendency to blame gay men for the epidemic. It overshadowed the gay community’s own substantial efforts to regulate the baths. And public perception reinforced the authorities’ refusal “to engage in the queer logics that articulated the communal value of these spaces,” Lyle said. “These bathhouses challenged the supposedly neat and tidy boundaries that separate the public from the private.” The gay community’s own push to regulate bathhouse behaviors was a measure of the community’s determination and cohesiveness. Working with bath owners, organizations such as the Coalition for Sexual Responsibility and Gay Men’s Health Crisis undertook substantial campaigns to promote safer sex and to make recommendations for educational, hygienic, and structural improvements, to be backed by inspections, in the bathhouses. This effort to support the bathhouses was initially joined by New York City’s commissioner of health and by members of a state bathhouse subcommittee (who argued that the closures would amount to undue government interference). But in adopting the Coalition for Sexual Responsibility’s recommendations for bathhouse practices, the subcommittee also, in Engel’s words, “essentially co-opted the community’s efforts of self-regulation and stated them as [its] own.” The dignity-taking gained momentum in October 1985 as the state public health council amended the sanitary code such that “no establishment shall make facilities available for the purpose of sexual activities where anal intercourse, vaginal intercourse, or fellatio take place. Such facilities will constitute a threat to the public health.” The authorities asserted that the bathhouses could be nothing “other than a threat to the public,” Engel explained, and the activities they hosted could be nothing “other than those that spread contagion.” Over the next few years, the city shut down 32
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most of the baths. “The bathhouse closures perpetuated [a narrative of gay] culpability, ignited pretty serious divisions within the gay and lesbian communities, and produced within gay men, I think, a deep distrust and even fear of government — and of one another, to be honest,” said Lyle. The dignity-taking was complete. Those troubled times may seem to pale in the light of the beacon of dignity Anthony Kennedy enshrined in Lawrence v. Texas and Obergefell v. Hodges. Writing for the majority opinion in the latter case, Kennedy stated that “there is dignity in the bond between two men or two women who seek to marry and in their autonomy to make such profound choices.” But — even setting aside the controversial confirmation process for Kennedy’s successor, Brett Kavanaugh — Engel nevertheless counsels progressive Americans against unbridled optimism about the power of dignity in human rights jurisprudence. Kennedy’s use of dignity in that context stands in sharp contrast to the kinds of analyses used in prior applications of the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. Those earlier cases invoked the most rigorous level of judicial review and assessed claims of discrimination in terms of established legal criteria.
“Justice Kennedy has used dignity as a foundation for legal decisions that, I think, political progressives and liberals would be very worried about.” “If you look at the jurisprudence on African American equal rights, or on gender and sex, you see an almost formulaic application of a doctrine developed in the mid to late 20th century,” Engel explained. “You don’t get that for cases pertaining to LGBT people — you get this stuff about dignity, which doesn’t adhere” to the established Equal Protection Clause methodology. More abstractly, Engel argues that if dignity can be denied or restored by the government, that model of dignity can only be exclusionary, as the government decides “who’s in and who’s out.” (So much for the ideal of dignity as being innate and universal.) And what are the tradeoffs in accessing government-issue dignity? Obergefell illustrates this conundrum: In legalizing LGBT marriage, it’s giving samesex partners permission to enter into a bond modeled on the traditional heterosexual pact. So they are “in.” But what if you seek official recognition of a different kind of union, one that embodies queer logics that aren’t so broadly understood or accepted? In fact, as a focal point in the study of politics and the law, dignity may be better distinguished by what it lacks than what it embodies. As Engel put it, “dignity is like an empty vessel.” It’s true that most of us understand dignity in an ideal sense and believe that it, like freedom and happiness, is an inalienable right. But at ground level “it’s very contextual” in a legal or political setting. “It’s just so malleable,” Engel said.
(Moreover, as analyses of Kennedy’s Supreme Court legacy often point out, the justice built landmark decisions on a word that never appears in the foundational document of U.S. government and jurisprudence, the U.S. Constitution.) Kennedy’s own record illustrates dignity’s onesize-fits-all quality. “He has used dignity as a foundation for legal decisions that, I think, political progressives and liberals would be very worried about,” said Engel, pointing to the 2007 abortion decision and a ruling that same year that weakened school integration in Seattle. Finally, dignity as a legal concept offers no durable means of resolving an essential, and definitive, paradox in U.S. society — a paradox that could become more inflammatory than ever as the Supreme Court ventures into a new era of conservative jurisprudence. It’s the paradox created when constitutional rights, notably First Amendment rights, collide with constitutional safeguards such as the Equal Protection Clause. Imagine a case in which religious freedom, protected by the First Amendment, conflicts with the right to equal protection that’s promised by the 14th. Perhaps there’s an “LGBT person who wants to retain their housing or keep their job,” Engel suggests, “vs. the landlord or the employer who doesn’t want to have that LGBT person because it’s against their religious beliefs. “Dignity doesn’t seem to be a way to negotiate that conflict.” n
PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN
As a legal concept, “dignity is like an empty vessel.”
Professor of Politics Stephen Engel’s research focuses on jurisprudence involving LGBT issues.
ANDREW HARRER/ BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES
Below: In June 2015, James Obergefell, plaintiff in the Obergefell v. Hodges case, speaks to the media after the Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage ruling, which hinged on the concept of dignity.
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THE LAST
RENAN OZTURK
HONEY HUNTER
Ben Ayers poses with honey hunter Mauli Dhan Rai.
How do you get a hunter of hallucinogenic honey to let you make a movie about him? You turn to someone you trust, like Ben Ayers ’99 by em ily m c c onv i lle In Nepal’s remote Hongu River Valley, Mauli Dhan Rai gripped a bamboo rope ladder 300 feet in the air, the largest honeybees in the world buzzing around him as he detached part of their hive from a cliff face. Inside the hives was a valuable substance known as mad honey. Ten feet away — trying not to swing out of control on their own ropes — members of a National Geographic-backed documentary team, including
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Ben Ayers ’99, captured the ancient custom in video and photography for the very first time. The resulting film about the May 2016 harvest, The Last Honey Hunter, lists Ayers as one of three producers. And what Ayers produced was trust: His long friendship with the honey hunter Rai, and his deep connection to Nepal, made the whole project possible. A significant voice for sustainable development in Nepal, Ayers is the executive director of the dZi
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RENAN OZTURK
Aging honey hunter Mauli Dhan Rai, on his last honey hunt, climbs a bamboo rope ladder toward a beehive on a cliff face. Below him, a team lights a grass fire whose smoke disorients the bees.
MATT IRVING
Wearing bee suits and covered in static rope, Renan Ozturk (left) and Ben Ayers ’99 prepare to descend a cliff in Nepal’s Hongu River Valley to film Mauli Dhan Rai as he harvests valuable hallucinogenic honey.
Foundation, whose focus on long-term, communitydriven development — including education, sanitation projects, and infrastructure — has made the nonprofit one of the most effective in Nepal. The approach is to “trust the people who need help,” says Ayers, who first came to Nepal for a studyabroad trip and has lived there for most of his working life. “We’ve created different systems of helping people overcome poverty through their own intelligence and through their own methodology.” When Ayers first visited Saddi, the Hongu River Valley village where Rai lived, it was a week away from the nearest road. Mad honey, known for its hallucinogenic properties, was an important source of income for Rai. Though Rai went on honey hunts with a team of helpers, only he had permission to do the actual harvesting — it was granted to him as a teenager by the forest spirit Rangkemi, who came to him in a dream. Ayers first floated the idea of making a film to Rai years ago, but “he didn’t think I could do it,” Ayers says. “He didn’t think we could get ropes up there, that we were weak.” The people in the village, meanwhile, were afraid of disturbing the spirits in the forest. But whenever Ayers returned to Saddi to check on dZi’s projects, “I’d meet him and talk to him again.” They became friends.
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Ayers’ frequent returns to Saddi reflect how dZi does business. The foundation usually starts out with one project — sanitary toilets, a school building — and “solving” one problem tends to reveal many more. And one project cascades into others. For example: “We do a lot of sanitation programs, building toilets,” Ayers said. “We’ve also pioneered a lot of this technology called ecosan, which is when the toilets recycle urine. You separate the urine out, and that acts as an organic fertilizer. Super cool. “Then we have all this fertilizer, and now the communities are interested in agriculture. Agriculture leads to cash-crop farming, and cash-crop farming leads to the need to have savings and loan cooperatives. “For us, by spending 10 years partnering with communities, you start to do these figure-eights, with one project morphing into another.” That, Ayers said, is how you make a sustainable difference in rural communities while empowering the communities themselves. And for Ayers, those repeated visits to Saddi gave him time to persuade a hunter of hallucinogenic honey to approve a documentary film. By 2017, Rai and the villagers had warmed to the idea of a film, and The Last Honey Hunter was a go.
“By spending 10 years partnering with communities, you start to do these figure-eights, with one project morphing into another.”
not been disclosed publicly. Rai’s death gives the By that time, Rai had grown tired of the exhausting, documentary a retrospective feel — as much a redangerous work, and everyone knew that his honeyflection on Rai’s life as an adventure story. “The hunting days were winding down. whole narrative flow of the film is wondering who Making the film was “intense,” Ayers says. The else could do it after him,” Ayers said. “He’s the last project team (director Ben Knight, videographer honey hunter.” Renan Ozturk, writer Mark Synnott, and Ayers) ac In May, at the invitation of the companied Rai and his helpers as Bates Outing Club, of which Ayers they performed a ceremony with a was an active member, he screened shaman and then trekked 12 miles the 36-minute film at the college. through steep jungle terrain in “I’ve been fortunate to be able to monsoon season. To cross a river, understand him and know him they constructed a bamboo bridge. For updates on and be known by him, and be Then they followed Rai up the screenings and online trusted enough to be with this stocliff to the hives. Besides the cliffavailability of The Last Honey Hunter, go to ry and be able to share it,” Ayers side work, the project team also TheLastHoneyHunter.com. told his student audience. interviewed Rai’s team and other “Mauli likely is the last honey villagers, and they captured intiFor a behind-the-scenes hunter in that community, and for mate shots of daily life in Saddi. video about the making me to be able to bring him back to The harvest they chronicled of the film, go to Bates, where I feel very strongly turned out to be Rai’s last. Not bit.ly/honey-hunter. my own story began, has been a long after filming, the 58-year-old real privilege.” n honey hunter died; the cause has
HOW TO WATCH HUNTER
RENAN OZTURK
RENAN OZTURK
Honey hunter Mauli Dhan Rai winces as bees sting him during the harvest.
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pioneer PHOTO COURTESY OF MONTANA HISTORICAL SOCIETY RESEARCH CENTER PHOTOGRAPH ARCHIVES
woman Ella Knowles, Class of 1884, was a Montana suffragist, trailblazing lawyer, and career boat-rocker whose life was a succession of singular accomplishments by h. jay bu r ns
the courtroom in Helena, Mont., was packed,
everyone eager to witness a curiosity. The state’s first “lawyeress”— aka the “little lady in black” — was about to argue her first legal case. Court observers expected the young lawyer to fail miserably. They “cast pitying glances” her way. But they didn’t know Ella Knowles, Bates Class of 1884. For Knowles, facing skepticism, if not outright ridicule, was old hat, and she’d already racked up a number of successful female firsts dating back to her Bates days. In Montana, the firsts would continue. Born in New Hampshire, Knowles entered college in 1880. Bates had become a college just 16 years earlier, and male students still weren’t ceding much power to women, and few women graduated in the early classes. “The prejudice against admitting female students was still strong at the college,” noted a profile of Knowles that appeared in The New York Times and other U.S papers in 1892. “Many thought it totally inappropriate for a woman to be educated,” said former Bates history professor Elizabeth Tobin, who was interviewed for Ella Knowles: A Dangerous Woman, a 1993 Bates 38
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documentary produced by the late Bates rhetoric professor Robert Branham. Society believed that education would make it difficult for a woman to take on her expected roles as a “satisfied and successful wife and mother.” In her second year at Bates, Knowles became the first woman to win the prestigious Sophomore Championship Debate. In one debate that year, she supported the topic “Resolved: That circumstances make men.” To become Bates’ first female debater and public speaker, Knowles “surely would have had to fight,” said Tobin. “She would have had to prove herself over and over again; she would always have had the sense that if she failed, no woman after her would have been able to do it. There would have been a great deal of pressure.” Knowles majored in English and rhetoric and graduated with honors. Invited to speak at Commencement, attended by Maine Gov. James G. Blaine that year, she discussed “The Genius of Edmund Spenser.” She taught school and studied law in her native New Hampshire, earning a master’s degree from Bates in 1888. That year, she moved to Helena. Some say the
move was for her health following a bout with tuberculosis; others noted that ambitious women tended to have greater opportunities for a career out West. There, she taught school, but the law called, and she studied for the bar. “They all thought my ambition was a joke,” she told the Anaconda Standard in 1907. “I was made all manner of fun of. No one believed that I would ever practice.” But that was just more rocket fuel. Neither bowed nor broken, Knowles pushed ahead. She successfully lobbied the territorial legislature to allow women to take the bar exam (by doing so, she became the first woman ever to address a state or territory legislature). On Christmas Eve in 1889, she passed the bar with flying colors. Her examiner said he was “surprised to find her so well-read. She beat all that I have ever examined.” Though she still couldn’t vote in Montana, Knowles was now one of only about 50 female lawyers in the U.S. When Knowles joined the Montana bar, Helena was a booming city. Between 1880 and 1890 its population had exploded, from 3,600 to more than 13,000. Gold had been discovered in 1864, and later silver, which had created 50 millionaires in the city, more per capita than any other place in the world. Outside of town, railroad magnate Charles Arthur Broadwater had just opened a huge resort with one of the world’s first indoor swimming pools. Helena was hopping, but Knowles couldn’t find a job. Like other aspiring lawyers of the day, she tried to support herself as a bill collector. No one would hire her. Finally, the owner of an upscale women’s store said that she could try to collect three umbrellas that had been loaned out and not returned. The offer was a mocking one, but Knowles took him on “although he did not expect me to do it.”
Off she went into Helena’s rich neighborhoods, successfully retrieving two of the pirated parasols. Knowles recalled that one woman’s withering look gave her nightmares; the other woman “flared up” during the exchange. When Knowles returned to the store and billed her 50-cent fee, the merchant tried to stiff her. Using her Bates debate skills, she turned the store into a impromptu court, appealing to the customers for their support. The owner paid up (and joined in the ensuing laughter). “From that time I was given all of the firm’s bad debts to collect, and was very successful with them,” she said. She kept the two quarters for inspiration: “They are my mascot.” A lawyer in name, Knowles was ridiculed in reality. “I was taken as a huge joke.” But as always, she forged ahead. “I didn’t sit in the office; I went out and got my business to start with, and soon business came to me in abundance.” Lawyering, she said, was about being able to “concentrate the entire mind force on the work in hand,” and it’s what a packed Helena courtroom witnessed when Knowles argued her first case in 1891. As they would a century later for Marcia Clark during the O.J. Simpson trial, the newspapers took great note of her appearance and manner in the courtroom: black dress, blue eyes, and a “shrewd and vivacious temperament.” Knowles was representing a man who said he was owed $5 in back wages after quitting his restaurant job. The restaurant owner had refused to pay, showing a clean ledger. “I had no evidence to offset the book,” said Knowles. “I felt my first case lost.” With Knowles’ mind force on the task, inspiration came. With a magnifying glass, she examined the ledger. Aha! “Some figures had been erased, and
COLLECTION OF KENNON BAIRD
The city of Helena, Mont., was hopping when Ella Knowles arrived to begin her remarkable career as a lawyer, suffragist, and leading citizen.
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By 1900, newspapers reported that Ella Knowles “now bears a national reputation and is a leader in her chosen field of duty.” [others] marked over them,” she said The erased figures corresponded with her client’s claim of five dollars owed. She had won. “The winning of her first case fixed her status as a lawyer,” said a story that appeared around the country. Politics came next, and in 1892 Knowles was nominated by the Populist Party to run for attorney general of Montana, becoming only the second woman in U.S. history to be nominated for that office. Again, she was laughed at. Again, she gave it her best — “to run, and run to the very best of my ability. I entered the race with all the energy of my nature.” Knowles gave 60 speeches on the campaign trail, using her Bates rhetorical skills to advantage with rousing, crowd-pleasing speeches that earned her the nickname “Portia of the People’s Party,” after Shakespeare’s heroine lawyer. The choice was simple, she liked to tell audiences. You can “degrade woman, cripple her faculties” and “hamper her intellectual growth” and thus have a “degraded, crippled, or enslaved people.” Or, you can “elevate woman” and “give her full freedom to use the faculties God has given her...an act of simple justice” and create citizens who are “strong and self-reliant, intellectual, and valiant.” Her Republican opponent in the race, the incumbent Henri Haskell, won the election — probably, it is said, because women couldn’t vote. Knowles finished third behind Haskell and the Democratic candidate, though her 11,465 votes surpassed the 7,794 votes received by the Populist candidate for governor. Impressed by her skills, Haskell appointed her as an assistant attorney general, which made her one of the highest-ranking government officials in
COLLECTION OF KENNON BAIRD
Below, Helena, Mont., circa 1908
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the country. As an assistant AG, Knowles traveled to Washington, D.C., to argue Montana’s interests in a federal case involving $200,000 worth of contested lands. That made her the first woman to represent a state before the federal government. She won, of course. Politics makes strange bedfellows, and in May 1895, Knowles, then 35, married Haskell, then 52. A native Mainer with Bates connections, Haskell’s great-uncle was Seth Hathorn, of Hathorn Hall fame, and he had attended Bates’ Latin School, a prep school associated with the college. At least in a legal sense, Haskell had always been smitten with Knowles. He strongly supported the legislation that allowed her to become a lawyer in 1889. Three years later, Haskell wrote the legal opinion allowing Knowles to run for AG, after a legal challenge argued that a woman who could not vote was ineligible. Their wedding was at the iconic Palace Hotel in San Francisco, where, it is reported, Knowles was recovering from broken ribs suffered in an accident in Butte when she was thrown from a horse-drawn carriage. But soon, their careers were going in different directions. Knowles was becoming a household American name. Of the 110 female lawyers in the country in 1895, she was deemed “the most remarkable and successful” by The Atlanta Constitution. In fact, the paper said, she was “one of the most remarkable women in the world.” The newspapers were agog over a $10,000 legal fee she had recently received, believed to be the largest fee ever earned by a female lawyer. “Attorney Mrs. Ella Knowles of Montana does not seem to care whether or not she has jumped the hedge-bounded woman’s sphere,” reported The Chanute Daily Tribune in Kansas. “She has just pocketed a $10,000 fee, and can pay her way in whatever sphere may happen to environ her.” Haskell, meanwhile, seemed to want a quieter life after he concluded his term as attorney general in 1897. The couple moved from Helena to his home in Glendive, a city of about 1,000. They divorced in 1901. Knowles moved to Helena, then to Butte, where she “prospered in private practice as one of the state’s leading experts in mining law,” according to Wanton West by Lael Morgan. Indeed, Ella Knowles taking a legal case “always indicated its importance,” said one newspaper. A delegate to the 1902 International Mining Congress convention in Butte, Knowles famously put the convention into chaos by repeatedly stalling the vote on a reorganization plan that she opposed. The San Francisco Call called it “pandemonium let loose.” She convinced attendees that she had enough votes to overturn the plan. In fact, her side lost 103 to 7, all her votes coming from the Montana delegates.
ella knowles was once called “the most successful woman lawyer in the u.s.”
To achieve what she did at Bates, Ella Knowles “surely would have had to fight,” said former Bates faculty member Liz Tobin. PHOTO COURTESY OF MUSKIE ARCHIVES AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS LIBRARY
knowles’ number ones Ella Knowles’ career was a succession of firsts. In Montana, she was the first woman to: Address a state or territory legislature Sources for this story include the website Montana’s Become a lawyer Early Woman Lawyers, mtwomenlawyers.org. Be nominated by a major political party for statewide office Become an assistant state attorney general Argue a case before the state Supreme Court Represent a U.S. state before a federal agency in Washington, D.C.
A courtroom in the Battin Federal Courthouse in Billings, Mont., honors the accomplishments of Ella Knowles. JULIE COLLINS
The papers couldn’t get over it. Sure, the West is full of poker players who know how to bluff, said the Los Angeles Herald, but this time it was a woman’s bluff, and it “made them lay down their cards without going beyond the first ante. Who dares now to say that woman’s sphere is not extending?” In 1902, the publication Progressive Men of Montana (irony noted) published a three-page feature on her. National suffragist leader Carrie Chapman Catt called her “the most successful woman lawyer in the U.S.” She served as president of the Montana Equal Suffrage Association, once arguing that “if it was unjust for our fathers to be taxed without representation by Great Britain, it is unjust to tax the women of today without representation.” In 1910, she attended a suffrage march in London, part of an around-the-world trip intended to improve her health. Yet it “failed of its purpose to give her new strength.” In 1911, overcome by a throat infection and despite the care of “four of Butte’s wellknown physicians,” Knowles died — three years before women gained the right to vote in the state. She was just 50 years old. Today, a courtroom in the Battin Federal Courthouse in Billings, Mont., is named in her memory. It’s hardly surprising that much of the newspaper coverage of Knowles’s career is gendered. And, in keeping with the times, the newspapers chose words that kept her within expectations of gender and sexual orientation, such that they were. “She is not a man hater,” noted the Nevada State Journal. Yes, she was a good lawyer, but “not of the aggressive, assertive type” that you would “expect to find in the successful feminine lawyer,” said another paper. She is “mild, gentle, womanly.” Said another: “If you should chance to meet her on a street, you would be likely to mistake her for a happy little housewife, so essentially feminine is she in dress and manner.” Knowles was once asked why she was successful when other smart and energetic women were not. Was she different? “I do not think so.” Sure, it helps to have a good education and a “logical and reasoning mind,” she said, not to mention a “good share of sound common sense.” Perhaps mindful of all that she had endured, Knowles cautioned that success was not a guarantee for man or woman. “When we think of the great number of men who never attain success, we must not be surprised if women, bright and clever though they may be, should also fail.” n
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CAROL IRWIN
ANTARCTIC ADVOCATES
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1872 Stieler Map of Antarctica South Pole
Spellbound by the continent’s beauty and complexity, researcher Ari Friedlaender ’96 is unabashed: “I’ve grown less objective” by em ily m c c onv i lle Antarctica, says Ari Friedlaender ’96, is a “unique wilderness.” The southernmost continent is cold, silent, and inhospitable, yet beautiful. Summer daylight and winter dark last six months each. Life, from whales and penguins on the coasts to microbes living in ice-covered lakes, persists in the harshest conditions on the planet. “Being in that environment and feeling the cold, you feel absolutely minuscule and unimportant,” Friedlaender says. “It’s also such a vibrant place and such an amazing natural wilderness that you can’t help but be overcome by it.” For the scientists who study the continent’s fossils, rocks, glaciers, and wildlife, the continent provides countless opportunities to understand how the Earth works, past and present. And, as the climate warms, sea levels rise, and ecosystems change before researchers’ eyes, a sense of obligation to the public goes hand in hand with the science. Friedlaender, an associate researcher at the University of California, Santa Cruz, first traveled to Antarctica two decades ago, as part of an expedition with the Australian Antarctic Division. At the time, the study of Antarctic marine mammals essentially amounted to counting them. The otherworldliness of the southernmost continent — the cold, the blue-tinted ice, the seals and penguins unfamiliar with and unafraid of people — captivated him. But despite the emotions the continent evoked, Friedlaender tried to maintain a sense of objectivity when it came to his research.
“Throughout my education, I was actively learning how to be a scientist and to think critically,” says Friedlaender, who majored in biology and minored in anthropology at Bates. “But I always had in my soul that you need to be a responsible citizen of the planet, especially at Bates, where I was learning critically about environmentalism and conservation as its own discipline.” Today, Friedlaender is a leading authority on baleen whales in Antarctica. He tags and tracks them, giving researchers a much better picture of where the whales go, what they eat, and how their populations change. Supported by the National Science Foundation and the International Whaling Commission, his work, particularly video from cameras attached to whales’ backs, has garnered widespread attention, including features in The New York Times, a viral video published by the World Wildlife Fund, and prominent placement in the National Geographic documentary series Continent 7: Antarctica. In recent years, his focus has shifted from humpback to minke whales, a little-known and elusive species that lives amidst sea ice, where it hunts krill. Through tagging — done by approaching whales on an inflatable boat and using a long pole to suction-cup a camera to their skin — Friedlaender has learned that they are highly social, and that they can feed on krill very quickly. “We went from knowing nothing about the animals to knowing a lot of very personal things about how individuals behaved,” he says.
As a drone flies overhead, Ari Friedlaender and fellow researchers, joined by a National Geographic film crew, track a humpback whale off the Antarctic Peninsula. Using a harpoon, they’ll attach a small GPS sensor to the mammal to track its location. The drone helps to accurately measure its length and girth. Fall 2018
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ANTARCTIC
ARI FRIEDLAENDER
ADVOCATES
Above, minke whales are social creatures, feeding on krill in relatively large groups.
CAROL IRWIN
Below, a cathedral-like iceberg rises from the waters off the Antarctic Peninsula.
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CAROLYN VAN HOUTEN NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
Right, in the gloom of a sudden snow squall, Ari Friedlaender ’96 searches for minke whales in Andvord Bay in Antarctica. In that moment, “it was calm and smooth and a bit eerie.”
But the more Friedlaender finds out about the whales, the more he understands how even the smallest change in climate has a huge impact on their lives. Melting sea ice, for example, means that minke whales have fewer places to hide from orcas, a common predator that lives in the open ocean. And “that lack of sea ice is also going to decrease the amount of krill that’s available for all the animals there, and the system is going to change very dramatically,” he says. That uneasy balance — the wonder of Antarctica’s landscape and wildlife, coupled with the knowledge of the ecosystem’s fragility and human beings’ role in disturbing things — has made sharing the science of the Antarctic peninsula all the more urgent. “I’ve honestly grown less objective,” he says. “I want to see people do better, and I want to see these animals survive and the ecosystems sustain themselves.” That’s why media and public outreach has become such an integral part of his work, and why Friedlaender’s identity as a citizen of the
planet is as important as that of a scientist. He regularly invites television and documentary cameras from around the world onto his research vessels and inflatable boats. He sometimes works on tourist boats, allowing nonscientists to see his research up close. He speaks to middle and high school students and works with museums on exhibits. All, he says, to pass on the awe-inspiring experience of Antarctica he first felt 20 years ago. “People are more likely to want to protect things that they care about,” he says. “I feel more of a responsibility to communicate and promote what we’re doing and learn about these animals broadly, because that’s what makes people care, and that’s what’s going to help change people’s behavior and allow these animals and ecosystems to survive. “It takes a combination of the rigor of science and truth of science, as well as the emotion of a connection to nature and wild places, that’s going to get people to do things differently.”
“I want to see people do better, and I want to see these animals survive and the ecosystems sustain themselves.” Fall 2018
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Examining rock and algae in the Transantarctic Mountains
BRENDA HALL ’90 AND ALLIE BALTER ’I4 glacial pace: At the University of Maine
Which continent has the highest proportion of Bates alumni? The answer would be Antarctica — at least last year — where seven Bates alumni were among the 4,000 or so people on the continent during the 2017–18 research season. Like other scientists and advocates of their generation, these alumni are adept communicators who bring urgency to their work, born from threats posed by climate change. Ari Friedlaender ’96 and Doug Krause ’99 continued their research on whales and seals, respectively, learning more about marine ecosystems. Brenda Hall ’90 and Allie Balter ’14 examined rocks and algae deposited by retreating glaciers, learning more about where the glaciers of 20,000 years ago went. Hank Woolley ’13 looked at fossils from the continent’s much-warmer past, and Carolynn Harris ’11 investigated food webs beneath ice-covered lakes.
Cool Change The end of the last ice age is a particularly good example of rapid global warming, and it may give us a better indication of what may happen to the ice sheet as our climate warms today. — Balter The Sound of Silence Going to Antarctica is like going to another planet. It’s big, it’s empty, it’s quiet, but spectacularly beautiful in a barren sort of way. When I first traveled to Antarctica, it was a military-supported operation — they used to run most aspects of McMurdo Station, from the dining hall to the helicopters to the cargo. Now, it’s almost entirely civilian. The military still flies the planes from Christchurch, but McMurdo itself is a civilian operation. It’s also not as isolated as it used to be. We used to go for three to five months with no contact to the outside world except for letters. Now, we’ve got satellite phones. — Hall The UMaine team’s campsite at Roaring Valley in the Royal Society Range shows a cook tent (left) and a Scott tent (right), whose design dates back to the early 20th century.
COURTESY OF ALLIE BALTER
SEVEN ALUMNI, ONE CONTINENT
School of Earth and Climate Sciences, Hall is a professor and Balter a graduate student. During the 2017–18 field season, they traveled to the Transantarctic Mountains to examine rock and algae left behind at the end of the last global ice age 20,000 years ago. A veteran Antarctic researcher, Hall has made 28 trips to the continent, which involves a 2,400-mile flight from Christchurch, New Zealand, to McMurdo Station, one of three U.S. research centers on the continent and Antarctica’s largest community, with up to 1,250 personnel.
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COURTESY OF ALLIE BALTER
Meanwhile, videographer and photographer Billy Collins ’14 began documenting a new multidisciplinary project to study a subglacial lake covered by 1.2 kilometers of ice.
ANTARCTIC
ADVOCATES
Allie Balter ’14 samples a boulder using a hammer and chisel in the Royal Society Range during the 2017–18 season. Fall 2018
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Studying seals off the Antarctic Peninsula
Collecting fossils on Shackleton Glacier
DOUG KRAUSE ’99
HANK WOOLLEY ’I3
sealing the deal: Krause, a research biologist with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries, studies Antarctic seals, including leopard seals. During the 2017–18 field season, he was on Livingston Island on the Antarctic Peninsula, about 600 miles south of Tierra del Fuego. He tracks where the grizzly bear-sized creatures go and what they eat through photography, drones, stable isotope analysis, and sifting through scats. Like fellow marine mammal researcher Ari Friedlaender ’96, he attaches cameras to the mammals’ backs. The leopard seal is an “indicator species” that can help researchers understand the health of the ecosystem as a whole and how climate change affects it.
land before time: Woolley, a doctoral
student in paleontology at the University of Southern California, joined a research team on Shackleton Glacier, about 340 miles from the South Pole, for the 2017–18 field season. There, the scientists reached 250 million years into Earth’s geological past to learn what might be in our warming future. They looked for fossil remnants of vast forests and large animals — precursors to modern-day mammals and reptiles — that survived the Great Permian Extinction, one of Earth’s largest extinction events. Polar Forests Two hundred and fifty-two million years ago, you have these animals walking around and burrowing. Maybe some of them are climbing big trees. It’s a completely unique ecosystem that we don’t really have today. Some species may have survived the extreme global warming event by fleeing from lower latitudes and hotter temperatures. It’s what we’re scared might happen to our planet today. That’s what’s so great about studying these mass extinctions — we can predict what will happen from past events.
De-pollution Every year, the exact same thing happens about two weeks after I get to Antarctica. I will get a bit of chest congestion and have some mucus for about a day, then it disappears. The same thing, apparently, happens to people who quit smoking. I think that process is essentially my body shedding the pollution that I’ve taken in very regularly in Southern California.
Roughing It We had running water for handwashing and washing dishes. We had a full kitchen, a cook and a head chef, beautiful meals. We had lobster tail for New Year’s Eve. We had electrical outlets and generators. We had a lot of amenities that made being out on a glacier in the middle of nowhere quite easy.
If You Give a Seal a Camera We’ve learned that some leopard seals have their own individual hunting strategy, and that the leopards adjust what they are eating in concert with prey availability. In terms of climate change, the leopards are doing well right now because they are adaptable. Climate change is moving them away from areas where they have historically fed and toward new areas where their prey is less adapted to defend against them. This means that their impact on other parts of the ecosystem is likely to increase. The leopards are apex predators, so the changes can create cascading effects down the food web as the climate continues to shift.
With a hammer shown for scale, the skeleton of a Thrinaxodon, a burrowing early-mammal relative, is embedded in a 250-million-year-old sandstone formation.
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WHITNEY TAYLOR
Doug Krause ’99 operates a drone to track leopard seals off the Antarctic Peninsula.
Research in the McMurdo Dry Valleys
650-mile traverse from McMurdo to Lake Mercer
CAROLYNN HARRIS ’II
BILLY COLLINS ’I4
under cover: Harris, a doctoral student in
a cold look: During the 2017–18 field sea-
ecology and environmental science at Montana State University, first visited Antarctica during the 2017–18 field season as part of a university research team doing long-term ecological studies of the continent’s ice-covered lakes. Last season, the team traveled to lakes in the McMurdo Dry Valleys. There, Harris’ research seeks to understand how microscopic life persists in one of the coldest, driest, and windiest deserts on Earth.
son, Collins, a photographer and videographer, chronicled the 650-mile traverse of more than a million pounds of drilling equipment, science labs, and camp structures from the coastal McMurdo research station to Lake Mercer, a subglacial lake in the interior. The traverse anticipates a huge project in 2018–19, when the Subglacial Antarctic Lakes Scientific Access project (SALSA) will drill through 1.2 kilometers of ice to study the biology and geology of the lake. Collins, pursuing a master’s in science and natural history filmmaking at Montana State University, coordinates SALSA’s education and outreach efforts.
Ice Water We have to drill through 10 to 15 feet of ice to reach the surface of lakes that are 50 to 100 feet deep. These lakes are a haven for life in the area, because they are the only year-round source of liquid water. Unlike lakes almost everywhere else on the planet, these lakes contain no fish and no crustaceans. But they still contain complex food webs dominated by phytoplankton and microbes. Microscopic aquatic animals known as rotifers are the top predators of the system. I study how nutrients and energy flow through lake ecosystems and how local climate warming will affect the ecosystems.
Under Ice and in Space They’ll be looking for microscopic life forms down there. It could give clues to where life could exist in our solar system, like on the ice moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Evidence of a lake was recently discovered on Mars, and SALSA’s research could give valuable clues for how life could function there. Beware of Static Because the air is so dry in Antarctica, if you step away from the camera for 10 minutes, you can build up static in your body, and when you touch the camera, it can fry the electronics. When you’re out in the field and dealing with electronics, you’re constantly trying to find metal things to touch to discharge the electricity. n
Waste Not Water conservation is one of the biggest things I hadn’t thought of before I got to Antarctica — not because there isn’t water available, but because the way we got water was by chipping lake ice, or hiking or riding an ATV over to a glacier and collecting ‘glacier berries.’ Once we melted that ice and used it for cooking or for the one shower you could take a week, the wastewater had to be collected and shipped off the continent: That’s part of what nations agree to when they sign the Antarctic Treaty, setting the continent up as a research preserve.
The SALSA team tows some of its million pounds of equipment across interior Antarctica.
BILLY COLLINS
CAROLYNN HARRIS
Carolynn Harris ’11 takes a selfie during a hike in the “Labyrinth,” steep-sided canyons in the McMurdo Dry Valleys.
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ERIC BUTLER/U.S. NAVY
J.J. Cummings ’89 (blue shirt) and Devin Wray, a mass communication specialist, take part in a 5-kilometer run on the f light deck of the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz in 2014 when Cummings served as the carrier’s executive officer.
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your captain speaking The U.S. has 11 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. J.J. Cummings ’89 now commands one of them by h. jay bu r ns
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RYAN LITZENBERGER/U.S. NAVY
c
The USS Gerald R. Ford steams in the Atlantic Ocean on July 28, 2017, during test and evaluation operations.
hronicling life aboard a U.S. aircraft carrier, a New Yorker writer once noted that the scope and scale of the captain’s job made it “impossible to get a sense of him outside his captainness.” Navy Capt. J.J. Cummings ’89, who took command of the USS Gerald R. Ford in August, shows no signs of letting his captainness overshadow his J.J.-ness. During a change-of-command ceremony on Aug. 10 at Virginia’s Naval Station Norfolk, Cummings broke up the audience with a joke that spoke to who he is and where he comes from. His Boston-area upbringing signaled by a pronounced accent (where “Ford” becomes something like “Foehd”), Cummings thanked the Navy leadership for the “great wisdom — or amazing sense of humor — to send a guy with a Boston accent to a ship with three R’s in the title.” “That’s J.J.,” said Matt Schechter ’89, among more than two dozen Bates friends who attended the event. The person they saw at the lectern is the same guy his friends knew back at Bates. “His genuineness and authenticity came through big time.” So there it is: The U.S. has 11 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, and a Bates grad commands one of them. And it’s not just “one of them”: The Ford is the Navy’s newest, the world’s largest, and the first of its class. Cummings began his military career as a Bates student, in the Navy Reserve. Then followed a highly competitive appointment to aviator school.
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After 9/11, he piloted the Navy’s storied F-14 Tomcat in combat missions over Afghanistan. Through the first decade of the 2000s and into the second, Cummings steadily advanced as a Navy leader, and it was clear he was a “hot runner” — Navy parlance for someone advancing quickly along an incredibly competitive pipeline. In 2010, he was selected for Navy Nuclear Power School, where he received advanced training to serve on a U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. To be eligible for “nuke school,” whose curriculum is considered the military’s toughest, Cummings had to dust off — and confront — his 1980s Bates transcript. “I never thought I’d be defending my C-plus from Bates in ‘Electricity, Magnetism, and Waves’ to a three-star admiral,” says Cummings, a Bates physics major. “It was like back home in Sharon, talking about my grades to my parents.” (Grades notwithstanding, he appreciates Bates physics faculty members like Gene Clough and Mark Semon, both now retired, for their tutelage.) The job of commanding an aircraft carrier really is as huge as it sounds: It’s considered “the pinnacle of ‘major command’ for the Navy,” explains John Garofano ’82, professor of strategy and policy and former academic dean at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I. The Ford is literally in a class of its own, the first carrier of a brand-new design. “It has a number of brand-new high-tech systems, from propulsion to aircraft launch and recovery,” Garofano says. At
JONATHAN PANKAU/U.S. NAVY
1,092 feet long, the carrier is longer than all of Alumni Walk, from College Street to Commons. When deployed with its nine aircraft squadrons, the ship will have a crew of 4,550. The Navy may have chosen Cummings, the carrier’s third commander, specifically with his personality and leadership style in mind, Garofano suggests. “The first CO was during construction, the second during shakedowns, and he will be taking it to or close to full operational status,” he said. “This means that he was probably selected not just for basic leadership abilities, but because it was believed that he could handle more than the normal uncertainty and risk of command.” Cummings has thought about his captainness. On or off a ship, inside and outside the Navy, there are good and bad leaders, he knows. “What made me a better leader was watching both,” he says. To Cummings’ way of thinking, good leaders make it “about the team instead about themselves,” he says, while “poor leaders are focused on their next job or promotion rather than thinking about this as their last job.” Cummings sometimes plays a game when he attends change-of-command ceremonies: How many times does the commander say “I” or “me” instead of “we,” “our,” or “us”? “Sometimes the ratio isn’t too good,” he says. Drawing a line between his Bates experience and what he loves about the Navy, Cummings says that a “social focus is such an important part of this job: to engage with people. And Bates is about people. When I was at Bates, it was being with
J.J. Cummings ’89 poses for his official command portrait in July 2018
people that drove me. And in the Navy, when I did not have flying jobs, what I missed was the people, really fantastic young men and women. “I was not a great academic student at Bates, and I regret that. But I don’t regret the relationships I made, and it was an honor to have so many Bates friends come to the ceremony to see what I do.” The most important relationship that J.J. made at Bates was with Sara Hagan ’89; they were married in 1994 and have three children. “I knew a thousand years ago that I wanted to marry her,” he says. “I would not be in the Navy except for her; she can manage the insanity” of Navy family life, with long deployments and frequent moves. When he looks back at his college self, Cummings admits that the motivation to join the Navy “was about me. Now, the feeling is about something greater than me. It’s about others, the greater good, and serving our country.” n
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JOSHUA MURRAY/U.S. NAVY
J.J. Cummings ’89 and Sara Hagan Cummings ’89 (center) gather with Bates friends after the change-of-command ceremony on Aug. 10.
‘AN AMERICAN STORY’ Amy Bass ’92 transcends sport in telling the inspiring story of a Lewiston High School soccer championship by em ily m c c onv i lle When Amy Bass ’92 returned to Lewiston in March to promote her book One Goal, her first stop was a reception at Maine Immigrant and Refugee Services. The organization’s Bartlett Street offices, located across from the Italian Bakery on the periphery of the downtown Tree Streets neighborhood, were bustling. There were sandwiches, sambusa, and conversation, plus signed copies of her book, which tells the story of how the Lewiston boys soccer team, many of whose players were Somali immigrants, won the 2015 state championship. Many of the people who warmly greeted Bass at MIRS figure prominently in the book. Legendary Lewiston High
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School soccer coach Mike McGraw was there, as was former star player Shobow Saban, now putting down family and work roots in Lewiston. Also present was Kim Wetlauffer ’80, well known for his coaching and work with the immigrant Somali community. In a narrow sense, Bass’ One Goal tells an oft-told sports story: An old coach adapts to a new generation of players; in this case, players whose families have emigrated from various African nations, plus players with long Lewiston roots. The coach makes a team out of individuals and, before you can say “Remember the Titans,” they win a state soccer title. But just as Friday Night
Lights was more than a book about high school football in Texas, Bass’ book is more than a soccer story. For anyone who has heard and wondered about Lewiston and the influx of mostly Somali immigrants since early 2002 — and the city tensions that has created over the last 16 years — One Goal explains it, in both a Lewiston and American context. That’s because the story has the right teller. A history professor and director of the honors program at the College of New Rochelle in New York, Bass has written four books exploring the intersection of race, sport, and society. She is a frequent contributor to Salon, Slate, and
CNN, and she won an Emmy Award for her work as an NBC research supervisor during the 2012 Olympics. As a sports and culture maven, Bass latched onto the Blue Devils’ story right away, in November 2015 — their championship victory, she thought, was a striking juxtaposition to American politicians’ anti-immigrant rhetoric following the terrorist attacks in Paris that same month. Three years later, the story “still feels overwhelmingly relevant,” Bass said. Bass spent months after the victory poring over newspaper articles, books, and yearbooks. She learned everything she could about Lewiston and the high school soccer team. She then traveled to Lewiston several times in 2016 and 2017. She talked to McGraw and his coaching staff. She talked to the players and their parents. And she talked to Wettlaufer, former director of Trinity Jubilee
Center, a soup kitchen and community center that served as a kind of hub for the Somali community. She established trust and was invited into homes, classrooms, and locker rooms. Putting to work her skills as a historian, Bass also watched hours of video footage, social media posts, and text messages. Most importantly, she said, she learned “the art of hanging out.” “I had to figure out how to be more patient and not be in such a hurry,” she said. “It was, ‘I’m going to go to the youth recreation track meet in Poland this afternoon and just hang out and see who’s there, and watch the Lewiston little kids run.’ It was hanging out on Lisbon Street and talking to people so if the players said, ‘Hey, where are you?’ I could say, ‘I’m here.’” Bass’s ability to hang out was apparent to Shobow Saban, a central character in the book. Saban, who came to Lewiston from Somalia as a child, is a 2011
Lewiston grad who attended Assumption College. Well known in Lewiston, he now works at MIRS. (He and his bride were on the cover of the Spring 2017 issue of Bates Magazine.) “Coming to me and asking other individuals in the community, she learned a lot of the culture,” he said of Bass. “She learned how soccer evolved in the city of Lewiston. That’s worth sharing with others.” And in telling the story, Bass learned more about her college town than she ever did in college. She also got a refresher course on Bates, which is no stranger to members of the Bass family: Amy’s mother, Ruth Haskins Bass ’55, is an alum, as is her sister Elissa ’85; a niece and nephew are current students. “I hadn’t lived in Lewiston since 1992,” Amy Bass told the Lewiston Sun Journal. “And I have to say, I was a pretty typical college student. And one of the first things I had a hard time
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AMY BASS
Amy Bass ’92 takes a selfie with, from left, Maulid Abdow, Ridwan Ali, and Abdiaziz Shaleh at Lake Andrews before their 2017 graduation from Lewiston High School. The trio were part of the 2015 championship team.
RODNEY BEDSOLE
Amy Bass ’92 has written four books exploring the intersection of race, sport, and society.
getting over is how much more ‘in’ Lewiston Bates is now than it was when I was there. When I am on campus, I am amazed at how much more flow there is between the campus and the city at large.” The result of Bass’ research, interviews, and hanging out is an intricately detailed account of the Blue Devils’ road to the 2015 championship. One Goal traces the influx of French Canadians to Lewiston in the late 1800s all the way to the influx of immigrants from Somalia and other African countries that began in the early 2000s, which provided a much-needed economic boost to an aging city but exposed racial tensions in the town. The children of those immigrant families, many of whom grew up in refugee camps and lived in several countries before coming to Maine, brought with them a love of soccer. They played constantly, and the skills they developed in pickup games at Simard-Payne
“ We talk about the ability to tolerate difference or embrace difference,” Bass said, “but they were capitalizing on difference.” Park, in Somali-led youth leagues, and on the middle school team, made them top picks for the high school team. “We live above the hockey arena,” says Wettlaufer, referring to the Androscoggin Bank Colisée, formerly the Central Maine Youth Center. “For years I’ve watched, even on 30-degree days. If the parking lots are clear, the kids are out there playing soccer.” By 2015, the Blue Devils roster comprised players from six different nations, primarily Somalia. McGraw, their coach, used the players’ strengths and styles — Maulid Abdow’s handspring flip throw-in, Abdi Shariff-Hassan’s preternatural ability to put the ball in the net, Austin Wing’s goalkeeping — to build a top-ranked team. He also got involved in the community and accommodated Somali players’ family and religious obligations, all while insisting that white and Somali players support each other and play together.
“We talk about the ability to tolerate difference or embrace difference,” Bass said, “but they were capitalizing on difference.” There was an undercurrent of hostility and even violence toward the Somali community in Lewiston; the Somali players faced discrimination and racial slurs from classmates and fans of opposing teams. But many in the community rallied around the Blue Devils, and the team, using the rallying cry “pamoja ndugu” — “together brothers” — won the championship game against Scarborough High School. Places in Lewiston such as Simard-Payne Park, Trinity Jubilee Center, and the Italian Bakery are as present in the book as they were for its characters, and moments like the bus ride home from the Blue Devils’ heartbreaking 2014 championship loss and the 2015 pregame pasta dinner at Trinity are written as if Bass had been there. “I’m so grateful for the openness and the trust and the access, because it’s a lot to let
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DARYN SLOVER/ LEWISTON SUN JOURNAL
Championship trophy in hand, Abdi Shariff-Hassan and his Lewiston teammates sprint to their fans in the grandstands after winning the Maine high school soccer title on Nov. 7, 2015, at Portland’s Fitzpatrick Stadium.
CARL D. WALSH/PORTLAND PRESS HERALD VIA GETTY IMAGES
Lewiston soccer players share their championship trophy with fans, family members, and friends after winning the state title in November 2015.
teaches us what we can learn and who we should be,” says Bass. It reminds her of the ancient Olympics, Bass says: The purpose of bringing the city-states together thousands of years ago was not to end war but to suspend it,
to give the Greeks an idea of what life without war was like. “To envision peace is really important,” she says. “If you don’t know what it looks like and what it feels like, how do you know it’s happened?” n
Amy Bass ’92 talks with Shobow Saban, one of the key figures in her book, during a reception last March at the Lewiston offices of Maine Immigrant and Refugee Services. “Coming to me and asking other individuals in the community, she learned a lot of the culture,” said Saban. “That’s worth sharing.”
DARYN SLOVER/SUN JOURNAL
someone in and trust someone with your story,” she said. “The community, across the board, really did that.” And they turned out to see the result: Coaches, players, students, and local residents packed rooms in MIRS, Bates, and the Lewiston Public Library to hear Bass read from the book. “It’s an enormous relief that they have the book, and we can talk about it, and we’re okay with it,” she said of its characters. The 2015 state championship — and the subsequent 2017 championship that Bass wrote into One Goal at the last minute — didn’t solve racism and xenophobia in Lewiston, she acknowledges. But the Somali presence on the high school soccer team became a point of pride for the Somali community and Lewiston as a whole. Bass sees the team as an example of multiculturalism at its best — of capitalizing on the strengths of each culture and each individual player to create a team greater than the sum of its parts, with implications beyond one game. “It’s an American story, and it’s one that I hope
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THEOPHIL SYSLO
b ate s not e s
Who, What, Where, When? Send your Bates news, photos, story ideas, comments, tips, and solutions to magazine@bates.edu.
class president Vesta Starrett Smith vestasmith@charter.net
1948 Reunion 2023, June 9–11
1938 class secretary Marion Welsch Spear mspear1@attglobal.net
1940 class secretary Leonard Clough leonard.clough@yahoo.com
1941 co-presidents Elizabeth Gardner Margaret Rand alpegrand@aol.com
1943 class president Samuel Stoddard sstoddard@gmail.com
1944 Reunion 2019, June 7–9
1945 Reunion 2020, June 12–14 class secretary Carleton Finch cfinch612@gmail.com
class president Vivienne Sikora Gilroy vgilroy@verizon.net
In the Alumni Parade at Reunion, Jean Holden ’48 “felt like the Queen waving to viewers” from her student-driven golf cart. Jean Holden writes, “Thanks to backup support from friends I was able to attend my 70th Reunion alumni parade. Felt like the Queen waving to viewers! Because my friends were hikers who had put Bates-Morse Mountain Conservation Area on their to-do hike list, l got to see this area I had only read/ heard about.” She saw the “great expanse of shoreline from Morse Mountain which makes Mount David look like an alp! But the view is extraordinary. We older alums don’t know the area and can’t appreciate the gem it is. I urge anyone who can get there to take advantage of it.”
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1946 Reunion 2021, June 11–13 class secretary Helen Pratt Clarkson hclarkson1@juno.com class president/treasurer Jane Parsons Norris janenorris@roadrunner.com Jane Parsons Norris is “much interested in Bates and the world with all its changes. My living classmates, including me, are in the mid90s age bracket. I am grateful I can get up, move around, and enjoy life.”
Reunion 2019, June 7–9 class secretary Carol Jenkinson Johnson rollincarol@comcast.net class president Nelson “Bud” Horne budhorne@gmail.com Bud Horne hoped to run a decimarathon last summer – “well, walk most ot the way. So far, only one in my class, so I must finish.” He hopes to live all year in Chautauqua, N.Y., with son David after the house is winterized.
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1947 Reunion 2022, June 10–11
Reunion 2020, June 12–14
class secretary/treasurer Jean Labagh Kiskaddon jean.kiskaddon@gmail.com
class president Wes Bonney wbonney@maine.rr.com
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Wes Bonney and Elaine find their activities more focused on their family of four children, nine grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren. “With spouses and significant others there are now 31 of us.” In May they attended as granddaughter Devon ’12 received two master’s degrees, one in sustainable resource management from Duke and one in business from the Univ. of North Carolina. In August all 31 family members planned to spend a week together in Georgetown, Maine. “Aren’t we lucky?”...Frankie Curry Kerr is dealing with the loss of George over two years ago. “Nothing in life earlier prepared me for this time. Still get lonely, but glad to be living in retirement community with people and activities. Proud that Bates invited Bryan Stevenson to be graduation speaker.”...Ozzie Hammond, in Medway, Mass., with son Ken, appreciates Bates mail. “So much going on at Bates it’s hard to keep up.” He’s in touch with Jane Parsons Norris ’46 and Barbara Galloupe Gagnon.... Barbara LeVine Glaser and Tony, her husband of 68 years, moved to a retirement community in San Diego to be near their daughter and her husband. “I often think of my time at Bates and the friends I had there.” After two years at Bates, she transferred to Syracuse Univ. where she met Tony. She earned a master’s in social work from Bryn Mawr and for 21 years managed the Department of Social Services in Arlington, Va., followed by seven years at the APWA in D.C....Sylvia Stuber Heap and Walker are still in the house they built in 1961. “It is growing older along with us, and, like us, needing lots of ‘repairs.’’’ Walker’s dementia poses many challenges for her, his caregiver. They celebrated 67 years of marriage with a family dinner and looked forward to time with family at the cottage on Southport Island that has been in the family for 118 years. “We might even try to get back to Bates, knowing how very much it too has changed, but relishing the memories of places and people when we were there.”...David Turell “did the Panama Canal by tiny cruise ship, to take care of another bucket list item. Trying for the Great Wall of China next. Meanwhile horse shows as usual.”
1951 Reunion 2021, June 11–13 class secretary Dorothy “Dot” Webb Quimby dwquimby@unity.edu class co-presidents Bill Dill wmrdill@gmail.com Jean McLeod Dill Jim Anderson and Lu moved into a senior living facility in Windsor Locks, Conn....Joe Andrew paints, sails, gardens, and audits courses at Bowdoin.... Writing in The Providence Journal letters section, Will Barbeau of Barrington, R.I., suggested that March 14 could become “National Gun Sense Day.” On that date, thousands of students throughout America walked out of class for 17
minutes to protest the gun-deaths of 17 students in Florida. “They will always remember the futility of today’s gun debate,” Will wrote. “They will never forget the selfish justification of deadly weapons sold as hobby toys....We should support repeating their protests in coming years. March 14 could become National Gun Sense Day.” He and Melissa Meigs Barbeau work together on graphic arts; she is newsletter and yearbook editor for the Barrington Women’s Club and he helps her....Bob and Elsa Buschner Carpenter ’52, happy to be in their home, get out and about and enjoy their four great-grandchildren....Art Darken swims and does modest workouts and maintains an environmental news bulletin board at the college from which he retired.... Bill and Jean McLeod Dill are still delighted with life in Lasell Village in Newton, Mass., where both take courses....Jane Emery Moore’s granddaughter took her to Williamsburg for the Christmas celebrations....Dottie Fryer Hoyt is very much alive even though the Fall 2017 Bates Magazine listed her as the “late” wife of Ralph in his obituary. She is fighting lung cancer. She writes that she is so grateful for her Bates friends and connections....George and Marcia Penniman Hamilton ’50 are still in the house they built over 50 years ago. A part-time carpenter, he has spent a week for 15 years building houses for needy people in Appalachia....Jean Johnson Bird and Phil have had to slow down their travels, but they get out to movies and events at Colby. She’s an active docent at Colby’s art museum....Betty Kinney Faella and Tony traveled to Greece and also attended his submarine veterans’ reunion....Leroy and Ruth Parr Faulkner ’52 have been traveling widely, including their annual trip to Arizona for the USMC birthday party....Karl Koss’ days are full with family, friends, TV politics, sports, and music.... Sadly, Edie Pennucci Mead lost her husband Dave. She talks often with Rob and Jane Wilson and Jan Hayes Sterling....Ralph Perry and Mary Louse enjoy their grandchildren and great-grandchildren and the view of the Atlantic from their home....Rolvin Risska is now 100 percent disabled....Joan Seear had a wonderful “last big trip” on a small ship around Eastern New Guinea Islands, but got a staph infection that nearly killed her – it was six months before she could use her right leg. She now drives an automatic red Jeep Cherokee.... Grace Ulrich Harris became a great-grandmother....Jim and Ginger Buhl Vetrano ’54 are now in a retirement community, independent living with their own cottage, in Kennewick, Wash.... Rob and Jane Seaman Wilson enjoy life in the Southwest, but don’t travel as much. They stay in touch with Edie Mead, Karl Koss, Jan Sterling, and Ruth Whittier Greim....Dot Webb Quimby continues to collect and write the Unity College alumni news. Her five grandchildren and five greatgrands are nearby.
bat e s no t e s
reunion moments
1952 Reunion 2022, June 10–12 class secretary Marilyn Coffin Brown mcbrown13@verizon.net
Jane Bower Farrell lives independently in a retirement community and treasures new friends....Web Brockelman and Jennie Lou enjoy vacation driving trips. He stays in contact with John Duffett, who moved to Auburn, Ala., to be closer to a daughter....Elsa Buschner Carpenter and Bob ’51 enjoy their garden, family visits, and marvel at the growth of their four great-grandchildren....Larch Foxon Miller is still compos mentis, still volunteering at the local homeless shelter.... Sally Haynes Smith reports the sad news of the death of her husband of 67 years, Conrad. Fortunately, her two children live nearby and can be of help....Carol Hollingworth Collins writes that the last few years have been quiet as she no longer has the energy to travel....Two of Fay Johnson Boardman’s sons live near her in York, Maine, and her daughter comes each summer from Colorado....Jim Pirie is coping with the passing of his wife, Lucille Higgins Pirie ’53. He’s in the process of selling his house....John Myers keeps busy attending Canadian Studies conferences, Lincoln and Civil War groups, and ushering at church. He has joined Bob Rice and Jack O’Brien for breakfast in Hyannis a few times....Ruth Parr Faulkner and Lee ’51 had dinner at a London pub once owned by her great-greatuncle....Dotty Pierce Morris and Ron Clayton ’53 do a lot of walking both at home and on the Cape Cod Rail Trail....Austin and Zell Wilcox Rich enjoy a satisfying daily routine that involves the Times crossword puzzle, trying new recipes, and volunteering at their retirement center....Marshall Solomon splits his year between Boca Raton and Swampscott, Mass., plays a lot of golf and bridge, and stays in touch with several classmates, including Dick Bellows and Paul Balise. He would enjoy hearing from others.... Ed Swain and Eleanor made a big move to a continuing care community in Orange City, Fla....Mason Taber and Pat plan to move from their apartment in Westwood, Mass., but are not sure where. He talks often with John Myers....Eleanor Wolfe Watt and Jim are part of the group that gathers each year for lunch at Lynn Carlson Leys’ cottage in Jamestown, R.I....Marilyn Coffin Brown still volunteers at the library and museum.
1953 Reunion 2023, June 9–11 class secretary Ronald Clayton rondot@comcast.net class co-presidents Virginia LaFauci Toner vatoner207@gmail.com Richard F. Coughlin dcoughlin@maine.rr.com
AIMEE LABBE
class president John Myers johnmyers52@comcast.net
Vivienne Sikora Gilroy ’48 enjoys the tasty trappings of the annual Reunion Lobster Bake on June 8.
‘Wiser and Happier’ Lobster and a beer, courtesy of Dining Services, was in order for Vivienne Sikora Gilroy ’48, who came to Reunion 2018 with classmate Jean Holden ’48; celebrating their 70th Reunion, the pair of nonagenarians were this year’s senior alumni attending. “I entered Bates as a young lady and left so much wiser and happier than I’d ever been,” Gilroy says. “I had a lot of core values taught to me by my parents, but there was much left to be continued by Bates, its professors, administrators, and all its people. A Bates experience is truly a treasure.”
Sally Bidwell McBride and Dick moved from a large condo into a smaller unit in the same building overlooking the Charles River. They spend a good part of the year on Marco Island, Fla.... Bruce and Nancy Ramsdell Chandler ’55 moved to an apartment at Huntington Common in Kennebunk. They spend part of the winter in Green Valley, Ariz... Jean Chapman Neely is recovering after a fall and a vertebral fracture....Dick Coughlin says the campus looks great, especially the newer buildings....Olive Emerson Barrett now lives in a nursing home. She is well cared for, has speech problems, but appreciates mail....Joan Fretheim Barlow leads an independent life, with the
help of her cane....Bob Goldsmith keeps busy editing scientific manuscripts from Swedish and German into English. He and Britta, a clinical psychologist, live in Lund, Sweden....Mary Jo Green Merrick and Jack ’52 enjoy life on St. Simons Island, Ga., but have cut back on their activities....Don Holstrom, now in Seattle, thinks it’s a great city for retirement.... Dot Jung Jacobs lives at Riverwoods in Exeter, N.H., where Marge Schumacher Clark ’52 also resides. Dot spends summers on the lakes in Norway, Maine.... Joanne Kennedy Murray and Floyd cruised to the Galapagos.... Ken Liatsos, retired from the world of big business, lives in Naples, Fla., and on Cape Cod....
Nancy Lowd Hanby is blessed with “great health, the ability to travel, and my family and many friends.”...Curt Osborne says he still lives in a house that’s too big and a lawn that’s way too big (and drives around town in a yellow 1973 Mercedes)....Pat Scheuerman Pfeiffer is glad she and Rob moved to the Saratoga (Calif.) Retirement Community: “wonderful companionship and intellectual stimulation.”...Bud Terrile and Ellie still live in New Hampshire but spend the summer on Cape Cod....Toby Thoburn Watkins and Gordon welcomed their first great-grandchild, a boy....Mary Van Volkenburgh Kashmanian and Kash stay busy at Heath Village in Hackettstown, N.J., Fall 2018
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and at church....Ron Clayton and Dotty Pierce Morris ’52 continue to split time between Chelmsford and Cape Cod.
1954 Reunion 2019, June 7–9 class secretary/treasurer Jonas Klein joklein@maine.rr.com class president Dwight Harvie dwightwharvie@gmail.com Judy Angell Keith works part time as a self-employed land surveyor. She recently took up wood carving....Now in assisted living in Vinalhaven, Maine, Ginger Bailey-Olney lost her husband Michael Sylla in 2016. She has been supported by visits from family and friends. Jan Collier Millard stopped by when vacationing on the island....Enjoying her Southern California hammock, sunshine, and abundance of fresh produce, Maggie Boyes McGall misses being closer to the rest of her family....Ginger Buhl Vetrano represented her Kennewick, Wash., senior community for an awards ceremony in Nashville....Leaving New York for a retirement community in Washington state, Rouben Cholakian now lives close to his daughter....Still in her Lewiston family home, Leona Davis Hendricks recently lost her husband William Hendricks ’51. Her four daughters, 10 grandchildren, and nine great-grandchildren provide loving support....Still working four days a week, Jane D’Espinosa found time to enjoy nieces and nephews at a Cape Cod family cottage....From Williamstown, Mass., Bob and Pat Tobey Greenberg ’57 write that all family members are well....A new pacemaker may have prevented Tom Halliday from playing squash, but not from either golf or his enjoyment in the water as much as possible....Now in Portland, Dwight Harvie is “a 10-minute walk from where I was born and grew up.” He lives close to daughter Lisa Harvie McIlwain ’83....Bill and Carolann McKesson Laird, in Tennessee, moved to assisted living to have better medical care. “We still have each other, and (are) still having fun.”...In Kennebunk, Angela and Art LeBlanc now live in a condo that works very well for them....Joan Staib Mueller and John celebrated 62 years of marriage. Although retired, Joan has renewed her real estate broker’s license, rejoining both daughters in that practice....Epsey and Don Weatherbee continue “to search for cold, wet, and remote places.” He’s finishing a new book on Southeast Asia....Tom Whitney avoids the Northwest winter by spending a lot of time cruising.... Lynn Willsey returned to Bates for the graduation of grandson Daniel Willsey ’18. “Also enjoying the festivities were three of our four sons plus two more grandsons who are respectively a sophomore and a freshman.
The icing on this cake is that Glenn and Lois Johnson Carson were there to celebrate both a graduation of a granddaughter and a daughter who graduated with one of our sons. How about that?!”
1955 Reunion 2020, June 12–14 class president Beverly Hayne Willsey stonepost@cox.net class vice-President Merton Ricker mertr33@gmail.com
Silver Moore-Leamon ’55 is pleased Bates has helped provide bystander intervention training to the Lewiston-Auburn community. “I’ve come to really value responsible people, don’t you all?” Silver Moore-Leamon “had the enormous pleasure of seeing my grandson, Nate Stephenson ’18, graduate, and to hear Bryan Stevenson deliver a marvelous address.” She’s pleased that Bates has helped provide Green Dot Bystander Intervention training to the Lewiston-Auburn community, a program teaching bystanders skills to help them intervene safely when they see someone is being threatened, harassed, or otherwise harmed. “I’m impressed by the good sense of this approach, since far more of us may observe a situation of power-based-personal-violencein-the-making than will be either the person doing the hurtful behavior or the person being hurt. I’ve come to really value responsible people, don’t you all?”
1956 Reunion 2021, June 11–13 class secretary Frederic “Fred” Huber fredna56@comcast.net class co-presidents Alice Brooke Gollnick agollnick725@gmail.com Gail Molander Goddard acgpension@tds.net Wej Baker Malcolm writes that it’s tough to lose several classmates recently. “Things are the same with me. I visit Dave in nursing daily and continue with other activities. Looking forward to son Ben (’88) and wife coming from South Korea.”... Arthur Curtis says 12 years ago he might have been the first class member to move to a life care community, and now he may soon be the first to voluntarily stop driving. “This has been my goal since taking away the car keys of a relative: stop driving at 85. In preparation I’m down to one board commitment where I have no commuter issues.” He still has free van service at Overlook, his
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LCC, for shopping and medical appointments. “The good news is I’m still as healthy as I can be at this age with limited issues.”... Dinny Felt Swett writes, “Family and friends continue to be what make life special. A houseful of 17 at Long Beach Island, three generations, made for fun in the sun in July. Am planning a trip to Colorado to visit relatives in Breckenridge. Despite news of more crowded seating and smaller bathrooms I plan to continue to travel!” She adds that Gracie Graham Bacon would like to know any news about Dottie Chase after she left Bates.... Waner and Dee Hirst Holman “are active, but resting more often. We are happy we are here in New York close to our youngest son, Kyle, and family.” Their activities include bridge, book discussion, tai chi, choir, bocce, gardening, and live entertainment....Peter Kadetsky, semi-retired after a career in broadcast sales and management, is moving from Nashville to Brookline, Mass. His wife, Ann Stark, is a neonatologist at Vanderbilt. He has three daughters, a son, and two grandchildren. “Health is good and life is rewarding.”...Loe Anne Kimball Pino spent a lot of time preparing her Rhode Island house for sale. “The bright side is we have had a rolling family party since we got to RI,” incuding a five-day lobster fest at the family cottages in Maine. “We are still putting one foot in front of the other albeit much more slowly.”...Alison Mann Etherton and Bud love taking trips around Vermont. They’re busy with book and discussion groups, piano lessons for her, and pingpong for Bud. “Listening to Terry Gross’ interviews on the public radio program ‘Fresh Air’ always enriches our day.”...Bob McAfee writes, “The death of Bud Elston this year allows me to reflect on our freshman year at Bates. There were five of us who had gone through school together in Portland and graduated from Deering High in 1952. Arnie Fickett, Bud, and I roomed together at JB for a year. Arky Pearson, whose military funeral I attended years ago, and Priscilla Shaw, our distaff classmate, the classiest of us all, completed the five. We all went our separate ways after Bates – but we really didn’t. Awaiting the newsletter every year brought us together for a brief moment. Those lasting friendships add to the Bates experience, for us, but I suspect for many others.”...Nancy Mills Mallett and Russ remain happy in their New Jersey retirement community. They have three grandchildren in high school; the other 10 are in college or working. “Russ and I move slowly and forget easily but so do many of our friends so we are in good company. I am a deacon again in our Presbyterian church and on a resident committee where we live.”...Gail Molander Goddard still enjoys her condo and loves being able to walk to the grocery store, post office, and doctor’s office. “From October to May I have a membership at the Colby-
Sawyer College workout center which enables me to exercise in spite of the weather. My motto continues to be to live each day to the fullest. I am looking forward to a church-sponsored trip to Israel and Jordan in November.”... Catherine Parker and Manon now live in Coppell, Texas, near Dallas. “My pangs about leaving Denver after almost 60 years and this same house I’ve been in for 45, are somewhat offset by a great house we found – a ranch (with no stairs!). Hopefully being at sea level will do away with the need of an oxygen tank. Whoever thought this Yankee would become a Texan!”...Jean Penney Fickett enjoys living in the Forum, a retirement community in Cupertino, Calif., and is quite active. She planned trips to Hawaii, Boston, and New Zealand. She had a good talk with Alice Brooke Gollnick.... Mary Lee Rogers Barnard underwent chemotherapy for non-Hodgkins lymphoma, which is curable and “almost gone.” She and Ken are happy residents of Granite Hill Estates in Augusta and grateful to be close to their three children and families, “who are a big help especially during this bump in the road.”...Sylvia Small Spradlin’s genealogy project proved she’s a descendant of Wm Brewster of the Mayflower. She and Lou spend a few months in Scotia, N.Y., near their daughter, and are residents of New Smyrna Beach, Fla., near their son, with grandchildren in both locations.... On Peaks Island, Gene Taylor does housework, crossword puzzles, and reads a lot. Kay Dill Taylor ’58 is busy with social, civic and church activities. “We both lament the world we are leaving to the following generations.” Besides family visiting the island, Kay’s two daughters and a granddaughter live there year-round and Kay’s other offspring, Juan, just bought the house next door.
1957 Reunion 2022, June 10–12 email coordinator Douglas Campbell dougcamp@comcast.net co-secretaries Wilma Gero Clapham claphamwilma@bell.net Margaret Leask Olney pegolney@verizon.net co-presidents Judith Kent Patkin actionpsj@aol.com Richard H. Pierce rhpierce52@gmail.com Retired physician George Gardiner and Rita, who have three children and five grandchildren, now live in a continuing care retirement community in Maryland. He has more time to spend on photography....Wilma Gero Clapham still enjoys life in Ottawa and trips to Billerica, Mass., to visit Doug Campbell and see the Dedham lunch group. Reconnecting with Bates friends is very special to her. Of course, Bates friends are always welcome
in Ottawa. She’s still very active in the Canadian Federation of University Women. “In June we had our first electronic AGM; it was an exciting and exhilarating experience.”...In Potomac, Md., Nan Henson Hey has enjoyed genealogy classes at the Family History Center at the Mormon temple. “Technology has improved so much in 20 years that it is amazing what you can access in terms of your heritage. Now I am weeding out our slides; eventually I will have photos instead. It is quite a process and I would love to hear tips from anyone who has been through it.” Bob enjoys spending time with family and sticking close to home....Judy Kent Patkin works three days a week and travels to Ukraine once a year to check on the Action for Post-Soviet Jewry program, which is feeding around 1,500 Jewish pensioners and shipping clothing and shoes to over a dozen communities. “Ukraine’s economy hasn’t recovered from Putin’s invasion of eastern Ukraine so lots of people are hurting.”...Following a hip replacement and a fractured femur, Judy Larkin Sherman is “finally able to get around reasonably well and able to tackle our very weedy yard and enjoy OTB – other people’s boats. Our state and national news leaves us dismayed that we have come to this point – refreshing to read Bates news and remember our years there!”...Helen Milam Staveley and Mike have lived near Seattle for 22 years and love it, grey skies notwithstanding. She teaches dance classes, and he enjoys playing pool. “I think often of Bates and the friends I made there with gratitude for the education I received as well as the feeling of family there.”...Dick Pierce keeps busy watching grandchildren play field and ice hockey, softball, and lacrosse. “The monthly lunches in Dedham, Mass., with ’57ers are always fun. Come join us!”...In Tinmouth, Vt., Grant Reynolds spends a lot of time on Mill River School Board activities, and trying to keep track of the maneuvering in the Vermont Statehouse over education financing. He’s also on the Tinmouth Planning Commission. As chair of the town’s Old Creamery Committee, he’s leading the restoration of the building. His Short History of Tinmouth, Vt., was written primarily for grades 4–6 at Tinmouth School. “I put a few copies on sale at the town office and the Tinmouth Snack Bar, and have sold over 100! It has maps or pictures on just about every page, so it’s pretty easy reading. I am finishing my sixth and probably last historical novel about the English-Scots border in the 16th century.” He reports Jo Trogler Reynolds ’58 has recovered very well from open heart surgery.... Charlie Sanborn says life in Canterbury, N.H., continues to be fulfilling. He serves on the boards of The Derryfield School and Canterbury Historical Society, sings in the Canterbury Singers and his church choir, and hosts
international visitors through the World Affairs Council of NH.... Bob Williams, in Jupiter, Fla., had a bad fall, surgery, and rehab. He’s now back in Braintree, Mass.
1958 Reunion 2023, June 9–11 class secretary Marilyn Miller Gildea marilyn@gildea.com class president Peter Post ppost74@gmail.com 60th Reunion report: The 15 classmates and their spouses who attended our 60th Reunion had a wonderful time, but we missed all our classmates who couldn’t make it, especially those who had made a reservation and then had to cancel. The attendees were Lori and Lyn Beer, Charles and Laurie Dings, Marilyn Miller Gildea, Paul and Joy Hoffman, Kay Johnson Howells, Colleen Jenkins Huckabee, Dottie Hutch, Art and Gail Baumann Karszes, Tom and Darothie King, Jo Trogler Reynolds and Grant Reynolds ’57, Sheldon and Carol Sullaway, Kay Dill Taylor, and Tom and Carole Carbone Vail....A real bonus was having Peter and Jane Anderson Post’s newly graduated grandson, Tyler Post ’18, as our group’s dorm assistant and golf-cart chauffeur. Tyler cheerfully fulfilled our every request, and even loaned Jo his phone so she could call Peter during our class dinner to persuade him to be our new class president....Cook and Marjorie Koppen Anderson continue to enjoy living at the Taylor Community in Laconia, N.H....Lori Beer, in Vienna, Va., wrote, “After my whole life of skiing, I finally quit at 79 with Lyn’s suggestion that if I get hurt at this age, it will be forever. Still building model airplanes, boats and cars, and probably will never get over this ‘childest’ hobby. Balsa wood and I are intertwined. Hope you all are enjoying life as much as Lyn and I do.”...Kay Dill Taylor is more than pleased her son and family have bought the house next door to them on Peaks Island. And delighted to be able to resume swimming and kayaking on Wilson Pond....Bill Dillon replaced their 30-foot sloop with a 28-foot power boat, which is of greater interest to grandsons who are wild about fishing. But they do miss sailing....Charlie Dings and Laurie again hosted a mini-reunion with Hal ’59 and Sue Brown Springstead ’60, Dan Spink and Barbara Quinn, Shel and Carol Sullaway, and Don Blanchard ’59....Carol Gibson Smith winters in the Tampa area and welcomes visitors....Myra Guild moved to Ogden, Utah.... Ken Harris is enjoying civilian life since retiring from the Slippery Rock, Pa., borough council after 16 years of service....Paul Hoffman still writes poetry, due to his old professor-friend John Tagliabue, and has become a portrait painter. He also leads the Skokie (Ill.) Great Decisions Discussion Group and sings in a church choir. Wife Joy is
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a renowned harp and konghou teacher and performer, which enables them to travel to China.... Dottie Hutch is a part-time minister at Piedmont (Calif.) Community Church. She keeps in touch with Ron ’59 and Cynthia Horton Cooke, and enjoyed visits with old and new friends at Reunion. “Most people, I think, assume you go to Reunion to recall old times with old friends. I thoroughly enjoyed that aspect, but I also had some good conversations with several classmates I hadn’t known in the ’50s. Reunions are not all about the past,” Dottie said....Norman Jason is pleased with his decision to move to Crystal River, Fla....Kay Howells followed up Reunion with lunch at Marilyn Gildea’s home in California in July. Kay is very active in her P.E.O. chapters in Salt Lake City and Hawaii, and the annual Holladay Interfaith Service, a time of thanksgiving....Coe Huckabee is still coasting on good feelings and connections from Reunion, and lucky enough to return to Maine for the month of August....Alan Kaplan and Nancy enjoy life in a retirement home in Rockville, Md....Art and Gail Baumann Karszes brought a vintage pennant to Reunion. Gail’s photo album will go to the Bates archives....Joan Kennard Michel sometimes joins Romaine Kolesnikoff Abraham at monthly luncheons with Bates friends in Dedham, Mass....Tom King gave Shel Sullaway a book of his sonnets as a consolation prize after their traditional tennis game at Reunion....Jim and Betsey Gray Kirsch keep in touch with Marty Boardman Swift, Gail Larocque Schroder, John and Pat Lysaght Fresina, and Pete and Jane Anderson Post....Marilyn Miller Gildea recommends Walter Isaacson’s Leonardo da Vinci, a Cultch course in one volume....Patricia “Mackie” Miner Munsie values her Bates education and shares her opinions with her elected representatives in Arizona....Peter and Jane Anderson Post enjoyed seeing grandson Tyler Post ’18 graduate in May....Peter Ryers took his family to the ancestral home in Germany to lay Stolpersteine (memorial stones) for his murdered Holocaust paternal grandparents. “The trip was emotional, important to me and my family, and quite positive. Despite the myriad problems of its past, present, and future, Germany now appears to be the moral leader of the world.”...Ann Shultz Keim does volunteer work with several nonprofits and, with Charles, maintains their “gentleman’s farm.”... Wendell Small finished chemo. He also recommends Leonardo da Vinci....Barb Stetson Munkres still enjoys introducing immigrant children from Lowell, Mass., to nature’s wonders at Assabet National Wildlife Refuge. Barb and Jim are on the waiting list of a fine retirement community nearby and already take advantage of its trips and programs. Meanwhile, they pray for a return to science-based and humanitarian wisdom in our national leadership....Shel Sullaway and Carol enjoyed the Reunion’s activities, food, accommodations, perfect weather, and his classmates.
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After losing in tennis with partner Paul Hoffman to Tom King and his wife, Shel is studying the game films and will be ready for the next match in five years....Jo Trogler Reynolds rings handbells and helps with the town gardens and monthly newsletter in Tinmouth, Vt....Jim Wheeler finished his time on the town council but is still living on the Great Sacandaga Lake in Broadalbin, N.Y....Nancy Wickens Taylor enjoyed another summer visit to Monhegan Island with her family.... Bruce Young works with retirees who communicate with Republican congressmen on health insurance, voting rights, climate-change, and environmental matters.
1959 Reunion 2019, June 7–9 class co-secretaries Jack DeGange jack.degange@comcast.net Mary Ann Houston Hermance donmar23@gmail.com class co-presidents Barbara Van Duzer Babin barbarababin@comcast.net Christian O. Miller milleridge@sbcglobal.net Reggie Abbiati Lucas’ many activities include being chair of her condominium association. “I am reminded again and again of the value of Professor Quimby’s debating techniques. Evidence, evidence, evidence!”... Mary-Ellen Crook Gartner ’60 and Pete downsized to a condo in Newry. They remain active in Bethel’s Western Mountains Senior College....As a docent at the Worcester (Mass.) Art Museum, Vicky Daniels Aberhart often presents a program on “Whistler and His Women.” “Doing the research has been fascinating, and it seems to be ongoing. Just one of those attempts to keep brain cells functioning!”...Ross Deacon had a great day of golf with Ralph Posner and Bill Heidel at Ralph’s home course. “Shot my age for the 111th time; golf continues to be a joy. Five months in Wells and seven in Melbourne, Fla., is great fun.”...Fred Drayton is coping with the loss of his wife, Augusta, in 2016 after 53 years of marriage. He has joined his son Arnold and family in south Georgia....Mary Ann Houston Hermance had successful surgery for breast cancer followed by radiation and is doing very well. She enjoyed the trip of a lifetime to Europe with daughter Sue....Jack Keigwin looks forward to the 60th Reunion....Barb Smith McIntosh and Ken are thankful for good health and great family and friends....Chris Miller is busy with volunteer activities in Ridgefield, Conn., belongs to two Exchange Clubs, is in his 24th year as secretary of the Danbury Westerners in the New England Collegiate Baseball League. “I thought I was retired!”...Ronnie Scudder Harrold had a busy spring with Ray’s knee replacement surgery and recuperation. “He came home to his 80-year-old nurse – me! All went well. The grandkids are 5 to almost 17, and keep us young
and busy, as three are local.”...Jay Tanzer had a fairly big role in his Tufts dental class’ 55th reunion. He and Lois plan to be at the 60th at Bates....Cal Wilson published a novel, A Box of Crosses (Wipf and Stock), about a Scottish Presbyterian minister in Albany, N.Y., and the dilemmas he faces. Cal lives in Pittsburgh where he serves as Presbyterian Minister-in-Residence at First Lutheran Church.
1960 Reunion 2020, June 12–14 class secretary Louise Hjelm Davidson l.davidson@sbcglobal.net class president Dean Skelley dskelley@satx.rr.com
After visiting Bates for the first time in 23 years, Dave Nelson ’60 recommends “lunch at the Bobcat Den, which serves the best fish chowder I ever tasted.” Chris Bird spent two weeks hiking in Iceland. “I had been there in 1972 and saw lots of changes. I never would have predicted that at age 80 I would still be enjoying this type of activity.”... Jane Braman Allen and Bob split time between Venice, Fla., and Cape Cod. He sings in the Venice Chorale and takes classes at the Venice Art Center in clay sculpture. She attended writing classes and did a fair amount of memoir writing about her family but is now taking lessons in digital photography from sister Barbara ’78, an excellent digital artist. They planned a trip to Italy with sister Marty ’67. They see Bates friends Dave Clarkson and Bruce Jensen in Florida, Laurie Trudel Raccagni and Tore ’55 on the Cape, and the women’s luncheon group....Dianne Curtis Simpson still plays tennis, volunteers at church. and sings in the choir. Ray has not been well, but the kids have helped out a lot. “My sister Jane came and stayed with Ray so I could go to Indiana U for my grandson’s recital for his music degree. It was very exciting and I was so proud.”...Rob Davidson works a half day a week on his son-in-law’s farm in Westhampton, Mass. “Reading, writing, playing the dulcimer, and singing in a chorus occupy much of my time, as well as the never-ending tasks involved with keeping up a house.”... George Deuillet works out, takes care of his rental properties, and is the ruling elder at his Presbyterian church for the third time. “Most importantly spending enjoyable time with my beloved wife Liz, three sons, their wives, and six grandchildren.”...Dave Graham was chosen as Co-Citizen of the Year for 2017 by the Skaneateles
(N.Y.) Chamber of Commerce Foundation. He has served on committees for his church, library, town zoning and planning boards, the Skaneateles Festival, coached, refereed, was a Scoutmaster, “and grew a garden big enough to share with friends, neighbors, and the Presbyterian manor,” his citation said....Louise Hjelm Davidson is busy with Presbyterian Women, knitting, gardening, and reading. She and Alan enjoy visits with children and their families....Stephen Hotchkiss still teaches macro and microeconomics and finance, “with business ethics and emotionally intelligent leadership thrown in.” He and Sally enjoy their eight grandchildren, who turn Sally into one very joyous woman. He became president of Quire Cleveland, an exceptional a cappella choral ensemble....Having retired from teaching in 2010, Bill Mees “spent a year doing some traveling but was really somewhat bored, so I grabbed an opportunity to teach at the Groton (Mass.) School where I have spent seven more years in the classroom. Last June, after 57 years of classroom antics and instruction, I retired permanently. There are no plans, although a bit of travel may be in the offing.”... Dave Nelson returned to Bates for the first time in 23 years to survey the campus and the collection of leisure reading magazines at the Ladd Library. He was impressed with the intelligent design of the campus, especially the new buildings surrounding Prexy’s Puddle. “If you plan to visit Bates, don’t pass up the opportunity to eat lunch at the Bobcat Den, which serves the best fish chowder I ever tasted.”...Gail Richards Dow continues to celebrate living just three miles from campus. She swims in the pool three times a week and gets together with Ruth Leahey and Ruth Slovenski. Last year she had a mini-reunion with Judie Demarco and Janet Baker, and keeps in touch with Martha Brown O’Connell....Sarah Rubin Blanshei edited two books: A Companion to Medieval and Renaissance Bologna (Brill, 2018), and Violence and Justice in Bologna: 1250–1700 (Lexington Books, 2018). She also co-wrote or wrote an essay for each volume and gave an invited lecture in Bologna in 2017 at the presentation of the Italian translation of her 2010 volume on Bolognese history. In March, she and her husband moved into Kingsbridge, an independent senior retirement center in Atlanta....Pete Skelley now directs four labs, two in the Houston area, one in Austin, and one in San Antonio. “I am still active in the local watercolor class, not that I have any talent, but it’s a diversion, if not distraction.”... Nancy Stewart Kipperman loves living in Tennessee. She spent a month in NH visiting family and friends. “Think we have the best of both worlds!”...Jerry Zaltman splits time between Maine and Florida. He recently published a book, Unlocked: Keys to Improve Your Thinking. He keeps busy swimming, biking, and with his company Olson Zaltman Associates.
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1961 Reunion 2021, June 11–13 class secretary Gretchen Shorter Davis norxloon@aol.com
Doug Ayer teaches in VMI’s International Studies Department, though now only one course per semester. “Continue to regale impressionable youth with ‘war stories’ from my Foreign Service career. After 20 years as a widower, am now engaged.” He and fiancée Judy have been traveling and spent some time with his daughters.... Sally Benson was interviewed at the Vietnam Women’s Museum when she went there for meetings and 50th anniversary commemorations. She, Carol Smith ’62, and Sally Marshall Corngold ’62, old Boston roommates and co-travelers, had a California beach reunion with their children and grandchildren....Alan Cate enjoyed three wonderful weeks in France, “thanks in part to the happy, helpful, and engaging French people and talking with other international travelers. It was very relaxing being away from the fractious U.S. news.”... Carl and Mary Morton Cowan had two grandsons graduate from college in May. Carl still sings in their church choir. Mary’s latest biography, Cyrus Field’s Big Dream: The Daring Effort to Lay the First Transatlantic Telegraph Cable, is just out from Calkins Creek. She appreciates all the help she received from the reference librarians at Bates. “They’re fabulous!”...Dick Larson traveled to Greece and the Aegean islands. “Still kayaking, with alligators, along Florida’s west coast creeks.”...Charles Robins is now officially retired from his law firm but continues to serve a handful of long-term clients and sit on a few company boards. He and his wife sold their house in Wellesley, Mass., and live permanently in their Delray Beach, Fla., house.... Christine Ross King and Dave continue to enjoy their 2017 move to Lititz, Pa., returning to the Lancaster area after 20 wonderful years of retirement on Cape Cod. They are now closer to family. They still spend much of the summer in East Brookfield, Mass., at the family home on Lake Lashaway....Jack Simmons writes, “The current political situation has caused us to become more active in support of the right of women to choose, the rights of all gender identities, and the rights of all immigrants. These concerns have added zest to our retirement years.”...Rachel Smith Young and Joel ’62 continue to alternate time in NH and trips elsewhere, such as Texas to visit Vera Jensen Bond and a Road Scholar trip from San Antonio to Austin with Paul and Freda Shepherd Maier....Dick Van Bree works
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class co-presidents Mary Morton Cowan mmcowan@gwi.net Richard “Dick” Watkins rwatkcapt@aol.com
From left, Elizabeth Metz McNab ’64, Dave McNab ’62, Doug McNab ’18, Allan McNab ’88, Sidney McLean McNab ’88, and Mary Lou Shaw McLean ’59.
Going Fourth Doug McNab ’18 poses with Bates relatives on the Historic Quad prior to Baccalaureate, the day before Commencement on May 27. He’s holding portraits of two relatives who began the family’s four-generation Bates streak: paternal great-grandfather, Bill Metz ’37, and maternal great-grandmother, Marcia Wallingford Shaw ’23. In the photo, he was joined by his paternal grandmother, Elizabeth Metz McNab ’64; paternal grandfather Dave McNab ’62; father Allan McNab ’88; mother Sidney McLean McNab ’88; and maternal grandmother Mary Lou Shaw McLean ’59. Doug is the family’s oldest grandson. “Needless to say, we are rather pleased to see the fourth generation in the Metz line graduate from Bates,” said Liz. “At Bates, times have changed and yet are the same.”
part time at Imatrex on the design and building of the new generation of CT scanners and therapy devices. He and Gisela tour the many national parks in Utah.... Judi Williams Gordon and her companion Jerry spent the winter in Stuart, Fla., and had the good fortune to see Rachel Smith Young and Joel ’62 there.
1962 Reunion 2022, June 10–12 class secretary Cynthia Kalber Nordstrom cindyknordstrom@gmail.com class president Edmund J. Wilson ed-wilson@kellogg.northwestern. edu Sara Ault Fasciano’s travels are mostly to Maine to visit siblings. “Of course, I stop in at Bates to check on my three grandchildren.
They all are doing so well, and are apparently much better students than I was!”...Bicky Bickford Worden and Kim looked forward to exploring the Mediterranean, returning to several places visited 58 years ago with the Zerby Tour (Florence, Rome, and Venice) while checking in on other ports as well. They enjoyed a visit with Marian Drew Leibfried and Ray Leibfried ’60.... Ann Bowman Scholl and Stan, in Wisconsin, continue to work at Vernon Area Rehabilitation Center, he as a bus driver and she as a jobs coach....Tony Cherot had a knee replaced but hoped to get back to tennis. “I miss the social competitive environment of a group of guys. Getting used to a slower pace is daunting.”... Jean Cushman Holt and Bill ’63 love their new, net-zero solar home. “The radiant heat is steady and comfortable.”...Scotti Doscher Payne enjoyed a won-
derful family trip to Yellowstone and Grand Tetons. “I enjoyed my first whitewater rafting excursion but hiking at 8,000 feet was a struggle!”...Hannelore Flessa Jarausch retired from directing the French Language Program at the Univ. of North Carolina Chapel Hill. “I will miss the contact with the students at all levels, but not grading papers!”...Rae Harper Garcelon is very involved with the senior college in Portland and joined its advisory board. “I just finished a course on chemistry – never took it in high school or college. I also learned to play chess. Perhaps I can challenge my grandson to a game!”...Ken Holden and Jane have been singing in their church choir for many years and are both active in many church aspects....Art Jenks and Barbara celebrated their 40th anniversary by “1. staying up past 9 p.m.; 2. drinking straight shots of Geritol;
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and 3. watching reruns of the Lawrence Welk Show.”...Wanda Jones Corn was surprised and delighted to receive an honorary degree from Bates in 2017. “After all these years, I finally got a Bates degree! The award ceremony was a part of graduation and Joe (’60) and I thoroughly enjoyed the beautiful day.”...Cindy Kalber Nordstrom had TAVR (Trans-catheter Aortic Valve Replacement) surgery. “I now feel like a new person! The procedure itself is fascinating but FDA controls allow it for just a small population.”...Emily Leadbetter Althausen and Alex are moving to Reno, Nev., to be near son Peter and family....Nick Maistrellis and Judy, in Annapolis, Md., are pleased daughter Emily ’08 has moved to NYC, bringing her much closer to them....Dave and Liz Metz McNab ’64 watched Doug ’18, their eldest grandson, graduate last May. “Needless to say we are rather pleased to see the fourth generation in the Metz line graduate from Bates.”... Cindy Merritt Fischer enjoyed a visit from Sara Ault Fasciano and Martha Lindholm Lentz ’64. Cindy has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s. “I try to stay active with an exercise class and with sharing about the experience in a local support group.”...Lorrie Otto Gloede was a delegate to the Delaware state GOP convention for the fourth year. She’s a Delaware contact for Pubius Huldah, a U.S. Constitution expert. “I’ve learned so much from her and others as we’ve opposed the Convention of States application bills to Congress. There are many groups educating state legislators on possible outcomes if this happens. So far in 2018, our record is 19-0.”...Pete Schuyler and Sonja have been teaching English to two Bhutanese refugees for the last few years. They helped them pass their citizenship tests and become citizens....Rob Scofield and Jane, who have been traveling widely, celebrated their 25th anniversary....Joy Scott Meyer and Allan enjoy retirement, read the latest books, attend school programs and plays their grands are involved in....Coralie Shaw got together with Merimander friend Mary Morton Cowan ’61 and Carl ’61, and enjoyed outings with roommate Karlene Belcher Smith and Fred Smith and Ricky Hanloser Kliem....Carol Smith spent a week in Newport Beach, Calif., with Sally Marshall Corngold. “My daughter, Kira, and her son Josh married in 2005 and so we share two grandchildren. Their family was there along with Sally Benson ’61 and husband Steve, their daughter Lauren ’00, and her family. Lauren and her husband, Nick ’01, are also Bates graduates, so there were five Batesies there.”...Sandy Smith Boynton continues teaching international women at MIT and traveling with her husband, most recently to Jamaica....Ken Snow received a Bates’ Best award last summer for “what he has accomplished for Bates and how he has gone about it,” his citation reads.
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“For nearly 30 years, Ken has been a class agent or lead class agent for the Class of 1962. In recognition for his service to the college, including 17 years as a career adviser for the BCDC, three years on the Alumni Council, and a year as recording secretary of the College Key, Bates wisely honored him with the Alumni Community Service Award. In the midst of all that, Ken also found time – 17 years to be exact – to serve the Office of Admission as an alumni interviewer. For helping encourage the best and brightest high school students to choose Bates, he received the college’s Alumni in Admission Award. Just as important is how Ken has conducted his service to Bates. The many alumni who nominated him said he leads with a genuine spirit that reflects a love of the college and Bates alumni. He cares deeply about everyone and takes a thoughtful approach to his outreach to classmates. He is a joy to work alongside, dedicated to the success of his class, and maintains a positive, grateful demeanor throughout any project.”...Allan Wulff and Ginger live in Reston, Va., and enjoy Washington’s many cultural amenities. He’s a longtime Realtor who focuses on Reston lake properties.... In Hilton Head Island, S.C., Linda Zeilstra Kellom’s favorite, most time-consuming volunteerism is being on the grants committee for a local nonprofit that awarded over $450,000 in one year.
1963 Reunion 2023, June 9–11 class secretary Natalie Shober Moir nataliemoir@netflash.net class president Bill Holt wholt@maine.rr.com Dick Love attended Reunion. “We didn’t sing the alma mater. I understand (and confirmed) that the current students don’t even know it. Part of Bates’ strength is its tradition. What’s happening?”... Marion Schanz Ratcliff and Jim enjoy the Sun City lifestyle in Georgetown, Texas. They volunteer at church, take Senior University courses, and travel. They have six grandchildren and a great-grandson....C.J. Snow and daughter Andrea ’90 are a team in Barrett Sotheby’s International Realty in Lexington, Mass. “We enjoy working together serving the Greater Boston area.” Andrea’s daughter Caroline Carreras ’19 loves Bates and singing with the Crosstones, C.J. reports. Daughter Rachel ’93 and her family live in Connecticut....George and Dottie Selden Stone received Bates’ Best awards at Reunion. Described by classmates as the “heart and soul of Reunion planning,” they have “taken the initiative to send communications to classmates, and also educated your peers about retirement tax laws and the opportunities they present for giving to Bates,” their citation reads. “For Great Day to be a Bobcat you and another
classmate put forth a match which you generously opened to all classes of the 1960s, helping to boost participation and fundraising for this important decade. George, you also stepped into the co-chair role for your 55th Reunion, and have been a thoughtful, reliable leader for your class. You are both beloved by your peers and it is evident to all of us that many of them have stepped up for Bates because of the two of you.”...Arlene Wignall Nickerson enjoys living at The Highlands retirement community in Topsham and staying connected to longtime friends and family. She’s on the steering committee of the Assn. of Bowdoin Friends.
1964 Reunion 2019, June 7–9 class secretary-treasurer John Meyn jemkpmeyn@aol.com class president Gretchen Ziegler gretchenz958@gmail.com Becky Beckwith Walsh really likes both her “official” residence on Bainbridge Island, Wash., and her second home in Bloomington, Ind., where she will be until her granddaughter goes off to college....Bill Braman and Ellen moved to Bath “and have fallen in love with our little city.” They bought a circa 1850 home near the Patten Free Library, easy walking distance to the city and access to Merrymeeting Bay, Popham Beach, and excellent kayaking.
1965 Reunion 2020, June 12–14 class secretary Evelyn “Evie” Horton ehhorton@me.com class president Joyce Mantyla tiojack@aol.com Emily Blowen Brown and roommate Evelyn Breck Morgen met for lunch last July near Worcester, Mass. “It was amazing to reconnect after so many years. Evelyn had been part of my wedding 52 years ago. And you know what? We haven’t changed a bit!”...Cindy Bagster-Collins Powers keeps busy as an elected assessor in her hometown as well as taking care of the town gardens. She travels a lot and enjoys her five grandchildren.... Newt and Pat Lord Clark ’67 sold their beloved 1850 home in West Hartford and moved to Thornton Oaks in Brunswick.... Bruce Cooper sang his way through Italy with his group, the Pittsburgh Concert Chorale. He’s heavily involved with Citizens’ Climate Lobby, which is pushing legislation that would place an escalating fee on carbon emissions, collect the money, and distribute it evenly as a monthly dividend check. “Most folks would come out ahead.”...Peter d’Errico is working on a book-length manuscript about “federal Indian law,” his field for 50 years. He’s still a
member of town government.... Bill Goodlatte retired and he and Linda moved to Vermont to be near kids Elizabeth and Suzanne ’04 and three grandkids. “On the Fourth of July, I joined the Vermont Republican Party which did not have enough members to march in the parade. Other than babysitting, we have spent most of our time working on our new house, reacquainting ourselves with Northern New England, and visiting Bates.”...Bill Gosling and Jean visited with Ned and Ginny White Brooks ’67 in North Carolina, their first face-to-face since graduation. Bill continues with USTA and other tennis matches.... Allen Harvie reports he, brother Keith ’67, and Bill LaVallee ’63 were interviewed for a Bates video. The three were all hurdlers from South Portland. “Bill’s dad, Hank ’33, our athletic director at SP, was very influential in my attending Bates. The interview lasted about 45 minutes with lots of Walt Slovenski stories as well as track and field and the Ali-Liston fight at which Keith and I both worked. We had lot of fun.” Allen is very proud that Keith received the Helen A. Papaioanou ’49 Distinguished Alumni Service Award this fall....Peter Heyel is “keeping somewhat busy, combination of work and fun.” He visited Jan and Ted Foster.... Richard Hillman published Finding Rafael, a sequel to his debut novel Tropical Liaison, winner of a Florida Authors and Publishers Assn. President’s Award for general fiction. He’s working on a third novel, The Condo....Nina Jewell Mendall works a day a week, teaching sewing and playing bridge. “Our delight is travel. Grandkids all grown up – sniff!”... Joyce Mantyla was off to St. Petersburg and Moscow last August. “No Putin plans!”...Karin Mueller McElvein’s best news: “I shot an 82 in golf!” She works two mornings a week for the Methodist church district office. She spent time with Judy Morris Edwards and talks to Jean Hager-Rich.... Sad news from Jeannette Smith Mead. She lost her husband, Russell P. Mead, on June 17, 2018. “He loved Bates College as much as I do.”...Carol Stone Beyna and Ronald celebrated their 50th anniversary in 2017. In August, they had a family get-together in Vermont including her brothers George ’63 and Tom ’70, spouses Dottie Seldon Stone ’63 and Ann Nagel Stone ’70, and niece Sarah Stone ’90. “How’s that for a Batesie gathering?”
1966 Reunion 2021, June 11–12 class president Alexander Wood awwood@mit.edu Inside Higher Ed and other news media reported the findings of a major study of optional SAT policies co-authored by Bill Hiss and Valerie Franks ’98. One major conclusion is that SAT-optional policies can lead to an increase in underrepresented students in
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both the applicant pool and the first-year class. The study also finds that college students who did not submit test scores posted lower grades initially, “but they ended up highly successful, graduating at equivalent rates or – at some institutions – slightly higher rates than did those who submitted test scores,” according to Inside Higher Ed.... Max Steinheimer, a trial lawyer with Downey Brand in Stockton, Calif., was recognized as a 2018 Top Lawyer by Sacramento Magazine. He was also recognized as a 2018 Northern California Super Lawyer.
1967 Reunion 2022, June 10–12 class secretary Alexandra Baker Lyman toads@snet.net class co-presidents Keith C. Harvie kcharvie12@gmail.com Pamela Johnson Reynolds preynolds221@gmail.com We’re sad to learn that Linda Bartlett Burrowes passed away on Sept. 25. She and Mel ’66 were able to take a 12-day, 50th-anniversary road trip from their Maine cabin to the Maritimes, enjoying great sights: wild ocean, rocks and red earth, green fields, fishing villages, a Celtic ceiligh, the Bay of Fundy, and terrific seafood.... Marty Braman Duckenfield and Kathy Butler Carlson enjoyed a nine-day adventure to Costa Rica. Exploits included whitewater rafting, and Kathy added a zip line to check off on her bucket list....Glenn Carlson and Kathy had what turned out to be a nearly yearlong celebration of their 50th anniversary in 2017. They were joined at one restaurant outside D.C. by Ed and Stephanie Young Abbott, the same restaurant where both couples celebrated their 25th anniversaries in 1992....Bryan Carlson, Tim Hall, Kevin Murphy, and Dick Reynolds played in the annual Goddard Memorial Football Golf Outing at Wentworth by the Sea in Rye, N.H. Keith Harvie relates that Tim flies up for the fundraiser for the camaraderie and to debate who is the best golfer. No word on who won that title this year.... Joanne Hayes Healy spends half of her year in California, where she is close to Carolyn Thomas. Joanne also met Lucille Howell Sansing for lunch. Lucille, whose career in academia progressed from academic dean to provost to president, continues her work in retirement. She joined the board of the American Univ. of Phnom Penh....From her home in the U.K., Suzanne Johnson Nixon reports the joyful reuniting of Suzanne and Bruce’s family. Both their son and daughter have returned from New York to live in the U.K., giving the grandparents the chance to enjoy Otto (2). Suzanne and Bruce spent a day with Martin Flashman while he was visiting London, and also greatly enjoyed meeting Bates President Clayton Spencer at a London gathering....A craft beer aficionado,
John Ladik made tasting trips to the Catskills. He had lunch with classmates and a visit to the Manchester, N.H., mills, hosted by Judy Lanouette Nicholson....Newly minted Texans Wyland and Barbara Hoadley Leadbetter moved to San Antonio to be near daughter Liz and her children. Barb reports she and Wy are enjoying their evening walks with the grandkids.... Sarah Myers McGinty finished the 40 hours of training (and the certification exam) for SHIP, also called SHINE in Mass., becoming a Medicare adviser. Sally says it’s a great volunteer opportunity, “and, of course, it’s a great resource if you’re still trying to figure out whether you yourself have Part C or not!”... In Naples, Fla., Carol Renaud Gaffney stays active with family visiting, golf, tennis, biking, some writing, and volunteering for the Blue Zones Project in southwest Florida....Rocky Stone and wife Leanne enjoyed a trip to Spain and Portugal....Our noble alumni co-president, Keith Harvie, and his equally faithful cohort, Pam Johnson Reynolds, have done an incredible job of stitching us into a new whole before, throughout, and after the 50th Reunion. Keith received the Helen A. Papaioanou ’49 Distinguished Alumni Service Award this fall. To borrow shamelessly from the Bates News about retiring Senior Lecturer Rob Farnsworth, Keith “opened a door of joyful [remembrance] and allowed us all to walk freely through it.”
1968 Reunion 2023, June 9–11 class secretary Rick Melpignano rickmel713@gmail.com class president Richard J. Gelles gelles@sp2.upenn.edu
Jane Whitney ’68 attended her first Bates Reunion, which “felt like falling down a hole into Wonderland and discovering the true value of all the young people I remember from Bates.” Gretchen Hess Daly and Karen Konecki Goober write: “Our fabulous 50th Reunion was attended by 91 classmates, 34 adult guests, and one granddaughter – the best turnout ever at a Class of ’68 Reunion. Truly ‘the event of a lifetime,’ it was a magical time of reconnecting with good friends and getting to know classmates we did not know well during our years at Bates. While we spent only four years together, we still seem to have a strong connection in our hearts. We had a formative impact on each other during our student years and beyond. Thank you to
all of you who made the effort to attend the Reunion. So many of you have emailed your reactions to us: One classmate wrote to say that she enjoyed exploring the campus and seeing the new buildings. She was glad that the Bates campus still has the feeling of a small college. Many others have written to say how much they enjoyed just talking with classmates – remembering humorous events from the past, talking about professors and classes, comparing life on the women’s and men’s sides of campus while we were at Bates, and sharing what we have done in the past 50 years and what we are doing now. We loved spending the weekend with you and hope that each one of you attends our 55th Reunion and brings along friends who did not make it to the 50th. Please keep us apprised of events in your lives over the next five years!”...Nancy Hohmann received a Bates’ Best award at Reunion. Her citation reads in part: “Nancy, as chair of your 50th Reunion yearbook committee, you have played an integral role in helping your classmates reconnect with the college. You recognized their desire to better understand today’s Bates students, and incorporated a ‘then and now’ section featuring the perspectives of current students juxtaposed with your classmates’ memories from the 1960s. You recruited and collected over 130 submissions for the yearbook, and helped with Reunion planning and fundraising. You have already taken the initiative to connect with volunteers in the Class of 1969 to share your experiences so that they, too, can be successful in their efforts. You bring a spirit of generosity to everything you do. We are grateful for your energy, drive, and passion for Bates.”...After 33 years in Bellingham, Mass., Rick Melpignano purchased a house in Enfield, Conn., last January. After enduring several months of renovations and improvements, he has made the house his own and is rebuilding his woodworking workshop in the basement....Jane Whitney writes, “A highlight in 2018 was going to my first Bates Reunion. Attending our 50th felt like falling down a hole into Wonderland and discovering the true value of all the young people I remember from Bates. I’m so happy to have reconnected with so many of you there, and missed seeing those of you who could not make it.”
1969 Reunion 2019, June 7–9 class secretary Bonnie Groves beegroves@comcast.net class president Richard Brogadir dbrogie1@aol.com One month before he’d planned to retire, Peter Bates was laid off. He received unemployment benefits his first year in Sun City Center, Fla., where he still lives the good life with wife Cheryl Levin. Twice a year he teaches photography at the local community college. He also writes music
reviews for Audiophile Audition and maintains two blogs, the Bodega Project and Stylus. In 2017, his photographs were featured at the St. Petersburg Museum of History in an exhibit entitled “Florida Bodegas and the Immigrant Experience.”...Kitty Earle Bird “already booked flights across the Pond for 50th Reunion next June! So really hoping to catch up with many class members from ’68 as well as ’69.”...Peter Martocchio taught a watercolor course as part of the Acadia Univ. Lifelong Learning program. It was quite successful and will be offered again in February. Last summer, for the third year in a row, he participated in a plein-air painting group that visits different sites in Nova Scotia to paint the landscape....George and Janice Moniz Peters are happily retired and living at Kettle Point, a condo community on the Providence River in East Providence, R.I. They spend winters in Fort Myers, Fla. Jan has been an active member of the Providence Singers for 34 years and has begun singing with the Fort Myers Master Singers. George continues on several boards and serves as president of the association in their Fort Myers condo community. Both enjoy being able to travel freely.
1970 Reunion 2020, June 11–14 class co-secretaries Stephanie Leonard Bennett slenben@comcast.net Betsey Brown efant127@yahoo.com class president Steve Andrick steveandrick15@gmail.com The 50th Reunion Committee (Steve Andrick, Stephanie Leonard Bennett, Betsey Brown, Mary Davis, Barbara Hampel, and Ellen Yeaton Perry – so far) has begun to plan for the big weekend: June 11–14, 2020. Bates will help us design and produce an impressive 50th Reunion book, but we need help collecting news and pictures from all of our classmates. We also need to solicit Reunion gifts, and plan four days of activities. If you’re willing to help either as an active committee member, or with suggestions, please email Steve, Stephanie, or Betsey. Most important: Please put the Reunion dates on your 2020 calendar now, and ask all the classmates you know to join us for this very special Reunion!... Dismayed by gun violence in the U.S., Tom and Ann Nagel Stone helped organize a “Gun Buyback” event for Falmouth, Mass. “We needed to learn how others had done this, get the cooperation of the local police (very easy) and district attorney, raise money to buy food gift cards to exchange for any guns brought in, learn how to scrap guns brought in, and reach out to the gun owner community. The result: On a morning in June we had about 90 guns turned in, along with two large boxes of ammunition
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and a few BB guns. And, we were able to give a significant number of excess food gift cards to the local food pantry.” Tom has also been busy with the local land trust, The Falmouth 300 Committee, and recently resigned as president after three years. Ann works occasionally as a per diem occupational therapist and became a docent at the Falmouth Historical Society.
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1971 Reunion 2021, June 11–13 class secretary Suzanne Woods Kelley suzannekelley@att.net class president Michael Wiers class vice president Jan Face Glassman jfaceg1@hotmail.com Bill Matteson and Pam are caring for aging parents. He still grows dahlias and many other shrubs, vines, and flowers.
1972 Reunion 2022, June 10–12 class secretary Steven H. Mortimer stevenhmortimer@gmail.com class president Wayne V. Loosigian wloosigian@gmail.com Donn Brous reports her life has settled into a rather nice pattern of work at the gallery (in year 12 now) and a quiet, pleasant home life in her barn apartment. She’s observed and learned more about birds than she ever would have anticipated. Son Wesley managed to talk his non-techy mom into a Kindle, large screen Roku TV, and a record player along with a collection of vintage vinyl. “Yelled and hollered and resisted, to no avail. Now have amazing entertainment choices.”...Having moved to downtown Portland after 10 wonderful years on Range Pond in Poland, Steve Mortimer and Alice enjoy all that city living offers. “And we’re only 10 minutes from beaches, trails, and daughter Jody, who many in the class knew during our days at Bates. Still officiating Bates track meets, biking most days and hiking the others. See you all at our 50th!”... Mike Schwartz wrote, “Climbing the walls in semi-retirement. Beginning to look for healthcare consulting and/or interim administrative opportunities. Keep me posted if you should hear of any.”
1973 Reunion 2023, June 9–11 class secretary Kaylee Masury kmasury@yahoo.com class president Tom Carey tcarey@bates.edu In Vina Del Mar, Chile, Julio Elorriaga-Gonzalez is back on
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his feet after a colon tumor was removed a couple of years ago. A self-publishing and bilingual poet, he also paints on wood, does drawings and designs, and tutors people in English. “Retirement is a lot of fun despite the meager pension deposits.” He’s going steady with a widow and enjoys tours and outings around central Chile.
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Reunion 2019, June 7–9 class secretary Tina Psalidas Lamson tinal2@mac.com class president Don McDade dmcdade@llbean.com Judy Bickford Sassorossi and Kenn ’73 retired this year. They are selling their Vermont house and settling into their New Hampshire farmhouse where they will spend the warmer months. They plan to be in Seattle with their daughters’ families during the winter....Julia Holmes Reuter still works and plays outside on her XC skis and bikes. “Like most, on Medicare, have a grandson, and waste much time on social media.”... The Sun Journal profiled Mary Ruchinskas, who retired in 2017 after 36 years at New Beginnings, a youth shelter in Lewiston. The organization’s outreach/drop-in center was named after her. Over the decades, her work included “working with kids, writing grants, bookkeeping, substituting anywhere in a pinch,” and collecting statistics, the newspaper reported. Mary also helped develop an HIV prevention and outreach program. “I developed a real respect and admiration for the kids and the amount of resiliency they had, to live through often pretty difficult lives and still be working towards something better,” she said. “I always felt a lot of hope for the future.”
1975 Reunion 2020, June 12–14 class co-secretaries Deborah Bednar Jasak Deborahjasak@gmail.com Faith Minard minardblatt@gmail.com class co-presidents Susan Bourgault Akie susieakie@gmail.com Janet Haines jbh580@aol.com
Nick ’75 and Janine Ventura Richards ’75 “like to feel we are aging gracefully, although we manage to embarrass our kids by still going to rock concerts.”
Jonathan Howard and his wife, Gayle Gifford, celebrated 35 years of marriage in June. “We also celebrated our three grown and flourishing children, our good health, our wonderful hometown of Providence, R.I., and more than 20 years as business partners at Cause & Effect, our consulting firm, helping nonprofit organizations do more good in the world.”...Pat McInerney and Cindy are delighted to be grandparents. He retired from 40-plus years of teaching and coaching. They live on a lovely lake 45 minutes north of Bates.... Mary Nucefora Buck and Fred, both retired since 2012, enjoy time in the White Mountains. She still skis as Fred goes snowshoeing. In the summer they swim in the freezing Saco River, hike, bike, and feed the mosquitoes. Their three adult children all live within an hour and they have three granddaughters. Both enjoy volunteering in the local soup kitchen, and she sings in the choir....Nick and Janine Ventura Richards now live in Newburyport, Mass. They downsized to a far smaller house, “although the first thing we did was build a family room and man-cave (yes, I’m allowed to call it that!) in the basement.” After 43 years of teaching French and Spanish, Janine finally decided, after two retirements, to hang up her chalk stick and rank book. Nick retired 10 years ago from Verizon. “We like to feel we are aging gracefully, although we manage to embarrass our kids by still going to rock concerts. We are both thrilled that we will be grandparents. Many of our friends have assured us that this great event will keep us on our toes, young, young, young and tired, tired, tired.”...Susan Russell-Robinson received the Department of Interior’s Distinguished Service Award, the highest honor that can be granted to a career employee. She was cited for her great effectiveness as a research scientist, program staff scientist, and manager during her 42 years of public service with the U.S. Geological Survey/DOI. She retired in 2016. “I was the only geology major to graduate from Bates in 1975, and there were no majors in the class of 1974,” she wrote. “Because of this odd distribution, I took the Bates geology field course during Short Term at the end of my sophomore year.” Professor Roy Farnsworth recommended her for the National Geologic Teacher’s Assn. summer field assistant program with the USGS. “To my surprise, I was chosen and assigned to a mapping project out of the USGS Boston Office. Imagine mapping the bedrock and glacial geology of Fort Devens – an Army base, which occupied a large portion of the Shirley Quadrangle! Little did I know that summer experience would lead to a career with the USGS.”...Marty Welbourn Freeman writes, “It was great fun to catch up with Chris D’Arezzo when he came through Alaska last summer. Nothing beats old friends.”
1976 Reunion 2021, June 11–13 class secretary Jeffrey Helm bateslax@gmail.com class president Bruce Campbell brucec@maine.rr.com Diane and Michael ArratoGavrish, in Derry, N.H., keep busy with family, work, house and gardening projects plus volunteering. She works at the Chester Public Library as the assistant director and head of children’s services and also volunteers with Friends of the Derry Public Libraries. He’s involved in the Granite State Ambassador program in NH and is able to volunteer at various events. He also helps out with the No Labels organization....Glenn Bacheller works out, plays golf, travels, and volunteers in the Santa Barbara, Calif., community. A program he helped found has housed nearly 300 homeless people in less than three years. In addition, he also focuses on seniors and the environment. Small things make him happy, like two recent holesin-one....Following an exciting career as a natural history museum curator, editor, and publisher at institutions from Florida to New York, Paula Cowles Mikkelsen retired in 2015 to return to Maine to care for her aging mother in Auburn. She maintains her career as a scientific editor and malacologist, working from a home office on a co-authored book on the gastropods of the Florida Keys. “It’s good to be back in Maine!”...Elizabeth Durand has volunteered for six years in the therapeutic knitting program at Interim House Inc., a residential treatment facility in Philadelphia for women with substance abuse issues. In April, she started as the instructor for those who need to earn their high school equivalency diplomas. “It’s a huge challenge, but very rewarding.”... Jordan Fiore completed the requirements for designation as a certified lay speaker in the United Methodist Church. He also completed the course work for the order of certified lay minister and hopes to complete the certification within the next year. He continues in law practice and works part time as a housing counselor for a nonprofit agency and serves as an elected member of the local school board and planning board....Tod Gobledale and Ana continue to minister with the United Reformed Church in Salisbury, U.K. “The Skripals (Russian father and daughter who were poisoned) were found about a hundred meters from our church. As we Brits are apt to do, we just keep calm and carry on. We are looking forward to a joint study project between the URC and the United Church of Zambia. That will include three months of work and research in Lusaka.”... Jeff Helm and Cindy celebrated 35 years of marriage with a trip
1977 Reunion 2022, June 10–12 class secretary Steve Hadge schmuddy@yahoo.com class president Keith Taylor drkeithtaylor@msn.com Amy Batchelor Bacheller reports she and Glenn ’76 are thriving in Santa Barbara, Calif. “We made it through the Thomas Fire and ensuing mudslides. It was an intense and tragic time. I am continuing with my holistic healing practice, Scent From Heaven, teaching and seeing clients. I’m forever learning and enjoy having a home office.”...
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company after heading digital marketing for Verizon’s vehicle IoT group. He was a leader in the digital transformation of real estate advertising in partnerships with Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, The Wall Street Journal, and CBS. As a side gig, he advises communities across the Southeast on digital marketing and publishes a marketing newsletter. He and Cathy live in Atlanta....Rick Proia runs a research lab at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., studying metabolic and neurodegenerative diseases in children and adults....After 12 years of post-retirement cruising on their sailboat, Christopher and Heather Tardif Stockard settled in Bellingham, Wash., in 2015. They’re busy with a seemingly endless house remodel as well as training two Portuguese water dogs. They also enjoy traveling to countries they didn’t visit on their sailboat....Janmarie Toker Strong was honored to serve as a Goodwill Ambassador to the Carna Emigration Centre in Carna, Galway, Ireland. Family members joined her on the wonderful celebration and she saw for the first time where her grandfather was born. She’s also on the board of the Maine Irish Heritage Center in Portland at the former St. Dominic’s church where her grandparents were married. “My mom (first-generation Irish-American) remembers the signs ‘No Irish Need Apply.’ Oh yes, and they were of this strange religion – Catholicism. The parallels are right in front of our eyes with recent history. Think about it – my grandparents came here with barely the shirts on their backs and they have four Bates graduates out of 15 grandchildren and also a great-niece, to make no mention of their son Joseph, who became governor of the great state of Maine.”...Charles Turner, in the San Francisco Bay Area, remains involved with re-entry planning and strategy for people making the transition from incarceration back into the community. He’s working with the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department to implement an on-site career center. He and his partner of 36 years enjoy frequent visits to Lake Tahoe and many other treasures of the region.
bates.edu/reunion
to Montana hiking Yellowstone and Glacier parks and visiting son Kevin ’12 in Bozeman. Jeff works at Risk Management, specializing in the new medical and recreational marijuana industry exploding in Massachusetts. He organized a new company, Athletist, with some friends training elite middle, high school, and college athletes who have no time to train but still can get it done.... Tom Hendershott completed his first triathlon, in St. Petersburg, Fla., where he lives. He works full time at WellMed in Tampa, doing project management, process improvement, and data analysis. “Still with my sweetie of 10 years, and loving life in Florida.”...Bob Knightly and Cori, who retired to Florida in 2015, spend much of each summer driving throughout the country. “Although Jeff Helm could not get me to try lacrosse senior year at Bates, I came around eventually and enjoyed the sport tremendously.” Because of his involvement in youth lacrosse programs for many years, Bob was inducted into the Western Massachusetts Chapter of US Lacrosse inaugural Hall of Fame....Carol Gordon Ladd and Mike had a travel-crazy winter, which was great considering Maine weather. The most amazing was a trip to Vietnam and Cambodia. “Learning about the cultures, climate, geography, and people was astounding.” Mike still works as a therapist three long days each week; Carol is retired and loves tennis and volunteer duties, including being on the Bates Alumni Council.... Marge McCormick Davis reports the mounting concern over plastics in our oceans has given new impetus to her Tennessee Bottle Bill Project, which pushes for a 5-cent deposit on glass, plastic, and aluminum beverage containers sold in the Volunteer State. A soon-to-be released study found the concentration of microplastics in the Tennessee River exceeds that in China’s Yangtze River, considered the most plastics-polluted river on the planet....Mary McMahon Dowd and Jerry sold their family funeral home in 2014, though they still help with visiting hours and funerals when not traveling. They are volunteer drivers for seniors, and she continues to lector at their Catholic church and is now a member the newly formed St. Marianne Cope parish council. “Buff Seirup Bachenheimer, Pat McNulty, Shari Spencer Parsons, and I get together for a wonderful gabfest over lunch.”... Jim and Jeanne Hughes O’Sullivan live in Exeter, N.H. He’s an attorney for TKCK, a workman’s compensation law firm. She’s a clinical faculty member at UNH in the Department of Communication Sciences & Disorders. She’s involved in community service with the General Federation of Women’s Clubs NH and is more than halfway to her goal of hiking all the NH 4,000-footers.... Ray Peabody joined Michelin to lead marketing for its newly acquired North American IoT
20I9 REUNION 6/7–9
bat e s no t e s
• alumni • today • together • gratitude • famil • fireworks • laughter • friendship • conversat • hugs • celebrate • lobster • memories • parade stories • alumni • today • together • gratitude families • fireworks • laughter • friendship • c versation • hugs • celebrate • lobster • memori parade • stories • alumni • today • together • g itude • families • fireworks • laughter • friend ship • conversation • hugs • celebrate • lobster memories • parade • stories • alumni • today • t gether • gratitude • families • fireworks • laug ter • friendship • conversation • hugs • celebra • lobster • memories • parade • stories • alumni today • together • gratitude • families • firewo • laughter • friendship • conversation • hugs • celebrate • lobster • memories • parade • storie alumni • today • together • gratitude • familie fireworks • laughter • friendship • conversatio • hugs • celebrate • lobster • memories • parade • stories • alumni • today • together • gratitud • families • fireworks • laughter • friendship • conversation • hugs • celebrate • lobster • mem ories • parade • stories • alumni • today • toget er • gratitude • families • fireworks • laughter • friendship • conversation • hugs • celebrate • lobster • memories • parade • stories • alumni • today • together • gratitude • families • firewo • laughter • friendship • conversation • hugs • celebrate • lobster • memories • parade • storie alumni • today • together • gratitude • familie fireworks • laughter • friendship • conversatio • hugs • celebrate • lobster • memories • parade stories • alumni • today • together • gratitude families • fireworks • laughter • friendship • c versation • hugs • celebrate • lobster • memori parade • stories • alumni • today • together • g itude • families • fireworks • laughter • friend ship • conversation • hugs • celebrate • lobster memories • parade • stories • alumni • today • t gether • gratitude • families • fireworks • laug ter • friendship • conversation • hugs • celebra • lobster • memories • parade • stories • alumni today • together • gratitude • families • firewo • laughter • friendship • conversation • hugs • celebrate • lobster • memories • parade • storie alumni • today • together • gratitude • familie fireworks • laughter • friendship • conversatio • hugs • celebrate • lobster • memories • parade stories • alumni • today • together • gratitude families • fireworks • laughter • friendship • c versation • hugs • celebrate • lobster • memori parade • stories • alumni • today • together • g itude • families • fireworks • laughter • friend ship • conversation • hugs • celebrate • lobster memories • parade • stories • alumni • today • t gether • gratitude • families • fireworks • laug ter • friendship • conversation • hugs • celebra • lobster • memories • parade • stories • alumni today • together • gratitude • families • firewo • laughter • friendship • conversation • hugs • celebrate • lobster • memories • parade • storie alumni • today • together • gratitude • familie fireworks • laughter • friendship • conversatio • hugs • celebrate • lobster • memories • parade • stories • alumni • today • together • gratitud • families • fireworks • laughter • friendship • conversation • hugs • celebrate • lobster • mem
THEOPHIL SYSLO
helping hands
Kasey Anderson ’20 (right) poses for a portrait with McLean Hospital researchers Bill Carlezon ’86 and Elena Chartoff.
On Purpose During last summer’s Purposeful Work internship at McLean Hospital, Kasey Anderson ’20 had alumni support in a couple of ways. One was apparent almost daily: McLean researcher Bill Carlezon ’86 directs one of the labs that Anderson frequented. The second was apparent in her internship paycheck. Anderson, a neuroscience major from Jonesboro, Maine, received funding from the John E. Kelsey Neuroscience Internship Fund at McLean, a Harvard Medical School affiliate in Belmont, Mass. The fund supports neuroscience internships with a preference for Bates students. It was given by David Barlow ’79, who recently concluded his decade-long service as chairman of the McLean board of trustees, to honor Kelsey, a Bates professor emeritus of psychology who was a key figure in both Barlow’s and Carlezon’s Bates experience. Carlezon is chief of McLean’s Division of Basic Neuroscience. Anderson’s supervisor was Elena Chartoff, who directs the Neurobiology of Motivated Behavior Laboratory. Now in its fifth year, Purposeful Work is a college-wide program of discovery, reflection, and skill-building that helps students align who they are with work that will satisfy them after Bates. A core employer of the college’s Purposeful Work internship program, McLean is among the roughly 75 organizations and businesses worldwide, many with Bates alumni and parent connections, committed to offering paid internships to Bates students.
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Lisa Barry stays busy as Bates trustee and serving on the boards of Refugees International and International Student House. She looking forward to hosting Bates friends in Williamsburg....Peter Brann practices law around the country. He’s teaching law parttime in 2018–19 at Harvard and then Yale....Jeff Brown, in Denver, works as a pediatric hospitalist. Now that his youngest of five is off to college, he occasionally thinks of retirement. “I still like seeing the babies and feel no rush to do it. I hit a speed bump with my health a while ago with a diagnosis of MS, but I’m trying hard not to let it slow me down.”... Don Earle celebrated daughter Emily’s wedding in Boothbay Harbor. “Felt fortunate to be able to share it with family and many friends including Paul Grillo and his wife Mary, Steve Hadge and his wife Vickie, Nils Bonde-Henriksen, and Molly Campbell.”... After 41 years of working with children, 34 as a certified teacher and librarian, Steve Hadge retired. “My plans include working for a few more years, probably with kids, and then settling in to some traveling and volunteer work. I am also getting back into tennis after a two-year hiatus due to back problems.”...John Howe is serving as chairman of International Assn. of Business Intermediaries. He keeps tabs on five grandchildren while working as an M&A adviser selling privately owned companies....Pat Mador completed her 32nd year as a prosecutor for the state of Maine. “Still the best job a lawyer can have. I learn something new every day and never cease to be amazed at the complexity of the human condition.”...Terry Mailliard Keyes, in California, tries to keep up with six grandchildren that their two girls have blessed her and Bob ’74 with. He’s on the golf course or tennis court when they are not in Mendocino at the Ranch....Jennifer Malia Takahashi writes, “Semi-retirement is great! I was able to retire from my state job two years ago and continue with my private practice on a part-time basis. I finally feel like I have balance!” She looked forward to their first grandchild....Marcel Monfort secured a copyright for “Biblical Wisdom, World Anarchy,” a 30-page essay “involving 15 sections of the Bible proving that humanity achieving zero population growth is an endeavor blessed by God. Twochildren-per-couple throughout the entirety of humanity is one of the surest ways to halt mankind’s seemingly endless dispatch of plant and animal species to extinction, the latter of which is tragically irreversible.”...Kevin Soucy retired from Accenture and is doing some professional coaching and mentoring, mostly as a volunteer. He enjoys being a grandfather to a little girl and two rescue grand puppies. He and Linda like spending time at home in Sterling, Mass., and head to Nantucket when they can.... Chris Taylor writes, “Still living the dream!”
1978 Reunion 2023, June 9–11 class secretary Chip Beckwith chipwith@yahoo.com class president Dean M. Berman deanocean@aol.com Avid skier Dean Berman returned to NY/Vermont commuting. He had a season pass to Killington for 15 years until his first daughter was born. “Luckily she shares my passion for skiing, bought me a season pass for my birthday, and now she commutes to Vermont on weekends with me. Hopefully soon my son will be too, as soon as he moves back from Florida where ironically, my wife and younger daughter would prefer to be.”...Ann Clark Tucker teaches in both the undergraduate and MBA programs at Augsburg Univ. in Minneapolis after a long, varied career in corporate and marketing communications. She looked forward to two new grandbabies. She has a home in Harwich Port, Mass., where the family gathers on holidays. She’s in touch with lifelong buddy Nancy Ingersoll Fiddler....Howard Fleishon and wife Shawn lead a nomadic lifestyle following the sun and snow to Phoenix, Colorado, and Atlanta, where he works in the Emory system as a radiologist. “One very special occasion that we look forward to every year is going to Duxbury, Mass., to spend our Big Chill weekend with close Bates friends and families. We’ve been doing this since graduation. These fellow Bates grads, their kids and grandkids are part of our extended families.”...Jacki Johnson Rivero writes, “During my Bates class years, due to my prodigious number of hours behind the circulation desk, most people thought I was a librarian. I can still remember the shocked expressions when I showed up in their classes. Spent most of my life in tech, followed by a brief stint in municipal finance. I fled gainful employment at the earliest possibility, let my hair grow down past my waist, and have big octagonal glasses, just like I wore in 1974. My equally retired husband and I are enjoying life. I have been known to write and perform under a secret alias, which I can’t reveal, because then it wouldn’t be a secret, would it?”...Paul Oparowski works at Irrigation Automation Systems. Sue Beckwith Oparowski works in BJ’s Wholesale IT department. They enjoy traveling and spending time with family, especially their three grandchildren....Lynn Pittsinger has a new role as director of health services at Groton (Mass.) School. She also works per diem as a nurse practitioner for Harvard Vanguard in urgent pediatric care. She feels fortunate to have more time to visit children and grandchildren when school is not in session....Mark and Dori Carlson Reinhalter live in
bat e s no t e s
Silver Spring, Md. He works for the U.S. Department of Labor Solicitor’s Office; she’s worked primarily as a teacher in various capacities. They’ve traveled to many countries, mainly on hiking treks, and love being grandparents....Susan Stucke Funk had an exciting year with the arrival of Axel, their first grandchild and son of Arianna Funk ’07, and a lot of groundbreaking work at Mystic Seaport where she’s executive VP/COO. “With a new award-winning gallery building, and the installation of a remarkable and beautiful contemporary art sculpture that incorporates mixed reality elements, things are hopping.”
1979 Reunion 2019, June 7–9 class secretary Mary Raftery mgraftery@gmail.com class president Janice McLean janmc79@gmail.com Mark and Leslie Joy Massa ’82 spend a lot of time in Cape Cod enjoying the four seasons. He continues to work for AXA Financial specializing in the 403(b) retirement market.
1980 Reunion 2020, June 12–14 class secretary Christine Tegeler Beneman cbeneman@gmail.com class president Mary Mihalakos Martuscello mary@martuscellolaw.com Gail Cushman Rose, Katy Reid, Kim Donahue, and Lisa Stifler celebrated their big birthdays on Nantucket chasing the illusive Moby Dick. Gail successfully completed the New Jersey portion of the Appalachian Trail with friends....Dykstra Eusden, a member of the Bates faculty since 1988, is the new Whitehouse Professor of Geology. Given by the late David C. Whitehouse ’36 and Constance T. Whitehouse in honor of their families, the endowed chair celebrates freedom of expression and inquiry; respect for human dignity; and exceptional teaching, scholarship, and service.
1981 Reunion 2021, June 11–13 class president Kathleen Tucker Burke sburke4155@aol.com Class Secretary Katherine Baker Lovell died April 1, 2018. Survivors include brother Hal Baker ’82. Her obituary is in this issue.... David Donelan and his wife enjoy life on the water in Marion, Mass. He continues to work at Pegasystems in Cambridge in a variety of management roles. He joined the board of the Trinity Boston Foundation, “a wonderful organization focused on serving
disadvantaged youth in Boston. We also purchased a condo in East Boston to avoid the long commute during the week and to continue to enjoy all that Boston has to offer including the Red Sox.”
1982 Reunion 2022, June 10–12 class secretary Jerry Donahoe maineescape@aol.com class president Neil Jamieson neil@southernmainelaw.com
Jeff Melvin ’82 had a good turnout for the annual “Mel’s House” at Sugarbush. “All is going well when, after 36 years in a row, some new recruits show up!” Jeff Melvin reports a good turnout for the 37th annual “Mel’s House” at Sugarbush with members of the Class of ’82 plus some additions. Besides Jeff, in attendance were Ken Swan, JD Hale, Palo Pierce, Bill Carey, Fred Criniti, John Hassan, Peter Grant ’84, Charlie Adams ’84, Mark Thorburn ’84, Bill Bell ’84, Billy Carlson, and David Eberhart ’85. “All is going well when after 36 years in a row, some new recruits show up!”... Gayle Boyd Sommer is happy to be back to work for a great employer, the Massachusetts Medical Society, “where I can also honor my dad (who was a physician). I never inherited the MD genes, but I did inherit solid organizational skills plus an interest in healthcare – so this seems like a great fit for me!”... John Chapman returned to Bates to teach a Short Term course on private equity. “I’m still looking for the next great deal with two partners in a small private equity firm in Connecticut.”...Jill Dennis reports, “It looks like I’m at the tail end of my health ordeal. I had a second heart surgery Dec. 26, 2017, and I feel much, much better.” She planned to start working at a very nice hospital in Beverly, Mass....Wally Dillingham continues to work at Wilmington Trust on New York’s Park Avenue where he specializes in the nonprofit space while also overseeing the sales team. He also spends a lot of time volunteering at St. Patrick’s Cathedral....Mark Dorion lives in El Paso, Texas, where he runs, coaches, directs races, and tries to stay out of trouble. He adds, “A unique and historic Bates tradition of which many grads may be unaware is the annual Bates alumni cross-country meet, held every Labor Day weekend.” Started in 1973 by legendary head coach Walt Slovenski, the meet is a real race that draws alumni runners
from all over. “There is always a great post-race cookout next to the track, followed by hours of storytelling on campus as well as at the legendary Blue Goose.”... JD Hale, vice president for sales at Dublin, N.H.-based Yankee Publishing, reports Yankee is thriving. “It seems our recipe for journalism, the web and with our TV show (in partnership with WGBH/Boston) is a success – it is called Weekends with Yankee. We are now sending that wonderful New England message into 49 of the 50 state homes via color TV.” He reports daughter Rosie ’14 works for a healthcare startup, Level Ex, in Denver....Ruth Mary Hall retired from the Foreign Service in 2015 but enjoys part-time work for the U.S. Department of State as a human resources specialist, serving as a board adviser for Foreign Service Promotion Boards. She continues to work on the board of the ACLU Virginia chapter on criminal justice reform and other issues.... Life continues to go well for Scott Hoyt, who lives west of Philadelphia. He’s senior director at Moody’s Analytics doing economic forecasting and analysis. He still plays some soccer and is now a deacon at his church....Neil Jamieson writes, “What a great Reunion experience we had! It was awesome to see and catch up with everyone who came back to Bates. Although the years may have changed us a bit, it was incredible to relive the experiences we shared and the lifelong friendships that we all made. Having Ainsley ’18 and Lexie ’20 there as our class BateStar assignees was fun for me.”... Following a successful seven-year stint at The Masters School in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., most recently as associate head of school, Tim Kane returned to higher education July 1 as vice president for alumnae/i affairs and development at Vassar College. Beth George ’85 has an active business consulting for clients opening bagel shops and/or developing recipes. She also continues to practice law in NY and Maine. Daughter Emma ’14 works for the International Rescue Committee in NYC.... Stephen “Rabbit” Mackenzie is back from Afghanistan (and Iraq), where he spent most of the past 10 years, and is now the chief prosecutor on the Wind River Indian reservation in Wyoming. “Yes, it’s ‘that’ Wind River! With an area larger than Rhode Island, and only 15 police officers, this job is incredibly challenging. Wyoming is quite a change from Kabul, and prosecuting is a change from many years as defense counsel, but the job is rewarding and very busy.”...The Huffington Post named Nancy McSharry Jensen one of its 99 “Limit Breaking Female Founders” for 2018 and quoted her on the lessons she’s learned as a female entrepreneur. Nancy is CEO and co-founder of The Swing Shift in Seattle, which helps women in career transition.
After a 20-year career which started at International Data Corp., where she opened businesses on both coasts, “I took a five-year break to care for my small children and aging parents,” Nancy recounted. “When I wanted to get back into the workforce, as almost every woman who takes a career break does, I encountered unexpected roadblocks in my career re-entry.” Her “tipping point” came after a CEO “phubbed me in an interview, and offhandedly remarked ‘yeah you’ve been out of the workforce for four years, you don’t know the market.’ Um – hello. I launched and grew SharePoint, a $1b business. I was so angry, and thought ‘if it’s this hard for me, and I have such a strong background, what is it like for other women?’” She and a business partner launched The Swing Shift in 2016. “As female entrepreneurs, we are building a business, attracted investors (where only 2% invest in female owned businesses), are cash flow positive, and we get to see our kids and families. We’re working on a longer term plan to invest in the female entrepreneurs who come through our program.” Nancy lives in Seattle with husband Andy and describes herself as “the oldest mom on the playground, with a 12-year-old daughter and a 7-year-old son.” She sees a lot of Jim Lapan ’86, her husband’s closest friend.... Suzanne Stiles Seale works, skis, travels. She was “excitedly planning a trip to Andalucía, Spain.”...Cole Tamminen and wife Deborah both work from home in Freeport. She owns Maine Senior Guide, and he’s a senior data analyst for supplyFORCE, a supply-chain management company. They see a lot of Chuck ’75 and Sandy Korpela Radis ’77 on Peaks Island and enjoy hangin’ with Nick Kent and wife Amanda, partly as their “partners” in a store called Maine Wicked Goods. “The Kents own it, but together we sell vintage and antique furniture, glassware, and pretty much anything which catches our eye. The contribution we make is mainly sitting around the shop at the end of the day with the Kents, drinking Scotch, bitching at each other about what horrible crap each of the others dragged home from the last auction, and only occasionally rising to change out a dead light bulb or straighten a painting. It’s a joy and a lot of fun, of course.”...Richard Wood and Larry Finlayson cross paths in the theater world, and he enjoyed seeing Larry’s wife Mary Callanan perform. With daughter Ally graduating from college, Richard and his wife look forward to traveling more. “In January we attended the Boston Women’s March (in Cambridge) with Adam Pettengill, and the March for our Lives in Boston. Resistance is not futile.”...Joyce White Vance now teaches at the Univ. of Alabama Law School and does legal and political commentary for MSNBC. “I’m
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THEOPHIL SYSLO
major kudos
James Owens ’87 displays his Benjamin Mays Medal as President Clayton Spencer joins the applause during the Alumni Gathering at Reunion.
Changing Lives. Saving Lives. The Alumni Association presented two major awards at Reunion to James Owens ’87 and Dr. Louis Weinstein ’68. Owens received the Benjamin E. Mays Medal, presented occasionally for “distinguished service to the larger (worldwide) community” to graduates of “outstanding accomplishment.” Author of The World Is Just A Book Away, an anthology of the impact of reading on prominent people, Owens founded a similarly named nonprofit that builds libraries in countries struck by natural disasters and other upheavals. His citation noted that his work is “effecting meaningful change within some of the world’s most vulnerable communities.” Owens is an associate professor of clinical business communication at the USC Marshall School of Business. Weinstein won the Sesquicentennial Award, which honors an alumnus or alumna for “a single academic, artistic, or scientific achievement.” In 1982, Weinstein, who is the past Bowers Professor and chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Thomas Jefferson University, identified HELLP Syndrome, a severe complication related to preeclampsia, as a distinct clinical entity. The achievement is considered one of the most important in the field of obstetrics in the 20th century. “His work has saved, and will continue to save, the lives of countless women,” noted his citation.
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continuing my community work in civil rights, voting rights, and criminal justice reform. My husband Bob and I spend as much time as possible visiting our daughter Ellie (’21) at Bates.”... Marty Wonson Brandt published a book, Hands of Healing, a daily devotional and grief journal with her own poetry. Her poetry was inspired by the untimely death of her sister, Karen May Wonson Stearns, in 2013. Marty works as a senior quality engineer at IXYS Integrated Circuits Division in Beverly, Mass....Jerry Donahoe writes, “Our 35th Reunion was wonderful. For those who have seldom or never attended, please consider doing so in our near future. There’s something both exciting and soothing about being back at Bates. Excitement as to what the weekend will bring and what interactions I will have with strangers, friends, and – the largest group – those in between. And soothing in getting the feeling that maybe time hasn’t flown by and that we all just left yesterday. It’s all good.”
1983
and student administration.... Attorney Christopher Wellborn of Rock Hill, S.C., received the Champion of Justice Legal Award from the National Assn. of Criminal Defense Lawyers. “The epitome of an unsung hero, Chris Wellborn has for many years served in multiple leadership roles for NACDL, expertly advancing the promise of the U.S. Constitution and the cause of criminal justice reform in this nation,” the association said.
1984 Reunion 2019, June 7–9 class secretary Heidi Lovett blueoceanheidi@aol.com class president Linda Cohen linda@lscdesignstudio.com Karen Palermo Saxena teaches math at the local high school, coaches at the middle school, and puts on a few road and crosscountry races each year. Her kids are all now out of school.
1985
Reunion 2023, June 9–11
Reunion 2020, June 12–14
class secretary Leigh Peltier leighp727@gmail.com
class secretary Elissa Bass bass.elissa@yahoo.com
class co-presidents James D. Tobin jamestobin@att.net Terence M. Welch twelch@mfs.com
class president Lisa Virello virello@comcast.net
David Ehrenthal enjoyed visiting the campus in June and listening to the tapestry of stories from classmates. He’s working through a femoral stress reaction to get back to running.... Under the headline “A Bright Light Dimmed in the Shadows of Homelessness,” The New York Times published a feature on the tragic intersection of mental illness and homelessness through the story of a homeless woman in Manhattan who died in 2016 at age 46 despite efforts of many friends, including PJ Johnson Dearden, to help. The woman was a Williams graduate whose “life of spectacular promise [was] undone by demons,” wrote reporter Benjamin Weiser. PJ, an executive with JPMorgan Chase, met the woman in 2014 when she noticed her standing in the rain on the sidewalk grate in Manhattan that she had chosen as her home. The question that PJ and others still ask is whether they could have done more for her. “Everyone let her down on some level,” she said. “She died on a street corner.”...Jim Murphy was appointed a state Supreme Court justice by the chief judge of New York’s highest court, having been elected judge for a 10-year term. He presides over felony criminal trials and civil litigation. He recently saw Denise Mooney as his daughter Claire is a senior at Boston Univ., where Denise is associate vice president for enrollment
“I still miss autumn in New England,” reports Derek Anderson ’85 from the San Francisco Bay Area, “which is why once again I’ll stream the CBB football games wearing something garnet!” Derek Anderson is in his 30th year of teaching at Marin Academy, just north of San Francisco. “I still miss autumn in New England, which is why once again this fall I’ll stream the CBB football games wearing something garnet!”...Charlies Anzolut’s son Charles Joseph (“CJ”) turned 2 last March. “Stacey and I are looking forward to the terrible twos.”...Shannon Banks is a few years into running a strategic planning and organization development business, consulting primarily to health care and social service clients in Maine. “I’ve had fun teaching both at USM and Bates (practitioner-taught Short Term). LK (Laura K. Gagnon) ’88 is now in Financial Aid at Bowdoin, “practicing my dream job of giving money away. Our kids are all in their 20s, sorting out the particular challenges of that phase, and we are practicing restraint in advice giving.”
useful information
bat e s no t e s
Reunion 2021, June 11–13 class co-presidents Erica Seifert Plunkett ericasplunkett@gmail.com Anne Robertson mnannetom@gmail.com Bill Walsh messagebill@gmail.com Catherine Lathrop Strahan catstrahan@gmail.com Jon Green’s employer, the Washington State Department of Early Learning, is now called the Department of Children, Youth and Families. The new agency combines early learning with child welfare and adolescent programs. “I have now lived in the Evergreen state since 1999 (I miss Prince!).”...Wendy Wood Meaden accepted a renewed appointment as associate dean of the Jordan College of the Arts at Butler Univ. in Indianapolis, and begins her 19th year there as a theater professor. She continues to enjoy freelance costume design and some editorial work.
1987 Reunion 2022, June 10–12 class secretary Val Brickates Kennedy brickates@gmail.com class president Erica Rowell erica@ericarowell.com Researchers including Charles Perou have found that blocking an amino acid found in certain foods might stop the spread of a particular type of breast cancer, the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center announced. The team discovered that limiting asparagine – found in “dairy, whey, beef, poultry, eggs, fish, seafood, asparagus, potatoes, legumes, nuts, seeds, soy and whole grains,” according to the press release – in mice prevents the spread of triple-negative breast cancer. The next steps are to test the effects of asparagine in healthy humans and then in cancer patients. Chuck is a leading researcher into variations of breast cancer and precision medicine. This October, he received the Assn. of American Cancer Institutes Distinguished Scientist Award for his work in those fields....Laurie Pinchbeck Whitsel was promoted at the American Heart Assn. to vice president of policy research and translation as it goes through a major organization. “Am excited to continue to work on evidence-based policy at a national level to improve cardiovascular health and well-being. Am working on some very interesting projects with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, and other national partners.” She planned to visit Samantha Holbrook in Arizona....Sean Slade lives in Concord, Mass., with wife Karla and their three teenage children. He’s been active in mergers and acquisitions for 20-plus years, first with Iron Mountain, then as a partner with Waterfront Capital
and Winyah Bay Capital Partners....Liz Stebbins Torkelsen still practices employment law in Stamford, Conn. “Even after more than 20 years, it never gets dull!” She’s delighted to report their oldest daughter, Emily ’22, enrolled at Bates this fall.
1988 Reunion 2023, June 9–11 class committee Mary Capaldi Carr marcapcar@me.com Astrid Delfino Bernard flutistastrid@sbcglobal.net Ruth Garretson Cameron ruth.eg.cameron@gmail.com Steven Lewis mojofink@gmail.com Julie Sutherland Platt julielsp@verizon.net Lisa A. Romeo romeoli66@gmail.com
1989 Reunion 2019, June 7–9 class secretary Donna Waterman Douglass 4498donnad@gmail.com steering committee Sally Ehrenfried sally.ehrenfried@blackbaud.com Deb Schiavi Cote debscote@yahoo.com
Cathy Burke Rowe ’89 “had the pleasure of a Bates intern last summer. So glad good writing skills are still a priority!” Cathy Burke Rowe works with healthy aging, “hoping to help change things by the time we all retire because as a country, we are completely unprepared for the changing demographics. Had the pleasure of a Bates intern last summer. So glad good writing skills are still a priority!”...Cape Cod public radio station WCAI interviewed Cindy Voisine, an assistant professor at Northeastern Illinois Univ., about her journey into biological research. A native of Fort Kent, Maine, and a first-generation college-goer, Cindy decided to pursue a career in research while at Bates. She notes that many NEIU students are low-income, first-gen, bilingual – similar to her own background. “I had gone through this journey of higher education and completing a PhD,” she said. “I could provide some guidance to them that they couldn’t find at home.”...Donna Waterman Douglass still works as an orthopedic physical therapist for Joint Implant Surgeons of Florida in Fort Myers. Her husband works at the Fort Myers Brewing Co., one of the larger craft brewers in the state. She enjoyed meeting Anne Mollerus for dinner in Naples.
PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN
1986
Katie Moran Madden ’93 answers a question as Aya Murata ’92 and Bates Director of Admission Darryl Uy listen.
Start with You A productive college search requires being willing to “investigate your own personal desires, inspirations, interests, and what you are curious about,” said Aya Murata ’92. “Let that be the driver.” Murata, a college counselor at Phillips Academy; Katie Moran Madden ’93, a senior associate director of admission at Dartmouth; and Bates Director of Admission Darryl Uy sat down with alumni at Reunion to offer advice for finding a college that’s right for your child. Here’s some of it:
embrace uncertainty Instead of constantly asking about the college search, “Try asking your child something like, ‘Hey, tell me about what you are studying these days that is piquing your interest?’” Murata said.
essay do’s and don’t’s
“We want to know about your interests or political perspectives, because we are all shaping communities and we’re trying to encourage dialogue,” Madden said. But “We often learn more about the cause than about you,” which defeats the goal of the essay.
pick your recommenders “You choose who you ask for recommendations,” Madden said. “So choose teachers who know you well — not just teachers whose courses you got an A in.”
dinner rules “If every family dinner is going to be about the college search or SATs or some college-related checklist, I guarantee family dinner won’t be much fun,” Murata said.
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COURTESY AMY BASS
alumni meetups that our twin daughters, Em ’22 and Abby ’22, are starting their Bates journey this year!”...Deirdre McGlinchey, an attorney with McGlinchey Stafford in New Orleans, was named to New Orleans CityBusiness’ 2018 Leadership in Law class....Judith Robbins’ second collection of poems, The Bookbinder’s Wife, was recently published by North Country Press of Unity, Maine.
1993 Reunion 2023, June 9–11 class secretary Lisa A. Bousquet lisaannbousquet@gmail.com class co-presidents Michael F. Charland mfc@wilkinsinvest.com Jason R. Hanley jason.hanley@wexinc.com
During her book-tour visit, Amy Bass ’92 (center) poses with Swarthmore President Val Smith ’75 and men’s soccer coach Eric Wagner.
Bobcat Book Club After the release of her acclaimed book One Goal last winter, Amy Bass ’92 was on the road — and often among Bates friends — throughout the Northeast as she promoted the book and garnered widespread media attention. The book tells the transcendent story of the Lewiston High School boys soccer team, composed mostly of immigrants from various African nations, that won the 2015 Maine state championship. Speaking at Swarthmore College in early May, Bass caught up with President Val Smith ’75 and men’s soccer coach Eric Wagner, a Lewiston High School grad who is the son of Bates Professor of Psychology Emeritus Dick Wagner. See the feature story in this issue about Bass, the book, and what both say about Lewiston today.
1990 Reunion 2020, June 12–14 class secretary Joanne Walton joannewalton2003@yahoo.com
1991 Reunion 2021, June 11–13 class secretary Katie Tibbetts Gates kathryntgates@gmail.com class president John Ducker jducker1@yahoo.com The increasing prevalence of technology in our society makes the humanities more necessary than ever, wrote Josh Macht in The Boston Globe. Moreover, humanities and technology can intersect in promising ways, such as creating a game based on Henry Thoreau’s life or, as students in Bates’ Digital and Computa-
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tional Studies program did this year, helping dancers compose music with their bodies. “If the humanities are ever to enjoy a true resurgence, it will come as a result of a reinvention that embraces a fresh new take on old disciplines,” wrote Josh, group publisher for Harvard Business Review....Ed Meloni, professor of psychology at McLean Hospital, returned to Bates in March as the College Key Distinguished Alumnus in Residence. He spoke on “Advances in Treatment for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) Using Xenon Gas.”...Elizabeth Rynecki’s documentary, Chasing Portraits, had its world premiere at the Jewish Motifs International Film Festival in Warsaw last May. In July the film had its first U.S. showing at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, followed by screenings at the Rhode Island Film Festival and DocUtah....Kim Small Lyng completed her doctorate in education at Northeastern Univ.
1992 Reunion 2022, June 10–12 class committee Ami Berger ami_berger@hotmail.com Kristin Bierly Magendantz kristin.magendantz@trincoll.edu Kristen Downs Bruno alfredbruno@sbcglobal.net Roland Davis roldav92@gmail.com Peter Friedman peterjfriedman@gmail.com Leyla Morrissey Bader leyla.bader@gmail.com Jeff Mutterperl jeffmutterperl@aol.com After 23 years at American Student Assistance, Bob Cole has begun a new role as the president and CEO of the Private College 529 Plan. The program allows families to prepay today’s tuition rates at private college across the country....Don and Laurie Plante Graumann ’90 “are so proud
Erica Berkeley lives in Asheville, N.C., with husband Mike and son Will (10). She’s a pediatric speech-language pathologist who provides early-intervention services to toddlers and young children. She created some fond new Bates memories to go with her old ones at her 25th Reunion....Prashant “Crash” Gopal is a U.S. housing reporter for Bloomberg News. He lives in the Boston ’burbs with wife Yvonne and two sons, 7 and 3.... Jason Hanley, who celebrated 20 years at WEX and is now VP of global operations, and Lauren Fine, co-chairs of the 25th Reunion committee, received Bates’ Best awards last June for their “open and collaborative style of leadership” which allowed them “to reach a wide array of affinity groups from your class and connected them to one another and to the college,” their citation reads in part. Reunion attendance for the Class of 1993 was 32 percent, a new 25th Reunion record!...Simone Martell now teaches French full-time at her alma mater, East Hampton (N.Y.) High School....Evan Medeiros, a top Asia-Pacific adviser to Barack Obama, told The New York Times before the meeting between President Trump and North Korean’s Kim Jong-Un that it would be risky. “Kim will never give up his nukes,” Evan said. “Kim played [South Korean president] Moon [Jae-in] and is now playing Trump.”...Kevin Moore is now the senior director of PMO at Talbots. He and his family are relocating to Boston’s South Shore. He was invited to join the Bates Alumni Council and looks forward to returning to campus several times a year.... Paola San Martini and Luke’s careers in international education have now passed the 20-year mark. She’s taught secondary math in international schools, with the longest spans of time in Brazil and India. They now live in Kampala, Uganda, where sons Dominic (12) and Jonah (8) go to school too, “and love going on safari. Living in Africa has been an adventure that is both exhilarating and tough!”
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1994 Reunion 2019, June 7–9 class co-presidents Courtney L. Fleisher courtney.fleisher@gmail.com Jonathan M. Lewis jlewjlew@mac.com Sheila Brennan published Stamping American Memory (Univ. of Michigan Press), the first scholarly examination of stamp collecting culture and how stamps enabled citizens to engage their federal government in conversations about national life in early 20th century America. She is director of strategic initiatives at the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, and research associate professor in history and art history at George Mason Univ.
1995 Reunion 2020, June 12–14 class co-presidents Jason Verner jcv@nbgroup.com Deborah Nowak Verner debverner@gmail.com
1996 Reunion 2021, June 11–13 class co-presidents Ayesha Farag-Davis ayesha.farag@gmail.com James D. Lowe jameslowemaine@yahoo.com Caren Frost Olmsted finished her 60th large-scale collaborative school mural as an artist in residence in elementary and middle schools throughout New Jersey and Pennsylvania. To date, she has worked with over 22,000 students and over 5,000 adults, furthering her mission “We are all Artists.”...After 15 years in palliative care hospital chaplaincy, Katie Vaux Aven returned to congregational ministry in the United Church of Canada in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where she lives with her husband and daughters....Voot Yin, assistant professor at the MDI Biological Laboratory, returned to Bates to give a talk on “Regulation of the Microenvironment during Heart Regeneration.”
1997 Reunion 2022, June 10–12 class co-secretaries Chris Gailey gaileycj@gmail.com Leah Wiedmann Gailey leah.gailey@gmail.com class president Stuart B. Abelson sabelson@oraclinical.com Pat Cosquer is beginning his 11th season as Bates’ head men’s and women’s squash coach. He’s the winningest coach in the program’s history and looks to notch his 300th match victory this winter. He lives in Cumberland with wife Olivia and daughters
Amelie (5) and Brielle (3)....The Portland Press Herald interviewed Jason Perkins, whose Allagash Brewing Co. is at the tail end of a sea change in Maine beer: Most of the state’s largest breweries have ditched bottles and put at least some of their beer in cans. Allagash is starting small, canning only one type of beer and selling it only at the Portland brewery itself. Cans are more portable, and the beer inside them less susceptible to damaging ultraviolet light. “We really view this as doing things in a methodical, slow way, the way we’ve always done things here,” Jason said.
takeaway: Andrew Knowlton
BON APPÉTIT
1997
1998 Reunion 2023, June 9–11 class committee Rob Curtis robcurtis@eatonvance.com Douglas Beers douglas.beers@gmail.com Liam Leduc Clarke ldlc639@yahoo.com Renee Leduc Clarke rleducclarke@gmail.com Tyler Munoz tylermunoz@gmail.com Jan Christian Bernabe co-edited a groundbreaking anthology on the intersections of queer theory and contemporary Asian American Art titled Queering Contemporary Asian American Art (Univ. of Washington Press, 2017). He’s also working on a monograph, Improbable Visions: The Archive Imperative in Contemporary Filipino American Photography and Video. When he has a moment to breathe, he and his husband enjoy Chicago’s food and tech scene.... After over a decade at the Solicitor’s Office of the U.S. Department of Labor, Jessica Brown moved into the private sector by joining Willig, Williams & Davidson as of counsel. She primarily represents labor unions and is really excited about this next phase in her career....Kristen Connolly carved a week out of her data analytics and genome sequencing life in Somerville/Cambridge to do a last-minute humanitarian aid mission to Jordan, looking at the Syrian refugee situation. “It was a truly extraordinary week and a successful mission. It was not easy, but it was amazing.”...Mike Ferrari received a Bates’ Best award at Reunion for his years of effective college volunteer work. His citation noted that Mike was “a driving force for Great Day to be a Bobcat” in March, “where your outreach to peers garnered the most donations of any alumni volunteer. You are a leader and an advocate for Bates, and we look forward to your continued strategic partnership in the future.”... Jessica Lindoerfer started a new job as director of experiential education at Landmark College in Putney, Vt., where the students learn differently: All have some kind of LD such as dyslexia or ADHD, or are on the autism spectrum. Jessica and partner Nate have two daughters, Elodie (5) and Cora (3).
media outlet: Bon Appetit
headline:
Portland, Maine, is the 2018 restaurant city of the year
takeaway: A bit of local flavor helps Portland win a famed foodie honor Andrew Knowlton ’97, Bon Appetit’s longtime restaurant editor and now editor at large, named Portland the 2018 Restaurant City of the Year. He cited the city’s many new openings and the variety of offerings, from “an Instagram-worthy lobster roll and a dozen local oysters” to “the killer pho spot or the guy selling hand rolls out of a Yeti cooler.” Knowlton brings some subjectivity to the selection. “I’ve got a thing for Maine,” he wrote. “I went to college there, I got married there, I regularly vacation there.” But Portland was not picked out of “blind favoritism,” he explains, offering a long list of restaurants as evidence. Among them is Hugo’s, one of three places owned by award-winning chef Andrew Taylor ’03, and Allagash Brewing Company, owned by classmate Jason Perkins ’97. (Knowlton said he and Perkins were randomly matched as first-year roommates, then randomly unmatched before the start of the school year.)
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takeaway: Al Donahue
AL DONAHUE ’99
1999
1999 Reunion 2019, June 7–9 class secretary Jennifer Lemkin Bouchard jennifer_bouchard@hotmail.com class president Jamie Ascenzo Trickett jamie.trickett@gmail.com
media outlet: FloBikes
headline:
Why do the country’s top racers want this man as their coach?
takeaway: A Bates biology education makes a great cyclocross trainer Cycling news platform FloBikes called Al Donahue ’99 “a go-to coach” for cyclocross. Donahue, who lives in Easthampton, Mass., got into cyclocross, a form of cycling that involves racing on a variety of terrains and often carrying the bike over certain obstacles, in his 20s. His first client was Jeremy Powers, one of the top cross racers in the country. Donahue uses his Bates biology education to understand the physiology of training for cyclocross racing, but he also “incorporates elements of yoga, meditation, mindfulness, and stretching in addition to their structured workouts on the bike.” “That meditative state teaches people to get in more of a zone, in a flow state,” Donahue told FloBikes. “There’s a huge mental component to the higher-level competitions, and your brain — most people’s brains — will try to sabotage them. Riders who have a meditative practice can handle the stress of bigger races better.”
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Jennifer Allard Zilinski made the move to feline-exclusive veterinary practice and now serves as chief of staff of Taunton (Mass.) Cat Hospital....Chris AhnAllen now works at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston as the director of inpatient psychology and psychology education. It’s been a great role to expand psychology training and continue his clinical interests in serious mental illnesses. He’s hoping to run a half-marathon this fall if his legs can keep up....A’Llyn Ettien and husband Nathan Meharg ’97 made the leap into homeownership in 2017 with a house in Malden, Mass. She marked her 10th year working at the Boston Univ. medical library. “It seems we’re settled in the Boston area for the long term!”...Tim Leach and his wife live in Palmer, Alaska, with their 9-year-old son and spend most of their free time playing outdoors. He left his position with the state (working on energy efficiency projects, policy, and education) to focus on a master’s in energy regulation and law through Vermont Law School. “I look forward to shifting the dialogue in our state agencies regarding energy and climate. In the meantime I get to be a student again, take study breaks in the Talkeetna Mountains, and spend some quality time with my family.”... In Woodstock, Vt., Maeve Ryan keeps busy between her yoga teaching business and marketing consulting business.
2000 Reunion 2020, June 12–14 class secretary Cynthia Macht Link cynthiafriedalink@gmail.com class co-presidents Jennifer Glassman Jacobs jenniferellenjacobs@gmail.com Megan Shelley mhshelley@aol.com
Speaking to PBS NewsHour, Jesse Laflamme ’00 said that a looser federal definition of “organic” eggs is “going to damage the organic seal and not just in the egg category.”
Molly Keehn is doing social justice trainings as a consultant, and teaches part time at Mount Holyoke College, helping to run its Intergroup Dialogue program and teaching courses on facilitation. She launched a new peer accountability program, “CoJourn,” and this fall launched the book she co-wrote about the program....PBS NewsHour interviewed Jesse Laflamme, CEO of Pete and Gerry’s Organic Eggs, on the recent rollback and loosening of the federal definition of organic egg. Rather than requiring organic egg producers to give hens access to soil, the looser definition allows producers to continue to label eggs as “organic” if hens merely have access to sunlight, such as in a porch-like enclosure. The new definition “is going to damage the organic seal and not just in the egg category. I’m talking about all types of organic products. This is a fundamental issue of consumer expectation of organic and trust.”...Cynthia Macht Link and Mark welcomed a daughter, Sadie Moriah Link, on April 12, 2018....Matt Schlobohm, executive director of Maine AFL-CIO, was quoted in the Press Herald about the state’s attempt to ease child labor laws. He criticizes attempts by Gov. Paul LePage’s administation and corporate interests to “seek out cheap labor and find a workforce by rolling back child labor laws.”... The Press Herald reported that Vets First Choice, a veterinary technology provider headed by Ben Shaw, will become the fourth publicly traded company in Maine that isn’t a bank.
2001 Reunion 2021, June 11–13 class secretary Noah Petro npetro@gmail.com class co-presidents Jodi Winterton Cobb jodimcobb@gmail.com Kate Hagstrom Lepore khlepore@gmail.com An ordained Christian minister in the United Church of Christ, Matt Carriker is also an author, spiritual coach, and retreat leader. He’s currently pastoring a new UCC church start in Waltham, Mass., called Agape Spiritual Community. He’s passionate about altering Christianity today into a spiritual tradition that models the unconditional love of God and the life and teachings of Jesus, and that engages in both contemplation and action. His upcoming book is Giving Christianity Back to Agape Love.... Heather Cavanagh has moved to wild and wonderful West Virginia. She lives in Morgantown and is the director of recruiting and professional development at Steptoe & Johnson, PLLC.... Brian Curtis enjoys his work as a technical implementation consultant for Springboard Retail in Boston. He lives in Belmont with Anna Churchill and their two children....Kim Do
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Goding is a graphic designer and marketing director of an athletic apparel company. She spends every Friday hiking and has climbed six mountains so far. “Resides five minutes from campus because couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Bates!”... Kate Hagstrom Lepore and TJ Lepore live in Northampton, Mass., with Homer (9) and Greta (7). TJ is an OB/GYN; Kate works in the astronomy department at Mount Holyoke College. They recently hosted Noah Petro when he gave a talk at Mount Holyoke. They’re hoping he comes back soon so he can pick up his computer adapter....Bridie McGreavy published a co-edited book, Tracing Rhetoric and Material Life: Ecological Approaches (Palgrave Macmillan)....Amanda Meader opened a law firm, Ellis & Meader Attorneys at Law, in downtown Augusta, providing services to individuals, businesses, and government entities across the state....Noah Petro gave a talk to an astronomy class at Mount Holyoke about water on the moon. He was invited by Kate Hagstorm Lepore. While there Noah lost the connector between his computer and the projector. If Kate could find it and send it back to him, he would appreciate it....Three accomplished alumni poets, Craig Teicher, Gabe Fried ’96, and Christian Barter ’90, gathered for a reading and book signing in February at the Muskie Archives.
2002 Reunion 2022, June 10–12 class secretary Stephanie Eby steph.eby@gmail.com co-class presidents Jay Surdukowski jsurdukowski@sulloway.com Drew G. Weymouth weymouthd@gmail.com Jenny Blau and Bret live in D.C. with their three children, Emma (7), Bryce (5), and Penelope (“Penny,” 1). “My brother, Adam (’00), just moved to D.C. and got married, where we reunited with a bunch of other Batesies. I still work at NIH as an endocrinologist.”...Tara Businski writes, “Another career change complete! I graduated with my doctor of physical therapy from Regis Univ. in May. Now working with people with spinal cord injuries at Craig Hospital near Denver.”...Kaiulani Kaneta and Andrew Williams were married July 28, 2017. She’s associate director of academic marketing at Penguin Random House; he’s head of finance, GTM Americas at Thomson Reuters. They live in North Stamford, Conn., and were expecting their first child....Chris Mabbett’s company, Mabbett & Associates Inc., was named in the Boston Business Journal as one of the 50 fastest-growing private companies in Massachusetts. It was also named in the Zweig Letter Hot
Firm List one of the fastest-growing architectural, engineering, and environmental consulting firms in the U.S....Jen Stankiewicz enjoys being on the faculty of Western Governors Univ. Teachers College. She received the Leadership Principle of Learning Award in 2018. She’s still waiting to move back to a coast from Utah.
takeaway: Kate Burakowski
RUE SAKAYAMA
2000
2003 Reunion 2023, June 9–11 class co-presidents Kirstin Boehm-McCarthy kirstincboehm@gmail.com Melissa Wilcox Yanagi meslissayangani@gmail.com Isabel Aley and Jurgen Nebelung ’04 welcomed a son, Quinn Landis Nebelung, on Feb. 5, 2018....The Boston Globe quoted Katie Burke in a story about how companies were preparing for the Massachusetts Equal Pay Act, which took effect last July and is one of the strongest pay equity laws in the country. Katie is the chief people officer for HubSpot, a Cambridge marketing software firm. It created a program that totals the average annual raise per gender in each department to make it easy to see if there’s a substantial difference between the two. “It’s made our entire leadership team more acutely aware of the role we all play in it,” she said....Alan Hunt lives with his wife and daughter on his family’s farm on the Musconetcong River in New Jersey. He completed a PhD in rural development at Newcastle University, U.K., and wrote a book, Civic Engagement in Food System Governance: A comparative perspective of American and British local food movements (Routledge, 2015). “We have 36 chickens and are pacing ourselves in restoring the family farm, while working with producers to establish a local food system. I’m executive director of the Musconetcong Watershed Assn. in Asbury, N.J., which is close enough to kayak to.”...Kate Strum is a co-founder, with three other women, of an educational nonprofit in Oklahoma City called The Conversation Workshops that employs invitational rhetoric to foster intentional dialogue about race for change-oriented communities.... Restaurateurs Andrew Taylor, Mike Wiley and Arlin Smith, owners of Eventide Oyster Co. in Portland and Boston, have signed on with the Massachusetts-based literary agent The Lisa Ekus Group to write an Eventide cookbook. Eventide was named one of Food & Wine’s Best New Restaurants in 2012, and Andrew and Wiley won the James Beard award for Best Chef: Northeast.
media outlet:
New Bedford Standard-Times
headline:
Roller Derby: Kate Burakowski back on track in Providence league
takeaway: Perseverance carries an alumna through stages of life “My whole life is one big track analogy,” Kate Burakowski ’00 told reporter Bill Abramson of the New Bedford Standard-Times, who profiled the Bates track star turned ESL teacher turned roller derby maven. “It teaches determination, perseverance and not giving up.” Burakowski had a “versatile” track career at Bates before moving to China to teach English. She earned a graduate degree in the U.K. and worked in the art world, then returned to Massachusetts as an art teacher. She spends her spare time competing as “Hellderly Spinster” with the Sakonnet River Roller Rats and the Killah Bees.
2004 Reunion 2019, June 7–9 class co-presidents Eduardo Crespo eduardo.crespo.r@gmail.com Tanya Schwartz tanya.schwartz@gmail.com Fall 2018
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Carrie Curtis Clancy continues to live in Bacchus Marsh, Victoria, Australia, with her Aussie-American family. She and Bernie welcomed a second son, McKinley Peter, in February 2018. He joins Tucker....K-Fai Steele has three books for children coming out in 2019. A Normal Pig is her author-illustrator debut with Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins Children’s about a spotted pig who lives in an all-pink pig town and has to deal with her identity when her concept of “normal” is challenged. K-Fai also illustrated Noodlephant by Jacob Kramer (Enchanted Lion Books), about a noodle-loving elephant; and Old MacDonald Had a Baby by Emily Snape (Feiwel & Friends/Macmillan), about a farmer overwhelmed with the care of a new baby.
2005 Reunion 2020, June 12–14 class co-presidents Kathryn Duvall duvall.kathryn@gmail.com Melissa Geissler melissa.geissler@gmail.com Siri Berman and Stefan teach at the American School of São Paulo in Brazil. They welcomed a second son, Kahlo, in March. He joins Miro....Sam and Kathryn Rice Duvall welcomed a son, Connor Rice, in April 2018....Austin Faison is the new town manager of Winthrop, Mass. He and Nneka (Princeton ’05) welcomed Cassius Faison on Feb. 5, 2018. He joins Zoe and Cash....Nancy Highcock completed a PhD in ancient Near Eastern and Egyptian studies at New York Univ. and is starting a post-doc at the McDonald Institute of Archaeological Research at Cambridge Univ., U.K....Ben Jones was named by Forbes as one of the top Next-Gen Wealth Advisors in the country....The Sun Journal quoted Craig Saddlemire in a story about the three arson fires in 2013 that devastated downtown Lewiston. In all, nine buildings were destroyed, leaving hundreds homeless. Craig, who lived in the neighborhood, witnessed the first two fires. He serves as coordinator for the Raise-Op Housing Cooperative based on Pierce Street, which sells shares to tenants, giving them a say in decisions about building maintenance and upkeep. The City Council recently gave the organization a “Spirit of America” award, which commends community service. “I think there were a lot of things that led to the creation of RaiseOp, but I do think that (rash of fires) was one that moved a lot of things to action,” Craig said.
2006 Reunion 2021, June 11–13 class co-presidents Chelsea Cook chelsea.m.cook@gmail.com Katharine M. Nolan knolan06@gmail.com John Ritzo johnnyritzo@gmail.com
The Bangor Daily News talked to Matt Moretti of Bangs Island Mussels, which is testing new machinery that could make Maine home to the “first semi-automated commercial scallop aquaculture operations outside Japan.” The machines, funded by a grant, speed up the process of growing scallops on ropes off the Maine coast, something Matt has been doing with mussels since 2010. He says automation could ensure that scallop farmers can consistently feed a growing market. “We’re super excited about this project,” he said. “It could be a huge boost to the Maine economy.”
2007 Reunion 2022, June 10–12 class co-presidents Keith Kearney kdkearney@gmail.com Rakhshan Zahid rakhshan.zahid@gmail.com
Carolyn King-Robitaille ’07, head field hockey coach of Saint Anselm College, was named the 2018 People’s Choice National Coach of the Year by USA Field Hockey. Ben and Alexandra Penney Bowers live in Portland, Ore., with daughter Bianca. She was born Aug. 10, 2017, and is the sixth great-granddaughter of Hugh ’50 and Lois Keniston Penney ’50 and the first niece for Shannon Penney ’09. Alex works at Nike in Beaverton, and Ben commutes cross-country to run his business, Gear Patrol, out of its NY headquarters.... Monique Brown-Smith started a new job as assistant professor in the department of epidemiology and biostatistics and as a faculty affiliate in the South Carolina SmartState Center for Healthcare Quality, both at the Univ. of South Carolina’s Arnold School of Public Health. She launched a research consulting business, Brown Research Consulting Inc. “I also recently got married to the love of my life, Mr. Will Smith.”... Carolyn King-Robitaille, the head field hockey coach of Saint Anselm College since 2012, was named the 2018 People’s Choice National Coach of the Year by USA Field Hockey. A four-year varsity player at Bates where she also played softball, she was later the college’s assistant field hockey and softball coach and assistant sports information director.... The Jewish Week named Carine Warsawski one of its “36 Under 36” for 2018. She’s the founder of Trybal Gatherings, which creates camp-like retreats for young Jewish adults. Though she traveled to see family frequently growing up, Carine told the
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2002
2008 Reunion 2023, June 9–11 class co-presidents Liz Murphy elizabeth.jayne.m@gmail.com Ali Schwartz Egelson alisonrose.schwartz@gmail.com Liz Murphy and Jon Blanchard received Bates’ Best awards during Reunion last June. They live in Rockville, Md., where Jon is CEO of Electrical Test Instruments, a calibration services provider specializing in electrical and mechanical test equipment, and Liz is a state policy director with Sandy Hook Promise, a national nonprofit focused on gun violence prevention. They were honored at Reunion for being “champions of fundraising for Bates since graduation, and in particular this past year serving on the Bates Fund Executive Committee.” Liz co-chaired the 10th Reunion committee, and Jon has welcomed Bates interns at his company....Jason Buxbaum and wife Alicia Cohen welcomed daughter Abbie on July 3, 2018. He commutes from Providence to pursue a PhD in health policy at Harvard....Besir Ceka was named the L. Richardson King Assistant Professor of Political Science at Davidson College, a pre-tenure endowed professorship which allows Davidson to recruit and retain talented tenure-track faculty....Simon Griesbach completed his family medicine residency in 2015 and works at a residency clinic. He finished a deployment to the Middle East with the Wisconsin Army National Guard....Rachel Katz received her PhD in child study and human development from Tufts Univ. in May 2018. She was selected as one of two national recipients for a postdoctoral fellowship from the Society for Research in Child Development and works at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health with the state’s Early Intervention program. She married Stephen Way in September....Harrison Little was appointed principal of the Enfield (N.H.) Village School, an elementary school. He’s engaged to Sarah Vlachos....Dan Loman married Becca Tollefson on Oct. 13, 2017....Alec Maybarduk, executive director of the Maine State Employees Assn., was quoted in a Sunday Telegram story about systemic problems within the state’s child protective services.
Sameer Maskey
KEVIN BENNETT
Alec, whose union represents child protective workers, said many have reported high levels of stress, management pressure, and a “really negative culture.” “Front-line workers who are providing these services need to have a meaningful voice in the policies and decisions that shape their work.”...Tasha Rosener Friedell started a new job as the outdoor recreation manager at Marine Corps Community Services on Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va....Lincoln Tirpaeck completed his internal medicine residency at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Mass., and will spend the next three years as a cardiology fellow at Baystate. He and Heather also welcomed their second child, Chloe. Everett is 3....Ryan and Meghan Conley Wimberly welcomed their second daughter, Hannah Margaret Wimberly, on May 20, 2018.
NICK ROMANENKO
magazine that she first felt truly connected to Judaism during a camp, and during college and afterward she worked at camps and for student tour companies. “It became important to lead experiences that helped people connect to their Jewish culture, no matter the geography,” she said. “Summer camps are one of the Jewish community’s greatest assets,” she added. “Trybal is an opportunity to take my own transformative experiences from camp and offer [that] to others.”
takeaway:
2009 Reunion 2019, June 7–9 class co-presidents Timothy Gay timothy.s.gay@gmail.com Arsalan Suhail arsalansuhail@gmail.com Sam Evans-Brown, host of New Hampshire Public Radio’s “Outside/In Radio,” and Alex Kapelman, host of “The Decision” podcast, spoke at Bates as part of the college’s Purposeful Work Unplugged series. They talked about “Podcasting on Sports and Culture, The Knicks and Nature,” in conversation with Jan Hovden of the Department of Rhetoric.
2010 Reunion 2020, June 12–14 class co-presidents Brianna Bakow brianna.bakow@gmail.com Vantiel Elizabeth Duncan vantielelizabeth.duncan@gmail. com Washington Business Journal toured Yelp’s new D.C. office and interviewed its senior director and head of sales, Ali Howard. What Ali helped build is pretty swanky: “open-air floor plans, modern furniture, a large kitchen stocked with free snacks, a beer keg for on-tap drinks, and two game areas with a pool table, pingpong and air hockey,” the Journal wrote. The new space is much like Yelp’s other offices, and the expansion is part of Yelp’s effort to recruit talent in D.C. and the Southeast. “D.C. is obviously a really vibrant, amazing city that we are thrilled to be in that’s not hard to get people to stay in,” Ali said. “Also, there are really smart, vibrant people in this city. We think there is an incredible talent pool that we can tap into.”...The Portland Press Herald talked with Jonathan Lobozzo, whose construction company is developing what is billed as Maine’s only net-zero energy subdivision. That means the solar panels on the houses produce
Sameer Maskey ’02 works with Kristyna Alexova ’19, a Purposeful Work intern at Maskey’s artificialintelligence firm last summer.
media outlet: Forbes
headline:
Here’s why we need to democratize artificial intelligence
takeaway: To find and train AI talent, look to developing countries In an essay published in Forbes, Sameer Maskey ’02 says the world needs a lot more artificial intelligence professionals than it currently has. The founder and CEO of Fusemachines, a Manhattan-based AI services and education firm, Maskey argues that students from developing countries should fill the gap — they’re as curious and qualified as Ivy League grads, and “someone who experiences complex problems in his/her own country could be more suited to try and solve those problems with AI.” Maskey, who is a member of the Forbes Technology Council, which comprises worldclass CIOs, CTOs, and technology executives, recently started a fellowship program to teach machine learning to students in the Dominican Republic, New York City, Rwanda, and Maskey’s native Nepal. “If we want everyone to benefit from the development of AI, and not just a few select countries, we need to make AI equally accessible around the world,” Maskey says.
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takeaway: Eben Sypitkowski
KEVIN BENNETT
just as much energy as the homes use. Jonathan is a partner in Burnham & Lobozzo Builders of New Gloucester, which plans to build 10 homes on 30 acres of land in Freeport. “You could heat this home with the oven door cracked open,” Jonathan said of one of the homes under construction. The home, listed at $495,000, is under contract. Baird Landing is being promoted as a open-space community of well-designed houses. The fact that the homes can be heated and cooled for practically nothing is “an aspect of the subdivision that’s important,” he said, “but it’s not the end goal. We’re trying to start a trend, something people can see and respect us for, the next time we do this.”...Conor Sullivan and Clay Stamson became an engaged couple in April 2018. They’re enjoying their life in Dallas together. Conor is an investment counselor with Fisher Investments; Clay is senior vice president of small business lending with Comerica Bank.
Eben Sypitkowski ’05 assists first-time visitor Tom Fegley of Germantown, Md., at Baxter State Park last summer.
media outlet:
Portland Press Herald
headline:
Baxter State Park’s new director keeps focus on ‘wild’
takeaway: Baxter is a place to contemplate and reconnect with nature The Portland Press Herald’s Deirdre Fleming spoke with Eben Sypitkowski ’05, who took over as director of Baxter State Park. The park is best known for containing Mount Katahdin, Maine’s highest peak and the end of the Appalachian Trail. Sypitkowski is taking the helm, Fleming wrote, “at a time when Baxter faces pressures from an increase in visitors and traffic, and demands for conveniences such as Wi-Fi – all of which clash with the ideals to keep the park a wilderness sanctuary.” An environmental studies major at Bates who studied coastal bloodworm digging for his honors thesis, Sypitkowski told Fleming that he hopes to continue the vision of Gov. Percival P. Baxter, who donated the land for the park in the early 1930s “with the stipulation that it ‘forever be left in its natural wild state.’” “All we’re left with is the directive from (Percival Baxter) to keep the facility simple and as natural as possible.” Sypitkowski said. “I think I’ll develop a process to make sure we work within that.”
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2011 Reunion 2021, June 11–13 class co-presidents Theodore Sutherland theodoresutherland89@gmail. com Pat Williams Patw.williams@gmail.com
Netflix has acquired the rights to the debut thriller Tell Me Everything by Cambria Hempton Brockman ’11, set at a Bates-like college. Before it’s even published, Netflix has acquired the film rights to Cambria Hempton Brockman’s debut thriller Tell Me Everything. Due out in June 2019, the novel from Ballantine Bantam Dell “is set at an elite college in small-town New England and follows the shifting alliances and romantic entanglements of six tight-knit students – until one of them is murdered.”...Theodore Sutherland has the head of college role of a pan-African leadership-focused university, ALU, based in Mauritius. “I am eager to learn from and connect with Batesies in higher education for perspective, mentorship, and just having a supportive peer network.” He met Peter Baird ’89 in South Africa at the African Leadership Academy’s graduation, and was excited to see Joseph Ekpenyong ’12, who teaches at ALA, and roommate Clyde Bango get married to the loves of their lives. “I’ll be getting married as well this year to an amazing Swazi woman who actually visited Bates with me for my fifth Reunion.”
2012 Reunion 2022, June 10–12 class co-presidents Mikey Pasek mikeypasek@gmail.com Sangita Murali sangitamurali12@gmail.com
Andy Kageleiry ’12 and Megan Panzer Kageleiry ’12 reached the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro at 6 a.m. on July 29, “on our (Bates wedding!) honeymoon.” Casey Andersen enjoys life in Vacationland, living in Portland and working at Bates in alumni engagement. She’s entranced by how the ocean has never once looked the same in all three years of living in Portland.... Rebecca Clark and Carmichael Gugliotti (UConn ’13) were married May 27, 2018. Rebecca graduated from Tufts’ Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine in May and started a new job as a veterinarian at VCA Bristol (Conn.) in July....James Dowling-Healey traveled to Iceland in January, gaining “insights into the rapid and substantial changes Iceland has gone through in the last 10 years.” With an eye toward strengthening the Bates alumni community in Connecticut, he served as a host of the “Bates in Hartford” event held last June and filled a similar role at the Hartford venue of “Bates in the City” in September.... Tess Glancey hosted Bates students Kerry Manuel ’21 and Daniel Flores ’19 at the U.S. House of Representatives. They spent a day with her for a job shadow last February. Tess is deputy director of communications for the House Committee on Homeland Security.... Andy Kageleiry and Megan Panzer Kageleiry reached the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro at 6 a.m. on July 29, “on our (Bates wedding!) honeymoon.”...Doug Kempner married Katie Russell on April 28, 2018. Katie is the sister of Susan Russell ’14. In May Doug was commissioned as an active duty officer in the U.S. Army and will serve with the 25th Infantry Division....The Sun Journal caught up with Rob Little, a local filmmaker whose latest projects include shooting for DIY Network’s reality series Maine Cabin Masters. Rob’s company, Sublime House Media, works on “filmmaking that could have a positive impact,” the newspaper said. He’s parlayed experience filming in Indonesia and for National Geographic into making videos that help immigrants, and working with kids on filmmaking. For Maine Cabin Masters, Rob is following a crew
class co-presidents Ryan Sonberg rsonberg9@gmail.com Meg Murphy megan.a.murphy3@gmail.com Hank Geng traveled to Portugal for Eurovision 2018. He started a new job at Boston Univ. where he began a part-time MBA program this fall....Daniel Hines got engaged last summer and is “very excited! Living in Beantown and loving it.”
2014 Reunion 2019, June 7–9 class co-presidents Hally Bert hallybert@gmail.com Milly Aroko mildredaroko@gmail.com Ben Breger is pursuing a dual master’s degree in landscape architecture and regional planning at UMass Amherst. He’s interested in designing equitable, resilient, and vibrant communities....SquashBusters, a Boston-based squash program for middle and high school students that also feeds players and supports them academically, started a team in Providence, R.I. Rodney Galvao, who joined SquashBusters in Boston at age 12 and played at Bates, was brought on to run the team.... Sarah Logan, a PhD student in physiology at the Medical College of Wisconsin, returned to Bates to talk about “Propofol Anesthesia and the Developing Brain.”
2015 Reunion 2020, June 12–14 class co-presidents James Brissenden james@brissenden.org Ben Smiley bensmiley32@gmail.com Eliza Barkan started a PhD program in molecular and cellular biology at the Univ. of Washington this fall....After three peaceful years in San Francisco, Michelle Pham moved to New York to join Google’s business team and build upon her work in retail, brand, and e-commerce strategy. She looks forward to new life experiences and endless
2016 Reunion 2021, June 11–13 class co-presidents Sally Ryerson sallyryerson@gmail.com Andre Brittis-Tannenbaum andrebt44@gmail.com Nicole Bermudez was awarded a Pickering Foreign Affairs Fellowship, which provides financial support for graduate study and also puts recipients into a position at the U.S. State Department. She started a master’s in law and diplomacy this fall at Tufts’ Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. She’s the first Bates graduate honored with the Pickering, a fellowship funded by the State Department. Nicole aspires to work as a political officer, a specific diplomatic role dedicated to the analysis of foreign events in the light of U.S. interests.... Ashley Bryant is in her second year in Brazil on a Fulbright as an English teaching assistant and mentor in Curitiba, Paraná.... Cheyenne Cannarozzo is in her third year at Cornell Univ.’s College of Veterinary Medicine, where she is a DVM candidate. Her interests include anesthesiology, pain management, pathophysiology, and pharmacology.... Camille Cushman has begun her third year in the virology PhD program at Harvard. She passed the preliminary qualifying exam and has started her dissertation project at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, studying the development of the aggressive skin cancer Merkel cell carcinoma.... Phil Dube moved back to the East Coast for graduate studies at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies....Detmer Kremer started graduate school at University College London to pursue an MA in human rights.... Filip Michalsky is more than halfway through a data science master’s program at Harvard. He has been growing a mobile health startup he cofounded. “We are seven employees at the moment and growing, and we are hiring!”...Javier Morales is in the final year of a master’s in
the time is now.
2013 Reunion 2023, June 9–11
laughter with lifelong friends from Bates. She’s working on her squash game and will also try her hand at designing and manufacturing a capsule collection with another Googler....The inaugural Bates Film Festival, organized by rhetoric professor Jonathan Cavallero and his “Film Festival Studies” students, opened last March with short films involving Bates people. Included were America; I Too, directed by Anike Tourse ’92; The First Coast, produced by Alexandra Morrow ’16; Strong at the Broken Places: Turning Trauma to Recovery, co-directed and produced by Academy Award-winner Stacey Kabat ’85; The River Behind My House, co-directed, photographed, and edited by Alexandra Morrow; F––– by Nicole Danser; and Where Things May Grow, written and executive produced by Taylor Blackburn.
Learn more: bates.edu/campaign
of builders who fix up cabins in the woods. “Every profession has a wealth of knowledge, and I feel like people forget that about the trades,” he said. “Video in a lot of ways is a trade. You’re making a product, and there’s lots of tools involved.”...Michelle Paquette and fiancé Kyle Kaplinger welcomed a son, David Anthony Kaplinger, on March 9, 2018....Alana Plaus graduated in May with a master’s in public administration from Columbia Univ. She plans to work in housing policy and city governance in her hometown of Denver.
CAMPAIGN
bat e s no t e s
building financial sustainability + driving acad academic excellence + catalyzing student succ success + investing in opportunity + building fi financial sustainability + driving academic exc excellence + catalyzing student success + inve investing in opportunity + building financial s sustainability + driving academic excellence + + catalyzing student success + investing in opp opportunity + building financial sustainability + driving academic excellence + catalyzing stu student success + investing in opportunity + bu building financial sustainability + driving acad academic excellence + catalyzing student succ success + investing in opportunity + building fi financial sustainability + driving academic exc excellence + catalyzing student success + inve investing in opportunity + building financial s sustainability + driving academic excellence + + catalyzing student success + investing in opp opportunity + building financial sustainability + driving academic excellence + catalyzing stu student success + investing in opportunity + bu building financial sustainability + driving acad academic excellence + catalyzing student succ success + investing in opportunity + building fi financial sustainability + driving academic exc excellence + catalyzing student success + inve investing in opportunity + building financial s sustainability + driving academic excellence + catalyzing student success + investing in oppo opportunity + building financial sustainability + driving academic excellence + catalyzing stu student success + investing in opportunity + bu building financial sustainability + driving acad academic excellence + catalyzing student succ success + investing in opportunity + building fi financial sustainability + driving academic exc excellence + catalyzing student success + inve investing in opportunity + building financial s sustainability + driving academic excellence + + catalyzing student success + investing in opp opportunity + building financial sustainability + driving academic excellence + catalyzing stu student success + investing in opportunity + bu building financial sustainability + driving acad academic excellence + catalyzing student succ success + investing in opportunity + building fi financial sustainability + driving academic exc excellence + catalyzing student success + inve investing in opportunity + building financial s sustainability + driving academic excellence + + catalyzing student success + investing in opp opportunity + building financial sustainability + driving academic excellence + catalyzing stu student success + investing in opportunity + bu building financial sustainability + driving acad academic excellence + catalyzing student succ success + investing in opportunity + building fi financial sustainability + driving academic exc excellence + catalyzing student success + inve investing in opportunity + building financial s sustainability + driving academic excellence + + catalyzing student success + investing in opp opportunity + building financial sustainability + driving academic excellence + catalyzing stu student success + investing in opportunity + bu building financial sustainability + driving acad
great feats
bates no tes
physics at Lund Univ. in Sweden. He hopes to stick around afterward and work in the neutron detection group at the European Spallation Source....Kyle Olehnik moved to Tampa, Fla., to begin work as a Department of Defense analyst....Alex Tritell started as a project assistant at Sidley Austin LLP in Washington, D.C.
2017 Reunion 2022, June 10–12
WALT NEUBRAND
class co-presidents Jessie Garson jgarson4@gmail.com Matthew Baker mattdbaker13@gmail.com
Tim Ohashi ’11 begins his day with the Stanley Cup at the Lincoln Memorial, one of his favorite places in the city.
To the Victors Each member of a championship NHL team gets to spend a day with the Stanley Cup, and July 2 was Cup Day for Tim Ohashi ’11, the video analyst for the Washington Capitals. He’s the second Bates alum to have the honor — Jeremy Rogalski ’09 was the Boston Bruins’ video analyst when that team won the championship in 2011. Here’s how Ohashi spent the day: Spent a private early-morning moment with the Cup at the Lincoln Memorial Ate store-brand frosted flakes from the Cup Sat with the Cup at a local restaurant and ended up greeting about 300 fans lured by the iconic trophy Brought the Cup to a police station in his native Bethesda, Md., to thank them for helping to make the city a safe place to grow up Served an ice cream sundae in the Cup at the request of his girlfriend, Nicole Kahn ’10 Threw a party that included drinking beer and champagne from the Cup, with Bates friends Elena Mandzhukova ’15, Jared Quenzel ’13, Brian St. Thomas ’11, Lila Totino ’10, and Luke Wamboldt ’11
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Nima Olumi ’17, tells a New York Times reporter that the opening of a public outdoor squash court in Manhattan “doesn’t solve squash’s elitism problem, but it definitely helps. It gives access.” Alex Brown works at Dartmouth College as the technician/manager of a neuroscience lab. He hopes to move to the Boston area and continue this line of work at MIT or Northeastern.... Mallory Cohen finished her first semester of graduate school for dance/movement therapy and counseling....Rosy DePaul spent four months in Spain working with Bates Fall Semester Abroad as the program assistant. She now lives in Boston and teaches preschool. “Running the Boston Marathon in April, so lots of winter training fun up ahead for me.”...Tom Garone was an operations coordinator for Republican U.S. Senate candidate Bob Hugin in New Jersey this fall....Jessie Garson lives in Georgia and works as a farmer and environmental educator.... Colin Kraft earned a master’s in art history at Indiana Univ. Bloomington....Emma Marchetti was accepted into Urban Teachers, a four-year teaching program in Washington, D.C., during which she will earn a master’s in education from Johns Hopkins. Urban Teachers believes that qualified, highly effective teachers who stay in the classroom can empower students through learning. “This fall, I am working alongside a host teacher in a kindergarten classroom at a D.C. public school. Bates truly prepared me to take on the demands of a master’s program and provided me the skills, knowledge, and desire to pursue a career in education.”...Kelsey McDermott and Zach Kinsella became engaged last May 26 in Vienna.
They live in southern Vermont.... Adrian Melendez-Cooper is attending NYU Law School this fall....Andrew Moreau moved to Philadelphia and works for the school district’s Office of Arts & Academic Enrichment.... Nima Olumi ran into The New York Times’ Amy Sohn as she was reporting on the opening of a public outdoor squash court in Manhattan, a rarity for a sport that’s usually played indoors and has a reputation as a game for the elite. Nima, a digital marketing executive who volunteered at SquashBusters in Boston, a youth development program, and played at Bates, had come to the park to play basketball with his cousins and check out the court. “This doesn’t solve squash’s elitism problem,” he told Sohn, “but it definitely helps. It gives access. It’s like a public golf course.” Nima decided to play shirtless in the warm afternoon. Sohn wrote, “The sight of a shirtless squash player on an outdoor court, a stone’s throw from the East River, seemed to encapsulate New York’s past and future at once.”... Azure Reid-Russell moved to Boston to work at Harvard, researching the effects of stress and childhood trauma on brain development....Nora Stoner joined the Peace Corps and works in Senegal as an agroforestry volunteer. “I am currently living with a huge, amazing family in a tiny village in the north of Senegal. My work includes educating and training farmers and community members about the importance of using trees in their farming techniques and to increase food security, specifically with the propagation of Moringa trees, throughout the country. It’s been an amazing journey so far.”...Hannah Tardie started NYU Tisch Interactive Telecommunications Program this fall and expects to graduate in May 2020....Jackson Whitehouse wrote from New Orleans after a five-month photojournalism road trip “documenting and researching the people who have changed and are changing the American craft beer scene. New Zealand next? Figuring out how to actually use my degree? A hard maybe to both!”
2018 Reunion 2023, June 9–11 class co-presidents John Thayer john.robert.thayer@gmail.com Jake Shapiro shapirojacob6@gmail.com
Simons ’06 & Eanes Julia Simons ’06 and Francis Eanes (visiting professor in Bates’ Environmental Studies program), July 29, 2017, Dennis, Mass. Emily Trono ’06, Eliza Roberts ’06, Gabby Voeller ’06, Julia and Francis, Brooks Motley ’06, Kristin McCurdy Motley ’06, Rachel Sorlien ’06, Emily Hoffer ’06, Helen Minsky ’06, Charlene Impey ’06, Kate Russell ’06. Rose & Arata ’96 Misty Rose and Greg Arata ’96, July 29, 2017, Bar Harbor, Maine. Clockwise from front left: Joel Smith ’95, Misty, Bill Arata ’65, Greg Arata, Greg Qaiyum ’98, Alexis Gargagliano ’99, Lee Susen ’96, Katie Michalewich Holmes ’96, Chris Holmes ’96, Jay Pringle ’98. Clark ’12 & Gugliotti Rebecca Clark ’12 and Carmichael Gugliotti (UConn ’13), May 27, 2018, Saint Clements Castle & Marina, Portland, Conn. Katie Thorn ’12, Michael Dorfman ’12, Jeff Higgins ’12, Rebecca, Caylin Carbonell ’12, Katie Black ’12, Connor Pacala ’12, Alexa Hiley Pacala ’12. Belanger ’09 & Monaco Brianna Belanger ’09 and Steve Monaco (Boston College), Oct. 20, 2017, Red Barn at Outlook Farm, South Berwick, Maine. Meghan Somers Spencer ’09, Kevin Spencer ’08, Rachel Tofel Ferrante ’10, Anya Belanger Huston ’02, Steve and Brianna, Dave Wilcox ’74, Elizabeth Wilcox ’09, Margaret McCann Wilcox ’75, Kristen Dix ’09, Christian Ford ’08, Nicole Svirsky ’09, Cam Ferrante ’10, Travis Granger ’08.
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Please email your high-resolution Bates group wedding photo to magazine@bates.edu. Please identify all people and their class years, and include the wedding date, location, and any other news. Wedding photos are published in the order received. Warner ’08 & Parker ’08 Rachel Warner ’08 and Josh Parker ’08, May 31, 2015, Boston Exchange Center, Seaport Boston. Front row: Mallika Raghavan ’08, Annie Barton ’08, KC Schierberl ’08, Josh and Rachel, Audrey Blanchette Wayne ’06; back row: Deacon Chapin ’09, Bradford Wayne ’11, Danilo Acosta ’08, Ricky Weisskopf ’08, Robert Munro ’08, Cameron Seher ’08. Moore ’11 & Frechette Sarah Moore ’11 and Greg Frechette, Nov. 11, 2017, Bedford, N.H. David Romagnoli ’09, Julia Murphy ’11, Jenn Diefendorf ’11, Meredith Legg ’11, Jenny Krupski Gusella ’11, Rachel Vaivoda ’11, Sarah and Greg, Mike Nadler ’10, Taylor Cook ’11, Chris Cason ’11, Billy Hines ’11, Kim Neubert ’11, Luke Matarazzo ’14. Boyle & Joyce ’10 Natalie Boyle and Chris Joyce ’10, Oct. 14, 2017, Manchester, Vt. Nick Swerdlow ’09, Alexandra Disney ’10, Ben Flanders ’10, Amanda Kesselman ’10, Jadria Cincotta ’13, Kurt Schuler ’10, Rachel Laaff ’10, Tyler Infelise ’09, Chris, Pete Goodwin ’10, Natalie, Liz Miller ’10, Jeannie Larmon ’10, Patrick Gardner ’10, Rusty Milholland ’10, Ketner Lappetito ’10, Dana Bennett ’10, Pete MacArthur ’10, William Loopesko ’10. Mirick ’01 & Mueller Gudrun Mirick ’01 and Mead Mueller, Aug. 19, 2017, Minneapolis. Mike Jensen ’01, Paul Mignone ’00, Helki Schmanska Crowder ’01, Breelyn Wilky ’01, Gudrun and Mead, Kirstin Boehm-McCarthy ’03.
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Buckley ’12 & Guerrero ’12 Katherine Buckley ’12 and Segundo Guerrero ’12, Oct. 28, 2017, Middlebury, Conn. Front row: Katherine and Segundo; middle row: Liberty Slater ’12, Ben Horn ’12, Nina Wolinsky ’12, Devon Bonney ’12, Leah Maciejewski ’12, Reann Gibson ’12, Max Arnell ’13, Kathryn Wolf ’12, Charlie Emple ’12, Adam Cervenka ’14, Mikey Arsnow ’14, Eddie Arsnow ’10, Sangita Murali ’12; back row: Nora Donahue ’12, Erik Barth ’12, Mikey Pasek ’12, Nikki Bugajski ’12, Conor Maginn ’13, Aaron Kaplan ’12, Jake Kaplove ’12, David Buckley ’79, Liam Zaaijer ’12, James Preiss ’14, Meg Murphy ’13, Katie Thorn ’12, Becca Merten ’12. Taylor ’05 & Jones Megan Taylor ’05 and Kyle Jones, April 8, 2018, Saddle Peak Lodge, Calabasas, Calif. Sarah Barnes ’04, Jess Celentano ’05, John Van Nostrand ’04, Katy Clark Van Nostrand ’05, Sarah Jessee ’05, Rachel Silver ’05, Ian Jones ’04, Megan, Matthew Fox Rosler ’05, Kyle, Sunday Ciarlo Taylor ’73, Peter Pawlick ’05, Carola Cassaro ’09, Adrian Cohen ’07, Ben Peck ’05. Laudicina & Acosta ’08 Rachel Laudicina and Danilo Acosta ’08, Sept. 16, 2017, Callanwolde Fine Arts Center, Atlanta. Max Berger ’10, Michael Sherman ’09, Danilo and Rachel, Natasha D’Souza ’08, Ashley Serrao ’08. Cohen & Buxbaum ’08 Alicia Cohen (Williams ’99) and Jason Buxbaum ’08, Oct. 11, 2015, Kingsley, Mich. Josh Olsen ’08, Zack Lapin ’08, Drew Drabek ’08, Jason, Sara Drabek, Alicia, Rebecca Mark, Jacob Mark ’08, Peter Klein ’08, Jayna Griesbach with Estelle Griesbach, Simon Griesbach ’08.
Fall 2018
Hawes ’08 & Peoples Susy Hawes ’08 and David Peoples, Aug. 18, 2017, Kittery, Maine. Jeanette Hardy Baum ’08, Ariel Childs ’08, Hazel Childs, Susy and David, Henry Myer ’08, Emilie Swenson ’08, Whitney Warren ’06, Kate Harmsworth-Morrissey ’08, Caroline Ginsberg ’08, Ryan Fitzsimmons ’08. Nelson ’11 & Regan ’13 Molly Nelson ’11 and Kevin Regan ’13, October 2017, Univ. of New Mexico Alumni Memorial Chapel, Albuquerque. Lesley Weldon Fallu ’77, Molly and Kevin, Nate Walton ’08. Puffer ’08 & Mattson Alison Puffer ’08 and Joseph Mattson, July 22, 2017, Kitz Farm, Strafford, N.H. Laurin Lemieux ’08, Christine Arsnow ’08, Kerry Glavin ’08, Kailey Walsh ’08, Kaitlin Hagan ’08, Mark Puffer ’73, Ali and Joey, Jeanne Lothrop ’08, Olivia Philipp ’08, Alyssa Thompson-Tucker ’08, Nithya Sabanayagam ’08, Julie Berman ’08, Mark Grande ’08. Codraro ’09 & Latham ’11 Sarah Codraro ’09 and Ben Latham ’11, Sept. 23, 2017, Elk, Calif. Tim Howard ’09, Rob Friedman ’11, Will Hereford ’07, Olga Grigorenko ’10, Ali Spangler ’10, Dan Naparstek ’11, Alex Koster ’11, Greg Flynn ’11, Andrew Wilcox ’11, Annie Svigals ’10, Alexis Grossman ’07, Nancy Lappetito ’10, Madeline McLean ’09, Jeremy Porter ’11, Jane Salpeter ’12, Maya Ovrutsky ’10, Ali Hare ’11, Tom Bloch ’11, John Laude ’11, Edward Sturtevant ’11, Julia Bedell ’10, Erin Gilligan ’09, Rachael Edwards ’11, Rose Gold ’10, Andrew Karp ’10, who officiated, Sarah and Ben, Will Gardner ’09.
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Edited by Christine Terp Madsen ’73
1932 Violet Blanchard Myrvaagnes November 15, 2017 A sociology major, Violet Blanchard Myrvaagnes returned to school in 1968 to earn a master’s in education. She then went to work as a proofreader at several locations in Boston. At Bates, she played nearly every sport available to women, including baseball. In 2017, this magazine ran a brief item after her 105th birthday. “She cannot move around much and won’t be attending any more Reunions,” said her son Eric. “But she is still cheerful, still plays her recorder, and has her sense of humor.” In addition to Eric, survivors include son Rodney and a grandchild. She had a number of relatives, now deceased, who attended Bates: sister Hazel Blanchard Prosser ’29; brothers Loring W. Blanchard ’30 and Ernest R. Blanchard ’34; sisterin-law Ona Leadbetter Blanchard ’30; and niece Nancy Prosser ’64.
1936 Irving D. Isaacson March 30, 2018 Ike Isaacson was a blacksmith – not an overly muscled type wrestling horseshoes out of bars of barely yielding metal but a craftsman honing fine practical artwork from copper and brass. He also was a corporate lawyer, honing legal deals for entities such as L.L. Bean and AOL. He left Bates summa cum laude in economics and went immediately to Harvard Law School. When World War II came along, he signed up for the infantry and ended up in the OSS, forerunner to the CIA. It was while in service that he met Jutka Magyar, whom he married and whom we know as Judith Isaacson ’65, Bates’ renowned dean of women and dean of students. She died in 2015. Together they formed the L&A Fund, an informal way to do good things in the Lewiston/Auburn community. A Bates trustee for six years, he was an alumni class officer and a member of his 55th and 60th Reunion committees. Survivors include children John Isaacson, Ilona Bell, and Mark Isaacson; eight grandchildren,
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including Tess Goode ’07; and one great-grandchild. His cousins, both deceased, were Phillip M. Isaacson ’47 and Harris M. Isaacson ’22. Several in-laws also were graduates: Deborah Rosen Isaacson ’54 and Herbert A. Miller ’38.
V-12 William E. Chipman October 24, 2017 William Chipman came to Bates for the V-12 program. He graduated from UC Berkeley. His career was in hosiery, serving as president of Chas Chipman Sons Co. and then as board chairman of Chipman-Union Mfg. Co. until retirement in 1985. Survivors include wife Theresa Vadnais Chipman and stepdaughter Patricia Clerkin. Paul J. Mitchell February 11, 2018 Paul Mitchell came to Bates as part of the V-12 program, going on to graduate from UMaine Orono in 1949 and earn a master’s from Columbia in 1950. He built a career in insurance, starting with Liberty Mutual and ending with his own agency in Waterville. He served the city of Waterville in several capacities and was a UMaine trustee. In 2006, he was recognized by the Maine House of Representatives for a lifetime of achievement including serving as president of the Maine Insurance Agents Assn. Survivors include wife Yvette Pooler Mitchell; children Paul Jr., Linda Price, Jeffrey, and William; 12 grandchildren, including Bethany Mitchell-Legro ’08; and six great-grandchildren.
1939 Winifred Libby Harlow December 18, 2009 Polly Libby Harlow was a musician who taught piano for much of her life. She was a member of the Polymnia Society, her church choir, and the Beethoven Society. She also painted in oils and especially enjoyed painting birds.
1943 Roy Phillip Fairfield January 22, 2018
If you loved “Cultural Heritage” – aka “Cultch” – or hated it, you have Professor Roy Fairfield to thank. He founded the program of courses in cultural history at Bates and taught in it for 10 years, 1947–57. He graduated from Bates in 1943 with a degree in English and returned four years later with a master’s from Harvard in American civilization (followed by a doctorate in 1953). After leaving Bates, he was a professor of social science at Ohio Univ. (1957–64), and a history professor at Antioch College (1964–66). He was the first director of the Antioch New England Graduate School in Putney, Vt., and a co-creator and first dean of an experimental doctoral program, Union Graduate School, at the Union Institute of Cincinnati, Ohio. Fairfield was the author of two books on the history of Saco, his beloved hometown, as well as two novels, three books of poetry, and countless newspaper articles. He served Bates as a member of his 50th Reunion committee and the Alumni Council. Survivors include wife Maryllyn Rumery Fairfield; and daughter Donna.
1944 Louise Gifford Gibbs February 11, 2018 “Giffy” Gibbs had an unusual teaching career: She and her late husband Daniel W. Gibbs ’44 spent two years in Moscow, where she taught and he was director of the Anglo-American School. They were wined and dined at many foreign embassies, which considered them VIPs, but their apartment, phone, and car were bugged and their apartment was often “visited” by the KGB in their absence. She also taught at the elementary and secondary levels in Hingham, Mass., after completing a master’s in education from Bridgewater (Mass.) State. She was a member of her 50th and 55th Reunion committees, a former class agent, and a BCDC career adviser. Survivors include children Thomas Gibbs, Linda Gutterman, and Deborah GibbsBrooks; and five grandchildren. Her grandniece is Catherine Merton ’18. Her late brother-inlaw was Joseph F. Gibbs ’58. Nina Leonard Sloan February 18, 2018 Nina Leonard Sloan held a variety of social service jobs during her life, but they all centered around one thing: helping children. She earned a master’s in child development from Bank Street College of Education and became a licensed psychotherapist. In between those milestones, she worked in early childhood education, special education, and day care administration. Survivors include daughters Ruth Berger and Victoria Swensen; five grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren. Her niece is Nina J. Mendall ’65, and her great-niece is Carrie Jewell ’97. Her late sister and brother-in-law were Lucille Leonard Jewell ’42 and Malcolm L. Jewell ’42.
1945 Marion Otis Donnell December 15, 2017 Marion Otis Donnell graduated cum laude in Latin and was admitted to Phi Beta Kappa. She taught Latin and English in Jay, Richmond, and Winthrop. She served as organist at the United Church in Monmouth for over 30 years, and was the first woman elected to Monmouth Academy’s board of trustees. Survivors include children Norma Leonard and Wayne Donnell; three grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. Her niece is Kathryn Skinner Sever ’71; her in-laws are Linda Halleck Putnam ’70 and Kendall C. Putnam ’69. Her late sister was Louise Otis Smith ’44, and her late cousin was Irene Cook Putnam ’37.
1946 William Hassett Canty December 22, 2017 Hank Canty left Bates temporarily to serve in the U.S. Army Air Forces as a radio operator during World War II. He actually graduated in 1948 with a degree in chemistry, but maintained his affiliation with his original class. He worked as a chemist at R.T. Vanderbilt Co. until retiring in 1986. He was said to be the star of every dance floor he set foot on. Survivors include wife Helen Reilly Canty; children Suzanne Hilson, Kathleen Lesh, Deborah Gula, Timothy Canty, and Mary Beth Canty; nine grandchildren; and three great-grandsons. His late sister-in-law was Kathleen Reilly Parkington ’46. Geraldine Nickerson Coombs December 27, 2017 In 2012, Gerry Nickerson Coombs was recognized as citizen of the year by the city of Bath, the culmination of a lifetime of service to her hometown. “She’s a one-woman dynamo,” said a fellow volunteer at a dedication ceremony where a young double white horse chestnut tree (her favorite) was planted in honor of the charter member of the Bath Community Forestry Committee. She held a degree in English from Bates as well as a master’s in education from USM. She also was trained to teach blind children through a program at Perkins School for the Blind. She served on the board of the Bath Area Food Bank, and worked on several Habitat for Humanity builds. A charter member of Literacy Volunteers of Bath, she served as its treasurer, librarian, and ESL teacher. She also taught for 11 years in the Bath and Brunswick school systems. Survivors include children Paul Coombs and Eileen Goddard; four grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren. Dorothy Lichter Schwartz February 9, 2018 Dorothy Schwartz worked as a substitute teacher while volunteering for several charitable organizations. She also clerked in Schwartz Hardware for
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many years. She was a longtime member of Temple Beth El in Fall River, Mass. Survivors include sons Richard and Daniel.
1947 Stanley Leonard Freeman Jr. February 18, 2018 Stan Freeman was one of only a dozen men in his class when he started at Bates: Everyone else was in the military. He was too young, but enlisted in the U.S. Navy after the first semester of his sophomore year – finally old enough. He returned to graduate in 1948. He thought he wanted to be a teacher, but one year with the seventh-graders changed his mind. He went back to school at Columbia, earning a doctorate in education, all while on the faculty of the Univ. of Maine School of Education. In 1969, he became the assistant chancellor; the following year he became the vice-chancellor for academic affairs of the statewide university system. He became acting chancellor in 1974, but resigned two years later, saying he missed the interactions with students and preferred a professorship instead (at a cut in pay). He was a member of the College Key, an alumni class officer, class agent, and a member of various Reunion committees. His wife, Madeleine Richard Freeman ’47, died in 2012. Survivors include children Martha and Richard; companion Betty B. Calkins; four grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren.
1948 Patricia Curran Garrity January 11, 2018 A Lewiston native, Patricia Curran Garrity left Bates after a year to enroll in the school of nursing at Central Maine General Hospital (now Central Maine Medical Center). She worked as a nurse in Connecticut and Maine. Survivors include sons Martin, Mike, and Tim; six grandchildren; and 13 great-grandchildren.
1949 Barbara Mason Davis January 19, 2018 She fulfilled her wish, as expressed in The Mirror: Scotty Mason Davis “hopes to teach,” read the yearbook. She taught for a year in Dixfield before marriage to Donald Davis ’50 moved her to Massachusetts. (He passed away in 2010.) She also taught English to three generations of Vietnamese immigrants, many of whom became friends. A history/government major at Bates, she was the first member of her family to graduate from college. Survivors include children Donna Davis Keenan ’75, Scott Davis, and Andrea Davis; eight grandchildren; three great-grandchildren; and son-in-law Russell Keenan ’75. Joel Merrill Fisk February 18, 2018 Joel Fisk taught for several years before serving in the Korean
War as a medical detachment staff sergeant. He returned to teaching and eventually took a position in the Rockland school system, where he remained for 35 years. He retired as principal of the Rockland District Junior High School. A history major, he earned a master’s in education from UMaine Orono. He was a member of the Warren Congregational Church, IOOF, Knights of Pythias, and the American Legion and served on several Rockport town committees. Survivors include daughters Brenda and Joanna; and seven grandchildren. Richard L. Murphy January 20, 2018 Dick Murphy left Bates for UMaine Orono, and served in the Army during the Korean War. He was an avid athlete and co-owned a real estate company in Lewiston. Survivors include wife Joan Brown Murphy; daughter Maureen Murphy; stepdaughter Tina Lessard; seven grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren. Howard Abner Welch Jr. March 27, 2010 A U.S. Army veteran, Howard Welch was involved in the D-Day invasion at Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge. He worked as an electrical engineer with the Raytheon Corp. in Massachusetts. His late father was Howard A. Welch 1912.
1950 Helen Barbara Sherry Caron Beaudoin March 4, 2018 Barbara Beaudoin finished her degree at Marietta College in Ohio. She worked in cytology for many years before retiring in 1992 from Maine Medical Center. Survivors include children Renee Whelan and Paul Caron; stepsons Norman and Paul Beaudoin; and two grandchildren. Ryozo Glenn Kumekawa April 16, 2018 Glenn Kumekawa came to Bates with the help of the National Japanese American Student Relocation Council after being interned with other Japanese Americans at a camp in the Utah desert during World War II. With a degree in sociology, he studied city planning at Brown Univ., where he earned a doctorate. Deeply affected by the time he spent in the internment camp, he spoke often on the subject, including a talk at Bates after 9/11 when anti-Muslim sentiment was high: “The legacy tells us that, as we face our own crisis situations, we need to assure that the passions of the day are appropriately constrained” by checks and balances that the government “did not have 60 years ago,” Kumekawa told his listeners. Over the past three decades he devoted his attention to serving the Nisei Student Relocation Commemorative Fund, created to repay the generosity of the NJASRC and lend a helping hand to the underserved Southeast Asian community; he
was a board member, president, and chair of a scholarship awards committee. Survivors include wife Yoshiko Kumekawa; and children Joanne, Richard, and Kenneth.
1951 Max Sibbald Bell Jr. December 6, 2017 Max Bell ruminated on a class survey that he had “graduated from Young Republican activities to ACLU endeavors.” A lawyer who earned his law degree from Harvard, he served on the ACLU national board. At Bates, he was a debater – president of the Brooks Quimby Debate Council as a senior (as well as president of the Young Republicans). He practiced for 40 years in Wilmington, Del., served as president of the ACLU’s Delaware affiliate, and was a 30year member of Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Delaware board of directors. He served on his 50th and 55th Reunion committees, on the Alumni Council in the 1980s, and as a class agent and Alumni-inAdmission volunteer. Survivors include sons Dwight ’77 and Curtis; and three grandchildren. Ralph Edson Cate Sr. January 10, 2018 Ralph Cate’s time at Bates was interrupted by service in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War. He graduated with a degree in English, and worked as a proofreader in the banking industry before retiring in 1997. Survivors include children Sue Packer, Ann Vogt, Vickie Littrell, Deborah Cavanagh, Linda Overstreet, and Ralph Jr.; and numerous grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren. His grandfather was Thomas J. Cate 1908. Warren Bertrand Gilman February 10, 2018 The week after Warren Gilman graduated from Bates with a degree in chemistry, he stopped by the S.D. Warren paper company looking for a job. It hired him on the spot, and he worked there until retirement as a chemist in the research lab and the tech lab. He had a hand in six patents, including one for acid-free paper that has made conservation that much easier. He had a poetic side, and his work was published a number of times; he was a founder of the North Gorham Writing Group. He was also active in the community of North Gorham, where he was born and lived, and was either part of every committee or an instigator of it. A member of the United Church of Christ in North Gorham, he sang in the choir and served as a trustee. Survivors include wife Emma Weber; children Cynthia and Bertrand; one grandchild; and two great-grandchildren. Robert Alvan Greene Jr. November 30, 2017 His degree from Bates in biology led Robert Greene to dental school at the Univ. of Pennsylvania. He practiced first in Connecticut and then for 25 years with his wife in
Boothbay Harbor. They continued to summer there after retirement to Virginia. Survivors include wife Ellen Englert Greene; children Robert ’88, Heidi, and Jonathan; four grandchildren; and sister Meredith Greene Edinger ’56. Other Bates relatives, all deceased, were parents Robert A. Greene 1917 and Maud Murphy Greene 1916; uncle C. Owen Greene 1921; aunts E. Berenice Greene 1919 and Marion G. Greene 1915; and cousin Edith-Ellen Greene Kimball ’55. Anna Sparta Vitiello February 14, 2018 Anna Sparta Vitiello worked for New England Telephone for several years before a trip to Italy introduced her to Domenico Vitiello, which turned her brief vacation into a five-year marriage. She returned to the U.S. and became a Spanish and English teacher in Lewiston High School, retiring in 1986. She was a member of the College Key and her 45th Reunion committee. Survivors include son Vincent; and three grandchildren.
1952 Mark Allen Gould April 5, 2018 Mark Gould graduated from Bates with a degree in biology and took it Tufts, where he earned a medical degree in 1956. He continued his training with a psychiatry residency at Washington Univ. Medical Center in St. Louis. In 1963 he started a 31-year career at Brawner Psychiatric Institute in Smyrna, Ga., where he was appointed medical director in 1969. He served as president of both the Georgia Psychiatric Assn., which named him “Man of the Year” in 1970, and the National Assn. of Private Psychiatric Hospitals. In retirement, he traveled to over 50 countries. Survivors include wife Gloria C. Gould; sons Thomas and Mark; and three grandchildren.
1953 Bette Grierson Houston December 16, 2017 Bett Grierson Houston was a pioneer in several respects. She served in the Navy for three years as an early WAVE in the ROTC program, but shelved her career in order to raise her children. At the age of 44, she became a stockbroker and had a long career as a certified financial planner. She and her husband, the late Harry R. Houston ’52, enjoyed a rich life of adventure as pilots, sailors, scuba divers, archaeology students and world travelers. Survivors include children Susan Carlson, James Houston, and Barbara Houston-Shimuzu; four grandchildren; six great-grandchildren; and nephew David R. Houston ’70. Robert Sholom Kolovson January 8, 2018 After a stint in the U.S. Army, Bob Kolovson started work as a middle school teacher in Connecticut, teaching history (his major) and social studies. He earned a mas-
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ter’s in education from Southern Connecticut State College. He retired to Portland in 1981 and became a substitute teacher; he also cooked at Howard Johnson’s and was a bagger at Hannaford’s under the watchful eye of Jim Moody ’53. He was a member of his 40th Reunion committee. Survivors include sons Dana and Jordan Kolovson. His late sister-in-law was June Klane Kolovson ’46. Cynthia Parsons Menck September 30, 2017 Cyn Parsons Menck taught English at several secondary schools in Los Angeles. After retiring in 1993, she worked part time for five years at DeVry Institute. She held a degree in English from Bates and a master’s in education from Harvard. She was a member of her 50th Reunion Committee, a former alumni class officer, and a member of the College Key. Survivors include husband Herman; and children Dana, Jocelyn, and Walter. Richard Francis Packard Sr. February 17, 2018 Richard Packard Sr. married before coming to Bates and following service in the U.S. Navy. He graduated from McCoy College after leaving Bates. Survivors include wife Bernice Ellis Packard; children Richard Jr., Irene Coyle, Holly P. Bell, and Ashley B. Packard; seven grandchildren; four great-grandchildren; and sister Harriet Packard Guinn ’55. Their late parents were Charles E. Packard 1919 and Lillian Woodbury Packard 1919. Lucille Higgins Pirie November 4, 2017 A sociology major, Lue Higgins Pirie remained politically active and was a flower gardener and an avid pie maker and reader. She worked in numerous positions in social services, including with special needs children, a state fuel assistance program, and a technology program for teachers, all in Massachusetts. She met her husband, James Pirie ’52, on a blind date. He survives her, as do children Lisabeth Pirie, Korinna Hudson, Christopher Pirie, and Sandra Pirie-St.Amour; and six grandchildren. William Yeaton Stevens January 12, 2018 Bill Stevens spent his entire career at IBM, starting out with summer jobs and eventually retiring with the rank of senior engineer. He was part of the group that designed System 360, still the design basis for large servers. His degree from Bates was in physics, and he earned a doctorate from Cornell. He worked with the Robinson Players throughout his time at Bates, and went looking for the local theater group when he started with IBM in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. He later served as the group’s president. An interest in firefighting prompted him to join the New Hamburg fire department as a volunteer. He later served both as fire chief and as chairman of the board of fire commissioners. Besides his wife, survivors include 86
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children Emily and Guy Stevens ’92; and one grandchild. His late parents were Philip L. Stevens ’22 and Eleanore Yeaton Stevens ’22. His grandfather was Harold W. Yeaton 1905, and his uncle was Samuel S. Yeaton ’28. John Alfred Sturgis December 25, 2014 John Sturgis was active in the Robinson Players at Bates while earning a degree in math. After a four-year stint in the U.S. Navy, he went to work for Southern New England Telephone and AT&T and remained in the Navy Reserves for another 18. He retired in 1986. He and his wife, Barbara Earl Sturgis ’53, became amateur archaeologists and volunteered for the U.S. Forest Service. He was a member of his 40th and 35th Reunion committees. In addition to his wife, survivors include nephew Jeffrey D. Sturgis ’69 and nieces Carolyn Sturgis Hall ’68 and Linda Barker Koloski ’67. His other Bates relatives, now all deceased, were brothers Deane M. Sturgis ’49 and Harlan M. Sturgis ’43; sister Norine Sturgis Barker ’41; and sisters-inlaw Agnes Mahan Sturgis ’45 and Erma Rowe Sturgis ’46. Peter Sherrill Whitaker January 15, 2018 Pete Whitaker earned a master’s in sociology from Boston Univ. in addition to his degree from Bates. He made a career out of the YMCA, serving as the executive director in Saugus, Mass., for many years. He went on to be the executive director in Burlington, Vt., where he led a capital campaign to renovate and expand the YMCA building. In retirement he worked as a tutor with special-needs students. He was a class agent for many years and a member of his 55th, 50th, and 35th Reunion committees. Survivors include wife Marion Shatts Whitaker ’54; children Cherry Reiniger, Sarah Cochran, Rebecca Christensen, and Scott Whitaker; nine grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren.
1954 Joanne Waldo Bixby April 1, 2018 Joanne Waldo Bixby worked as a teacher’s aide in Attleboro, Mass., for many years. She volunteered at the Attleboro Council on Aging, where she helped develop Attleboro’s Larsen Senior Center. A poet, she helped found the Attleboro Writers Workshop. A longtime member of the Second Congregational Church, she played an active role in church missions. Survivors include husband William L. Bixby; sons Nathan and Peter; and three grandchildren. Her late brother was Everett A. Waldo ’54. Arthur René LeBlanc Jr. April 12, 2018 “Work hard, play hard,” was the motto of Art LeBlanc. He worked hard at his three (consecutive) careers: a master navigator in the Air Force, an innkeeper in Kennebunk, and a restaurateur in
Kennebunkport. And he played hard: He was a fly fisherman, a skier, and, he claimed, the first person to water ski Marblehead (Mass.) Harbor. After 21 years in the Air Force, he retired as a major and bought the Kennebunk Inn, which was in disrepair. Hard work and a lot of help from family and friends brought the inn back to glory. He also served on the Kennebunk planning board and was an active member of the Rotary Club. He was chair of his 45th Reunion social committee and a member of his 50th and 60th Reunion committees. Survivors include wife Angela Marcucci LeBlanc; children Arthur III, Alan, Alyse LeBlanc Rodriguez ’85, Amira Bixby, and Alaina Tridente; and 12 grandchildren. Constance Manion Parker January 22, 2018 Connie Manion Parker put her Phi Beta Kappa English degree to good use. She worked at the library in Bloomington, Ind., before working for the Library of Congress as a cataloger. She also worked for a small publisher as a proofreader and editor, and was surprised one day to be given a manuscript by her Bates Cultch professor, John Wilkes. Survivors include children Julia and Doug Parker; and four grandchildren. Her late husband was Arthur Parker ’54. Barbara Meader Roof November 8, 2017 Barbara Meader Roof worked at the CIA for several years before marrying. She then made a career out of motherhood and volunteering. She was active for over 30 years in the Good Samaritan Hospital Auxiliary near San Jose, Calif., serving twice as its president and as a hospital board member. In retirement, she and husband Richard traveled to over 25 countries. In addition to her husband, survivors include children David, Robin, and Steven; four grandchildren; and brother Raymon F. Meader ’44, whose late wife was Elaine Humphrey Meader ’42.
1955 Sylvia Hanson Atwater January 6, 2018 Sylvia Hanson Atwater was traveling in Europe when she discovered her avocation: photography. Her favorite subject was Cape Cod, where she vacationed as often as she could. She combined her interest in photography with a varied career: medical research, raising a family, working at the town library and as a secretary. Survivors include children Tracy Gray and Stephen and Scott Atwater; and three grandchildren. She was divorced from the late Robert E. Atwater ’55. Gerald David Bullock January 26, 2018 Jerry Bullock came to Bates after two years at Springfield College and service in the U.S. Navy. An economics major, he worked at The Hartford Insurance Group
for over 30 years as a regional supervisor. He was a member of the First Congregational Church of Vernon (Conn.), the Wintonbury Flying Club, and Wampanoag Country Club. Survivors include wife Doris Costigan Bullock; children Jill McAllister, Clifford Bullock, Brenda Bullock Gothers ’85 and her husband David Gothers ’83; stepchildren Deirdre Armon and Jay Dillon; 11 grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren. His late brother-in-law was Lawrence A. Bailey ’49. Sherman Richard Prothero January 5, 2018 Dick Prothero almost didn’t make it out of high school. It took two shots at his senior year before the principal, Clarence Chatto 1912, saw talent in him and urged him to apply to Bates. He was accepted, and shortly before leaving for Bates he met the woman he would marry, Helen Anderson Prothero ’55. He built his Bates degree in biology and chemistry into a medical degree from Columbia. Since he always liked to fix things (he once disassembled a reproducing player piano, repaired its 1,000 parts, and reassembled it), it’s no surprise that he went into orthopedics. He completed his residency at Columbia and joined a practice on Cape Cod. He was a member of his 45th and 35th Reunion gift committees, and a campaign volunteer in the 1970s. Besides his wife, survivors include children Laurie Prothero Sperry ’81, and Stephen, Dan, Eric, and David Prothero; and nine grandchildren. His late brother was Jon C. Prothero ’60. Merriam Round Wheeler January 14, 2018 For a “housewife,” Mimi Round Wheeler was extraordinarily busy. She had most recently worked as a librarian for Pittsylvania (Va.) County, but before that she had taught elementary school, led Girl Scouts, worked elections, counted folks for the census, volunteered at her church, volunteered for the town where she lived, and ran the Welcome Wagon. A psychology major, she took graduate courses at the Univ. of Penn. (elementary education), Villanova, and Lynchburg College (library science). Oh, yes, she also ran a household for her four children, who survive her. They are Lynn Phillips, Martha Singleton, David Wheeler, and Scott Wheeler; other survivors include three grandchildren. Her late husband was Russell M. Wheeler ’53.
1956 Herman Newton Elston February 21, 2018 Bud Elston came to Bates to play football, but his education was interrupted by the Korean War. Afterward, he elected to attend the Univ. of Tulsa and earned a degree in geology. Survivors include wife Prudence; children Sara Mack, Laurie Champagne, Jennifer McNally, and Stephanie, Leslie, Jared and Alex Elston; and six grandchildren.
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Robert Louis Nelson October 4, 2017 A government major, Bob Nelson walked into the admissions office at Georgetown Law school with his grades and resume and was offered admission on the spot. Following graduation from Georgetown, he went to work for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. He was drawn away from the District of Columbia by work for the U.S. Agency for International Development, which took him to Rio de Janeiro and Africa. He was the executive director of the Lawyers Committee on Civil Rights when Ed Muskie ’36 tapped him to become deputy campaign manager of his 1972 presidential campaign. In 1977, President Carter named him assistant secretary of the Army for manpower and reserve. Survivors include wife Rita Hutchins Nelson; daughters Karen Shernan and Robin Gay; four grandchildren; and one great-grandchild. Barry Sundlum Novek December 22, 2016 Barry Novek served in the U.S. Army following graduation and had an affinity for the U.S. Coast Guard, living in the port city of Fall River, Mass. A government major, he was active in the Robinson Players and intramural sports. He is survived by wife Meryl; children Karen Novek Reynolds and Keith Novek; and two grandchildren. Nancy Johnson Wiegel February 21, 2018 If you ever bought greeting cards from American Greetings, there’s a chance the verse was written by Nancy Johnson Wiegel. A published poet in her own right, she founded the White Pelican Review poetry quarterly, and edited and managed it. She also taught a little: violin, German, and poetry. In 1982, she became a travel agent, indulging her passion for travel. Survivors include husband Ronald Wiegel; children Christopher Wiegel, Andrea LeDew, and Erica O’Neill; and 10 grandchildren. Her late grandparents were Grace Pratt Johnson 1906 and Albert G. Johnson 1906, and her late aunt was Margaret Johnson Maclean ’33.
1957 George Arthur Baker Jr. December 2, 2017 George Baker followed in his parents’ footsteps. They worked in executive positions at a youth rehabilitation facility in Massachusetts; he majored in sociology and earned a master’s in social work from Boston College. He was a probation officer for 10 years in the Lawrence, Mass., area, where he lived his father’s creed: “It is better to build boys than to mend men.” His passion for working with youth of Lawrence led him to develop many programs using individual and group therapy with an emphasis on character building. Survivors include children George III, Andrew, Jeffrey, and Beth Baker,
Monica Ratkovich, and Dawn Getchell; eight grandchildren; four step-grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren. John Quayle Cannon Jr. December 27, 2017 Jack Cannon served in the U.S. Army before coming to Bates. An economics major, he also earned a master’s from Brigham Young Univ. He served in the South Africa Johannesburg mission and many other capacities for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His career primarily was at Southern Utah Univ. as director of both financial aid and career placement until he retired in 1995. Survivors include children Michael and John Cannon, Dian Morrison, and Martha Ann Johnson; 18 grandchildren; and 21 great-grandchildren. Robert Joseph Kunze December 30, 2017 After Robert Kunze broke two $35 thermometers in five minutes, a Bates professor said he’d never seen anyone less likely to become a chemist. He persevered and eventually built a career in the field. His first job was with Celanese Plastic Co., helping market the company’s polyacetal resins. He worked at GE for a decade, rising to become manager of the plastics division in Europe. A pioneer in venture capital, he was a general partner of Life Science Ventures, specializing in medical startups. In the ’80s, seeking to publish Nothing Ventured, about the venture capital business, he contacted his friend and then-literary agent, the late Michael Powers ’59. Powers helped him publish the book – and introduced him to his future wife, Betsy Nolan, owner of the agency. Born in Brooklyn near Ebbetts Field, he retired to San Francisco, staying close to his beloved Giants. In addition to his wife, survivors include children from his marriage, to Janet Arnold Kirk ’58, which ended in divorce: John Harry Kunze and Anne Kunze Brush; four grandchildren; and a brother, Harry Kunze. Douglas VanDeventer Leathem July 28, 2017 Douglas Leatham was a financial analyst and certified financial planner who held an MBA from the Univ. of Pennsylvania. He served on his 40th Reunion committee and the campaigns for Bates in the 1980s. He lived in South Paris, Maine. He had two children, Douglas Jr. and Jill. Susan Gaines Ovitt February 8, 2018 Susan Gaines Ovitt left Bates before graduation. She married Thomas R. Ovitt and enjoyed 40 years as an Army wife. She was active in the Enosburgh (Vt.) Historical Society. Her children are Catherine, Ruth, Mary, Gail, Thomas, Nancy, and Jaquelyn Ovitt. John Edward Towse December 5, 2017 Jack Towse left Bates after two years and graduated from the
Univ. of Massachusetts. Survivors include daughter Laura Towse. His late brother was Robert W. Towse ’48.
1958 Stanton Francis Brown February 8, 2018 Stanton Brown left Bates to graduate from Suffolk Univ. But he was at Bates long enough to meet the woman who would become his wife, Jane Reinelt Brown ’58. He managed the family farm, H.F. Brown Inc., and Browns Harvest for most of his life. In addition to his wife, survivors include children Kathi, Kevin, and Susan; and four grandchildren. William Daniel MacKinnon Jr. December 16, 2017 Bill MacKinnon was trying to come up with something good to celebrate the U.S. Bicentennial. He decided to start an infantry unit to take part in the celebrations in nearby Concord, Mass. His unit from Wilmington, one of the towns that actually fought on April 19, 1775, got his whole family involved. They participated in 86 events that year alone. His career was in banking, although he advised against it as a profession. He served on several town committees in Wilmington and sang in the choir in three churches. A longtime class officer, he served on his 45th and 50th Reunion committees. Survivors include wife Marilyn Brown MacKinnon; children Robert ’81, Jean Lane, and Pamela Carey; and six grandchildren. His brother-in-law is James S. Brown ’66. Loretta Fortin Moores February 27, 2018 Loretta Fortin Moores worked briefly at Central Maine Hospital before attaining her teaching certificate. She then taught in Falmouth for six years until the birth of her son. Her late husband was Barry P. Moores ’58. Survivors include son John Moores; two grandchildren; and brother-inlaw Brian W. Moores ’63. Her late father-in-law was G. Duncan Moores ’32, and her late cousin was Keith B. Moore ’55. Martha Riel Ring March 10, 2018 At Bates, Marty Riel met and married James F. Ring ’59. He passed away in 2010. She worked as an accountant at General Motors and as an insurance examiner. Survivors include children Michael, Dennis, and Mary Ring; and three grandchildren. Anne Ridley Scigliano November 20, 2017 Back in 1969, when every other newspaper article seemed to be about “the first woman to….,” Anne Ridley Scigliano wrote her own story: She was the first woman editor of the Lexington (Mass.) Minuteman. She had previously taught high school English, earning a master’s in English from Boston College at the same time. She left the newspaper to go into public relations, first at
Symmes Hospital in Arlington, Mass., and then became vice president for community relations at Choate Symmes Health Services Inc., a multi-facility health care system; and in 1989 became director of public relations for the Winchester Hospital. She and her husband retired to the Caribbean, where she volunteered at an elementary school and the Catholic church. She is survived by nieces and nephews.
1959 Robert Raymond Evans January 13, 2018 Being a farmer at heart, Bob Evans left Bates for Iowa State Univ., where he earned a degree in agronomy. He built a career as an investments analyst and portfolio manager in Hartford. Survivors include longtime partner Roxanne Jeffcoat; children Todd Evans, Sue DeBruin, and Dan Evans; former wife Christine Lamoy Evans; and six grandchildren. Harry Lee Goff August 7, 2017 Harry Goff, an engineer and surveyor in Durango, Colo., for most of his life, was in the forefront of exploring alternative and renewable energy sources. An engineering graduate of Colorado State Univ., he designed and built solar and irrigation systems to power his properties, including two farms. Survivors include wife Merlene; daughters Debbie and Jennie; and four grandchildren. His late father, Charles S. Goff, was a member of the Class of 1916; his grandfather, Joel Goff, received a bachelor’s degree in 1886 and a master’s in 1889. Eileen McGowan Guthrie January 18, 2018 An economics major, Eileen McGowan Guthrie worked first as a teacher and then had a long career as an administrative specialist at both AT&T and Lucent Technologies. After retirement, she and her husband, Elwin Guthrie Jr. ’59, relocated from New Jersey to South Bristol, Maine. A member of her 45th and 50th Reunion committees, she and her husband maintained close relationships with many Bates friends, often vacationing together. Besides her husband, survivors include children Thomas Guthrie ’81, Susan Shareshian, Jack Guthrie, and Jill Watts; five grandchildren; one great-grandchild; and daughter-in-law Denise I. Blanchette ’83. Dwight Seavey Haynes March 24, 2018 The Rev. Dwight Haynes learned early that he could achieve more if he set goals. As a second- grader in 1944, he won a contest by collecting more tin cans for the war effort than any other schoolkid in Haverhill, Mass. Told by his high school principal that he would never make it to college, he earned a degree in philosophy from Bates and two master’s degrees, one in divinity and the other in pastoral counseling, from
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Boston Univ. In all, he served over 40 years as a minister, including six years as the director of the United Methodists New Hampshire Conference Council on Ministries. A lifelong supporter of civil rights, he marched with Martin Luther King on Montgomery. He was a member of his 50th Reunion committee and a former career adviser. Survivors include wife Maryellen Harrington Haynes; daughters Linda and Judith; two grandchildren; one great-grandchild; and cousin Margaret Seavey Pianin ’62. Arthur Paul Mullaney January 26, 2018 Art Mullaney started his career as a social worker at a state prison in Massachusetts. He quickly moved into teaching and from there into guidance counseling, earning a master’s in education from Salem State in 1964. He was a counselor in Burlington, Mass., before becoming the director of guidance in Randolph, Mass., where he remained for 19 years. One of his accomplishments was organizing the first “smoke out,” where students went door-to-door urging people to give up smoking for one day and donate the money they saved to a college scholarship. That event in Randolph was adopted by the American Cancer Society and became The Great American Smokeout. He was a career adviser for Bates and an Alumni-in-Admission volunteer. Survivors include wife Judy Mickelsen Mullaney; children Jeffrey, Timothy, and Lynn Lizotte; and five grandchildren.
1960 Riley Weldon Burns May 9, 2017 Riley Burns left Bates after two years to serve in the U.S. Army, and returned five years later to complete his degree in chemistry. He worked for Armstrong Cork and then Armstrong World Industries as a principal chemist. His wife, Janice Burland Burns ’55, predeceased him. Survivors include son Hugh; and two grandchildren. Janice Margeson Mills March 15, 2018 Jan Margeson Mills earned a master’s from Framingham State College in addition to her degree from Bates. She taught school for several years, then ran the Flume Restaurant in Mashpee, Mass., for 31 years. She served 38 years on the Mashpee School Committee and was chair several times. She was an active member and twice president of the Massachusetts Assn. of School Committees. She also was an artist, painting in water color. Survivors include daughter Nancy Oakley Mills. David Pingree Wallstrom December 27, 2017 An economics major, Dave Wallstrom started his career as an underwriter for Hartford Insurance Co. and Kansas City Insurance Co. He saw the future and by 1968 he was working
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as a computer programmer in Boston. He rounded things out by becoming a computer programmer for an insurance company. A man of deep faith, he was a lifelong member of the First Baptist Church in Melrose where he enjoyed singing in the choir and weekly Bible studies. He had a vast music collection and could sing any number of his favorite country tunes. Survivors include children Steven M. Wallstrom and Deborah L. Perrault; and four grandchildren.
1961 Gretchen Luise Rauch October 8, 2017 Gretchen Rauch saw England as a teacher in Eastbourne in Sussex. Later in life, she was the assistant commissioner of family court in New York City during the Dinkins administration. She was an animal lover and avid bird watcher. Survivors include stepchildren David and Laura Masten. Frank Walter Ricker February 22, 2018 Frank Ricker stretched his biology degree in several directions. He taught at Bridgton Academy and Hall-Dale High School, and received a master’s in education from UMaine Orono in 1961. He also coached track, baseball, and basketball. In 1966, he changed direction and went to work for the state of Maine in marine biology. He finished his career as a microbiologist at the state lab. Survivors include wife Courtney Ricker; children Shari Falcone, David Ricker, and Melinda Ricker; eight grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
1962 Leah Rainville Foster February 2, 2018 Lean Rainville Foster was something of an expert on astronaut claustrophobia, having written several papers on it while working at Harvard’s School of Public Health. A graduate of Sacramento State Univ., she lived in several places around the world, including Guam, Tokyo, and Manila. She taught as an adjunct professor at the Univ. of Guam, ran a life insurance agency in Japan, and completed her career with the Xerox Corp. in the U.S. from which she retired in 2001. Survivors include husband Thomas; daughters Jennifer, Maggi and Susan Price; stepchildren Thomas and Heather Foster; and two grandchildren. Susan Bates Spooner November 25, 2017 Sue Bates Spooner was more than a gifted educator of students with special needs; she was a crafter and artisan in many disciplines. She knitted, quilted, made clothes, upholstered, and, beyond all else, painted ceramics. She held a master’s in education from Rivier College in addition to her degree in psychology from Bates. She was a member
of her 50th Reunion committee. At Bates, she met Raymond Spooner ’63, who would become her husband. He survives her, as do children Bethany Ciocci and Timothy Spooner; and three grandchildren. Besides her husband, her Bates relatives include brother-in-law John W. Farr ’63; cousins Jill Farr Davis ’56 and Hildreth Spooner Danforth ’67; her late mother Elizabeth McGrath Shumway ’33; and her late cousin Alfred C. Webber ’28. Richmond Shepherd Talbot April 18, 2018 Richmond Talbot retired for four weeks. He sold the family business and prepared for leisure. Then he went back to work as a journalist. His first career was in teaching; he taught high school for 10 years in Attleboro, Mass. He then took over his family’s insurance business in Plymouth, Mass. He wrote a popular column for the Old Colony Memorial newspaper for 25 years before joining the staff as a correspondent, writing feature articles as well as his column. Survivors include daughters Rebecca Driscoll and Melinda Nasardinov; and four grandchildren. His late cousin was Robert A. Shepherd ’69, whose wife is Alice Grant Shepherd ’71. Janice Upham November 29, 2017 After earning a biology degree from Bates, Jan Upham worked for Eastman Kodak in Rochester, N.Y., then earned a master of science in education from Miami Univ. She returned to Bates in 1971 in College Advancement and later worked in Information and Library Services, serving as an associate director for administrative systems and retiring as a purchasing, sales, and account specialist in 2007. As the systems coordinator for Bates Advancement, she oversaw the computerization of the college’s paper-based alumni records – a data-entry process that took nearly four years – while also handling gift processing for the 1978–84 Campaign for Bates. She was a past president of the Bates Key – now the College Key – and a member of her 50th, 45th, and 25th Reunion committees. Survivors include her aunt, Jean Jacobs Perkins ’47, and nephew James Upham, assistant coach of Nordic skiing at Bates. Her late uncles were Ervin L. Perkins ’44 and Kenneth C. Cary ’53; her late cousins were Harriet Belt Nutting ’41 and Carolyn Cary Haskell ’70.
1963 Jacqueline Gallagher Soychak December 5, 2017 Jackie Gallagher Soychak started out as a substitute English teacher at South Portland High School and rose to become vice-principal and then principal. After 21 years in South Portland, she learned that a new high school was being built in Poland. Despite being happy with her
current job, the opportunity to construct a new school – curriculum, faculty, procedures – was too enticing. She was hired as the first principal of Poland Regional High School. She implemented several radical and often controversial ideas, one being to eliminate letter grades and substitute marks ranging from “competent” to “distinguished.” In addition to her English degree from Bates, she held a master’s in education from USM. She is survived by daughters Monica Nadler, Amanda Repsher, Cecilia Owens, and Antonia Soychak; and three grandchildren. Webster Lee Harrison June 17, 2018 It’s a great day to be a Bobcat. Web Harrison coined the slogan, now ubiquitous in cheers, campus posters, and alumni mailings. It’s an amalgam of Bates and Marine Corps cultures, the two institutions that shaped him. He was the football, track, and lacrosse coach at the college from 1974 into the 1990s, shaping the lives of hundreds of men with Bates ideals and practical values. Appointed in 1974 as an assistant coach of football and track, he would serve as a head coach in three Bates sports for a total of 35 seasons. He led the football program from 1978 to 1991, winning four CBB titles. As the founding head coach of the men’s varsity lacrosse program, he led the team from 1977 to 1995, earning ECAC tournament berths in 1984 – and receiving New England Lacrosse Coach of the Year honors that year – and again in 1987. A longtime associate professor of physical education, Harrison also served as head coach of women’s track and field for two years. After coaching, he joined the Office of College Advancement, where he established the Bates Parents & Family Assn. He retired in 1999. A biology major at Bates, he was a four-year member of the football team, a sportswriter for The Bates Student, and part of the Mirror business staff. He joined the Marine Corps. right out of college and was among the first combat troops sent to Vietnam. His other great passion was daffodils: He grew some 12,000 in 14 gardens at his house in Auburn, many of which he gave to local nonprofits. Survivors include wife Kathleen McEntee Harrison; daughter Kathryn Harrison; and a granddaughter.
1964 Penelope Polleys December 6, 2017 Penny Polleys, a religion major, enrolled in a two-year nursing program in California, from which she graduated first in her class. She then joined the convent of Little Sisters of the Poor, which serves elderly poor people in 30 countries. During her years with the nursing order, she lived in many states as well as France and Hong Kong. After leaving the order, she earned a master’s degree in guidance. Survivors include sister Patricia Bragg.
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1966 David Haywood Fulenwider December 27, 2017 David Fulenwider tried many occupational fields – the CIA, American Friends Service Committee, international banking, teaching English in Japan – before he found a home at Buckfield High School as a social studies teacher. There, he was sought after by students and highly respected in the community. A government major, he also earned a master’s from Columbia. He served as a U.S. Army intelligence analyst in the Panama Canal Zone in 1967–69. He was a former alumni class officer, club officer, and Alumni-in-Admission volunteer, and served on his 30th Reunion committee. In 2015, he married his high school sweetheart, Barbara Meade. She is among his survivors, as are children Margaret and Mark. Ann Marie Killory February 19, 2018 Ann Killory was known in New York City as “Boston Annie,” because she loved the Red Sox and the Patriots. She moved to New York after graduation, and worked for 26 years at KPMG, one of the big auditing companies. She liked to spend her free time at the horse track, especially Saratoga Springs. Survivors include children Robert J. Mischler ’90 and Jackie Lenahan, both Yankees and Giants fans; and six grandchildren.
1967 James Gorman Brown April 2, 2018 James Brown was a well-respected labor lawyer with a law degree from the Univ. of North Carolina who practiced in Orlando, Fla. He retired in 2016. His degree from Bates was in government. He was a member of his 50th, 45th, 40th, 35th, 25th, and 20th Reunion committees and served as a class agent for many years. He was also an Alumni-in-Admission volunteer and a member of the College Key. Survivors include wife Jessann Hambleton Brown. His late grandfather was Harry W. Brown 1913. William Allen Brunot January 10, 2018 A sociology major, Bill Brunot earned a master’s in administration from Pennsylvania State Univ. He served as an Army medic during the Vietnam War. After working as an industrial engineer at Oxford Paper Co. in Rumford and at Ethyl Corp. in Mechanicsburg, Pa., he moved to Dallas and became vice president of operations for Krestmark Industries Inc. He served on his 30th Reunion committee. Survivors include wife Shirley Brunot; sons Raymond and Gary; and three grandchildren.
1969 Larry Arthur Billings February 21, 2018
Larry Billings knew the history of Bryant Pond, Maine – or should we say Woodstock? That’s the proper name for what everyone calls Bryant Pond. He helped organize the Woodstock Historical Society, serving as its curator for 33 years. He served a similar role in the historical society in Bethel and after three years as head of the English department as Midwestern Baptist College. He graduated from Bates cum laude in three years and earned a master’s from the Univ. of Maine. Survivors include brother Paul.
1970 Kenneth Steger Josselyn March 23, 2018 An economics major, Ken “Joss” Josselyn made his living as an accountant, but his passion was researching and collecting guns. A certified public accountant with a master’s in accounting from Northeastern, he was a partner at Clavette Josselyn & Co. LLC in Newtown, Conn., for over 20 years. He was also a coin collector and photographer. Survivors include daughters Sarah Torregrossa and Jessica Josselyn; and one grandchild. His late father was Carlton A. Josselyn ’43.
1973 Kimberly Dana Mathews December 16, 2017 On the cusp of starting a new job, Kim Mathews dove into a lake on an August day in 1975 and broke his neck. His spinal cord injury paralyzed him from the chest down, resulting in the quadriplegia that he lived with for the rest of his life. He went to a rehabilitation hospital, always fighting his limitations, and within a year was hired to teach English in the Bangor area. He took time off to develop Alpha One, an organization that advocates for disabled individuals in Maine. In 1979, he returned to teaching and taught in Gray-New Gloucester High School until retirement in 2005. His students often named him as their favorite teacher. He is survived by nieces and nephews. His father was Floyd O. Mathews ’43; his grandfathers were Floyd O. Mathews 1913 and Walter E. Lane 1912; his uncles were Farrell C. Ingalls ’27 and Walter E. Mathews 1911; and his aunt was Caroline Clifford Mathews 1911.
1974 Robert Carlton Kasprzak January 27, 2018 Bob Kasprzak interned at the New England College of Osteopathic Medicine while a biology major at Bates. He went on to graduate from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, and began his medical practice as a naval officer serving the poor in southern Florida. He then began a private practice as a primary care physician, first in Florida and then in Knoxville,
Tenn., where he practiced for over 20 years. Survivors include wife Jean Bleile Kasprzak; and children David, Kaitlyn Cowan, Adam, and Jonathan. Lee Evans Topham November 29, 2017 Lee Topham left Bates for Granite State College. He earned an MBA from Plymouth State Univ. and a JD from Franklin Pierce Law Center. He served as a Hanover (N.H.) police officer and as an attorney with the state’s public defenders. Survivors include wife Andrea Thorpe ’74; children Caitlin and James; and two grandchildren.
1975 Gary Roger Saunders November 13, 2017 Gary Saunders used his psychology degree to help him with his work in the New York state division of disability determination, from which he retired as a regional administrator. He served on the board of the New York Developmental Disabilities Planning Council, and was a lifelong Yankees fan. Survivors include daughter Victoria and beloved friend Cheryl F. Kemp.
1976 Carolyn Spence Kozak June 19, 2017 Carolyn Spence Kozak graduated from Bridgewater State Univ. with a degree in elementary education after several semesters at Bates. She co-owned a nursery school in South Windsor, Conn., for more than 20 years. Survivors include husband Ken Kozak; and children Elizabeth and David.
1978 Craig Joseph Decker March 17, 2018 Craig Decker arrived at Bates as a first-year student having read exactly one book: a sports biography. Four years later, he had honed his reading, writing, and critical thinking skills; played kazoo in the Bates marching band; studied in Munich, Germany, for a year; been elected to Phi Beta Kappa; and earned a summa cum laude bachelor’s degree with highest honors in German. He earned his PhD in German from UC Irvine and taught at Oregon State for one year before returning to Bates to join the faculty in 1984. He served as chair of the department of German and Russian studies and was a member of the interdisciplinary program in European studies. Decker was a highly respected scholar who explored the connections and intersections of German and Austrian social, literary, and cultural history. A renowned translator of 20th century Austrian fiction and memoir, he was at the time of his passing translating the novel Die Hauptstadt (Capital City) by Robert Menasse, winner of the German Book Prize of 2017. He taught more than 20 different
courses during his Bates career, from introductory German to senior seminars. In addition to his wife, survivors include children Andrew and Grace Decker; and two grandchildren. David Micah Eisenberg May 27, 2017 David Eisenberg was an attorney at The Trustees of The Institute of Jewish Studies in London. He studied at the Univ. of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies during his junior year, and earned a doctorate from Princeton. His law degree was from the Univ. of Virginia. Kurt Gelfand February 26, 2018 Kurt Gelfand survived bladder cancer and prostate cancer, and became a vocal advocate for detection of the latter. He founded a group called Save Our Dads, based in Athens, Ga., to persuade men in their 40s and older to get regular prostate examinations. A physical therapist, he held a degree from Boston Univ. for physical therapy and owned his own clinic in Georgia. Survivors include wife Patricia Epper Gelfand; and two sons.
1980 Heidi Lynnette Forrester December 17, 2017 Heidi Forrester attended Boston Univ. after leaving Bates. She was an IT systems analyst, and owned a business that displayed her photography and custom jewelry. Survivors include her stepmother and a brother. Austin Burnham Fowler March 31, 2018 Audie Fowler earned a degree in economics at Bates. Survivors include children Victoria, Rebecca, and Jacob.
1981 Katherine Baker Lovell April 1, 2018 Kathy Baker Lovell took her degree in English from Bates and turned it into a business career. She earned an MBA from Babson College, and became the executive director at the Mill at Anselma in Chester Springs, Pa., after working for five years as a programmer at Inforonics. She was involved with a number of charitable organizations including the Brandywine Health Foundation, Bridge of Hope Lancaster & Chester Counties, and Downingtown (Pa.) Library. A class officer for nearly two decades, she was also a member of the College Key and of her 35th, 30th, and 25th Reunion committees. Survivors include husband Chris Lovell; sons Eric and Graham; and brother Henry H.F. Baker ’82. David Ralph Thompson November 1, 2017 David Thompson was an innovator in frozen foods, working for Kraft, Birds Eye, and Entenmann’s before starting his own
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company, which eventually became Home Bistro, a frozen foods catalog delivering “chef prepared meals, right to your door.” With a processing plant in Plattsburgh, N.Y., he and his family chose to live across Lake Champlain in Vermont. His passion for sports led him to help develop the South Burlington Youth Lacrosse program and to coach the local youth football team. Survivors include wife Bernadette O’Brien Thompson; and children Caroline, Andrew, and William.
1982 Nancy Jane Beckwith March 19, 2018 Nancy Beckwith enhanced her Spanish major with a junior year in Spain while at Bates. She was a member of the faculty at Gould Academy, where she also coached soccer. Prior to that she was the program director and a unit leader at Camp Calumet in West Ossipee, N.H.
1983 Alexander William Banks December 18, 2017 Without exception, everyone describes Alex Banks as a kind and gentle soul – except on the tennis or basketball court. A lifelong Quaker, in a court of law he was always fighting for the poor and disadvantaged. He earned a law degree in 1987 from Vermont Law School, where he was a member of the National Lawyers Guild and Women’s Law Group. Until 1995, he served as staff attorney and then managing attorney at Northwestern Legal Services in Pennsylvania. He returned to Vermont and became a professor at VLS and served as a staff attorney at the South Royalton Legal Clinic. His numerous awards included the Outstanding Victim Advocate Award in 2000 from the Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services and Vermont Domestic Violence Network. Survivors include sons Carter and Cole Banks; and their mother, Sheilagh Smith. Elizabeth Cowan Kelley August 21, 2017 Liz Cowan Kelley left Bates for the Univ. of Rochester. She remained in upstate New York as a marketing manager in Buffalo. Survivors include husband Brian Kelley. Her cousins are Carolyn Webber Nelson ’62 and Meredith Webber Stockwell ’65. Her other Bates relatives, all deceased, were her father Philip W. Cowan ’55; great-uncle Randall E. Webber ’36; and great-aunt Priscilla Walker Webber ’36.
1986 John Duane Daley January 14, 2018 With his degree in history, JD Daley taught history at Noble High School in North Berwick and for the last 20 years, until his death, at Kennebunk High School. He traveled to China
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every summer for many years, teaching and building. He was a fisherman and a sailor who loved working on his tractor. Survivors include wife Danelle Corbett Daley ’87; children John Paul and MingGe Rose Daley; and father Richard D. Daley ’58. Other Bates relatives, all deceased, were grandmother Joyce Foster Daley ’35, great-grandfather Eugene S. Foster 1907, and great-uncle Eugene S. Foster ’39. Charlotte Koudijs Taverna December 12, 2017 Charlotte Koudijs Taverna was an active resident in Wilton, Conn., chairing youth field hockey and lacrosse and teaching knitting at the continuing education center. Tireless and dedicated, she volunteered for numerous causes, including the Family & Children’s Agency and A Better Chance. A French and German major who was born in the Netherlands, she was passionate about cooking, knitting, and art. She served on four Reunion Committees, most recently her 25th, and was an Alumni-in-Admission volunteer and class agent. Survivors include husband John T. Taverna ’85; and children Willem ’17, Beatrice, and Caroline.
1987 Rebecca Anne Whitten January 30, 2018 Becky Whitten cherished her Native American heritage as a member of the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians. A psychology major, she was an assistant librarian at UMaine Augusta for many years, and worked at Thomas Memorial Library in Cape Elizabeth before that. She enjoyed trips to botanical gardens; as a child, she planted an acorn and today that oak tree grows at the family farm in New Portland. Survivors include husband Jamie Plourd; parents Donald and Faye Whitten; and four sisters, including Sarah J. Whitten ’94. Her late aunts were Rae Bryant Parsons 1905 and Kathryn Thomas Becker ’37. Her late uncle was Howard E. Thomas ’31; and her late great-uncle was William L. Parsons 1905.
1988 Patrick B. McNamara March 10, 2018 Patrick McNamara loved sports. He played intramural football and baseball at Bates, where he majored in political science. He continued his love of football at the Garibaldi Club in Haverhill, Mass. He worked as a federal customs agent and spent his free time golfing and skiing. He was a former Alumni-in-Admission volunteer for Bates. Survivors include wife Dana; daughter Courtney; and stepdaughter Elise Maher.
1990 Martin John DeFelice III November 30, 2017
Marty DeFelice was an economics major who worked at Yale New Haven Hospital as a financial analyst. A big fan of Walt Disney World, he told countless stories of every Disney trip he made with his family, even spending his honeymoon there. He was a devoted husband and father whose daughters, Emma and Isabella, considered him their best friend. Survivors also include his wife, Michelle Franco DeFelice.
1995 Justin Blair Shein December 6, 2017 Justin Shein majored in economics and went on to earn an MBA from the Univ. of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. His career in business strategy included work for Arthur Andersen, AOL, GE, and Amcor. He and his wife, Erica Fish ’95, lived in Ohio, Virginia, Florida, and Illinois during their 21 years of marriage. He was most proud of his family, his travels, and the 19 marathons he completed. Whether he was in Africa with the family, running a marathon on the Great Wall of China, or supporting his children at athletic events, he carried a camera and a smile. In addition to his wife, survivors include daughters Julia, Katherine, and Laura. John Keith Waskiewicz April 14, 2018 John Waskiewicz was an avid athlete: He skied, he ran, he cycled, and played tennis and soccer. He held an MBA from Boston College and worked at State Street Corp. as an analyst for 18 years. Survivors include fiancée Erin Colman; and parents Dennis and Rosalind Tepper Waskiewicz.
FACULTY James Hepburn September 23, 2016 Jim Hepburn, genial and generous, once brought a faculty meeting to an uproar when he made a motion, perhaps humorous, to abolish the physical education department. The equally genial and generous track coach, Walter Slovenski, had to be restrained. The motion failed, Bates found money to fund both academics and athletics, and the two remained friends. (Hepburn even rented a room from Coach as he neared retirement.) Chair of the English Department for all of his 16 years at Bates, 1972–88, Jim Hepburn taught previously at the universities of Cornell, Yale, Leicester, and Rhode Island. Between earning a BA from Yale and a doctorate from the Univ. of Pennsylvania, he served as a radio operator in an infantry battalion in France and Germany during World War II. “We remember him as the outstanding teacher, accomplished scholar, experimental playwright, and person of endless generosity,” said Associate Professor of English Sanford Freedman. One of his students, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Elizabeth Strout ’77, recalled taking a class on short stories with him as a freshman. “Jim Hepburn
saw me as a writer, which was so important.” Whenever a paper was due in his class, he allowed her to submit a short story instead – and then he’d critique it. “I took every class he taught for two years,” she said. He died in Surrey, England, at the age of 93. Survivors include wife Margaret; son Jamie; and four grandchildren. Theodore Walther June 2, 2018 Ted Walther traversed his 43 years on the Bates economics faculty with a New Yorker’s wry bemusement, leavened with a Navy sailor’s equanimity and undergirded by great devotion to teaching and his students. He grew up in New York City, served in the U.S. Navy from 1948 to 1952, received a bachelor’s degree from Mexico City College, and earned a doctorate from the New School for Social Research. When he arrived, the college was half its current size, 875 students, and the in loco parentis model was firmly in place at schools of Bates’ ilk. “I think there were a lot of people who were attempting to tell the young people what to do,” he recalled for the Bates Oral History Project in 1998. He described his first courses as “bombs.” But he would get much better. An international economist, he taught statistics, international macroeconomics, and monetary policy, and served as department chair. His textbook, The World Economy (Wiley), was published in 1996. He retired as professor emeritus of economics in 1998, then taught Bates courses until 2002, by which time the department had grown to 10. A second-floor classroom in Pettengill Hall is dedicated to Walther: “in honor of a professor and a friend.” Walther’s survivors include daughters Pamela Walther Felber and Susan Walther; six grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren. He was predeceased in 2013 by his wife, Joan Mirandon Walther, who worked as a registered nurse in the Bates Health Center from 1974 to 1993.
FRIEND Grace Ten Eyck Tagliabue March 29, 2018 Grace Ten Eyck Tagliabue was an artist accomplished in calligraphy, puppetry, pottery, and especially silk screen printing, which often featured the verse of her late husband, the poet and Bates professor John Tagliabue, who died in 2006. Together, they traveled the world, always visiting local museums. Three years ago, at age 92, she published (with Henry Majewski) a book of ekphrastic poetry, John’s poems that flowed from their museum visits. They served as each other’s muse; wherever their travels took them, they befriended local artists and were inspired by them. In Lewiston, she taught elementary school, developed her own art, and raised their two daughters, Francesca Gould and Dina Tagliabue. They are among her survivors, along with four grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
HARRY PLUMMER / MUSKIE ARCHIVES AND SPECIAL COLLECTION LIBRARY
h ist o ry l es s on
Pines still standing today Future site of Museum of Art
Boards for the first hockey rink
This circa 1925 photograph looks across newly created (and newly frozen) Lake Andrews — formed thanks to a student-built dam located in the distance at far left.
‘A Most Beautiful Resort’ Now a thing of beauty, Lake Andrews began as a place of potential by h . jay burns
in name and appearance, Bates was
JAY BURNS
In the pond’s center, a pair of cormorants held not yet Bates when the Rev. W.H. Littlefield decourt; closer to shore, ducks paddled about or hid scribed the grounds of Oren Cheney’s new Maine under bushes. Red-winged blackbirds flitted in State Seminary. the bulrush. (On another day, an osprey might Littlefield penned his description for The Semicircle overhead, looking for plump goldfish.) nary Advocate in spring 1857, months before the Noonday walkers did circuits, shaded by pines school had even opened its doors, and his words of(some that Littlefield would have seen in 1857) fer a prescient vision of the future Bates campus, inplus birches, willows, oaks, and other ornamental cluding the area that would become Lake Andrews. trees. By the granite amphitheater, a young womIn front of unfinished Hathorn Hall and Parker an studied on her laptop. Hall, the uneven grounds had stumps but no trees. Before the pond would become today’s camBut Littlefield imagined it “filled up in a proper pus and community attraction — it’s a popular manner with ornamental and shade trees.” place for pre-prom photos — it needed a name, Behind the two buildings, the land sharply and that happened in the 1910s. sloped away to a “rather low and wet” area, he wrote, Students of the era were taking notice of hockey, “through which a part of the year a as the first college game had occurred little stream of water runs.” Here, in 1896 between Yale and Johns Hopthere were trees and underbrush, and kins. In 1914, students saw a spot for a Littlefield imagined it cleared and rink: the “small basin” behind Parker landscaped — leaving “a most beautiHall that was being drained by a “narful resort for shade in summer.” row depression to the north.” Flash forward to a recent summer Raising $75, the students built a day at Lake Andrews. On a lakeside small dam to block the outflow. “We A painted turtle bench, a man with a cane sat in the are assured of a sizable pond on our emerges from shade overlooking the pond. He’d campus, suitable for skating in the Lake Andrews on counted four turtles in the two-acre winter and canoeing through the a July morning. pond so far this year. “I’ve named summer,” reported The Bates Student them after the Ninja Turtles,” he said. in December 1914.
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Students play tug of war on Lake Andrews in 1957, a year before the college excavated and landscaped the area to create a formal retention pond.
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rink behind Parker Hall” for football rallies and other gatherings. Then, in the late 1950s, Lake Andrews got a brand-new look when Bates embarked on a building program around Lake Andrews, including the creation of Page Hall. Because the addition of new buildings, plus their roofs and parking lots, creates more stormwater runoff, the college likely chose to excavate and landscape the area, turning Lake Andrews into a retention pond by fall 1958. An urban pond like Lake Andrews has challenges that its country cousins don’t. For one, its runoff is mostly “unfiltered by forests, land, and soil,” explains aquatic biologist and limnologist Scott Williams ’71. That runoff tends to be overloaded with nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus. That can lead to eutrophication: algae blooms, decreased oxygen, and the demise of animal life. Through the 1990s, Lake Andrews fought eutrophication, and algae blooms gave the pond a dodgy reputation. Even in Williams’ era, “no one would stick their pinky in it,” he recalls. By the mid-1990s, it was a “sick little body of water.” That changed 20 years ago, when Jack Keigwin ’57 and his wife, Beverly, gave $1 million to support a major restoration project, for which Williams served as consultant. As Littlefield had in 1857, Jack Keigwin saw what could be. “The Lake Andrews area has a significant potential as a place of respite and rejuvenation,” he said.
MUSKIE ARCHIVES AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS LIBRARY
The next winter, hockey got college support from Director of Athletics Royce Purinton, Class of 1900. Also lending a hand was a young and energetic superintendent of grounds and buildings, Delbert Andrews, Class of 1910. The Student praised him for helping “in any plan that the fellows really want in order to have some real sport.” On March 2, 1916, the homemade Bates rink hosted a “friendly” hockey game between Bates and a Brunswick town team that mostly comprised Bowdoin students. The game may have been historic: The Student said it marked “the first intercollegiate hockey game in Maine for more than six years.” Bowdoin won, 2–0. The game was slow-paced, and it’s unclear if the rink had boards: The Student reported that “the puck kept sliding into the snow at the edge of the rink.” By then, students had dubbed the flooded area “Lake Andrews” in the superintendent’s honor. In President Chase’s annual report, Andrews said that skating provided recreational opportunities “most welcome both to students and citizens.” (A leader of the hockey team in that era, Joseph Pedbereznak, Class of 1918, would later change his surname to Underhill — and bequeath funds so Bates could construct Underhill Arena.) The Andrews name stuck, and some sort of rink endured for a number of years, located perhaps where today’s Lane Hall is. Archival film from the late 1920s shows hockey being played on a rink, with boards. Through most of the 1950s, the Student would direct students to “the skating
runoff from overwhelming the city’s drainage system during major rainstorms. Looking ahead, the pond may again need dredging. How soon depends on the flow of nutrients and sediment into the lake, says Holly Ewing, the college’s Christian A. Johnson Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies. Following local and state regulations — not to mention the college’s own sustainability ethos — the college incorporates state-of-the-art stormwater treatment systems into all construction projects. “The better we are at it,” Ewing says, “the longer it will be before we need to dredge again.” n
The now-mature trees, bulrush, and other buffer vegetation added during the 1998 restoration can make Lake Andrews feel like a nature sanctuary.
PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN
The 1998 project was designed by the Halvorson Co. of Boston, and it started with an empty feeling. The sluice gate at the north end was opened to drain the pond. Then bulldozers and backhoes removed 4,963 cubic yards of dredge spoils, scraping the bottom to the base of marine clay. As the water level dropped day by day, all sorts of treasures were revealed: a bowling ball, mangled bike, table, stereo set, desk, bed frame, chairs, tennis shoes, bottles, cans, and three 30-pound snapping turtles (they were relocated to a nearby pond). Scraped clean, the clay bottom was covered with clean, coarse sand to a depth of six inches, to help reduce turbidity. Along the shore, aquatic and terrestrial buffer vegetation, including lots of bulrush, was planted to help filter nutrients from runoff and to prevent erosion. Some 250 tons of rip-rap (large stones that prevent water erosion) were placed in some areas. Vertical stone walls were built in others. The project also entailed a passive runoff filtration system to capture nutrients. “It was fairly sophisticated technology,” says Williams, who is the longtime director of Lake Stewards of Maine, a nonprofit that works to protect the health of Maine lakes by collecting citizen-reported scientific information. The path around the pond, the Marjorie Burgoyne Walkway, was moved away from the edge to allow room for buffer vegetation. With granite from an old quarry in Lincolnville, Maine, the college built the new Florence Keigwin Amphitheater. Post-restoration, attitudes toward the pond began to change. The next summer, Williams stopped by the campus on a warm spring day. “I was astounded to see students on the water in inflatables of all kind. It was a sight I’d never imagined.” Today, Lake Andrews is more than a pretty face. As a retention pond, it’s a workhorse. About a quarter of the college’s 133 acres drain into the pond, and its storage capacity prevents campus
MARC GLASS ’88
The 1998 restoration removed nearly 5,000 cubic yards of dredge spoils, not to mention three 30-pound snapping turtles.
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a r ch i v es treasures from the muskie archives & special collections library
Pratt’s Parasol
Jennie Anderson Pratt carried this parasol when she marched in Reunion Alumni Parades with her Class of 1890 (below).
Key to Art
When the Olin Arts Center was dedicated in October 1986, this symbolic key was given to Robert Kinney ’39 (right), then chair of the Bates Board of Trustees, by Olin Foundation President Lawrence Miles.
Fit to Be Tied
The mid-1900s “freshman rules” required first-year men to wear green bow ties and garnet-and-black beanies until Thanksgiving. (Women had to wear bibs.) The late Keith Wilbur ’45 wore this tie.
Five Color Flag
This is a detail of a Chinese flag given by Rhodes Scholar Wayne Jordan, Class of 1906, who did YMCA work in China until his death, of typhus, in 1924. The flag’s five-stripe design was China’s first as a republic.
Sailor Man
This iconic “Dixie Cup” sailor’s cap belonged to the late Phillip Isaacson ’47 when he was stationed at Bates with the Navy’s V-12 officer training program.
Dishing It
The all-women’s Boston Bates Alumnae Club commissioned Bates’ first Wedgwood plate in 1939 to celebrate 75 years since Bates became a college.
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o u t ta k e Still photography can’t capture the sight and sound of a hot air balloon gliding overhead, its burner making a pulsing “whoosh.” But on a hot August dawn, it gets me out of bed to photograph the Great Falls Balloon Festival. This year, my vantage point was a parking-garage roof overlooking the launch site. As the 6 a.m. sunlight shone on the balloons and iconic Lewiston buildings, I thought: mission accomplished. — Phyllis Graber Jensen
Bates Magazine Fall 20I8
President of Bates A. Clayton Spencer
Editor H. Jay Burns
Chief Communications Officer Sean Findlen ’99
Designer Mervil Paylor Design Production Manager Grace Kendall Director of Photography Phyllis Graber Jensen Photographer Theophil Syslo Class Notes Editor Jon Halvorsen Contributing Editors Doug Hubley Emily McConville
Bates Magazine Advisory Board Marjorie Patterson Cochran ’90 Geraldine FitzGerald ’75 David Foster ’77 Joe Gromelski ’74 Judson Hale Jr. ’82 Jonathan Hall ’83 Christine Johnson ’90 Jon Marcus ’82 Peter Moore ’78 Contact Us Bates Communications 2 Andrews Rd. Lewiston ME 04240 magazine@bates.edu 207-786-6330
Production Bates Magazine is published twice annually using Forest Stewardship Council-certified paper created with 100 percent postconsumer fiber and renewable biogas energy. Inks are 99.5 percent free of volatile organic compounds. Bates Magazine is printed near campus at family-owned Penmor Lithographers. On the Cover Billy Collins ’14 took this photograph, showing an equipment operator’s tent set against wind-carved snow and swept-cirrus skies, in December 2017 while documenting a massive movement of scientific gear from the coast of Antarctica deep into the interior. See page 42 for more about Bates alumni and their cool Antarctic doings.
Nondiscrimination Bates College prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national or ethnic origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression, age, disability, genetic information or veteran status and other legally protected statuses in the recruitment and admission of its students, in the administration of its education policies and programs, or in the recruitment of its faculty and staff. The college adheres to all applicable state and federal equal opportunity laws and regulations. Full policy: bates.edu/nondiscrimination
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THEOPHIL SYSLO
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FROM A DISTANCE
Photographer Theophil Syslo took this image of downtown Lewiston during a flight piloted by Dean of Students Josh McIntosh.
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The Gomes Chapel turrets peek above the leaves. The Chapel was purposefully sited to face downtown Lewiston. Penmor: Please see page 96 / 97 for inside back cover spread
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The Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul is faced with 515 wagonloads of rough-hewn granite from Jay, Maine.
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The Bernard Lown Peace Bridge is named for a native son and Nobel Peace Prize winner.
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Now elderly housing, the Barker Mill on Auburn’s Little Androscoggin River has a Maine mill rarity: a mansard roof.
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Famed for its bedspreads, the 10-building Bates Mill (plus chimney) now houses businesses, apartments, and Museum L-A.
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This former railroad bridge is now part of the Auburn Riverwalk.
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Tents await a brewfest at Simard-Payne Park, near where French Canadian immigrants once arrived via train.
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A distinctive sawtooth roof marks Bates Mill building No. 5, designed by Albert Kahn, a preeminent architect of the early 1900s.
Non-Profit U.S. Postage Paid Bates College
Bates Bates College Lewiston, Maine 04240
YOU MAY
KISS
PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN
Lawson Rudasill ’00 and Elizabeth Merrill ’00 kiss following their wedding ceremony at the Gomes Chapel on Aug. 18. The couple were just friends at Bates and for 15 years after graduation. Then romance blossomed — and off they go!