Table of Contents
36 Associate Editor Kellie M. Spinney Production Manager Edward Germar Class Notes Editors Tracey Austin Michael Gregory Linda Formichelli Design Harp and Company Hanover, N.H. Printing R.C. Brayshaw & Company Warner, N.H.
On the Cover: In front of Mercer Hall, embedded in the walkway made of the same bricks that compose many of the buildings where our students learn and live, this message shows what is in Colby-Sawyer’s DNA: Pride in our institution’s history, and strength in our commitment to adapting to the ever-changing landscape of higher education. This brick was donated by trustee emeritus Walter Angoff (1995-2004) and his wife, Eleanor. Photo: Michael Seamans
Photo: Michael Seamans
Editor Kate Seamans
Features
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The Changing Landscape of Higher Education The times, they are a changin’. President Galligan shares the big picture about our small college as Colby-Sawyer navigates an era of changing demographics, increasing costs, and families with fluid financial situations.
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Tomie dePaola: Then and Now Tomie dePaola is one of the world’s most prolific and popular children’s authors and illustrators. Colby-Sawyer will celebrate his life’s work in two exhibitions this fall and next.
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The Art of Being Invisible
In a photojournalism crash course with former LIFE photographer John Shearer, students looked at the world through a new lens.
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Inside-Outside-Planetwide Inside 2 3
Connections 4 8
Photo: Gil Talbot
On the Hill In the Loop In Profile: Enoch Holu ’13 Seeks Answers in Ghana In Class: The Need for Sport Managers Fresh and Refreshing: New Dining Hall Worth the Wait Colby-Sawyer Relays for Lives
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News From Alumni Relations and Annual Giving
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Class Notes
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In Memoriam
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From the Archives
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Epilogue
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Planetwide New International Speakers Bureau Shares Global Perspectives In Research: Bridging the Waves of Feminism
Outside
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Photo: Michael Seamans
Walking Our Talk: Action Beyond the Classroom 12 Colby-Sawyer Helps Rebuild Coney Island After Sandy 13 The Susan Colby Colgate Scholars’ Symposium Turns 10 14 In Sports 16 Sense of Place 22 Portfolio 24 Data Driven 25 Conversations: Emily Orenstein ’13 26
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On the Hill
Working Together to Face New Challenges
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Dear Friends, t was 1964 when an angry Bob Dylan sang “The Times They Are a Changin’.” Today those words seem particularly appropriate for higher education. We are in a more competitive, more dynamic and less certain world than we have faced in my 27 years in higher education. For most Americans with children nearing college age, real incomes have not increased in years. Home values for many are lower than before 2008, and savings are much lower than the levels at which my parents saved, and that afforded my education. There is a crisis in families’ abilities to pay and a crisis in confidence, which means our financial aid increases and our net tuition revenue per student decreases. Total student debt in America is at one trillion dollars. At the same time, student debt in New Hampshire is higher than in any other state; our graduates carry an average of $39,000 in debt. Colby-Sawyer has faced incredible challenges before and not only
survived but come out stronger. We were an academy in a time when private school enrollments were declining and public high school enrollments were increasing, and so we became one of the nation’s preeminent junior colleges for women. During the Depression we built many of the buildings that surround our traditional quad. Later we became a primarily baccalaureate granting institution for women and, in 1990, when many women’s colleges faced a changing coeducational world, we became the coeducational college we are today. We must rise to face these new challenges. We must continue to improve our programs and our facilities to benefit our students. We must increase our geographical recruitment range and extend our mission to include new initiatives. We must do an even better job of communicating the value of a Colby-Sawyer education to prospective students and their families. And, we must never lose sight of the fact that we exist to provide our students with an education based in the liberal arts that prepares them for a lifelong love of
learning and for professional success. Will we succeed? I know we will. I have confidence because of our rich tradition. I have confidence because of our supportive alumni and our dedicated Board. I have confidence because I believe in our faculty and our staff. I am reminded of my own liberal arts education and what it has meant for me, and I am reminded of these words from Emily Dickinson: Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words, And never stops at all. Like the poet, I have hope, and I invite you to share that hope in our college and its future. Sincerely,
Thomas C. Galligan Jr. President and Professor of Humanities Read more about the changing landscape of higher education and how Colby-Sawyer is affected on page 30.
Photo: Greg Danilowski
Pictured L-R at the ground breaking in early May: Athletic Director Debi Field McGrath ’68; Chair of the Board of Trustees Tom Csatari; Legend Society member and Trustee Emerita Pat Kelsey; Legend and Trustee Sally Veitch ’66 and President Tom Galligan.
Photo: Greg Danilowski
Graduating student nurses were welcomed into the profession with a Pinning Ceremony held May 10. Assistant Professor of Nursing Joan Huber created an intimate portrait of the close relationships that develop within the department and compared the class to an orchestra that has tuned up and learned to play well together. “They will rein in anyone playing louder than they should and demand that anyone not carrying their part of the melody step up and engage. They have learned to tolerate each other’s idiosyncrasies, to exploit each other’s uniqueness and strengths, and to have high expectations of each other,” said Professor Huber. “Now the resultant music is glorious, complex and soaring. It is the music of their hearts. Graduates, I encourage all of you to dance to the music of your hearts. The steps will bring you such joy.” Let the building begin! Students in the three-part Shelter and Sustainability course moved beams prepared at Colby Farm over the winter into place for a new sustainable classroom space in early May. The fall 2012 session was devoted to designing and permitting, while the spring semester focused on studying building techniques and material selection. The final step will be to begin building this fall. The details will be up to the students, but options include solar-thermal panels and a wood stove.
Courtesy of Alex Fusco ’13
On June 11, President Galligan announced that site work had begun on the middle of the Kelsey Fields for an artificial turf field with surrounding track. This great new asset was made possible by generous gifts to Colby-Sawyer designated for this purpose. Go Chargers!
On April 15, Alex Fusco ’13 was among the college’s athletic training majors who volunteered at the 2013 Boston Marathon. Fusco was assigned to the finish line tent, along with Whitney Cashin ’13, Catherine Taglilatela ’13 and Clinical Faculty/Asst. Athletic Trainer Matt McCabe. “The ground shook when the first bomb went off. At first no one moved, out of shock,” says Fusco. “Then the second bomb blew. We all knew it was a terrorist attack.” Fusco raced toward the chaos. “I can’t explain it, but I had to go despite being more scared than ever. I didn’t know if there was going to be a third,” he says. “My instincts took over. I had a wheelchair and went to see if I could be of assistance.” Fusco helped a young woman into the chair and wheeled her over to paramedics who rushed her to Massachusetts General Hospital. “It changed me; you never know what’s going to happen. Everything can change in an instant. You can never take anything for granted,” says Fusco. After nearly two weeks and three surgeries, the recovering victim sought her wheelchairwielding hero and eventually connected with Fusco thanks to social media. Read more at cscm.ag/wcvb-marathon.
— by Chad Reilly ’13
Fall 2013
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From Gwollu to the Slave Castles: Enoch Holu ’13 Seeks Answers in Ghana About His Nation’s History by David Hart ’13
In northwestern Ghana, fragments of an old wall still dot the small rural town of Gwollu. Built by villagers in a desperate attempt to protect themselves from capture during the 19th-century transatlantic slave trade, the remnants are haunting relics of a grim era. Enoch Holu ’13 grew up confounded by the wall that used to guard his town, which is composed of farmers. “Why would anyone come from somewhere to take our people?” he wondered.
The question began to burn as he matured. As a high school student in Accra, the cosmopolitan coastal capital that lies nearly an entire country away from his hometown, Holu was eager to engage in cultural and historical discourses but was placed in a science program at odds with his passions and talents. Yearning to explore his anthropological interests, Holu came to the United States on the American Field Service exchange
program. Though he had traveled to Australia and was prepared for a different world from the one he knew, nevertheless, Holu was shocked. “All the visions I had of America came crashing down,” Holu says of his arrival in New Hampshire. “I was expecting to see New York, and it was this wooded area. I was blown away. But I don’t think I would have done well in New York, to be honest.” Living with a host family in Grantham, N.H., and studying at Lebanon High School, Holu struggled to adjust. Despite his fluency in English, Americans’ quick speech and accents made it sound like a new language. He longed for familiarity, but his beloved tuo zaafi with vegetable soup, a traditional Ghanaian dinner pairing, was nowhere to be found. These were small prices to pay, however, as Holu found the academic freedom he had longed for. “It was fantastic,” he recalls. “I got to take classes I really wanted to take. The freedom here
Enoch Holu ’13 grew up confounded by the wall that used to guard his town in Ghana.
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Colby-Sawyer College Magazine
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“I felt I was a custodian of my culture and African history, and I felt the honor was on me to preserve these histories.” to choose and decide your own educational path is just amazing.”
in profile
Once adjusted to U.S. culture and its educational system, Holu could devote himself to his passion for history in college. ColbySawyer, with its small size, seemed ideal. “It reflected the nature of my upbringing, where all the members of a family live in the same place, in a close community. I had a wonderful experience here, in both an academic sense and a social sense. It’s been great,” he says. For three years, Holu cultivated himself as a History, Society, and Culture major and member of the Wesson Honors Program to prepare for his Capstone project. The question born in him as a child in Gwollu still reverberated, and he sought to understand the slave trade that had indelibly marked the history of the people in Gwollu.
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With the assistance of the Wesson Idea Fund, a Colby-Sawyer grant program that supports independent research, Holu took his project beyond a research paper. After completing an internship as host of his own Ghanaian radio program, he set out on a 15-day trek across Ghana to trace the journey endured by his enslaved ancestors. Holu followed their path from Gwollu to the coastal castles where they were held before being shipped across the ocean.
difficult it was going to be. I went to some places I literally couldn’t get out of once I got in, transportation-wise. Fortunately, I had Facebook friends I’d never met in most of the towns I visited. I messaged them, ‘I’m coming to your town, but I don’t have anywhere to stay. Can you help me find a hotel?’ They’d reply, ‘There’s no
According to Holu, “Some of the realities and truths were hard to swallow. There’s no way I can even come close to experiencing what the slaves might have experienced along that route. But, in some of the places I visited, I felt like I was there with them.” These places included Gwollu’s wall, a castle’s bat-ridden slave dungeons,
“From stories my grandparents told me and from what I read, I identified Captive Ghanaians were held in coastal castles before they were shipped vantage points across the sea to a life of slavery. in the route. hotel, but you can stay and a tree considered I made sure to visit each haunted by some locals in my house.’ One great for at least a day to talk that had served as the site thing about Ghanaian to people about their of a slave marketplace. knowledge of the slave people is that they are very kind and always ready trade and how they feel to help.” about it,” recounts Holu. “I underestimated how
Colby-Sawyer College Magazine
At the sea, freedom and home slipped away from captives bound for faraway lands. “Very early on,” Holu says, “I felt I was a custodian of my culture and African history, and I felt the honor was on me to preserve these histories.” He has succeeded, having presented his findings during November’s International Education Week and receiving the Colby-Sawyer Award at Commencement.
But he envisions his project going further. “I think this will be the cornerstone of my life’s work,” Holu says. “In graduate school, I’m going to aggressively pursue this topic. I’ll probably write a book, but just educating myself on my people’s history is rewarding enough for me.”
Whatever Holu chooses to do, the world will benefit. As Holu says, “Knowing global history, from any perspective, is one way of fostering worldwide understanding and global citizenry.”
“The complicity of some African leaders in the slave trade doesn’t mean the African people were not the victims of the slave trade,” says Holu.
In Pursuit of Truth I discovered some truths about the slave trade I didn’t know before. One was the involvement of African leaders, or chiefs, in the whole slave trade experience. That is a truth Africans are uncomfortable talking about. But after the research, I realized that admitting the complicity of some African leaders in the slave trade doesn’t mean the African people were not its victims. It just adds a new dimension and eliminates the simplistic idea of Europeans coming to capture everybody. But it doesn’t make us more or less the victims. People think that if they openly talk about the involvement of some Africans in the slave trade, it undermines our victimhood. I don’t think that’s the case, and the research really opened my eyes to that reality. I can understand why people would like to mask that truth about the slave trade, because it’s just difficult to take. People generally don’t like difficult truths. — Enoch Holu ’13 Fall 2013
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Plan, Lead, Organize and Control: The Need for Educated and Trained Sport Managers by Greg Austin and Stacey Watts, Associate and Assistant Professors, Exercise and Sport Sciences
Whether a Little League game or the World Series, a spectator’s experience is influenced by the way the event is managed. While most people see the throw to first base and remember the hockey fight, they pay little attention to how the event is produced. A well-managed event looks as though it runs itself, and that is how it should be. From ticket sales and parking to concessions and merchandise sales, consumers demand a high-quality sport experience, which makes the need for educated and trained sport managers essential. As faculty in the Exercise and Sport Sciences Department at Colby-Sawyer who teach within the Sport Management Program, we believe engaged learning is crucial to student success in the sport industry. One of Colby-Sawyer’s greatest strengths is its small class sizes, which allows faculty and staff to foster learning and professional development through innovative methods. Students in the Sport Management
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major are given assignments that require engaged learning, such as observing, volunteering and conducting SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analyses of on- and offcampus events. Students are then expected to plan, lead, organize and control events. In recent years, Sport Management majors have worked with the Exercise and Sport Sciences Club, the Sport Management Club, New London Recreation Department, the Kearsarge Council on Aging (KCOA), and the campus community at large.
One of the most memorable and successful events has been the Battle of Classes in the fall of 2009. The focus of this event was to bring together students in every class to compete in three events: Kick Ball, Tug-o-War and Team Handball. More than 300 students participated, with the junior class edging out its peers for the final victory. A similar event organized in the fall of 2012 was a competition between residence halls. Additional events organized by Sport Management students have included a Team Handball
Tournament in 2012, a ZumbathonÂŽ in 2011 and a Sport and Wellness Festival in 2010. Both the handball tournament and Zumbathon attracted between 80 and 100 students, faculty and staff. At the Zumbathon, participants donated more than 50 pounds of food to benefit a local food pantry. The Sport and Wellness Festival, hosted by senior Sport Management majors and the KCOA, was inspired by interactions between the two groups during the spring semester. Students taught
Sport Management majors and members of the Kearsarge Council on Aging got moving at the Sport and Wellness Festival.
Colby-Sawyer College Magazine
Photo: Courtesy of Stacey Watts
Sport Management majors honed their teamwork and leadership skills at Mount Sunapee’s aerial challenge course last fall. KCOA members how to use the Wii Sports electronic game system, and the activity was so successful that the students incorporated the feature into the Sport and Wellness Festival. Lowimpact activities such as badminton and yoga were also offered, while local health-related businesses provided participants with health and wellness information. In spring 2011, senior Sport Management students worked with
former New London Recreation Director Chad Denning to create and promote Team Athletes Multisport Partnership (AMP). Team AMP specializes in hosting unique outdoor activities for all ages and abilities, including XTERRA events, the Western New Hampshire Trail Running Series, and the Winter Wild Uphill Series. Students worked behind the scenes with Denning to create a formal business plan, design a company logo, develop a website,
and secure sponsorship. Their contributions can be seen at www. teamamp.org. As Sport Management faculty, we have seen firsthand that significant learning occurs through students’ ability to plan, lead, organize and control events. This learning, however, is best expressed by the students themselves who rely on handson experience to prepare them for their future. Sport Management major Laura Tebbetts ’14 says,
“Through my experiences with planning and organizing events for Sport Management, I have learned the importance of goal setting and motivating others.”
“Through my experiences with planning and organizing events for Sport Management, I have learned the importance of goal setting and motivating others.” “Running events for the Sport Management program at Colby-Sawyer has really helped me actively participate in what I am learning,” says fellow Sport Management major Jesse Socci ’15. “The experiences are great and range from facility tours and putting on events for the college to volunteering at the Boston Marathon, and more. This is very important because students can apply out of class what they learn in class.”
— Laura Tebbetts ’14 Fall 2013
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Fresh and Refreshing: New Dining Hall Worth the Wait by Michael Clark, Assistant Director, Admissions
On March 5, 2013, students, trustees, faculty, staff, architects and community members gathered to celebrate the $7 million renovation and expansion of Ware Student Center. The 14,020 square feet of new construction includes 300 additional seats in the dining hall and a revamped servery. The impact of the improvements is apparent after just one semester.
positive comments about the added space, improved lighting and ventilation,” says Mike Heffernan, manager of Sodexo Dining Services. “They like the options for seating areas and spend hours in the new student center spaces.” Nick Ciarlante ’14, president of the Student Government Association, concurs.
people could work in larger groups, and they met there after the library closed.” Other hits have been the dining hall’s foyer. It was quickly adopted as a space for student groups to set up information tables to get the word out about events and projects. Elkay water dispensers with an auto cutoff save water and keep more than 31,000 disposable water bottles out of the waste stream.
With more space to mingle and linger, students and staff are closer than ever. Accessible 24/7, the new arrangement allows for more interaction between students and dining hall staff. “Many students have made 10
“I saw a lot of students there deep into the night, especially as the semester wrapped up. Psychology majors were in there doing their IRB proposals;
Colby-Sawyer College Magazine
And what’s a dining hall without good food and people? Everywhere in the improved servery there is increased interaction between students and staff. Diners can pick up a fresh prepared salad and discuss its ingredients with a knowledgeable Sodexo staffer. Lee Ann Wanczyk works daily to prepare vegan options and has developed a devout
following. The stir-fry area is always busy at lunch time with Mariah Fong’s homemade sauces and international dishes, and her work draws rave reviews from students, faculty and staff members. “I love the stir-fry area. Mariah remembers what I like, so when she sees me coming, she is already grabbing my favorite sauce,” says Diep Nghiem ’15. “I don’t need to say anything. I think it’s awesome how they all care for every student. I like the high tables by the window, too. I eat and look outside; it feels so peaceful.” It’s clear that the finished project was worth the wait. With the new and improved dining hall at the heart of the heart of campus, Colby-Sawyer is now an even better place to be a student.
Colby-Sawyer Relays for Lives by Lauren Hygom ’13
Katy Brodeur ’12, a registered nurse, relished the unity of her first Relay. She walked in memory of her father and for her patients in the Hematology Oncology Special Care Unit at DartmouthHitchcock Medical Center. “I felt very connected to everyone, from the survivors to the caregivers, friends and family,” she says. “There was an air of hope and togetherness. I was honored to have been a part of it.”
Photo: Lauri Baudanza
Founded by the American Cancer Society in 1986, Relay For Life is a 12-hour event to fight back against cancer. Among a sea of glowing luminaria bags personalized in honor of loved ones, participants come together to honor cancer survivors and remember those lost, and each year they raise more than $400 million in search of a cure. Top
Colby-Sawyer individual fundraiser Michael Harte ’16 collected $1,155 and helped push his Team CAB for a Cure into the top team spot with $2,683. Other top teams were Nursing for a Cure and Student Government & Enactus Canning Cancer.
Volunteers transformed the Dan and Kathleen Hogan Sports Center into a place of remembrance and hope during the college’s first Relay For Life.
how a common cause can bring people together. There really is something magical and hopeful about Relay For Life.”
Pamela Ritchie ’94, an American Cancer Society staff partner who serves as a liaison between the community and the Society, says she was thrilled to see Relay at Colby-Sawyer. “The success of the event was way beyond my dreams— I am so proud of everyone,” she says. Event co-chairs Nichole LaBelle ’15 and Taylor Wright ’15 say they enjoyed every minute of planning the Relay. “This event wouldn’t have been as successful without every single individual who volunteered to help plan and set up,” says Wright. Volunteers ran the registration booth and helped with activities like Minute to Win It, cupcake decorating, games and a photo booth, line dancing and karaoke/dance competition sessions. They also witnessed the emotional sunrise closing ceremony. Wright, a self-diagnosed community service addict who was recognized this spring with Campus Compact’s Newman Civic Fellows Award, says, “There was a lot of anticipation and fear of the unknown, but it’s amazing
Photo: Greg Danilowski
The college’s first Relay For Life was held in the Dan and Kathleen Hogan Sports Center on Saturday, April 27, and it was the crowning achievement of Colby-Sawyer’s year of service recognizing its 175th anniversary. The 34 teams and 279 walkers exceeded the goal of $15,000 and raised $24,366 for cancer research.
By the end of the kickoff event held February 14, 27 teams and 116 participants had signed up to take part in Relay For Life. Back row, L-R: Pamela Ritchie ’94, Mike Heffernan, Bernard Botchway ’15, Sheraz Iqbal. Front row, L-R: Christina Winnett ’13, Niki LaBelle ’15, Taylor Wright ’15.
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walking our talk
Action Beyond the Classroom Promotes Well-being and Resilience by Jennifer White ’90, Sustainability Coordinator; Assistant Professor, Environmental Studies
For the first initiative, the class disseminated a Happiness Survey to the Colby-Sawyer community and surrounding towns. It is based on the principles of Gross National Happiness (GNH) that originated 40 years ago in the South Asian nation of Bhutan. Since its humble beginnings, the idea of developing alternative measures of human progress to the standard Gross Domestic Product has made its way into research and resolutions at the United Nations. The pursuit of happiness, as defined by GNH, involves measuring wellbeing across these nine domains: psychological well-being, health, education, time use, cultural diversity and resilience, good governance, community vitality,
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Graphic: Ryan Bernstein
This academic year, third-year Environmental Studies and Environmental Science majors in the Community-Based Research Project course worked with area residents to develop the infrastructure for two internationally recognized initiatives designed to be rooted in the regions in which they are implemented.
ecological diversity and resilience, and living standards. The students also partnered with a local resident task force to create the Kearsarge Valley Transition Initiative (KVTI) and develop positive localized solutions to address the regional impacts of larger global issues such as economic insecurity, environmental instabilities and dependence on non-renewable energy. The Transition Town movement, which originated in the U.K. in 2006, now represents more than 463 communities worldwide with another 600 more in progress. In May, KVTI was recognized as the 139th official Transition community in the United States.
Colby-Sawyer College Magazine
The Community-Based Research Project course epitomizes Colby-Sawyer’s goals to promote engaged learning, foster a sense of connection to the greater world, live sustainably and maintain a dynamic devotion to excellence. Environmental Studies student Jon Wylie ’14 likens the project to a job where each student utilizes his or her environmental education. “The course took those teachings and applied them on a local basis and challenged me to present them to all walks of life,” he says. “This class gave me the opportunity not just to talk about or research solutions but to be part of the change,” says Environ-
mental Studies major Paul Boynton ’14. “One of the best parts was interacting with community members.” Boynton believes every college student should be invested in finding solutions. “It doesn’t matter if you are a business student, an economics major or a nursing major. We can all find ways to contribute to a better tomorrow,” he says. “The most important concept I learned this year is that change is possible.” Read the final report at www.colby-sawyer.edu/ environmental/projects/ project-2013.html.
Colby-Sawyer Helps Rebuild Coney Island After Sandy by Lauren Hygom ’13
While most college students spent their spring breaks relaxing, 14 ColbySawyer students and three staff members spent the week of March 10–16 breathing life back into the colorful but collapsed community of Coney Island, N.Y.
Parent and Community Partnerships Coordinator and adviser to the Community Service Club Julie Crisafi Lynch worked with Citi Impact to partner with Poured Out, a nonprofit organization that aids communities struck by natural disasters. Assigned to the community of Coney Island but housed in a church in Queens, the Colby-Sawyer crew traveled each morning to their work sites to tear down walls and ceilings that had been destroyed by Sandy’s floods and remove mold that had accumulated.
Photo: Pastor Mulave
Superstorm Sandy’s wind and rain affected the entire Eastern Seaboard and left Coney Island, a Brooklyn community home to 34,500 people known for its treasured amusement parks and seaside resorts, in a state of destruction. Five-foot floods buried the boardwalk in almost two feet of sand, and more than 10,000
residences and businesses were affected by the storm. The community was in search of restoration, and Colby-Sawyer was there to lend helping hands.
L-R: Gaelle Wagnac ’16, Pascale Chataigne ’13, Erica Bradley ’14, Ashley Miller ’14 and Cheryl Lawson of Sodexo were part of the Colby-Sawyer crew that spent spring break lending helping hands.
“We did some rebuilding, painting and sanding. Then we helped a couple of mission groups move
and restock food pantries,” says Lynch. Not only did the ColbySawyer squad help clean up local businesses, but it also assisted families.
The students’ service experience was eye opening; they learned from one another and created strong bonds that will endure along with their sense of accomplishment.
Cleaning up Coney Island and assisting families in Sandy’s aftermath proved eye opening for Molly Mattern ’14 and Jess Foye ’14. “The most enjoyable part of the trip was helping a family whose basement was destroyed,” said Shannen Hartmann ’14. “They were so sweet and treated us like family. They cooked us a meal and worked alongside us to repair the damage. It really felt amazing to know that we had impacted their lives in a positive way while they were going through such a rough time.”
“A lot of the students didn’t know each other before the trip, and now I see them together at lunch and hanging out,” says Lynch. This was the first alternative spring break trip the college has taken in more than five years, but the Community Service Club is already brainstorming about locations for next March.
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The Susan Colby Colgate Scholars’ Symposium Turns 10 by Kellie M. Spinney, College Communications
legacy of scholarship ingrained in the institution by the school’s first female teacher and principal, Susan Colby Colgate. This year, the ColbySawyer College community celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Susan Colby Colgate Scholars’ Symposium, which is regarded as the highlight of the academic year. In recognition of the milestone, Academic Vice President, Dean of Faculty
Photo: Greg Danilowski
Under the leadership of Professor of Exercise and Sport Sciences Jean Eckrich, the Undergraduate Research Task Force realized a collective vision in April 2003—the first Susan Colby Colgate Scholars’ Symposium. As the culminating demonstration of the depth and breadth of knowledge that students have acquired during their years of study at Colby-Sawyer, the symposium features seniors’ interdisciplinary
At the center of the symposium is the Capstone project, which requires students to commit to sustained, high-level research. Capstone projects and undergraduate presentations. Created to bring students, faculty and staff together to celebrate scholarship across all disciplines, the day was named for the
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and Professor of Social Sciences and Education Deborah Taylor described the symposium as the “clearest and most compelling expression of our students’ educational accomplishments.”
Colby-Sawyer College Magazine
At the center of the symposium is the Capstone project, which requires students to commit to sustained, high-level research. Associate Professor of Natural Sciences Nick Baer says this academic exercise is essential in developing students’ learning. “The Capstone is without a doubt the part of the curriculum where students have the most autonomy, and it forces them to be selfmotivated, organized and critical about how they will conceptualize, design, carry out and analyze an independent research project in a discipline,” says Baer. Exceptional projects and presentations are identified at the symposium and recognized at the annual Scholars and Leaders Awards Ceremony with Capstone awards. “Going from session to session this year, I was struck by the demonstrated excellence of our students’ work which, in turn, reflects the time and attention our faculty give to students to help shape their abilities to understand, analyze, synthesize
and apply knowledge,” says Vice President Taylor. “It would be hard to imagine a more intellectually stimulating and celebratory showcase for undergraduate student learning.” Mary Moore, the senior who received the 2013 Bachelor of Fine Arts Capstone Award for Graphic Design, created a campaign encouraging the reading and writing of LGBTQ fiction. Moore admits that presenting her work to her peers and professors was difficult but found value in the experience. “I learned a lot about professionalism and presenting myself in the best way possible,” says Moore. “That’s a great lesson to learn as I am about to go into the world of applications and interviews.” The 2013 recipient of the Environmental Studies Capstone Award, Iraj Khaliqi, explored environmental values and perceptions in his native Afghanistan. “There is almost no research related to the environment of Afghanistan. My Capstone discusses some underlying
Photo: Greg Danilowski
Media Studies major Cory J. Schofield ’13 presented his Capstone project to fellow students, faculty and staff. factors regarding the environment, as well as limitations and suggestions that would help in future studies,” says Khaliqi. “I hope it will be used as a foundation for future research related to the environment in Afghanistan.” This fall, Khaliqi will begin a graduate degree in energy regulation and law at Vermont Law School. As an intern with the New Hampshire Department of Children, Youth and Families, Daniel Moir, recipient of the Child Development Capstone Award, researched the peer relationships of children who have been abused or neglected. Moir’s research reinforced his commitment to keeping children safe and inspiring others to pursue similar paths. “Developing safety plans with families, seeing a
positive result of those plans and helping my supervisor close an assessment meant that the child or children in the home were safe,” says Moir. “I hope I have inspired at least one student to do their internship at DCYF.” Moir will continue his education at Simmons College of Social Work Graduate School this fall. Professor Eckrich, who is also director of the Teaching Enrichment Center, is pleased by this year’s symposium and its evolution. “A big change over the years has been the increased attendance by parents and family members,” she says. “It is a reflection of the central role the Capstone experience is playing in the students’ senior year.”
The symposium has also left lasting effects on alumni, who remain grateful for the experience. John Bossé ’08, senior scientist in product innovation at USANA Health Sciences in Salt Lake City, praises Professor Eckrich for her commitment to her students. “She always encouraged me to expect more from myself and from my peers,” says Bossé who, with Professor Eckrich’s support, presented his Capstone research at a national conference. As the symposium enters its second decade, Professor Eckrich
reflects fondly on its past. “In the early years, the faculty were as nervous as the students. While the students are nervous now, they also feel a sense of pride at what they have accomplished,” she says. “It has been wonderful to watch the progression over the years.”
Students and friends supported the seniors at the tenth anniversary of the Susan Colby Colgate Scholars’ Symposium.
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The Season in Sports 2012-2013 Winter/Spring by Ryan Emerson, Director, Sports Information
Baseball (19-20; 14-10 NAC) The baseball team earned the third seed in the North Atlantic Conference (NAC) tournament after posting a 14-10 record. The Chargers have reached a conference tournament in 17 of the past 18 seasons. ColbySawyer fell to eventual NAC champion Husson 1-0 in the first game and was eliminated by Castleton 5-4 in the second game. After a record-setting season in 2012, the 2013 pitching staff had another stellar year, recording the program’s second-best earned run average of 4.00 and holding the opponent’s batting average to a
Junior Kevin Keith was named NAC Pitcher of the Year and ranked 3rd in the nation in ERA.
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school record of .280. After leading the nation last season in fewest walks per nine innings at 2.14, this year’s squad ranked 11th at 2.31. Other program records included 21 complete games and nine shutouts. Junior Kevin Keith (Quincy, Mass.) was named NAC Pitcher of the Year and All-NAC First Team. He also was named to the New England Intercollegiate Baseball Association (NEIBA) All-New England Second Team and D3Baseball.com All-New England Second Team. Keith ended the season with a 0.97 ERA in all games and ranked third in the nation. Keith added a pair of saves and became the program’s all-time leader with five. His eight wins ranked him 28th in the nation and is a Colby-Sawyer singleseason record. His seven complete games ranked him 10th in the country and tied a school record, while his four shutouts and 61 strikeouts set new records. Keith also ranked 8th in the nation in strikeout/walk ratio at 8.71, 25th in walks allowed per nine innings at .97
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Laurel Bauer ’13 ranks in the top 10 in Colby-Sawyer lacrosse in points, goals and assists. and 34th in walks and hits per innings pitched at .96. He earned three awards for NAC Pitcher of the Week as well as an Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Pitcher of the Week nod. Senior Tyler Stotz (Amesbury, Mass.), junior Vinny Monahan (Foxboro, Mass.), senior Cameron Knight (Cambridge, Mass.) and junior Andy Lapple (Newtown, Conn.) were named to the All-NAC Second Team.
Women’s Lacrosse (7-9; 4-2 NAC) In its second season in the NAC, the women’s lacrosse team finished 7-9 overall and 4-2 in the conference. The team reached the postseason for the 12th time in the past 13 seasons. Seniors Laurel Bauer (Bradford, N.H.) and Ashley Reis (Stowe, Vt.) were named to the All-NAC First Team, while senior Amanda Murray (Norwood, Mass.) earned a nod to the All-NAC Second Team.
Bauer tied for the team lead with 32 points on 25 goals and seven assists and was second on the team with 34 ground balls and 31 draw controls. She exits Colby-Sawyer ranked in the top 10 in career points (156, 6th), goals (119, 8th) and assists (37, 7th). Reis tied for the team lead with 32 points. She scored a team-high 28 goals and added four assists in her most productive season with the Chargers. Murray, a First Team honoree last season, ranked 76th in the country this season with 1.88 caused turnovers per game. She led all NAC players with 33 on the season, a career high, and collected the third most ground balls on the team with 31. The Chargers finished the season ranked 18th in the nation with 11.38 caused turnovers per game. The graduating senior class of Bauer, Murray, Reis, Erin Gallagher (Stratham, N.H.), Kylie McDonnell (Quechee, Vt.) and Kate Rial (Chester Springs, Pa.) was one of
the most successful in program history with 29 wins and an ECAC tournament appearance.
Men’s Tennis (14-8; 6-0 NAC East) The men’s tennis team ran the table in the NAC for the second straight season and advanced to the NAC/ NEAC (North Eastern Athletic Conference) crossover championship match. The Chargers won the NAC East Division with a 9-0 sweep over Lyndon in the semifinals and a 9-0 sweep over Thomas in the finals. The Chargers then played NAC West Division winners RutgersCamden in the crossover with a trip to the NCAAs on the line. The Chargers swept the Scarlett Raptors 9-0 for the program’s first-ever conference title and first trip to the NCAA Tournament. Colby-Sawyer fell to former Commonwealth Coast Conference foe Nichols in the NCAA First Round 5-0, ending one of the best seasons in program history. Sophomore Nathan Taschereau (Goffstown,
Sophomore Nathan Taschereau was named NAC East Division Men’s Tennis Player of the Year and First Team honoree. N.H.) was named 2013 NAC East Division Men’s Tennis Player of the Year and First Team honoree. He was a perfect 6-0 at first singles and doubles in conference play, leading the Chargers to their second-straight unbeaten NAC East Division season. Sophomore Clay Allen (Massena, N.Y.) and sophomore Justin Pinard (Essex, Vt.) joined Taschereau on the AllConference Singles First Team. Taschereau and doubles partner senior Reeve Fidler (San Diego, Calif.) landed on the All-Conference Doubles First Team. Fidler earned a nod to the Singles Second Team.
Pinard and sophomore teammate Sergio Spassof (Pallini, Greece) were both Doubles Second Team honorees. Barry Schoonmaker was honored with the NAC East Division Coach of the Year award by his peers.
Track and Field The men’s and women’s track and field teams had another record-setting year. Colby-Sawyer sent 11 student-athletes to the New England Championships at Colby in Maine and four student-athletes to the ECAC Championships at Springfield College.
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Seven new men’s records were set this season. Sophomore Hayden Bunnell (St. Johnsbury, Vt.), who received the Charger Award for the 2013 Outstanding Male Athlete, set new marks in the 1,500m, 5,000m and 10,000m. Freshman Rasheed Foster (Sandy Bay, Hanover, Jamaica) now holds the record in the 200m dash, while sophomore Jesse Socci (Wilton, Conn.) holds the shot put record. The 4x800 relay team of Hayden
Bunnell, freshman Ben Bunnell (St. Johnsbury, Vt.), freshman DJ Ayotte (East Kingston, N.H.) and sophomore Bobby Hoffman (North Chelmsford, Mass.) are new record holders. Ben Bunnell also set a record in the 3,000m steeplechase. Hayden Bunnell, Socci, junior Ted Paquin (Middleboro, Mass.) and senior Matt Van Vliet (Bridgton, Maine) competed in the ECAC Champ-
Maggie Gousse qualified for the Regional Championship and was Reserve High Point Rider at UNH in the fall. ionships. Earlier in the season, Socci earned All-New England honors in the shot put, while Van Vliet took home All-New England accolades in the high jump and triple jump. Hayden Bunnell received All New England honors in the 10k. The women’s team saw five new records set this year. Freshman Tallon Tomasi (Berkshire, Vt.) set a new standard in the 200m dash, while junior Liz Sullivan (West Warwick, R.I.) improved on her own school record in the pole vault. Senior Dani Perry (Charlestown, N.H.) set a record in the 400m hurdles and was a member of the 4x100 and 4x400 record-setting relay teams. The 4x100 team included
Sophomore Hayden Bunnell received the Charger Award for the 2013 Outstanding Male Athlete. He set school records in the 1,500m, 5,000m and 10,000m. 18
Colby-Sawyer College Magazine
Perry, Tomasi, freshman Carrie Smith (Bailey Island, Maine) and freshman Bre Brown (Warwick, R.I.), while the 4x400 team was composed of Perry, Tomasi, sophomore Courtney Figucia (Wilmington, Mass.) and sophomore Paige O’Malley (Dedham, Mass.).
Equestrian The equestrian team, which competes in the fall and spring, had three riders qualify to compete at the Regional Championship held at Dartmouth College: Andy Chase (Bow, N.H.), Maggie Gousse (Yarmouth, Maine) and Meredith Cromis (Bristol, Vt.). All three won their classes at the final spring show at Middlebury College. Gousse was
Reserve High Point Rider at the UNH show in the fall. The team also had great performances from the underclassmen, which included freshman Juli Lovington (Guilford, Conn.) as the High Point Rider at UNH in the spring.
Corey Willis ’13 ended the season ranked 5th in the country in assist-toturnover ratio.
Men’s Basketball (14-13; 13-5 NAC) The men’s basketball program reached 400 wins after an 80-57 victory over Thomas on February 19. The Chargers finished third in NAC standings with a 13-5 record. Colby-Sawyer
fell to eventual conference champion Husson in the semifinals. Senior Corey Willis (Easton, Mass.) was named to the All-NAC Second Team after leading the conference in assistto-turnover ratio at 3.24 and ended the season ranked fifth in the country in that category. He was second in the NAC with 94 assists in conference games and finished the year with 136, ranking him 33rd in the nation with 5.0 assists per game. Corey exits Colby-Sawyer as the all-time leader in assists with 493. Sophomore Mike Dias (Carver, Mass.) was named to the All-NAC First Team and ranked fifth in scoring in the NAC at 16.3 points per game. Dias also ranked fifth in shooting percentage (57.4) and seventh in rebounding (7.4 rpg). Dias had seven double-doubles in 2012-13, ranked 75th in the nation in field goal percentage and was named to the New Hampshire Division III Basketball Coaches Association First Team.
Junior Erin Dunican set a record in the 100 breaststroke and was on three record-setting relay teams in 2013. Freshman Wol Majong (Manchester, N.H.) was named New Hampshire Division III Basketball Coaches Association Rookie of the Year, making him the fifth straight Colby-Sawyer Rookie of the Year. He played in all 27 games and averaged 8.6 points per game. In the last eight games of the season, Majong recorded double figures seven times, including a careerhigh 31 points on 12-14 shooting. He also recorded at least 20 points in both of the team’s NAC playoff games and earned a spot on the All-Tournament team.
Swimming and Diving The men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams sent 20 members to the New England Intercollegiate Swimming and Diving Association (NEISDA) Championships. The women finished 7th and the men placed 10th in the multiday event. The women’s team also sent six members to the ECAC Championships at Harvard University: sophomore Krystyna Estrada (Lebanon, N.H.), freshman Elaine Miller (Windham, Maine), junior
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Erin Dunican (Bennington, Vt.), sophomore Jen Gavell (Lebanon, N.H.), freshman Samantha Dalphond (Chelmsford, Mass.) and freshman Emma Nagle (Hanover, Mass.). Throughout the season, there were 13 new school records set, 12 of them on the women’s side. Dalphond set three new diving records and had strong performances at the NEISDA and ECAC Championships. Estrada picked up three freestyle records in the 50, 100 and 200 events while adding a new standard in the 100 IM. Nagle set a new mark in the 50 butterfly, while Dunican set a record time in the 100 breaststroke. Three women’s relay records also fell in 2013. Dunican, Estrada, Miller and Nagle set a new mark in the 200 medley relay, while Dunican, Estrada, Miller and Gavell now hold the 200 freestyle relay record. Dunican, Estrada, Miller and senior Emily Olson (Lynn, Mass.) broke the 800 freestyle relay record.
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Junior co-captain Keenan Bartlett (East Stroudsburg, Pa.) set a new men’s record in the 200 IM in a time of 2:08.01. The lone senior on the men’s team, captain Jimmy Montanari (Ridgefield, Conn.), received the Colby-Sawyer Male Senior Scholar-Athlete Award.
Women’s Basketball (23-6; 17-1 NAC)
Award as this year’s Outstanding Female Athlete, solidified herself as one of the best studentathletes in Colby-Sawyer history. She was named NAC Player of the Year for the second straight season and landed on the First Team after leading the conference with 19.3 points per game in NAC contests. DeSanty was also named to the New England Women’s Basketball Association (NEWBA) All-Region
Second Team and D3hoops.com All-Region Third Team. She leaves Colby-Sawyer as the all-time leader in points (1,743), three-pointers (219) and field goals (649). Senior Cailin Bullett (Millbury, Mass.), who received the Wynne Jesser McGrew Scholar-Athlete Award at Commencement, was named to the All-NAC First Team. Bullett graduated as the all-time leader in assists with 583, and she
The women’s basketball team won its first NAC title in just its second year of affiliation. The conference title was the program’s seventh and earned the team a seventh trip to the NCAA Tournament. Colby-Sawyer fell to Ithaca in the first round, ending the season at 23-6. The Chargers recorded double-figure conference wins for the 17th time in 18 seasons and had at least 20 overall wins for the eighth time in the past 11 seasons. The team ranked seventh in the nation with field goal percentage defense at 30.7. Senior Taylor DeSanty (North Adams, Mass.), who received the Charger
Colby-Sawyer College Magazine
Senior Taylor DeSanty received the Charger Award for the 2013 Outstanding Female Athlete. She exits as the all-time leader in career points with 1,743.
Sophomore Courtney Troxell led the women’s alpine ski team to be one of the most consistent teams in the EISA. ranked sixth in the nation this year with 6.1 assists per game. She graduated with 1,257 points, 522 rebounds and 583 assists. She ranks second all-time in free throws, sixth in points and ninth in threepointers. Bullett and DeSanty played in this year’s NEWBA Senior All-Star Classic. DeSanty was named NH Division III Coaches Association Player of the Year for the third consecutive season and was on the First Team for the third straight time. Bullett was also named to the First Team, while sophomore Kelsey Cahill (Cumberland, R.I.) was named to the Second Team. Cahill started in 28 of 29 games, was third on the team with 11.7 points per game,
recorded eight doubledoubles and led the team with 7.8 rebounds per game. Head Coach George Martin was named conference Coach of the Year for the fifth time in his career and NH Division III Coach of the Year for the seventh time. The Chargers also earned the NAC Team Sportsmanship Award.
Alpine Skiing Under first-year Head Coach Sam Damon, the alpine ski team continued its transition into the most competitive league in collegiate skiing, the Eastern Intercollegiate Ski
Association (EISA), which has teams that span all three NCAA divisions. Although this year’s team battled injuries, the Chargers managed to come away with many impressive individual results. This year’s strong freshman class pulled in great results, with Matt Nolan (Meredith, N.H.) and Miles Derrick (Fayston, Vt.) each winning International Ski Federation (FIS) races. The women’s side also provided strong top-30 finishes all year long. The Colby-Sawyer men’s team was led by junior captain Patrick Tingle (Thomaston, Conn.), who was ranked in the top 30 in the EISA for the first
half of the season. Led by sophomore Courtney Troxell (Salt Lake City, Utah), the women’s team was one of the most consistent teams in the EISA. With no seniors on the 2013 roster, the Colby-Sawyer ski program will look to continue improving. Follow the Chargers! http://CSCM.ag/CSCAthletics twitter.com/CSCAthletics www.colby-sawyerathletics.com
Photos: John Quackenbos
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Sense of Place Rising over Ragged Mountain on a beautiful May morning, the sun illuminated the Kelsey Tennis Courts. All spring, the courts were home to triumphant tennis play as both the men’s and women’s teams won their conference championships. Photo: Michael Seamans
by Kate Seamans, College Communications and Mike Gregory, Assistant Director, Alumni Relations and Annual Giving
In 2011, Diane Shugrue Gallagher ’57 was awarded the Lillian Carter Award for her work with the Peace Corps. Last year, she published a memoir, Lure of Service: My Peace Corps Adventures at Middle Age, which chronicles the two years she spent in Cape Verde in the 1990s. Former fashion executive Lucy Main Tweet ’72 offers some practical guidance for knitters in her first book, Knitologie. Cerian Williams Hebert ’87 has been publishing romantic fiction for years and has eight titles to her name with more in the works. Her most recent novel, No Going Back, is about a Hollywood socialite who
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finds love when she moves to New Hampshire. Find her on Amazon for Kindle.
to honor the world’s best skiers, filmmakers and photographers.
Artist and photographer Jennie Harriman ’92 collaborated with 12-yearold Kylie Flye on the children’s book Waiting for Daddy to explore what it means for a child to have a parent in prison.
On May 4, ColbySawyer College hosted the second annual “Windcrossing: A Festival of Sight and Sound,” which showcased films by students and alumni and celebrated independent filmmaking.
Nate Corddry ’00 has a new leading role on CBS as Gabriel in the Chuck Lorre comedy “Mom,” co-starring Anna Faris and Emmy winner Allison Janney. Corddry, whose credits include “Harry’s Law,” “Studio 60” and “On The Sunset Strip,” is also in the feature films “The Heat” with Sandra Bullock and “Girl Most Likely” with Matt Dillon, and he will be in next year’s “In Lieu Of Flowers.” He also voices a regular role on the Disney series “Tron: Uprising.” Cory Felton ’03 and Topher Plimpton ’04 won the Best P.O.V. Award at the 13th Annual POWDER Awards in Park City, Utah. The award is the first for their Two Plank Productions. “Powder: The Skier’s Magazine” calls the awards celebration the biggest night in skiing
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This year’s festival featured a short film, three Capstone public-service films and a clip from the original video/theatre Capstone production, “Love and Lettuce.” In the short film “A Vital Dilemma,” three best friends stumble upon a heart in a box and must figure out what to do with it. Directed by Kryslyn Rousseau ’13 and written by Zach Matson ’13, the film stars Ethan O’Connell ’14 and Aaron Hodge ’14 as well as Assistant Director of Admissions Michael Clark. Mandy Clayton ’13 created a website and YouTube channel for the festival, and she served as the festival coordinator as part of her Capstone project.
Senior Joshua Hardy’s Capstone was a promotional piece sponsored by the New Hampshire Coalition of Community Media, “Directed Public Access: Your Community Matters.” Carly Strathdee ’13 directed her Capstone video, “For the Love of Dog,” as a promotional piece for a New Hampshire Rottweiler/Pitbull rescue organization. In the short documentary “Living the Dream,” Jillian DeArville ’13 records the daily lives of students with intellectual disabilities in their Winthrop High School classroom in an effort to generate public awareness. Writer and director Victoria Hersey ’13 created “Love and Lettuce” for her Capstone, which was performed in April at New London’s Whipple Town Hall. Windcrossing highlighted clips of Hersey’s video production for the festival audience.
Send news of your literary, musical or other artistic accomplishments to editor@colby-sawyer.edu.
21.21%
Data Driven
1,208
Pounds of food donated by the Colby-Sawyer community during the “Let’s Can Hunger” campaign to benefit local food pantries.
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88
Number of students registered in the Bone Marrow Registry Drive held April 3.
The score Colby-Sawyer received, out of a best possible 5, on the national Campus Pride Index with regard to LGBT inclusive practices. Read the full assessment at www.CSCM.ag/ pride-index.
Associate Professor of Humanities Ewa Chrusciel co-translated with Miłosz Biedrzycki the poetry of Jorie Graham into Polish for the new release Przes´wity. This is the duo’s second collaboration; their translation of Graham’s book of poetry, Fraza, was released in 2009. Professor Chrusciel, author of three books of poetry, will release her next book in September 2014. Associate Professor of Humanities Craig Greenman’s short story “Bar Bar Lemon” was published in this year’s EDGE, an annual literary journal published
by Tahoe Writers Works. Professor Greenman also contributed a poem in memory of late student Zack Sochor to ColbySawyer’s literary magazine, Solidus, and he has recently finished a book manuscript. Professor Greenman is the author of Expression and Survival: An Aesthetic Approach to the Problem of Suicide. Assistant Professor of Humanities Mike Jauchen’s review of All Men Are Liars was published in the New York Times on Dec. 16. Professor Jauchen also had reviews of Alex Forman’s Tall, Slim & Erect and Ken Sparling’s Dad Says He Saw You at the Mall published in The Rumpus
(www.cscm.ag/dad-says) in September and February, as well as an interview with author Wiley Cash at The Barnes and Noble Review (www.cscm.ag/wiley-cash) in January. Mary McLaughlin, director of Residential Education, has been published in Thrive, a quarterly magazine for parents of children with special needs in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Thrive has featured three of her humor columns, “Vive le Difference” (Winter 2012), “Mirror, Mirror” (Spring 2013) and “App Happy” (Summer 2013), as well as a feature article, “What Do You Say: Handling the Challenges of Pragmatic Language Disorders” (Summer
The time weighted return in 2012 for the Suzanne ’66 and John Hammond Student Managed Investment Fund. The student fund managers were named international champions in the undergraduate Value Investing category at the Quinnipiac Global Asset Management Education (G.A.M.E.) III Forum held April 4-6 in New York City. Read the full story at www. colby-sawyer.edu/news/ Investment.html.
2013). All issues are available at www.dfwchild.com/ Thrive. The prints of Assistant Professor of Fine and Performing Arts Mary Mead were featured in two exhibitions this spring at The Barrington Center for the Arts in Wenham, Mass., and at the New Hampshire Institute of the Arts in Manchester, N.H.
“Willing to Try Again,” 2013 Hard ground intaglio with drypoint.
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conversations Emily Orenstein ’13
by Michael Clark
Emily Orenstein ’13, an English major from Riverside, Conn., breezes into the room relaxed and ready to enjoy senior week and to talk about the thrill of seeing her article published in USA Today.
Your mother is a ColbySawyer alumna—how did that connection influence your college search? My mom was in the class of ’74. During my college search she tried hard not to influence my decision. We did a grand tour of New England colleges and then came to Colby-Sawyer for an alumni event. While she did that, I went on a campus tour and felt a real connection. I went to a big high school where I felt like a number, but Colby-Sawyer just felt welcoming, and it’s pretty. It immediately felt like a family. It was nice to be able to pick the school for myself, though.
With her professor’s encouragement, Emily Orenstein ’13 submitted an essay to USA Today.
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Colby-Sawyer College Magazine
Your essay, “The Respectful Roommate’s Handbook,” was published. How did that come about? I took a creative writing course every semester and really liked the professors. They took a real interest and helped me think about what I wanted to write. [Assistant Professor of Humanities] Michael Jauchen is one of my favorites, and so is [retired faculty] David Elliott. I had David for a course exploring memoir and personal essays, and the “Handbook” essay grew out of an assignment. He encouraged me to send a shortened version to USA Today, where it was picked up and published on the college section of its website. Where did you get the idea for the piece? We’re influenced by those around us, and at college we live closest to our roommates. Freshman year I lived with someone who ended up becoming a good friend, and then we lived with other people, so it was interesting to compare notes about our different experiences.
What was it like to have your writing published, and what do you see yourself doing next? It was really cool! I’d pretend I didn’t think it was a big deal, but it was really great to be acknowledged and to have professors mention it. As for what’s next, well. I did my internship at the UpReach Therapeutic Riding Center in Goffstown, N.H., and I was able to incorporate writing with my work there to help create a book of activities to do with the kids. I enjoyed having that handson experience working with children with special needs—it was great to work all day with people, reflect on our interactions and then write about it. I’m open to anything right now, but I hope I’ll be able to combine working with people and writing. Read Emily’s piece at www.CSCM.ag/ respectful-roommates
New International Speakers Bureau Shares Global Perspectives by David Hart ’13
In conceptualizing the bureau, Elliott, who retired from the college this spring, recalled a time when students visited local schools to share stories about their countries and cultures. He wanted to revive the tradition. Following a year of development, the ISB is ready to connect the college’s international student body with the surrounding communities through speaking engagements hosted by
Elliott believes any organization could use the bureau’s resources. Whether the conversation Anurup Upadhyay ’15 of Nepal. revolves around politics, literature or interested organizations food, these students will at no charge. bring new insight to the discussion. The ISB currently comprises 19 students On the anticipated who represent a dozen significance of the ISB, countries, and several Elliott says that “to ignore more plan to become the increasingly diverse members. The ISB website world in which we live will connect students with limits us both professionthe community. It provides ally and socially, so we’re profiles and images of trying to bring the larger the speakers, background world to our part of New on their home countries, Hampshire.” and surveys for potential hosts and volunteers. Upadhyay believes New London will be the perfect Any school, business, venue for this endeavor. club or organization “It’s a small and homogein the Lake Sunapee area, neous community,” he including those within explains. “There’s not Colby-Sawyer, may invite a much diversity, and that is speaker or group of why we wanted to start speakers. In developing this. I find the New the invitation process, London community really Upadhyay, a native of inviting. They want to Nepal, has sought to know more about us, and create a customizable
I expect the Speakers Bureau to get a lot of invitations.” While providing the community with the gift of multiculturalism, the ISB will also benefit the students who volunteer to speak. “The bureau gives them the opportunity to practice their communication skills,” says Elliott, “by standing up in front of a group and speaking about things that are important to them.” Visit www.colby-sawyer.edu/ speakers to learn more.
Photo: Greg Danilowski
In an effort to share the wealth of ideas and cultural experiences that these students offer, thenDirector of International Student Services and Humanities instructor David Elliott and Anurup Upadhyay ’15 established the college’s International Speakers Bureau (ISB) in late 2011.
experience for the hosts and the speakers, allowing both parties to outline their expectations and topics of interest. Photo: Greg Danilowski
Colby-Sawyer prides itself on the growing diversity of its student body, a population that each year becomes a more complete reflection of the international community. With their global perspectives, international students bring the world to our New London, N.H., campus.
Hermella Girmay Tekle ’16 of Ethiopia.
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Bridging the Waves of Feminism: Sonic Women Performers of the Mid-20th Century by Melissa Meade, Associate Professor, Humanities
In 1949 Simone de Beauvoir opened her classic feminist existentialist text, The Second Sex, with the question, “What is a woman?” Is she her “womb,” her female body, Beauvoir wondered, or is she an idea, a Platonic ideal or essence? Ultimately, Beauvoir argued that women are not born women, despite their female physiology, but become women over the course of living. In my current research of all-girl sonic culture in mid-20th century America, I apply Beauvoir’s question and premise to American media culture and look for clues about the construction of the collective category “women” at that time, and how this construction anticipated and engaged with the second-wave feminist movement. Explanations, interpretations and histories of American feminism most often use the metaphor of the wave to identify the ebbs and flows of activism around gender oppression.
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The first wave is generally understood as the feminism of the late 19th to early 20th centuries and encompasses the activists who fought for women’s full participation in politics and public life, and to end male domination and female oppression. This first wave of feminism culminated with women’s suffrage in 1920. The second wave, drawing from the work of the first and expanding its critique and analysis, began in the early 1960s. Popular texts such as Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique were important catalysts and generated the rallying cries of “the personal is political” and “sisterhood is powerful.” Women worked together to raise consciousness about what it meant to be a woman, instigated research agendas around gender and changed our political systems to be more inclusive. Looking for cultural antecedents to the development of a collective female subject necessary for political activism, I turn to the popular culture in those dormant decades between the first
Colby-Sawyer College Magazine
and second waves of feminism. In popular culture we share in the construction and development of gender norms and ideals. Popular culture helps teach us how to be women and men, and it captures our deepest ambivalences about changes in these identities. I always tell students that to get a sense of societal norms and expectations about any given topic, just turn on the television, the radio (and now, the Internet) and check out which stories we are telling ourselves. The thriving “all-girl” music culture that took shape in the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s offers one site of collective female experience in popular culture. From orchestras and jazz bands to R&B “girl groups” and the occasional all-girl radio station, women worked together as performers who acted out visions of femininity in addition to music. These were novelty acts to be sure, but they were also sites of rich gender construction that captured the multiplicity
and diversity of “woman” and led to the development of the collective female subject necessary for political activism. Consider the ambivalence captured by Marilyn Monroe in Billy Wilder’s 1959 comedy Some Like it Hot. As Sugar Kane, the ukulele player and singer
for an all-girl jazz band, Monroe is both beauty and brains. She is career woman and lost girl; she is witty and outwitted. When she sings the 1920s tune “I Wanna Be Loved by You” in a startlingly suggestive gown, she is both ingénue and well-tread professional,
and we can’t quite believe her when she claims she “couldn’t aspire to anything higher.” In my research of all-girl sonic media of the mid20th century, I look at these musical acts and radio stations to understand the culture that articulated and anticipat-
ed the feminist movement that was to follow. These collective identities of women amplified women’s voices and highlighted differences among women, as well as their need for cooperation and empowerment. These women in
the all-girl acts did, in fact, aspire—and to much, much higher. An essay by Professor Meade that grew out of her research will be published in 2014 as a chapter in the book Representing Women’s Intellect in Film and Television (Scarecrow Press).
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Feature
The Changing Landscape of Higher Education by Kate Seamans with President Thomas C. Galligan Jr.
Facing a national climate of unprecedented change and competition in higher education, Colby-Sawyer College released 16 full- and part-time staff members from departments across campus on May 15 to help balance its budget for the 2013 fiscal year. The extent of the college’s regret at having to take this action cannot be adequately expressed, as the individuals affected offered their talents and gifts to the college and its mission to educate students. For their service, we thank them and remain grateful. Despite the national dialogue that questions the value of a college education, especially a liberal arts education, there is a place and a purpose for Colby-Sawyer and colleges like it. The only way we will adapt to a changing landscape, as we must do, is to believe in ourselves and our students and make appropriate changes. But what does that changing landscape look like, and why did Colby-Sawyer take the action that it did? President Galligan answers those questions and more.
President Galligan, what is the state of higher education in America today? First of all, let me just say that there are a lot of wonderful, terrific things going on here at ColbySawyer. This magazine is full of those good things, and it can’t even begin to share all the stories of our successes.
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But like all small, tuitiondependent, private liberal arts colleges in the United States, we’re facing significant financial stress. Since 1999 tuition has gone up and up, public schools at an even faster rate than private schools. Today, families have become very sensitive to price. Student loan debt is at a record high; home equity has decreased from its prerecession highs; savings are not what
Colby-Sawyer College Magazine
they once were. There has been a lot of negativity about liberal arts education and its value, and expenses continue to rise. We’re not alone, which doesn’t make it any easier, but we have to deal with it. The most serious thing we’ve had to do so far was the personnel reductions in May.
The personnel reductions were made to help balance the budget. Why is a balanced budget so important? My friend and chair of the Board of Trustees, Tom Csatari, explained this very well at the all-campus meeting on May 17. The budget enables us to do what we have to do and to plan for the future, but a balanced budget is also important for our students because their ability to
get government loans is contingent upon us operating in the black. For us to do the things that will preserve Colby-Sawyer and enhance the education here, we have to balance the budget so we have a good relationship with our bank and can finance the improvements we need to make on campus. We’ve spent a lot of time working on a facilities master plan to identify the things that will make Colby-Sawyer a much stronger institution, but we have to be able
to finance those things. To do that, we must have a balanced budget.
Back to the changing landscape. How significant are the changes, and what has changed in higher education to make small, tuitiondependent, private liberal arts colleges like Colby-Sawyer vulnerable? The changes are significant. Sometimes I feel like it is 1928 again, that we’re on the verge of the Great Depression, and H. Leslie Sawyer suggests
to the Academy’s Board of Trustees that maybe we should become a college. Or I think maybe we’re in 1989 again, when our numbers as an allwomen’s college declined to the point that President Peggy Sock and then Chair of the Board Peter Danforth [P’83, P’84, GP’02] and the board asked, ‘Do we need to think about going coed?’ These are challenging times. There are two major issues, and each has a subset of issues. Number
one, affordability and cost. Number two, outcomes, which means competencies, jobs and debt.
Let’s talk about affordability and cost in a big-picture way. First, let’s be clear that tuition is just the posted price. Almost everyone at Colby-Sawyer gets financial aid. So you can’t just look at tuition; you have to look at net price and net revenue. When we give a need-based grant or a merit scholarship, it’s Colby-Sawyer that’s investing in the student, Fall 2013
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Demographics of High School Graduates
Feature
Change in Public and Private High School Graduates from 2013 to 2018 — U.S. 2013 Total
2018 Total
3,219,207
3,315,636
Change 96,429
3.0%
Number of Public High School Graduates by Ethnicity for Selected Years — U.S. Asian/Pacific Islander
American Indian/Alaskan Native
Hispanic
White-Non Hispanic
2013
30,076
178,589
405,165
547,474
1,707,660
2018
32,752
508,140
418,720
667,057
1,690,188
Change:
2,676
329,551
13,555
119,583
-17,472
8.9%
16.5%
3.3%
21.8%
-1.0%
not the federal government and not the state. The state of New Hampshire ranks 50th in support for higher education, and its college graduates have the heaviest debt burden in the country. Now, what’s changed about accessibility? Students used to look to parents for financial help, but incomes haven’t increased in real dollars since the 1990s. Since 2006, home values are down 40 percent, so parents can’t borrow on their house. Savings are down, too, and parents are realizing they need that money for their own futures. Finally, demographics are changing. From 2012 to 2018 there will be more high school graduates in the U.S. than there are today. But where are they? Far outside our traditional demographic.
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Black-Non Hispanic
And the outcomes part of it?
enrolled in graduate school within six months of graduation.
Last year a Gallup poll showed only 14 percent of Americans strongly agreed that college graduates are ready for work. We have to fight those attitudes all the time. People say college graduates can’t write, can’t speak, can’t do math. Well, they can. Our graduates prove that. Ninety-eight percent of the members of the Class of 2012 were either employed or
Colby-Sawyer College Magazine
As a nation, though, we’ve reached a tipping point. The return on investment, or ROI, has diminished for some and become negative for many. Americans have always said that it’s worth it to get your degree, and I would say it’s still true, but a Brookings Institute study said that the ROI for students who go to non-selective,
private schools and study certain liberal arts subjects isn’t worth it. But isn’t being able to interpret a poem worth something? Or being able to understand how my body works when I go to see the doctor? Or understanding how my government works so I can be an informed citizen? College is worth it for the quality of life as well as the quality of one’s career. The Land Grant Acts and later the GI Bill made access to higher education a potential reality for everyone. It attacked a system where the ‘Haves’ went to a group of highly selective, expensive schools, and others didn’t go to school at all. After
High School Graduates in Colby-Sawyer’s Top States Change in Public High School Graduates by Ethnicity from 2013 to 2018 American Indian/Alaskan Native
Asian/Pacific Islander
Black-Non Hispanic
Hispanic
Massachusetts
-30
New Hampshire
-14
White-Non Hispanic
722
80
1,514
-2,321
117
-41
46
-1,071
Maine
5
62
20
78
-758
Connecticut
14
358
37
926
-2,208
Vermont
12
-9
37
35
-312
Total Change:
-13
1250
133
2,599
-6,670
-3.4%
20.3%
1.4%
20.5%
-6.7%
Post-secondary Attendance Rate by Race 48.2%
Total, all students
48.5%
White
46.3%
43.7%
Black
Hispanic
2010 enrollment as a percentage of 18- to 24-year-old high school completers.
World War II that changed, and the ideal of a bachelor’s degree became a reality for many people. The Civil Rights movement and the progress it brought about opened the doors to higher education even wider. I will oversimplify, but we are, right now, going back to a stratified education system where those who can afford to go will have a college education and others, well, ‘It’s not worth the ROI.’ That’s scary. Unfortunately, another outcome problem is debt. The average debt of a student in the United States is $27,000. The average Colby-Sawyer student graduates with a debt of $39,000. At the same time, Colby-Sawyer’s financial aid budget is now more than $30 million a year. And, because we give so much aid, the net revenue per student has declined.
For most residential students, the actual billed amount versus sticker price is less than 50 percent. Our cost per student has actually declined faster than our net revenue, so we’ve achieved some economy of scale, but 1,400 is still tiny for a college, and the population of our primary demographic of New England high school students is in decline. We have to keep analyzing whether or not we can achieve even greater economies of scale by growing.
So why is tuition going up if the cost per student has declined? Because we’re prisoners of the model. We need a higher net revenue. In recent years we’ve increased full-time faculty from 58 to 90, which is essential to our mission as a college, but it’s increased costs. The cost of propane—we can’t control
that. Electricity cost $457,000 in 2012. Our real estate taxes were $345,000. We spent $2 million on maintenance. Think of what it costs to run your home and expand that to the scale of a college bigger than some of its surrounding towns. The cost of our food services goes up. Five years ago, every student brought 0.8 electronic devices, but today it’s three, so the cost of technology support costs go up. And so on.
How has all this affected Colby-Sawyer, and why so dramatically this year? We faced a significant preliminary gap in the budget this year in part because of enrollment, costs and assistance, but really that means net tuition revenue. I want to reiterate here that we have a balanced budget and zero deficit.
We will intentionally have fewer students in the fall than last year, which was an unexpectedly large entering class. So there’s reduced income from tuition, but we increased our fees to offset that. If we increase our fees in a population that is having trouble affording us, however, that number is going to come right back at us in the form of financial aid. Fewer students mean less revenue from room and board fees, too. Costs went up for depreciation, medical insurance, increased faculty hires, off-campus study opportunities, and consulting fees. These are necessary expenditures, but they add up.
What else did the college do besides reduce personnel to balance the budget? We targeted non-personnel areas where we could save and looked at operating budgets. We had some savings through attrition. We also looked at revenue opportunities. That yielded 83 percent of what we needed to balance
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the budget. The remainder came, unfortunately, from the staff reductions.
The staff reductions. Tell me about them. We tried to handle that situation as well as possible. These are people we know and care about. And we did it when we did because as we approached the end of our fiscal year on June 30 and prepared our budget, we felt it incumbent to make decisions while our community was still together before our faculty and staff who do not have 12-month contracts left for the summer. Our director of Human Resources and another HR professional met with each person. Each was offered three months’ severance plus health benefits for a year, unless the person
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was eligible for a previously existing early retirement program that was more generous, in which case he or she received those benefits. We also hired an expert in employment transitions to work with each person regarding future employment.
Did we have to cut staff because Colby-Sawyer overspent on facilities? How does this current situation affect planned and future projects? Colby-Sawyer has actually been quite conservative in spending on facilities. Part of what we have going for us is where we are and what we’ve got. Colgate, built in 1912, was made possible by friends of the college. Our newest building, the LEEDcertified Windy Hill School, opened in 2010 and was made possible through remarkable gifts from friends of the college. We will continue our efforts to make the improvements
Colby-Sawyer College Magazine
we need to benefit our students, such as the recent renovation of Ware Student Center. We began construction of a turf field and track—funded in large part by several incredible gifts to the college—at the end of May. The arts center we’re working on will transform not just this campus but also this community, and folks are helping us right now to make that a reality. A large part of what we’re going to have to do will be through the support of our alumni and friends.
Will there be more layoffs? I hope not, but we must continue to be innovative, flexible and adaptive. Some of the things we will have to do are going to require dynamism and a lot of work.
If this feels like 1928 or 1989 to you—times when the institution had to radically reorganize to survive— what will Colby-Sawyer do now to preserve its mission and future? We have to keep looking at all our expenses, and we need to see where we invest and what we can invest in. We’ve hired a dean of online education, and we’re going to get into that arena and extend our mission to audiences who cannot currently participate in the benefits of a Colby-Sawyer education. Thirty percent of college students have taken a distance education class, and that number is going up. We’ll add things that are interesting and distinctive, but we don’t have time to waste. We’ll continue to look at our net revenue per student and try to increase that while improving the
A large part of what we’re going to have to do will be through the support of our alumni and friends. quality of the educational experience and communicating even more effectively about its benefits. We’ll continue to point out the benefits of a fantastic liberal education program with great majors where every student completes an internship and a Capstone project. We’ll continue to analyze exactly what is the perfect size for us as we go forward. We’ll look at the academic calendar and the use of our facilities; we have a great place here and people want to use it for concerts, reunions, weddings and conferences. Now, we’re going to let them. If you know someone getting married and looking for a place, Colby-Sawyer is a great choice. People have already come to us with ideas about what we can do. Our community’s willingness to give back is tremendous.
So is there hope? Yes, there’s hope. We have to keep talking about our size. We have to keep trying to attract students with a greater capacity to pay. We have to recruit in new regions. And how do we attract students with a greater capacity to pay? Maybe older students, maybe graduate programs, but definitely by keeping up our facilities. Our teaching space has to be superior. We’ll look at adding strategic academic and athletic options, too. We have to stay committed to being excellent. We are going to have to be even more adaptive and nimble. Back in 1930, Colby-Sawyer was expanding because it had the confidence to know that what it was creating would last and that it was going to be a great place for generations to come. And the people who made that investment were absolutely right. That’s what we have to do now as we go forward. That’s what we have to do together. We’ve got to collectively make that investment.
If you walk around campus, note the years on the buildings’ cornerstones: 1930, 1931 ... they are proof of hope and perseverance during challenging times.
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Feature
Tomie dePaola: Then and Now by Kimberly Swick Slover
Illustration of Gertrude’s Salon from Bonjour, Mr. Satie.
When Tomie dePaola was four years old, his Italian relatives asked him and his older brother, Joseph, what they wanted to be when they grew up. Joseph said he wanted to be Dick Tracey, Joe Palooka and Buck Rogers, but Tomie
Tomie dePaola’s Irish-American mother and Italian-American father made sure he had art supplies, and his maternal grandfather, a butcher, gave him big rolls of butcher paper to draw on. He drew everywhere, behind the wallpaper in his bedroom and even on his sheets. 36
responded with certainty, “I’m going to be an artist. I’m going to write stories and draw pictures for books, and I’m going to sing and tap dance on the stage.” Seventy-five years later, Tomie dePaola is one of the world’s most prolific and popular children’s authors and illustrators. He has published nearly 250 books and sold some 15 million copies, as well as won many of the genre’s prestigious awards. As dePaola relaxes in his orderly studio in an old converted barn in New London, N.H., surrounded by his artwork, children’s books and eclectic folk art collections, he revels in his good fortune. “I’m going to be 80 next year, and I’ve done all those things and been paid
Colby-Sawyer College Magazine
for them!” dePaola says, breaking into raucous laughter. “I never changed my mind about the whole art thing.” Colby-Sawyer College will celebrate his life’s work in two exhibitions at the Sawyer Fine and Performing Arts Center, “Tomie dePaola: Then and Now.” The “Then” exhibition this fall will feature his early drawings, paintings and books, along with images of his costume and set designs, from the late 1940s until the mid-1970s. In fall 2014, the “Now” show will coincide with his 80th birthday and highlight his career from 1975 to the present with fine art and book illustrations. “I’d like to show people, especially students, how I started out in high school
and what I’m doing now. A lot of people don’t know I can draw realistically from the figure,” dePaola says. “Now that I’m reaching the end of my journey, I’d like to show off all of my work and let people make up their own minds.” dePaola’s connection to the college began in 1959 when his friend, Eugene Youngken, the new Sawyer Center’s first theater director, invited him to create the sets and perform in the center’s first production, Thornton Wilder’s “The Matchmaker.” He returned as a faculty member from 1972 to 1975, a time he recalls as the college’s golden age of theater when dozens of theater and dance majors lit up the stage. dePaola taught classes in theater production,
costume and set design, and art and film history, as well as ran the children’s theater company in the summers. During his busy, productive years at Colby Junior College, he also illustrated children’s books, and it was here that he created his most beloved and enduring character. “I was sitting in the back at a faculty meeting, doodling on a notepad instead of taking notes, and I happened to draw Pulcinella, the commedia dell’arte character with the big nose and big chin,” dePaola explains. “All of a sudden a little kerchief appeared on him, and this fat little old Italian lady showed up.” This irresistible character burst into life as Strega Nona, a grandma witch
Photo: Michael Seamans
“I’m going to be an artist.”
“I was lucky that I had encouragement; I never had to abandon or battle with my family. I think that made a difference,” dePaola says. who cooks magical potions in her pasta pot to cure headaches, remove warts and conjure romance in her tiny Italian village. dePaola wrote and illustrated the tale of Strega Nona, which captured the Caldecott Honor in 1976 and became his first best-selling children’s book. Strega Nona and her helper, Big Anthony, have since appeared in 10 more books, and this fall they will return in Strega Nona Does It Again! Even if dePaola was born to be an artist, he believes that encouragement and support from his strong family, teachers and mentors, along with an excellent education, were
essential for him to thrive and pursue his lifelong passion for the arts. He hopes his upcoming exhibitions at Colby-Sawyer will inspire students and encourage support for a new fine and performing arts center at the college. “I think it’s important for small liberal arts colleges like Colby-Sawyer to have a good art department, and the college has a very strong faculty,” he says. “But the classes are scattered across campus now, and that doesn’t work for art. Students need to be under the same roof; they learn by seeing what other students are doing.”
As he approaches his 80th birthday, dePaola is working on book projects and has also branched out into explorations of color in a series of exquisite, tiny abstract paintings. “I’m thinking 85 might be a good time to retire, but who knows?” he asks, throwing up his hands and laughing yet again. The exhibition “Tomie dePaola: Then” will open Nov. 7 with a reception from 5 to 7 p.m. in the Marian Graves Mugar Art Gallery in the Sawyer Fine and Performing Arts Center. All are welcome and encouraged to attend. The exhibition will run through Dec. 20, 2013.
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Feature
The Art of Being
Photo: Michael Seamans
by Kate Seamans
Just before 6 p.m. on a Friday, many Colby-Sawyer students reveled outside in the last moments of sunshine before a night with friends. Inside Reichhold 113, which served as classroom and newsroom for the one-credit course, the shades were drawn, and 15 students sat stationed before wide-screen Macs. Quiet conversations flowed through the room as the beginning of “ART 250A: Photojournalism” with former LIFE magazine photographer John Shearer P’14 drew near.
A picture story, like a piece by Bach, has a rhythm to it; it ebbs and flows. wraps and out of sight— the photographer must become invisible. “You’ve got to get your subject in the mind-set that you’re not there,” Shearer told his students, even while urging them to find the nerve to get in close and capture dramatic moments. “You have to be invisible. It’s the key to what we do.” It’s a lesson Shearer learned while trying to find a New York City street gang he could
Composed mostly of seniors and Media Studies majors, the group had photography backgrounds that ranged from those with zero formal classes and borrowed cameras to aspiring professionals. Their mission was to shoot an assignment and create their own individual four-page story on Saturday, then edit it down to a spread to combine with the others’ to create a Day in the Life compilation by 6 p.m. on Sunday.
shadow in 1972 for what became one of his seminal picture stories, “The ‘Prez’ of the Reapers.” He eventually found that gang in the Bronx, and the lesson has lasted longer than the 10-page story LIFE ran as a result. “I’m going to tell you the rules of the road,” said Shearer, “but we’re a maverick art form, and half the time we don’t follow the rules. One thing
In short, they were there to tell stories. “A picture story, like a piece by Bach, has a rhythm to it; it ebbs and flows,” Shearer said in his Friday night lecture. “There are big pictures and there are detail shots that draw you in. Be conscious of energy levels and feelings.” To show those energy levels and feelings—to capture the intimacy of a life usually kept under
Photo: Michael Seamans
When intimacy is established, you become invisible. While this may be a disastrous outcome where romance is concerned, it is essential for the photojournalist because only when the photographer disappears from the scene does the subject truly show him- or herself. For three days in April, in a kind of haiku version of a semester-long course, Colby-Sawyer students looked at their college and its surrounding communities through a new lens— that of photojournalist— and learned the art of being invisible.
Carly Strathdee ’13, at Spring Ledge Farm in New London, went behind the scenes of the popular farmstand to photograph owner Greg Berger in the greenhouses and fields where the produce comes to life.
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is for certain, though: Light is the whole thing. Look at the light; you’re painting with light. So get up early. And remember, straight-on smiling pictures are very boring. Move your camera around, and don’t come back here with a lot of lame eye-level shots.”
Getting the Picture
“I came to Colby-Sawyer as an Athletic Training major and was actually really trying not to do art, since a future in it kind of scared me, but I took a ceramics class with David Ernster and thought, Wow—this is what I’m supposed to do,” said Rial, looking around for her next picture. “I took
Photo: Michael Seamans
On Saturday morning, the students were dispatched to their assignments, which included Spring Ledge Farm, the Lake Sunapee Region VNA and Hospice, a local inn, the hospital, and the police and fire departments in New London, as well as a nearby alpaca farm, airport and other local spots.
Ceramics major Kate Rial ’13 of Pennsylvania installed herself early at Morgan Hill Bookstore on New London’s Main Street and waited with co-owner Peggy Holliday for customers to arrive. Spanish guitar music in the background accompanied the sound of Rial’s camera shutter as she shot portraits of Holliday.
Photographers may be maverick artists and break their own rules half the time, but light is sacred. Without it, photographs are nothing.
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Colby-Sawyer College Magazine
one photography class as a freshman, but I learned so much from John last night and would love to take more classes.” A mother and daughter looking for wedding and birthday gifts entered the store. Rial quickly explained her camera and was granted permission to shoot. Without hesitation, Rial followed the girl, about six, to the children’s section. She was oblivious, and Rial documented the girl’s contemplation of book titles and her small smile that signaled a decision. The girl pulled a book off a shelf and joined her mother at the register, where the gifts were wrapped, and they left to complete more errands. “Oh!” exclaimed an older gentleman who entered the store and spotted Rial’s camera. While Holliday ushered him to the travel section, Rial asked if she could take his photo. “Well, I don’t know,” he said. “Do I look okay?” “You look great!” Rial assured him.
“Then go ahead. Just send me a copy. No, just kidding. Go ahead,” he said, turning his attention to Arizona guide books. Rial disappeared behind the camera. At the register, a woman wearing a hat at a jaunty angle waited to pay for a card for her parents’ sixtieth wedding anniversary. “Go ahead and shoot; I won’t look at you,” she told Rial without prompting, and Rial slipped out of sight again. Meanwhile, next door at the fire department, Cynthia Driver ’13 had achieved invisibility of a different sort—the gut-twisting kind that happens when your story contact is nowhere to be found, and the clock is ticking. Chilled after standing in the parking lot for hours and making repeated phone calls in hopes of fulfilling her assignment, she finally gave up and hitched a ride to an impromptu redirect. At Vernondale General Store in North Sutton, the lunch counter was packed and the place was hopping. Even so, owner Bob DeFelice listened to Driver’s dilemma and request to stay for a couple
Photo: Cynthia Driver ‘13
At Vernondale Country Store in North Sutton, Cynthia Driver ’13 captured the flavor of the welcoming establishment, restored to a 1930s setting complete with lunch counter and friendly conversation. of hours, and he welcomed her with an easy smile. “Sure, no problem at all,” he said. “This will be great.” By then all the other students were done shooting and back at their computers in Reichhold. There was an air of excitement, of accomplishment, as they downloaded their images and began selecting which to include in their layouts. Shearer moved from screen to screen. He critiqued pictures with a smile, his voice even and unfailingly upbeat.
“Here, let me show you something about layers and Photoshop,” he told Monique Fontaine ’13, finessing her environmental portrait of the Lebanon Municipal Airport manager. Carly Strathdee ’13, a Media Studies major from New Durham, N.H., worked on her images of Spring Ledge Farm and enthused about her first photography class experience. “[Professor of Humanites] Donna Berghorn really plugged this course; she said it would be helpful and fun, and she was right. John is great, and I want
to be a reporter, so I think seeing this aspect of journalism is really important,” said Strathdee. Exposure to photojournalism, minimal though it may have been in such a short class, was Shearer’s goal in proposing the course. “Colby-Sawyer offers majors in graphic design and photography, and media studies, but there are no photojournalism courses. The photography program is primarily fine arts, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but it would be great to add some commercial
application. It was from that standpoint that I thought, Gee, it would be interesting and great to offer something like this course because it sharpens those professional skills. You can harness that and use that. If you want to go be a photographer, it’s going to give you some underpinning.” Jess Walton ’13, one of the few photography majors in the weekend course, would like to get into travel photography and said she wishes there were a photojournalism aspect of the Colby-Sawyer photography program. “There were only 15 seats Fall 2013
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Photo: Michael Seamans
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Morgan Hill Bookstore opened the same year that amazon.com launched but has thrived thanks to the founders’ thoughtful interactions with the community. Kate Rial ’13 focused on capturing those moments in the shop. for this class, and it filled instantly, with 15 more on the waitlist,” she said. “I feel lucky to be here.” Over bagels and coffee, the stories came together. By 2 p.m., the room was
quiet as the sense of looming deadlines became palpable. Driver returned from Vernondale, hours behind the eight ball but happy with how things went and headed to the dining hall to grab food.
“Is that in New London’s library?” a student asked, watching Kate Rial crop an image of bookshelves. “No,” Rial said. “It’s Morgan Hill Bookstore. You know, right on Main Street.”
With their assignments,
“Oh. I’ve never been in there,” said the senior.
the familiar became
The classroom fell silent but for mouse clicks as the photographers made a million editing decisions and crafted their stories. It would be a 13-hour day for some.
new again; the invisible, visible; the visible, invisible. 42
Colby-Sawyer College Magazine
By 3 p.m. the next day, the final deadline was in sight
and one after another, the individual assignments were laid out. By 5 p.m., there were four to go, and an impatient energy filled the room. “We wrap at six,” Shearer said, and the group met the deadline with five minutes to spare. “It’s been a long day, with a lot of steps,” says Shearer. “You worked hard and did a wonderful job.” When students come to Colby-Sawyer, they become part of a community within a community. While they study, learn to ask questions and connect the different areas of their
the familiar became new again; the invisible, visible; the visible, invisible. While there is perhaps a province in which the photograph can tell us nothing more than what we see with our own eyes, there is another in which it proves to us how little our eyes permit us to see. — Dorthea Lange (1895-1965), American photojournalist
Photo: Michael Seamans
liberal arts education— finding the beauty in science, for example, or realizing the extent to which there is science in art—they also find a place in their new home. Their presence may be as quiet as ducking into the grocery story or as loud as riding a wailing fire truck to a scene as a volunteer firefighter, but eventually the newness wears off. With the students’ assignments,
LIFE Lessons While John Shearer was a preschooler in New York City, W. Eugene Smith was shooting LIFE magazine’s 1951 photo essay “Spanish Village” and the picture of a wake that years later would take Shearer’s breath away. “That is exactly the image that got me interested in photography,” he says of the picture that shows six women mourning the family’s patriarch with restrained grief etched into their faces. “Think of being there and being quiet enough to make that image.”
Photo: Michael Seamans
LOOK magazine hired Shearer as a staff photographer at age 17 in 1966. In 1968, LIFE hired him, and he stayed until the weekly folded in 1972. In those six years shooting for two of America’s most well-known pictorial magazines, Shearer covered civil rights and race riots, the Attica Prison Riots, and the first fight between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier. From 1972 to 1986 he taught photojournalism at the Columbia University School of Journalism.
Graphic design major Mallory Hebert ’13 helped the photographers with design and technology to shape their stories.
“I stopped teaching when I had my own kids, but it’s important to give back,” says Shearer. “People certainly helped me get started, and if there’s anything I can do to help someone else, that would be great. It was a thrill to work with the students here. They all tried really hard and were the perfect group. It will be interesting to see where they take the medium. It changes so much every year.” Fall 2013
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Connections
News from Alumni Relations and Annual Giving Come Back for Alumni Fall Festival Colby-Sawyer’s annual Alumni Fall Festival will take place Friday, Oct. 4 – Sunday, Oct. 6. Return to New London to relive your memories, rekindle your friendships and reconnect with Colby-Sawyer!
you’d like to join your reunion committee, please contact the Office of Alumni Relations. River Communities— An Alumni Adventure to Explore Western Water Resources in 2014
Alumni and friends are invited to join Professors Reunion celebrations Nick Baer and Leon-C. will take place for the Malan as they lead a following classes: 1933, seven-day adventure in 1938, 1943, 1948, 1953, Colorado in June 2014. 1958, 1963, 1968, 1973, Participants will study, 1978, 1983, 1988, 1993, discuss and experience the 1998, 2003 and 2008. concerns surrounding water resources in the Save these dates now for western United States with Alumni Fall Festival 2014: a focus on the Colorado Oct. 10 – 12. If your class River system, as society year ends in 4 or 9 and struggles to balance the human and natural demands placed on this resource. Participants will enjoy the iconic scenery of the West, engage in discussion with those who rely on the Colorado River and spend three days rafting down the Colorado to study its biology Join Professors Nick Baer and Leon-C. Malan in and geology. Colorado in June 2014 to study, discuss and experience the concerns surrounding water resources in the western United States. 44
Colby-Sawyer College Magazine
For more information, please contact Director of Alumni Relations Tracey Austin at (603) 526-3886 or taustin@ colby-sawyer.edu. Your Gift Makes a Difference The Colby-Sawyer Fund supports every student, professor, department and program on campus. All gifts to the Colby-Sawyer Fund make an impact—no matter the size—and your gift is a wonderful vote of confidence that shows your support for the college. To make a gift online, please visit www.colby-sawyer.edu/ giving. Our sincere thanks for your reinvestment in Colby-Sawyer College! Inaugurations In recent months, three alumnae and a college trustee represented President Thomas Galligan and Colby-Sawyer as official delegates to inaugural ceremonies at other institutions. We are grateful to those who accepted invitations:
Trustee Erik Edward Joh at the University of Massachusetts–Dartmouth on April 4, 2013 Dawna Cobb ’76 at the University of Notre Dame– Maryland on April 5, 2013 Laurel Najarian Doghramji ’74 at the University of the Sciences on April 19, 2013 Join Us for a Colby-Sawyer Event in Your Area Alumni events are a great way to stay connected to Colby-Sawyer and to network with fellow alumni and friends who live nearby. For a complete listing, visit www.colbysawyer.edu/alumni/events. Connect with the Office of Alumni Relations and Annual Giving (800) 266-8253 alumni@colby-sawyer.edu www.facebook.com/ colbysawyeralumni www.twitter.com/ colbysawyer www.linkedin.com/ groups?gid=143715
JoAnn Franke Overfield ’68 at Seattle Pacific University on April 2, 2013
Keeping a Focus on the Future Connections
Paul and Gretchen (Richter) Massey ’82 by Beth Cahill, Vice President, Advancement
Gretchen loved the small classes and the natural beauty of the area, excelled on the tennis team and especially appreciated the relationships between students and faculty. “Dr. [Allen] Koop was a real standout. He loved history so much and made it exciting to learn,” says Gretchen, but faculty emerita Barbara MacDonald also made a lasting impression. “Miss Mac taught me to ski. I’ve always remembered that.” With an associate’s degree from Colby-Sawyer, Gretchen went on to earn her bachelor’s degree from Saint Michael’s College. Early on, she realized the importance of giving back, and she has been a loyal
supporter and ambassador for Colby-Sawyer ever since. Gretchen and her husband, Paul, have three children, the eldest of whom just graduated college. While Paul has grown and led a successful real estate brokerage firm in New York City, Gretchen has devoted herself to guiding their children and balancing the busy family’s activities with a careful eye on keeping priorities in order.
Photo: Courtesy of Paul and Gretchen Massey
Gretchen (Richter) Massey ’82 visited Colby-Sawyer as a high school student from New Jersey and fell in love with New Hampshire and the college just as her mother, Cynthia Holler ’57, had done decades before.
Early on, Gretchen realized the importance of giving back. One priority for the Masseys is to share their good fortune. “We are champions of smaller institutions, and our family values education. We support our schools and our children’s schools, and we understand that annual funds are critical to any school,” says Paul. “We’re not big believers in restricted giving. We trust the judgment of the management team to a large degree.”
“If it helps Colby-Sawyer, we’re happy to do it.”
Even with their preference for unrestricted giving, the Masseys have designated their largest gift yet to Colby-Sawyer for the new fine and performing arts center because they recognize the importance of this building to the college’s long-term success. “We want the college on very stable footing so faculty can focus on their programs and staff can manage all that needs to be accomplished. The right facilities make this important work possible,” says Paul.
The Masseys are thoughtful philanthropists, and enthusiastic ambassadors. “If it helps Colby-Sawyer, we’re happy to do it,” they agree. Gretchen appreciates her academic experience here and has made it a priority to stay current with the college and its vision for the future. She welcomes conversations with alumni so that she can inspire others to be involved. If you’d like to be in touch with Gretchen, the Office of Alumni Relations (800-266-8253 or taustin@ colby-sawyer.edu) will be happy to connect you.
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Connections
Commencement 2013 Celebrates our Newest Alumni by Kate Seamans
Colby-Sawyer College celebrated its 175th Commencement on Saturday, May 11, graduating 260 students and recognizing students and other individuals for academic excellence, outstanding contributions to society, and service to the college and to the community.
Manama Holu of Gwollu, Ghana. [See story about Holu on page 4.]
Cory J. Schofield, a Media Studies major from Concord, N.H., was the student speaker and delivered an address titled “The Real World.” Schofield, a member of Alpha Chi and Lambda Pi Eta honor societies, was active in the CSC Players and the CSC Singers.
Devin R. Wilkie, an English major from Cornish, N.H., received the Alpha Chi Award. In addition to serving as the vice president of Alpha Chi, he was president of Safe Zones, treasurer of Word Order, secretary of the Philosophy Club and an editor of the literary magazine Solidus.
The ColbyCommencement Sawyer Speaker and Media Award, Studies Major Cory given to the J. Schofield ’13. senior who exemplifies the college’s ideals of personal dignity, intellectual growth and contributions to campus life, was presented to Enoch 46
An Athletic Training major with a minor in Psychology, Catherine L. Moulton of Deerfield, Mass., received the Senior Achievement Award for leadership in the cocurricular life of the college.
Cailin Bullett of Millbury, Mass., received the Wynne Jesser McGrew ScholarAthlete Award. A History, Society and Culture major, Wesson Honors and Dean’s List scholar and Alpha Chi Honor Society member, Bullett served as president of the Student Athletic Advisory Committee and excelled as a four-year member of the Women’s Basketball Team. She will continue her studies with a full scholarship at Suffolk University Law School.
Colby-Sawyer College Magazine
L-R: Chair of the Board of Trustees Tom Csatari; Reference and Instruction Librarian Sondra C. VanderPloeg; Trustee Pamela Stanley Bright ’61; Chair of the New London Board of Selectmen Peter Bianchi; Professor of Natural Sciences William “Bill” Thomas; Associate Dean of Students and Director of Citizenship Education Robin Burroughs Davis; Valerie Kolligian Thayer; President Thomas C. Galligan Jr. Men’s Swimming and Diving Team captain James Montanari of Ridgefield, Conn., received the Scholar-Athlete Award. Montanari is a Dean’s List student majoring in Environmental Science with a minor in Business Administration. The Graduate Award, given to a senior whose character and influence most constructively affected the junior class, was presented to Daniel Frederick Moir, a Child Development major from Salem, N.H. The David H. Winton Baccalaureate Award, which recognized the
graduating student with the highest cumulative grade point average, was presented to Veronica L. Smith. An Exercise Science major with a minor in Chemistry, Smith earned a place on the Dean’s List every semester. An Alpha Chi Honor Society member and two-time recipient of the Class Academic Award, she served as a teaching assistant and peer academic tutor. She will continue her studies in graduate school, where she will focus on nutrition. Professor of Natural Sciences William “Bill” Thomas, a passionate educator known for
Professor of Social Sciences and Education Janet C. Bliss ’71 and Willie Bacote P’13, assistant manager of the Colby-Sawyer bookstore. his energy, enthusiasm and the high standards he sets for students, received the Jack Jensen Award for Excellence in Teaching and delivered the Commencement address.
Business Administration Major Anh Ngoc Hai Nguyen.
Athletic Training Majors Leah V. Robson and Ashley Lynne Cail.
The Nancy Beyer Opler ’56 Award for Excellence in Advising was given to Reference and Instruction Librarian Sondra C. VanderPloeg. For her extraordinary contribution to the New London area, the Gown Award was given to Associate Dean of Students and Director of Citizenship Education Robin Burroughs Davis. The Town Award was given to the town of
New London in recognition of 175 years of shared history and was accepted by Chair of the New London Board of Selectmen Peter Bianchi. The Distinguished Alumni Award was presented to Trustee Pamela Stanley Bright ’61 in recognition of her professional achievements, generous philanthropy and outstanding contributions to her alma mater.
Valerie Kolligian Thayer accepted the college’s highest award, the Susan Colgate Cleveland Medal for Distinguished Service, on behalf of her mother, Trustee Joyce Juskalian Kolligian ’55. Joyce, an 18-year member of the Board of Trustees, passed away June 11 [see In Memoriam, p. 76].
life that has brought about positive, far-reaching outcomes for individuals and organizations. Dunbar entered Colby Junior College’s Medical Technology Program with the Class of 1950.
Colby-Sawyer presented an Honorary Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Studies (A.B.) to Gwenyth Hall Dunbar in absentia in recognition of her humanitarian character, superior intellect and a
Read speeches and more about the award winners at www.colby-sawyer.edu/ commencement.
See more photos from Commencement at www.cscm.ag/comm-photos
Photos: Gil Talbot
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If your class does not have a class correspondent, please submit your news directly to the Alumni Office. Email: alumni@colby-sawyer.edu Online: www.colby-sawyer.edu/ alumni/classnotes.html Mail: 541 Main Street New London, NH 03257
1942 Bobbie Boyd Bradley 601 Seaview Court Apartment C 311 Marco Island, FL 34145-2939 (781) 400-5249 mimibrad@aol.com
1943 Peg Morse Tirrell PO Box 37 Lower Waterford, VT 05848-0037 (802) 748-8538 dptirrell@juno.com Seventy years ago we graduated from CJC. As we prepare for our Reunion in Oct., here are a few updates on our classmates. Priscilla Coan
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Barnes celebrated her 90th birthday with her daughter’s 60th and a granddaughter’s 30th, and 30 family members came from 10 states. Priscilla continues to volunteer at Go Ye village in OK. Jean Marquier Molloy in Scottsdale, AZ, has great fun with youngsters (50s-80s) participating in aerobics, luncheons, symphony and movies. Her pacemaker keeps her on a slower track but her 7-year-old black Lab enjoys their daily walks. She hopes to be in NH this fall. Jean Stewart Hilton splits her time between Heatherwood in Yarmouth Port, MA, and Barnstable Harbor. Her daughter will celebrate her 40th reunion from CJC this year. Sally King Cramer continues to stay active with darts, bridge and reading. She plans to attend Reunion this fall. Marilyn Maier Feinberg enjoys her time in the independent living senior center. Unfortunately, she won’t make it to CJC in the fall. Joy Beardsley Spiegel will also miss our Reunion because she’ll be celebrating her 90th birthday with family from AZ, CO and RI. I was sorry to receive a note from daughter Joyce that
Colby-Sawyer College Magazine
Barbara Lutz Moore passed away. She’ll be with us in spirit, as will many of our class. I, Peg Morse Tirrell, continue to be busy with square and round dancing. My daughter, Barbara, lets me help her teach her classes, and we attend dances almost every Sat. I’m looking forward to seeing many of you at Reunion this fall.
1944 Class Correspondent Needed
1945 Ruth Anderson Padgett 2535 Ardath Road La Jolla, CA 92037 (858) 454-4623 ruthlajolla@aol.com Thanks for all your newsy news! Leah Keever Cotton and her husband are well and were looking forward to going to their summer place in Nova Scotia in July. She was affected by the terrible events at the Boston Marathon, as were we all. Dottie Georger MacConnell in Maine is active doing grief counseling at her church and volunteering at her local
library. She has 3 grown children, 5 grown grands and 6 great-grands. Ruth Gay Frederick has lived in the Poconos region of PA since 1952. She has 3 daughters nearby. She taught in a 1-room school for 3 years, grades 1-4, then graduated to a larger school where she taught 4th grade. Ruth established a library in a rural location, and now she’s happy quilting and entertaining her 5 greatgrands. Emily Morgan Clemmer lives in Sarasota, FL, and enjoys going to jazz concerts, volunteering at the Women’s Exchange and making friends. Elizabeth Bryant Parker still lives in her ranch home in Windsor, CT. She has 1 daughter, 4 grands and 3 great-grands. She’s active in her church, DAR, rep town committee and historical society. She’s had 3 mitral valve surgeries and goes to a lot of funerals (join the group!). A card from Robert Puckhaber tells us that his mom, Jean “Jay” Shanley Puckhaber, is now in an assisted living facility in Arlington, VA, close to her daughter. He visited her recently, and she remembers Colby in great detail, though her short-term
memory gives her problems. Nancy Dean Maynard is well and happy and was looking forward to visiting one of her daughters in Chicago and going to see the Lincoln Memorial. In New Bern, NC, Sue Curtis Smythe is active in the swim programs at her local YMCA, and she swims laps 3 days a week. She also keeps in touch with Mary June “Thumper” Troup Kingsbury. Jan Davis Keegan is enjoying 67 years of marriage. She and Howard have 3 children and 4 grands. She’s had to give up driving, but loves to garden and be outdoors. Shirley “Shal” Glidden Splaine is still in her little 17th century house in NH. She and friends were looking forward to all the summer music and theater productions in her area. Suzanne Needham Houston is living in Wake Robin, a great cc facility, and meeting lots of interesting people. She’s painting and in a handball group. Her son and 2 grands live nearby. Mollie Miller Tanner spends the winter with her daughter on Long Island and goes home to upstate NY in the summer.
She was planning a 3-week trip to FL to visit her niece. Her son and family live in nearby Lake Pleasant, NY. Thanks for all the dirt… next time just send money.
1946 Ramona “Hoppy” Hopkins O’Brien 54 Texel Drive Springfield, MA 01108-2638 (413) 739-2071
1947 Class Correspondent Needed
1948 Phyllis “Les” Harty Wells 6305 SW 37th Way Gainesville, FL 32608-5104 (352) 376-8475 lesmase@bellsouth.net Maddy Pennicke Cattell sent our class a belated Merry Christmas and wishes for a wonderful New Year. Jane Maynard Gibson and Jack have been very happy since they’ve lived at Vicar’s Landing in Ponte Vedra Beach. Fran Wannerstrom Clark recently moved to the retirement complex Covenant Village in CT.
She enjoys all the perks, including a delicious dinner every night. In Jan., she and her daughters went on a 2-week cruise from San Diego to Central America and through the Panama Canal. Fran’s oldest daughter, Cathy, and son-in-law, Budd, have moved to the Orlando area as both have great jobs at Disney World. In May, Fran was taken to lunch in The Big Apple by her daughterin-law and the granddaughter who works in the fashion industry. Sue Hight Denny’s son wrote that Sue peacefully passed away in Jan. Sue performed in such Broadway shows as “South Pacific,” “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” “Two’s Company” and “Guys & Dolls.” She then married Robert Denny, a Washington Times-Herald reporter, and raised a family. From ’83 to ’99, Sue was an adjunct professor at American U, where she taught voice, audition techniques and performance on the live stage. Her son, Christopher, is a pianist and Broadway musical director. Virginia “Ginnie” Esty Pendlebury passed away Sept. 14, 2011. Ginnie grew up in
Melrose, MA, and lived her married life in Englewood, FL. She was pre-deceased by her husband, Harold. Nancy Dexter Aldrich and Roger rented a house in York, Maine, near Nubble Light, in Sept. In March, there was an article in Parade magazine on America’s best breakfast restaurants. Their Polly’s Pancake Parlor was ranked number 2 and the article had the recipe for the Dexter family’s cornmeal pancake batter. Sarah Hecht Phillips has moved from Brevard, NC, to Wilton, CT. Nancy “Hob” Hobkirk Pierson reported that she and Jim were both still “up and running”! In Apr. 2013, Ann Wyllie Jarrett moved from Wilmington, DE, to Kennett Square, PA, where she’ll make her new home at Kendal Quaker Community. She has good friends living there and looks forward to having a garden again. Ann was asked by her Westminster educator to illustrate one of 14 Bible verses for display during Lent. Some of Ann’s jaunts included the Music Festival in Aspen in July; a painting trip to Gloucester, MA; a trip to Cuba; a fried clam dinner with a childhood
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friend and 3 nights at the Brook Farm Inn in western MA. In the fall she had her 5th annual National Park trip with some of her family and spent time at the Grand Canyon and Mesa Verde. Carol “Shoe” Shoemaker Marck and Chuck spend 4 months in the apartment that their daughter, Christy, and son-in-law, Michael, have put on the back of the Marcks’ former home in Bethesda, MD. Shoe still gets around pretty well in spite of some arthritis. When the DC area begins to get warm in April, Shoe goes back to their home in the Poconos and works in the garden. The Marcks spend most of their time at their Pocono Lake Preserve, PA, home. They planned to drive to CO around the end of June to attend their Snowmass condo board meeting. They hope to see Emily “Emy Lu” Simson Croke in Empire and Cornelia “Nini” Hawthorne Maytag in Colorado Springs. Nini Hawthorne Maytag was looking forward to a Mother’s Day outing with her son, 2 daughters and the grandkids. Nini had been MIA for 3 weeks getting accustomed to a new hip but is now back with the real world and eager to get back to her busy life! Jan West Williams was planning for the annual reunion; the family was to meet and stay at Twin Lake Villa in
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New London in late June. Two new babies have recently joined the clan. The Williams spent 5 days in FL celebrating a friend’s 90th birthday. As for me, Les Harty Wells, Mase and I are still waiting for someone to buy our house. We’re anxious to join the CCRC crowd down the road from us. How about a few words from some of you gals who don’t usually write? I’m sure there are interesting stories to be told.
1949 Elizabeth Reynolds Matthews 5 Wildflower Lane Bedminster, NJ 07921-1729 (908) 234-9033 elimtth@aol.com Margot Hageman Smith 53 Claire Pointe Road Burlington, VT 05408-1322 (802) 864-5014 emes22@myfairpoint.net
1950 Katie Valliere-Denis Ouilette PO Box 841 Skowhegan, ME 04976 (207) 474-5061 Yes, I’m back, and I truly appreciate those of you who have contacted me. Sadly, we are of that age when we have to say farewell to many whom we hold dear. Thank you, Anne
Colby-Sawyer College Magazine
Baynes Hall ’67, for letting us know of the passing of Carol Howe Hagan on Dec. 19 and Marjorie Hamilton Gorham on March 27. We of ’50 extend our deepest condolences to their families and Colby-Sawyer classmates. Bobbie Bishop MacLean sent equally sad news that her husband, Phil, passed away in Feb. from internal melanoma. Pat Davis Hoffman brought me up to date about her son’s friend, who grew up in Skowhegan. Small world! Bobbie Fetzer Herbert has been busy organizing “the Juliets” in the adult community where she lives, and the group has enjoyed going to different restaurants and local plays. Bobbie has visited Canada, southern NJ, upstate NY and the Outer Banks of NC. When she wrote, she was in UT with her son, and the next week she was going to Marana, AZ, where she and her daughter were going to live for 3 months before returning home to NJ and cuddling a 3rd great-grandson. As of this writing, Jean Finley Doughty, Marilyn “Coby” Cockburn Leggett and I plan to gather around a Skowhegan High School classmate’s pool in Aug. We’ll celebrate our 65th high school reunion. But in July, I’ll be busy introducing our TV viewers to our 5th Annual Kneading Conference in Skowhegan.
Jean Finley Doughty’s daughter-in-law Paula Doughty was inducted into the prestigious Maine Sports Hall of Fame. Paula was coach for Skowhegan High School’s great girls’ soccer team. So with that joyous news, I say farewell for this issue of ColbySawyer Magazine but hope that you all will fill my inbox with your news.
1951 Bobbie Green Davis 107 Columbia Avenue Swarthmore, PA 19081 (610) 543-6688 Ruth Gray Pratt went parachuting into the water while in FL to celebrate her 80th birthday. Anne Rantoul Conner had an operation on her foot and will be ready to do the Highland swing soon. MaryEm Bodman Kenner had a wonderful dinner meeting with June Kemp Fryer ’50 when she stopped in Camden, ME, where June lives, last Aug. She had another fun meeting with her CJC roommate, Ingrid Reichhold Wagner, in Prouts Neck, ME, the same week. She still lives close to Toronto and found 2 Colby graduates who also live there: Tiffany Spake Petty ’69 and Margaret “Marny” Scruton Green ’52.
In August 2012, MaryEm Bodman Kenner ’51 and Ingrid Reichhold Wagner ’51 enjoyed a reunion at Ingrid’s summer home in Prouts Neck, Maine.
1952 Marilyn “Woodsie” Woods Entwistle 16 Cooks Mill Road Naples, ME 04055 (207) 693-3503 mainewoodsie1@ roadrunner.com Greetings! I’ll start with the sad news. Joanne “Judy” Fowle Hinds emailed from her island in the Bahamas that Janica Walker McDonough died in Jan. CSC sent news of Jean Easton Erb’s death in Jan., Virginia “Ginny” Lawrence Warner’s in Feb. and Carol O’Donnell Bryza’s in July 2010. On a happier note, Bev Bump sends greetings from Guatemala, where most of her family lives, including a new great-grandson. Her daughter in Phoenix, Luisa, and 2-year-old Sophie come for vacations. Mary
Lanius had a full left shoulder replacement. She planned to visit Spain and South China this year. Sally “Itchie” Hueston Day and Richard are very happy with their move to upstate SC to be near daughter Lu Anne and David, 2 of their sons and their families, with a total of 5 great-grandchildren. Once there, Itchie and Richard’s 5 children organized a surprise double celebration for Itchie’s 80th birthday and their 60th wedding anniversary. Margaret “Marny” Scruton Green was happy to report that summer immediately followed winter this year in Ontario. She started her golf season early, but soon the temps went down to the 30s. With quite a variety of medical problems, Nan Garland Menchetti has 2 goals: To walk without the aid of a
walker and to spend more time as a person than a patient. In May Nat Clarke Jones’s grandson graduated from Cornell, and with his engineering degree had a job waiting in San Antonio, where Nat and Eddy lived in the ’50s while he was in the service, and where their daughter Julie was born. In March, Mary Jane “Fritzie” Fritzinger Moeller took her 3 children, 2 grandsons and a fiancé to Belize where they celebrated a seaside wedding, her daughter’s master’s degree and a grandson’s college graduation. This past Feb., she and daughter Jeanne spent 10 days on a South African safari, ending at the Indian Ocean. Although Sae Bond Gilson and Ben were the “oldsters” on a Road Scholar trip to Istanbul and the Greek Islands, they kept up. In the late ’90s Betty
Carlson Salomon and I made a pact to ski every year until we turned 80. In March, Nancy “Shum” Shumway Adams joined us, and we 3 were a picture of style and grace on the Sugarloaf slopes for our 80-year-old-ski! I’ll end with that vision along with fond regards.
1953 Jane Pearl Dickinson 80 Maple Street, Suite 204 Danvers, MA 01923 (978) 777-2778
1954 Jo-Anne Greene Cobban 9 Mayflower Drive Keene, NH 03431 (603) 352-5064 jjcobban@ne.rr.com During the winter months, I, Jo-Anne Greene Cobban,
Daphne Dodge Walker ’62 (left) and her husband, Bill (right), enjoyed catching up with Nancy Shumway Adams ’52 (center) at Betsy Hill Dexter’s ’76 wedding.
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Return to Ellis Island Joyce Philibosian Stein ’52 Among the millions of immigrants who entered this country through Ellis Island were the Armenian parents of Joyce Philibosian Stein ’52. In May 2012, philanthropist Stein found herself on her own journey to the legendary island to receive the prestigious Ellis Island Medal of Honor. The award, which celebrates American citizens who “exemplify outstanding qualities in both their personal and professional lives, while continuing to preserve the richness of their particular heritage,” was presented to Stein by the National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations (NECO).
Born in New York City and raised in Philadelphia, Stein now lives in Indian Wells, Calif., with her husband, Joe. Her record of community engagement goes back many years. In Philadelphia, she was involved with the Children’s Hospital and served as chair of the Daisy Day Fund. She recalls being very pleased that after writing to President Eisenhower, he became Honorable Chair of the Fund. Stein’s father, Stephen Philibosian, was a noted philanthropist and co-founder of Haigazian University in Beirut. Stein holds an honorary degree from that institution, is an exofficio member of its Board of Trustees, and is a trustee of the Stephen Philibosian Foundation. She is also an exofficio member of the board of directors at the Armenian Missionary Association of America (AMAA) and is co-chair of the AMAA National Orphan and Child Care Committee. “I’m still amazed and humbled that I received this honor,” she says. Among the recipients of the award over the years are six U.S. presidents, several Nobel Prize winners, and hundreds of other distinguished citizens. Joyce Philibosian Stein is in very good company. — Mike Gregory
Joyce Philibosian Stein ’52 was awarded the Ellis Island Medal of Honor by the National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations. 52
Colby-Sawyer College Magazine
helped others with applications for SAR, DAR or the N.H. Mayflower Society in addition to my weekly volunteering at the County Probate Court. The study of history and researching genealogy is a hobby that lends itself to collecting and writing short articles for various newsletters. Emily Spencer Breaugh has been volunteering with the Auxiliary to Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War in MI. She’s still working to downsize and sell their home. Emily adds, “I will hopefully die with a pencil, paint brush and knitting needles in my hand at 100.” Ann Rosenbach Scott and her husband headed south for a cruise and visits with family and friends this past winter. Because she assists in sales at a furniture store in Wolfeboro, NH, Ann was invited to attend the Furniture Market in High Point, NC, with the store manager. Helen Johnson Sargent and husband Dick divide their time between ME and SC, where their churches, symphony, family, friends and neighbors keep them busy in both places. Past traveling experiences have covered the Pacific Northwest, Nashville and New Orleans—and overseas sites are on the calendar for 2014, plus a road trip to New London for Reunion. From Pinehurst, NC, Lois Kaufmann
Anderson writes, “Currently I am connected with our elementary school system through 2 volunteer programs: One is tutoring that aids Hispanic students K- 5 with their reading skills and comprehension. The other program is ‘Pet Responsibility,’ which is presented to all the 4th grade classes in our county.” Lois works on personal art projects using mixed media, including the computer, and loves writing verse that she shares with family and friends. Sachi Mizoguchi Taneda writes, “When the big earthquake happened in northern Japan, you were all so warm-hearted and generous. The area still suffers from radiation and debris. My daughter had a breast cancer operation but is back to work, and our eldest granddaughter has started to work. Koji and I have small troubles like high blood pressure, knee pain, cataracts and bad hearing but are thankful for a peaceful life.” Ann Dwyer Milne in Auburn, NH, joined a group called “Art and Architecture of the US Heartlands.” A major focus of the tour was the new Crystal Bridges Museum in northwest AR. They also visited museums and performing arts centers in Tulsa and Kansas City. “Last fall I took a land and cruise trip on the Dalmatian Coast,
starting in Croatia and ending in Greece,” writes Margot Thompson. “I gave up skiing, which was hard. I am staying home this year and going to places in this country where I have not been.” She went to the Grand Canyon and then on a road trip to ID and northern WI to visit friends. Elizabeth “Libby” Moss Phillips, our class agent, should be recognized for her service. We had a long talk on the phone as she was recovering from knee surgery. I want to say from all of us, “Well done, Libby, and thank you.” A reminder: If you’ve changed your address or know a classmate who has, please remind her to contact the Alumni Office, as records need to be current to receive plans for our 60th Reunion.
1955 Gretchen Davis Hammer 210 Winter Street St. Johnsbury, VT 05819 (802) 424-1221 gdh777@earthlink.net So nice to think of Colby as I write this, with the hustle and bustle of finals and then Commencement. Our best wishes to the Class of ’13! Lethe Laird Lescinsky and her husband still live in the Adirondacks, NY, and enjoy outdoor activities. Over Christmas they had 14 family members
Colby-Sawyer Flashback: Do you recognize anyone in the photo above? If so, please contact College Archivist Kelli Bogan at kbogan@colby-sawyer.edu or (603) 526-3360.
from OH and Australia who had fun skiing, snow shoeing, sledding, building snowmen and more. Lethe hoped that she and Frank would get to Australia in the fall. Jan Saylor Turney and her husband have relocated to a smaller home in Orange County, CA. They have lots of flowers and green grass and enjoy getting out and walking. They recently welcomed their 1st great-grandchild—a boy—into their family. Rosie Carhart Keenan wrote a hilarious note about the perils of being a homeowner – she experienced her sump pump’s decision to quit and her refrigerator going kaput within a few days of each other. Rosie was planning to take her granddaughter for a hot air balloon ride for her 16th birthday! Eloise Hamel Becker
retired 2 years ago from Chico’s. She keeps up with her children and grandchildren and is enjoying being in CA. This winter has been a busy one for Ken and me, Gretchen Davis Hammer, as we get used to our new home in St. Johnsbury, VT. We love being here; for me, closer to my office, and for Ken, closer to Burke Mountain. I look forward to hearing from many more of you, so keep your cards, letters and emails coming!
1956 Nancy Hoyt Langbein 2 Appletree Drive Brunswick, ME 04011 (207) 729-3879
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Jane Bruns Lenher 9508 E Riggs Rd Unit B228 Sun Lakes, AZ 85248-7548 (480) 883-1096 asburyjane@gmail.com
Caroline “Cece” Parker ’59 shared this memorable Mountain Day photo. Pictured are (back row, l to r) Janet Flynn Almeida ’59, Katherine “Kacky” Sweeney ’59, Holly Sorensen Sadlak ’59, Erica Hartmann ’59, Caroline “Cece” Parker ’59, (front row, l to r) Nancy Cooke Latta ’59, Jackie Duffany Schmidt ’59, Becky Stout Hennigan ’59 and Nancy Kolar Bowen ’59.
1957 Jill Booth Macdonell 1303 8th Avenue Sacramento, CA 95818 (916) 446-3927 jillphotoart@yahoo.com
1958 Cindy Grindrod van der Wyk 16444 Bolsa Chica Street, SPC 97 Huntington Beach, CA 92649-2660 (714) 846-6742 cindy@colorthewind.info I, Cindy Grindrod van der Wyk, was devastated when the purchaser of the business that I ran for 30 years, and sold after my husband passed away, told me they had a new policy of automatic retirement at age 65. Well, did I surprise
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him. I have a passion for my work so I formed a new flag company and got my license to sell mobile homes. I now sell manufactured homes in 18 residential parks in Orange County. I sell the flags to the veterans who live in the parks. My significant other lives in MD and we see each other 5-6 times a year. The long distance relationship works for me. Hello to all my classmates! Let me hear from you for next time.
1959 Marsha Halpin Johnson 346 Lakeshore Drive PO Box 265 Elkins, NH 03233-0265 (603) 526-4506 marnamhj@gmail.com
Colby-Sawyer College Magazine
Sheila Emslie Carrassi and Judy Dexter Hoag visited in Greensboro this spring. Diane Taylor Bushfield and Frank winter in Ormond Beach, FL, and summer in Falmouth, MA. Linda Rowell Hallen’s large family enjoys reunions centered around weddings and births, a 50th wedding anniversary and a surprise 80th birthday party for Gus. Linda stays active with church, family services and part-time work. Marlene Nelson Allison recently visited North Korea with a group from CA. They were there during a holiday and got to dance, chat and picnic with locals. Living in ME, Marlene volunteers at the ME Lighthouse Museum, Henry Knox Museum and Owls Head Lighthouse plus tutors adult students at the State Prison! Caroline “CeCe” Parker writes, “I recently heard from my Colby roommate Nancy Kolar Bowen after a newsletter about mountain climbing and her remembrance of Mountain Day. Beckie Stout Hennigan lived in OR for a while, and we’ve stayed in touch. Otherwise, a quiet life for me in Bend, OR. Enjoy my summer gardening, painting and my dog and cat.” Bruce’s travels and
mine, Marsha Halpin Johnson, have taken us to ID several times this year, where our son and family live. He’s a professor at ID State with a specialty in volcanoes. This spring we visited Bhutan, a wonderful small country in the Himalayas between China and India. We even got to meet the king and his wife at a large festival!
1960 Patricia Canby Colhoun PO Box 744 Boothbay, ME 32162-2450 (352) 751-1040 pccolhoun@gmail.com Margie Embich Fortune had a flashback moment when she opened the spring issue and saw the Monotones. Her husband spotted her, 7th from the left, and she thought Susie Frank Hilton might remember more names. Margie has been living in Southern CA since 1971. She’s remarried, has 6 grandchildren, is retired and is working on her art at Pierce College. Margie and her husband, Luis, returned to the campus a few years ago and checked out the Burpee Butt. She hears from Susie Drake Thrun occasionally. Nancy Lucas Sheridan and Jim still live in Fairview, TX. They recently enjoyed a
17-day transatlantic cruise that visited the Azores, Portugal, Belgium and France. They had several trips planned for this past summer, and by the time we’re reading this they’ll have gone back East to visit family and have been to the Canadian Rockies by train. They’ll take a trip to Branson, MO, in Nov. The 1st of their 7 grandchildren is heading to college. Sharley Janes Bryce and Graham’s oldest daughter is in grad school to become a registered dietician. Their youngest daughter was married in Aug. Julie Dougherty Egenberg went on a fabulous trip with a friend to Norway. They took the Hurtigruten mail ship up and down the coast, marveling over the fjords. She and her husband, John, spent a quiet winter in Naples, FL, as he was recovering from foot surgery. They planned to return to Stowe, VT, in June. Patsy Geddes Moran and Jim still live in Webster, NY, after 53 years of marriage. They have 3 children and 7 grandchildren who all live nearby. Jim still works full time. With good health, they’ve enjoyed summers sailing and racing on Lake Ontario but now will go to powerboats. They look forward to spring each year, when they return to the River in the Thousand Islands. Patsy loves gardening, reading,
quilting, working on a family cookbook, friends and volunteering. Judy Dallin Cutts retired in 2002 from the Norton Company Foundation and Community Relations and now lives in Harwich, MA, where she and her husband, Harry, are very active in area organizations. Over the past decade she’s worked part time at a local clothing boutique. Judy and Harry have been married 51 years! They have 3 children, Andy, Laurie and Peter, and 4 grandchildren ages 2-8. Judy and Harry get together with Marcia Zeininger Bentley ’59 and her husband, Joe. Pat Stanley Beals has written Memoir: A Charged Life, published at authorhouse. com. Pat was the first female master electrician in the state of ME! She had an electrical contracting business for 35 years. The book is about her summers in New London, years at Colby Junior, raising her family, entering the work force and animal antics on her farm. Sally Stevens Rood hopes to be in ME in Oct. to play golf, hike and bike. Sally’s mother passed away in Jan. so she is busy with genealogy work and probate work. Linda Read Stewart was coming from Scotland to Hope, ME, for the summer. Her son owns the Hope General Store and down the road is the Elephant Barn. Her
daughter, Lindsay Pinchbeck, has opened the Sweet Tree Art Center in Hope with classes for adults and children. Lindsay’s husband, Chris, has a workshop next to the art studio, where he makes bagpipes that are sold far and wide. Ann Parsons Klump’s husband, John, had been in hospice but is doing much better, and a wrong diagnosis was corrected. Their daughter, Suzy, has been moving from England to the States, back to England and on to Tanzania, Africa, where her husband is heading a project for 4 schools. Ann’s 3 grandchildren were back in MA for the summer. Ann’s son is busy with the Boy Scouts, is married and has a 7-year-old son. Debbie Stevenson McGuidwin has a daughter and 3 sons, one of whom recently graduated from college at the age of 40. He retired from the Army and is working on a master’s degree. Judy Butler Shea’s husband, Jim, was inducted into the Lake Placid Hall of Fame in Sept. 2012. He joins his dad, Jack, in that prestigious group. Judy and Jim celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in March and then went to UT for a family gathering. Judy leads a full life with 5 grandchildren, golf, skiing, volunteering and reading. They saw old friends at the Bobsled/Skeleton World
Cups. Gale Hartung Baldwin’s daughter Emily was married to James Otterbeckre on June 28. Gale sold the big house in Darien, CT, and now loves living in Nantucket. Susie Frank Hilton and husband Dick went on a 3-week European journey in Aug. 2012, starting in Zurich and continuing to Munich, Prague, Vienna and Budapest. They enjoy their life in Naples, FL. Sue Barto Monks and Bill have had to deal with health issues, personally and within their families. Their house on the shore suffered damage, but not as badly as some others. We hope life is improving. Barb Swanson Smith and her husband, Lyman, visited with Ellen Cook Barnes in Atlanta. They celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in Maui. They’ve also seen Betsy Foss Dinsmore and her husband, Pete. Ellen, Betsy and Barb planned to attend their 55th high school reunion in Aug. Marianne Harvey Olsen has been emailing with Andrea Woronka Enos. Marianne and her husband, Fred, go back and forth between homes in Greenwich, CT, and Groton, VT. They share 2 daughters and one son. Her daughter, Sharon, is married with 2 boys, ages 10 and 12. They planned to visit Marianne in Groton during the summer. Fred had his own building
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business, and he built their home in Greenwich and designed their home in Groton. Marianne was a secretary for many years, and they both retired in 1994. Christy Carlson Dolan retired in June 2012 after serving 37 wonderful years at Springfield College as an administrative assistant in various departments. She’s enjoying retirement with her husband, children, grandchildren and friends. I, Patty Canby Colhoun, have spent the summer in East Boothbay, ME, where I fell back into my old routines of volunteering at the YMCA, hooking with friends, golf, gardening and hiking with my 2 retrievers, one of whom is deaf. I hope to have caught up with Linda Read Stewart and Patsy Geddes Moran. I had visits from my son, CB Dushane, who lives in Denver and works for the Vail Corp. as a buyer for the bicycle division, and from my daughter, Ann Dushane, who lives in Versailles, France, and works for Haute École Commerciale in the graduate department. She’s redone an old apartment, which I hope to see at Christmas. My small black lab, Charlie Brown, is a READing Therapy Dog. We lost 2 classmates, Wendy Shaw Curley on Jan. 19, 2013, and Nancy Johnson Sandmann on Aug. 28, 2012. Our sincere condolences to their
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families. Thank you all for your great responses.
1961 Susan Olney Datthyn 56 Pressey Court New London, NH 03257-1018 (603) 526-2283 susanolneydatthyn@ hotmail.com Hello, everyone! This past March I drove to campus to find the century-old maple trees that line the front lawn adorned with metal buckets—collecting sap the old fashioned way. Elizabeth “Tizzie” Grove Schweizer has relocated to an assisted living facility in RI. She’s especially pleased to have her dog, Precious, with her. Congratulations to our classmate Pam Stanley Bright, who received the Distinguished Alumni Award on May 11 at Commencement. She lives in New London and MD. Prue Jensen Heard and her 2 daughters, Sarah and Diana, went to Vieux Quebec City in May. Prue acted as their cheerleader as they participated in a Spartan race on the Plains of Abraham. Prue enjoys tending to her garden in her spare time. Dorothy Bartels Denault has reported sad news about Arlene Bilsky ’62. In ’65 they were roommates for a brief time, then kept in touch through Christmas cards, and the last 20
Colby-Sawyer College Magazine
winters she traveled from Delray Beach to Melbourne to reconnect over lunch. Unfortunately, in March 2013 Arlene passed away in the Melbourne, FL, hospice. She wanted everyone to know how much she enjoyed her years at CJC. Dorothy writes, “I will miss my special friend Arlene, with our great connection to CSC!” I was sorry to hear about classmate Alicia Fellows Walker’s ovarian cancer diagnosis last Nov., but am happy to report that her treatments ended in June and her prognosis is very good. She lives in Orleans, VT, and retired 4 years ago from teaching and acting as assistant principal in Irasburg, VT. She had a trip to Lake Havasu City, AZ, planned for Sept. and another one in Jan. Marilyn “Missy” Adams writes, “I’m still practicing acupuncture on Capitol Hill. I just returned from Ethiopia, where my youngest daughter and her husband live—she works with PETFAR, the AIDS program. I then went out to Berkeley and Palo Alto to visit my sons and 3 grandsons. My oldest daughter and family moved close by to MD from NYC several years ago, which I love.” Missy is still in contact with her roommate Lynne Merrick Esmay in Nyack, NY. As for me, Susan Olney Datthyn, my husband Verne and I enjoyed a 6-week vacation
in Palm Springs, CA, this past winter. Our family joined us for 2 weeks. Please feel free to email me with any news and updates. Would love to hear from all of you!
1962 Gail Graham Lee 49 North Shore Road Pocasset, MA 02559 (239) 947-3285 gailcracker@comcast.net
1963 Donna Dederick Ward Meadow Farm 557 Bennett Hill Road Shaftsbury, VT 05262-9214 (802) 442-2440 hungrytrout@comcast.net I’m looking forward to our 50th Reunion. With my B&B in VT, it’s been hard to get to reunions but I hope to be at Colby-Sawyer in Oct. Otherwise, it’s good to be back in VT after wintering in Naples, FL. Next winter we’ll be in Islamorada in the FL Keys. In her 2nd ”retirement,“ Judy Boujicanian Oljey has opened a shop in Epping, NH, called Creative Crow Gallery with a group of friends. “We all do crafting and repurposing (also called ‘upcycling’) of found objects,” she writes, and adds, “We have a Facebook page under Creative Crow Gallery. I saw Sharon Stokes Pietz at our 50th
high school reunion. I hope to make it to our 50th in Oct.” Marilyn “Mimi” Zimmerman Hoff is looking forward to our Reunion. She and Sandy Newbert Fitts are staying at the Inn for 2 nights. Kathy Fulenwider Strickland, Virginia “Jill” Osterland Prescott and husband Ed, Christine “Chrisse” Turton Talbott and husband Dave, and Nancy Katrulya Roff and husband Charlie are joining them for dinner Friday night. Elizabeth “Anne” Miller Reed was a 3rd year medical record student and graduated in ’63, but most of her friends graduated in ’62, so she returned for the ’62 Reunion last Oct. She writes, “The Friday night dinner boat ride on Lake Sunapee was a great way to reconnect with friends for the weekend. Probably the most memorable part was a tour through Best Dorm with my roommate Sherry Smith Hayes ’62.” Frances “Lee” Montgomery snowboarded with her 4 grandchildren and enjoys Sugarbush and her place in the Mad River Valley. She’s taken up road biking and took home two 2nd place ribbons! The majority of her time is spent near Harvard Square. Sue Gordon Venable writes, “I just finished singing with the Kearsarge Chorale in Sawyer Center at ColbySawyer. I hope you will all
make an effort to return to our beautiful campus next fall (the 1st weekend in Oct.) for our 50th Reunion. You will be pleasantly surprised at all the wonderful changes on campus.”
1964 Kathrine Conathan Reardon 1040 General Lafayette Blvd. West Chester, PA 19382 (610) 738-4982 kathyr1230@aol.com
Lee Norris Gray ’64 and Liz Ridley Mills ’64.
1965
OHSU and Zach an environmental planner.”
1966
Judith Emery Schoolwerth ’65 and her husband, Teun, enjoyed a hot air balloon ride during a trip to Turkey.
the horizon as Teun continues to work 3 days a week at Dartmouth as a member of the nephrology division. Our daughter Sara, husband Mark and children (Lydia, 3, and Oliver, 6 months) live in Brattleboro, VT, where they’re both social workers and therapists. Son Pieter is an artist who lives and works in NYC, and daughter Katie, husband Zach and new baby (Quinn, 2 months) live in Portland, OR. Katie is a Nephrology Fellow at
Susan E. Weeks 3 Winona Circle Lebanon, NH 03766 (603) 448-6962 susan.e.weeks@hitchcock.org
1967 Sis Hagen Kinney 104 Downing Drive Summerville, SC 29485 (843) 607-7556 kinivan06@gmail.com Hello, Class of ’67! Not too many more years, ladies, until we have our 50th Reunion! Pam Miles in Indian Rocks Beach, FL, had a 2-person art exhibit in early 2012 with her older son, Warren Kenny, who is a colored pencil artist, while she is a painter. Her younger son, Gordon Bonnett, director of his U. of Tampa music fraternity,
Christina Murray McKee 518 Burpee Hill Road New London, NH 03257 (603) 526-4226 ctmckee@tds.net Judith Emery Schoolwerth writes, “After living in various parts of the country for the past 43 years, we returned to NH 10 years ago thinking retirement would be on the horizon. Seems it’s still on
Betty Bland Homeyer ’67, Pam Barningham Phillips ’67 and Sally McCracken Smith ’67 enjoyed a luncheon together for the first time in 30 years.
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Bonnie McDonnell DuBrino ’67 astride her horse.
and 10 of his fraternity brothers provided music. She was then interviewed by multiple media about her work as the “teaching artist” in charge of sprucing up their local homeless shelter with murals. Pam is the art teacher for 2 schools for children with learning differences and exhibits her work at multiple shows. She spends summers in her home in Ocean City, NJ, with her Portuguese Water Dog, Leo. Bonnie McDonnell DuBrino’s gelding is finally completely trained. She hopes to show him, and he’s for sale. Prudence Hostetter is still flying and traveling. She visited Australia last year and will visit various towns in the US! She had her 1st operation at age 65, but says she’s really healthy and has recently been skiing with her son, who is 17. He’s had his 1st job and maintained his 4.0. Josie Gardella Gardiner is
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still in the fitness business after 40 years. She teaches at Equinox in Boston as well as at Core de Vie, Boston Athletic Club, and Club Xcell in Manchester, MA, and is very busy with her 20+ personal training clients. She’s the co-developer of the Zumba Gold Dance program designed for the “active older adult.” She’s also the co-author of 5 Harvard Medical School Special Health Reports, including The Workout Workbook and The Joint Pain Relief Workbook. Josie’s still married—after 42 years—to Ian Gardiner, and they have 2 children, Abby and Ian, and 5 grandchildren. Josie lives in Boston and Annisquam, MA. The latest in Dorcas Sheldon Adkins’s life was the 90th birthday party of her mother, Shirley Webster Sheldon ’43. Her mother was surrounded by her husband of 68 years, children, grandchildren, relatives and friends. Beth Holloran Bourguignon was pleased to see the picture of Sallie Macintosh and Meera Narain Rao in the last issue of the magazine. Betty Bland Homeyer, Pam Barningham Phillips and Sally McCracken Smith met for lunch in Worcester, MA, for the 1st time in 30 years. All 3 are retired, as are their husbands, and Betty and Sally have grandchildren. Sally and her husband, Gary, spend most of the summer in NH but check back at their
Colby-Sawyer College Magazine
Hanneke Frederik Jevons ’67 celebrated her retirement in 2010.
home in North Sandwich, MA, every few weeks. Their new granddaughter, Julia, was baptized and developing well after a rough start. Daughter Beckie is doing well at her job. Gary has finally settled into retirement, and they are enjoying being able to do what they want when they want! Francie King is continuing to charge along with the BU billion-dollar campaign and had reached the halfway mark. Hanneke Frederik Jevons’s life
revolves around her art. She spent 38 years in education, with roles as a guidance counselor, assistant principal, principal and high school art teacher. She’s lived in CO, KS, TX and for 31 years in FL. She retired in 2010 after 29 years in the Flagler County school system in Palm Coast, FL. She’s the president of the local chapter of the Colored Pencil Society of America and teaches drawing and colored pencil privately. Hanneke has a farm where she raises a few cows, loves water aerobics and has enjoyed life-long contact with Barbara “Babs” Huntington Larsen, her Colby roommate. She’s enjoyed traveling and keeping in contact with her Dutch family and friends. Linde Keleher McNamara and husband John recently had their 45th wedding anniversary! They’re kayaking, canoeing and doing a lot of travel, but she was not yet retired. Linde left a large real
Linde Keleher McNamara ’67 and her granddaughters Emma (12), Lily (10) and Grace (8).
estate firm after 18 years and started her own real estate company 5 years ago. Four years ago she completed her master’s in marine biology and took the position of director of development for Ocean Alliance. She and John have 4 granddaughters: Emma, 12, Lily, 10, Grace, 8, and new baby Chloe, from their son Kyle and his wife. Their daughter Diana lives in Scotland near the U. of Aberdeen where her husband works. As for me, Sis Hagen Kinney, I, too, have joined the retired set! We also celebrated the 90th birthday of a parent this past year, and after my husband of 27 years had a cancer scare and radiation treatment, I decided it was time for me to hang it up and begin enjoying the freedom that retirement brings. Our daughter Natalie is a nurse in our old hometown of Newport News, VA, and all 3 boys and the grandchildren are in the Raleigh/Durham, NC, area. I’ve enjoyed teaching at the elementary level these past 10 years, but driving an hour each way finally took its toll on me! We live near Charleston, SC, and in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains of NC, and hope to travel around the country soon. We plan to put our house in Summerville on the market and relocate to the Raleigh/Durham area. Thanks to everyone who
responded to the plea to give me news. Send it any time, and it’ll stay in my CSC folder until the next deadline. Please remember to include your maiden name so I’ll know exactly who you are!
1968 Class Correspondent Needed
1969 Deborah Adams Johnston 3727 Moorland Drive Charlotte, NC 28226 (704) 542-6244 navypub@aol.com
1970 Gail Remick Hoage 64 Valley Road New Durham, NH 03855 (603) 859-3241 gail@michaelsschool.com
1971 Ellie Goodwin Cochran 58 Heather Street Manchester, NH 03104 (603) 626-5959 elliegc@myfairpoint.net As I, Ellie Goodwin Cochran, write this I have recently returned from the spring session of the President’s Alumni Advisory Council at the college, and after hearing from President Tom Galligan and senior
leaders and taking a tour of the fabulous addition to the Ware Center, we were all ready to re-enroll to take advantage of the new programs and facilities! I have sad news about the passing of our classmates Carol Wilson Trauernicht on Jan. 16, 2013, and Amy Clark last May. Stephanie Wilson Ablondi lived and worked as a cytotechnologist in Switzerland for 27 years, returning in 2003. She met her 2nd husband in 2007, moved to East Sandwich on Cape Cod and opened a gift shop, Stephanie’s, in May 2008. She specializes in 50+ sun-protective hats for the family. She also works per diem at Brigham & Women’s Faulkner Hospital as a cytotechnologist. Her son, Bryan, got married in Switzerland in July 2012, and her daughter, Vanessa Signer Young ’05, had a daughter on Dec. 8, 2012. Her husband, Robert, works for Ecolab and was one of the top sales managers in the country last year. Marilyn Gage Hyson works with the local access TV station in Holden, MA, and produced 5 monthly TV shows with no budget! She got her musical friends together and put on a new story every month called “Fun with Music.” Anne Alger Hayward had lunch with Marquerite “Margot” Woodworth Seefeld in Boston when Margot was in town for a medical
convention with her husband, Bill. They’re busy planning the wedding of their daughter, a graduate nursing student at Johns Hopkins. Anne also caught up with Anne Pouch Aronson, and she sees Bonnie Pratt Filiault and Jean Bannister all the time on Cape Cod. According to Anne, Bonnie is the best real estate broker in all Cape Cod! Barbara Nieman stopped by the college this spring and was surprised at all the changes. Eileen Morey MacIntosh is a writer under pen names and has enjoyed a successful year with her published books. As I write this, I’m getting ready to leave for a cruise around the Italian Islands in celebration of our 40th wedding anniversary. I’ve also announced my retirement by the end of this year, and when I return from vacation, I look forward to starting a 4-day work week. I still plan to be busy spending more time with Dave and my volunteer activities. Keep the news coming!
1972 Linda Kelly Graves 880 Tannery Drive Wayne, PA 19087 (610) 688-0230 dikeroka@aol.com Lindsay Henes O’Donovan writes, “I’ve been very busy with my husband, Brian O’Donovan, host of ‘A
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Celtic Sojourn’ on WGBH radio. We are gearing up for our 11th year of a concert series called ‘A Christmas Celtic Sojourn,’ playing in several New England venues. I play piano in this show and credit my wonderful music training at Colby! We’ve recently moved to Harvard Square and love it. Our eldest daughter, Aoife, has had an amazing year touring as a singer with Yo-Yo Ma and the Goat Rodeo Sessions, and Prairie Home Companion. Her 1st solo CD was released this past June with younger sister Fionnuala singing backup vocals on several songs. Ciaran, our oldest son, is a mechanical engineer in NYC and next son, Aidan, is in business in Boulder, CO.” Faye Hooker Keller and Serena Alber Watson met outside Boston for lunch. Faye has lived in Salt Lake City since 1978 and works in PR. Her daughter, Heidi, is 32 and works as a policy analyst for NOAA and as an environmental adviser for Sen. Carl Levin (MI) in DC. Her son, Nat, is 28 and works for a marketing and PR firm in DC. Joanne Johnson Gaspar recently retired as business manager for the DuPage Symphony Orchestra and has joined the board of directors. Joanne writes, “Retirement will allow me to spend more time in my garden, read and travel
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with my husband, who retired last year.” They planned a driving trip in July from IL to New England, stopping at Colby-Sawyer and Dartmouth. Unfortunately, she won’t be there in time for the Reunion. Joanne’s daughter married last Aug. in Chicago. Shortly after the wedding, Joanne had surgery to remove a cancerous thyroid, and she received an “all-clear” last month. Kathy Shaw-Stuart and her husband live in Newport Beach, CA, with a summer home on Martha’s Vineyard. She writes, “We have 2 children in their 20s, just getting started in the working world and still in college. I still keep up with my French. I spent a week in France in March with a non-English speaking French family in Brittany visiting a friend.” Sherrill Howard spent much of the winter in NH while her sister Sue was grappling with breast cancer. “We seem to be back on an even keel through this part of the process,” Sherrill writes. “Janet and I are well. Snuck a belated 60th trip to the Keys and became a dolphin trainer for a day. We’ll be going with some friends to Yosemite and a celebration on the Napa Wine Train. Hoping to catch some time with Audrey Scott Schou ’71 when we hit SF.” Brooke de Lench’s documentary “The Smartest
Colby-Sawyer College Magazine
Team: Making High School Football Safer,” which she produced and directed, will air on TV in the fall. It’s available now and documents how her team of experts reduced the rate of concussions for one high school football team in OK by 75 percent. “I was thrilled to do a private premier screening for Colby-Sawyer students and faculty in a fabulous new theater on campus,” Brooke writes. “On a sad note, Catherine Hirsch’s husband recently passed away. We recently had a wonderful dinner at the Metropolitan Club in DC where Catherine is on the Board of Governors.” Marcia Holt Massie moved to the Atlanta area in 1975. She has 2 grown sons: Joshua Favaro, who is married and lives in Roanoke, VA, and Jay Favaro, a senior at GA Tech in the engineering program. She has a stepdaughter who lives close by and a granddaughter. Marcia is the director of preschool ministries at Shadowbrook Baptist Church. Helen Cornell Higgins and Joan Messenger Tolles are her friends on Facebook. In May, Stephanie Sparagna, along with a colleague, was awarded Prosecutor of the Year by the Los Angeles County Bar Association for the prosecution of a female police officer for the murder of her husband.
Also, a newly released book, Nobody Walks by Dennis Walsh, tells the story of a case she prosecuted in ’07. I recently saw Lydia Biddle Thomas and Kathy Norris. Lydia remains loyal to NYC and is considering starting a new business of her own. Kathy lives outside Philadelphia and works in the city as an office manager for a busy architectural firm. Late March found Deb Ross Chambliss, Lucy Main Tweet, Nancy Bianchi Miller and me on a mad dash to Sanibel, FL, to escape the snowstorms of the Mid-Atlantic States and Northeast. We had an enjoyable long weekend catching up! On a more somber note, I would like to acknowledge the passing of 2 of our classmates: Margaret Blair Fox and Carolyn Fite. Blair was one of our class’s 2 representatives from HI at the time and was involved in many activities on campus. In more recent years she lived in NYC and had success in the world of real estate. Carolyn was a good athlete and a big skier at Colby-Sawyer on the ski team. After Colby she earned her captain’s designation and captained tour boats off the Cape and in the FL Keys. Both women were wonderful additions to our class and our experience. They are missed, and we extend our condolences to their
families. Thank you to all who contributed to our column this time. Stay well!
1973 Nancy R. Messing 908 Ponce de Leon Drive Fort Lauderdale, FL 33316 (954) 779-7449 nrmessing@aol.com Talk about being in the wrong place at the right time. Or maybe it was the right place at the wrong time. Either way, Janet Gilfoy Stark was there. Janet is a RN usually found in the ER at the Lahey Clinic in Burlington. For the past 6 years, she’s volunteered at the medical tent at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. This year her group was in the A Tent, less than 25 yards from the first bomb. After the blast, Janet experienced nothing that her ER training had ever given her —she was dealing with missing limbs and burning flesh. She cut tablecloths into tourniquets, applied them and used what bandages they had on hand. She comforted those who were hurt and inserted at least 15 IVs into patients who needed fluid replacement stat. Hats off to Janet as a first responder, who probably saved quite a few lives that day. This past June, Janet got certified in ACLS, Advanced Cardiac Life Support.
Roxanne Arena lives and works in the Philadelphia area. She recently founded Arena Land Transfer, LLC., which provides title insurance and settlement services for residential, commercial and industrial transactions. Roxanne started out as a real estate paralegal, then attended Temple U School of Law and became a real estate and title attorney. She is very excited to be at the helm of her own business. She sees Mary “Muffy” Buxton Carchio regularly. If anyone is in the Philly area, give Roxanne a call. Lee Woodfin Beery moved from Boston to Tampa in 1985, but still has lots of family and friends in the Boston area and visits often. Christine Gram Croarkin still lives in Switzerland, and looks forward to her husband’s retirement from Nestlé. She hikes and snow shoes, exploring the beautiful alpine regions around her home with friends. Christine recently had two works of art—an oil painting and a photograph—accepted by Art Horse Magazine and published in the book Ex Arte Equinis. Cathy Moore Pomeroy has retired from the public sector of education after a number of years in the field of reading and special ed. She has been skiing and traveling. This year she started a business consulting with individuals who
have learning differences, and she has also worked with the Cherry Creek School Foundation and the Denver Women’s Foundation. Everyone is doing well, and Cathy says she loves to have guests anytime! Jan Lyle Malcolm has been back in the real estate business in Barrington, RI, for the past five years and loves it! This came in handy last summer when Jan spent time with Anne Winton Black and husband Rick, house hunting for a beach house. Word is that Jan found the perfect place! She and her husband, Bob, have two kids between them: Chris is 27 and a biologist doing environmental toxicology research in Wareham, MA, and Erin, also 27, just finished her master’s and hopes to teach English and drama in Chicago this fall. Jan and Bob had the opportunity to sail in the British Virgin Islands this past Jan., went to Bermuda in June, and Jan looks forward to spending two weeks in Oct. visiting her sister in India. She stays in close touch with Sandy Cumings Sullivan and runs into many alums in the RI/ Southeastern MA area. Patti Crowell Mitchell and Jan cross paths regularly between the Barrington Yacht Club and church. Jill Messinger Wilbur ’75, Lisa Smith Hardiman, Heidi Christ Colella ’74 and Chris Armbrust Rooks ’72 are
among the many familiar faces that are around. Jan also got to see her old roommate, Sue Hatch Barton ’74, a couple of years ago in FL. She says, “It was easy to remember why I loved living with her so long ago in our corner room of Abbey!” Nancy Arnold Collins and husband Kevin live in Park Ridge, NJ, where they raised their 2 sons. Nancy juggles family, time relaxing on Cape Cod and her career as corporate director of PR and marketing for a large northern NJ healthcare system.
1974 Susan Brown Warner 48 Spring Street, Unit 7 Greenwich, CT 06830-6176 (203) 629-1454 warners@optonline.net Hi, everyone! Lots of news to report, and I’m especially pleased to have heard from so many new contributors! Lisa Burke Hennessy met up with Kathryn Roberts McMullen, her freshman year roommate, on a recent trip to Naples, FL. Kathryn and her husband spend the summer on Cape Cod, where Lisa and her husband have a home and spend summers as well. They look forward to having some time together on the Cape! Lisa and her husband are raising their
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twins, Andrew and Brooks, who are rising 9th graders at the Brunswick School in Greenwich, CT. She continues to pursue her work in interior decoration with her partner of 7 years. In Dec. 2012, Lisa and her family spent 2 weeks visiting Bangkok, Phuket and Hong Kong. Kathy King Gutierrez is enjoying life in Ridgefield, CT, with her husband of 35 years, Ray. They have one daughter, Courtney, 31. Kathy worked for several years for the FBI in DC, where she met her husband. They’ve moved several times, relocating to FL, NY and now CT. When they moved to CT, Kathy was a stay-at-home mom and ended up working part time for the Ridgefield school system before retiring. Kathy recently reconnected with Pam Rutkus Vernon and remains close with her Burpee roommate Nancy Leonard Slauson. Since Colby, Patricia Brink has lived in Salt Lake City, working at the morning daily newspaper; DC, working as a press secretary for a TX congressman; and Mystic, CT, working at CT College. In 2003 she nearly moved to CA to get married, but decided instead to move to Southbury, CT, to help her parents—one with Alzheimer’s, the other with vascular dementia. Since her last parent passed away on Dec. 25, 2011,
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Proud mom Ann WooddCahusac Neary ’74 and her daughter Emily Orenstein ’13 in front of Shepard Hall on Emily’s Colby-Sawyer graduation day.
she’s been catching up with her life and trying to decide what to do with the rest of it. Caroline Jestin in Avon, CT, received her MA in counseling in 2007 and is now in private practice. Caroline’s daughter is 29 and married—no grandkids. Martha Jo Rogers Hewitt lives in North Hampton, NH, and is the executive director of a nonprofit in Rochester, NH. Ann Woodd-Cahusac Neary’s oldest daughter (and my goddaughter!) Emily has graduated with the Class of ’13 from Colby-Sawyer with a degree in English—like mother, like daughter, like godmother! Stepdaughter Caitlin graduated from Sacred Heart U. with a biology degree and awards for her research project on
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water supplies in Germany. Twin 16-year-olds Mack and Paige play water polo across the US, in Canada and in Spain. Stepdaughter Devon remains in New Orleans involved in the Innocence Project and is considering law school. Ann’s husband, Matt, devotes untold hours to the ADA, which takes him to DC often. Ann was recently invited to present educational funding requests to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The collaboratively written funding report later garnered her an audience with Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education, in DC! Julia McDonald Belanger lives in Harmony, ME, with her husband, Ray, and son, Jeremy. Julia has devoted her life to making her son’s life with Asperger’s better and left work many years ago to homeschool him through high school. She and her husband are now in the process of updating his 1-bedroom cottage next to the main house. The family was in a car accident some time ago that left all of them with some sort of disability. Julia takes each day as it comes, and makes the most of it. Patty Quinn Whiting is in ME and is a nurse on a stroke floor at New England Rehab Hospital of Portland. Her husband, Steve, is a lawyer. They have 5 children and 5 grandchildren, many living
temporarily back at home, along with a Korean foreign exchange student. Patty recently had a wonderful 1-week trip to Rome, Florence and Paris as a chaperone with her son’s high school group. She leads a Moms in Prayer group and volunteers at Greater Portland Christian School as a driver to sporting events and as a volunteer nurse. Heidi Christ Colella lives in Barrington, RI, with her husband, Pete, and their 2 golden retrievers. Their 2 grown daughters also live and work in RI. Heidi has retired from her career as an orthoptist. She now works as a holistic health coach, which allows her much more free time for outdoor activities. In the past year, Heidi was able to reconnect with her roommate from Colby, Debbie Henderson, in Newburyport. Debbie’s daughter, Elizabeth, joined them, and they all had a great time! Melissa Langa recently became a Fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel and received the designation of Accredited Estate Planner by the National Association of Estate Planners and Councils. She was also honored once again as a New England Super Lawyer in the field of Trusts and Estates, as well as a Top Woman Lawyer in MA. Her Boston law firm, Bove & Langa, grew again this
year, and there are now 6 lawyers assisting clients with estate planning and the administration of estates. Melissa’s husband, Jeff Wulfson, is now Deputy Commissioner of the MA Department of Secondary and Elementary Education. Son Jim works for Constant Contact there. Daughter Kate works for Ithaka S + R in Manhattan and lives in Brooklyn. Sally Williams Cook is the co-author with Ray Negron of Yankee Miracles: Life with the Boss and the Bronx Bombers, now out in paperback and published by W.W. Norton. Her upcoming book, How to Speak Baseball (Chronicle 2014), is co-authored with James Charlton and illustrated by NY Times artist Ross MacDonald. And finally, Mike and I are looking forward to a trip to Tropea, Italy, in Oct. along with some friends from our European bicycling days. Keep those letters coming!
1976 Janet E. Spurr 52 Rowland Street, Apartment 1 Marblehead, MA 01945 (781) 639-1008 Spurr1@msn.com Nancy Ennis Geiger and her husband recently moved to CO after almost 30 years on Cape Cod. They met in CO during college (“my second college,” says Nancy) and moved back to MA afterward to help with her father’s business. Nancy and her husband have 2 children: Their daughter got her MSW from Boston U and was starting her professional career in Boston, and their son was wrapping up his plebe year at West Point. Nancy got a job in Colorado Springs as the staff accountant for the
Women’s Professional Rodeo Association. “While we miss our friends, we are so happy,” she writes. “We go hiking every weekend and are working up our stamina to start some real climbing.” Priscilla Walker Dallmus reports Betsy Hill Dexter married Jim Dexter in Sept. 2012 at a beautiful country inn in VT. Betsy has lived in MA for 25 + yrs. Jim is also a longtime Acton resident, and the new couple remains there. Wedding guests included Colby-Sawyer and Colby Junior Alums Ann Erickson Shaw (mother of Evan Shaw ’11), Betty See Hill ’49 (mother of the bride), Nancy Shumway Adams ’52, Lynn Specker Martin, Priscilla Walker Dallmus and Daphne Dodge Walker ’62.
1975 Jill McLaughlin Godfrey 19500 Framingham Drive Gaithersburg, MD 20879 (301) 926-7164 Jillgodfrey25@gmail.com Caryl Ellen Diengott 34 Hattie Lane Billerica, MA 01821 (978) 436-9998 cdiengott@verizon.net
1977 Wendi Braun 5 Carnegie Place Lexington, MA 02420 (781) 863-1502 Wendi_Braun@msn.com Hello to the Class of ’77! I celebrate another season of wellness and peace with my family. My children are successfully navigating college. Katherine Aycrigg Watson writes, “This June, I am retiring after 20+ years in law enforcement. Definitely looking forward to having more free time and traveling with my husband of 30 years, Rick.” Andrea “Andy” Clifton Harper and Gary spent 3 weeks in China last fall. Their next travel location is a safari in Tanzania. They moved to their cabin in northern AZ for the summer. Andy and Gary play golf with various groups at their country club, as well as in tournaments at other clubs. I enjoy hearing from everyone and hope to hear from our more silent classmates for the next article. Don’t be shy!
1978 Betsy Hill Dexter ’76 married Jim Dexter in September 2012. Alumnae guests joining the celebration were (l to r) Ann Erickson Shaw ’76, Betty See Hill ’49 (mother of the bride), Nancy Shumway Adams ’52, Lynn Specker Martin ’76, Betsy Hill Dexter ’76 and Priscilla Walker Dallmus ’76.
Jody Hambley Cooper PO Box 1943 New London, NH 03257 (603) 526-4517 jcooper323@aol.com
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1979 Debra Bray Mitchell 17 Rope Ferry Road Hanover, NH 03755-1404 (603) 643-6536 dbraymitch@gmail.com Karen Pitchford Milliken lives in East Blue Hill, ME, with her pediatrician husband and 2 college-aged sons. Karen has a varied occupational life as a personal trainer, wellness coach, microbiologist and singer. She recently found out that one of her a cappella group members’ great aunt is Rebecca Brewster Irving ’42. Sandy Brooke Van der Werf and her 4 daughters have relocated to Pottstown, PA. Sarah and Lyssa are both in college, with Rebecca and Tess waiting in the wings as a senior and junior, respectively. Sandy had a memorable weekend last fall with fellow CSC friends Gwen
Fager Cheek ’81, Mary Salvo Hickey, Debi Overdorff Malloy ’81 and Jane Cassidy Noonan. In Aug., Becky Sheridan married Erik Kunz and welcomed her 1st granddaughter, Charlotte Mazen, in Jan. Congratulations! On a sadder note, I heard from Barbara Dwight Courtney that her Austin dorm mate and our classmate, Bess Robin Smith ’78, passed away. Our sympathy to her family and friends. Facebook allowed Barbara to reconnect with Karen Shecter, one of Bess’s best gal friends from CSC and beyond, and they’re planning a mini get together along with Linda Tanoian Doherty ’78. Life is short but also filled with many blessings. Enjoy each day to its fullest, and be grateful for all your blessings.
Colby-Sawyer Flashback: Do you recognize these dancers on the Quad? If so, please contact College Archivist Kelli Bogan at kbogan@colby-sawyer.edu or (603) 526-3360.
1980
1984
Natalie Hartwell Jackson 866 Audubon Drive Bradenton, FL 34209 (941) 704-0671 LifeGrd121@aol.com
Lisa Reon Barnes 11 Allen Place Sudbury, MA 01776 (978) 443-6816 lisarbarnes@hotmail.com
1981
1985
Pamela Aigeltinger Lyons 436 Round Hill Road Saint Davids, PA 19087 (610) 989-0551
Class Correspondent Needed
1982
Class Correspondent Needed
Melissa Buckley Sammarco Viale Alessandro Magno, 446 00124 Rome Italy mbsammarco@gmail.com
1983 Colby-Sawyer Flashback: After the photo above ran in the last issue of Colby-Sawyer Magazine, we were able to identify the alumnae as (l to r) Kim Lawrence ’79, Jodi Potter Goliber ’80 and Donna McNamara Hayden ’81.
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Colby-Sawyer College Magazine
Gail Smart Scibelli 1 Seal Harbor Rd. Apt. 815 Winthrop, MA 02152-1026 (516) 767-5154 gscibell@organic.com
1986 1987 Kym Printon Fischer 10 Gordon Road North Reading, MA 01864-2014 (978) 664-4048 mkjfischer@yahoo.com
Terry Hastings St. Pierre ’85, Liz Merriam Kyle ’86, Sandy Beattie Hand ’85, Christine Smith Grande ’84, Peggy Woods Heffernan ’86, Leslie Colmer Estrella ’85 and Polly Birdsall Martinson ’83.
1988 Catherine Hood-Pittenger 117 Henry Clark Road Chapin, SC 29036 (803) 945-4449 wrappedjmj@bellsouth.net
1989 Carolyn Cherubino McGraw 311 Mountain Cloud Circle Highlands Ranch, CO 80126-2208 (720) 344-2612 mcgraw.carolyn@gmail.com
1990 Janette Robinson Harrington 13 Sherwood Road Hingham, MA 02043 (781) 749-2571 Janetteharrington13@ gmail.com
Eileen Cremin Urquhart has loved being the preschool director at the Witherell Recreation Center in Lebanon, NH, for 19 years! Eileen and her husband, Jim, celebrated 22 years of marriage in May. Her oldest daughter, Emily, is a sophomore at Colby-Sawyer studying health promotion with minors in education and women’s studies, and she is on the cross country running team. Eileen’s youngest daughter, Katie, is a senior in high school. She’s already begun taking classes at the Community College of VT and plans to transfer her credits and study in Europe. Eileen still keeps in contact with Therese Zimmer Farid and Meghann Harris Sprague ’91. Both are well. Nancy Ellen Moniz Kenyon is returning to school for her
master’s degree—after all these years! Her 15- and 12-year-old sons just got home from a visit to the Azores Islands off Portugal, where they visited her grandparents’ birthplaces. Her oldest daughter and her husband had a baby girl, Denis Ellen Braman—her 1st grandchild! If you would like to share information about yourself or a classmate, please email me or contact me on Facebook.
1991 Gretchen D. Garceau-Kragh 315 Adams Street San Antonio, TX 78210 (210) 226-7079 shoeless94@hotmail.com
1992 Beth Bryant Camp PO Box 671 New London, NH 03257 (603) 526-2563 ecamp@colby-sawyer.edu Jennifer Barrett Sawyer 57 Field Road Marstons Mills, MA 02648-2108 (508) 428-9766 jjmasawyer@comcast.net
1993 Dawn K. Hinckley 986 Briarcliff Drive Santa Maria, CA 93455-4152 (618) 719-7184 prettygyrl911s@juno.com
1994 Julie A. Camp 254 Mill Road Hampton, NH 03842 (603) 601-2322 camp_julie@hotmail.com Stacey Banks Nieman 8192 Settlers Way Nashville, TN 37221 (757) 416-1203 sniemana@gmail.com Congratulations to Brooke Scarpa Salsbury and her husband, Peter, who welcomed their 1st baby, Paige Packer Salsbury, on Election Day 2012 in Savannah, GA. She’s a happy, healthy little girl, and they are thrilled.
1995 Caroline Miriam Herz 20 East 35th Street, Apartment 7H New York, NY 10016 (646) 387-8946 cherz@ur.com Greetings, Class of ’95! Aside from being my most fierce “Hanging with Friends” competitor on social network apps, Jill Rivers is continuing her adventures in Singapore teaching grade 2. In the past 2 years, she has ticked off a lot from her bucket list of places to visit, including Thailand, China, Cambodia, Vietnam, Bali, Dubai, New Zealand, Myanmar, Hong Kong, Denmark, Finland,
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Norway and Sweden. Congratulations to Allison Southworth, who bought her first home, a condo in Manchester, CT. Please feel free to email me with any news during the year, and I’ll be sure to include it in the next update.
1996 It took 40 years, but David Morin ’94 discovered the fun and joy of the once-maligned ukulele, which is now enjoying a high-profile surge in popularity.
The Beauty of the Ukulele David Morin ’94 Turning 40 can be a difficult affair, but David Morin ’94 managed to avoid the proverbial midlife crisis by putting away childish things and picking up … a ukulele. Two years later, this freelance graphic designer is still strumming away on the instrument that is enjoying a surge in popularity. “I’d never played an instrument,” recalls Morin, “other than a really horrible trial at the trombone in third grade.” Inspired by Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder, a longtime ukulele booster, Morin had often expressed interest in trying the ukulele, but it took his wife, Sara Hodgkins Morin ’95, buying him one for his 40th birthday to make the music happen. “The beauty of the ukulele,” says Morin, “is you can learn four or five chords and play hundreds of songs.” While many might think of the instrument as not much more than a toy (particularly those old enough to remember novelty act Tiny Tim), it has found a home with some serious musicians. Vedder recently released an album of ukulele music; Beatles legend George Harrison is said 66
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to have composed songs on a uke; and there are modern aces such as Jake Shimabukuro, the so-called “Jimi Hendrix of the ukulele,” not to mention the many musicians offering ukulele interpretations of classic songs on YouTube. This once-maligned instrument is definitely having its moment in the sun. If you are interested in learning the instrument, Morin recommends avoiding the cheapest models. “For about $100 there are five or six models that will get you started,” he advises, and with only a few weeks of practice, you can become quite competent. He also recommends finding a ukulele club, which are more common than you might think. Morin is a regular member of the Upper Valley Ukulele Club in Hanover, N.H. The club meets twice a month and is a great place where beginners and experts can play together. “There are lots of really helpful folks who can give you tips,” says Morin. Follow David Morin’s ukulele adventures at his blog, ukemafia.com. — Mike Gregory
Stefanie Lord Baumblatt 430 Society Street Alpharetta, GA 30022 stef.baumblatt@gmail.com Jody Smith Hickey 214 5th Avenue, NE Cut Bank, MT 59427 hicksinmt@yahoo.com
1997 Regan Loati Baringer 22622 Quiet Lane Leonardtown, MD 20650 (301) 997-0781 rrbaringer@ md.metrocast.net Amy-Jo Sichler Baringer 13 Margaret Drive Wilton, NY 12831 (518) 583-7085 mabaringer@verizon.net
1998 Jamie Gilbert Kelly 10-2 Countryside Lane Middletown, CT 06457 sportsmassage01@ hotmail.com
Chris Quint 130 Granite Street Biddeford, ME 04005 christopher.quint@ gmail.com Hello, Class of ’98! It’s our 15th Reunion this year! Check out Colby-Sawyer’s website for all the information regarding Alumni Fall Festival in Oct. We would really love to see you all there! My husband, Russell, and I, Jamie Gilbert Kelly, welcomed our 1st child in Feb. Owen made his appearance 5 1/2 weeks early and had to spend more than 2 weeks in the hospital before we could take him home. Luckily, he is now a healthy and happy baby! Chris Quint is still enjoying ME life, working as the ED of the Maine State Employees Association SEIU Local 1989, and looks forward to seeing everyone at Reunion. Kelly Ervin Packett recently made the move to CT from Long Island with her husband and 2 children, Cameron and Delani. She ran a half marathon in Feb. 2013 on the Cape and plans on another in Oct. She keeps in contact with Elise Picard Howe, who still loves teaching. Please keep the updates coming in. Shoot either of us an email or connect on Facebook. See you in Oct.!
1999
2000
Class Correspondent Needed
Jennifer Prudden Montgomery 147 Grove Street Melrose, MA 02176 (978) 852-2601 jprudden@yahoo.com
Hello, Class of ’99! Suzanne Blake Gerety here. We’re looking for one or 2 Class of ’99 members to step up as class correspondent. I’ve had the privilege of serving in this role since we graduated and it’s been a pleasure hearing from all of you, but it’s time for me to pass on this volunteer role. Thank you for always staying in touch. The Alumni Office is very helpful in setting you up to connect with our class, and it’s a great way to give back. I’d be happy to help out during the transition, and it is only twice a year that you have to gather notes. Please respond directly to Amy Potter Drummond ’00 in the Alumni Office at amy. drummond@colby-sawyer. edu with your updates and let her know if you are interested in the correspondent role. Hope everyone is well! Hilary Sherman Hawkins has received her MBA in healthcare administration from GWU. She’s still working at DHMC but is also an instructional assistant in GWU’s MBA program. Her oldest 3 kids are married, and she has 4 grandchildren. Skyler is 17 and starting the college search, and Zylis is 11 and thinks he wants to be a professional freestyle skier!
Tara Schirm Campanella 154 Lobstertail Road Big Pine Key, FL 33043-3308 taracampanella@ hotmail.com Hi, all! I hope everyone is doing well. My husband and I, Jen Prudden Montgomery, have been enjoying life with our 1-year-old, Davis. I’m still teaching 3rd grade in Andover, MA, and living in Melrose, MA. I was able to see Zanna Campbell Blaney, Katie Sykes Follis, Amy Potter Drummond, Abby Lefebvre Crowell ’01, Megan Costello Burch ’01, and Tracey Guarda Perkins
’01 recently at a birthday party. Nate Corrdry is living happily in LA, shooting a Chuck Lorre–produced pilot for CBS. A movie called “The Heat” with Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy that he shot in Boston last year opens in June. He’s also starting a production company with his brother this year and spending too much time with Rob Carroll and Mike Bernard ’99 in their fantasy football league. Tara Strand Balunis says, “My husband and I are enjoying life with our 16-month-old daughter, Elizabeth. We’ve been doing a lot of traveling as a family. Last summer we visited HI, and this summer we’re traveling to Ireland. I’m teaching 1st grade and working toward my doctorate. I recently passed my research defense and will conduct
L-R: Katie Sykes Follis ’00, Zanna Campbell Blaney ’00, Heather Drummond, Amy Potter Drummond ’00, Megan Costello Burch ’01, Kristin Danforth Surowiec ’02, Abby Lefebvre Crowell ’01 and Kelly Wigmore Mastroianni ’02 competed as a team at the Mountain Mucker held at Mt. Sunapee, N.H., in June.
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Melissa Labrie Ashley ’00 and her sister Michelle Labrie Strand ’03.
my research next school year.” Robin Deverill Croteau wrote that the Class of ’00 was strongly represented at the NH Excellence in Education semi-finals with Mark Pedersen from Timberlane, Zanna Campbell Blaney from Bedford and Robin from ConVal. The schools Zanna and Robin work for made it to the finals, and Bedford took 1st with ConVal in 2nd place! Robin also had a chance to visit CSC over her April vacation and present to a Foundations of Education class about her experiences in co-teaching. Chuck Gaede, Matt Hagerty ’02, Tim Ingraham ’03 and Drew Drummond ’02 have started a company in New London, Woodbrowser LLC—a hybrid online sourcing site for the forest products industry. Renee Liberty Mattiello teaches 2nd grade in Chappaqua, NY, and has 2 little girls. Hi everyone, Tara Schirm
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Campanella here. My family is enjoying our time in Key West, especially with no deployments. I keep in touch with many of my CSC friends on Facebook. My Boston roommate Michele Stantial Miller is enjoying her career change, working from a home office and also spending time with her son, Liam, who was born last May. Melissa Labrie Ashley has been traveling the country as a proud Navy wife for the last 6 years. She’s lived in CT and FL, and her family has enjoyed living in sunny San Diego the last year and a half. Since the birth of her daughter, Amelia, Melissa has taken a break from teaching kindergarten to be a stay-at-home mom. This past Jan., Melissa enjoyed a mini CSC reunion with sister Michelle Labrie Strand ’03 and brother-in-law Matt Strand ’03. Michelle and Matt also have a 3-yearold daughter named Olivia. Melissa stays in touch with CSC classmates through emails and FB, especially me, Tara Schirm Campanella, a fellow Navy wife. Kurt Svoboda writes, “I recently accepted a position at Stanford U. as senior assistant athletic director. I will oversee public relations for the athletic department, serve as the primary contact for football and serve as the school’s Pac-12 TV Network liaison. I’m
Colby-Sawyer College Magazine
relocating my family from Boston and my former position at Harvard, to Palo Alto, CA. I had a nice sendoff from Ryan Willey, Ryan Smith and his wife, Jen, Eric St. Onge ’99 and Andrea Lemire St. Onge ’99 and George Sylvester and Susan Datthyn Sylvester and will look forward to more alumni gatherings.” Rachel Bratter-Gronblom is finishing her 1st year of grad school at New England College. She lives in Portsmouth and is running in the Seacoast Road Race Series. Melissa Weymouth, who lives in CO Springs and works for USA Volleyball, writes, “Last summer I was able to attend the Olympic Games and spent many hours at both the indoor and beach venues! It was an amazing trip, and I’m hoping to head to Rio in 2016. This summer brings more domestic travel with both the Men’s and Women’s National Teams.” Jennifer Wallerstein McPhee writes, “The Aussie in-laws came over to spend some QT with me, Ben and Cash, and we surprised them with a whirlwind 3-day tour of the West. Currently, we’re planning a real vacation in HI. I’m also planning a mom and baby reunion with my best friends in VA Beach.” Kelly Sargent Feciuch and Mike Feciuch are busy keeping
up with their boys: Michael is 5 and started kindergarten in the fall and is busy with soccer and T-ball. Evan was born on July 20, 2012. Mike owns his own construction company, A-Team Design and Construction. Kelly completed her nursing degree from Rivier U. and sat for her RN license right before Evan was born. She now loves working for Dartmouth-Hitchcock as a triage nurse while continuing her schooling to become a nurse practitioner. Jaime Skillern Hebert works for the local affiliate of Habitat for Humanity and owns her own freelance writing business where she writes for “green” websites. She also got work for UAFS writing articles for their alumni mag. She adds, “I met a great guy in July 2012, and we’re having a fun and interesting time blending our families! I help him with bookkeeping and running his auto/ diesel repair business, and I just built him a website. My daughter, Sophie, will be 8 in June and is heading to intermediate school next year.”
2001 Kim Morrison Miller 8113 Rhudy Place Raleigh, NC 27612 (919) 788-9336 morrisonkimberly@ hotmail.com
In December, these alumnae enjoyed a mini-reunion with their families. Pictured in the front row (l to r): Sean Wetmore and Jaime Babine Wetmore ’01 with their son, Cole; Megan Smith ’01. Back row (l to r) Andy Dalton and Hillary Andrus Dalton ’01 with their son, Finn; Jay Miller and Kim Morrison Miller ’01 with their son, Peyton, and daughter, Paisley; Amanda Rucci Lessard ’01 and Joe Lessard with their dog, Bailey, and Julie McFarland Casey ’01.
Sarah Outten Horan ’01 with her husband, Michael, on their wedding day.
Hello from NC, my fellow classmates! Thank you to everyone who responded with an update and even those of you who responded that you don’t have any news. It’s nice to know how everyone is doing!
Celia Lozeau Goodman and her family have moved to Calgary and are enjoying the scenery. Her family enjoys hockey and skiing in the winter and outdoor rock climbing in the warm months. Sara Hammond now works for the Middlesex Probate and Family Court. Jennifer Pesare writes, “I’m beginning my 7th year teaching elementary school and loving it! I teach a Multi Grade Behavior Support classroom in Middletown, RI. I enjoyed my summer off working on my home and spending time with friends at the most beautiful beaches on Aquidneck Island. I had a minireunion with Kristy
Wedding bells rang on July 28, 2012, for Amanda Rucci Lessard ’01 and Joe Lessard. Pictured are (l to r) Megan Smith ’01, Julie McFarland Casey ’01, Amanda, Joe, Hillary Andrus Dalton ’01 and Kim Morrison Miller ’01.
Kim Morrison Miller ’01 and her husband, Jay, with their children Peyton and Paisley.
Meisner Ouellette, her husband, Jason, and their son, Eben, over Memorial Day weekend. I was also able to spend some time with Missy Brown Kane and her husband, Adam, in Newport this summer.” Amanda Rucci Lessard was married last July to Joe Lessard, and they bought a house in Litchfield, NH. She still enjoys teaching 4th grade. For me, Kim Morrison Miller, not too much has changed. Jay, Peyton, Paisley and I live in
Raleigh, NC, where Jay works for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Offices and I’m an at-home mom (though I did start working 6 hours a week at a local gym just to have some adult conversation). Peyton is finishing 1st grade and Paisley will start preschool in the fall.
2002 Nikki Fowler Martin 26 Pine Crest Dr Spofford, NH 03462 (603) 363-2011 nicole.martin3@gmail.com Cheryl A. Lecesse 429 Cabot Street, Number 1L Beverly, MA 01915-3153 (978) 998-4886 cheryllecesse@gmail.com Vicki Burgess Fahey writes, “After working more than 10 and a half years with Cradle & Crayon, I
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2003 Lisa Noyes Hardenbrook 124 Lita Lane Newmarket, NH 03857 (603) 292-6964 litha81@hotmail.com
Karen Kotopoulis Koutsavlis ’02 and her daughter, Gabrielle, at the Colby-Sawyer alumni volleyball game.
switched jobs and started working for the State of VT in the Child Development Division as a licensing field specialist in Feb. It’s been a great change professionally and for my family. My son, Hunter, is now 7.” Karen Kotopoulis Koutsavlis and her husband, Larry, who live in Auburn, NH, welcomed their daughter, Gabrielle, in Nov. 2012. Karen started her own company, New England 360 Fitness. Ashley Bramwell Arruda and her husband welcomed baby Luke on March 22, 2013. He joins big sister Caroline, who is 2 1/2. Ashley continues to enjoy being a kindergarten teacher in Scituate, MA. Erin Slavin Tate, her husband, Jon, and their son, James, welcomed another son, Tyler William, to the family on May 12, 2013. What a wonderful Mother’s Day present!
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Stephney Anderson Gonzalez ’04 welcomed son Sawyer in October. He joins big brother, Skyelar.
Joe Page ’04 and his wife, Debby, with their 6-year-old son, Christian, and their new son, David.
Natasha Deane O’Donnell ’03 with her son, Myers, and daughter, Reese.
2004 Eric J. Emery PO Box 8 Quechee, VT 05059 (603) 359-9844 e_rock04@hotmail.com Mary Lougee Lambert 65 Church Street Newport, NH 03773 Mary.F.Lambert@ gmail.com Stacey Fraser de-Haan recently added 2 dogs to her family, making the total 3. She was promoted to co-director at the Ipswich Museum in April. Stacey also completed the Mountain Mucker at Mt. Sunapee on June 1 with Erin Sawler Massa and
Colby-Sawyer College Magazine
Jessica Price Darrah ’04 (center) enjoys her wedding rehearsal dinner in Hilton Head, S.C., last summer with Amanda Githens Brougham ’04 (l) and Nina Lavigne Shedd ’04 (r).
Natalie Fox Gehrig. After the race, the group saw “the Mucker Man” Chris Reed and Micah Gehrig. Tamsen Bolte Snyder rang in 2013 at a roof-top club in NYC and this past winter got together with Cecily Danver and Ali Quinton to hit the slopes all over VT. Stephney Anderson Gonzalez added
Nina Lavigne Shedd ’04 and family.
a baby boy to her family— Raine Gonzalez joined big brother Skyelar in Oct. Joe Page and his wife welcomed David in Feb. David joins big brother Christian. Nina Lavigne Shedd started a new job as the web manager for the U of VT College of Medicine in Nov. She and her husband built a house this past fall and celebrated the wedding of Jessie Price Darrah and Alex Darrah this past summer. Liz Graham was promoted to intelligence research
new every day. Liz stays in touch with Jenni Beaulieu Calvi and hopes to make a trip to FL to meet her family’s newest addition, Gunner Patrick Calvi.
2006 Justin de-Haan, Stacey Fraser de-Haan ’04, Natalie Fox Gehrig ’04 and Erin Sawler Massa ’04 after competing in the Mountain Mucker held at Mt. Sunapee, N.H.
specialist for the Dept. of Homeland Security and bought a house this past Dec. She also welcomed her 1st daughter, Taylor Marie, with her boyfriend, Dave, in March. Hope to see you all at our 10-year Reunion next year!
2005 Monica R. Michaud 184 Whitney Street Auburn, ME 04210 (207) 577-7372 michaud_monica@ hotmail.com
Liz Reinecker Campbell ’05 and her daughter Claire Elizabeth Campbell, who was born on April 7, 2012.
Liz Reinecker Campbell and husband Chris have been enjoying life as new parents. Claire Elizabeth Campbell was born on Apr. 7, 2012, and has been teaching them something
Douglas B. Cote 11190 Lady Jane Loop Apartment 302 Manassas, VA 20109 (703) 751-0276 dcote@american-frontiers.com
2007 Stephanie Jaques Guzzo 23243 Rosewood Ct. Apt. 1025 California, MD 20619-4077 (603) 465-9580 stephanie.guzzo@gmail.com Ashley Helen Rodkey 56 Meetinghouse Road Pelham, MA 01002 (413) 253-7867 rodkeyah@yahoo.com
Photo: Ekta Sampson ’13
Melissa Ferrigno Page 42 Wolf Road, Unit 1112 Lebanon, NH 03766 (603) 763-1018 ferrig015@hotmail.com
2008 Gathering for a photo op at the annual alumni basketball games in February were (back row, l to r) Coach Bill Foti, Shannon Sciria ’09 , Will Bardaglio ’12, Collin Bray ’06, TJ Fournier ’07, Ian Davis ’12, James Tobin ’12, Dave Rosso ’10, Chris Cox ’10, Andrew St. Clair ’06, Chris Burke ’05, Andrew Cousins ’09, Kristen Sorensen ’06, Emma Pasquale ’09, Maritza Salema Connors ’08, Noelle Surette ’08 , Terri Duffy ’10, (front row, l to r) Halary Patch ’05, Matt Lemieux ’09, Katelyn Stravinsky ’11, Madison Hawkins ’12, Ethan Betts ’03, Shawn Kithcart ’07 and Coach George Martin.
Sarah Heaney Pelletier 3 Birch Lane Center Tuftonboro, NH 03816 (603) 930-5433 sh.heaney@gmail.com
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Class of ’08, I hope this finds you well. A big thank you to everyone who sent updates! Marianne Kelly is living in Phoenix, AZ, and is a member of Teach for America, where she works with underserved children. Daniel Stone is working at a local office of an international direct marketing firm called Smart Circle in Tarrytown, NY. Angela Eastman Sylvia graduated from Lesley U with an MFA in Creative Writing in the Writing for Young People genre. Tristin MacKay Henson graduated from Norwich U with a master’s in nursing management and administration. Jenna Jordan graduated from MGH Institute of Health Professions with a master’s in nursing, Acute Care Nurse Practitioner. Christelle Kamaliza is
working in the finance department of a non-profit healthcare organization called Partners in Health out of Boston; she had spent the last few months in Haiti supporting the Haiti-based finance team for the opening of a new hospital there. Kristin McDonald Maynard bought her 1st home with her husband in Taunton, MA. Adrian AzodiKazeroony is living in Dubai and has launched a line of luxury men’s accessories called Monsieur Fox. Liz Gross recently graduated from the Associates Degree in Nursing program at River Valley Community College in Claremont with Meg Ross ’06. Kim Simard Ackles earned her master’s in school counseling from Rivier College. Kim and Zach Ackles ’07 recently purchased their 1st home and had a baby girl, Gabby, in Feb.
2009 Elizabeth Mary Cressman 11 Worcester St. Apt. 8 Grafton, MA 01519-1560 (978) 828-4414 ecressman1986@ yahoo.com Kim Simard Ackles ’08, her husband, Zach Ackles ’07, and their daughter, Gabby, are all smiles at Kim’s graduation from Rivier College, where she received her master’s degree in school counseling.
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Nicole Poelaert Costanzo 261 Forest Street Pembroke, MA 02359-3315 (339) 244-4473 npoelaert@yahoo.com
Colby-Sawyer College Magazine
The Class of ’09 has been busy as usual! Colin Bellavance was recognized as an Honor Graduate upon graduation from basic training for the United States Air Force. Following technical school training, his 1st station will be at the Pease Air National Guard Base in Newington, NH, as a fire protection apprentice. He still lives relatively close to CSC and was looking forward to spending time at the lake in the summer. John Bristol married Jacqueline French Bristol last year and they live in Penacook, NH, with their cat and dog. He’s working as a sales representative for Liberty Mutual and received his MBA with a certificate in marketing from SNHU. John has also been enjoying hiking NH 4,000-footers with Jacqui and running in half-Ironman races. Thanks to those who sent in updates and feel free to send more anytime!
2010 Neil Mark May 1 Valley Street Derry, NH 03038 (603) 425-6727 neilmay10@gmail.com Hello, Class of ’10! I hope everyone had a great summer. Caitlin Pond recently graduated from Worcester State with a master’s in biotechnology,
bought a home and has been working full time at Blue Sky Bioservices. She still competes in track and field events and the occasional Spartan Race. Amanda Jones married Brian Doucette ’09 in Sept. Former intramural basketball champion Devin Zylak graduated with a doctorate in physical therapy, passed the national physical therapy exam, and is now a licensed physical therapist at Coppola Physical Therapy. Megan Ruggiero is working in the Perseus Books Group’s licensing department and on freelance editorial projects. She was asked to serve on the editorial board for a start-up entertainment website called The Electric Feast created by Joseph Delaney ’12, Charles Moak ’12 and Sean Ahern ’09. Jessica McLavey is engaged to Christian Storey of Rangely, CO, and recently moved from CO to the MO Ozarks to continue her career in hospitality. Lainie Kennedy graduated with an MFA from VT College of Fine Arts in Montpelier. She’s also an assistant lacrosse coach at Mount Holyoke College. The team finished their season with an 11-4 record and won the ECAC Championship! Jamie Church graduated from Fairleigh Dickinson U with a master’s in sports administration. She lives in Lodi, NJ. Amy Hebert is
back working at CSC as the internship coordinator and recently took a trip to Canada with Rachael Smith, eh.
2011 Jaycee McCarthy 1220 W Roscoe St 2nd floor Chicago, IL 60657 jmccarthy.07@ my.colby-sawyer.edu Ashley Ann Jette 7 Timberwood Drive Unit 314 Lebanon, NH 03766-4700 ajette.07@ my.colby-sawyer.edu Aric Lantiegne and Victoria Canelas Lantiegne have moved back to NH and are living in Concord. Aric is in sales at Banks Chevrolet, and Victoria is working for Checkmate Payroll as the marketing director.
2012 Kassandra Louise Pike 40 Terry Hill Road Fairlee, VT 05045 (802) 522-0158 kassandra.pike@gmail.com Courtney Eleanor Pike 40 Terry Hill Road Fairlee, VT 05045 (802) 522-0711 pike.c@husky.neu.edu After graduating, Jessica Cassidy moved to San Diego, where she worked for the Obama campaign
Allison Blood ’08 is a neurosurgery spine nurse practitioner and serious equestrienne who hopes to put her horse—and herself—to the ultimate test.
Flying High with Four-Star Dreams Allison Blood ’08 “I’m very goal oriented,” says Allison Blood ’08, and she isn’t kidding. In the five years since she graduated from Colby-Sawyer’s Nursing Program, the former class president has not only launched a successful career as a nurse practitioner specializing in neurosurgery and spine surgery, but she has also found time to compete in triathlons and maintain her lifelong love of horse riding and coaching. Blood began her medical career immediately after graduating from Colby-Sawyer at Southern New Hampshire Medical Center in Nashua. With a plan to become a family nurse practitioner (FNP), she applied and was accepted to the FNP program at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences. Her studies and work life coincided, as might be expected from an admitted workaholic. “It was seven days a week for two and a half years,” says Blood.
surgery, Blood flew weekly to an offsite clinic in Southern Ill. “I love to fly,” says Blood, though she notes that regular trips on a small private plane are not for everyone. In keeping with her full-to-thebrim approach to life, Blood also traveled more than three hours on weekends to teach horse riding in Barrington, Ill. This April, Blood took the next step in her career and moved to Chicago to work at the University of Illinois Chicago Hospital where she is a neurosurgery spine nurse practitioner and clinical professor. Blood appreciates the increased career options and the research at this teaching hospital. The drive to Barrington is much closer now, making it easier for her to ride, teach and pursue her dream of competing on her own horse at the four-star Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Event, the ultimate test in equestrian athleticism. Wherever her career takes her from here, we are confident this goal-oriented go-getter will make it on her own terms thanks to her amazing level of commitment.
As a newly minted family nurse practitioner, Blood received many offers and opted for a position in Peoria, Ill., in part because the schedule there allowed her to pursue her athletic interests. In addition to her work in the outpatient clinic and in — Mike Gregory
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Amanda Gibbons ’12, Christine Wertz ’12 and Alyssa Tamlyn-Hayden ’12 at the Graduate Dinner Dance.
Boston Bruins fan Jessica Cassidy ’12 (right) is interviewed by NESN on her thoughts about the Bruins’ chances to win the Stanley Cup.
and spent a lot of time volunteering for organizations focused on empowering women. She recently moved back to the East Coast and is interning at the YWCA in Boston. Her experience with the YWCA has led her to start the application process for graduate school to earn a MSW. Jessica loves running, and after the Boston Marathon tragedy turned her passion into a fundraiser. She decided to run a mile in honor of every victim that was injured at the Marathon, and an additional 26.2
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miles in memory of the 4 lives lost—at least 3-5 miles every day. Countless friends and strangers have said they would like to join her. Together, for every mile they run, they ask a sponsor to donate $1. The month Jessica wrote, they
raised $1,370 for Boston’s One Fund. Amanda Gibbons’s experience with campus programming and as a RA led her to a graduate assistant position at Daniel Webster College. Her friends, including many Colby-Sawyer alumni, recently launched the Electric Feast, a review and entertainment website. Amanda is writing articles for that and also plans to submit to other places.
2013 Maria Cimpean 15 Gregory Rd. Framingham, MA 01701 (407) 703-88127 mcimpean.09@ my.colby-sawyer.edu
Connect to Colby-Sawyer Get the latest alumni news on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ colbysawyeralumni
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Alumni and current players enjoyed some friendly volleyball action during the annual Alumni Volleyball match in the spring. Participants included (back row, l to r): Emilee McBride ’16, Ashley Finethy ’11, Tara Ward ’01, Tiffany Williams ’04, Megan White ’10, Michelle Doody ’11, Jenn Mailhiot ’16, Kelsey McCulley ’16, Jackie Keating ’15, Kelsey Sullivan ’16, Lindsey Raumikaitis ’14. (Middle row, l to r) Kelsey Donahue ’05, Heather McMahon ’02, Mary Ann Prescott-Myers ’04; (front row, l to r) Karen Kotopoulis Koutsavlis ’02, Kristin Anderson ’00, Jess Niebuhr ’07, Stefanie Turner ’11, Julia Yee ’14, Ally Le-Bruno ’14, Laura Smolinski ’16 and Steph Vecchio ’15.
Colby-Sawyer College Magazine
1935 Marjorie Rolfe—March 15, 2013 1937 Margaret Raleigh Hennessy—April 28, 2013 1938 Priscilla Silvers Ghyssels— February 17, 2008 Shirley Johnson Watt—February 26, 2013 1939 Mary Healy Howe—January 27, 2013 Gwen Goldfine Wilder—May 6, 2006 1941 Elizabeth Haggas Zwicker—April 4, 2013 1942 Ruth Kennedy Edmonds—July 12, 2011 Shirley Walter Ferguson—March 1, 2013 Lucille Prior Clark—March 31, 2013 Nancy Eads Hornberger—May 8, 2013 1943 Barbara Bourget Egan—April 25, 2013 1944 Jane Earle Wright—February 16, 2013 Hester Jerome Sweeney Swan— March 26, 2012 Virginia Potter Perry—May 12, 2013 1945 Sarah Lewis—October 25, 2012 1946 Lillian Whiteman Spear—July 6, 2012 Marian Casey Spang—February 26, 2013 Jane Palmer Horne—May 1, 2013
In Memoriam
In Fond Memory 1947 Joanne Bixby Mann—December 20, 2012 Grace Greene Williams—March 16, 2013
1957 Catharine Hellick Van Ness— September 18, 2012
1948 Virginia Esty Pendlebury— September 14, 2011
1958 Susan Park Fletcher—June 25, 2012
1949 Barbara Boykin Weinfurtner— October 3, 2012 Julie Hamm McDowell—February 23, 2013 1950 Marjorie Hamilton Gorham— March 27, 2013 1952 Janica Walker McDonough— January 25, 2013 Virginia Lawrence Warner— February 24, 2013 Carol O’Donnell Bryza—July 14, 2010 1953 Merabeth Dogherty Donaldson— March 6, 2013 Hope Retallick Dery—November 12, 2012 1954 Leah Morrison Weiss—April 18, 2004 Jane Turner Machain—March 15, 2013 1955 Jeraldine Davis Dean—January 16, 2013 Dona Smith Shanklin—May 9, 2013 Joyce Juskalian Kolligian—June 11, 2013
1959 Sally Dennison Mackay—February 12, 2013 1960 Wendy Shaw Curley—January 19, 2013 Nancy Johnson Sandmann— August 28, 2012 Rachelle Morency College—April 1, 2013 1962 Arlene Bilsky—March 21, 2013 1963 Marilyn McKee Sturgill—March 26, 2012 1965 Sarah Robinson—April 8, 2013 1968 Nancy Talbot Moulton—August 4, 2012 1971 Carol Wilson Trauernicht—January 16, 2013 Amy Clark—May 23, 2012 1978 Linda Cuthbertson Finto—June 24, 2009 1983 Judith Alosa Rajala—January 17, 2013
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In Memoriam
Alumna, Trustee Emerita Joyce Juskalian Kolligian ’55 by Kate Seamans and Kimberly Swick Slover
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oyce Juskalian Kolligian ’55 of Belmont, Mass., and Long Boat Key, Fla., passed away the morning of June 11, 2013. With intelligence, humor and grace, Joyce provided wise counsel, fresh thinking and generous support to her alma mater for six decades. After 18 years of service on the Colby-Sawyer Board of Trustees, Joyce was recognized at Commencement in absentia with the college’s highest award, the Susan Colgate Cleveland Medal for Distinguished Service. During her time at Colby Junior, Joyce was active in
Joyce Juskalian Kolligian was recognized with the 2013 Susan Colgate Cleveland Medal for Distinguished Service. 76
student government and the Key Association, was a singer in the Buzzin’ Dozen, and served as class president. She graduated with an Associate of Arts degree in 1955 and in 1956 received the Graduate Award. In 1960, Joyce married Michael Kolligian and they raised two children. She remained involved in her alma mater and held numerous positions on the Alumnae Association from 1974 to 1980. In 1980, she was invited to give the Convocation Address. Joyce earned a Bachelor of Arts degree summa cum laude at Simmons College and a Master of Business Administration degree with distinction from Simmons School of Management. She was the founder of Carlyle Associates, Inc., a marketing and communications consulting business. “Joyce was an incredible person and a tremendous friend of Colby-Sawyer,” said President Thomas C. Galligan Jr. “She was intelligent, generous, creative, determined, fun and passionate about her family and her schools. Joyce is one of the rocks
Colby-Sawyer College Magazine
upon which the modern Colby-Sawyer rests.” Joyce served as an alumni trustee from 1982 to 1985 and a term trustee from 1986 to 1991. She was the executive secretary for the Executive Committee and chair of the Board’s Advancement and Student Development Committees and the fundraising effort, Partners for the Future— The Next 150 Years. She was especially proud of her roles on the Presidential Search Committee that hired Dr. Peggy Stock and the Research Committee on Coeducation. Her outstanding service was recognized by the college in 1997 with the Distinguished Alumni Award. Joyce returned to ColbySawyer’s Board of Trustees from 2004 to May 2013. “Joyce showed that one person could make a difference and was profoundly dedicated to Colby-Sawyer. She took much joy from her service and gave much in return,” said Anne Winton Black ’73, ’75, former chair of the Board of Trustees. In 1986, Michael established the Joyce J. Kolligian Scholarship Fund at Colby-Sawyer in honor
of his wife’s birthday. After Michael’s death in 1998, Joyce created the Dr. Michael and Joyce Kolligian Scholarship Fund. In 2009, she established the Joyce J. Kolligian Distinguished Professorship in the Fine and Performing Arts. “Joyce Kolligian was a passionate and respected leader. Colby-Sawyer was enriched by her philanthropy and by her clear thinking, persuasive style and quick wit,” said Vice President for Advancement Beth Cahill. “She was beloved by the college community and by those who had the privilege of knowing her.” Joyce is survived by her children, Michael Kolligian III of Florida, and Valerie Thayer (Harvey Thayer Jr.) of Massachusetts, and her granddaughters, Olivia and Caroline Thayer. Memorial contributions may be made to the Joyce J. Kolligian Scholarship Fund at Colby-Sawyer College (541 Main Street, New London, N.H. 03257) and to the Holy Trinity Armenian Church (145 Brattle Street, Cambridge, Mass. 02138).
In Memoriam
Trustee Emeritus and Legend George M. “Bud” Lethbridge Jr. by Kate Seamans
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rustee Emeritus and Legend George M. “Bud” Lethbridge Jr. passed away May 20, 2013. Bud served on the ColbySawyer College Board of Trustees from 1991 to 1999. Born in 1925 and raised in New Jersey, Bud lived in Old Lyme, Conn., for 18 years before moving to Essex, Conn., six years ago. A gracious man with a sense of humor known for his humility, unwavering interest in others, loyalty to his friends and schools, dedication to his family and for being the last one on the dance floor, he was a tireless friend of ColbySawyer College. As a trustee, Bud served with distinction and chaired the Finance Committee (1992-1999) and the Investment Subcommittee (19921997). He was honored with the Susan Colgate Cleveland Medal for Distinguished Service in 1999 and was an inaugural member of Colby-Sawyer’s Legends Society.
“Bud Lethbridge was a remarkable gentleman, with emphasis on gentleman. He held himself to the highest of standards and was a profound role model for all who had the pleasure of knowing him,” said Anne Winton Black ’73, ’75, former chair of the Board of Trustees. Retired Colby-Sawyer Treasurer Doug Lyon considers Bud one of the most important trustees ever to serve the college. “Bud worked constantly to improve the college’s financial situation and was renowned for Lethbridge’s Laws: Balance the budget, grow the annual fund and manage financial aid,” said Lyon. On May 13, 2004, the college dedicated Lethbridge Lodge on campus in Bud’s honor. The late Peter Danforth P’83, ’84, GP’02, a trustee at the time, noted then that Bud became associated with the college through his first wife, the late Helen Thomas “Tommie” Lethbridge ’48, whom Peter called the “consummate cheerleader for Colby Junior College.” In 1992 Bud established and subsequently endowed
George M. “Bud” Lethbridge Jr. was a profound role model for all who knew him. the Helen Thomas Lethbridge and George M. Lethbridge Jr. Scholarship Fund. “Bud knew that gifts to Colby-Sawyer made an immediate positive difference in a student’s life,” said President Thomas C. Galligan Jr. “He was a gentle person and a phenomenal friend of our college.” Bud graduated from Phillips Academy in 1943 and from Princeton University in 1947. After a career of 31 years with
General Electric, he retired in 1980 from his position as a financial manager. He is survived by his children, Sally Hunsdorfer (Peter Hunsdorfer), Thomas (Todd) Lethbridge, and Scott Lethbridge (Catherine Aubrey Lethbridge); his brother, John D. “Jack” Lethbridge; and his four grandchildren. Memorial contributions may be made to The Himalayan Project (himalayanproject.org), or Musica Sacra (musicasacrany.org).
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From the Archives
Colbytown Camp: A Home Without a Key by Lisa Ray ’13 Photos courtesy of the Cleveland Colby Colgate Archives
Colbytown cabins at the camp on Little Lake Sunapee in the 1970s. What happens to refugee children in a new country? This was the question in a 1930s religion class at Colby Junior College that sparked the idea for Colbytown Camp. The class learned about Dorothy Canfield Fisher’s “New Americans in Vermont” program and was inspired to create a similar program. They decided to found a camp that would help Americanize refugee children, and it opened
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June 27, 1940, on Little Lake Sunapee. They called it Camp Halekulani, or House Without a Key. Each summer, approximately 24 girls were invited to attend the camp free of charge. In the beginning, all the campers were refugees, primarily Jewish, from countries including Czechoslovakia, France, Poland, Germany and Austria. After World War II, fewer refugees entered the U.S., and the criteria
Colby-Sawyer College Magazine
changed. Instead, American children from New England and beyond who were in need of a healthy, stable environment were admitted. Though refugee children no longer attended Colbytown, the camp continued to accept girls of different races and religions to keep it diverse. The camp was directed by two Colby Junior College faculty or staff members.
Initially volunteer positions, the directorships became paid positions in 1956. Camp counselors were college student volunteers, and many college and community members also gave their time to make the camp possible. The Colby Junior maintenance crew, for example, helped prepare the camp for the season, while townspeople donated their time and money, and often hosted campers for a meal.
the partnership between the college and town. The camp’s daily structure didn’t change much over the years. A typical day included a wake-up bell followed by the raising of the flag and then breakfast. This was followed Smiles and friendship were the hallby a chapel marks of the camp’s 49-year history. service and a Its legacy lives on in a permanent snack of milk and exhibit in Lethbridge Lodge. crackers. Then there were two Life at Camp hour-long activity periods followed by lunch and a In the beginning, there rest hour. The remaining were concerns from two activity hours were both the campers and the followed by swimming, townspeople. Some of the dinner and an evening girls were afraid to attend program. The day ended because they had been with a rendition of “Taps.” held in concentration camps and did not comWhile at Colbytown, prehend the idea of a campers were required to recreational camp. Some participate in chores with New London residents, their counselors called however, were hesitant “squad work,” which to host foreign guests due enabled the girls to learn to the rising fear of cleaning and caretaking communism in America. skills. There were five After residents understood sets of squads, one for the project’s objectives, each cabin, with rotating though, the community responsibilities that accepted the camp, and its name was changed to Colbytown Camp to reflect
allowed campers to partake in each set of skill-building tasks. Colbytown also worked with the girls after their camp days and provided scholarships to those who were accepted to Colby Junior College. In addition, a program for junior counselors was created in 1969 to allow campers to return in a more mature role and ease the burden on counselors by providing time off.
Closing Time A recurring problem for Colbytown Camp was funding—tight finances threatened the camp with several near closures. Starting in the summer of 1943 and throughout World War II, campers were required to bring their ration cards and two pounds of sugar to help supplement supplies. In 1975, the camp could no longer run just on student contributions and the camp decided to look to outside sources, such as New London, for increased funding. In the 1980s, in a final effort to stay open, Colbytown Camp asked the Colby-Sawyer administration to borrow funds; the college was unable to
contribute due to preparations for its coed expansion. Colbytown Camp closed in 1989, one year shy of its 50th anniversary. The camp’s legacy lives on in the lives it touched and in the repurposed beams from Colby Lodge that now support Lethbridge Lodge on campus, as well as in a photo exhibit in the Lodge that tells the story of a house without a key. To learn more about Colbytown Camp, please visit the online exhibit at http://haystack.colbysawyer.edu/exhibits/show/ colbytown-camp.
From all over New England and beyond, girls of diverse backgrounds came together to enjoy the outdoors and each other’s company.
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Epilogue
A Historian’s Tools Offer Multiple Perspectives by Ann Page Stecker, Professor, Humanities
My interest has predictable roots. I was born in Washington, D.C., in 1942. In wartime, my father, an attorney for the U.S. Senate rejected by three services for bad eyesight, did rounds as a Civil Defense officer. We waited in lines with ration books and had neither phone nor car. One day we heard the newspaper boy shout, “Extra, extra, read all about it—the war is over!” The next fall I started first grade in the same rooms where the country’s first president had also discovered the power of the alphabet and numbers. History is a narrative, a story shaped with an ear for the anecdotal and rolled out as national and global narratives, and quieter individual histories. Historians work like detectives but also use literal and metaphoric tools—the periscope, the
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telescope, the microscope and the kaleidoscope. The periscope allows access to an otherwise obstructed field or concealed position. It’s as innocent as a toy, yet deadly and complex in a submarine. I met the periscope when my father took me to Harry Truman’s first inauguration. We had seats in stands around the corner from the White House, but I wanted the periscope that people standing on the street carried. Harry and Bess waved. The telescope has a history all its own; it can change the Ptolemaic worldview to the Copernican revolution in a blink. It provides the long view, which might add up to something like objectivity. How fanciful and intriguing is the microscope! Its ability to magnify has allowed us to look more closely at the rats’ nests of daily life and the sweep of public history—history, warts and all. And the fanciful kaleidoscope. This cylindrical toy produces elaborate symmetrical patterns as
Colby-Sawyer College Magazine
Photo: Michael Seamans
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have always been interested in history—the practice of studying the past, to understand the present, to imagine a future and gain perspective.
History is rolled out as national and global narratives, and quieter individual histories. moving bits and pieces of colored glass are reflected by mirrors. Every twist creates a new perspective. History can be like that. In 1999, just after I finished the New London town history, Our Voices, Our Town, a Colby-Sawyer student who was a pilot fulfilled my wish to fly over the town. My eyes, trained by the periscope, the
telescope, the microscope and the kaleidoscope, prepared to absorb this dazzling new perspective. There below were Mt. Kearsarge, Main Street, the college, the houses, the busy town. Every adjustment of our position creates new perspectives and an awakened sense of ways to imagine the future.
Alumni Fall Festival
Come Back to Your Colby-Sawyer Friday, October 4 – Sunday, October 6, 2013 Return to New London to relive your memories, rekindle your friendships, and reconnect with your Colby-Sawyer! Register now at www.colby-sawyer.edu/alumni/fallfestival
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