Knox Magazine - Fall 2014

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FALL 2014

How wired are Knox students? The future of technology on campus


Lane Sunderland, Chancie Ferris Booth Professor of Political Science

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Political science professor. Pre-law advisor. U.S. Constitutional law expert. Supreme Court Fellow. Lane Sunderland is all of these things and more. At Knox since 1972, he has influenced generations of alumni, inspiring scores to pursue law as a profession, as well as decades of research on U.S. Constitutional law and the Supreme Court. His many honors include research fellowships from the Earhart Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Caterpillar Award for Distinguished Service and Teaching, the Philip Green Wright Award for Distinguished Teaching, and the Tom C. Clark Award given to a United States Supreme Court Fellow. His success both in and outside of the classroom can be traced back to his personal philosophy on teaching: “The two most important things that define an excellent teacher are a deep commitment to students and love of the subject matter.” And don’t forget, “a sense of humor.”

Outside of the classroom, he can be found on the second floor of George Davis Hall. Welcome to his office.

PETER BAILLEY ’74

1. Portrait of former Chief Justice Warren Burger, signed “For Lane Sunderland with best wishes, Warren E. Burger.” Professor Sunderland served, under Chief Justice Burger, as the director of educational programs for the Commission on the Bicentennial of the United States Constitution, which planned and developed activities to celebrate the bicentennial of the Constitution’s signing.

2. A reproduction of the Scene of the Signing of the United States Constitution by Howard Chandler Christy. 3. A bust of Aristotle that a student brought to Professor Sunderland from Greece, as Aristotle is referenced quite frequently in his classes. 4. A picture of Carl Sandburg on steps of Old Main, a gift from Robert ’31 and Marion Murphy. Robert Murphy was chair of the


Open Door

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Knox College Board of Trustees, and the Robert W. Murphy Professorship in Political Science was named in his honor. Their son, Jim Murphy ’82, was Professor Sunderland’s student. 5. A picture of Professor Sunderland with Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who spent three days at Knox in 1996. 6. A glass globe with a dried flower inside, given to him in 1973 by his students upon the birth of his daughter.

7. Various photographs of his 11 grandchildren. 8. A complete set of the Supreme Court Reporter, which features all of the decisions handed down from the United States Supreme Court since 1789. Although the set is of little monetary value in the digital age, it is, indeed, invaluable as an academic reference tool.


MAGAZINE VOLUME 98, ISSUE 2

FALL 2014

“CHANGING A CAMPUS CULTURE . . . WILL TAKE MORE TIME. BUT WE ARE COMMITTEED TO MAKING KNOX A CAMPUS THAT IS TRULY INCLUSIVE AND WELCOMING FOR ALL STUDENTS, FACULTY, AND STAFF.” DEAN OF STUDENTS DEBRA SOUTHERN (PAGE 25)

Beyond Blackboards—Teaching Well, with Technology

Departments

Dean of the College Laura Behling discusses technology’s evolving role in the academic program and how, at its heart, it allows professors to do what they’ve always done best—engage with their students.

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Educational Tech at Knox: Old as Dirt, New as Digital Learn more about the evolution of technology in the classroom at Knox, from theolodites to computers to Mathematica.

How Do You Flip a Classroom, Anyway? Explore three examples of flipped classrooms at Knox and learn how rethinking the way we engage with students benefits both students and professors.

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LAyOUT DESiGNErS Ami Jontz CONTribUTOrS, WriTiNG & PHOTOGrAPHy

ASSOCiATE EDiTOr

Adriana Colindres

Peter G. Bailley ’74,

Evan Temchin ’10

News & Photography

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The South Lawn

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Knox Writes

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Class Knox

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Parting Shot

Inside back cover

Special thanks to Kathleen Baumgardner.

Becky Hale

ASSiSTANT EDiTOr Cheri Siebken

2 East South Street

Mary Kate Murray ’14

Knox Magazine is published twice yearly by the Office of Communications, Box K-233, Knox College, Galesburg, IL 61401-4999, Phone: 309-341-7760; Fax: 309-341-7718; E-mail: knoxmag@knox.edu. It is distributed free of charge to Knox alumni, students, parents, and friends. The magazine welcomes information and story ideas. Please query before submitting manuscripts. ISSN: 0047-3499

Nicole Acton ’16 Visit us online at www.knox.edu/knoxmag.

EVAN TEMCHIN ’10

EDiTOr

Inside front cover

On the cover: Cami Woodruff '10, a professional illustrator who maintains a web comic, Doomsday, My Dear, and has worked for television series like Archer and Doomsday, took time out of her busy schedule to illustrate our lead article on technology and the classroom. Her cover illustration imagines the future of Old Main's South Lawn as we become more technologically advanced.

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Megan Scott ’96

Open Door


Welcome to the Knox Farm Isaac Lee ’16, student manager of the Knox Farm, harvests tomatoes from a high tunnel for the Knox community to enjoy. More than 500 pounds of tomatoes were harvested for use in the College’s dining halls this summer. Read more on page 22.


Editor’s Note

Letters to the Editor

National Issues Hit Home

Broadview Memories

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Read your article in the most recent Knox Magazine on the Broadview (BV) Restaurant; I got teary-eyed. OK, OK, I know; I remember the old BV, a place that I got to know very well and where I did a lot of my best thinking. It was the bar in the old Broadview Hotel, which was on Galesburg’s main square, and, even when I went to Knox, it had long seen its better days. I was a Phi Gam at Knox, nicknamed Fiji, and I remember the desk clerk at the BV hotel (yes, they actually rented rooms) always mentioned to us as we would go by that he was stationed in the Fiji Islands in the capital, Suva, during World War II. Ah, the nostalgia of by-gone days! What memories! And then there was Bowlers and Everett’s on South Cherry…stories for another time. —Colin Harding ’63

he high price of a college education. Student loans. Sexual assault and harassment. Title IX. Inequality on college campuses. Student protests. Controversial Commencement speakers. MOOCS. SPOCS. And the flipped classroom. To say that higher education has been the focus of national attention lately is a bit of an understatement. From cover stories on national magazines to editorials in local newspapers to Presidential task forces, issues facing colleges and universities across the nation are receiving more scrutiny than ever before. These issues are bolstered by student activism across campuses nationwide, and Knox is no exception. JOHN WILLIAMS ’12

In many ways, Knox is a microcosm of these national issues. Over the past year, Knox has seen student demonstrations highlighting inequality on campus and in the curriculum. The College received its own national attention with its inclusion on the list of 75 schools under investigation by the Department of Education for potentional Title IX issues. And our faculty are continually working to utilize 21st-century tools to enhance teaching and learning for today’s technologically savvy students. In the following pages, you’ll read about how a few of these national issues are playing out on the Knox campus, and we hope that this edition of the magazine will, in a sense, provide you with a greater understanding of what Knox and its students face everyday. For while evolving technology, inequality, and sexual misconduct are not new issues, they are more important to the experiences our students have during their four years on our campus than ever before. If a Knox education truly prepares students to be engaged and productive citizens of the 21st-century, then the College must face head-on the challenging issues that emerge as the demographics of our nation change and the educational landscape shifts. To do so won’t always be easy—-as you’ll see in this magazine—but it will always be necessary. —Megan Scott ’96

“Knox must face head-on the challenging issues that emerge as the educational landscape shifts.” 4

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The Value of the Liberal Arts So, the next time I’m at a function or a party and someone says, “Ya know, I’m just not sure about the value of a liberal arts education…,” I’m going to pull out my trusty Knox Magazine and show ’em the “18 under 37” piece from your spring 2014 edition. Great job once again! Wow to who and what these and so many other Knox alums have become. Continued cheers to you for the valued way you cover our past and our present. —Topper Steinman ’70


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Knox Magazine welcomes the opinions and comments of its readers. Write to the Editor, Knox Magazine, Box K-233, 2 East South Street, Galesburg, IL 614014999, or e-mail knoxmag@knox.edu. Letters should refer to material published in the magazine and may be edited for length or clarity.

KNOX COLLEGE ARCHIVES

Send us your letters!

Right Tree, Wrong Name Corrections In the spring 2014 Knox Magazine, we made two errors in reference to our alumnae: Alexis “Lexie” Kamerman’s first name was listed as Alexandra in the Editor’s Note, and Karan Grover let us know that we misspelled her name within the notes for the Class of 2004. Knox Magazine regrets these errors.

The large tree in the century-old photo on page 6 of the spring 2014 issue is not Knox’s iconic ginkgo. As an arborist, I can tell from its bark, foliage, and limb structure (“habit”) that the tree in the photo is an adult American elm. Even a layman should be able to recognize the significant difference in shape of the two trees. If the ginkgo were in fact alive when this photo was taken, it would have been quite young and small. Incidentally, ginkgo trees have a fascinating history. They are members of a prehistoric species that coexisted with the dinosaurs. —Barrett Williams ’78 Editor’s Note: Mr. Williams, you are correct. The tree featured in the photo is not the famous Gingko. That said, you can see the Gingko leaves on the far left-side of the photo. Here is another image that features the young gingko to the south of the Standish’s home. We accidentally ran the wrong image. Our apologies for the confusion!

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President’s Note A New Life for Alumni Hall

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KENT KRIEGSHAUSER

ut of sight behind brick walls erected more than a century ago, something remarkable has been happening on the Knox campus. After three years’ extensive work on architectural design, $12 million in fundraising, and a year’s extensive construction, Alumni Hall will be re-dedicated at Homecoming as a 21st-century facility to house the student journey from prospective applicant all the way to lifelong membership in the Knox community. The building itself has had quite a journey over the past century and a quarter. President Benjamin Harrison laid the cornerstone on October 8, 1890, and the building rose to its majestic height overlooking the town and the campus as a result of the work of hundreds of craftsmen and laborers—imagine, a building that size constructed without power tools! For the next 88 years, the steps on the north side welcomed visitors from the town of Galesburg and those on the south side served as the main student entrance. While Alumni Hall was originally built to house Knox’s 19th-century literary societies, Adelphi and Gnothauti, it proved to be a versatile workhorse of a building. Just about every aspect of the student experience has taken its turn inside this majestic building: from theatre productions in the grand central auditorium to classes across the curriculum on the upper floors. The Office of Advancement called Alumni Hall its home for a time. And at various times the Gizmo snack bar, an indoor running track, and the ROTC rifle range were housed on the first floor! Sadly, in 1978, the building was largely shuttered and generations of students, faculty, and staff learned to ignore its ghostly presence, walking past it on their way across campus from the Library, Old Main, or Seymour Union. On my campus visit in January 2011, not one person mentioned Alumni Hall to me, and there was no hint from its impassive exterior that it had once been such a lively place.

That all changed over the past three years as the greater Knox community came together to revive Alumni Hall. I am most grateful to the Board of Trustees, which in 2011 commissioned the Gateway Task Force to envision a new Alumni Hall under the leadership of Trustee and Galesburg resident Mark Kleine. One of Chicago’s oldest architectural practices, Holabird and Root, brought tremendous expertise in contemporary educational facilities and respect for the building’s history to the project, which was enormously complex and technically demanding. Knox’s dedicated and energetic staff in the Office of Advancement raised the funds to complete the building, equip it with modern furnishings and technology, and build a lovely terrace in the quadrangle on the south side. To date, more than 700 alumni, parents, friends, faculty and staff, and Galesburg community donors have contributed, with members of the Knox College Board of Trustees accounting for more than 60 percent of the total gifts raised. Our Peoria-based general contractor, P.J. Hoerr, recognized this project as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for all who worked on it and approached the building with reverence for the anonymous workers who came before them. Knox’s own facilities staff have played a role in the project as well. And the Office of Communications created a lasting digital record of Alumni Hall’s history, tracing its remarkable story from 1880 to the present in drawings, photographs, and words. To have a sense of the building’s many lives and the technical complexity of the renovation, I encourage you to take a look at the blog posts that have followed the building’s transformation at blog.knox.edu/alumnihall.

“It will be a milestone for Knox, an opportunity to pay homage to our history and to set foot into our future.”

Please join me this Homecoming as Knox re-dedicates Alumni Hall, 124 years—nearly to the day—after its cornerstone was set into place. It will be a milestone for Knox, an opportunity to pay homage to our history and to set foot into our future. I can’t wait for the day to arrive! —Teresa L. Amott

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HOW WIRED ARE

KNOX STUDENTS?

Today’s students come to college with multiple ways of connecting to the internet. Bringing with them a range of network devices, including desktop and laptop computers, smartphones, tablets, and gaming devices, students are more wired than ever.

2013 Total Network Devices: 2925

BETWEEN 2011 AND 2013, STUDENT NETWORK CONNECTIONS INCREASED BY 44%

2011 Total Network Devices: 2029

IN 2013, THERE WAS AN AVERAGE OF 2.08 NETWORK DEVICES PER KNOX STUDENT

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Beyond Blackboards

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Teaching Well, with Technology BY LAURA L. BEHLING, VICE PRESIDENT FOR ACADEMIC AFFAIRS & DEAN OF THE COLLEGE ILLUSTRATIONS BY CAMI WOODRUFF ’10

“Just as the now humble blackboard revolutionized learning, so too, can the technology of our age.”

echnology is, and long has been, one tool that can be used to teach well. Take tablets. Historians have found evidence of mud writing tablets at use in schools in India in the 11th century. Or boards at the front of a classroom used to show all students the same materials. In 16th-century Europe, teachers were using large pieces of slate for music composition. Mass production of such screens started appearing in classrooms in the 19th century, when blackboards (first employed in the U.S. in 1801 at West Point) were hung on the walls. Meaning that, no matter our age, we’ve all gone to school using what is, arguably, the most important technological invention in education of its time. Today, we are beyond blackboards, exploring and employing 21st-century technological innovations in order to best work with our students, who come to Knox bringing with them all sorts of technical devices and skills. Although the number of computers students

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brought to campus this past year was about one per student, the number of networked devices—think smart phones, gaming systems, tablets that connect to the internet—was just shy of 3,000 total. We know our students text and tweet and set up social media pages that many of their faculty and staff (myself included) have never even heard of. We know they can communicate faster with their thumbs than some of us can typing with all of our fingers. And we know they come immersed in a culture so dependent upon technology—they’ve never lived without it, after all, as almost all of our current students were born in the mid-1990s— that it is nigh impossible to remove them from it, or to remove it from them. Not that we’d want to. Just as the now humble blackboard revolutionized learning, so too, can the technology of our age. And so Knox faculty have welcomed the opportunities that technology offers for teaching and learning and have developed new pedagogies,

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projects, and ways of conducting a class that full-on embrace the fruits of the computer revolution. But our embrace of technology is not simply for the sake of change. Rather, our goal is to do what Knox faculty always have done— focus on their students’ learning, figure out what will best facilitate that, and then employ those tools in the classroom. This past summer, 19 Knox faculty from across the campus participated in a workshop focusing on teaching in/with/around a world of technology. The workshop, directed by Michael Schneider, associate dean for faculty development, was funded by the Mellon Foundation as part of a $400,000 grant the College recently received. Some faculty had very particular ideas on how best to employ technology, while others had identified an area

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where they thought some technological tool could promote better student engagement and learning. Todd Heidt (German) wanted to increase his “toolkit of communicative technologies to which students are attracted,” such as tweets, SMS (short message service), and blogs. His departmental colleague, Anne Steinberg (French) feels confident, given her uses of some technological tools already, that she can bring “new ways to use technology more efficiently and with a wider range of formats” to her classes. Duane Oldfield (political science) is working on developing assignments for multimedia student presentations that can be shared prior to class as a way to maximize class time for discussion. Carissa Schoffner (business), who already uses technology in the form of online-based spreadsheets and short

videos, wants to figure out how well it works. Bruce Polay (music) is eager to “develop more familiarity and flexibility with using technology in the classroom,” a refrain many faculty expressed as all are challenged with keeping up with students who can be more technologically knowledgeable. Andy Hertel (psychology) agrees, saying his goal is to “understand how to use media and technology effectively both in and out of the classroom to enhance students’ engagement with the class.” Language faculty Shuyan Shipplett (Chinese) and Sarah Scullin (classics) both want to figure out how to provide students with more practice of Chinese and Greek, respectively, and to keep language instruction energized throughout a term. Shipplett, for example, notes that she’s exploring popular apps to help students retain the Chinese characters they have learned. Other faculty are exploring technological tools so as to create an online repository of class-specific materials. Jeff Douglas (Seymour Library) is particularly attuned to this area, as he works to ensure that instructional technologies, software, and databases continue to be supportive of teaching and learning. Kathleen Ridlon (dance) is creating an archive of dance performances; eventually, she’d like to add Knox student performances to the digital database. The “flipped classroom” model pre-records the lecture and students are expected to watch the lecture outside of class time. When they come to class, time is spent with the faculty on discussion, problem-solving, collaborative work, and trouble-shooting areas of the material about which students had questions or needed additional help.


Mellon Grant Supports Innovation, Collaboration Thanks to a major faculty development grant of $400,000 from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Knox faculty members will have the opportunity to explore new methods and technologies for classroom teaching, as well as develop new interdisciplinary courses and collaborative programs for research and creative work outside of class.

Some faculty are interested in a fully flipped class. Gabrielle Raley (sociology) already has recorded some of her lectures in Introduction to Sociology but wants to better use lecture-capture software so that she can incorporate graphics into the recording. Jason Nethercut (classics) is working on flipping his classes in Mythology and Roman & Greek Art and Architecture, which would complement the ways he already is using social media. And Jim Dyer (journalism) and Mike Godsil (art and art history, journalism) are evaluating the relative effectiveness of flipped classrooms and instructional videos for technical training in reporting and photography courses. Others, such as Kevin Hastings (mathematics) would like to “move to a partial ‘flipped classroom” so that “more class time,” he notes, “could then be devoted to students doing small projects under my supervision.” Danielle Fatkin (history) is also moving

toward using screen capture techniques for generating instructional modules on technical aspects of historical writing and archeological analysis. Tim Stedman (art and art history) is interested in making the tutorials outside of class time in his design courses more effective. James Thrall (religious studies) admits the challenges so many faculty face, of “communicating a great amount of historical and other information in a short period of time.” His goal is to see what technological tools can be of most assistance in “encouraging student ownership of the learning process.” As Cyn Kitchen (English) notes, “I find that more and more my classrooms are made up of students whose identities, social capabilities and challenges, learning styles, and lifestyles are vastly different than my own.” Technology “can only help me connect with my students on a level that is meaningful.”

“Knox has a highly diverse and talented student body, and this grant will enable faculty to make use of innovative and effective teaching methods and technologies,” said Laura Behling, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the College. “The grant also builds on interests shown by Knox faculty and students in interdisciplinary collaborations and new directions in intellectual inquiry.”

Since 1970, Knox has received 10 grants from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, totaling more than $1.8 million. “The Mellon Foundation has been very supportive of Knox, and this award further strengthens the commitment,” Behling said. “Knox faculty are engaged and innovative thinkers, about their teaching and their own scholarship, and this support will allow them to continue to advance their effectiveness in student learning.”

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EDUCATIONAL TECH AT KNOX: Old as Dirt, New as Digital BY PETER BAILLEY ’74

rom ancient times to the present, education has been a showcase for educational technology. The oldest example at Knox would be about 3,000 years old—a palm-sized cuneiform tablet in the College’s Special Collections and Archives, created in a Mesopotamian school around 1700 BCE. A scholar who examined it stated that the clay bears stylus marks of both student and teacher. While the teacher-centered lecture method ruled the early years in all subjects at Knox, the founders were tech-savvy 19th-century Yankees. They bought “cabinets and specimens,” models and microscopes, a theodolite to measure angles in the course on surveying, as well as innovative security devices—the tumbler-based Hotchkiss system—to keep the scientific gadgets locked up. Although language “laboratories” opened in the mid-20th century, well after science labs, they were a

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This cuneiform tablet in Seymour Library is a typical school exercise dating to about 1700 BCE, possibly from Erech, a city in southeastern Iraq. The inscription is a list of cuts of meat, written by a scribe and copied on the other side by a student.

BACKGROUND GRAPHIC CREATED BY DENNIS SCHNEIDER AND PEDRO TEIXEIRA, DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS, USING MATHEMATICA.

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tech-based shift in classroom teaching. Starting with tape recorders, and now digital media, introductory-level language drills moved out of the classroom. “It freed up instructional time for development of more communicative activities, more real-life situations and higher-order thinking,” says Jerry Miner, associate professor of modern languages and director of the new, tech-heavy Burkhardt Language Center. For the first two decades of the late Wilbur Pillsbury’s 40-year Knox career—he came in 1949 to teach accounting and finance—ledger books were hand-written, and high-tech consisted of a room full of adding machines. In 1968, Pillsbury spent a sabbatical at a key institution in what would later be called Silicon Valley— Stanford University—and saw how computers could revolutionize the teaching of accounting. Returning to Knox, “I started developing computer-


assisted instruction… [to] eliminate the drudgery and put the emphasis on learning how to learn,” he said in a 1990 newspaper interview. On the other side of campus, Knox faculty also sought to eliminate drudgery and focus on learning. Traditionally, students of calculus, both high school and college, “did pages and pages of computations,” says Dennis Schneider, professor of mathematics. “Students were taught to memorize procedures for solving equations.” Schneider says many came into his courses having been told, “Here’s an equation, and here’s what you do with it. Don’t ask why, just do it.” Educators believed that if computers did more computing, students could spend more time on what made calculus interesting. In the late 1960s, the Center for Research in College Instruction in Science and Mathematics (CRICISAM) at the University of Florida developed a new computerbased calculus curriculum. In 1969, mathematics professor Frank Young came back from a CRICISAM institute and launched the course at Knox. “Exercises required the creation of short computer programs, and computer algorithms were used to illustrate the basic ideas,” says Young, who later went on to chair the computer science program at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. “It was definitely not the standard approach.”

The new course revealed technological constraints, which were not unique to Knox. Even short programs required tedious data entry, printed results were slow in coming, and there were virtually no graphics. While the calculus “X” courses, as they were called at Knox, were innovative and engaging, particularly for the strongest students, they did not endure. Computer-based calculus was not dead, merely delayed until the late 1980s and better infrastructure—more powerful hardware and software, especially the revolutionary program Mathematica. In a single window and in real time, Mathematica combined data entry, calculation, analysis and graphical display of mathematical formulas. Recognizing that Mathematica had fixed much that was wrong with prior calculus software, Schneider began working with the program shortly after it was released in 1988. Today, it is used extensively in Knox’s mathematics

curriculum. Instead of doing endless calculations, “students can see immediately whether they’ve done the problem correctly,” he says. Schneider and Pillsbury became pioneers in their fields. Pillsbury wrote the first textbook in computer-based accounting; Schneider directed workshops and created KnoxPackages, a widely distributed set of Mathematica enhancements. They also understood the limits of technology. Pillsbury scaled back the role of computers when students told him that there were some accounting tasks, like closing the books, that they needed to learn by hand. With computing and graphing handled by Mathematica, there’s more time to grapple with the fundamentals of calculus. Classes are more interesting and more challenging. “Technology should not be a way to be lazy,” Schneider says. “Technology should provide a way to work harder and smarter, to understand more.”

The tech is new, the beard hasn’t changed. In 1990, Professor of Mathematics Dennis Schneider posed with two graphics he created using the then-new computer program Mathematica. KNOX COLLEGE ARCHIVES

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How Do You Flip a Classroom,

PETER BAILLEY ’74

Classroom, Anyway?

BY ADRIANA COLINDRES

Students collaborate on problem sets in Daniel Peterson's psychology class, Research Methods and Statistics I.

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echnology is transforming classrooms at Knox in numerous ways, as faculty members develop and utilize innovative teaching methods that provide students with new ways to learn and new outlets for creativity. The techniques vary. In some instances, faculty members have adopted a “flipped classroom” model which, essentially, turns the traditional lecture-style classroom on its head. Instead of spending the bulk of classroom time listening to an instructor, students start becoming familiar with course material on their own time, sometimes by watching the instructor’s prerecorded videos. This frees up precious class time for more complex tasks, such as solving problems and

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pursuing more in-depth discussions of the reviewed course material. In another example of technology in the classroom, students who recently returned from study abroad and other off-campus programs produced threeminute digital videos about their experiences. The project, which marked the culmination of a new course offering at Knox, allowed students to draw on existing skills in writing and critical thinking as they honed previously untapped skills in digital storytelling. Here is a look at three examples of the ways Knox faculty members and students are engaging in 21st-century teaching and learning.


Anyway? How Do You Flip a Daniel Peterson: Research Methods and Statistics I class

“I feel like I have a better understanding of the material because I am able to slow down when I need to.”

Assistant Professor of Psychology Daniel Peterson implemented a flipped classroom during the 2013 fall term for Psychology 281: Research Methods and Statistics I. Students viewed the assigned video lectures, which Peterson created during the previous summer, on their own time. Class time was reserved mainly for addressing questions about the material, working through problem sets that previously would have been assigned as homework, and taking quizzes. “With this format, if you don’t understand a particular concept, then you can just watch that part of the lecture again, over and over, to your heart’s content, as much as you want to,” Peterson said. “If something is making sense to you, you can just breeze through that particular part of the video.” Peterson’s students appreciated having more control over the pace of their learning. “I feel like I have a better understanding of the material because I am able to slow down when I need to,” said Chaz Benton ’15, a psychology major. “Along with taking notes, I can also always go back to the lecture and re-watch a section if I need to, which is a big tool for studying that I have never had before.”

Julie Wertheimer ’16, a psychology major, had a similar view. “If I find myself losing focus and getting distracted, I can pause the video and come back a little later,” she said. “I also like that I don’t have to do any problems on my own. Peterson has example problems during the lecture, where he asks us to pause the video and work the problem, but then he explains how to solve the problem immediately afterward. Then we work more problems in class, so if I have any questions I can ask him right away.” After the fall term course ended, Peterson analyzed whether the flipped classroom technique helped students learn the material better than previous students had learned the same material in a traditional lecture-style presentation. According to his analysis, it clearly did. Here are some highlights of what he found: Students’ mean score on the final exam for the flipped classroom version of the course was 82—10 points higher than in Peterson’s earlier lecture version of the same course. In anonymous evaluations, 100 percent of students in Peterson’s flipped classroom rated the overall quality of the course as “excellent” or “good,” compared with 75 percent of students in a lecture version of the course. In those evaluations, 100 percent of students in the flipped classroom rated the instructor’s effectiveness as “excellent” or “good,” compared with 66 percent of students in a lecture version.

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Jaime Spacco, associate professor of computer science, offered another version of a “flipped classroom” in Computer Science 262: Information Management. Spacco’s students, like Peterson’s, watched assigned videos outside of class time. Once in the classroom, Spacco gauged how well they understood the material by asking them what he calls “clicker questions,” or multiplechoice questions projected on a screen. Students, equipped with hand-held electronic devices, voted anonymously on each question. The student responses helped Spacco identify which topics warranted extra attention. “If there’s one goal of a flipped classroom, it’s to change the moment of a student’s first contact with the material—to before they get to class,” said Spacco, who used a methodology called “peer instruction.” “The idea is you have students read ahead of time and answer a couple of review questions,” he said. “When they get to class, they do the clicker questions and they do them in a very specific way. You have them vote as individuals, and then you have a group discussion phase where they discuss the question in groups of two or three or sometimes four. Then you have them vote again, based on the consensus they reached in their group.” What ends up happening, he says, is that students use the group discussion phase to explain their reasoning behind a particular answer, to ask questions, and to help each other understand key concepts. “If you have questions, you have to articulate that” in the small group, he said. “You’re forced to confront any confusion immediately. That’s incredibly beneficial.”

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RYAN DONNELL

Jaime Spacco: Information Management class

Electronic devices, or clickers, allow students in Jaime Spacco’s Information Management class to show how well they understand the subject matter.

In anonymous course evaluations, students who referred to the flipped classroom provided positive feedback about the experience. “The flipped classroom teaching method for this class worked very well,” one student wrote. “Once lectures are available for every class, this will be an ideal way to learn.” “(Spacco’s) flipped classroom methodology was very interesting, and I think I learned a lot from it,” another student wrote. “He ensured that during class time, he could answer any questions that the students had.”

Student Ryan Frank ’14 described Spacco’s flipped classroom as working “rather well.” “It really helped because it would show me what I didn’t know or was shaky on. Flipped classes give immediate feedback so even struggling students can keep up better,” said Frank, an economics major with a minor in computer science. “A flipped classroom shifts the focus away from students who are naturally talented at the subject or (at) learning from lectures, and more towards students that put in hard work. Everyone can do that.”

“A flipped classroom shifts the focus away from students who are naturally talented at the subject or (at) learning from lectures, and more towards students that put in hard work. Everyone can do that.”


“This was learning how to tell a vibrant, short story in three-four minutes so you could actually give people a piece of what you were experiencing, what your life was like, without boring them.”

Ragan, who also directs the Eleanor Stellyes Center for Global Studies, said she was inspired to develop the course at Knox after attending two workshops about multi-media storytelling and after seeing firsthand how students often struggled when they returned from studying abroad. “I could see that the very students that had studied abroad with me when I directed programs in Barcelona or Buenos Aires were returning to feelings of loss and disorientation,” she said. “I also observed that they needed help to articulate what the experience meant to them. They are often faced with the question, ‘How was it?’ and don’t get beyond ‘It was great!’” Students in the class, including Anna Roser ’14, said it helped them more fully process their study abroad experiences. “One of the things I really liked about it was the fact that there were so many people that were curious about

Robin Ragan: Digital Storytelling for Experiential Learners

In Robin Ragan’s Digital Storytelling class, Bekah Lauer ’14, center, created a short video about her study abroad experience in Argentina. Check it out at http://ow.ly/Azr7r.

SUBMITTED

Robin Ragan, associate professor of modern languages (Spanish), taught the inaugural Digital Storytelling class during the 2014 winter term to help students reflect on recent experiences in study abroad and other immersive off-campus programs. Students in the interdisciplinary class brainstormed ideas for the self-narrated videos and revised their work in peer review groups. In addition to working with Ragan, students also received input from Elizabeth Carlin Metz, Smith V. Brand Endowed Chair in Theatre Arts, and Chad Simpson, associate professor of English, on how to polish their editing and vocal presentation skills.

stories from being abroad,” said Roser, a Spanish major from Boise, Idaho, who studied abroad in Spain and Argentina. “One of the hard parts about coming back is that people ask me how it was, and expect a one-second answer. This was learning how to tell a vibrant, short story in three-four minutes so you could actually give people a piece of what you were experiencing, what your life was like, without boring them.” Ragan said the class, which she hopes to offer again in the future, “is a great opportunity to produce a reflective, compelling, visual piece that is then easily shared with others.” The course also represents part of Knox’s commitment to the Institute of International Education’s nationwide initiative to dramatically increase the number of U.S. students who study abroad. “As with any transformative experience,” she added, “reflection is an essential component to making meaning.”

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MEETING THE MISSION OF EQUITY

Founded in 1837 on a mission of access, Knox College opened its doors to all students, regardless of race, means, gender, or background. Yet this mission didn’t necessarily mean that all students were educated equitably: like many other colleges at the time, Knox relegated women to the Female Seminary for their education until 1870. Today, women make up the majority of students on our campus, and a woman’s right to equality of education is federally protected. With the passage of Title IX of the U.S. Department of Education Amendments in 1972, gender discrimination at educational institutions that receive federal funding was prohibited. While the law is most frequently associated with gender equity in college athletics, the Department of Education applies the concept of educational equity to a number of situations, including protecting students from sexual harassment and misconduct. How colleges and universities handle cases of sexual misconduct on campus has gained traction as one of the most important and visible issues facing higher education today. From a federal task force led by Vice President Joseph Biden to the nearly 75 open investigations of potential Title IX violations at academic institutions, it’s difficult to pick up a newspaper or magazine and not read about sexual assault on college campuses. April’s announcement of an investigation of Knox by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights brought this scrutiny to the College’s practices and policies. To help our readers better understand how Knox is addressing issues of sexual misconduct on campus and guaranteeing equity in educational programs for all students, Knox Magazine asked our Title IX team a series of questions that will help shed light on one of the most complicated and difficult issues that Knox—and colleges and universities around the nation—face today.

Why does Knox need to handle sexual assaults? Shouldn’t law enforcement handle these cases? We see sexual misconduct, like other violations of our student conduct standards, as fundamentally incompatible with the College’s mission and are committed to preventing all violations and responding promptly and fairly to allegations. While the College encourages and supports students who have been victims of sexual assault or misconduct to file a criminal report with law enforcement offices, under federal

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law, Knox is still required to conduct its own investigations and address sexual misconduct independently of local law enforcement. In fact, new guidelines from the Department of Education stipulate that institutions must also investigate and report instances of dating violence, domestic violence, and stalking. Over the years, the Department of Education has made a number of changes in its interpretation of Title IX, releasing a series of “Dear Colleague” letters that provide colleges with guidance on how to comply with the Title IX requirements.


Can you briefly explain Knox’s policies and processes for handling sexual misconduct on campus? All members of the Knox community who feel that they have been the victim of sexual misconduct are encouraged to bring it to the attention of the Title IX coordinator, who is empowered to take measures to support all individuals involved in these situations and to protect the safety of the campus community through these measures. Faculty and staff members are also required to report suspected sexual misconduct to the Title IX coordinator. Confidential resources are available for all victims of sexual misconduct who may not be sure they are ready to make a formal report. Once a report has been filed, an investigation into the claim begins; interim measures can be implemented; and action is taken, which might include formal resolution in a finding by a panel of Title IXtrained faculty, staff, and students. Throughout the process, the College seeks to preserve confidentiality as much as possible, recognizing that its ability to respond to an individual case may be limited in those cases.

What changes have been made to those policies in the last year? Starting in summer 2013, Knox undertook a significant review of its policies addressing discrimination under Title IX and, in particular, identified ways that we could strengthen our response to acts of sexual misconduct. To that

end, we have trained a number of individuals to join our Title IX team and charged them with working to keep our campus free from discrimination and harassment. The College also formed a Task Force on Sexual Assault Prevention and Response that met weekly throughout the last year and, in conjunction with the Title IX team, developed new print and web materials, held campus-wide educational events, introduced bystander intervention training, and created a confidential support group for survivors, among other things. In May, students were invited to participate in two anonymous surveys: the National Collegiate Health Assessment and a Knox campus climate survey, both aimed at understanding the extent and nature of sexual misconduct on the Knox campus. The College, under the guidance of the Title IX team, will work on an ongoing basis to make sure Knox is in compliance with Title IX and remains a safe and respectful community.

Can you explain why Knox is under investigation by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR)? The U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights (OCR) investigates complaints it receives regarding Title IX violations. In January, Knox was informed that the OCR had opened an investigation into a complaint alleging that Knox had discriminated on the basis of sex in its response to a complaint of sexual

misconduct. The OCR asked to review a number of College records, including College policies and procedures, and the College has worked diligently to comply with their requests. As is typical of its fact-finding in these types of matters on college campuses, the OCR conducted a site visit in May to interview College faculty, staff, and students with regard to the allegations and to meet with selected groups of students to discuss their experiences. While we do not know when the results of the investigation will be received at this time, investigations of this type typically result in a voluntary resolution agreement between the Department of Education and the institution to implement best practices to protect students and remain in compliance with Title IX.

What are Knox’s plans for addressing sexual assaults and misconduct on campus in the future? The campus has been working to adopt best practices in addressing Title IX for some time, and we are confident that we are making substantial progress, ultimately resulting in a more equitable and safe institution. We will continue to review and adapt our policies and procedures so that Knox can respond more effectively, promptly, and equitably to alleged violations.

For more information:

www.knox.edu/titleix KNOX MAGAZINE Fall 2014

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Mortar Board Mosaic

PHOTOS BY PETER BAILLEY ’74, EVAN TEMCHIN ’10, JOHN WILLIAMS ’12

There is perhaps no better symbol of college graduation than the mortar board. And, each year, graduates sometimes take advantage of this cap to send a message to their parents and loved ones or simply to express their feelings at this moment in time. The Class of 2014 was especially creative this year, from traditional thanks to pop culture references to messages of love. Here are a few of the best examples from Commencement 2014.

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The South Lawn Two recent major equipment grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF) reinforce Knox College’s reputation as a leader in scientific research and education at the undergraduate level. A grant of $292,100 will enable Knox to purchase a new, more powerful nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometer for analyzing a wide variety of chemical compounds, while an award of $41,902 will bring a new multifunction imaging system for the study of proteins and nucleic acids. “These impressive awards from the National Science Foundation are a clear mark of the high caliber of science at Knox and the opportunities that Knox offers students to work with faculty on stateof-the-art equipment in scientific experimentation,” said Laura Behling, dean of the College and vice president for academic affairs. The NMR spectrometer uses variable magnetic fields to explore structures and processes at the molecular level. Primary users will be Knox students and faculty in chemistry, environmental studies, and physics, with potential uses in several other scientific areas. Knox also was designated by the NSF as lead institution for research with the new equipment, coordinating use by students and faculty from Knox, Monmouth College, and Illinois Central College. “Modern science is a collaborative, multidisciplinary enterprise, and we are pleased to host students and faculty from Monmouth College and Illinois Central College who will come to Knox to conduct experiments and gain hands-on experience with the latest equipment,” Behling said. The new multifunction imaging system will contribute to research and undergraduate education in biochemistry, biology, and neuroscience. The high-quality optical device is used to analyze “gels” and “blots” that allow researchers to visually study types and amounts of proteins and nucleic acids. The new instrument utilizes more environmentallyfriendly techniques and will improve data acquisition and analysis.

EVAN TEMCHIN ’10

NSF Grants “Impressive Awards” for Science at Knox

Timme Professor of Economics Roy Andersen shakes hands with Associate Dean Michael Schneider during Commencement rehearsal. Andersen retired in June after a 42-year teaching career at Knox.

Roy Andersen: The 42-Year Plan It may have taken him 42 years, but Timme Professor of Economics Roy Andersen finally completed his academic career at Knox in June. Andersen, who first came to Knox to teach in 1972, officially retired after the 2013-14 academic year. To celebrate the occasion, he joined the Class of 2014 during their Commencement rehearsal, crossing the stage along with the graduates. Andersen includes among his many accolades numerous grants to study economics abroad, including two Fulbrights, one to teach at the University of Zambia in 1980, one to study in Pakistan in 1986. He is co-author with his colleagues Robert Seibert ’63, political science, and Jon Wagner, anthropology, of the leading college textbook on the Middle East, Politics and Change in the Middle East. He was respected by his colleagues and students alike for his quick wit, curious mind—“the former can defuse difficult situations and the latter illuminate them,” said fellow economics professor Steve Cohn. In honor of Andersen’s 42-year Knox career, a reception will be held during Homecoming. Alumni memories will be shared during the event; to share your memories of Professor Andersen, e-mail jpowers@knox.edu. Visit www.knox.edu/homecoming for more details. Bruce Davis, Burkhardt Distinguished Associate Professor of Modern Languages, also retired last academic year. Davis came to Knox in 1982 to teach French and was integral to the ongoing development of the Knox in Besançon study-abroad program. He officially retired in December 2013 and, along with Roy Andersen, was named professor emeritus upon his retirement.

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EVAN TEMCHIN ’10

Fewer Food Miles, More Food Smiles For what may be the first time in a century, Knox College is growing some of its own food. Thanks to a pair of “high tunnels”—plastic-covered green-house-like structures, one of which opened this past spring—and a couple of vacant lots on South Academy Street, across from the Umbeck Science Mathematics Center, vegetables are being harvested from the Knox Farm and used by Dining Services. The first high tunnel, paid for by College funds and students themselves through the self-imposed “green fee,” was dedicated at a ribbon cutting ceremony on April 26, as part of Earth Week 2014. An adjacent high tunnel is funded in part by a grant from the Galesburg Regional Economic Development Association and will be used primarily for academic programs. The Knox tunnel has already yielded spinach and lettuce for use in the Gizmo and Hard Knox Café, with radishes, tomatoes and other crops expected in the fall. Students are justifiably proud of Knox’s most visible “sustainability” project to date. “It’s local food, grown here on campus by our students,” said Will Souman ’14.

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After more than 30 years, Alumni Hall will be open once again. Restoration work on this historic campus building began in fall 2013 and has continued throughout the year, with construction crews currently focusing on the finishing touches on the building’s interior and a new outdoor terrace. Upon its completion, Alumni Hall will have a LEED Silver certification, the first LEED-certified building on the Knox College campus. The transformation of Alumni Hall is on schedule for a Homecoming 2014 grand opening. “For the first time in more than 30 years, Alumni Hall will soon be a living, breathing building, serving as a gateway to the Knox campus and beyond,” said President Teresa Amott. “I’d like to express my sincere thanks to all of the donors who contributed to the transformation of this historic building.” Alumni Hall’s rededication will be held at 11:00 am on Saturday, October 11, immediately following Homecoming convocation. After an official ribbon cutting, the Knox community will be invited to tour the transformed building. To watch continued progress on the building, visit the Alumni Hall blog at blog.knox.edu/alumnihall. As the transformation of Alumni Hall winds down, Knox is working to finalize plans for the construction of a new art building, thanks to a $5 million donation from Dick ’57 and Joan Whitney Whitcomb ’56. The new building for studio art and art history, which are currently housed within the Ford Center for the Fine Arts, will offer Knox faculty and students state-of-the-art spaces to study and create art, as well as studios for faculty work and senior capstone projects. “This facility will be a highly designed, technologically innovative learning and working environment, designed to meet the needs of today’s art students and faculty, who work in all dimensions—2D, 3D, and multi-media” said President Teresa Amott. “The realization of this new art building shows that Knox College can dream big and follow its heart with ambitious plans to advance the vital mission of the liberal arts,” she added. COURTESY OF LAKE FLATO

EVAN TEMCHIN ’10

Alumni Hall to Open,


The South Lawn

Dick and Joan Whitcomb, who both majored in business administration at Knox, have been long-time donors to the College, supporting scholarship funds and the renovation of Alumni Hall. Their most recent gift is the largest gift from living donors in the College’s 177-year history. The architectural firm chosen for the building, Lake Flato of San Antonio, Texas, visited campus in May, meeting with faculty and students to envision the building, which will be located on the east side of the campus near the corner of Prairie and South Streets. Architectural plans and renderings will be finalized this fall, and the College hopes to break ground in spring 2015.

EVAN TEMCHIN ’10

Art Building to Begin

Top: A preliminary rendering for the new art building, which will be located on the east edge of campus. Above: Construction crews work to finalize the renovation of Alumni Hall. The rededication will be held on October 11.

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On the afternoon of Wednesday, May 14, 250 members of the Knox community gathered on the South Lawn of Old Main to talk, listen, and learn. Organized by the student collective Diversity Initiative, this walkout provided students with the opportunity to publicly share their personal Knox experiences. In a release promoting the event to Galesburg’s The Register-Mail, the Diversity Initiative said their goal was to create “meaningful solutions for the challenges of teaching and learning in a diverse world.” Issues discussed during the nearly four-hour event ranged from diversity and inclusivity on campus, to health and counseling services, to sexual assault, to administrative transparency. The students who spoke at the event expressed concern and frustration over these, and other, issues. Everyone in attendance—faculty, staff, and students alike—learned something. “I’m thankful that the administration felt comfortable to come here because this is definitely something where we need collaboration between all parties involved, so I’m grateful to have their support,” Maricruz Osorio ’14, one of the event’s organizers, told The Knox Student. Two weeks later, on May 30, Knox community members gathered once again

to continue the discussion that began at the walkout. Sponsored by the President’s Council, the Faculty Executive Committee, and the Diversity and Campus Life committees, this town hall-style meeting (pictured below) allowed the 160 faculty, staff, and students in attendance to gather in small groups and discuss the current Knox experience from a variety of perspectives. A number of issues raised at the walkout were discussed—diversity on campus, health services, internal communication—as well as a number of new items, including changes to new student orientation, faculty advising, and student housing, among others. Possible solutions to these issues were also a large part of the discussion. “I came in with a lot of frustrations . . . but I was surprised by how much I gained from it,” EVAN TEMCHIN ’10

EVAN TEMCHIN ’10

Walkout Prompts Conversations, Listening,

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The South Lawn and Learning Leaders of the Diversity Initiative, a student collective, talk to participants of an organized student walkout on May 14.

Sparks “FEMINISM is one of the best things that has ever happened to men.” Dr. Jackson Katz, from his lecture “More Than a Few Good Men: A Lecture on American Manhood and Violence Against Women,” March 10, 2014

EVAN TEMCHIN ’10

Almira Karajic ’17 told The Knox Student. “I feel like there’s hope for things to get done and, in my small group discussion, I feel like people genuinely cared and wanted Knox to be better.” A number of the concerns students shared are currently being addressed through the Knox 2018 strategic planning process, which includes a focus on making Knox a truly diverse and inclusive community both in and out of the classroom, or through standard administrative channels. For example, faculty had the opportunity to participate in workshops over the summer, supported by a faculty development grant from the Mellon Foundation, that focused on how to build inclusive classrooms. The College also recently hired a new full-time counselor for violence prevention and educational outreach. Yet, the College acknowledges, many of these issues cannot be solved overnight. “We can make immediate changes to health and counseling services, such as hiring an additional counselor or adjusting the health center to better meet student needs,” says Dean of Students Debra Southern. “Changing a campus culture, particularly as the demographics of our student body shifts, will take more time. But we are committed to making Knox a campus that is truly inclusive and welcoming for all students, faculty, and staff.” To continue the open dialogue between students, faculty, and staff, Knox plans to host similar town hall meetings at the end of each academic year. “When you can get people talking with each other about their experiences in a very safe, non-confrontational way, I think that’s a positive and an important part of the education that we offer,” said Dean of the College Laura Behling. “I think it’s a great part of the Knox education.”

NEW GIG!

“@StephenAtHome Congrats on the Look at where a degree from Knox can take you!! #knoxcollege @KnoxCollege1837”

A tweet from Sahil Kalghatgi ’07 after the announcement of Stephen Colbert as the new host of Late Night on CBS, April 11, 2014

“Every day I get to step into and explore an uncharted world that nobody else has ever seen. I have been

INORDINATELY FORTUNATE.” Alan Harn, 2014 Honorary Degree recipient for his contributions to archaeology, June 6, 2014

THE PRAIRIE FIREFLIES A newly formed faculty-student band that plays traditional American folk music and regularly hosts barn dances

COLUMBIA University, Northwestern University, University of Chicago, University of Iowa, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Yale School of Drama Just a few of the schools where members of the Class of 2014 will pursue graduate studies

“Do they have lettuce and in there too?”

BACON PLANTS

Gail Dean Cotton ’61, responding to an August 18, 2014, Facebook post highlighting the Knox Farm tomato harvest

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The ’Burg Knox Alumni Help Classmate Get Long Denied High School Diploma With help from Knox classmates who wanted to right a wrong, Alva Earley ’63 finally picked up his long-deserved high school diploma in August. The event attracted attention from numerous media outlets, including the Chicago Tribune and NPR. The story of how Earley received his diploma starts around the time of Knox’s 2013 Homecoming, when a small group of classmates who also attended Galesburg High School, gathered for a mini-reunion. The group consisted of Earley and his1963 classmates Owen Muelder, Lowell Peterson, Roger Pearson, and John Sauter. Earley stunned the others when he told them he had been denied his diploma in 1959. The reason, Earley said, was that he had attended an NAACP picnic on the north side of Lake Storey Park, an area

that back then was regarded as whitesonly.

“This is a tragedy, an injustice that needed to be rectified,” Peterson said.

Two colleges where Earley had been accepted withdrew their offers. Then-President Sharvey Umbeck, who had heard from his son about the unfair treatment of Earley, offered the young man a chance to attend Knox College.

Muelder spoke with Galesburg District 205 officials, who verified that Earley had fulfilled the requirements for graduation. At a special ceremony on August 8, Galesburg Superintendent Bart Arthur presented Earley with his diploma. An audience of more than 85 people witnessed the event, according to Galesburg’s The Register-Mail.

“At that point, Knox College became my home,” recalled Earley, who stayed at Knox for two years. He later earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois, a law degree from Chicago-Kent College of Law, and a doctor of divinity degree from Northwest Episcopal School of Theology. Now retired, he worked as a lawyer for many years. Earley’s description of what happened to him in 1959 stunned his friends. Muelder and Peterson decided to try to get Earley his high school diploma.

Earley appreciates the support he’s received from current school district officials and, especially, from his friends. “The important thing is not that I would get my diploma,” Earley said. “The important thing is that (Muelder and Peterson) would try. I have unlimited gratefulness for what they have done.” Muelder, director of the Galesburg Colony Underground Railroad Freedom Station at Knox College, said that getting the diploma into Earley’s hands is meaningful—and not just to Earley. “The stain of bigotry and racism will always, unfortunately, be part of our nation’s history,” he said, “but progress on that front has been made, and we are all better off for it.”

EVAN TEMCHIN ’10

Alva Early ’63 with classmates Owen Muelder ’63 (far left) and Lowell Peterson ’63 (far right) and President Teresa Amott.

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The South Lawn Fired Up/ Burned Out

EVAN TEMCHIN ’10

Fired Up

Rep Term: History Edition One of the main purposes of the history class Museums, Monuments, and Memory is to provide students with hands-on experience in “every part of the exhibit process, from research to construction to design to marketing,” said Catherine Denial, Burkhardt Distinguished Chair in History. “It’s meant to give them a little taste of what it’s like to be a museum professional.” Students said that’s exactly what happened. “It’s unlike any other class that is taught at Knox,” said Ai Miller ’16, a history major. “I am so fascinated by the work that goes into museums and how effortless it appears to be from the outside, when in fact, I can tell you from this class that it is a lot of work.” “This is one of those immersive classes that Knox does,” added Bridget Golembiewski ’15. “In my mind, this feels like ‘Rep Term: History Edition.’” Students in the class researched, designed, and built a new public exhibit, “People and Place,” that explored Irish, Swedish, and Mexican immigration to Galesburg. Students divided the work they needed to do in order to have the exhibit ready by the end of the spring term. Miller, for example, focused mostly on Mexican immigration to Galesburg, and she and other students gathered some of their information by reviewing oral histories from people whose families moved from Mexico to Galesburg many years ago. “People and Place” opened May 29 with a reception and a panel discussion on immigration to Galesburg, featuring local historians, and remained on display throughout the summer.

Knox’s streak of success in the literary arts continues. In this year’s Associated Colleges of the Midwest’s annual Nick Adams Short Story Contest, Knox students snagged first place—Alex Zimay ’15—and an honorable mention— Kelly Clare ’16. Knox has had 11 first-place winners, more than any other participating college, and more than 50 honorable mentions since the contest began in 1973. One month later, the College learned that the fall 2013 issue of Catch, Knox’s long-standing literary journal, received the National Program Director’s Prize for undergraduate literary magazines from the Association of Writers & Writing Programs and was heralded as the “very best undergraduate literary magazine in the country.” This is the second time Catch has received this award. Congratulations to Alex, Kelly, and the staff of Catch!

Smoldering Although predicted to repeat their Midwest Conference (MWC) South Division championship in the 2014 MWC Baseball Preseason Coaches Poll, the Prairie Fire baseball team didn’t make it to this year’s tournament. That said, the team won 16 or more games for the third consecutive season and has a combined 54 victories over the past three years—the best three-year stretch in the program’s history. And they set 13 school records. All in all, a darn good season.

An April house fire left an Academy Street home, located directly across the street from Knox’s softball field, a burned-out shell. Believed to be arson, the College is cooperating with the Galesburg Police Department (GPD) to get more information on the fire’s origins. Needless to say, the west side of campus has looked better. Let’s hope that the GPD solves the case soon . . . and that this is the last time we take this section’s title so literally.

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I am Knox — Eve Martinez ’15 Vitals Hometown: Garden Grove, California Majors: Chemistry/Spanish Campus Involvements: Pi Beta Phi sorority, Student Senate Class Year: 2015

Three Facts about Eve Eve plans to attend graduate school and pursue a career in chemistry, perhaps as an environmental research scientist. Eve, a McNair Scholar, is working with Assistant Professor of Chemistry Helen Hoyt ’01 on research in “green chemistry,” the innovative scientific field that blends chemistry and environmental sustainability. Eve will study abroad during winter term 2015 through Knox’s program in Barcelona, Spain.

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EVAN TEMCHIN ’10

Why did you choose your two majors? I did the Spanish [major] to get more in touch with my ethnic roots. Chemistry was something that I discovered I loved—and I wanted to continue pursuing—in my sophomore year. When I took a chemistry course, I realized that was something I was far more interested in. It was really a huge surprise to me because I didn’t even like chemistry in high school. Can you briefly explain your research work with Helen Hoyt and why it appeals to you? Two other students and I are working on synthesizing an iron catalyst with her. I’ve always had an interest in the environmental chemistry side of things. The project ultimately has a goal of synthesizing this catalyst prototype that can be used by pharmaceutical companies to produce medicines that would be cheaper to make. It has a social impact and an environmental impact. That’s why I liked this project. What are some of the things you like best about Knox? You get this personal connection with the professors, and it really shows how much they truly care about the students. They’ll ask you, “How’s your day going? How’s your term going?” Sometimes I wonder if I would have gotten that if I had gone to another school. I don’t think that I would. Right here, at this school, I’ve been able to do everything that I wanted—plus more. Knox is a place where students want to continue pursuing an education, even after [finishing] here. That’s motivated me to pursue graduate studies.


The South Lawn Knox Sets Two Giving Records Alumni, parents, friends, and private organizations helped Knox set two giving records this past fiscal year (July 1, 2013–June 30, 2014). Long-time donors Dick '57 and Joan WhitneyWhitcomb ’56 gave $5 million to design and build a new facility for studio art and art history—the largest gift from living donors in the College’s history. And 7,747 donors gave $3.6 million to the Knox Fund, or gifts that support the annual operations of the College—the highest total ever given to the annual fund. “The continued growth each year of the Knox Fund is amazing,” said Beverly Holmes, vice president for Advancement. “While buildings depend upon the large million dollar gifts to become reality, the Knox Fund allows all donors, no Bequests Endowment matter the size of their gift, to help Knox Gifts offer a transformational education to a Alumni Hall diverse and talented group of students.” In addition to the record-setting $5 Art Building million gift for the art building and $3.6 Knox Fund Gifts million in gifts to the Knox Fund, Knox received $2 million for the renovation of Alumni Hall, $1.4 million in realized bequests, and an additional $2 million in gifts to the College’s endowment and other operational gifts. In total, $14,515,204 in cash was received from 8,200 alumni, parents, friends, and private organizations to support Knox faculty and students. Knox’s endowment also continues to grow. As of June 30, 2014, Knox’s endowment stood at $111 million, the highest amount in College history. Knox’s recent fundraising successes, including annual growth in the Knox Fund and the College’s endowment, record-breaking fundraising totals, and successful capital projects like Alumni Hall, have won recognition from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), an international association of educational institutions. The organization recently selected Knox for a 2014 CASE Educational Fundraising Award for Overall Performance. “This recognition is possible thanks to the hard work of the Advancement office, who are committed to furthering Knox’s mission and providing the College with the resources it deserves, our Board of Trustees, who work to secure the future of the College, and the thousands of donors who generously support the College each and every year,” says Holmes. With the momentum Knox has gained with recent fundraising initiatives, the College plans to move forward with additional fundraising priorities over the next few years, including support for faculty teaching and research, new initiatives to enhance the contemporary student experience, as well as enhancements to Knox’s science building and facilities at its biological field station, Green Oaks.

$14.5 million in Gifts

Knox, IU Help Grads Pursue Affordable Law Degree Knox College and the Indiana University Maurer School of Law are embarking on a new initiative— the Knox College Law Scholars Program—to help talented Knox graduates pursue an affordable legal education at one of the country’s top law schools. Individuals who are selected for the program will receive a scholarship that reduces the cost of tuition at the Maurer School of Law by about 50 percent. Scholarship awards will range from $45,000 to $75,000 over three years, depending on the student’s residency and other factors. Students also will participate in a mentorship program and other opportunities through the law school. Each year, Knox College will nominate at least two current Knox students or alumni for the program. The nominees must meet the law school’s criteria for admission, including its minimum LSAT and cumulative grade point requirements. Knox College Pre-Law Advisor Lane Sunderland said the Law Scholars program “is particularly welcome at a time when law students face substantial financial pressures. The mentoring program will undoubtedly help the Knox law scholars face the changing environment in the legal profession.”

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Two Places to Visit the Next Time You’re on Campus

Founder’s Lab

Alumni Hall isn’t the only campus facility that’s received some TLC over the last year. Knox’s facilities staff was hard at work over the summer renovating a few familiar spaces, so be sure to check out these newly renovated spaces the next time you return to campus.

Alumni Room

Love it or hate it, gone is the chintz wallpaper that was one of the primary features of this Old Main gathering spot. Used regularly for lectures, meetings, and other presentations, the Alumni Room was in dire need of an update. With new wallpaper, tables, lighting, and seating, the Alumni Room will now provide Knox with a modern meeting space, while maintaining its historic sensibilities.

Follow the progress of other exciting campus improvements at blog.knox.edu/knoxworks.

Go Figure

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Midwest Conference Men’s Golf Champions from Knox, including this year’s James Fenner ’14

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5 2014 graduates who joined the Peace Corps

100% of Knox’s energy is now from renewable sources

EVAN TEMCHIN ’10

Last renovated in the mid-1990s, this popular computer lab in Seymour Union needed more than an upgrade in technology. Today’s Knox students don’t just study solo at a bank of computers—they also need spaces to promote collaborative learning, and a comfortable modern 24-hour study space. The new Founder’s Lab will meet these needs, and more.


The South Lawn

Knawks Hawk Evan Temchin ’10, visual media coordinator in Communications, was alerted to hawks on campus by Elysse Helms, administrative assistant for the Knox-Galesburg Symphony. “As I was headed across the lawn at 10 a.m. to get the mail, I heard a distant call, carried on the morning breeze,” Helms writes. “Moments later a Cooper’s Hawk flew across the lawn and into the evergreens outside CFA. When I walked over to the tree to investigate, a young hawk on a low branch spotted me and loudly proclaimed his disapproval, as did his sibling several branches above him. Moments later one of the mature hawks swooped in with a meal, deposited it on the branch and took off. Glorious!”

years ago Thomas Kurtz ’50 co-created BASIC Computer Language

years Abraham Lincoln (a.k.a. Lincoln Impersonator Randy Duncan) has attended Flunk Day

8 Haikus dedicated to Taco Bell in the most recent issue of Catch

KNOX COLLEGE

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7

26,000 pounds—or 13 tons—of waste diverted from landfills as part of the campus move-out recycling program

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Thirteen faculty members—let’s call them The Knox Dozen for simplicity’s sake—received tenure and promotions this past June. Ten received tenure and were promoted to associate professor; three were promoted to full professor. Between them, they hail from Spain, Turkey, Canada, Mexico, and the United States. They hold advanced degrees from Concordia University; Duke University; Washington University; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; The Ohio State University; Southern Illinois University; and the Universities of Illinois, Maryland, Chicago, Iowa, and North Carolina.

Meet Jennifer Templeton Professor of Biology At Knox since 2001

Each took time from their summer to pose for a photo for Knox Magazine, along with a tool of their trade.

Emre Sencer Associate Professor of History At Knox since 2008

Thomas Clayton Professor of Chemistry At Knox since 1991

Antonio Prado Claudia Fernandez Associate Professor of Modern Languages-Spanish At Knox since 2010

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Associate Professor of Modern Languages-Spanish At Knox since 2000

Jaime Spacco Associate Professor of Computer Science At Knox since 2010


The South Lawn

The Knox Dozen James Thrall Knight Distinguished Associate Professor for the Study of Religion & Culture At Knox since 2010

Chad Simpson

Daniel Wack

Associate Professor of English At Knox since 2005

Associate Professor of Philosophy At Knox since 2005

Matthew Jones-Rhoades Associate Professor of Biology At Knox since 2008

Nikki Malley Associate Professor of Music At Knox since 2003

Katherine Adelsberger Associate Professor and The Douglas and Maria Bayer Chair in Earth Sciences At Knox since 2008

Judith Thorn Professor of Biology At Knox since 2000

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First Impressions

From the Familiar to the Forei

“tornado sirens

Rooted in Galesburg, Hellenga’s New Book Journeys Across the World

finally something to talk about” One of 20 haiku from Wasp Shadows (Folded World, 2014) by Ben MoellerGaa ’98. In this collection of haiku, MoellerGaa takes us on a cyclical journey through what initially appears to be a typical Midwestern year, but with twists that reveal how the seemingly everyday can send life spiraling forward through the circle of time. Moeller-Gaa’s haiku, essays, and book reviews have appeared in more than 25 journals worldwide. He is author of the haiku chapbook, Blowing on a Hot Soup Spoon.

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When Robert Hellenga, professor emeritus and distinguished writer-in-residence, started teaching at Knox in 1968, he thought that the world had enough worthy fiction and didn’t feel compelled to create any more. But as he dabbled in writing, he fell in love with the craft and, over the years, transitioned from full-time professor to full-time writer. Since 1994, Hellenga has published seven novels that have taken his readers all over the globe. From the 1966 floods of Florence in The Sixteen Pleasures, to a Texas avocado farm in Philosophy Made Simple, to Midwestern snakehandlers in Snakewoman of Little Egypt, Hellenga explores a breadth of both subjects and settings. Published in July, Hellenga’s newest novel, The Confessions of Frances Godwin, is a fictional memoir of a retired high school Latin teacher looking back on her life. Though Frances’s journey takes her to Verona and Rome, she lives much of her life in Galesburg, attending Knox College and teaching at Galesburg High School.

Why did you choose to anchor Frances to Galesburg, a place you yourself have lived for 40 years? Galesburg suited my needs for a story about a retired high school Latin teacher. I’m a native Midwesterner, and I’ve lived in Galesburg for more than 40 years. I didn’t have to study Galesburg in order to claim it as my own. If I’d been writing a different kind of story—an expose of corruption in city hall or of sexual scandals at the college—I would have been tempted to create a fictional town, but that wasn’t the case, and I didn’t want a fictional town. I wanted Old Main, the last remaining site of one of the LincolnDouglas debates; I wanted the Fourth Street Bridge; I wanted Hope Cemetery; I wanted a piano tuner who remembered Carl Sandburg; I wanted Seminary Street. I had to take some liberties, of course. I had to create a very successful Latin program at the

high school, which hasn’t offered Latin for several years; and Father Viglietti hears confessions at St. Clement’s rather than at Corpus Christi; and Stella publishes poems in Catch and wins the Davenport Award for Poetry that went to a real Knox student.

Your novels include art conservators, avocado wholesalers, a painting elephant, snakehandlers—how did you do your research? I used to think that novelists just made everything up, but now I know better. For one thing, writers need to know what they’re writing about; and for another, research almost inevitably leads to discoveries. I started writing about Italy because we’d spent a year in Florence in 198283, and after that I started going back to Italy in order to write about it, and that’s been the pattern ever since: back to Florence to write about making a


Knox Writes gn

Books by Members of the Knox Community film in Florence; to Bologna to write about the strage—a terrorist bombing in 1980—in The Fall of a Sparrow; Texas to check out the avocado scene for Philosophy Made Simple; “Little Egypt” in Southern Illinois to check out the lay of the land for Snakewoman; Rome to check out the Caravaggios for a novella. I rely heavily on books too. I did not handle snakes for Snakewoman, but I did a lot of reading, especially oral histories—autobiographies of snakehandlers—and I managed to absorb the language of these snakehandlers. I also talk to a lot of people: the vice president of the association of the families of the victims of the bombing of August 2, 1980, in Bologna; the janitor at the courtroom where the terrorists were tried; a friend in Florence who helped sweep out the Cimabue chapel in the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella in Santa Croce after the flood, and another friend who’s restoring the ceiling of the apse in Santa Croce; and from the very beginning I’ve pestered Knox faculty members about all sorts of things, and I’ve relied on a neighbor for the low-down on the Shelby Cobra. Of course the internet has changed everything. You can sit at your computer and find out just about anything you want to know. I use the internet all the time, but it feels like cheating.

What advice do you find yourself giving your students?

things in the act of writing, then your reader will also discover things. By “things” I mean interesting generalizations that aren’t simply truisms, epiphanies that catch you off guard, insights that go beyond the obvious, realizations that take you to someplace new. It’s important to leave yourself open to surprises at every step of the way, even when you’re revising your 10th or 15th draft.

What are you working on now? I’ve recently finished what I think is my best short story, “A Christmas Letter” (Ploughshares, spring 2014); I’m working on other short stories and on a novella. The market for novellas is limited, but I think I’ve got a great title: The Truth About Death. So we’ll see what happens. I’m also working on another piece that may or may not turn out to be a novel. Robert Hellenga earned his B.A. in English from University of Michigan and his Ph.D. from Princeton University. His work has earned him much recognition, including a National Endowment for the Arts Artist’s Fellowship. The Confessions of Frances Godwin is his seventh novel.

Divorce in New York: The Legal Process, Your Rights, and What to Expect Addicus Books, 2013 Michael Stutman ’75 Providing accurate and objective information to help make the right decisions during a divorce in New York, this guide provides answers to 360 questions one might encounter during a divorce. Structured in a question-and-answer format, this handbook provides clear and concise responses to help build confidence and give the peace of mind needed to meet the challenges of a divorce proceeding.

Swamp Angel Spencer Hill Press, 2013 Colleen boyd ’14 Teen Rylan Forester has been having dreams of a green monster in the swamp behind his house. When he discovers that the monster is real and needs his help, Rylan is drawn into her world. In Colleen Boyd’s debut novel, she explores coming-ofage issues, as well as environmental issues as a land developer hopes to acquire Rylan’s home.

It’s very important, I think, to discover things in the act of writing. If you’re discovering

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Knox Writes The Grandson of Heinrich Schliemann & Other Truths and Fictions Mayapple Press, 2014 David E. Lunde ’63 Lunde’s new work is an odd and lyrical collection of prose poems that has been hailed as vivid and surprising. In an image-driven work caught somewhere between fiction and poetry, Lunde draws his inspiration from overheard conversations, history, and his own imagination. The Grandson of Heinrich Schliemann & Other Truths and Fictions has been hailed as vivid and enchanting.

You Are Here: From the Compass to GPS, the History and Future of How We Find Ourselves Basic Books, 2014 Hiawatha bray ’76

Smart but Stuck: Emotions in Teens and Adults with ADHD

In a history of the development of location technology in the past century, Bray examines the rise of technologically aided navigation. Our phones are now smart enough to pinpoint our presence to within a few feet— and nosy enough to share that information with governments and corporations. You Are Here tells the story of how humankind solved one of its oldest problems—only to herald a new era in which it’s impossible to hide.

Jossey-Bass, 2014 Thomas E. brown ’64

The 53rd Parallel

Smart but Stuck offers 15 true and compelling stories about intelligent, capable teens and adults who have gotten “stuck” at school, work, and/or in social relationships because of their ADHD. Brown highlights the role that emotions play in this complex disorder and explains why people with ADHD get stuck because they can focus well on some tasks that interest them, but often can’t focus adequately on other important tasks and relationships.

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Light Messages Publishing, 2014 Carl Nordgren ’73 In Carl Nordgren’s debut novel, Brian Burke and Maureen O’Toole emigrate from West Ireland to the wilderness of Northwest Ontario. Driven by the dreams of an Ojibway clan elder, they build The Great Lodge of Innish Cove and strive to protect the sacred space and ward off the encroachment of the modern world.

A Full Load of Moonlight Musical Stone Culture, 2014 Translated by David E. Lunde ’63 and Mary M. Y. Fung This anthology of Chinese Chan Buddhist poems includes 180 classical Chinese poems written by monastics and lay poets from the 7th to the 20th centuries. Collected and translated by David E. Lunde and Mary M. Y. Fung, the poems embody the spirit of the Chan school.

Film & Everyday Eco-Disasters University of Nebraska Press, 2014 Robin L. Murray and Joseph K. Heumann ’71 This book examines changing perspectives toward everday eco-disasters as reflected in the work of filmmakers from the silent era forward, with an emphasis on recent films. The authors evaluate not only the success of these films as rhetorical arguments but also their rhetorical strategies.


Class Knox

Flashback Heading Across Campus Students head south past Alumni Hall in the 1960s. Or is it the ’50s? Recognize anyone in the photo? Share the story behind the photo—e-mail knoxmag@knox.edu. To read responses to the last issue’s Flashback photo, Seeger Sings for Sandburg, visit www.knox.edu/knoxmag.

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Ed jurkens ’40 keeps busy at age 96 by volunteering

1940

We are Knox. You are, too. If you attended Knox for one year, two years, or graduated with honors, you are a Knox alumnus/a. You are the best reflection of Knox College and the education it provides. So, keep us informed. Tell us what you’ve been up to, if you’ve been promoted or honored, or simply say hello. Here’s how: • Contact your Class Correspondent; • If you don’t have a correspondent, e-mail, call, or “snail mail” us directly (see below); • Or have other media sources send us press releases, articles, and publicity. Please send information about births, marriages, and deaths directly to: Alumni Records Knox College, Box K-230 Galesburg, IL 61401-4999 E-mail: records@knox.edu Send all other updates, correspondence, or questions to: Cheri Siebken Class Notes Editor, Knox Magazine Knox College, Box K-233 Galesburg, IL 61401-4999 E-mail: csiebken@knox.edu Please note that Class Notes may be edited for space.

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A visit by Ed Jurkens to the mainland U.S. last year included a stop at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans. He spent many hours there and still didn’t see all of the exhibits, although he did have his photo taken in front of a B-24 bomber, like he flew during the war. Ed keeps busy at age 96 by volunteering at Honolulu’s Pacific Aviation Museum. ❯ John Wilson and wife Helen still live in Tucson but moved earlier this year to a senior community. They occasionally see Wyly Parsons, who lives in Prescott, Arizona. Class Correspondent: Megan Clayton Knox College, Box K-210, 2 East South Street, Galesburg, IL 61401, 309-341-7476, pclayton@knox.edu

1941 Marian Nelson Haagen took a fall and is in a nursing home in Lititz, Pennsylvania. Her husband visits her daily and reports that her spirits are good, but at present, she is unable to stand by herself. ❯ Your class correspondent, K.T. Johnson Sr., celebrated his 96th birthday on June 8 at Goodwin House, Alexandria, Virginia, where he is an independent living resident. His children, K.T. Johnson Jr. ’69 of Palm Springs, California, and Karen Johnson Bezin of Viroqua, Wisconsin, and their spouses joined him in the celebration. He still drives, though not at night, and participates extensively in the many social activities at Goodwin House. He is a member of the fitness committee and is a lay reader in the Goodwin House Episcopal Chapel. Class Correspondent: K.T. Johnson 4800 Fillmore Avenue, #1256, Alexandria, VA 22311, 703-671-8170, janskikt2@gmail.com

1942 Class Correspondent: Megan Clayton Knox College, Box K-210, 2 East South Street, Galesburg, IL 61401, 309-341-7476, pclayton@knox.edu

1943 Kenneth Wright reports that he is doing well, with a little help from a daily Manhattan. He sends greetings to all his classmates. ❯ Ginny Burrell Peterson still lives in her home, though she’s considering a move to a smaller place. She talks regularly with Kenneth Wright, Mort Monson, Burl George, and Al Kahlenberg ’44, who attends the same church. She said Al had a fall recently, but he is getting around with a walker. Ginny was especially sad to learn that Grace Copeland Balkema passed away late last year. She has wonderful memories of visiting Grace when she lived in California. ❯ Living part of the year in Florida is great for Art Holst because it gives him more time on the golf course. He says he shot his age (92!) and hit a hole-in-one in April.

Class Correspondent: Megan Clayton Knox College, Box K-210, 2 East South Street, Galesburg, IL 61401, 309-341-7476, pclayton@knox.edu

1944 Barbara Lemke wishes more classmates would write with news. She says: “I know that Marynell Kirkwood and I aren’t the last living members of the Class of 1944. Megan’s e-mail address is pclayton@knox.edu.” The work at Barbara’s house was finally finished at the end of May. This work adds new beams in the attic to replace old beams damaged by termites. Barbara continues to move things back in after having to remove many items when her home flooded last year. She hopes to get back for Homecoming to see the new Alumni Hall but says that at 91 years of age health, can be an issue. She sends best wishes to the members of our class. ❯ I had a lovely conversation with Barbara Van Vliet Badger. She says: “I was awarded a Knox ‘K’ for excellence in sports. Today, at age 92, I’m still active. I belong to a hiking group that meets weekly each spring and fall. I live in a beautifully designed retirement facility where I have the opportunity to garden. Life is still a delight, and I am active as a Jehovah’s Witness.” ❯ Jane Merrill Ruth made her annual trip to Florida last winter and enjoyed spending time with lifelong friends Bob ’47 and Jacky Stahl Malley ’48 and CL ’49 and Nadine Lehman Durham ’48. Sadly, Bob Malley passed away at the end of May. Jane will return to Omaha, where much of her family lives (including her newest great-grandson!) before heading to Michigan for the summer. She’s very busy keeping up with family activities and friends. Class Correspondent: Megan Clayton Knox College, Box K-210, 2 East South Street, Galesburg, IL 61401, 309-341-7476, pclayton@knox.edu

1945 Russ Freeburg responded to my appeal for news with the following: “The Class of 1945 is sort of the class that never was for the men in it. I, like most others, was in the service instead of at Knox. When my would-be graduation day came in June 1945, I was in Starý Plzenec, a village in western Czechoslovakia. My division, the Eighth Armored, had just arrived in the area from the Harz Mountains in central Germany. We had pulled back into the mountains looking for possible Nazi redoubts after battling our way to near the Elbe River as WWII ended in Europe. In Czechoslovakia, I had my first taste of the long Cold War to come. Instead of facing German soldiers, we faced units of the Russian Army some five miles to our east. The Iron Curtain was about to come down on all of Eastern Europe. But that was long ago. Now I’m about ready to leave Florida for the family summer cottage along the shores of northern Lake Michigan near Frankfort, a place where I love to be. There are


Class Knox at honolulu’s pacific aviation museum.

1946 Class Correspondent: Megan Clayton Knox College, Box K-210, 2 East South Street, Galesburg, IL 61401, 309-341-7476, pclayton@knox.edu

1947 Gloria Richardson Bohan plays duplicate bridge a couple times a month and gardens during the summer months. She talks regularly to Barbara Miner Landon, and the two realized recently that this was the 50th anniversary of their initiation into Pi Phi. Glo also stays in touch with pledge daughter Jeanne Kelly Phillips ’49. ❯ Sadly, Robert “Sam” Malley passed away at the end of May. He and wife Jacky Stahl Malley ’48 had recently moved to an assisted living facility in Melbourne, Florida. Jacky said that all of their children were able to be with their father before his death. Class Correspondent: Megan Clayton Knox College, Box K-210, 2 East South Street, Galesburg, IL 61401, 309-341-7476, pclayton@knox.edu

1948 To begin the note of Knox 1948, I would say that my wife and I just returned from Ashland, Oregon, where they hold a Shakespeare Festival. We booked a cottage for the week and had our eldest son and his wife, as well as our daughter and her husband, as guests for a couple of plays. We go each year. The best thing we saw was The Tempest, which was truly outstanding. We’ll go next year, health permitting. ❯ Jim Bowman is no longer available on the internet, but in a recent letter he writes: “I am settled in for the long haul this time. I’m now in a simple room on the third floor of an assisted living facility, and I like it very much. I’ve dispersed all my own furniture to relatives and have an adjustable hospital bed opposite a three-drawer chest and the TV. I like to watch the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives when they are in

session. I use a walker all the time.” ❯ Claudia Ludwick Zuege writes: “We, like the rest of our class, are hanging in there! I enjoy reading the Knox publications and reminiscing about our years on campus. Since Burt Zuege is blind, I am the chief cook and bottle washer. The month of May brought our fourth great-grandchild. Life is good!” ❯ Elizabeth Harler Van Steenwyk writes: “I had a visitor in my office this morning. He is a young black alpaca named Misfit who just joined our flock of animals that live on the ranch directly across from the winery. I’m rather astounded when I look across the field where lambs, their moms, one llama, and several alpacas live in close comfort, sharing the bounty of the fields. They also look for handouts of kibble, and so I had company from Misfit early this morning looking for a bowl of cereal. The animals are fenced in, but we have several escape artists who lead the rest astray. We are having fun times in our family these days, as my grandchildren are graduating one after the other. This spring, a granddaughter became a physician, a grandson became an attorney with an MBA, one graduated with honors in physics, one in economics and Chinese studies, and one more with a B.S. in computer science. The last three are headed for master’s degrees in the fall. And then there is Emma ’17, who is completing her freshman year at Knox. She isn’t home yet, so I can’t comment on her experiences, but I’m sure she’s been enjoying it. Hope to see you at Homecoming in October.” ❯ My college roommate, Ernie Bassi, writes: “Things are fine here. I’m still flying. I’ve been to New York a couple times lately, and I’m expecting to go again soon, as my grandson’s wife is expecting any day now. In Judaism, there is a big event on the eighth day after the birth, and I plan on attending. I think I have told you I now have a daughter, her husband, two grandchildren with their spouses, and two great grandchildren (soon to be three) living there. I’m happy that they can be so close. I think they enjoy it. We had a long, cold winter, so I was up in the Stearman only four times this spring. It is a fair weather airplane.” ❯ Jacky Stahl Malley writes: “It is with a sad heart I must tell you that Sam Malley ’47 died on May 31. He died very peacefully and had put up a good fight, but his heart gave out; it served him well for his 93 years. We would have chalked up 66 years married on June 14.” Class Correspondent: Sidney E. Norris 3135 Agate Street, Eugene, OR 97405, 541-683-6160, senorris@riousa.com

1949 Class Correspondent: Megan Clayton Knox College, Box K-210, 2 East South Street, Galesburg, IL 61401, 309-341-7476, pclayton@knox.edu

1950 I called to talk to Ralph Trieger. He is working through some health issues, but he still talks

regularly with Don Heidorn and Joe Wagner. Ralph asked about Knox, and we talked about some of the paintings he did while a student. One of the Standish home hangs above my desk. ❯ We celebrate all things “50” at the FYC, including wedding anniversaries, pinnings, initiations, etc. Tom Kurtz is celebrating a big 50th anniversary as one of the founders of the BASIC computer language. Tom writes: “Dartmouth College recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of the birth of the BASIC computer language. During the celebration, it was announced that a gift as part of a major contribution to Dartmouth from William Neukom, Dartmouth ’64, included funds for the Thomas E. Kurtz Professor of Computer Science.” Tom would love to see anyone from Knox who might be in the Hanover, New Hampshire, area. ❯ Joan Felter Hotchkiss moved to The Kensington in Galesburg, which was formerly the Custer Hotel. She writes: “I have a nice three-room apartment and all my meals. I retrieve my mail in the old Three Crown Room, now a lounge. For many of us the Three Crown Room was our Friday night hang-out with Joe’s Place for our Saturday night entertainment. What memories! I had a

SUBMITTED

numerous Knox families in the area each summer at the Congregational Summer Assembly, and I look forward to seeing them. I first went there for three weeks in the early summer of 1942 with four other Knox students: Jack Terry, Bob Walton ’44, Walt Howland, and Phil Mariner ’48. We stayed in the Terry cottage. We had just finished our freshman year—our last fling before going to war.” ❯ As I was searching for news from classmates, I also learned that Mary Schutt Lyman ’44 passed away. Her daughter, Mary, sent a quick e-mail to let me know. ❯ Walter Howland responded to my e-mail with the news of the death of classmate Bob Walton ’44. Bob was the son of Walter’s biology professor, Arthur Walton. Class Correspondent: Megan Clayton Knox College, Box K-210, 2 East South Street, Galesburg, IL 61401, 309-341-7476, pclayton@knox.edu

Last Living Lombard Alumnus Ray Truedson L’32—the last living Lombard College alumnus—was at a recent Chicago Knox Club event. Ray turned 104 on February 15, Founders Day for both Knox and Lombard Colleges.

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Jerry ’57 and jackie geis treece ’55 are still working on their bucket wonderful surprise last fall when Mark Gunnison, son of Bob ’48 and Catherine Lackland Gunnison, called to say that he and his two brothers and their respective families were going to visit Knox. They wanted to view the memorial garden that they had donated to honor their parents and wanted me to join them. They had never seen the campus and thought it beautiful. As we toured the grounds, I told some anecdotes about their parents’ courtship—the Whiting Hall steps at curfew, Benji, and Miss Smythe. They loved peering through this window into their parents’ past. Following the tour, we all gathered for dinner at Chez Willy’s on Seminary Street. As luck would have it, President Teresa Amott was also dining there and, when I informed her of our visitors, she came at once and talked to the family at length. They were impressed that President Amott spent so much time with them. ❯ “Over the past couple of years, Mary Runyon Gibbs ’51 and I have met for coffee often on the days that her husband, Chuck Gibbs, had dialysis. He passed away in February and, during his funeral, his son gave a very touching eulogy. I am a member the ‘Siwash Sisters’ book club, formed a number of years ago by Helen ‘Tede’ Verner ’59 and M. L. Olson Dredge ’48. All of us are either Knox alumnae or have direct connections to the school. Carlene Nichols Barstow and Mary Runyon Gibbs are also members, so I see them at both book club and Pi Phi alum meetings. We’ve

been friends for almost 70 years! My older daughter, Debbie Hotchkiss Mastin ’75, and her husband, Wayne Mastin ’75 live in Knoxville, as does their daughter, her husband, and two of my great-grandchildren, both girls. Their son, a Bradley graduate, teaches and coaches in a small district near Danville, Illinois. Debbie has taught first grade in Galesburg for 38 years and will retire next year. She and Evan Massey ’74 are the longest tenured teachers in the district. My other daughter, Shawna, and her husband live in Huntley, Illinois, near their daughter and my other great-grand, also a little girl. The Knox campus has expanded tremendously since our era. I’m amazed by the increase in student population and the diversity of the student body, and then there’s one other big change—students addressing their College president by first name. I’m perfectly fine with this and somewhat envious of such latitude.” ❯ Karl Gengler is feeling fine at 89! He sends his best to his classmates and hopes everyone is doing well. ❯ In 1948, Professor Bob Harper introduced young Wayne Ashley to some of the best-known psychologists at Harvard, where he himself had studied. Now, some 66 years later, Wayne is planning his retirement as a clinical psychologist. He says Dr. Harper’s assistance so many years ago was a brilliant start to his career, and he will always be grateful to him. ❯ Doris Gilson Gundersen and husband Glenn are proud of their five greatgrandchildren and are excited to be celebrating 66 years of marriage this year! Class Correspondent: Megan Clayton Knox College, Box K-210, 2 East South Street, Galesburg, IL 61401, 309-341-7476, pclayton@knox.edu

KNOX COLLEGE ARCHIVES

1951

BASIC Turns 50 May 1, 2014 marked the 50th anniversary of BASIC, a computer language developed by Tom Kurtz ’50 and colleagues at Dartmouth College that remains at the core of modern digital computing.

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Irmgart Miller stays in contact with Georgine Hofeldt Kryda ’52 and Shirley Fries Simandl ’50, but she sends greetings to all her 1951 classmates. Irmgart says she’s spent too much time in restorative therapy this year for issues with her legs and hand. ❯ I learned that Nancy Snell Burgess is temporarily in assisted living but getting better every day. Her daughter helps with mail and other needs, but Nancy would love to hear from classmates. ❯ Patricia Kimble Simmons passed away on February 8. She met husband Don Simmons ’50 as a Knox student when they were cast together in The Desert Song, beginning a lifetime of shared music. Among the many volunteer and philanthropic activities she was involved with during her lifetime, Patricia directed the Montana Arts Council’s Artists in the School program and designed events for the first Montana Governor’s awards in both the arts and the humanities. Patricia and Don had three children. Class Correspondent: Megan Clayton Knox College, Box K-210, 2 East South Street, Galesburg, IL 61401, 309-341-7476, pclayton@knox.edu

1952 I really enjoy hearing from you! I hope more of you will write next time. And wasn’t the last issue of the Knox Magazine wonderful? It was the best issue yet in my estimation. ❯ Myrle Trieger Summerford writes: “I agree that the last issue of the Knox Magazine was amazing. Energy, intelligence, and creativity vibrated off the pages. Knox College is truly a wonderful place—but we knew that! I retired from 26 years of teaching in the Bellevue, Washington, schools and then volunteered for 11 more. Arthritis and walking with a cane finally made me stop. Chuck died two years ago, several weeks before our 60th wedding anniversary. We had five kids—all grey haired now. Four are close by, and one daughter in Virginia is a grandmother, so I now have a greatgrand. My grandkid count is seven, and when we all get together, there is quite a crowd. I enjoy all the Knox publications and especially enjoyed the article on the trees of the campus. I would love to visit someday. I have it on my list of things to do!” ❯ Jim Wagner says: “About 11 years ago, wife Roberta and I downsized from the ‘dream house’ we designed and built near Grass Valley, California, to our present home in Sparks, Nevada. The house in Grass Valley was 3,700 square feet on two acres. We lived there for 12 years, but it just became too much to care for, so in 2002, we moved to a 55 and older gated community (new at the time) here in Sparks that we’ve come to enjoy very much. When people ask where we’re from, we say Reno. The two cities have grown together now. I’ve been flying airplanes for about 40 years. I started flying gliders four years ago but finally gave that up last year. I enjoyed flying very much, and I miss it a lot. I’m on a senior bowling team now, and I have a daughter and granddaughter in the area. There’s a lot going on around here in the summer with festivals and concerts, etc. We’re one hour from Lake Tahoe and/or Donner Lake, where we find cooler air on the 90-plus days we have in Reno in July and August. I work out in a gym three days a week, and I am in good health at age 84. Best regards to everyone.” ❯ From Dorothy White Mrkvicka: “Next month, George Mrkvicka and I will downsize from a four-bedroom house to a condo after 48 years in the ‘big house.’ Not easy. We will stay in Glen Ellyn because we like it here. We still winter in Florida, which was such a good time this past winter! Still golfing, but less and less. Haven’t been back to Knox since the year Jeneinne Anderson Warnell and I went over the Mississippi and realized we had overshot Galesburg a bit. We still made it in time to see Clinton at Commencement! George says his Knox years were the best of his life. We enjoy hearing from all our classmates, so keep on sending notes!” ❯ Frank Johnson and his wife, Carol write: “We are still in Florida, although we have moved twice in the last year after we sold our home in Venice. We are now in Englewood


Class Knox list with trips to the arctic circle, south pacific, and more. with a beautiful view of Lemon Bay. We look forward to seeing Roger and Marilyn Nelson Coleman ’53 every year as they spend time in Fort Myers, where the FYC will hold their meeting next year. Jay Burgess ’51 and wife Shay also live in the area. In the summer we go to Kalamazoo, Michigan, and Bill Corkill and wife Jean stop by on their way to see relatives in Grand Rapids. They live in Arizona.” ❯ Anne Claypool Brown moved to a town outside of Omaha, Nebraska, where she is happy to be closer to her son, daughter, and grandchildren. Anne will make a stop in Galesburg later this summer to donate a pump so that Knox has a genuine pump for Pumphandle. The pump came from a farm in Hampshire, Illinois, which belonged to the family of her late husband, Gordon Brown ’54. ❯ It was a shock to learn that Don Stroben passed away in late May and an even greater shock to learn that Bob Quirk ’53 had passed just three days earlier. The two were responsible for planning and hosting a mid ’50s Phi Delta Theta Reunion during last year’s Homecoming. ❯ Mary Ellen McNamara McArdle returned to campus in June accompanied by all her children. The group toured the Knox campus, the Railroad Museum, and visited all of Mary Ellen’s childhood haunts in Galesburg. She also attended a FYC luncheon with her daughter, Nancy Peske. Class Correspondent: Anne Reutlinger Porter 407 Russell Avenue, Apartment 316, Gaithersburg, MD 20877-2853, 301-987-6894, justjim22@gmail.com

1953 Class Correspondent: Nevin C. Lescher 295 Reed Avenue, Windsor Locks, CT 06096, 860-623-0550, nesu@cox.net

1954 In the spring Knox Magazine, I offered to donate $60 to the FYC in the name of the class member who was first to name our Commencement speaker. ❯ The winner was Ron Pearson, who was quick to call the FYC’s Megan Clayton, and my check has been cashed. Ron is a worthy winner; we’ve known each other since our teens, playing on the same youth softball team. The speaker was Carlos Romulo, past president of the United Nations. He spoke about the Cold War conflict between the East and West. ❯ Sara Jane Obenlander Allensworth also had the correct answer and some additional information to settle an argument she had with Dick Walker at our 50th Reunion. Dick, she says, insisted that Commencement was held outside the east entrance to Old Main. Not so, says Sara Jane. Because of rain it was held at Central Congregational Church, and, for proof, she has a copy of The Register-Mail with a picture on the front page of her receiving her diploma from President Sharvey Umbeck; Romulo is also in the picture. Our Baccalaureate was outside of Old

Main on Sunday morning, a gorgeous day, Sara Jane says. ❯ My memory is not nearly as good, but, as I write, I am wearing a watch that was a graduation gift, and I believe I do know where to find my diploma. ❯ August was a big month for Lucinda “Tink” Lutz Scherer and husband Frank, who hosted a family reunion for sons and their families from Florida and California and daughter and her family from New Jersey. Says Tink: “We got together to play and have fun for a couple of weeks to celebrate our 60th wedding anniversary and oldest son’s 57th birthday.” Wow! How many our age are up for that much fun? ❯ Pam Pierson Glass and husband Bob may be. In June they took their 12th Road Scholar (formerly Elderhostel) trip, this time to the Chesapeake Bay area. The trips, Pam says, are very interesting; they have met great people and seen lots of the country. Both Pam and Bob are fine. They volunteer two days a week at their hospital in the Tyler area of Texas, a good place to retire with superb medical facilities. It’s close enough to Dallas or Houston and still small enough not to be overcrowded. ❯ One classmate who still works is Clark Andrews. Clark retired after 36 years with IBM in sales and marketing, first with electric typewriters and then in the data processing division. For the past 24 years, he has been a realtor with Baird and Warner in the Fox Valley area of Chicagoland. Clark and wife Anita enjoy country living on a horse farm west of St. Charles, Illinois. ❯ In March, we lost another class member, Russ Schwem, who is remembered for many things, including filling this space as class correspondent for many years. ❯ In my spring notes, I mentioned an interesting date of many years ago with the late Ardzie Bourns Hahn. That brought a response from Dan Kimble ’56, who also remembered Ardzie fondly. Dan lives in Eugene, Oregon, where he taught from 1963 to 2003 in the psychology department of the University of Oregon. Now long retired, Dan says he is trying to keep fit with yoga and weight classes and has become a “hobby painter” in watercolors. ❯ During spring break, I was visited by a current Knox student from Los Angeles, Kate Mishkin ’16, and interviewed for an oral history project. Unaccustomed to long conversations with people one-fourth my age, I soon realized the need for further explanation of things that seemed commonplace to me, but it was a pleasant and interesting experience. One memory of campus days that comes to me as I read the daily news is a class in Middle Eastern politics taught by Charles Lerche, who said flatly, “There will never be peace in the Middle East.” Still true after 61 years. Class Correspondent: Jim Dunlevey 27419 Embassy Street, Menifee, CA 92586-2005, dunlevey@aol.com

1955 An alert from Lynn Weise Victor: “At a stoplight, in a car adjacent to mine, was a Knox alum from

the Class of 1992, and I continue to wonder who that was. It was a Saturday afternoon in February 2014 at the intersection of Ninth Street and Circle Avenue in Corvallis, Oregon. With a Knox sticker on the backs of our cars, we, nodding, acknowledged the other as former Knox students, decades apart, and then the light turned green and off we went. Two unknowns with a wonderful place in common. But who was that adjacent driver who was only able to call out ‘1992!’?” ❯ North of Corvallis, Jim Lockett is holding down an outpost for ’55 alumni. He lives in Washington State, near that awful Oslo landslide and warns that Mount St. Helens is stirring. With our current weather patterns, it’s difficult to find a really safe place to live. ❯ On re-reading this column from the last issue, I was chagrined to see I didn’t mention the passing of Bill Lynch last September. He spent his last days with his family, who took wonderful care of him. My apologies for that oversight. ❯ Jerry ’57 and Jackie Geis Treece are still working on their bucket list, and in my opinion, making amazing progress. They have been to the Arctic Circle and Norway (as far north as Spitsbergen) and have just returned from Hawaii, Samoa, and the South Pacific. Their next trip will be to Japan and Eastern Russia. Their oldest granddaughter was married in December. ❯ Russ Fuiks took his grandson, Morgan, who was a high school junior then, on a train ride to visit Knox over the New Year’s weekend. They took a campus walk in eight-degree weather, but had a good time. When I heard from Russ, he was looking forward to several days at Disney World with his family of 10. ❯ Mary Ann Ruzecki and I have had a couple good phone visits lately. She, like all of us along Florida’s east coast, is concerned about the beach erosion. Mary Ann has a house just across from the water in Flagler Beach. She urged us to stop on our next trip north to see what a charming community it is. ❯ This from Bill Ives: “We just returned from a restful Paris trip doing little except walk, munch baguettes, sip wine, and people watch. Being totally unscheduled was wonderful. I have three grandchildren graduating this month: a granddaughter from high school and another granddaughter and grandson from college. While there will be much happy socializing, my wallet will be noticeably lighter.” ❯ Did you know Paul Johnson was a speed skater in high school? Back then, he skated with a teammate who won a gold medal in the 1952 Olympics 500 meter event. No wonder he wanted to flood an area on campus to create an ice pond the winter of ’54-’55. Sadly, he didn’t get a chance to try out his skates on that aborted project. There’s a picture of him and Bob Albrecht viewing the resulting puddle in the ’55 Gale, and I think Paul is holding his beloved speed skates. ❯ Tony Liberta was on the Knox campus in May to attend a luncheon given in honor of this year’s recipient of the Rev. Pete Hosutt Scholarship, a young lady from the Philippines who will graduate in June but remain

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Marilyn white lowe ’57 is performing piano concerts this year in six on campus as a laboratory coordinator for chemistry courses. The campus was being prepared for the upcoming graduation when he was there, and the renovation of Alumni Hall is still scheduled to be complete by this fall. An amazing project. ❯ Tony forwarded me a picture of Wally Larkin and wife Sue on their annual visit to the Isle of Skye. Sue is beautiful, and Wally looks pretty good too. ❯ Jim Nethery and wife Maxine spent eight weeks in Hawaii last year, along with four weeks in Switzerland and Italy. When they docked in Tampa in February, returning from a two-week cruise, they heard it was minus 18 degrees in the Chicago area, so Jim immediately signed up for another week-long cruise, so they never had to leave the ship! Their 50-year-old house has “settled” and had to have major rehabbing—the chimney separated from the house, etc. Everything is fine now except the budget. ❯ Ward Knockemus retired after teaching chemistry since we graduated, beginning with an assistantship at Penn State. He and wife Evy lived in Montgomery, Alabama, for 26 years while he taught at Huntingdon College. He also did research for NASA in Huntsville for a couple of years. Evy was a student of his at Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa. They will celebrate their 50th anniversary in December. They have three children and six grands, who live in Alabama, Virginia, and South Carolina. Ward is a golfer, “messes” with radiocontrolled model airplanes, and is a former flyer of Piper Cub airplanes. He loved it all— especially the good times at Old Siwash. ❯ Bud and I had a family reunion recently at Wake Forest’s commencement, where our youngest granddaughter was a member of the Class of 2014. I soldiered through with a broken wrist. Watch out for those concrete barriers in the front of parking places—they reach out and trip people who are in a hurry. ❯ My thanks to all who responded to my plea for news. It makes it a cinch to write a column with all this material, even with a wrist brace. I hope you respond as generously next time. ❯ And now to close: Don ’53 and Gail Holmes Curtis just returned from a four-week cruise of the Bahama Islands aboard their boat, Dolphin. They limped into Nassau on one engine, which Don was able to repair, and then got stuck there for a week waiting for decent weather to head back to Florida. At the top of a hill in the Exuma Land and Sea Park, they found a bench with a quote that applies to us all: “Do not regret getting old. It is a privilege denied of many.” Class Correspondent: Dorothy Thomas Wharton 3511 S.E. Fairway West, Stuart, FL 34997-6033, 772-220-9433, dtwharton33@gmail.com

1956 Grandkids and birthdays seem to be in the limelight this year for our classmates. Mac Edwards and wife Sue report: “Grandkids are

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keeping us busy. First granddaughter graduated from Kansas University Medical School and is beginning a residency at University of Oklahoma Children’s Hospital. Second granddaughter graduated from Kansas University School of Pharmacy. Third granddaughter is a high school junior, runs track, and is a state champ on a 400meter relay team. Grandsons are hard-pressed to keep up—as are the grandparents!” ❯ Barb Condon Sappington writes: “We attended our granddaughter’s wedding in September, and now have found out that our first great-grandchild will arrive in December. I had a glorious 80th birthday celebration May 3-4. All children and grandchildren were here with their families. My sister, Joan, and her husband from Coronado, California, as well as my brother, Jack, from Albuquerque came to celebrate with me. It was a fun weekend, and we enjoyed seeing everybody together. Two grandsons graduated, one from college and one from high school, in May and June. Bob and I are planning a trip to Montana. In Lakewood, California (though it was named the most boring city in California), we’re doing fine despite the fires and the drought.” ❯ When Bob and Paula Egbert Kadanec spend the winter months in Aiken, South Carolina, they have lots of opportunities to share holidays and other special occasions with their son and daughter and their families, who live in Gaffney, North Carolina. Granddaughter Rebeka Wellmon has finished her freshman year at Clemson University with a 4.0 grade-point average and spent six weeks in Brussels taking communications courses. ❯ Dan Kimble writes that he will be 80 in November. He and wife Reeva celebrated their 51st wedding anniversary in July. They traveled to Chicago in May for a quick visit with their daughter, Sara, and her two daughters. Sara teaches at DePaul University. Dan also writes that his sister, Pat Kimble Simmons ’51, died in February and he and Reeva attended a lovely celebration of life for her in Missoula in May. Pat’s son is a well-known actor in TV and movies—J.K. Simmons. Dan adds that “The K is for Kimble, of course. We see Keith Achepohl from time to time when he is not in Italy or somewhere exotic. I continue to paint watercolors and show them in local restaurants. Reeva is busy with various craft projects and keeping up with our five grandkids. We are well and look forward to another 10-15 years of health, but it is one day at a time, isn’t it?” ❯ Ricky Jung Schwarzler reports that she and husband Bob Schwarzler ’55 took a train tour in May of the Canadian Rockies. The itinerary included time at Lake Louise and Banff, as well as stops in some lesser-known towns. Upon their return, they had visits with family and friends, including Ricky’s sister, Ann Jung Finney ’58. ❯ Jerry Cuthbert writes: “I can’t believe I’m going to be 80 in July, but when I realize that Andree and I have been married 58 years (June 2), and we have four kids, eight grandkids, and seven greatgrandkids, I guess it’s time to be 80. I’ve had a

quad-bypass and two stents in my heart and prostate cancer, but I feel great. I just hope I feel this good the next time I hear from you. No long trips this summer. Since we visited my sister in Toronto last fall, she visited us in August.” ❯ Burt Sargeant writes that he and wife Cleo traveled to the Midwest from Seattle to Nashvile, Tennessee, and Jackson, Mississippi, for the weddings of two grandsons. They also spent a week in Knox County with Burt’s sisters on the family farm near Knox’s Green Oaks. On this Midwest trip, they also visited with many friends, some from Knox—Len McFarland, George Melton, and Bob Potts. On their way back to Seattle, they stopped in Mankato, Minnesota, for a visit with Cleo’s sister. By the time they got home, they had driven 6,200 miles! Burt added: “Since Cleo and I both grew up in the Midwest, we still have many friends there—although we keep losing some every year. Cleo just turned 84, and I hit the big 80. Health has been good this year, unlike last year when I had seven trips to the ER for a heart stent and a gall bladder stent.” ❯ David Yount and wife Rebecca will exchange homes again this year for their summer vacation—this time to an ancient vicarage in the West Country of England near Taunton. Much of the area was literally under water from winter flooding, but the waters have since receded. Becky’s fourth book in her “Mick Chandra” mystery series, The Oracle of Baal, was published to five-star reviews in late spring. David labors at what will be his 16th book, proposing effective ways to read the Bible. ❯ Kudos to Dick ’57 and Joan Whitney Whitecomb. They are the generous lead donors for a new academic building for studio art and art history. Their $5 million gift is the largest gift from living donors in Knox College’s 177-year history. Dick and Joan both majored in business administration at Knox, and Dick was the founder of Gypsum Management and Supply, the nation’s largest independent distributor of specialty building materials. In their hometown of Atlanta, they are long-time supporters of the arts. With this gift to Knox, they combine their love for their alma mater with their passion for the arts. At Knox, they have also supported scholarship funds and the renovation of Alumni Hall. ❯ Stay healthy everyone and continue to enjoy life so that you have lots of news for our next class notes! Class Correspondent: Phyllis Holowaty Albrecht 36 Warrington Drive, Lake Bluff, IL 60044-1321, 847-234-7062, albrecjp@aol.com

1957 I enjoyed talking with many members of the Class of ’57. One thing that was common to all was the pride of being associated with Knox. Seemingly, we all have reached the age of retirement and have time to reflect on those years we all experienced during our college days. Hearing so many talk fondly of Sharvey, Wilbur,


Class Knox european countries. and Doc brought back many smiles. ❯ Art Mampel, who resides in the Seattle area, was a minister for the Congregational Church for 40 years. Most of that time was in the Seattle area, but a good part of that time he was also assigned to Hawaii. God works in mysterious ways! Now that he is retired, he has become a published poet. When he is not compiling new literary gems, he enjoys restoring old cars, including a 1931 Model A. ❯ Marilyn White Lowe is very active performing piano concerts this year in six European countries. Her theme is “Music Moves for Piano.” She lives in the Springfield, Missouri, area, where she continues to teach music. ❯ Jerry Zinser continues to show his leadership abilities. You might recall that Jerry was our class’s student senate president. Now retired from his executive role in the computer industry, where he witnessed and influenced the development of this industry, he volunteers in mediation arbitration. He and wife Mary live in the Los Angeles area, where cultivating his interest in classical music keeps him busy and active with the University of California, Los Angeles community. ❯ Donna Sandquist Hull is also a West Coast resident, now retired from the position of secretary to a family-owned business. She loves being with her five grandchildren and the joy they bring to her life. ❯ Now for my Bill Shaffer moment. Our class philosopher recently wrote to me with this observation: A Hungarian author, Frigyes Karinthy, suggested we are all connected. Mathematicians and network theory buffs tell us any two people are connected by six or fewer intermediaries. Applying this is easy, just keep track of how many Knox alumni are around you everywhere. Bill worked for IBM in the Atlanta area decades ago. A friend of Bill’s takes bible study at his church. One day at bible study, sitting across the table, was a Knox alumnus. Not the Class of ’57, but close enough. Bill’s challenge to his classmates is to pay attention to the links to someone who knows someone who knows a Knox alum. Frigyes would be proud. ❯ To say amen to that comment, I live in a subdivision here in Florida called Rosedale. You can imagine my surprise when I learned that just a few homes from mine are two Knox graduates, Bob ’66 and Carol Romsa Parke ’67. Class Correspondent: Jack O’Dowd 4837 88th Street E., Bradenton, FL 34211-3606, 941-753-1483 jodowd310@msn.com

1958 Harry Channon responded to my class inquiry that after 30 years of teaching at University of Illinois at Chicago College of Dentistry, Department of Pediatric Dentistry, he retired on May 1. He reported that he had three Knox graduates as students during his teaching tenure and commented that they were all well prepared for graduate studies. That speaks well for a Knox education! Harry plans to spend more time playing golf, as all his family are golfers. Besides

golf, upcoming travel includes northern Italy, a cruise on the Po River, and time in Venice. He and wife Fran will also spend time with nine grandchildren; the oldest graduated from the University of Delaware in May. Later in the year, they will visit the Cayman Islands. ❯ Bob Borzello doesn’t play golf but is very busy dividing his time between London, a cottage in the mountains of Wales, and a flat in Venice. He manages the family charity, The Camden Trust, which started a program recording the social history of Aberystwyth University in Wales, along with an oral history of North Wales seaside holiday towns, to be presented in a filmed musical format. The Trust also helped set up a similar project at Knox College, run by the journalism department with Assistant Professor of Journalism Jim Dyer in charge. When we talked, Bob was in London organizing his company’s reunion for former employees. We are all grateful for Bob’s contributions to Knox. ❯ Don ’56 and Suzanne Lisio and are busy folks these days. Don was getting ready for his high school buddies to visit San Diego to celebrate their 80th birthdays. Lisios did find time to attend the Knox West Coast reunion at the Mission of San Juan Capistrano. Suzie said a deadline was looming for Don’s book regarding British insistence on naval supremacy and the antagonisms between Great Britain and U.S. between WWI and WWII. British Naval Supremacy and Anglo-American Antagonisms, 1914-1930 will be published this fall. ❯ I always regret reporting sad class news. Carole Wilson Smrz died at home in Galesburg on March 16. Carole was member of Delta Zeta Sorority Alums, Cameo Craft Club, volunteered at Community Treasures Resale Shop, and was an active member of the Presbyterian Church after her retirement from Associated Bank. ❯ Richard “Dick” Clark died in North Carolina on May 11. He grew up in Galesburg, graduated from Knox, then got his degree from Western Illinois University and began his teaching career in Illinois. While in college he was captain of Knox’s golf team. Being a lifelong golfer, Dick and his wife moved to a home on a golf course in eastern North Carolina in 1998. ❯ Fred Kauffman reports that he has been teaching a class at the Lake Michigan Community College Community Education Program entitled Heroines and Heroes in Contemporary Science and Medicine. Fred retired from Rutgers University, where he was named Distinguished Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology. His wife, Ella, died May 4 in South Haven, overlooking beautiful Lake Michigan. Ella was an RN, retiring in 1995 in service to Central New Jersey Visiting Nurse Association. Ella and Fred loved to travel and attended various international medical meetings around the world. They always took part in holiday gatherings in New York with other Knox classmates. ❯ Anita Tosetti Johnson, one of the New York Knox group, summed up her thoughts: “We will go on

together with our precious friends without forgetting those who have gone before us. We have so much to remember and share.” ❯ Anita returned to Peoria, Illinois, from her Florida home at the end of May to plan the Peoria High School 60th reunion. ❯ Many of us have 60th high school reunions this year. Bill Baker and I attended the Alumni Council meeting in early June at Commencement. The bi-annual meetings are always informative, and we are honored to represent our class and FYC. Feel free to contact us with Knox issues: wbaker03@sbcglobal.net or letnor@comcast.net I’m grateful for the few who responded to my plea for class information— much appreciated by this correspondent! Class Correspondent: Letitia Luther Schactner 246 East Dayton Street, Galesburg, IL 61401-1833, 309-342-0748, letnor@comcast.net

1959 Tede Verner has served on two boards in Galesburg during the past couple of years: the Galesburg Public Art Commission and the Carl Sandburg Site Committee. (Her grandmother was in Sandburg’s class in school.) The Public Arts Commission has commissioned Lonnie Stewart of Galesburg to create a bronze statue of Sandburg and one of his favorite national prize-winning Nubian goats, Nellie. The works have been completed and are waiting in the Ameren building, a block north of the square, where they are lighted and on display until the grounds can be rearranged. The statues will eventually be placed in the city square, which will include walkways, benches, and landscaping. ❯ Art ’57 and Judy Storck Carlson are very involved with the nonprofit foundation their Daughter, Kelly, and another woman have founded to fund a school for autistic children. Kelly’s daughter, Gillian, attends the school. For more information, visit www.alexanderleighcenterforautism.com. ❯ Ralph Harju and wife Elaine have traveled to Italy and Mackinaw Island. Elaine participated in a readers’ theatre, and Ralph has been in numerous art shows. ❯ Paul Hohe and wife Elva celebrated their 27th anniversary. Chicago and Orcutt, California, continue to be where they hang their hats, and the year-long labor of love the vineyard requires keep them out of mischief. They see Conny Drew Tozer and Bob Grover when they are in Chicago. ❯ Karl ’60 and Barbara Fowler Nagel have moved to Lake Forest, Illinois, from their home and horses of 30 years. ❯ Greetings from Barbara Hanawalt Reece, Dottie Schulein Borchardt, and Jenice Jaekel Tremelling. ❯ Larry and Barb Woods Blasch ’61 are still very active in their Seabrook Island, Georgia, home. Larry writes: “I am on the board of the Seabrook Island Property Owners Association, have been selected to the board of the College of Education at the Citadel, and am the captain of the gold course rating for the

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Charles thompson ’60 wore his dress blues and used a west point South Carolina Lowcountry. I sure do have a lot of fun and keep busy. I am always glad to help Knox.” ❯ Jan Shroyer says this has been a very busy year due, in part, to a new Cardigan Welsh Corgi named Frankie. She still plays chamber music on Fridays. Lunches, dinners, movies, operas, and whatever with friends are engaging, so dog walking is not all that she does. She taught cello to students in Northport, Michigan. She visited New York City last December, where she saw Anita Tosetti Johnson ’58, Mary Mullins Hinz ’58, Sally Arteseros ’58, and Fred Kauffman’58 and wife Ella. ❯ Cathy Witschey Tompson writes: “Greetings classmates! It’s been a while since I’ve connected with you. In the meantime, I’ve moved from Austin to a retirement community in Waco. It’s been a big adjustment, but I am enjoying the smaller town atmosphere with lots less traffic. Plus, the youngest of my four daughters and her family live here. Thankfully, my house in Austin has recently sold! I’m now looking forward to a couple weeks in Boston with another of my daughters and her family. I very much look forward to hearing all of your news. ❯ Georgia Raft Souris writes: “I am not planning on coming for the Reunion this year. It is in conflict with our church festival, and, since we are still very active in our community, it’s duty first. I think I told you the last time that our grandson was off to boot camp. Unfortunately, medical issues washed him out. We took a few trips this summer: Reno, New Orleans, Connecticut, and last but not least, South Dakota. Thank God we’re still healthy enough to travel. Our sons still have jobs, for which I am grateful, and the grandchildren seem to be surviving. What else can you ask for. Regards to all who show up this fall. ❯ Gary Hoopes writes: “I look forward to seeing you and old friends at the 55th. Wow, time sure flies when you’re having fun. I just got back from our annual Robert Trent Jones golf outing in Alabama with Bill Graning ’60, Mel Brown, and about 12 other old Knox duffers. After cofounding a landscape architecture and land planning firm years ago with Roy Reece, I finally retired this year. Our firm grew to 25 landscape architects, and we were fortunate to design some great projects in the Atlanta area and throughout the Southeast. I continued to play basketball and tennis for several years while serving in the Army for three years as a lieutenant. I’m married with three grown kids (two boys and a girl) and two lovely granddaughters. Atlanta has been home since the Army and graduating from Michigan State with my degree in landscape architecture. I look forward to seeing old friends at the old farts’ Reunion!” ❯ Jim Wollrab writes: “Hope you are well. I’m publishing my 11th book called Leaving Reality about a kid from Alaska who wants to grow up as a hockey player in the NHL.” ❯ Mary Coyne Karau writes: “Looking forward to the Reunion. I have it on my calendar. I’ve fit it into my travel schedule in between trips! I really don’t have any exciting news. Just got back from

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visiting lots of relatives in Northern Italy three weeks ago and am leaving for Russia in three weeks. Will be in St. Petersburg for four days, on a riverboat on the Volga seven days, and in Moscow three days. Then I’ll go west to visit the daughters and their families. Youngest grandchild turns five in two weeks.” ❯ Bill Reiners writes: “It’s a small world. Our son Peter, who is head of the geosciences department at University of Arizona, tells me that Todd Proebsting (Bob Proebsting’s son) is the head of computer science there and is a very smart guy. No surprise, knowing Bob. Norma and I have made our reservations for the Reunion and have contacted several of my Phi Gam pledge brothers who also will attend.” ❯ Bob and I consider ourselves, and all the other hearty (crazy) people who live in Illinois, survivors after last year’s winter. We had a nice reprieve when we visited Mike ’58 and Pat Craig Ruffolo ’58 in the Bay Area in February. We had our usual great time and enjoyed all the blooming spring flowers. We saw some of our nieces and nephews and the Ruffolo’s son Craig and his family. We had coffee with Raechel Humphreys Palluska and dined at her family’s restaurant, Comal, in Berkeley. ❯ We look forward to the 55th. Class Correspondent: Louise Bost Wolf 3 Gilbert Park, Knoxville, IL 61448, 309-289-6435, 309-337-6435 (cell), wolfl@grics.net

1960 Charles Thompson called to tell me his wife, Tamara, died from cancer two-and-a-half years ago. Our sympathy goes out to him. It seems like yesterday Charlie and Tamara stopped in to see us. Charlie went on to say that after he lost Tamara, he went back to his hometown in Illinois and met an old friend he hadn’t seen for more than 50 years. Her name is Jane Josephson. She had also lost her spouse. They made a friendly connection and were married on June 14 in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, Charlie’s home. They were married on a boat on Lake Priest. Because June 14 is Flag Day, the boat was decorated with flags and bunting. Charles wore his dress blues and used a West Point sword to cut the wedding cake. His three sons all attended the wedding. One son came from Houston and was the best man, and his five-year-old daughter was the flower girl. Charles’s other two sons attended the wedding— one from Alaska, and the other from a town near Coeur d’Alene. We wish Jane and Charles much happiness. ❯ I received a very nice letter from Beth Thompson Sarles’s husband, Peter Sarles, telling me of her passing. I missed the magazine deadline and misplaced my notes for the next issue. I apologize to Peter, but I did want to acknowledge his correspondence. In his first letter, he included a picture of he and Beth celebrating her birthday. It was a sweet picture, and I appreciate it very much. He also told me how they met in Beth’s hometown of Pleasantville, New York. When we were all at

Knox, I never knew where Beth was from, and I never knew I would live very close to Pleasantville in a suburb of New York City for 24 years. Peter also said that Beth kept in contact with her Knox friends through the years. He told me about a memorable long weekend in October 1999 with Beverly Coatsworth Griffith, Sally Albro Channon ’59, Barbara Burkett Garrison, and Glenda Taylor Lipsey ’59. Peter and Beth were living in Las Vegas, so there were many places to go and things to see. He said all the “Knox girls” had a great time. Again, I thank Peter for his wonderful correspondence that included Beth’s obituary. ❯ Don and I still enjoy living in Southern New Mexico where the livin’ is easy and the winters are mild. Class Correspondent: Susan Greco Straetz 4416 Maricopa Circle, Las Cruces, NM 88011-1722, 575-532-9461, 575-640-0762 (cell), dstraetz@yahoo.com

1961 As always, we are eager to hear from you. Now is not too soon to send an update on your life or merely to say hello to those who remember you. Commercial completed, we now bring to you word from Bill Lucy: Bill retired in May 2014 after 39 years on the faculty at the University of Virginia, where he was Lawrence Lewis Jr. Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning. Author of several books about cities, suburbs, and urban planning, his most recent book was Foreclosing the Dream: How America’s Housing Crisis Is Changing the Shape of Our Cities and Suburbs, 2010, a winner of the American Library Association’s Choice Award. In retirement he will continue working on a book manuscript entitled Rebalance: Climate Change Mitigation and Resilience through Infrastructure, Behavioral Economics, and the Social Psychology of Everyday Life. He lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, with his wife, Sherry Kraft. He has four children. ❯ Bill and Barbara Lee Fay and Susan Shea Worthington of Suella attended a recent Knox alumni function and enjoyed the company of Gordon ’60 and Anne Wetzel Faubel ’60 and Doug Rushing ’62. The rest were young whippersnappers. The alums assembled at the Kansas City Jazz Museum, where we toured, visited with old friends, and were entertained by the Cherry Street Combo. The combo performs on Thursday nights at McGillacuddy’s Restaurant in Galesburg and at other gigs throughout the community as an indemand professional ensemble. In February, they performed at the University of Louisville Jazz Festival and brought home four awards. They were recognized as the outstanding ensemble and invited to perform a set to open the evening headlining concert. They were planning to release a new album at that time. Members of the combo were Nathaniel Beck ’13, Kyle Kunkler ’15, Jake Hawrylak ’13, and Josh Calef ’14. Assistant Professor of Music Nikki Malley ’98 also performed with the Combo. ❯ Ella Morin of Suella reports that it’s humid and hot in Florida.


Class Knox sword to cut the cake at his recent wedding. Who would have thought? She took trips to North Carolina and Pennsylvania over the summer. And the Suellas may take a cruise together, small ship. Anyone who would like to join them should get in touch for details. It will be a Road Scholar (formerly Elderhostel) excursion. Class Correspondents: Susan Shea Worthington 1611 South Street, Lexington, MO 64067-1431, 660-259-4559, skworth@cebridge.net Ella Major Morin 11234 54th Avenue N., St. Petersburg, FL 33708-2949, 727-290-6984, ellanell1963@yahoo.com

1962 Pat Gronemeyer Carrell and husband Craig enjoyed a recent cruise in the Norwegian fjords and the Land of the Midnight Sun above the Arctic Circle during the Summer Solstice. They also took a road trip to Albuquerque’s Balloon Fiesta in October. “Don’t know how much longer we’ll be able to travel, so we want to make the most of the time we have left.” ❯ Dennis and Kathy Molda East ’64 celebrated their “50th Yard” open house in June. The celebration included more than 100 family and friends, including Knoxites—son Brian ’92; Bob ’61 and Joan Dude Callecod; Diane Goodrich Pretzer ’52 and husband Wally; Gordon and Anne Fribolin Stagg ’64; Lynn Melcher Barrett ’64 and husband David; Knox roomie and best man Rich Fulton; and Jean Martin ’64, Kathy’s roomie and maid-of-honor. ❯ Stephen ’61 and Ellen Louthan Hawley celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary this year with visits to three cities important to their marriage. They started in October 2013 by visiting Newport, Rhode Island, where they long had a summer home. This May they returned to Chicagoland, where they were born and dated after college, and then traveled to Boston, where they raised two children, before returning to Newport. ❯ We present part two of Phil Merikle’s life since Knox. In 1995, he and partner Freda began selfsupported cycling tours around the East Coast and Canada. Ontario’s Bruce Peninsula has become a favorite hiking-camping spot, as well as Bryce Canyon, Zion, and Yellowstone National Parks. Phil has traveled to many of his bucket list locations over the past three years. In 2010, he and Freda visited Jordan, where they spent three full days trekking through Petra, took a camel ride, and talked with local Bedouin removed from Petra by the Jordanian Government so the site could be better developed for tourism. In 2011, they visited Vietnam. “The Vietnamese are wonderful people. It was great to gain an understanding of their culture through talking with them. There is much of interest to see in the country.” In 2012, Phil and Freda visited Siem Reap and Angkor Wat in Cambodia, where 1213th century Khmer temples were re-discovered. Of the palace in Phnom Penh, Phil writes: “I’ve

never seen so much opulence. The Palace and the grounds make Buckingham Palace in London look like an impoverished residence.” Regarding S-21, the former prison/death chamber during the reign of the Khmer Rouge and the associated Killing Fields, Phil notes, “It is estimated that the Khmer Rouge killed at least 20 percent of the population.” For a number of years Western countries supported the Khmer Rouge for the sake of South East Asian political stability. Phil and Freda were thankful that the people do not seem to hold Westerners responsible. The trip to Cambodia included a return to Sapa, Vietnam, to visit So, a young Hmong woman and her family. In 2013 they visited Thailand. In sixth grade, Phil had a pen pal in Bangkok. He looked forward to the trip; although, he has not maintained contact with the pen pal. ❯ Sandra Sherrick Schuldt received the news—with great pleasure—that the Knox Mortar Board active chapter inducted 37 new members! She serves as president of her local Mortar Board alumni chapter and maintains contact with The University of Iowa active chapter, which recently initiated 12 new members. “So happy to know that the Knox Mortar Board chapter is alive and thriving!” She and her husband continue to volunteer, visit friends and family, and travel. David participated in his fifth Minnesota bicycle ride for Habitat for Humanity in 2013, while Sandra volunteered for the University of Iowa Ladies Football Academy, raising money for the University of Iowa Children’s Hospital. They enjoyed the warmth of Florida this past, ugly winter and shared good times with Knox friends, Joe and Betsy Wallace Empen. ❯ David Summers is at it again. His latest, a short piece of dark humor (700 words) entitled “Those Dang Mosquitoes” appeared in a nifty little publication, Shotgun Honey. Check it out at: shotgunhoney.net. His tantalizing notes: “It’s a little something for ‘seniors.’” Class Correspondents: Kate Bloomberg hankandkate@msn.com Dennis East denniseast@att.net

1963 Class Correspondent: Ramona Reed Landberg 21500 Baltic Drive, Cornelius, NC 28031, 704-892-4637, landberg.group@outlook.com

1964 Enthusiasm for our 50th, with co-chairs Linda Bodensiek Schoneberger and Karen Hummel Crumbliss, is widely shared as we approach the October 10-12 celebration. We hardly contemplated our senior year when those “old folks” from 1914 came to campus. The offerings Friday include daytime classes and special discussions before we congregate at Cherry Street Restaurant and Bar at 7 p.m. The Saturday convocation, Linda and Karen enthused, “will be

highlighted by the processional entry of our class, our gift to President Amott, and Ann Fay Brown Stevenson-Smith’s alumni keynote address! Stay on for our class picture, followed by a luncheon and induction into the Fifty Year Club. Much more all afternoon, leading up to the Class of 1964 Dinner at Soangetaha Country Club. We’ll reminisce as we see all the pictures you have sent to Fay.” Sunday brings breakfast at Soangetaha. Linda and Karen ask us to check the Knox alumni website for details, the status of the class gift, and the names of attendees—and, most of all, they “hope to see you there!” ❯ Among those registered is Nancy Schmid Stanley, who spends these days traveling abroad, enjoying educational and cultural offerings, volunteering as a reading teacher, and visiting family, including her daughter, son-in-law, and “lovely granddaughter” in the Catskills. She dines regularly with Susan Deller Ross, also Reunion-bound. Nancy worked for late Congresswoman Bella Abzug and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. She helped found a women’s rights law firm that won a major employment discrimination case against NBC. She served at the Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission before becoming chief mediator for the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington. As a mediator, Nancy wrote, “I learned the most about human psychology and human motivations. And I think I’d like to do Knox all over again ... I don’t think I took nearly enough advantage of everything it had to offer.” ❯ David Ackerman also spent his professional life in the public policy arena, first in the Washington office of the National Council of Churches and then as a three-decade legislative attorney for the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. “The love of my life”—his wife of 47 years—will accompany him to the Reunion. The Ackermans, who live in Silver Spring, Maryland, have a daughter and “just grandcats,” he reported. Since retiring 10 years ago, David has been deeply involved in a progressive church community and enjoys travel, photography, volunteering, DIY projects, cultural outings, singing, games, and occasional advocacy. ❯ Steve Gamble hopes to attend Reunion lectures and discussions—particularly to hear Knox’s take on higher education’s future. Based in New Canaan, Connecticut, he continues to work on international commercial aerospace transactions. “We now have three grandchildren ages one, three, and five. Such great fun.” ❯ Pam Norton Nelson’s Galesburg trip builds on recent travels that have taken her to New Zealand and Australia. In Sydney, she “realized a longtime dream of touring the Opera House that was even more fabulous than anticipated, 18 days on a cruise, and a couple of days in Perth.” ❯ Mike Pope and wife Marsha have traveled extensively—including a Costa Rican ecotour “that we would recommend to all.” They expect to travel to Vancouver and Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Then comes the Reunion. “We would

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Joanne kundrat vlaisavljevich ’64 is savoring retirement; “lady of not miss it for any reason!” ❯ Wendel ’65 and Diane Lipke Swan look forward to two 50ths— first hers, then his. “Reunion promises great times!” ❯ Joanne Kundrat Vlaisavljevich may not return due to family health issues, but she clearly savors retirement. “Lady of Leisure. No alarm clock, ever!” ❯ Several other classmates sent their best wishes to those who will be attending. ❯ Ron Lebeiko and his wife have moved from the Columbus, Ohio, area after 30 years to suburban Seattle to enjoy their family, which includes two children and twin, newborn grandchildren. He plans to travel to the coast of the Mediterranean in Spain, “where I can improve my language skills and calculate the ratio of yachts to grains of sand!” ❯ Go to www.LeeScottMilestones.blogspot.com or search the web using #LeightonScottFirsts for a fuller, more detailed rendition of career highlights than can be accommodated here. Suffice it to say, however, that Leighton Scott’s account reflects a record of innovative accomplishments that enhanced space exploration at NASA, facilitated professional training of software architects, and uniquely trained computer operators at the National Security Agency by adapting to individual learning styles—the latter earning the division a prestigious national intelligence award for improved efficiency. After retiring in 1995, Lee reported, he has authored two books—one on sociology and the other a novel—as well as creating new techniques for mixed media art, for building model railroad scenery, and for teaching a “slightly different model of the cognitive processes involved in solving complex programs and fostering innovation.” He lives in Pennsylvania, where he teaches kids about science and “how to be smarter” as a library volunteer. ❯ Marge Lawton Click and husband Ernie are busy with a move to Cypress Village in Jacksonville, Florida. ❯ James Leeney, an avid sailboat racer and globetrotter before suffering a severe stroke nine years ago, “manages to love every day of life and is active in church activities.” He and his wife of 45 years actively support a nationally honored stroke survivor group that has camps throughout the nation. ❯ Tom Brown’s wife, Bobbie Hallquist Brown ’65, died in January after a three-year struggle with multisystem atrophy. “Although her illness deprived her of much, she was able to enjoy her last Christmas with all our family,” Brown said. “Her delightful sense of humor persisted into her final days.” They traveled to 43 countries during their 48 years of marriage. “I’m continuing to enjoy my work as a clinical psychologist, providing assessment and treatment for children and adults with ADHD and related problems while also teaching and doing research at Yale Medical School. My fourth book, Smart but Stuck: Emotions in Teens and Adults with ADHD, was released this spring. See www.DrThomasEBrown.com. Class Correspondent: Mike Lawrence 16 Chimney View Lane, Springfield, IL 62707-9306, 618-201-0279, mikelawrence64@gmail.com

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1965 Marian Dehmel Boyer attended the 50th reunion of her husband’s class at Princeton. “It was incredible.” Each class had their own uniform as they marched in the Parade of Alumni. She continues to e-mail with her best e-mail friend, Gary Moses. She has two grown children and five grandchildren, one attending Franklin and Marshal, and the other Lafayette. ❯ Bruce St. John’s newest book, A History of Libya, will be available this month. He has also contributed chapters in three books, two on Libya and one on Peru. He recently visited his oldest son in Japan, where his granddaughter underwent open heart surgery for a congenial defect. Fortunately, the surgery went beautifully. His second son is visiting from Paris, France, where he is an architect and his wife is an actuary. The family went to Aspen, Colorado, for a four-day trip. ❯ Wendel Swan lives in Alexandria, Virginia. He is co-chairing our 50th Reunion with Gary Moses. He runs and bicycles with wife Diane Lipke Swan ’64. They will attend Diane’s 50th reunion this fall. Wendel is a board member of the textile museum in Washington, D.C. He has been active in conferences in Istanbul, London, and Stockholm. He has collected oriental rugs and textiles for 40 years. He will go on a tour to Vienna and Budapest in November. If you have any questions concerning the 50th Reunion, e-mail Wendel at wswan@erols.com. ❯ Richard Shelly retired as a high school physics teacher after 37 years. He has two children and three grandchildren and resides with his wife in Ferndale, Washington, near the Canadian border. He is studying Italian and will visit his sister and brother-in-law in Italy. His sister lives three hours east and a bit south of Rome in Molise Province. His son is an earthquake and volcano seismologist, and his daughter is a veterinary oncologist. ❯ Barbara Dunn will retire after 42 years as director and librarian for the Hawaiian Historical Society. After four years as a librarian (following a fellowship after graduating for Knox), she left Hawaii and spent a year in Paris, France. She returned to Hawaii and became the director of the society. She is an avid bird watcher and has traveled to Mexico, Central America, and northern South America to bird watch. In 2006, she visited Uganda to observe the gorilla population. She plans on moving to a cottage by Volcano National Park with her life-partner, Brian Daniel. ❯ Janice Sullivan retired from teaching after 35 years and working as a district librarian for another eight years. She loves to travel and spends time in Arcadia, Michigan, 50 miles south of Traverse Bay. She has traveled twice to England and will soon return for another visit. She has an adopted son from London, England. She greatly appreciates the liberal arts education she received at Knox. She happened upon a church in a wooded area of the English countryside and, thanks to her Knox education, recognized the 10 magnificent

windows as works by Marc Chagallo. ❯ My wife, Beverly Anderson, and I are venturing into aquaponics, the art of growing fruits and vegetables in water using tilapia fish to provide food for the plants and the plants acting as a biofilter to clean the water for the fish. Organic and no dirt, weeds, or pesticides. We’re hoping for the best! Class Correspondent: Terry Rothstein, M.D. 220 N. 32nd Street, Parsons, KS 67357, antiquarian@wavewls.com

1966 We asked for one-liners from our classmates and here they are: Phil Bradley: “Fortieth wedding anniversary in August, and I still don’t know why she said yes!” ❯ Barbara DaPisa Thomases: “Visited my son in Austin, Texas, this spring and attended two family weddings (one near Seattle) this summer.” ❯ George Shea: “My wife Janet and I became grandparents for the first time on April 29; we have a beautiful grandson, Evan Simon Shea.” ❯ Roy Bergold: “We left our home in Arizona in June and made four right turns somewhere in the west, with no time frame or reservations.” ❯ Ned Wetmore: “Jill Thiele Wetmore ’68 and I look forward to visits with our two girls and their families.” ❯ Joy Meriam McConnell: “Taking a seminar in Interpersonal Neurobiology.” ❯ Rick Zehr: “I’m manufacturing parts on a 3-D printer for my latest passion: sport fencing.” ❯ Judith Holland Sarnecki: “We just spent several days with our three grand babies aged 3 (nearly 4), 2 1/2, and 9 months, and we’re exhausted!” ❯ Doug Bayer: “Maria and I spent 10 days traveling around Utah: Zion, Bryce Canyon, and Capitol Reef National Parks and finally Nevada visiting Hoover Dam; the hoodoos in the main Bryce Amphitheater were the most spectacular sight of the trip.” ❯ Nancy Grosboll Cobb: “Full circle: vacation home near Petersburg, Illinois, where I grew up; headline could read, ‘California liberal sparks debate.’” ❯ Nancy Hubbard Stanley: “My husband and I like to go from Tulsa, Oklahoma to the Washington, D.C. area to hang out with Mary Anderson Audet and her husband.” ❯ John Peden: “I spend free time as South Carolina State Chairman of Kairos Prison Ministries.” ❯ Mike Denniston: “We continue to travel: March in New Zealand and Australia, in late September we fly to Rome for a Mediterranean cruise; in between there will be experiments in bread making, Chinese and Indian cooking, as well as home and truck repairs.” ❯ Sue White Dillard: “I will be spending three weeks in Greece during June—oo-pah!” ❯ Carol Burt Barton: “I went to Philly to see the Barnes Collection, finished reading Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas, and am just back from a morel (snipe?) hunt—to no avail.” ❯ Bill Shirer: “Nothing like enjoying a one-yearold granddaughter and having successful triple bypass surgery to renew one’s lease on life!” ❯ Marty Pschirrer: “I continue to enjoy family, my


Class Knox leisure. No alarm clock, ever!” see everyone from the Class of ’66 at my house on the Friday night of Homecoming 2016—just think, 50 years!” Class Correspondents: Steve & Jo Strehle Sommers 209 North Lombard, Oak Park, IL 60302-2503, steveandjo.sommers@comcast.net

1967 Doug Hunt and lovely spouse Susan Frant have moved to the Philadelphia area from Tennessee, where he worked for three years as a sustainability associate in the Agriculture Policy Analysis Center. He moved on to be executive director of Tennessee Interfaith Power and Light. In 2011, he moved to Pennsylvania, where he is currently vice president of Pennsylvania Interfaith Power and Light. (www.paipl.org) Giving talks, sermons, and presentations; speaking at hearings; meeting with senators and their staffs; fighting fracking and its consequences; getting arrested during climate demos—same old stuff. ❯ Jim Melville has been retired since 2001. He plays in regional and national bridge tournaments about 12 weeks a year and has played against the best players in the world. He has also played against Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. “It is a far cry from the bridge I played all those hours with the other Gizmo rats.” ❯ Since he retired 14 years ago, Mike

McNaull and wife Trish have always chased the sun, first living on their sailboat full time and then going to the Dark Side by getting an RV. While not chasing the sun, they still spend nine months on their farm in West Virginia, playing with their four draft horses that are “hay burners” or “lawn ornaments” depending on your viewpoint. This winter, Trish and Mike did something entirely different: they moved to Spain. They spent their first week in Barcelona and observed New Years fireworks with their Spanish neighbors. It was Mike’s first experience spending that much time in a large city. They then spent the next three months living in Nerja, a small Spanish town on the Costa del Sol. “It was fun living in a different culture. We rented a small apartment, didn’t have a car, and had to walk everywhere. I got to know where to get the freshest bread and the cheapest beer.” They traveled by bus or train to various cities and historic sites. The most fun was renting Segways to tour the back streets of Granada. In addition to playing tourists, they read lots and lots of books. Mike became very interested in the Spanish Civil War and read anything he could get his hands on. They had such a great time this past winter that they are going back next year. ❯ Jack and Anne Talley Turner don’t have any new news. They just continue to enjoy their retirement, grandparenting, travel, volunteer work, and lazy life on the banks of the Mohawk

EVAN TEMCHIN ’10

full-time profession as an executive recruiter, and as much golf as I can fit into my schedule, which never seems to be enough!” ❯ Rick Story: “After 32 years, I’m still helping senior level executives and entrepreneurs change careers, and I plan to do it another 10+ years—love doing it.” ❯ Russ Peterson: “I continue to enjoy retirement: family, volunteer work, travel, and recreation.” ❯ Bill McVey: “Wife Leoni and I continue to keep our oars in the work waters part time while spoiling our first grandchild (2 1/2) and squeezing in as much travel as possible, including an incredible trip to Greece with Knox faculty, students, and alums.” ❯ Jim Johnson: “I continue to section hike the Appalachian Trail; I finished New York, crossed Connecticut, and got into Massachusetts.” ❯ Mary Jacobson: “I want to alert all of my classmates to a danger— walking—yes, it’s true; I was walking last week, and I fell (face first) and broke my hand. So if you are thinking about taking a walk, think twice. It’s dangerous out there.” ❯ Pete Holstrom: “Marcia and I in San Jose are retired from selling and teaching and are now travelling; Alaska is a current favorite.” ❯ Elizabeth Funk Irish: “Al and I moved back to La Quinta, California, last December, quite different from Bend, Oregon.” ❯ Jay Sommerfield: “Elaine Varda Sommerfield ’65 and I are busy planning summer activities for our 8-year-old granddaughter, Kiera.” ❯ Bill Dean: “A s’mores party with three kids, six grandkids, and a son-inlaw can keep your heart and mind working smoothly.” ❯ Dixon Slater: “Still having fun with students at Lake Forest High School; maybe will retire again before our Homecoming in 2016?” ❯ Claudia Cole Gross: “Garden in Champaign; cabin in the Minnesota North woods; four exceptional grandchildren; cataracts fixed; life is very good.” ❯ Kevern Cameron: “I am in my second retirement, the latest from teaching, and finding much to do in local theatre.” ❯ Halcyon Schomp Blake: “Still haven’t found anyone to take over my business so I can retire.” ❯ Ted Corwin: “After 30 years, my wife and I are moving to a new house about one mile from the old one.” ❯ Patricia Seaman Smith: “We are celebrating the daily recovery of husband Terry ’63 after the stroke he had one year ago.” ❯ Pat Emard Greenwald: “I am posting from Oslo, en route to Svalbard, where I will either have tea with Mrs. Claus or get eaten by a polar bear!” ❯ Larry Sommers: “We’re enjoying our grandchildren, hoping for increased honey production this summer from our solitary urban beehive, and planning to visit the Holy Land in November.” ❯ Bob Misiorowski: “Lured out of retirement to do consulting work for the film commissioner of the Ministry of Culture in Budapest, Hungary, but not sure I like working anymore.” ❯ Dale Litney: “Ellen and I spent spring/summer at our cottage in Ludington, Michigan, a welcome relief from the heat and drought of our fall/winter place in Southern California.” ❯ Susan Wood Bailey: “I hope to

CEO Shares Career Advice In April 2014, Margery Rosen Kraus ’67, founder and chief executive officer of APCO Worldwide, shared with Knox College students her insights and experiences as leader of the global communications and consulting firm that she built, starting with a single office.

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Ron stern ’68 and wife shari have been enjoying retirement River outside of Eugene, Oregon. They recently acted upon what has been on their minds for many years: remembering Knox with a gift in their wills. “The older we get, the more we value the education and enduring connections we made there. We invite our classmates to consider the idea.” ❯ Bonnie Baird Wilford directs a project that develops live and online medical education courses and clinical guidelines for an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, with a special focus on prescribing opioid analgesics for patients with chronic pain and preventing prescription drug abuse. “I also serve as executive director of an all-volunteer organization, COPE, which works to better prepare medical students to diagnose and treat the substance abuse and mental health disorders they will encounter in future patients. I landed at the American Medical Association (AMA), where I found a wonderful mentor, and moved up to direct the AMA Department of Mental Health and then the AMA Division of Clinical Science— the first woman to hold either post. I was at the AMA for more than 10 years. I left for an opportunity to work in the White House Drug Policy Office during the George H.W. Bush Administration. At the end of the administration, I moved to George Washington University. I authored a handbook, Drug Abuse: A Guide for the Primary Care Physician, which sold 50,000 copies worldwide. This work has been recognized with numerous awards. Husband Dave and I married shortly after I graduated from Knox. We have two children, Heather (now Talbert) and Edward. Heather is an executive with an association of engineering firms and lives in Fairfax, Virginia, with husband Jeff and daughter Maggie, who is eight years old and the light of our lives. Edward earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Durham, England, and Cambridge University. He is a principal with a financial risk analysis firm in London and lives in St. Ives, England, with wife Elenor. A footnote to this tale of a rich and satisfying life may give hope to Knox students who, like me, had a difficult time adjusting to college and, as a result, an undistinguished academic experience. I’d say that persisting until you find your passion really is the key. It helps to have good mentors and great friends along the way, but the effort and enthusiasm have to come from within you. Life can be an exciting and surprising journey and, if you’re open to the experience, it will take you to places you never could have imagined!” ❯ As a separate note, I welcome the offer of Anne Talley Turner (and Jack) to take over the job as correspondent(s) for the Class of 1967. It has been fun keeping in touch with you all, and I know Anne and Jack will enjoy it as well. —Rick Uebner Class Correspondents: Jack and Anne Talley Turner anneturner@wildblue.net Editor’s Note: Thanks to Rick for his many years as correspondent for the Class of 1967.

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1968 Happy to say we got more notes from our class this time. Keep them coming! I love to be able to share with everyone. ❯ Ron Stern writes: “Shari and I have been enjoying retirement by traveling and scuba diving around the globe. I continue my passion for research in mathematics and just finished a stint as chair of the board of trustees of the American Mathematical Society and remain active on boards for several science-related efforts. While I prepare for a new career as a jazz pianist (still a long and rough road ahead), visiting our two daughters and three granddaughters is a joy; they are successful and independent. I often think about Knox and fellow classmates, an important part of my life—but oh so far in the past.” ❯ Margaret “Peeky” Ogburn Mathews-Berenson writes: “I live in New York as I have for the past 45 years. Sometimes it is hard to believe that we graduated 46 years ago and that we will celebrate our 50th high school reunions this year! I certainly don’t feel that old! Although I’ve lost touch with many Knox classmates, I do see Frank and Jean Belieff Mannino every so often since my son and his family live in Costa Mesa, California, which is not far from San Diego. We are planning another visit to California during the Christmas holiday and hope to see them. My son, Alex Mathews, is father to Mason, age six, whose greatest pleasure in life is racing remote-controlled cars, planes, helicopters. My daughter-in-law, Kym Nelson, works for Twitch, a Web-based platform for video game enthusiasts. My husband, Richard Berenson, although officially retired, works fulltime at the Museum of American Illustration at the Society of Illustrators in New York, picking up just about any job that needs to be done. I can’t imagine retiring—I am still absorbed in the New York art world, where I offer gallery and museum tours and visits to artists’ studios and private collections throughout the Metro area. I also serve as an independent curator and an art advisor to collectors specializing in contemporary art. I’m currently working on two exhibitions that will open this fall: one at the Williamson Gallery at Scripps College in Claremont, California (Women in Print) and the other in Long Island City, New York, at the Dorsky Gallery Curatorial Program Space (Homeland [IN]Security). If anyone from Knox ’68 is in New York from September 7 to November 16, get in touch, and I will give you a personal tour of the show!” ❯ Paul Madsen wants us to know that Howell “Chip” Evans organizes a monthly luncheon meeting where Al Mossman, Joe Hammon, Rich Gronemeyer ’66, Tom Wingader ’66, and he get together. They have a fine time talking about current events and their time at Knox. Paul and Diane Koeppel Madsen ’67 are the proud first-time grandparents of Thora Madsen Stipanuk, a little girl, born in August 2012 to daughter Annelise and son-in-law Jason. ❯ Susan Thomas shared: “I continue to live in Sarasota. Florida is probably

the only state that had great weather last winter. I am very involved in the community, particularly my work with Hospice. How is it that retirement is far more time-consuming than working? I had a busy summer as my daughter got married in Colorado.” ❯ Judy Stone Shorr works as a nurse recruiter at Seattle Children’s Hospital. She just returned last month from a wonderful vacation in Japan. ❯ This spring, Susan Bennetsen Postel and husband Roy had a wonderful visit with Bob and Kathy Karsten Rushing in Palm Desert, California. Within the last year, they have also seen Dave York and wife Becky. All are doing well! ❯ Chip Evans still hopes that more classmates will join our Knox ’68 Facebook group. We hoped this would be a good way to keep in touch with our classmates because the Knox Magazine only comes out twice a year. We would also like to have a way to share in preparing for our 50th Reunion. So please join so we can get the class connected. E-mail Chip with questions at chibievans@gmail.com Three people have joined recently, but we need more. ❯ Cleave Bridgman’s brother, Dr. Tim Bridgman ’77, wrote and asked if we could participate in creating a memorial book for Cleave. He was killed-in-action on April 1, 1970, in Vietnam, 44 years ago. This is a long-range project, so you can write anytime. He is looking for stories about Cleave, especially the type of man he was and the values he held dear. They can be short or long, funny or serious, happy or sad. You can contact him at: Tbridgman954@gmail.com or mail to Dr. Timothy Bridgman, 9 Denton Road, Binghamton, NY 13903. ❯ I just finished subbing since January as a school librarian, my former job. I got to do my favorite thing, share books. It was quite uplifting and stimulating after six years of retirement. We traveled to Denver for a wedding in June. We are still very involved in Misericordia, the Chicago group home where Judd, my son with Down Syndrome, lives. One of his jobs is being a greeter, when scheduled, at White Sox games at Gate 5. Be sure to say hi if you are there. He’d love it. Thanks for all your notes. Class Correspondent: Susan Meyer Mika 1519 North Kennicott Avenue, Arlington Heights, IL 60004, 847-253-7719, pottatea@comcast.net

1969 Darryl Coburn ’74 writes that his class is organizing a Siegel-Schwall Band concert during Homecoming on Saturday, October 11. Corky Siegel and the band sold out Harbach Theater at Knox every year from 1971 through 1974. Limited tickets will be available at Homecoming registration for $25 for alumni, or you can buy your tickets early by contacting Darryl at dcoburn@cemcosystems.com. San Lay, two-time inductee into the Blues Hall of Fame is now playing with the band. Learn more about the band at www.chamberblues.com. ❯ Ed Novak, a shareholder of the national law firm Polsinelli,


Class Knox by traveling and scuba diving around the globe. has been invited to become a member of the Litigation Counsel of America. The Litigation Counsel of America is a trial lawyer honorary society whose membership is limited to less than one-half of one percent of American lawyers. Ed was also recently selected for inclusion in Southwest Super Lawyers in the category of Criminal Defense: White Collar. Class Correspondent: Bill Combs bcombsi@yahoo.com

1970

Send me your news. The next deadline is December 1. ❯ With news about Bud and Becky Hollmeyer Ullman, Becky says: “I write to you from South Sudan, where I work as a midwife with Medecins Sans Frontieres in a very busy maternity project that has been successful in the local region at lowering the morbidity and mortality associated with childbirth. The hospital is located in the northwestern portion of the country. Most of the conflict and ethnic violence has been in the central and east of the country where the oil fields are located, but the entire country has been affected by the instability. Bud is on Guemes Island, Washington, where he is wearing a toolbelt and building a beautiful deck on our retirement home that overlooks Bellingham Channel. He retired as an attorney from the Water Rights Project with the Klamath Tribes at the end of 2013, but continues to do some consulting work and will teach an online water course for the University of Tulsa. He plays the banjo and is an active member of the ferry committee. We adore our two grandchildren, Ashlynn and Timothy. Our son, Erick, and his wife are expecting a second child in October. I will return to Guemes Island in August. We welcome fellow Knoxites to the beautiful Northwest. Please come and sit on our deck and watch for the orcas.” Class Correspondent: Nancy Hoover Debelius 865 Gayer Drive, Medina, OH 44256-2901, 330-723-5658, Knox1970@zoominternet.net

1971

It’s time for news, tidbits, gossip, rumors, and lies from the Class of ’71! ❯ John and Lynda Greco Saelens attended their daughter’s (Alyssa) picture-perfect wedding on the beach in Costa Rica last August. She and her husband now live in Honolulu, Hawaii, where Alyssa works at Queens Hospital as a pulmonary critical care doctor. Son Drew works in the Washington D.C. area. ❯ Cathy Zollinger Grafton is still director at the Odell Library in Illinois and has been writing arts grants that brought musical and poetry programming to the local school and library. This spring she returned to France and visited the Bayeux Tapestry that is the subject of her newest and favorite lecture offering. Cathy joined craftsmen and artisans from all over the country when she was recently accepted into Early

American Life magazine’s “Crafts Directory.” She enjoys grandchildren Chara (1) and Evyn (3). You can see Cathy’s work at prairiequiltsandmore.com, as well as at a local Odell Art Center. ❯ Despite my efforts, I still hear from Dennis Farrell, who related that some of our class had a golf outing to the Carolinas in September of last year. Dennis, John Flood, Terry Denoma, and Terry’s son, Luke Denoma ’04, played golf for a week. Dennis said it was so much fun that they are planning another fall golfing trip in October. Jim Leech, Gene Brandt ’72, and Dave Wood ’72 will join them on this trip. Dennis said, “It is great to be retired and have the time to do things with family and friends.” ❯ Joseph Heumann notes that wife Mary Maddox Heumann published “Mandarian Training School” in the Huffington Post in January. She is working hard on a second novel, titled Daemon Seer. Meanwhile, Joe published his fourth co-written book, Film and Everyday EcoDisasters, with the University of Nebraska Press in June 2014. He and his co-writer are hard at work on a fifth book, tentatively titled Monstrous Nature. ❯ Charles J. Stivale ended another academic year (tic-toc to retirement!) and was off to Paris for nine days of tourism, then a five-day trip to Osaka for a French philosophy conference. Charley took Joe’s new book with him to add to his vacation enjoyment. ❯ David K. Brillhart still works at International Paper, where, he noted, the human resources department doesn’t seem to know what to do with 65-year-old employees. He celebrated his 65th in Omaha at the college world series with family from Nebraska, Colorado, Texas, and California. He hopes that “... everyone else in our class is managing the transition from radical hippie to graying senior with grace and humor. I do try to keep a youthful outlook by teaching Bible classes for our 20-somethings at our church and the international students at our local university.” ❯ Ted Fagerburg sent thanks for my reminder about being checked for cancer in the last issue of Knox Magazine. Ted gave up trying to register daughter Anne Fagerburg ’08’s car in Belgium and shipped it back to the States. There, Ted and wife Francine picked it up in Charleston, South Carolina, and drove it to Phoenix, where they handed it over to Anne and attended her MBA graduation ceremony from Thunderbird Graduate School of Global Management. Highlights of the trip—aside from seeing Anne and her graduation—were seeing Riley and Meridith Fradine O’Connor in Atlanta and meeting up with Jane Langer McGuire and her husband, David, in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, where a couple thousand miles of driving were soaked away in the hot springs overlooking the Rio Grande. They also met Sybille Palmer, wife of the late Mason Palmer ’70. ❯ Larry Kusch put off back surgery last year so he could attend the induction of football coach Al Reilly into the Knox Athletic Hall of Fame at Homecoming. Alby influenced hundreds of Knox

student athletes during his tenure. Larry recalls him instructing: “Make a mistake on offense, and it is just a busted play. Make a mistake on defense, and it’s a score for the other team.” That was a philosophy that Larry applied in 40-plus years in the banking industry. Six months after surgery, Larry resumed bowling, golfing, and toting his grandchildren and says that if he can improve physically enough to compete with his wife, Sue, in golf, he will have lived the perfect life. ❯ Mary Myers Fasbender spent the week before and after Memorial Day weekend enjoying a crawfish boil party in Illinois and Bayou Country Musicfest in Baton Rouge. The week after, it was the Knox Alumni Council meeting and graduation of another legacy, Alexander Burik ’14, son of Isolde Dimitrov Burik. Also joining the celebration was Andrea Stamm Nagy. Mary thought it was so wonderful to relive our Knox experience via the youth. ❯ Mildred Culp reports that The Houston Chronicle, one of the earliest newspapers to feature her “WorkWise” column, began a four-year run in 1994, just months after the column became syndicated, with a second run in 2012. “WorkWise” features average eight years each (in other newspapers around the country), with 17 years coming up at The Knoxville News Sentinel, where Culp is syndicated columnist in editorial and business, with her newest column on entrepreneurism, “THE RIDE(r).” ❯ For me, Judy is now retired after 30+ years of teaching. She is “reinventing herself,” though I thought the original version was pretty good! Since I mentioned daughter Stephanie’s battle with breast cancer in the last issue, I proudly report that on the one year anniversary of being told she had cancer, Stephanie ran a 5K (and was not happy with her time) followed by the Orange County Marathon with a time of 04:25:29 and 10:08 min/mile avg. pace. Yep, life is good! Class Correspondent: Jerome A. Tatar 333 Wilshire Drive West, Wilmette, IL 60091-3151, 847-251-4889, jerry@tatarlawfirm.com

1972 Jane Fuhlbruegge Bourscheidt writes: “Michael and I spent a couple great days in April with Claudia Sue McFadden and Wortham in Panama City Beach. Good food, adult beverages, and conversations. The rest—what happens in Florida stays in Florida!” ❯ Gene Brandt continues as president of Ter Molen Watkins & Brandt, a national consulting firm serving nonprofit organizations, headquartered in Chicago. The firm recently opened an office in Los Angeles, and Gene is spending more of his time on the West Coast, hunting down clients and checking in with his daughter, Cameron, who has just completed her sophomore year at Occidental College. Son Christopher graduated from Oak Park River Forest High School and will also attend Occidental. ❯ Mike Burke writes: “Daughter Laura finished her master’s at Booth

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Eric eisemann ’74 says: “living on the left coast has been the right Graduate School with her last class in China. I am recovering from old man surgery (the guys will guess it) and am now cancer free. Looking forward to getting back on the tennis courts for the last half of USTA season. Just finished a major kitchen remodel and love it. I can now eat my hamburgers at home! Bill Lindburg came to town, and we had lunch together. He is doing well but deciding what to do next. It was great seeing him, as always.” ❯ John ’71 and Carolee Burns Hayes are celebrating 45 years of marriage this summer. While both are still working, “we are taking the slow glide into retirement. We are spending time between Seattle and Denver in order to be close to all of our grandchildren. Our oldest will be going to high school, and our youngest just turned one.” ❯ Ron Lipton writes: “Enjoying semi-retirement in beautiful New Mexico. Playing music only occasionally now, a duo with a singer/keyboardist from New Orleans, a five piece R&B group, plus the odd ‘pick up’ gig here and there. Pace of life here is pretty slow, which is a good thing.” ❯ Karen King McConnell writes: “I retired from State Farm Insurance after 41.7 years of service. Bill McConnell retired as executive director of the McLean County Habitat for Humanity chapter about three years ago, so we will be adapting to being around the house more often.’’ ❯ “Bill Sowle here in the cool mountains in Prescott, Arizona. I have been in my new Roadtrek motor home for the last two months. As a steward volunteering with McDowell Sonoran Conservancy and Arizona Wilderness Coalition, I monitor the health of natural areas. July was spent in part on the Colorado Trail doing trail work and later sailing off San Diego with Scottsdale Sea & Ski Club. Daughter Bonnie was nominated for best director for one of her movies at the Phoenix Film Festival, and one of her actors won a best actor award for her movie Adventure, which can be seen on YouTube.” ❯ Bryce Suderow writes: “One of my books has just come out, Volume 2 of The Petersburg Campaign, which I co-wrote with Edwin C. Bearss. In September, Thunder in Arcadia Valley will appear. It’s a new and longer version of the book I published in 1986 on the Battle of Pilot Knob, Missouri.” ❯ Chris Rowinski Turner writes: “I retired from the Palatine, Illinois, school district in 2013 and have spent the last year filling in for school psychologists in neighboring school districts. It has been a good transition into the world of retirement, and I hope I can continue to do it for a few more years. All three of our daughters graduated in 2012 and have been gainfully employed for two years— Woo Hoo! Amy just finished her second year with Teach for America in Mississippi and returned to Illinois. She is busy looking for her next teaching job. Emily Turner ’12 works for Mike’s Hard Lemonade in downtown Chicago and lives in the city. Claire Turner ’12 teaches in Arizona and recently became engaged. She is planning a fall 2015 wedding and hopes to move

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back to the Chicago area. Dean Turner and I enjoy watching the girls navigate adulthood in their own way and try to keep up with all the changes life and family continue to bring to us!” ❯ Gary Waxmonsky retired last December after 35 years doing international affairs with the EPA, State Department, and National Research Council. He and wife Nancy Tumavick plan a visit to the Pacific Northwest and hope to link up with Stan and Allane Bosse Eastberg, Tom Crabtree, and Terry Rahmsdorff ’70. Gary and Nancy still live in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C. and enjoy entertaining visitors. ❯ Terry Bilhorn Widmer ’73 writes: “We have had a busy roller coaster this last year-and-a-half. Mark Widmer and I are now grandparents of five. In addition to daughter Avery (7) and son Ethan (4), Matt, and his wife, Jessica, have new identical twin daughters, Harper Grace and Hannah Kate. Our son, Andrew, and his wife, Adrienne, have a son, Braden (2), who had a brain tumor removed last December on his second birthday. It was benign, but it has returned, and we are awaiting another MRI. He seems to be doing okay, otherwise. Grid retired from 10 years in education as a deputy principal at Judson High School after 30 years in the Army. He is now a certified lay pastor at our church, Holy Trinity Presbyterian, and is handling all children’s and youth programs. I tore the rotator cuff in my right shoulder and that’s a nuisance; Grid had hip replacement surgery and is fine now. We will visit my brother, Jim Bilhorn ’69, and his wife, Barb, at their vineyard in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, and then go on to St. Louis to see my family and up to Bloomington to see Mark’s. Ma Gridley is now 86 and doing ok. Mark’s brother, Rob, lost his wife, Becky, this last Thanksgiving Day to Huntington’s disease. You know D.W. Hartmann ’74 died. Interestingly, he died one hour after Matt’s twins were born on October 6. Hope you are all fine.” ❯ Em and I took a 2,000 mile road trip over Easter break to visit her top college choices. We enjoyed seeing Casey Kremer ’73 in Chicago and having dinner with Rick Miers ’73 in Rock Island. Emilie’s final selection? Centre College in Danville, Kentucky! Class Correspondent: Wendy Scherwat Ducourneau 17800 Community Street, Northridge, CA 91325-3928, 818-776-8669, wjsd@jps.net

1973 Donna R. Rockin is now the executive director of the Jules F. Knapp Entrepreneurship Center at Illinois Institute of Technology, which was reported in Crain’s Chicago Business. Class Correspondent: Nancy Bakos Hunter 5280 Easley Way, Golden, CO 80403-1161, 303-278-3163, geo_hunters@q.com

1974 This is a BIG Reunion year for our class. It’s been 40 years. Time to come back to campus to see old friends. So many are coming that you are bound to know SOMEONE. Forty years ago, the Siegall-Schwall Band played on the Knox campus. The band now returns just for us! A big thanks to those who are funding the band and to Darryl Coburn for making this happen. Can’t wait to see everyone! ❯ If you did not graduate with us in 1974, Knox may not have you listed as part of our class. Contact them if you want to be listed with us 1974ers. ❯ Jim Mott tells us that after graduating from Knox, he got an M.A. and Ph.D. in 20th century U.S. political history. Still living in Chicago, he works for IBM as a curriculum developer and education consultant. Jim and his wife have two daughters, who they adopted from China. “I hope to see a lot of my Class of ’74 friends at Homecoming.” ❯ Claudia Crump Cochran, a tax accountant, says that she and her partner, Steven Belanger, recently traveled east from Oklahoma to Charleston, South Carolina, attending the Spoleto Performing Arts Festival for the first time. ❯ Bill Pazoles taught math and coached tennis at D. D. Eisenhower High School in Blue Island, Illinois (south suburb of Chicago), for 34 years. He retired in ’08 and now tutors. ❯ David and Kathy Gray Harris live in Orion, Illinois. Kathy teaches reading and is co-president of the Orion Education Association. David works for Black Hawk College. They have three kids, one of whom graduated from Knox in 2000. ❯ Here’s what Eric Eisemann is thinking about: “Living on the Left Coast has been the right place for me. Knox taught me how to think critically, and I have been a critic ever since. I’ve led public campaigns to rescue historic places from the wrecking ball, and I use my law degree to promote smart growth in small cities. Two of our three children chose a Knox education, and I still shred powder stashes in the trees with them—in style.” Eric met up with Greg Abbott ’75 and Jay Larmee at Yellowstone for their third reunion. “We hiked up Mt. Washburn to take in the enormity of the caldera, stayed in the historic Old Faithful Inn, and tried to close the bar nightly. The rule is simple: you don’t have to outrun the grizzly, just the slowest member of the group.” ❯ Scot Silzer has been the principal attorney of SilzerLaw Chartered in Orlando for almost 20 years, with a focus on immigration law for college and university professors, engineers, circus performers, new business start-ups, etc. He has two grandkids. ❯ Margie Beers was one of those who did not finish at Knox, but she says she has been an alumni contributor for decades and has attended several Reunions. “Several of my classmates and I get together for lunch a couple of times a year. I’ll be in Galesburg for the 40th this October.” Margie has lived in Niles for 34 years and has three children and twin grandsons. She looks forward to retiring and traveling. ❯


Class Knox place for me.” Joan Bradley Masover lists what she’s been up to for the last decade or so. 1) Designing and implementing investment portfolios with a socially and environmentally responsible bent. 2) Singing in various bands and choirs. 3) Serving as a member of the board of directors of the Iowa ACLU. 4.) Raising two geek sons. 5.) Getting married once and staying so for 30 years, maybe 35—who’s counting? ❯ Fran Ansell Zimmerman is wondering if Debbie Axner will be at the Reunion. She visited Knox when her daughter was looking at colleges. Feeling nostalgic, Fran wanted to show her husband and Sarah the Coop. But when she asked several people where it was, no one had heard of it! Ah, the Co-op. ❯ John Manos wrote a book called Dialogues of a Crime. It was named by Kirkus Review as one of the “Best of 2013.” John is coming to the Reunion! ❯ Lin Yeilding Bowie enjoys getting class updates and thought she would send in something, too: “I just finished my 10th year teaching at the College of San Mateo. I have taught horticulture and biology. When the recession hit, the college abruptly closed the horticulture program. I moved over to the biology department and now teach a full load there. It seems like my career has come full circle, coming back to biology, which was my major at Knox. No retirement plans yet.” ❯ Dave Usher’s son graduated with a law degree and now works for the Missouri Attorney General. Another son graduated with a Ph.D. in computer science and mathematics. “Josee and I are celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary this year. AT&T keeps me on my toes, expanding my corporate maintenance automation system for the global IP core. I would like to thank Darryl Coburn and Casey Kremer ’73 for pitching in to make the Siegel-Schwall Band concert idea become a reality for the best Homecoming ever this fall. It is as if the old Union Board team never completely graduated!” ❯ Bruce Rohwer tells us that since graduation, he has spent the last 40 years in production agriculture on the family’s northwest Iowa family farm. “I first joined my parents, and now we have been joined by our son and our daughter on the farm my grandfather purchased in 1905. I have been involved in politics, from being an Iowa delegate to the 1976 Democratic Convention to being a member of the Rural Iowans for Obama Steering Committee in 2012, which gave me the opportunity to serve as an officer of the 2012 Democratic National Convention.” ❯ Ken and Marcia Krieg Sezer write to say they live in Oak Park, Illinois. Marcia is an elementary school social worker, retiring in 2017. Ken is an attorney with Neal and Leroy. “We’re looking forward to seeing everyone at our 40th!” Class Correspondent: Monta Lee Dakin Littleton, CO 80128-5404, 303-979-9307, mld780@aol.com

1975 On behalf of the Class of 1975, I’d like to thank Nancy Butts Taylor for her many years of service as our class correspondent. As you know, this Knox Magazine is published twice a year (September & March). We have a lot of catching up to do with each other before our big Reunion next year, so I expect to start hearing updates from you all! Send me a report—what are you up to now? Two new ways to communicate are via e-mail, jeanne.knoxfriend@ gmail.com, and via a new Facebook group called “Knox College Class of 1975.” Tell me your stories by mid-November, so I can compile a news update for the next Knox Magazine. ❯ Meanwhile, I hope to see some of you next month at Homecoming for the ’74 Class Reunion—and I’m really looking forward to the Siegel-Schwall Band concert! ❯ Jay Scheid and wife Karen have five wonderful children and a granddaughter, with another on the way. He says: “I’ve picked up master’s degrees in science and business from the University of Illinois and Northwestern during my career in risk management, which has allowed the opportunity to travel all over the world. Karen and I recently relocated from Naperville to D.C. for my work with Mars, Inc. as chief risk officer. Please drop a note if you’re in the area. Apologies for not keeping in better touch and my best regards to all Knox friends, Siwash footballers, and TKE fraters.” Class Correspondent: Jeanne Pankanin jeanne.knoxfriend@gmail.com

1976 First of all, sad news to report. Dave Sadok ’75 wrote to inform me of the passing of Jan Jerabek ’73 after a 10-year battle with cancer. Jan was often referred to as the spiritual advisor to the World Control Group, and many of the World Control members recently gathered in Marietta, Georgia, to pay tribute to his life. ❯ Chuck Czuprynski wrote to inform me he plans on attending the Phi Delt Fiji golf outing, which has become a summer tradition in Chicago. ❯ Paula Barrow Danoff ’77 recently informed me that the Barrow gang is alive and doing well. Our 40th Reunion approaches, fellow classmates. Keith Maskus is now a trustee at Knox, so I am sure Keith and Ann Feldman Perille are planning wonderful activities. So mark your calendars for the fall of 2016. ❯ Glenn Ruklic let me know that he, Mike Murphy, Paul Cimino, and many others will soon be meeting in Wisconsin to discuss life and other worldly issues. ❯ And, finally, yours truly did attend the third annual Phi Delt-Fiji golf outing. Nearly 40 golfers attended the event in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. Once again, sadly, the younger Fijis beat the older Phi Delts. The event was decided on the last hole with the Fijis narrowly winning. Much fun was had, and lots of purple shirts were on the

golf course that day. Attendees included Paul Brauer ’78, Glen Thompson ’78, Tom Bannos ’80, Norm Hillner ’79, Brian Cox ’79, Merlon Schuneman ’75, Tony Lee ’75, Tom Stelter ’77, Tim Loch ’78, Steve Laudel ’79, Chuck Czuprynski, Glenn Ruklic, Howard Hagemaster ’79, Stacy Womack ’77, Bob Holshouser ’79, Ray Albertina ’79, Paul Zucker ’78, Robert Szyman ’79, Rod Swan ’77, Dave Bates, Mike Calhoun, and many others. ❯ That’s all. Send me a few updates, as this column seems a little sparse. Class Correspondent: George M. Pearce 1114 Forest Avenue, Wilmette, IL 60091-1655, 847-256-5968, george.pearce@hklaw.com

1977 Hi everyone! I caught up with Steve Fraser ’78 in February when I was in Newport Beach for a conference. Steve is a civil litigation trial attorney, having successfully tried many medical malpractice cases. He and wife Alex graciously picked up the dinner tab for my sister-in-law and me. When you are next in Boston, dinner is on me, Steve! ❯ Speaking of Steve, he, John Klem, Dave Koester ’76, and Dennis Gilbert met up at Piero’s in Las Vegas, as they do every year, to play golf and bet on the first round of the NCAA basketball tournament. ❯ From Bill Wickart ’76: “Jim Salwitz ’76 is an oncologist in New Jersey. He was a floormate of mine freshman year and a valued friend for all four years. Check out his terrific blogpost ‘When I Cry,’ sunriserounds.com/cry.” ❯ Veteran Boston Globe reporter Hiawatha Bray ’76 has a new book You Are Here: From the Compass to GPS, the History and Future of How We Find Ourselves. It chronicles the rise of modern navigation technology, from radio location to GPS, and the consequent decline of privacy. Give it a read! ❯ Kristie Zamrazil writes: “Not much news other than I’m focusing a lot on my painting these days and working parttime to do it. Exciting and scary at the same time. So far, I’m paying the bills. One of my paintings was accepted in the Austin City Hall People’s Gallery for 2014. See my website kristiezamrazil.com for more info.” Kristie enjoyed Memorial Day brunch with Knox friends Mike Murphy ’76, Debbie Roberts, and Paul ’76 and Liz Brady Cimino ’81. ❯ Mike Whitworth is running for associate circuit judge in the 13th Judicial Circuit. He and wife Melody live in Columbia, Missouri. He is Of Counsel with the law firm Ford, Parshall, & Baker. Mike’s website is mikewhitworthforjudge.com. Mike’s daughter, Allyson, is also an attorney with Thompson Coburn in St. Louis. She graduated cum laude from DePauw University and went to Washington University School of Law. ❯ From Julie Evenson Garcia: “Husband Rudi and I bought a condo in the Washington D.C. area (Alexandria, Virginia), and we love it. We’ve lived here for more than two years.” ❯ Dean Anderson shared that “there is nothing new here, just

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“Think Sheryl Sandberg meets Chelsea Handler!” —Jane Strode working away” at his job as global components manager for Chevron Oronite LLC in Richmond, California. ❯ Maureen FitzSimon Bartizal dropped a line just to say hi. ❯ Steve ’75 and Jan Schlichting Junk frolicked in the sand and surf in Cabo San Lucas in March. Their son, Andy, is making a name for himself in improv comedy in the Chicago area. ❯ Rosalie Dedo wrote that she and husband Mark have been married for 12 years, and they love the climate where they live in the San Francisco Bay Area. “There’s no snow, no ghastly humidity, and, best of all, no mosquitos.” They live in Silicon Valley and love their tech gadgets. Most recently, they started flying and occasionally crashing hobby drones. Plans are to retire to Wine Country in the next four years and build a home on their property there. ❯ Doug Hill reports: “I find that I take the occasional afternoon nap at my desk, and the younger attorneys in the office come by and tut-tut me. Come to think if it, I used to do the same thing in Western Civilization class.” So did I, Doug, so did I! ❯ Bryn Douds is doing his part for medical research by participating in a five-year study of Vitamin D and fish oil. His son, Erik, just graduated from Colby College in Maine. Bryn just returned from a week in southern Portugal with his family and observes: “We ate lots of great seafood and, of course, drank Port wine. The city sidewalks are tile mosaics. Cork trees are everywhere. Cork is the bark of the tree, and they can cut it off every nine to 12 years. We saw many beautiful sunsets over the ocean.” Class Correspondent: Sarah Kaull 52 Ober Street, Beverly, MA 01915-4733, 978-810-0181, skaull@icex.com

1978 I was late sending out my plea for news, and only Cheryl Almgren and John (aka Scott) Luthy replied. So, desperate to fulfill my duties and to earn the huge stipend I get from the College for doing this, I had no choice but to travel to Chicago for live, investigative reporting. ❯ More on that later, but first, Cheryl Almgren has continued to cultivate her skill and artistry as a photographer, which began at Knox! During the past two years, she partnered with a group of young adults who are disabled and in school at the Illinois Center for Rehabilitation and Education in Chicago. The students use her flower photography to create tote bags, tee-shirts, mouse pads, and frames of flowers. In the past month a website has been completed so that people can buy wearable art on-line. There are eight artists on the website, including Cheryl, at www.artfullygifted.org. It is a great partnership that provides employment and job skills to those who would otherwise live in a bleak world. ❯ Meanwhile, John (Scott) Luthy joined Koch Industries in December 2013, when his company was sold, but it is being run as an independent company within the Koch Industries umbrella.

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His mom passed quietly on April 15 at the age of 90. Daughter Kate was promoted in June to area manager-SEC compliance at AT&T in Dallas, and his son and daughter-in-law are now internet entrepreneurs, selling collectibles and other merchandise online. He still lives in Austin and helps keep Austin weird. ❯ The rest of you may not measure up to these two, but come on—we need more sharing! ❯ So, I flew to Chicago this past weekend (weekend of June 21) to do some undercover reporting. This also happened to be the third annual Fiji-Phi Delt intergalactic golf championship death match at Village Links in Glen Ellyn, organized by Norm Hillner ’79 and Bob Szyman ’79 (thanks to both!). We had 32 golfers, plus several rules officials (John Pritchard, Steve Czerwinski ’82, and Jim Mocogni ’79—on the take, when they were not talking during the golfers’ backswings) and some groupies who came later, including Marty Glickman ’80, John Luthy, and Bill Anderson. I will not say who won, other than to say that we have asked Norm to dial it back next year during the awards presentation, and we will have him rinse the beer foam off of the trophy before next year. Golfers included Fijis Fred Heger ’79, Bill Hurley ’77, Steve Malecha ’81, Bob Voss, Paul Brauer, Brent Petersen, Glen Thompson, Brian Cox ’79, Norm Hillner ’79, Joe Morrison ’79, Jun Adachi ’81, Tom Bannos ’80, Bob Hawkinson ’80, Dean Toriumi ’80, and Phi Delts George Pearce ’76, Paul Zucker, Bob Szyman ’79, Rod Swan ’77, Bill Anderson, John Luthy, Steve Laudel ’79, Ray Albertina ’79, Tom Stelter ’77, Tim Loch, Bob Holshouser ’79, Joe Hagemaster ’79, Tony Lee ’75, Merlon Schuneman ’75, Chuck Czuprynski ’76, Glenn Ruklic ’76, Mike Huck, Mike Calhoun, and Stacy Womack ’77. It was a great time, with great memories and stories from the old days, but discretion prohibits repeating them here. ❯ Reporting from Glen Ellyn, this is David Bates. Class Correspondent: David Bates 174 Haversham, Houston, TX 77024-6248, 713-722-0815, dbates@gardere.com

1979 Happy fall, y’all! Hope everyone had a great summer. I actually have a few things of interest in this issue. First, the third annual Fiji/Phi Delt Golf Outing that took place in June. Norm Hillner (Fiji) and Bob Szyman (Phi Delt) have been great hosts for this event, and it seems to grow each year. See the 1978 note for more details. ❯ Steve McClure sent me a note that sounded like a scene from an exotic spy novel. Steve located one of our missing classmates, Aziz Al-Naimi. Steve had an old e-mail address for Aziz, so he tried e-mailing him before he and his wife went on a business trip to Dubai. Aziz got the e-mail in Saudi Arabia and popped over to have drinks and dinner with Steve and his wife at a little café on the shores of the Persian Gulf. I think Steve had a martini—shaken, not stirred. ❯

I also received a note from Gina Pope Tyler. She has been a psychiatric nurse for the last 21 years. She focuses on a more holistic approach instead of psych meds. She has four children, the youngest being a freshman in high school. She doesn’t think she will ever be able to retire. She is trying to start a company educating the public on the toxicity of cell phone use (seems to increase the risk of brain tumors). If you have an opposing view point she’d love to hear from you. E-mail her at lakota517@aol.com. ❯ Last but not least, Knox Hall of Famer Norm Hillner was one of five recognized with a Letter of Commendation at the 67th Annual National Soccer Coaches Association of America Convention. You can read about it on the Knox website. Congratulations, Stormin’ Norman! I have sent e-mails to most of you about our 35th Class Reunion, and I think we should have a good showing. We will be tailgating before the game, so come join us in the parking lot next to the bowl. ❯ Keep those notes coming. I made a Class of ’79 Facebook page. Quite a few have joined, but I want to see some posts and maybe some old pictures. Just search for Knox Class of ’79. Class Correspondent: Brian Cox 21 Briarcliffe, Collinsville, IL 62234-2913, 618-406-7014 (cell), bjcox5257@att.net

1980 Mike Quirk has been diagnosed with a devastating genetic disorder that causes memory problems and weakness in his extremities from recurrent strokes. He is unable to work. A trivia night fundraiser to help pay for Mike’s medical expenses and care is planned for November 1 in Fairview Heights, Illinois. Contact David Workman at david.workman@lpl.com to find out how you can help Mike. Class Correspondents: Roy Brandys 1818 Feather Nest Drive, Cedar Park, TX 78613-1414, brandys@barronadler.com Joe Moore 1431 West Fargo, Chicago, IL 60626-1810, 773-848-5796, joe@joemoore.org

1981 Tom Castronovo writes: “There’s always something happening around here. Son Tommy, who graduated from Hope College in 2013, is now enrolled at the Illinois Center for Broadcasting. He has his hopes set on a sports broadcasting career. Daughter Lauren will enroll at North Central College in Naperville in the fall as a junior transfer in biology/pre-professional health. Youngest son Ryan just finished his freshman year at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Our family recently opened the Kilwins Chocolates & Ice Cream Shoppe on Third Street in downtown Geneva, Illinois. My wife and kids all pitch in to run the store. I invite all Knox alums to stop in and say hello. Our family also owns The Beehive Tavern & Grille in downtown


Class Knox Miller ’81 St. Charles, Illinois. I continue to work full time at our boutique investment advisory, Criterion Wealth Advisors LLC, in Naperville and Geneva, Illinois. We all keep pretty busy and are all happy and healthy.” ❯ Barb Anderson Landers still works as a project manager for the Illinois EPA Site Remediation Program (going on 14 years now). Her daughter is a sophomore at the University of Illinois (U of I) in the computer engineering program. Her husband, also a graduate of the U of I computer engineering program when it first started, is the head computer guy for the Illinois Principals Association. He develops web-based training programs, as well as various other technical needs as they arise. Barb keeps in contact with some of our classmates, and they have been arranging annual mini-reunions. Lots of fun! ❯ Cindra Halm still lives in Minneapolis, enduring Polar Vortex winter chills and El Nino spring deluges while secretly hoping that if indeed, the climate must change, then a constant 80 degree sunshiney day will settle around her. Life as a Renaissance Woman is never easy, but always varied. She still works three or four part-time jobs, engaging her many interests through paying and (unfortunately, more often) non-paying work. She consults at the Wedge Co-op in health and body care; teaches at The Loft Literary Center; acts for and educates medical professional students in many role-playing teaching and testing scenarios; writes poetry, fiction, essays, and book reviews and occasionally publishes them; ushers for many theaters around town; teaches dance classes; takes on private writing students; and generally finds artistic and cultural projects to engage in. For 15 years, she participated in Zenon Dance School’s performing program for avocational dancers. She owns a house and enjoys having someplace familiar to return to at the end of each day. She is still known as “The Luddite” for her lack of these common possessions: car, TV, computer, cell phone, pads, and pods. She occasionally tweets if she’s practicing her bird calls. She loves to hang out at Lakes Superior and Vermilion in the summer-time. She is doting aunt to August and Zuri. She would LOVE to discuss art, theater, writing, philosophy, the strangeness of the timespace continuum, and other theoretical physics topics with you! Please engage in her “slow words project” by sending a snail-mail missive to her, or second choice, call or e-mail. Visiting trumps all of the above. If you want to know what adaptogen herbs are and how they can be awesome in relation to your body/mind, just ask! 2729 Emerson Ave. S. #2/Mpls, MN 55408612-872-9803 (landline, of course) cindradance33@hotmail.com ❯ Jane Strode Miller writes: “This week, FG Press published my book, Sleep Your Way to the Top (and Other Myths about Business Success). It is a sassy go-to guide for navigating the business world. Think Sheryl Sandberg meets Chelsea Handler! I also have a career advice website: janeknows.com.” ❯ Lisa

Gould writes: “I feel sure that no one knows what I’ve done or where I’ve been since graduation, but I’ve also noticed that very few people provide updates in the Knox Magazine. I was elected president of the Wound Healing Society this year. I would like to encourage my classmates to view our website, www.woundheal.org. With the increasing number of elderly, obese and diabetic people, chronic wounds are a growing problem worldwide.” ❯ Jun Adachi writes: “Noel Dolan Adachi ’82 and I had a chance to visit Lori Bias Rowe ’82 in Thailand. Lori and husband Bruce have lived there for many years and helped our stay with local knowledge and language. We went on a half-day excursion for an elephant ride. A five-hour trip, including lunch and a personal driver for five people, was $100! Thank you, Lori!” ❯ John and Kathy Weber Yaccino live back in San Antonio, Texas, where John is the director of the Endodontics Residency Program at Lackland Air Force Base, where he became a root canal guy back in 1999. He continues to spend his free time playing tennis, fishing, and making home brew. “I spend much of my time as photographer for The Helotes Humane Society, hoping my photos will help rescued foster dogs and cats get adopted. Son Kevin has completed his associate degrees in game production and liberal arts and plans to continue his education at University of Texas at San Antonio; next fall, daughter Sarah will be in her junior year at Trinity University, majoring in Spanish and human communication and studying abroad for a semester.” ❯ As for me, with two out of college and now on their own, we see a light at the end of the proverbial tunnel with regards to both high school and college tuition. We just hope it’s not an on-coming train. The two boys remaining at home, both seniors-to-be in college (Columbia in Chicago) and high school (Loyola Academy in Wilmette), are not around very much, so my wife and I are getting more accustomed to this “empty nesters” thing and, to tell you the truth, I sort of enjoy it. We can really come and go whenever we want, which is pretty nice. Helps us remember why we got married almost 31 years ago in the first place. It’s also gratifying to see our kids happy and becoming productive members of society. Now, if one of them would just get married and give us some grandchildren that we could spoil and/or watch them do to their parents what our kids did to us ... that would be pretty entertaining. I just celebrated my fifth anniversary after my emergent open heart surgery to repair an aortic aneurysm and replace my aortic valve back in May of 2009. Glad to be this side of the dirt. I’m still in IT consulting but am beginning to think about a long-range plan of migrating into sales training/consulting when no one, including my partners, wants to hear about technology from an old guy like me anymore. My wife is celebrating her 33rd anniversary with Northshore University Health Systems as an ICU nurse, which she will probably do forever because she’s simply wired to be a care-giver, and

she’s pretty darn good at it (lucky for me and our family). Otherwise, all is good here in the northern suburbs of Chicagoland and good to hear from fellow Knox alums. Please keep your updates coming and also visit our Facebook page—Knox College Class of 1981. Class Correspondent: John Nicolau 930 Huckleberry Lane, Glenview, IL 60025-2302, 847-657-6311, j.nicolau@comcast.net

1982 In March, John Durocher, John Granato ’84, Jim Wise, Tim Gavlin, Karl Benson, and Jeff Clark flew to Orlando, Florida, from Massachusetts, Texas, Minnesota, Illinois, and California to celebrate John Durocher’s birthday and to play a little golf together. John and wife TJ live outside Boston and are the parents of eight children. The trip was put together by TJ as a surprise to give John the chance to have a welldeserved break. The group was able to keep the entire plan a secret from Durocher, which is no small feat since he is a former Army intelligence officer. Jim is in Cary, Illinois, the father of four, and the only one of the group who has been able to convince any of the next generation to attend Knox (daughter Jessica Wise ’09). Tim lives in Western Springs with wife Chris Bohm Gavlin and tries to keep up with their kids, who now work on opposite coasts—New York and Seattle. Karl lives in St. Paul, Minnesota, with his wife and their combined family and are business partners in a company called Cooks that plays into Karl’s love for food. Granato is a mini celebrity in Houston sports talk radio; he and his wife have two children. Their son is a Division I quarterback prospect being recruited by some Big 10 schools. Jeff and wife Dawn Davies Clark ’91 live in Pebble Beach, California, and both of their children are in college in California. The group plans to make this get-together an annual event. ❯ Mary Wylie writes: “Son John will graduate from Evanston Township High School and will start at Northwestern University in September, hoping to study economics, education, and environmental science.” ❯ Bob Behnke shares what seems (at least to me) a growing trend—our kids now going to Knox: “My daughter, Kylie, now goes to Knox. And we know several alums whose kids are also now going there. I see many Knox grads around the Chicago area, including Rocco Marrandino, Robert ’81 and Valerie Thorp Rosenberg ’80, Ralph Culloden ’80, Kent Slayton, Talbott Young ’81, Jim Kern, Tom MacMillan ’81, Dave Murray, and Greg and Judy Jeziorny Bird ’84. Dennis Murphy is doing well. He is a minister at a church in the San Francisco area, where he and his family live. I work as an analytics architect for a division of Nokia.” ❯ Pete Bulandr writes: “Took youngest daughter Stephanie, a junior at Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, for a tour of Knox in mid-April. It is a requirement in our house that all kids tour Knox and apply. So

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Lisa shields dupras ’82 received a job promotion just as she and rich far I am 0 for 2, but clinging to the hope that Stephanie will be the one. Had a great time in the ’Burg. In addition to the official campus tour, as well as my unofficial campus tour, we hit Club 41 and the Packinghouse and also had time to sneak in a pretty good pub crawl with my 23-year-old son.” ❯ Anna Wilson Flynn writes: “My family lives in Indianapolis, with two daughters who keep us busy. They are both good lacrosse players, playing on their high school varsity team and a travel team. Our oldest, Emma, just graduated from high school and will attend DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, where she was admitted to the media fellows honors program and will play lacrosse. Our younger daughter, Kate, just finished her sophomore year and is starting the college search process (my last chance to get one to go to Knox—fingers crossed!). I continue to do freelance marketing consulting, and Kevin runs an advertising agency here in Indy.” ❯ Kent Slayton writes: “I still work as a middle school science teacher at Brooks Middle School in Bolingbrook, Illinois. Wife Sharon Ryan participated in the Besançon program with many other Knox alumns. We will be sending son Kevin Slayton off to Knox this fall to become a member of the Class of 2018. Daughter Grace will be entering eighth grade next year and looks toward her high school years at Hinsdale South. When not mowing the lawn and getting the kids off to school, I’m busy with my band, The Hominids. Here’s our website: www.thehominids.com. We’ve just released our first single, “London Bridge,” which anyone and everyone should buy. It’s available on iTunes, Amazon, GooglePlay, etc. ❯ Kate Kendzy Gingold writes: “I celebrated Flunk Day this year with my husband, Don Gingold ’81, daughter, Emma Gingold ’12, and her fiancé, Josh Wood

’12, although we had to shoehorn it into a small sliver of time because of everyone’s busy schedules. We toasted the occasion with margaritas and a silly board game, our scaleddown version of traditional Flunk Day activities. Emma and Josh will be married later this year. Son James has been in L.A. for some time now, so we’re thinking about doing some traveling. We’ve been running our web development business for the past 18 years, and it would be easy enough to pack up the computers and hit the road. At least that’s the goal for 2015! Maybe we’ll have more news to share next year.” ❯ Connie Pilkington writes: “Nothing much new here. Besides the new one-year-old I adopted in January. His name is Atticus, and he’s a beautiful black lab who has no shame. My seven-year-old Rottie mix, Lexington Kentucky Pilkington (Lexi for short), is unimpressed. But the lust she has for the grey weimaraner on the other side of the backyard fence is so wrong. I’ve talked with her at length about not waiting by the phone for him to call (or oddly, his parents to come home and let him out). Lexi has looked at me with a ‘blah blah blah’ look. What were the 1980s about?!?” ❯ Lisa Shields Dupras writes: “I was recently promoted to associate director for human resources client services at Merck. Funny, since Rich Dupras ’83 and I are busy starting to plan for retirement! We also recently bought a beach house and a boat at the Jersey Shore. Happily the house was not damaged due to Hurricane Sandy, but we know a lot of people that were not so fortunate. Any Knox alums are welcome to visit!” ❯ Laurie Matthews writes: “After 31 years as a federal government employee, I retired in February. I can’t really believe it—seems like I am too young to say that. But, since I have two teenagers, and after a three-week ‘vacation’ organizing my basement (OK, I admit I did a few fun things

Alumnae Receive Divinity Degrees

SUBMITTED

Andrea Fluegel ’96 and Susan Bantz ’86 at their graduation from Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, with their masters of divinity degrees on May 18, 2014. Fluegel is the niece of Raquel Rochelle ’86, who happens to be Susan’s Phi Mu sister. Small world!

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too), I am back at work on a second career in private industry as a security analyst. Most of my free time is spent, still, at my sons’ basketball and baseball games, playing tennis, and occasionally making a gourmet meal. I enjoyed going to the Knox Club event in D.C. where Jack Shaw ’79 talked about his new book on JFK in the Senate. Sorry I’ll miss Homecoming this year, but hope to go next year and take my oldest son on a campus tour as a prospective student.” ❯ Mike Kraynak says: “Oldest son Michael recently graduated from Illinois State University with a degree in public relations, and youngest son Nick graduated from Black Hawk College with a degree in agmechanics. We had dinner and went to see a Michael Jackson Tribute Band with Michael and his wife, Laura; Phil and Jennifer Mitchell Curtis; and Bill Lawrence, wife Jan, and their son, John. We had a great time, as always!” ❯ Steve Czerwinski says: “Youngest daughter Sarah Lynn Czerwinski married Travis Finn on May 3, 2014. Sarah is attending Lakeview College of Nursing in Danville, Illinois, pursuing her BSN.” ❯ And finally, news from Sharon Schillereff: “I’m in the process of healing. I broke my left foot in New York in June 2013. As soon as I am back in one piece, I will hit the road again.” ❯ Hugs and kisses to all and keep the mail coming! Class Correspondents: Mary Filosa Brown 7 Shasta Court, Durham, NC 27713-8603, 919-544-0130, Brown4atNC@aol.com Sharon L. Schillereff 7770 West 38th Avenue, Apt. 310, Wheat Ridge, CO, 80033, 303-423-5329, 303-885-7185 (cell), Sschil7470@yahoo.com

1983 Jennifer Casler Price writes: “Last fall marked my 20th year as curator of Asian and NonWestern art at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. At the same time, the museum opened a new pavilion designed by Renzo Piano, in which I installed two of the three galleries with my permanent collections. In February, I organized the first special exhibition in the pavilion of a private collection of Japanese samurai armor. In May, I led a three-week Kimbell Members’ tour through China—my fourth visit over the past 27 years. All I can say is ‘tell your children to learn Chinese!’” ❯ In May, Deborah Dennis attended hometown gallery and street art exhibitions by iconic propaganda painter and printmaker Shepard Fairey of Charleston, South Carolina. ❯ Chris Tipper reports: “My eldest graduated at the beginning of June, and he chose to forsake his parents’ alma mater for another liberal arts college. Except this one is in Minnesota! And the next child swears she’s going to pick a big school on either coast, as long as it’s on a coast. With the kids inching their way out of the nest, we’re starting to make changes in our business that will let us spend more time in the Pacific Northwest. While I’m


Class Knox dupras ’83 started planning their retirement.

Brian Werner ’06 and Lindsay Hoyt—March 1, 2014

Jess Drew ’07 and Darren Odom—March 15, 2014

Paige Anderson ’13 and Grant Lowe ’14—June 8, 2014

FROM RIGHT TO LEFT: Matt Schmaltz, Meghan Reardon ’08, Pamela Schuller ’09, Lani Tortoriello ’08, Sean Fors ’07, Elizabeth “Annie” Luzar Fors ’07, Jess Drew Odom ’07, Brian Conley ’07, Doug Porter ’05, Heather Courtney Porter ’06, Bethany Woodard ’05.

FIRST ROW (LEFT TO RIGHT): Jill Anderson, Paige Anderson Lowe ’14, Grant Lowe ’14, Connor Schmidt ’14. SECOND ROW: Lauren Styczynski ’14, Elisabeth Peelor, Jordan Walter, Nicholas Zawada, Jeff Ritsert. THIRD ROW: Jessica Ohmert ’14, Kenneth Lowe, Bret Anderson.

not so sure about the idea of actually retiring and not working, I do like the idea of spending an awful lot of time in Seattle. This last Chicago winter was the final straw.” ❯ Teaching and chairing the ceramics department at the New Hampshire Institute of Art remains a full and challenging job for Maureen Mills, but “I’m reminded how rewarding it is once the student art exhibition is up, and I see my graduates walk across the stage! I was awarded the Alumni Achievement Award in Art last month from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where I received my MFA in ceramics and drawing. I felt very honored to be recognized and selected as this year’s recipient.” ❯ Tom Perrine reports that his business, Frame Works (www.frameworks1.com) a custom framing shop and small art gallery, continues to grow. Any Knox alums looking for a place to show their art should contact Tom at tom@frameworks1.com. Tom directed two productions for Tallgrass Theatre Company in West Des Moines this past year—The Odd Couple and True West. “It was quite a challenge and so rewarding for me as a director. I was offered the artistic director’s position at Tallgrass (www.tallgrasstheatre.org). I was humbled and honored to accept. I will be directing The Elephant Man in February 2015.” ❯ Beth Anderson Schuck, Karen Longawa Dugard, Ronda Wilkinson Sutton, Kathy Schurr, and I met in Las Vegas in April for three days of fun, laughter, spa-ing, catch-up time, people watching, and— for some—gambling. We toasted Ann Elfline Davie and Claudia Wagner Dery, who were unable to join us but were there in spirit (thank you, Ann, for the champagne!). ❯ If you did not receive an e-mail requesting information, please contact me so we can update our 1983 class list. Class Correspondent: Laura Thompson Sears 132 Heath Place, Westmont, IL 60559-2644, 312-899-1660, lsears@gouldratner.com

1984 Class Correspondent: Valerie Jencks 29 S. Webster, Suite 106, Naperville, IL 60540, 630-579-8070, knoxcollege84@gmail.com

1985 Betsy Martin Jacunski ’86 writes: “I live with my family of five in Austin, Texas. I work as an RN in an oncology infusion room and am constantly amazed at the strength, grace, and courage of those we treat. I have two in college: Mizzou and Nebraska, and a son starting high school.” Betsy adds, “While in Lincoln, Nebraska, last spring, I enjoyed meeting with Bill ’82 and Mary Beth Erffmeyer Shomos ’83.” ❯ Michael Spires writes: “I’m now senior proposal analyst in the Office of Contracts and Grants at the University of Colorado Boulder. Great to be back in the mountains, and I look forward to making new friends (and meeting old ones) in the Colorado Knox Club.” ❯ Dale Dilworth lives in Houston, Texas, with his wife, son, and daughter. Dale writes: “I remain at Chinquapin Preparatory School, a boarding school for students with financial need and a great desire to better themselves. I teach AP English, ninth-grade English and Spanish, and video production. I also handle half of the high school dean duties.” Dale adds: “I was proud to represent Knox this past year at the Houston ISD College Fair!” ❯ Always inspiring, Maryann O’Brien sent news of her family’s entrepreneurial international work. Maryann writes: “I am heading to Shenzhen, China, to assume my new position as vice president of curriculum, instruction, and assessment at Buena Vista Concordia International School. My girls (5 and 9) are excited to head back to China. My husband and I continue to develop STEM-based educational partnerships and host students from Beijing in Utah for the Engineering Your Future summer

program. Leveraging my Knox degree in biology! If you come to Hong Kong, look me up!” ❯ Todd and Janice Schnell Prusator live and work in Northern Illinois. Janice writes: “Son Grant signed his letter of intent to play basketball at Indiana State next year. (Larry Bird’s alma mater.) Daughter Alex is a senior at Davidson College, which is just north of Charlotte, North Carolina, majoring in English literature.” ❯ Scott Schramm lives in New York City, works as a fashion retail executive, and shares: “I just celebrated my 23rd anniversary with my wife, Denise, and am turning gray from my two daughters, Phoebe (20) and Emma (17). ❯ Jane Davis and I truly look forward to hearing from you. Please send us your news via e-mail or Facebook—Fondly, Margaret. Class Correspondents: Margaret VerKoulen Lynn 7 Blanchard Circle, South Barrington, IL 60010-9515, 847-304-8663, mvlynn@comcast.net Jane Davis 72-17 34th Avenue, #3P, Jackson Heights, NY 11372-1064, jedavis_ill@hotmail.com

1986 Happy birthday, classmates! It’s 2014 and, for many of us, that means we’re hitting the halfcentury mark this year. What are you doing to celebrate that milestone? As you’ll read, some of us have big goals. Others are just grateful we made it this far. A few of us, sadly, never will. Who thought we would ever be sending our own kids off to college? Read about what we’re up to and consider sending your own update in. I’m always happy to hear from you. ❯ Duston ’84 and Linda Norbut Suits were in Galesburg in May, where daughter Kate Suits ’15 was involved in an exhibit about immigration that opened in CFA. They ran into Glenda Garrison Miller ’85 with her soon-to-be junior student Ai Miller, who was also involved with the exhibit. ❯ Tony

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Bill ’90 and leann williams ely ’90 live in iowa, where they have two

Chris Paul ’07 and Samantha Eggert ’10—July 27, 2013

Jennifer Golz ’08 and Mike Reidl—June 22, 2013

FRONT ROW (LEFT TO RIGHT): Kevin Megli ’07, Stephanie Sorensen ’12, Karin Rudd ’10, Sable Helvie Schwab ’08, Ashley Witzke Lanfair ’10, Aunda Wang Paul ’06, Cassandra Milleville ’10, Cat Manning ’11, Tim Schmeling ’11, Arnold Salgado ’13, Dustin Paul ’04.

FRONT ROW (LEFT TO RIGHT): Cory Bieber ’10, Katie Dura ’08, Katie Schneider ’08, Laura Rogers ’08, Jenny Golz Reidl ’08.

SECOND ROW: Joe Garbin ’10, Jim Schwab ’10, Drew Culver ’08, Ryan Cannady ’99, Chris Paul ’07, Samantha Eggert Paul ’10, Beth Beadle Legue ’09, Kim Sorensen Megli ’08, Brittany Wisniewski ’13, Cory Bieber ’10, Amanda Sicoli ’11, Britt Anderson ’11, Chelsea De Jonge ’10, Emma Poland ’12, Carly Kirven ’11, Jessica DeMory ’11.

SECOND ROW: Kevin Beck ’11, Ann Marie Albright ’08, Bridget McCune ’08, Kate Latshaw ’09, Monyca Fisher ’08, Jenna Finley Young ’08, Kate Moon ’10, Jamie Lythberg ’08, Jesse Temple ’07.

THIRD ROW: Kevin Beck ’11, Bryce Goodman ’10, Brendan Cameron ’07, Jaran Rutledge ’08, Andrew Paul ’14, Brian Paul ’13, Nick Morris ’07, Jared Zanger ’16, Brian Cheney ’07, Jordan Zanger ’16, Dave Connelly ’07, Sarah Wallen Connelly ’05, Andrew Warwick ’07, Ben Fitzpatrick ’08, Adam Zanger ’04.

Phillips continues his stint as a world traveler, having just returned from three months in Johannesburg, South Africa, where he was working on an IT project for Standard Bank. He says: “The work was interesting simply because of the exhilarating number of accents in the room at any one time. I was also there during the national elections, which were the first for the Born Free generation, those born after the end of apartheid in 1994.” He did get in a little sightseeing, including a weekend in Cape Town, a visit to the Cradle of Humankind anthropological sites (including Sterkfontein Cave), and a safari through Kruger National Park! ❯ Ted and Julia Heller Gray also get around, having just celebrated their 50th birthdays by spending a long weekend away from the kids in New Orleans. They are in the middle of selling their home in Chicago and moving to the northern suburbs closer to where they both work. Ted, a reference librarian at the Deerfield Public Library, has been digitizing the old videos of his 1990s band, DragKing. You can check them out on YouTube! Their daughter, Kate Gray ’15, will be a senior at Knox in the fall. ❯ Laurel Andrew reports that daughter Victoria finished her sophomore year at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland and son Ian will be a freshman at the University of Miami—she and husband Victor Onufrieff will be empty nesters in the fall. Lauri volunteers most of her time to Knox and other educationally focused nonprofits and hopes to get back into the swimming pool for laps soon. She’s also working on a couple of goals to honor her 50th—walking around Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, and hiking to the summit of Mt. Rose, Nevada. Good luck with that, Lauri. If anyone can do it, it’s you! ❯ Brian Williams accepted the position of vice president and director of faculty development and grant

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programs at our own Associated Colleges of the Midwest. He and wife Catherine Lemmer are moving back to Evanston and look forward to participating again in Chicago Knox Club events. Their daughter, Cydney, just completed her freshman year at New York University. ❯ Karen Kampwirth is working on her half of a new book, tentatively titled 100 Years of LGBT Politics in Nicaragua. She and her co-author were fortunate to have the opportunity to present their preliminary research results in Nicaragua in May, mostly to groups of LGBT activists, thanks to a collaborative research grant from Knox that was funded through a Mellon grant. ❯ Our condolences to Kurt Lofgren ’86 on the loss this past spring of his father, Lars. ❯ And now for my personal 50th excitement! It was my goal to finish my MDiv by my 50th birthday, a feat I managed at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, just after turning 49 (yes, I am one of the babies in our class). I was ordained in March as a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and received a call to a pair of small congregations in rural Waterville and Greenleaf, Kansas. I, too, am an empty nester, as my son, Thomas Gustafson, will be a junior at Iowa State in the fall. Now it is just me and the dog, busy with moving and a new job and waiting for your calls, e-mails, letters, and texts so I’ll have something to write about in the next column! Class Correspondent: Susan Bantz 315 E. Walnut, Waterville, KS 66548, 563-554-9213, bibliophile@knoxalumni.org

1987 As I write this, I am preparing to send my daughter off to her freshman year of college. Where did the time go? I had a chance to catch up with Joanne Lynch Rancich on a trip home

over spring break. She is a successful real estate agent in the Chicago area. Unfortunately, my other gal pals couldn’t meet up with us. I attended a D.C. Knox Club event in June, where I spent some time with fellow alums and met the president. ❯ From Barbara Kupperman O’Connor: “Kyna Byerly and Jeremy Duke ’90 have their eldest child going off to college in the fall. I’m still waiting for my little one to be completely potty trained! He’ll be in pre-K in August. My spouse and I went to a great Kansas City Knox Club alumni event at the American Jazz Museum, where we saw several alumni, including Valerie Blevins ’86 and Barb Lee Fay ’61. Eric Wilson ’84 arrived just as we were leaving. I saw several Knox alumni on August 3, 2013, at the funeral of Madhavi Samala ’88 in Naperville: Trish Kenny ’86, Brigid Leahy ’89, Leah Vaselopulos, Mary Doyle, Gillian MacChesney Hampton, and Colleen Scimeca (please forgive me if I forgot to mention anyone). Others who were there in spirit but unable to attend were Anna Leahy ’88, Shannon McClure Shirvan, and Gautam Mehra. Madhavi will be missed. Class Correspondent: Lisabeth Simms Belman 12701 York Mill Lane, Clarksburg, MD 20871-4034, 301-972-3751, lisabeth1208@verizon.net

1988 Congrats to everyone who turned out for the 25th Reunion of the Class of ’88. How awesome it is to go to a school where original friendships are cherished and at Reunions, new ones can be kindled. It’s great to see people push themselves out of their comfort zone and connect on levels not connected before and connect to people that for some reason were not in that original 1988


Class Knox great kids and raise goats (their other “kids”). Glenn Waddell ’92 Preserving the Past

Aaron Palmer ’11 & Andrea Johnston ’10—June 29, 2013

SITTING (LEFT TO RIGHT): Saba Akram Bilgrami ’08, Shayna Olufs ’06, Farah Ahed ’07, Hasan Rahimtoola, Sibel Karabeyoglu ’08.

FRONT ROW (LEFT TO RIGHT): Liz Ketchum Steere ’12, Sara Patterson Adamek ’09, Chrissy Morse ’10, Andrea Johnston Palmer ’10, Aaron Palmer ’11, Sara Belger Polk ’10, Chrissy Vanni Mullison ’10.

STANDING: Rafay Khan ’10, Mauaz Raza ’09, Gauher Ahmad ’05, Emaad Hassan ’07 (not pictured, but very much present, Shabbar Shaikh ’07).

circle. That is the Knox spirit! Until next time, keep sending your updates. Class Correspondent: Gayle Pikrone Richardson 1220 Crestview Drive, Batavia, IL 60510-1180, gayle.richardson35@gmail.com

1989 Class Correspondent: Mia Jiganti 1850 W. Cortland, Chicago, IL 60622-1035, 773-278-0814, mjiganti@prodigy.net

1990 Greetings from North Carolina and your new class correspondent! Since I liked writing (especially letters) and keeping in touch, I decided to volunteer. Knox has kindly sent me a list of our classmates, so I can track people down. Feel free to drop me a note via e-mail, post, Facebook, or telepathically (but if it’s the latter, I’ll probably mistake you for the bag of M&Ms calling from the cupboard and ignore it). As I’ve learned, the Knox Magazine is published twice a year with deadlines of June and December 1. And now, about our classmates … ❯ Bill and LeAnn Williams Ely live in Earlham, Iowa, where they have two great kids and raise goats (their other “kids”) and soybeans. Daughter Morgan (21) lives in Des Moines and works at HyVee. Son Liam (18) started at Knox this fall. Yeah! They’ll have two Siwash and a Prairie Fire! Outside of home, LeAnn works as the IT director for Diversified Management Services, and Bill is employed by Premier Crop Systems, LLC as a computer and information systems manager. ❯ Sally Wirt and husband Allan Mejia live in New Lenox, Illinois, with their five-year-old son, Evan. Sally is the chief operating officer at McDonnell Boehnen

BACK ROW: Sam Stacklin ’11, Christy Reuter Starr ’10, Ben Reeves ’11, David Sievers ’10, Zach Rhodes ’09, Ben Mullison ’10.

Hulbert & Berghoff, LLP. ❯ Jennifer Shughart Schmidts lives with her family in Bettendorf, Iowa. Jen has her CCRN and her CSC, “which are national certifications for RNs for critical care with a subspecialty in cardiac surgery.” She works at Genesis Medical Center in Davenport. ❯ Kim Marckwardt Gegan and husband Bob live in Tampa, Florida, where they have two children (a son in eighth grade and a daughter in fifth grade). Kim works in insurance. Having seen pictures on Facebook, her daughter looks like a mini-Kim! It’s amazing! ❯ Elizabeth Scott Connor and husband Kevin live on Block Island (BI). Having heard of BI, but not knowing where it was, Elizabeth explained, “BI is part of Rhode Island. It’s about 12 miles off the coast with no bridge. You need a boat or a plane to get here. There are about 1,000 folks who live here year round and about 20,000 during the summer (including visitors just here for the day). It’s a pretty spectacular place!” She writes: “I never would have believed that I would settle down in a rural community, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. My son, Tim, turned 11 this past week, and I was the Junior Achievement program volunteer in his class today. It was a great experience to talk/teach about business. Work and volunteering keep me plenty busy, but we’re lucky enough to live five minutes from the beach, so the quality of life is amazing.” When I asked about her signing Elizabeth, instead of Beth, she said: “I do go by Elizabeth now but still respond to Beth, particularly from family and Knox friends.” ❯ Rebecca Kubik (started at Knox, graduated from Miami of Ohio) and husband John Worthington live in Wixom, Michigan, where Becky homeschools her two daughters. She added: “We like to say we’re from the Detroit area because actually living in Detroit is scary.” ❯ Maria “Gigi” Barilla-LaBarca and

SUBMITTED

Farah Ahed ’07 and Hasan Rahimtoola—January 16, 2014

Glenn Waddell ’92 had many jobs during his time at Knox, but none as memorable as his position working for Carley Robison in Special Collections and Archives. “Working in the archives gave me a much deeper understanding of the history of Knox,” said Waddell. “The archives are the institutional memory of Knox.” One day, Waddell found an anonymous letter to the editor in a Knox publication. The letter detailed how and why students fired a cannon being stored by the city artillery in the original Knox gymnasium in 1897. “I asked Carley if she had heard of this,” said Waddell. She hadn’t, and he couldn’t find the publication again to show her proof. Though he found verification of all the facts, he could not find the original document. “That such an interesting event occurred at Knox and has since been lost made me realize the importance of not allowing more of the history to be forgotten,” said Waddell. Since then, he has tried to preserve Knox memorabilia. His collection has grown to include pins dating back to the late 1800s, all the official histories of Knox, several unofficial histories published by students, and more. “One item in my collection is the scrapbook of Doris Haggenjos Zamrazil ’40,” said Waddell. “It covers her entire time at Knox and her activities in the theatre and beyond. That someone was selling it meant that if no one bought it, it would probably end up in the trash. I could not let that happen.” Waddell has started a blog called Archives West (knoxdocs.net), sharing items from his collection, hoping that other Knox alumni will learn more about the history of their institution. “Knox was my home.” says Waddell. “When I graduated and moved away, it was the same as leaving home for someplace else, and even today I look back and still consider it a home.”

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Jeff meeker ’93 and wife monica ran the boston marathon this april.

Karin Kovitvongsa ’06 and Philip Straehl— September 28, 2013

Lauren Smith ’12 and Matt Rafacz ’12—June 15, 2013 FRONT ROW, KNEELING (FROM LEFT TO RIGHT): Diana Schmuckal ’12, Brittney Ostlie ’11, Naomi Akagi ’12. SECOND ROW: Matt Rafacz ’12, Lauren Smith Rafacz ’12, Emman Mascariñas ’10, Julia Hoffman, and Nikki Malley ’98. THIRD ROW: Kailee Gawlik ’14, Caroline Kionka ’12, Cat Erickson ’12, Rebecca Ott ’12, Chelsea Coventry ’12, Lucas Molina ’12, Rachel Cullen ’11, Nick Wagner ’14, Jenna Cohen ’14, Anna Kraemer ’14, David Hoffman, Hannah Sherry Malley ’05. FOURTH ROW: Jason LaFavor ’12, Eric Steingruber ’14, Mary Jo McAndrew, Frank McAndrew, Tim Kasser, Daniel Peterson, Mike Supej ’15, Ivan Keta ’14, Kevin Malley ’98, Cory Malley.

husband Sal live on Long Island, where Gigi has many roles as a hospital doctor, teacher, administrator, and more. Sal works in New York City as a project manager. Together, they have three lovely kids named Marisa, AJ, and Carrie. Marisa will start high school next year. They grow up fast! ❯ Dorothy “Dara” Kozlowski (who no longer goes by Dara) is a professor at DePaul. She was even featured in their ad! Dorothy lives with her husband and two kids in Chicago. Recently, she and her daughter had foot braces on, and we (the royal “we,” as in “our class”) hope they heal soon! ❯ Piper Hodson is the director of online M.S. program and student services coordinator for natural resources and environmental sciences at University of Illinois in Champaign. Piper posts a lot of helpful things on LinkedIn for her students! She and husband Jerry Shelato have two kids, with one entering middle school in the fall. ❯ Michelle McNamara ’91 lives in Crystal Lake, Illinois, where she is a minister at the United Church of Christ. ❯ Amy Carlson still acts and lives in New York City. She and partner Syd Butler have one son. It is through Amy and Facebook that I learned NOLA stands for New Orleans. ❯ Brian Wilson lives in California. He can be followed as RelentlessAdvocate (@IAmRelentlessly) on Twitter, as he fights for LGBT senior citizens. ❯ Jeff McKinley lives in Orion, Illinois. He is the assistant state’s attorney of Rock Island County. ❯ Sunita De Souza lives in New Jersey and plays with the Greenwich Village Orchestra. She recently had a paint night with colleagues and (as seen on Facebook) created a lovely “Boat on the Beach” scene. A very artistic lady! ❯ Darcy Turner (aka “your new class correspondent”) lives with her beagle, Molly. I recently accepted a combo position at a local charter school. I teach Spanish and am an ‘administrator’ (helping with ninth grade transitions, scheduling, and more). Very exciting! Outside of work, Molly and I take

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Nosework classes, where Molly learns to find the scents of birch, anise, and clove (and I learn not to mess her up doing so). ❯ To wrap up this column, I learned to discipline my classroom with my sense of humor years ago as a teacher in Illinois. If kids didn’t sit down, I told jokes. For some reason, they learned to sit down REALLY quickly! So, please send me news about you (email; post; Facebook). Otherwise (and this is said with a mischievous smile), I’ll just have to write a humor column. Class Correspondent: Darcy Turner 520 Colony Woods Drive, Chapel Hill, NC 27517, bonetbien1@nc.rr.com

1991 Class Correspondent: Jonathan Sheinkop 1444 N. Orleans, Apt. 9I, Chicago, IL 60610-6538, jonathansheinkop@hotmail.com

1992 Chris Poe ’92 now works at Liquid Controls in a product management role. “I still live in Itasca with my lovely bride, Lisa, and stupendous, sixyear-old Matthew. I also coach his tee-ball team, ironic given the tame offensive prowess I displayed in the intramural leagues at Knox. I ran a 10-mile race up in Machesney Park, Illinois, with Professor Larry Welch in the early spring and celebrated a birthday with his eldest, Rachel (who is starting grad school at University of California, Davis, this fall). Life is busy, good, and simple.” ❯ Glenn Waddell ’92 has had a wonderful year so far. “One of the debaters on my speech and debate team made it to nationals in congressional debate. This is the first competitor ever to reach nationals from my school. In addition, I am starting a Ph.D. in STEM education at the University of Reno, Nevada, in the summer. Beyond that, I am still

FIRST ROW (LEFT TO RIGHT): Kristina Anderson Alvarez ’06, Victoria Bures Georgoff ’06, Manasi Venkatesh ’06. SECOND ROW: Kyle Alvarez ’05, Nar Ramkissoon ’06, Philip Straehl, Karin Kovitvongsa Straehl ’06, Matt McGinn ’05, Emilie Marty Roche ’05, Elliott Bass ’05, Rachel Spiegel ’05.

chair of the mathematics department at my high school and present several times a year on math education and technology in math education at different locations. Finally, I started a website, http://knoxdocs.net, where I post pdfs of a rather large collection of Knox materials I have been collecting over the last 20+ years. If you are interested in Knox’s history, check it out! Other than that list, I am just staying busy and having fun!” ❯ I received an e-mail from class correspondent Dorothy Thomas Wharton ’55 forwarding an e-mail she received from Lynn Weiss Victor ’55 describing a Knox encounter in Oregon that left her wondering who in the world the ’92 alumnus was that day in February. Lynn writes: “At a stoplight, in a car adjacent to mine, was a Knox alum from the Class of 1992, and I continue to wonder who that was. It was a Saturday afternoon in February 2014 at the intersection of Ninth Street and Circle Avenue in Corvallis, Oregon. With Knox stickers on the backs of our cars, we, nodding, acknowledged each other as former Knox students, decades apart, and then the light turned green and off we went. Two unknowns with a wonderful place in common. But who was that adjacent driver who was only able to call out ‘1992!’?” So, who in our Oregon contingency was this? Please connect with me, Tammy Thorsen Ragnini, so we can solve the mystery. I love Knox stories like this one. Class Correspondents: Celine Gura Matthiessen 6417 Marlar, The Colony, TX 75056-7119, 469-384-1805, celmatthiessen@hotmail.com Tammy Thorsen Ragnini 912 S. Summit, Barrington, IL 60010-5057, 847-382-4022, rragnini1@yahoo.com


Class Knox “it was an inspirational event.”

Nedra Joseph ’99 and Ajay Nayak—December 1, 2012 FRONT ROW (LEFT TO RIGHT): Surani Palihena ’05, Ajay Nayak, Nedra Joseph ’99, Graziella Mendonsa ’02, Thamindri De Silva ’99.

Colleen Harden ’10 and Ahmad Hamed Aziz ’08—March 22, 2014 FRONT ROW (LEFT TO RIGHT): Jessie Frank ’10, Opokua Amoabeng ’10, Abbie Frank ’10, Patrick Cavins ’09, Colleen Harden Aziz ’10, Ahmad Hamed Aziz ’08, Ginny Graves ’10, Creal Zearing ’10, Rita Lanham ’10. SECOND ROW: Joe Moore ’80, Harley Knosher, Kim Schrader, Gaby Fox ’10, Julia Ventola ’10, Rich Harden ’80, Kathy Knosher Harden ’80, Levi Flair ’10, Michelle Geyer ’10, Ruth Aydt ’80.

SECOND ROW: Jalin Karia ’00, Sumi Chatani ’00, Sowmya Ramadas ’00, Desmond Fortes ’00, Monica Marsicek ’00.

1993 Mitra Ghaboussi writes: “I’m still on my higher path and working on my third book; the second is with an agent in New York. The first you can get online from all online booksellers. There’s even an e-book on Amazon.” ❯ Jeff Meeker writes: “Wife Monica and I live in Mt. Vernon, Iowa. Our four kids keep us quite busy with all of their activities. Monica and I ran the Boston Marathon this April. It was an inspirational event, and we were fortunate to participate. I start my 13th season as head volleyball coach at Cornell College this fall. My team and I recently returned from a amazing 11-day trip through Central and Eastern Europe. Cornell rejoined the Midwest Conference in 2012, and it has been fun to compete against Knox the past several years.” ❯ Heidi Stevens Early writes: “My family and I have lived in Fort Collins, Colorado, for three years and love it. I transferred my teaching certificate and have been getting a feel for the area schools by substituting in the Poudre School District. I’ll see about diving into a full-time position in the next few years. Kevin still works for Woodward, and my middle schoolers keep me on the go. I competed with a synchronized skating team back in Illinois and picked it back up as a hobby several years ago, now skating individually and non-competitively. I recently began running again and just completed my first 5K in about 17 years. Sadly, I haven’t made it back to Homecoming since 1998; fingers crossed that I’ll make the one in 2018!” ❯ Alex Marshall writes: “All is well. I’ve been officially cleared to work since April after 14 months of dealing with lawyers, doctors, painful medical procedures, and physical therapy from a work-related injury that required life-saving surgery. I’m again having fun driving the fire engine, and my paramedicine is much improved as I’m more empathetic to my patients’ medical issues. I’m still learning how not

to take crap while fulfilling my civic duty in providing excellent customer service. Otherwise, I love living in the Bay Area and my wife and daughter are well. I recently spent the day with dear friend Ned Schaub ’91 in San Francisco. Still waiting for Marc Saphir ’91 to call me back.” ❯ Gina Clemmer Lufrano writes: “Richard Lufrano and I celebrated our seventh wedding anniversary. I still swoon over him in the cafe (our kitchen). I see Marisa Patino all the time, and she’s still as beautiful and funny as ever. JD Patino ’95 is on the upswing getting happy and healthy here in Portland. Soon I’ll visit Heather Chelberg ’92 in D.C. where she lives. She travels the world with her international relations degree. Sue Hewlett would be proud. Suchita Kishore and Julie Hirshfield ’92 will be in attendance, as well. Life is sweet in the company of these ladies. Twenty years later, we’re still sitting in Post 5 (the Four Seasons) drinking, laughing, talking about boys, and our hopes and dreams for the future.” ❯ Sharon Samuel writes: “I am STILL lab manager of the Small Animal Imaging Facility. Outside of my wildly uncelebrated job, I am on a steering committee for the newly formed school district I live in (Pelham, Alabama), and I’m also causing a ruckus in Pelham as a neighborhood committee member for the prevention of some jerk who wants to buy land and build dwellings that would flood our neighborhood. I don’t know the name of this committee, but I talked intelligently enough to the mayor that, by request, I serve on it, in spite of my not paying homeowners association dues. Much of my time is spent trying to raise a teenager who is ambitious on most days. He plays the trombone, gets straight A’s, loves science, art, and creating things that are impossible, and volunteers for various mission opportunities.” ❯ Sreedhar Yedavalli writes: “The wonders of Facebook and other social media outlets have made reconnecting easier and more fun. After

nearly 12 years of marriage and co-parenting twin boys now age nine, I am finally getting some time and space to do some adventuring. For one thing, after attending the 100th anniversary of the Delta TKE House in 2012, and my own 20th Reunion in 2013, my wife has insisted that going back to Knox rejuvenates my batteries before winter sets in. Spoiler alert: I will be attending the 2014 festivities and look forward to seeing old friends from the Class of 1994 and 1989. Also, my dear friend Cameron Marceau ’94 and I have been populating the internet with videos and interviews of people we miss and like, in a video blogspot called “MyFriendsAreAwesome” at myfriendsareawesome.com. Because Cameron and I know each other from Knox, the interviews so far have been with fellow Knox alumni from our time.” ❯ Kate Molumby McCarthy writes: “Celebrated my 10th wedding anniversary in 2012 to husband Patrick. I’ve been working at a Grand Rapids, Michigan, law firm library since 2001, where I train attorneys on our online resources, manage our vendors, and assist in the redesign and content of our internal virtual library page. I recently traveled to Vancouver, British Columbia, for the Special Libraries Association conference. I’ve been a volunteer with the junior league of Grand Rapids for more than 10 years, spending four of those years volunteering at a residential foster care program, where we mentored elementary school-age girls. Since our League’s 85th anniversary year in 2009-2010, I have been the historian, using my history degree from Knox, and have organized their photo and print archives from each decade. I haven’t heard from my circle of friends since we turned 40—you guys know who you are! Would love to hear from classmates at katemcc02@ yahoo.com.” ❯ Raymond “Trip” Kinzie promises a full Kinzie accounting the next go around. Class Correspondent: Rebecca Gillan Ballard rballard@knoxalumni.org

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Shannon cummings ’94 spends her free time playing roller derby.

Molly Wilson ’09 and David Dinkins—May 10, 2014

Jessica Adelman ’06 and Natan Mandel ’06—June 1, 2014

FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: Matt Allis ’08, Audra Boekenhauer ’09, Jessie Shields ’10, Molly Wilson ’09, Carri Frye ’09, Erika Anton ’09, Heather Hoffmann, Alex Kemper ’11, Nathan Walker ’11.

FRONT ROW (FROM LEFT TO RIGHT): Jessica Adelman ’06 and Natan Mandel ’06. SECOND ROW: Andrew Christen ’06, Micah Riecker ’06, Jenny Logan ’05, Ashley Palar ’06, Amy Daws ’06, Michael Huber ’05, Nicole Olson ’06. THIRD ROW: Hillary Loomis ’06, Joe Page ’03, Anna Kryczka ’07, Margaret Rogers ’06, Tim Stedman ’09, Peter Burghardt ’07. FOURTH ROW: John Huber ’07, Erik Haggenjos ’05, Margot Werner ’06.

1994 It’s hard to believe, but this year is our 20th Reunion! We are hoping to see a big rowdy group of classmates at Homecoming, October 10-12! ❯ Shannon Cummings completed her doctor of physical therapy degree and was commencement speaker at the graduation ceremony at University of the Pacific. Darren Olson was there to cheer her on. Shannon has moved from her long-time residence in San Francisco to practice in Sacramento. Finally free from academia, she now spends her free time playing roller derby. She recently saw Jose Ponce and Joel Muchmore ’93 at Jose’s art showing in San Francisco. ❯ Ralph Pennel writes: “I currently live just outside Boston in Somerville, Massachusetts. I’ve been here for five years now. Since the fall of 2012, I’ve been an adjunct professor of literature at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston. My first collection of poetry, A World Less Perfect for Dying In, will be published in January 2015. Class Correspondents: Lloy Brodnicki Johnston 5507 N. St. Louis Avenue, Chicago, IL 60625-4624, 773-539-5519, lloy@steel-springs.com Leslie Combs 5432 N. Bernard, Chicago, IL 60625-4614, 773-539-1775, leslieccombs@yahoo.com

1995 Fiona O’Brien Gill has worked at Kenshoo as vice president for global client services since July 2012. It’s an exciting technology company headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel, that helps search and social marketers increase performance on Google, Yahoo!/Bing, Facebook, and Twitter. Her kids are growing way too fast, and her family is her pride and joy. ❯ Nicole Rousseau earned tenure and promotion in the department of sociology at Kent State University. She is working with her first McNair student, which is

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wonderful since she was a McNair Scholar at Knox. ❯ Rev. Nicole Havelka and Shannon Strom got to enjoy their own “reunion” of sorts during Nicole’s visit to the Seattle area in December 2013. It seemed like no time had passed! Knox connections are built to last! Class Correspondent: Rev. Nicole Havelka 2706 27th Street, Des Moines, IA 50310-6203, revnhavelka@gmail.com

1996 Dear Knox friends, Most of us are turning 40 this year (if we haven’t already), so what did you do for this milestone birthday? My husband and I are talking about selling our home and moving to one closer to our son’s new pre-school, where he starts in August and will stay through eighth grade. I’m glad we won’t have to worry about “which school is the best for our kid” for another nine years. But selling our residence means that the list of home improvement projects just became a much higher priority. ❯ Saurabh Saklani writes: “It’s been great turning 40 this year, particularly with future Knox students Gayatri and Jai keeping me active so that I remain fit for their respective graduations in 2030 and 2032. It is also great (and a reminder of the years gone by rather quickly) to see my nephew, Madhav, headed to Knox this fall. Here’s wishing all 1996 grads a happy 40th!” ❯ Tim Prott writes: “I’ve always dreaded writing these letters because I never thought I had anything interesting to say, but then I realized that while it may not sound interesting to me, it might to someone who wonders, ‘What happened to that Tim Prott guy?’ This summer has been somewhat eventful. My wife, Sarah, decided to work summer school in Collinsville, Illinois, so I have become a stay-at-home dad (since I’m off from my educational assistant position for the summer in the same district) once again. I get to take care of my two youngest, Henry, who is

approaching his fifth year, as well as Harrison (aka Gizmo), who is about to turn three. I also have my 13-year-old son staying with us the entire summer. Although he spends many hours playing video games online, we have also bonded over Netflix movies and sports. He is a football player, and I made a deal with him—we both ran a 40-yard dash, and whoever won would have the leg up in a training competition planned for the entire summer. So we’ve been working out together. He gets a chance to get stronger, faster, and in better shape for football. His old man gets to lose some unwanted pounds and put his old coaching skills to good use. It’s a win-win! As for my connections to old Knoxies, I keep in touch via Facebook because I don’t travel much, but this year, my wife and I have planned a weekend trip up to Chicago, where we plan to reconnect with Nick Streicher, Jenny Rath, and their families.” ❯ Liz Webster writes: “Yes, I did turn 40 this year. I live in Brooklyn, so to celebrate my birthday my husband and I and a few friends went to Brighton Beach to a Russian supper club, where we were practically force-fed pickles, fish, caviar, and dill potatoes. It was awesome. But even better was being there for the 40th birthday celebrations of two other Knox alumni, Philippa Cumming Stasiuk and Cheryl Clark Vermeulen. Since I turned 40 first, I was able to help initiate (and haze) my old Knox friends. In February, I flew to Copenhagen, Denmark, to celebrate with Philippa, and, in March, I bussed it out to Boston for Cheryl’s party. Much merriment—though we did go to bed a bit earlier than we used to. Class Correspondent: Kathryn Dix Biallas 1418 East Colter Street, Phoenix, AZ 85014, 602-944-7466, kathybiallas@gmail.com

1997 Class Correspondent: Josh Mika 1850 Waverly Way, Montgomery, IL 60538-4130, jrmika@gmail.com


Class Knox Class Correspondent: Stephanie Hasan Detterline 4330 Conifer Court, Glen Arm, MD 21057, 410-882-1018, stephaniedetterline@gmail.com

1999 This is our 15th year since graduation! How crazy is that? Life keeps us all busy in Southwest Wisconsin. Owen is eight, and Elora is five! Ellie got to spend her birthday being a flower girl in Kevin’s cousin’s wedding. What a birthday! ❯ Tami Gillip Rudolph and her husband welcomed a baby girl, Chloe, in April. ❯ Beth Gerlach and husband Dave welcomed Jackson Gabriel Gerlach Clay into the world! ❯ Nedra Joseph writes: “I married Ajay Nayak about a year ago in Chicago. It was so nice to have our closest friends and fellow Knox alums share this special day with us: Jalin Karia ’00, Sumi Chatani ’00, Thamindri De Silva, Desmond Fortes ’00, Surani Palihena ’05, Graziella Mendonsa ’02, Monica Marsicek ’00 and Sowmya Ramadas ’00. We have since moved to Morgantown, West Virginia, where Ajay is completing his postdoctoral research.” Nedra and Ajay also had a baby on February 3; his name is Roshan Joseph Nayak. ❯ Frederik Waldeck and wife Martine welcomed son Pim (named after his grandfather), on January 2; born at home. “Pim’s big sister, Annabelle, loves every aspect of her brother. Workwise, I will make a career switch this coming summer. After 10 years of large animal practice as a vet, I will now specialize in infectious diseases of cows at the National Animal Health Centre.” ❯ Natalie Bus Hoskins graduated with a master of arts in reading instruction (education, to be a reading specialist) from Aurora University. ❯ Jenny Seidelman started a new job as associate director of corporate, foundation, and government support at Lyric Opera of Chicago. Her full-length play, Outside/Inside, is a finalist for Polarity Ensemble Theatre’s 2014 Dionysos Cup Festival of New Plays and received two public readings in Chicago. ❯ Derk “Will” Lion ’00 is making me extremely jealous. He has taken a job in Frankfurt, Germany, for the next few years and enjoys the experience and travels a lot. ❯ Erin Severs writes: “I married Ken Keplinger four years ago and, just this past year, he took my name, changing his to Ken Severs. We bought our dream home just under two years ago, an all wood home on 20 acres of beautiful rolling hills where FutureFarming.org (our not-for-profit; Ken is the director) will be able to start the many community programs and organic farm we intend to get up and running. On the professional front, I was just promoted to assistant professor of English at Mohawk Valley Community College (MVCC). I am a placement test reader and designed and ran two brand new courses: writing skills and a gender studies seminar. I was also

accepted to the Leadership Academy, where I hope to design and implement a gender studies certificate program. On a different note, MVCC sent me to The Kellogg Institute three years ago, where I received my graduate certificate in developmental education and published a paper at the National Library for Developmental Education. ❯ Cindy Lauer writes: “After I graduated, I went to Chicago Medical School for four years, funded by an Army scholarship. I completed medical school in 2003 and moved to Honolulu, Hawaii, for a general surgery residency. I graduated in 2008. I married an army nurse anesthetist in 2007, and we have been happily married since. We were stationed in Fort Polk, Louisiana, and Fort Benning, Georgia. I was deployed to Baghdad, Iraq, and Talil, Iraq, with my active duty husband in 2009 and 2011. I went to a trauma/critical care fellowship in 2011 at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. I moved to San Antonio, Texas, in 2012 and have been a practicing army trauma surgeon for the past two years. I was deployed again to Shindand Airbase, Afghanistan, last year, where I was the officer in charge of my forward surgical team, and was awarded the Bronze Star Medal. I am currently a major in the U.S. Army, the assistant program director of the surgical critical care program, and a trauma/critical care surgeon at Brooke Army Medical Center. I do

not have any children, but have six loving retired racing greyhounds and a warmblood horse named Falco.” ❯ Amanda Weimer Ziehm writes: “My family and I are moving from Chicago to Dallas, Texas! Husband Kirk is an executive with a technology firm there. We have two energetic and sweet children: Madeline (4) and Jack (2). I enjoy staying home with them, as well as running Sneaker Tree, a non-profit organization founded by my sister and me. Sneaker Tree’s mission is to provide new athletic shoes and gear to female student athletes. Check out our website at sneakertree.org.” ❯ Jessie Jurgens Salsbury writes: “I volunteer at three theatres in Kansas City: The Unicorn Theatre, The Kansas City Rep, and The Living Room Theatre of Kansas City. Someone at each theatre knows a Knox theatre person. I have enjoyed connecting with friends from Knox to help me with a play submission I’m writing: Ben MoellerGaa ’98, Philip ’98 and Rachel Michalski Mottaz, Becky Schlomann, Tim and Jesse Shaffer Ballard ’00, Gwendolyn “Wendy” Prellwitz, and anyone else who may have jumped in to help since writing this. I plan on seeing Kate Berry Mann act at Creede Rep and enjoyed watching her on TV!” ❯ Sharwari “Sherry” Badola lives in the Bay Area, California, with her husband and five-year-old daughter. For the past two years, she has been trying to branch into web design

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1998

Approaching 40th Birthday Inspires Alumni to Complete Warrior Dash Competing in a Warrior Dash were Dana Vig ’96, Mike Smith ’94, Doug Tobin ’96, Scott “Rab” Meyers ’96, Tom Wilcoxen ’96, Ed Frey ’96, and Dana’s wife, Emily.

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“I am now self-employed as my very own one-man, bicycle-powered, energy through part-time design school and design side projects. This year, she is finally able to take on a role as a senior UX designer at Zimbra. Class Correspondent: Valerie Saks Kihslinger S3042 W. Salem Ridge Rd., La Farge, WI 54639, 608-268-6903, vsaks@hotmail.com

2000 Class Correspondent: Kristie Wagher Scarffe, D.C. 6985 Merriman Road, Garden City, MI 48135, 734-402-2225, kgwscarffe@gmail.com

2001 Dan Coombe wrote to announce that he became a partner at the law firm of Markusson Green & Jarvis this year. Congrats to him! ❯ Jessica Corlett Gregory writes: “Last December the Gregory family welcomed Peter Ryan! Big Brother Nathan loves his new role, and Ryan and I couldn’t be happier. In February, we ventured to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, for a Knox reunion of sorts. Nikki Linsky O’Donnell, husband Jim, and son Shaun; Adam and Jenny Anderson Pettinger and son Leopold; Julia Wilson McAllister; Elizabeth Wilhelm Duvall and husband Tom; Rob and Jade Hellie Huizenga and their girls Ashlyn, Ivy, and Lily; David Nimke, Meg Anthony, and daughter Charlotte; CJ Nemec, wife Shannon, and kids Addison and Jared; and Megan Owens enjoyed a winter wonderland weekend filled with sledding, swimming, shopping, lots of good food, and plenty of laughs and reminiscing about the great times we had at Knox. It was a blast!” ❯ From Will Boast: “My memoir, Epilogue, is out with WW Norton & Co. this September. It’s been chosen as a Barnes & Noble Discover pick. ❯ Carolyn Schenck Bathgate added: “Everett Stuart Adam Bathgate was born April 23, 2014, 8lbs 7oz. We’re delighted to welcome a son to our family.” Class Correspondent: Allison Honaker allisonhonaker@hotmail.com

2002 Class Correspondent: Jennifer Wreyford Bentley 1032 Merritt Terrace, Sunnyvale, CA 94086, 813-482-4112, jwreyford@gmail.com

2003 Amy Wells Howard writes: “Husband Che’ Howard (unfortunately not a Knox grad) recently graduated with his degree in graphic design, and we welcomed our third child, Caleb Isaiah Howard, on May 2, 2014. Caleb joins big brother Che’ Jr. (5) and big sister Kylie (3). ❯ Will Culbertson received a promotion and is now a CRM administrator with Macmillan Science and Education in their technology and software

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division. 2014 marks his eight-year anniversary since moving to Austin, Texas. ❯ Erika Carlson Knuth writes: “Husband Christian and I moved back to Chicago in the fall. We had our first baby, Lukas Alexander, in January and have been terribly smitten ever since! As of this year, I am a licensed clinical psychologist and work for Samaritan Counseling Center, where I am the clinical coordinator of assessment. I continue to do research and adjunct teaching on the side.” ❯ Lisa Knisely is an assistant professor of the liberal arts at the Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, Oregon. She is now the editorin-chief of a new magazine called Render: Feminist Food and Culture Quarterly. ❯ Baby girl Aurelia Blythe Madsen was born to Liz Leahy Madsen and husband Spencer on September 9, 2013. Liz writes: “I was sorry to miss our 10th Reunion when Aurelia was tiny, but we managed a visit to Galesburg and Knox at Christmas and look forward to another one this summer. Spencer is a fourth grade teacher, and I enjoy my nerdy D.C. job working on international population and reproductive health issues at Futures Group. We bought a house in Silver Spring, Maryland, in 2012 and are currently in the throes of babyproofing.” ❯ Joe Page writes: “This summer brings two huge developments: I’m getting married and moving back to the Midwest! Hillary Loomis ’06 and I are getting married in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, where, hopefully, many Knox folks will be in attendance. Before that, we’re moving because, after five years teaching at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, I’m starting as a professor of ceramics at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.” ❯ Frank Elliott writes: “Sarah Morrissey ’04 and I are pleased to announce the birth of our first child. Frank Worth Elliott, V, was born April 14, 2014. Mother and baby are both doing great.” ❯ Insiyah Saeed is currently working on a documentary called She Started It, which follows the journey of four entrepreneurial women on their path to start-up success. The goal of telling these stories is to encourage women to think about career choices, tech entrepreneurship, and careers in STEM. Insiyah lives in Palo Alto, California, with husband Taher. ❯ Kelsey Keyes writes: “Our son, Walter Gregory Iverson Keyes, was born on June 13, 2013. He was 9 lbs. 1 oz. We love being parents!” ❯ Claire Leeds and Bill Bevis have a daughter. Charlotte Edda Levis was born on May 8, 2014. “She is fantastic.” Class Correspondent: Allison O’Mahen Malcom 8134 Gridley Avenue, Wauwatosa, WI 53213-3049, allison.o.malcom@gmail.com

2004 Jenna Boostrom Crane writes: “My husband and I welcomed our second child, Isaac Gregory, in February. His sister likes to call him Guy, because that’s what she can pronounce. I am back at work as an SLP/assistant rehab director. My

husband is a stay-at-home dad/old house fixerextraordinaire. Life is good!” ❯ Rachana Rao Umashankar says: “I moved to New York to start as assistant professor of Islamic studies and the religions of India with the Department of Religious Studies at Iona College in New Rochelle this fall. I will be accompanied by my fellow beasts: Yaksha the dog and Bekku the cat. I so look forward to this great opportunity, but will miss my people in North Carolina sorely.” ❯ Tiffiny Ramirez Grace started a new job in June at a large multi-specialty clinic. She also moved into a new house! ❯ Katie Drummond Bonstead writes: “Cory Bonstead and I cannot wait to see everyone at Homecoming! We will be having a 10-year (Class of 2004) get-together at McGuillacuddy’s in their event room. Please feel free to bring your families. We hope everyone can make it back!” ❯ KC Flaker says: “I live in New Orleans and am completing my M.S. in counseling.” ❯ Jenny Larsen Park writes: “Brian Park and I are currently in Norfolk, Virginia. We are both Naval flight surgeons, enjoying time outside of the hospital/clinic setting. Brian is stationed with VRC-40 Rawhides, and I am with VAW-120 Grayhawks. Our son is turning two this summer, and we are due with a baby girl in late July. Wish we could make it back this fall to see everyone! Have a great time celebrating our 10-year Reunion!” ❯ Ruth Lane writes: “Husband Bill McClain and I had a baby girl, Vivian Whitney McClain, on November 29, 2013. We still live in Los Angeles.” Class Correspondent: Susan C. Vitous Johnson 1321 Iles Avenue, Belvidere, IL 61008-1407, susanvitousjohnson@yahoo.com

2005 Harrison Strauss would like to report that he is awesome. Even more awesome than he was in College, so pretty awesome. ❯ Pete McAvoy writes: “I am now self-employed as my very own one-man, bicycle-powered, energy efficiency pushing, non-toxic construction company doing business in the Washington D.C. metro area. Business is pretty good so far. If any Knox alums out there want some work done on their houses, send me an e-mail at pete@octagonal.org.” ❯ Akwasi Asabere graduated from his joint Yale University/Stanford University Ph.D. program last year, and being disillusioned with all those years of pipetting and aliquoting in a lab, he now works as a life science consultant in San Francisco. He would love to catch up with alums in the area over a beer or two. ❯ Jessica Van Dyke reports: “After Knox, I got my master’s at Vanderbilt before heading to law school at the University of Tennessee, where I graduated in 2011. I moved back to Nashville after graduation and have been at a small firm in downtown Nashville since 2011. I’ve had the opportunity to pursue what I really love, criminal defense. I had


Class Knox efficiency pushing, non-toxic construction company.” —Pete McAvoy ’05

2006 Mallory Havens and Andrew Scott ’07 purchased their first home and got married. The following alumni were in their wedding party: Julia Strehlow ’07, Karen Kinderman ’07, Ashleigh Honaker Malec ’07, Rob Hull ’07, and Cary Clemente ’07. Mallory finished her Ph.D. in cell biology and anatomy and is starting as an assistant professor at Lewis University this fall. ❯ Alex Keefe celebrates his first wedding anniversary on June 22, 2014. He lives with his wife and dog in Chicago, where he is a political reporter for WBEZ-FM. ❯ From Cody Happ: “I’m excited to share that in August I’ll be moving to Albuquerque to pursue an M.S. in speech and language pathology at the University of New Mexico. The degree will also encompass additional training in working with Spanishspeaking and bilingual populations. Since my summers off while I was at Knox and also after

Kim Ferguson ’02 A Game-Changing Professor Kim Ferguson ’02, a psychology professor at Sarah Lawrence College, was selected for “40 Under 40: Professors Who Inspire.” Describing Ferguson as “a game-changing professor,” the feature produced by NerdScholar, a financial literacy website for students, celebrates professors’ contributions to their schools and communities. At Knox, Ferguson designed a degree in developmental psychobiology, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and earned College Honors for a research project on human development. What are you currently researching? I’m interested in how outdoor play with natural and easily accessible “loose parts” (leaves, sticks, cardboard, etc.) affects babies and young children. My work focuses on developing and implementing evaluations of the environments in which young children live and developmental outcomes. Such an understanding allows us to develop contextualized interventions for children at risk. I’ve found that children’s access to natural play spaces is a key factor influencing their wellbeing. Over the past several years I’ve worked with our Child Development Institute to implement Community Adventure Play Experiences (CAPEs): temporary community play spaces that engage children in interactive play with recycled materials. CAPEs are a low-cost and sustainable approach to increasing opportunities for child play in low-resource settings. We are currently implementing CAPEs in the New York Metropolitan area, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and Malawi. SUBMITTED

my first trial last week, first-degree murder, and have several more scheduled for this summer. I bought my first house in Nashville last summer, where I live with my dog, Reba, and a cat. I would love to catch up with any Knox alums in middle Tennessee!” ❯ Matthew Koch writes: “I started a new job at sovrn, helping independent publishers take advantage of the online advertising marketplace.” ❯ Jeremiah and Amanda Smith Sodomka welcomed a daughter, Audrey Louise, on March 19, 2014. Her parents and big sister Amelia are thrilled.” ❯ Sarah Lammie writes: “Luke and I got a dog! He’s a Doberman rescue named Bo, and he’s a sweetheart. I’m also working on my ESL certification.” ❯ Emmie Barford Strassberg graduated from her OB/GYN residency at Good Samaritan Hospital Medical Center in West Islip, New York, and started a fellowship in maternal fetal medicine at Geisinger Medical Center in Danville, Pennsylvania. ❯ Mike Birnbaum and his wife had a baby, Ira Birnbaum, on January 17, 2014. ❯ Shirlene Love reports: “I received my second graduate degree this April. I graduated from the MBA program at Pepperdine University, so now I have my J.D. and MBA. I also got a new job! I’m now intellectual property counsel at MGA Entertainment, a children’s toy and entertainment company in Los Angeles.” ❯ Dan Lieberman has twins on the way. They’re expected to be bald with big heads, just like their father. No confirmations of beards yet, but we’re hoping. ❯ Susie Walton reports: “I’m recently engaged to a wonderful guy whose residency is taking us from Somerville to Worcester, Massachusetts, where I’m going to be embarking on a new adventure in the legal world after five years at my firm.” Class Correspondents: Marissa Parkin moeparkin@gmail.com Ashley Steinsdoerfer 1867 N. Sheffield Ave., Apt. 2, Chicago, IL 60614, agsteinsdoerfer@aol.com

What do you find most rewarding about your career? The ability to do what I love doing and what I consider to be valuable. At Sarah Lawrence, I’ve been able to effectively integrate my teaching with my research and community-based work. I’m also excited about the opportunity to develop a study abroad program in sub-Saharan Africa. With this program, I’ll be able to integrate my research and community-based work in Malawi, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe with my teaching. How has your experience at Knox affected the way you carry out your teaching and your research? At Knox I studied under true teacher-scholars, who brought their own and other innovative research into the classroom at every opportunity. They were truly passionate about teaching and research. Frank McAndrew and Heather Hoffman taught me the importance of hands-on lab experiences. I created an independent major in developmental psychobiology. Working with the psychology department solidified my interest in developmental science and framed my approach to undergraduate teaching. My courses at Sarah Lawrence all require fieldwork experience, such as community-based internships, teaching assistantships at our Early Childhood Center, or independent research projects.

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Daniel hoffman ‘09 is a peace corps volunteer living on the senegal

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graduation, I have worked with Spanish/English speaking communities as an interpreter in a number of places around the Midwest. The past few years, I have been on a bit of a different path in order to work as an educator and researcher in language education. I completed Illinois State Teacher Licensure in Spanish and also a master of arts degree in Spanish at Northern Illinois University. After a major change of heart from the path that I was on, I decided I wanted to return to what I felt was my calling—helping people communicate. Of course, as a speech and language pathologist, helping people communicate will take on an even deeper meaning than it did before as an interpreter. So, my boyfriend and I (and our cat and dog) will be taking on the Southwestern U.S. for the next three years. With Albuquerque’s annual average of 300 days of sunshine, I don’t anticipate ever wanting to move back to Illinois.” ❯ Rachel Bobinsky Stansfield writes: “As I near the big 3-0, it’s exciting to see where I’ve been since leaving Knox. After living and teaching in New Orleans, I earned my master’s in social administration from Case Western and married husband Mark on the beach where we met. With two dogs, our three-year-old, Liam, and our almost one-year-old, Harper, there is never a dull moment at our home in Chicago! This summer we frequented the beach, pool, and plethora of city-wide festivals. Can’t wait to introduce my

Alumni Travel to Balkans Last fall, Mike Boettcher ’05, Hassan Massoud ’06, and Zachary Stephenson ’06 traveled through the Balkans together, road tripping from Budapest to Dubrovnik and back by way of Sarajevo. Says Zachary, “We only got into one car accident (Hassan was driving—no surprise) though we did accrue a number of Croatian parking tickets.”

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little ones to Knox—just have to find the time!” ❯ Brett Feger told me: “From August 2012 to December 2013, I worked for the Ohio Division of Wildlife Inland Fisheries Research Unit near Columbus, Ohio, on a two-year term grant. In January 2014, I started a new job as a full-time visiting instructor in the biology department at Ave Maria University in Florida. I ran in two 5Ks and am thinking in the next one I should wear an old Knox track jersey!” ❯ From Zachary Stephenson: “In January, Austin Stacey Stephenson ’07 and I took our 18-month-old daughter, Nora, to Knox for the first time while passing through Galesburg. She had a chance to check out the Lincoln Chair and meet a few friends.” ❯ Erika Barrish left her teaching position with her alma mater at the end of the school year to pursue an opportunity with John Muir Charter School. She’s excited to help implement a Career Pathways grant and to have more time for home improvement projects! ❯ From Megan Gamble: “I had my one-year anniversary in Washington D.C. this spring, and I don’t mean to brag, but my life is pretty awesome.” ❯ Karin Kovitvongsa Straehl still lives in Chicago. She got married in September of last year, with several Knox alums as guests: Matt McGinn ’05, Manasi Venkatesh, Emilie Marty Roche ’05, Rachel Spiegel ’05, Nar Ramkissoon, Elliott Bass ’05, Kyle ’05 and Kristina Anderson Alvarez, and Victoria Bures Georgoff. The company she’s worked with since 2011 just raised funding to double in growth. ❯ From Sylvie Davidson: “The news here is of an engagement and a move from Seattle to Nashville. My fiancé (Trevor Wheetman) and I decided to pack up and head to Music City. We’ve been here for six months and are settling in, writing songs and making wonderful new friends! I’d love to hear from any nearby Knoxies!” ❯ Rebecca Meyerson is happily working at a day camp teaching ceramics for the summer and rescued a beautiful cat named Macklemore. ❯ Josh Berry writes: “I got engaged! I somehow convinced a lovely and beautiful woman to spend the rest of her life with me. Her name is Danielle Young. While she is not a Knox alum, she has come to numerous Colorado Knox Club events. We’re looking to get married in April or May 2015. I also switched law firms in March of this year and now am an associate at the Southwest regional law firm, Fennemore Craig, PC. I work in its Denver office and represent healthcare professionals. I also work with start-up companies and am beginning a lobby practice. I just got back from Europe, where I stayed with Huseyin Naci in his London flat. He defended his thesis and will undoubtedly succeed and get his Ph.D. from the London School of Economics. It was great to see him and see how well he is doing.” ❯ Peter McKeigue ’04 and Mary Tibbets bought a house in north Austin. They have a spare bedroom, so they invite Knox pals to hit them up for a place to stay if they’re ever in town (so long as they’re not

allergic to cats or dogs). They plan to attend Homecoming this year for PT’s 10-year Reunion. ❯ Kyle Buchman got engaged to Penny Stein ’08. He’s also about to open his first internal medicine practice in Herrin, Illinois. ❯ Sarah Kilch Gaffney shared sad news: “As many of you know, my husband, Steve, passed away in March at the age of 31 after a 4 ½-year battle with brain cancer. We met on Saddleback Mountain in western Maine (where Steve’s ashes will be scattered) while working on the Appalachian Trail together in 2004. We were married there in 2006. Our daughter, Zoe, will be four in January, and I plan to return to nursing school this fall. Thank you to all of my Knox friends, near and far, for your kindness and support over the last few years.” ❯ Genevieve Gamble Nassif and her husband, Nader, moved from New York City to Irvine, California, last summer and are expecting their first child in August. She’s glad to have her old roommate and good friend, Jorja Ackers Cirigliana, close by. ❯ Brian Werner and Lindsay Hoyt got married in Kansas City on a snowy March 1. It was great to have Nate Ewigman, Brian Marienfeld, Steve Yasukawa, and Devin Hogan travel from all around the country to be there. ❯ As for me, I took a new job in fundraising at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Class Correspondent: Megan Rehberg 220 Shroyer Road, Dayton, OH 45419, megan.rehberg@gmail.com

2007 Hello Class of 2007! It seems like a lot of you have been doing your thing and keeping up with each other on Facebook. A couple of updates this time. As always, if you have anything, feel free to send it anytime, and it will be put in with the next round of updates. E-mail or Facebook message us any time. ❯ Farah Ahed got married on January 16, 2014, to Hasan Rahimtoola. She had a great time and the following Knox people came to her wedding: Shayna Olufs ’06, Shabbar Shaikh, Gauher Ahmad ’05, Mauaz Raza ’09, Saba Akram Bilgrami ’08, Sibel Karabeyoglu ’08, Emaad Hassan, and Rafay Khan ’10. Congratulations, Farah! ❯ Ashleigh Honaker Malec completed her fifth year at Lakes Community High School. She and Chris cannot wait to celebrate Sloan Ava Malec’s first birthday! Chris and Ashleigh were honored to be a part of the wedding of Mallory Havens ’06 and Andy Scott, along with Julia Strehlow, Karen Kinderman, Cary Clemente, and Rob Hull. ❯ Jess Drew Odom graduated in May 2013 with her master’s in theatre history, theory, and literature from Indiana University, Bloomington. She made the move back to Chicago soon after and married her partner of five years, Darren Odom, on March 15, 2014. She works for Northwestern University’s Center for Talent Development and enjoys married life immensely. ❯ Michael Sales is the coordinator of student life at Thomas


Class Knox river. College in Waterville, Maine. He advises the campus activities board; coordinates Welcome Week, Alcohol Awareness Week, and Healthy Me Week; works with commuter and international student populations; manages the student commons; and assists with new student orientation, homecoming and family weekend, leadership academy, senior week, and “other duties as assigned!” The Thomas community is similar to the Knox community, so naturally, it’s a good fit. Class Correspondents: Laura J. Wentink Marcasciano 5650 Abbey Drive, Apartment 3P, Lisle, IL 60532-2558, ljmarcasciano@gmail.com Michael C. Sales 129 Curtis Hall Pleasant Street, Castine, ME 04420-5000, KnoxClassof2007@gmail.com

2008 Courtney Meaker’s plays have been seen on the Seattle stages of Annex Theatre, on the Boards Northwest New Works Festival, Macha Monkey Productions, Theater Schmeater, One Minute Play Festival, and 14/48 The World’s Quickest Theatre Festival. She also co-wrote season two of the web series Wrecked. She took over as interim artistic director of Macha Monkey this summer. ❯ Saras Gil has the honor to be co-presenter for the Prince of Girona Foundation, Forum Impulsa 2014. She will have the opportunity to meet with and present their royal highnesses the Prince and Princess of Spain, as well as the Forum guest speakers including Paul Mockapetris and Jimmy Wales. She will also be shooting a new movie about Salvador Dali. ❯ Alex Enyart graduated from Southern Illinois University School of Law and passed the Illinois Bar. ❯ Lani Tortoriello has been working since graduation with Indiana University Opera and Ballet Theatre in their costume shop in Bloomington, Indiana, predominantly as their full-time wardrobe supervisor and a draper for 10 productions per season. She was recently accepted as one of two graduate students in IU’s new MFA program for costume technology in their theatre department. She begins her degree this fall. ❯ Meghan Reardon is performing in the world premiere of Ask Aunt Susan at The Goodman Theatre in downtown Chicago. She is associate artistic director of Red Tape Theatre, which will perform the U.S. premiere of Theatre de Complicite’s Mnemonic through the sponsorship of the City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events this fall. ❯ Dana Becker Lesus and husband Mike bought their first house (moving up from their first condo!) last summer. She is now pursuing her second master’s degree in negotiation and dispute resolution at Creighton University. She says: “This summer I learned how to garden since we’re no longer limited by the lack of space and natural light afforded us by a second story condo with all north-facing windows.” ❯ Katie Schneider

graduated with her master of education in elementary education in May 2013. She now teaches first grade in Naples, Florida. ❯ Anne Fagerburg received her MBA from Thunderbird and moved in with her boyfriend while they job search in California and Colorado. They’re planning a trip to Taiwan and Thailand this summer. ❯ Ali Boris spent summer 2014 in South Korea to collect fog and do some chemistry. She’s been hiking and biking in Colorado. Ali says: “I am happy that I get to see the Hoot Hoots in Denver so often!” ❯ Christy Dechaine just finished the second year of her dual master’s of social work/public health program; only one year left! In 2012 she married Pablo Munoz. This past December, they went to Chile to travel Patagonia and celebrate their oneyear anniversary with Pablo’s family. ❯ Andy Fitz and his wife have decided to move out of Chicago, so he’ll be leaving Lindblom Math and Science Academy, where he has taught physics on the south side for the past six years. While it’s sad to leave, he’s excited to be teaching at Stevenson High School this fall. ❯ In May 2013, Bradley Becque completed his master’s of arts in education from Castleton State College in Castleton, Vermont. He also served as the running backs’ coach for the football program there. In August 2013, he accepted a position as an assistant dorm parent/recreation staff at Brehm Prepatory School in his hometown of Carbondale, Illinois. He also worked as the head freshman football coach and assistant varsity coach at his alma mater. William Becque is still the sports information director at Thiel College in Greenville, Pennsylvania. He just completed his second year. ❯ Ike and Bethany Vittetoe Glinsmann ditched their jobs and are roadtripping for the foreseeable future. ❯ Mark Imielski is an attorney practicing family law for Martoccio & Martoccio in Hindsdale, Illinois. ❯ Meryl Leventon lives in Miami and works for the athletic events division of Life Time Fitness doing race production. They own a long list of national events that include the Michelob Ultra 13.1 Half Marathon Series and Life Time Triathlon Series. Their biggest event is the Miami Marathon. She says: “The hours are long, but the weather and ability to travel the country and produce incredible races is great!” ❯ Hamed Aziz and Colleen Harden ’10 got married on March 22, 2014, at Knox College and live in Champaign, Illinois. ❯ Bess Karner teaches at the Wolf School in Rhode Island, a school for children with complex learning needs. ❯ Sara Torina Rodriguez and Dave Rodriguez welcomed their baby girl, Leah Madeline, on February 10, 2014. The family lives in Melrose Park, Illinois. ❯ Brian Patrick King visited Washington D.C. to celebrate Rebecca Ganster’s birthday. They celebrated by making hop skip and having a hot dog BBQ and birthday party at Rebecca’s home in Columbia Heights. Dana Jenkins ’07 and his fiancé stopped by as well. The party went well into the evening, and it

was a giddy event to catch up with friends. ❯ Graham Troyer-Joy works at the Field Museum with Nick Kalmus ’10 and did a set at a real comedy club that even his parents have heard of. He now sometimes eats breakfast when he gets up in the morning. Is this adulthood? Gross. ❯ Ariel Lauryn is graduating with an MFA in ensemble-based physical theatre from Dell’Arte International; will be touring with a two-woman comedy show; and moving to LA, New York, London, or Italy...or whatever else the universe might have in store for her! ❯ I graduated from Bradley University with my MBA and started my first post-grad job. I will be sticking around Peoria for the foreseeable future. If you have any update that you would like to share, don’t hesitate to e-mail me, Miriam, at miriam.gillan@gmail.com or Erica Stringfellow Tully at e.stringfellow4@ gmail.com. We enjoy hearing from everyone! Class Correspondents: Miriam M. Gillan miriam.gillan@gmail.com Erica Stringfellow Tully e.stringfellow4@gmail.com

2009 Hello, Class of 2009! Hard to believe five years have passed since we hung out in the rain to get our diplomas. Looking forward to seeing everyone at our Reunion at Homecoming this year! Until then, keep up with our classmates’ adventures below: ❯ Daniel Hoffman is a Peace Corps volunteer living on the Senegal River. He plants mango trees, eats rice, and is learning to ride a horse. ❯ Stephen Herzog began Yale’s Ph.D. program in political science after three years of U.S. government arms control/ nonproliferation work in Central Asia and the Middle East. ❯ Ellen Kokontis continues to work in publishing. This year she was a developmental editor for LEAD with Humility: 12 Leadership Lessons from Pope Francis, the publisher’s lead fall title. ❯ Matt Baker writes, “R.” ❯ Rachael Goodman-Williams says: “I sadly left my job at a Portland rape crisis center but excitedly returned to the Midwest to begin a community psychology Ph.D. program at Michigan State University!” ❯ Iona Cooper writes: “I currently backpack for a living as a wilderness field instructor for Second Nature Therapeutic Wilderness Program in Santa Clara, Utah.” ❯ Zac Skinner writes: “I’m getting married! Oh, and getting my Montessori education master’s degree. They let me teach children ... in a classroom. For our future, be fearful.” ❯ Olivia Engel is creating a sustainable food culture in St. Louis at the Green Dining Alliance and writing her book on Tibetan refugee women. ❯ Pamela Schuller writes: “Just finished earning a master’s in child advocacy and policy and still work as a regional director of Youth Engagement on the East Coast.” ❯ Brian Chi Zhang is back at Telescope Inc., making sure your The Voice/American Idol votes are making a difference. For concerns regarding your votes,

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Brittany leggans ’09 lives in sydney, australia, and can walk to the please don’t contact him. ❯ Marek Dorman writes: “Visited British Isles.” ❯ Hayley Lerner was recently accepted to her first-choice MFA program. ❯ Maren Reisch is attending University of San Diego for a master’s degree in higher education leadership. ❯ Kevin Goetsch is now the lead data scientist at Braintree. He still plays club Ultimate Frisbee, this year with the team ELevate. ❯ Larissa Roy Peterson has started a new job for Skyward, Inc. ❯ James Clark coached the Laramie Colts summer collegiate baseball team in Laramie, Wyoming, over the summer. ❯ Ruvini Jayasinghe writes: “I am now a third year into graduate school, working on a degree in pharmacology. I recently went back home to Sri Lanka for vacation, and it was beautiful.” ❯ Jamie Hadac received her Ph.D. in cancer biology from the University of Wisconsin. ❯ Kathleen Beeson is stoked to be starting a Ph.D. in neuroscience at Oregon Health and Science University this fall! Braaaaiiiiinnnnsssss… ❯ As for me, I’m still in Sydney, Australia, and love it. I can’t get over being able to walk to the ocean on my lunch hour. It’s amazing! But I’ll be making a whirlwind trip back around the States in October. Hope to see many of you then! ❯ Until next time. Class Correspondent: Brittany N. Leggans knoxclassof2009@gmail.com

2010 Chris Kottmyer started a job in data warehousing, dealing with business intelligence, data warehouse architecture, and information management. Formerly, he was an IBM- based business analytics consultant and fraud analyst for an e-commerce website. ❯ After the end of Archer Season 5, Cami Woodruff was picked up by Bento Box Atlanta and has been working on Season 2 of The Awesomes (a Hulu series) doing layout and prop design. ❯ Elisa Hilderbrand is preparing for her Ph.D. thesis proposal and preliminary exam. Her project is on the interactions between estrogen, ethanol, and stress hormones in the female brain. ❯ Alison Hidden started a new job as a lead pre-K teacher at Little Green Tree House in Chicago, Illinois. She married Jeff Sobczyk of Omaha, Nebraska, on August 9, 2014. ❯ “After eight delightful years in Illinois,” Ben Scott relocated to Charlottesville to pursue a master’s of landscape architecture at the University of Virginia. ❯ Shane Donegan wanders central Iowa educating about trees and was featured in a TV news segment about the dangers of the Emerald Ash Borer. ❯ John ’09 and Chanel Miller Lane became Aunt Chanel and Uncle John to their nephew Juniper Daniel Lane! The couple also spends their time singing songs at their farm, Piper Street Permaculture, in Macomb, and selling vegetables at the local farmer’s market and online food co-op. In July, Chanel began a year-long Americorps VISTA position with the Illinois Institute of Rural Affairs, working with an after-school homework

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help and food security program. John got the tools to become a piano tuner. They took a big road trip from Illinois to British Columbia to New York and stayed with friends and family along the way. ❯ Colleen Harden married A. Hamed Aziz ’08 in the Lincoln Room on March 22, 2014. Knox alums from many classes and former and current Knox employees took part in the celebration! ❯ Andrea Johnston Palmer lives in Lexington, Kentucky, and puts both her English major and Spanish minor to good use working in a Spanish-English bilingual branch of the local public library system. She married Aaron Palmer ’11 in June 2013. She finished her classes for a master’s in library science at the University of Kentucky and submitted her final portfolio this summer. She graduated in August. “Hopefully, with that done, I can leave the ranks of the paraprofessionals and join the professional librarian world!” ❯ Carolyn Hill got engaged to Daniel Leigh, Swarthmore ’09, at the coastal ruin Tulum in Mexico in December 2013. In February, she was named editor-in-chief of the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology at Northwestern Law. And this summer, she worked as a summer associate with a large law firm in Palo Alto, California. ❯ Sarah Kurian graduated from medical school in May and began a pediatrics residency in Madison, Wisconsin. “Guess I’m going to join the cheese-heads!” ❯ Nicole Henniger began the fifth year of her Ph.D. in social psychology at the University of California, San Diego. This summer she taught an introductory psychology class and researched at the Naval Health Research Center in San Diego. ❯ Ryn Flynn graduated with an MFA in theatrical lighting design in June. ❯ Richard Thiemann says: “I’m now learning Dutch as a result of working for a Netherlands based high frequency trading firm. Verwonderlijk!” ❯ Virginia Graves spent the summer in Tanzania with a team of economists doing research for her thesis. She explored East Africa in her free time. ❯ Alana Ogilvie graduated from Thomas Jefferson University with her M.S. in May 2014, and moved to Portland, Oregon, in September. ❯ Margaret Spiegel was an education intern at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum from June to August 2014. She then returned to University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee for her second year of graduate school. She also became an aunt to an adorable baby girl! ❯ Sam Magnuson finished his second year of law school at Marquette. He was the summer legal intern at Kohler Company. He writes: “I absolutely love living in Milwaukee.” ❯ Samantha Eggert married Chris Paul ’07 in July 2013. Samantha handles the mortgage escrow accounts at Mercantile Bank in Quincy, Illinois. ❯ For the past two and a half years, Bisan Battrawi has been working as a researcher in a science education project in Palestine. She has been responsible for a study for the establishment of an interactive science center in Ramallah, and she loves it! She has been traveling a lot and has met

many Knox alumni over the past four years: Omeshwar Brongersma ’11 in Belgium; Tim Lee ’11 and D’Angelo Smith ’12 in Palestine; Saba Akram ’08 and Sukhi Srivatsan ’08 in San Francisco; and Hye Sun Jeong ’11 in both Palestine and South Korea. She visited Knox last August with her brother, Bashar Battrawi ’17, who is now a Knox student, and she is proud of him! ❯ Creal Zearing works at the Aldo Leopold Nature Center in Madison, Wisconsin, as their public programs coordinator. She cannot help but think that participating in the Green Oaks Term had something to do with it. ❯ Analise Rahn continues to tour nationally with the band V is for Villains as their keyboardist, backing vocalist, bellydancer, costume designer, and seamstress. She was thrilled to accept a position at Broadway Costumes in Chicago. ❯ Lindsey Murrell got married September 28, 2013, and Gloria Feliciano was one of her bridesmaids! Lindsey was also promoted to event communication and special order manager for Scrubs and Beyond. ❯ Phillip Peterson works as an EMT and lives in Albuquerque. ❯ As for me, I completed my first year at Notre Dame Law School and spent the summer in Orange County, California, as a judicial extern for a judge on the California Court of Appeals. Class Correspondent: Lauren Assaf knoxcollege2010notes@gmail.com

2011 Looks like we’re starting to find each other … all over the world! And so many more of us are becoming masters! ❯ Around Chicago: Chris Bugajski and Sasha Murphy started their externships and are a year away from being doctors of optometry. ❯ Brigette Demke is a semester (and boards) away from being a fullfledged RN! She also competed in a world synchro competition in Montreal. ❯ Patrick Dooley is working on his histotechnologist certification while performing rapid autopsies and looking at funny-colored brain slices thinner than paper on slides. ❯ Helen Hapner finished her first year of law school at the University of Illinois College of Law and clerked at the Department of Justice in the Chicago Immigration Court over the summer. ❯ Shea Strausman works with Dealer e-Process as a search engine optimization and content manager. ❯ Leslie Kang is teaching English as a Second Language at Solex College and is starting a master’s program at the University of Chicago. ❯ Kevin Morris is in his second year at Pearson, where he was promoted to resource deployment manager. ❯ Marnie Shure was promoted at The Onion to editorial coordinator, overseeing, scheduling, and publishing the laughs enjoyed by all. ❯ Molly Stein has been with 5/3 Bank for three years now. She also bought a condo. ❯ Jackie Stillmaker finished her first year in the occupational therapy program at Saint Louis University and headed to Chicago for field work.


Class Knox ocean on her lunch hour. Meet the New Young Alumni Trustee John Cusimano ’13 John Cusimano ’13, from Tinley Park, Illinois, double-majored in biochemistry and music. In 2012, he was a recipient of the Lincoln Academy of Illinois’ Student Laureate Award in recognition of his excellence in curricular and extracurricular activities. At Knox, he served as treasurer of Chemistry Club and president of Motor Board, and, as a junior, was elected into Phi Beta Kappa. He now works as project manager at EPIC in Madison, Wisconsin, and was recently named the Knox College Young Alumni Trustee. What were some of the highlights of your Knox education? During my junior year, I was fortunate enough to travel to Florida for a spring break service trip with Habitat for Humanity. In addition to constructing a house for a hardworking family, I met two other students whom I never would have spent any time with outside of classes. After toiling an entire week in Florida’s suffocating mugginess, these students and I managed to become close friends. To this day, I’m not sure whether I’ve had a better spring break or met a better pair of friends. JOHN WILLIAMS ’12

❯ Jess Unrein is gainfully employed as a junior software engineer. ❯ Around the Midwest... Michaela Romano spent a delightful year in China before learning her breast cancer had returned. It is triple negative and stage IV. She is currently at home receiving treatment and reevaluating what to do with the time she has left. ❯ Kelly Wiggen started her first year of clinical rotations last month at University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine and adopted a cat. ❯ In July, Kristin Niehoff Weisenberger ’12 and her husband welcomed baby girl August Mae. Sometimes she goes to bed at 9 p.m., and that’s okay. ❯ Dylan Garcia is in the process of joining the Workers World Party and doing work with the party’s Rockford branch and its youth organization, Fight Imperialism, Stand Together (FIST). ❯ Helen Schnoes graduated with her master’s in regional planning, food systems and sustainability focus, from Cornell University. She headed back to Galesburg to continue bringing the best salmon to the Midwest with Sitka Salmon Shares as community and sustainability coordinator. Eric Ballard oversees the processing and shipping for Sitka. Emily Oliver is lecturing first-year Intro to Creative Writing to engineering and premed students after finishing her MFA in poetry from Cornell. ❯ Courtney Jude and Christian Burton ’12 are getting married and expecting a baby! ❯ Jonathan Pierce-Ruhland flies planes and dumps funny-looking people out of planes at 10,000 feet. ❯ Brett Daley finished his first year of grad school at Iowa State University. ❯ Mary Reindl began her master’s of social work degree at St. Ambrose University in Davenport. ❯ Ryan Larson is a commissioned officer in the United States Army. ❯ Alex Davis finished his first year of law school at Saint Louis University and worked full-time as a faculty fellow researching constitutional and admiralty law and disability law. ❯ Sarah Juist spent the summer as a pastor in Michigan and graduated with her master of divinity in December. ❯ Katherine Rae teaches Hmong and Karen students of Southeast Asia in Minneapolis. ❯ Casey Patrick enjoys life in Minneapolis, working as the publishing assistant at Milkweed Editions, making beautiful books, and e-mailing famous poets. ❯ Tara Orech finished her second year of dental school in Minneapolis. ❯ Around the West Coast... Chris Johnson completed his master’s in computer science from MIT and moved to San Francisco. He and Elizabeth Woodyard ’13 plan to marry in Boston. ❯ Katie Johnston graduated with her M.S. in business branding/copywriting from VCU Brandcenter and accepted a position as a junior copywriter at DDB in San Francisco. ❯ Akiba Bradford is working with the National Council on Crime and Delinquency as a researcher. Her work is currently focused on surveying juvenile justice detention centers in California to determine how many LGBT youth are in detention. ❯ Sara DeMaria works to control invasive species and research the effects

Why have you chosen to stay involved with the College? Whenever I reflect upon my four years at Knox, I can’t help but feel a greatly indebted to everyone at the College, from faculty and staff to administrators. I know that they all sincerely contributed to me having such a truly exceptional and memorable experience. Since graduating, I have been seeking a way to repay some of that debt and being elected to the Young Alumni Trustee position provides just that opportunity. What do you hope to accomplish as a young alumni trustee? It’s difficult for me to say definitively what I hope to accomplish because it is so early in my term, but I would like to focus on two areas in particular: student recruitment and professors’ teaching experience. As a student, I worked three years in the Office of Admission and saw how hard every member of that office works to ensure an outstanding incoming first-year class. My only desire for future Knox classes is for them to be better than those that preceded them, and I am dedicated to working on innovative recruitment initiatives. Like every Knox student, I’ve also seen how much energy professors pour into their teaching, and I’d like to see them rewarded for all of their efforts to augment students’ experiences. For more information: www.knox.edu/trustees.

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Yumna rathore ‘12 is an international consultant for communications

PETER BAILLEY ’74

2012

Seniors Meet the Challenge More than $15,000 was raised for the Class of 2014 Scholarship, thanks to 215 senior donors, who donated $9,973; Margaret and Joe Flanagan ’85, who sponsored the Donor Challenge; parents Dick and Doris Kowalski, who provided a match for the Class of 2014 Scholarship; and gifts from parents of the senior class. The scholarship is named in memory of Tundun Lawani ’14, who passed away after an auto accident in October 2012.

of prescribed fire as one of three people on approximately 30,000 acres in eastern Oregon. ❯ Liz Thomas left Beijing to begin law school at the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law. ❯ In New England... Shruti Patel started her M.A. in public policy at Georgetown. ❯ Krista Ahlberg is working on her sitcom life and at a bookstore. ❯ Ben Reeves finished his M.A. in humanities and social thought from the New York University Draper program. ❯ Emma Beyer made a very adult decision: she bought furniture. ❯ Isabelle Leventhal is halfway finished with her master’s in clinical psychology and is working toward becoming a certified alcohol and substance abuse counselor at the New School in New York. She’s also tutoring bambinos on the common core and middle school/kindergarten entrance exams. ❯ Kathleen Kellett graduated with her M.A. in children’s literature and an MFA in writing for children from Simmons College. ❯ Chloe Bohm is an analyst for the re-entry program at the Allegheny County Jail in Pittsburgh and teaches adult literacy in the evenings. ❯ And in Florida... Priya Sharma started medical school at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale. She

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is done with harsh winters! ❯ Overseas... Lisa Marquardt is interning at Hamburg’s Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy with a focus on maritime terrorism and Europe’s asylum and refugee policy. She works at a coffee shop part time. ❯ Shih Yi “Ruby” Goh started her third year as a credit risk analyst with Bank of America Merrill Lynch based in London. ❯ Alex Lindberg has decided to move to Stockholm, Sweden, permanently, to teach sixth through ninth grades. ❯ Tomi and Dami Olotu are coCEO’s at Lúlú group, making beautiful, beaded jewelry, based in Lagos, Nigeria. ❯ Avi Brongersma is working on his Dutch and U.S. C.P.A. qualifications while working at PricewaterhouseCoopers in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. ❯ Alex and Courtney Joyce Hall have left to begin their two-year stay in Cameroon with the Peace Corps. ❯ I think it’s high time to start thinking about going on another adventure! Class Correspondent: Tim Schmeling trschmeling@gmail.com

Audrey Todd moved to Chicago to do garden education and maintenance for The Organic Gardener, Ltd. She gets to play outside, eat fresh food, and teach people all day! An added bonus is that there is an ice cream truck driver that stops in front of her house at 10 p.m. each night and sells $1 soft serve. ❯ Gordon Barratt and Amanda Crow got engaged on December 25, 2013, at San Bruno Mountain State Park. Tyler O’Neill lives in Austin, Texas, with Bob Carey and Stephen Hoyt ’13 and works as the marketing assistant at the Thinkery (Austin Children’s Museum), where he hangs around a giant lite-brite wall. ❯ Cale Dahm ’13 owns a dog named MacGruber. ❯ Ben Greuter teaches kids in the counties around Xi’an, China. He also runs a business with two partners developing a new English learning textbook for primary school students. He plans to tour the counties training English as a Foreign Language teachers. ❯ Sable Sanders finished her second year with City Year Chicago: “Working with City Year has fueled the desire to fight for social justice that Knox ignited inside me,” says Sable, who is now pursuing her master’s in social work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. ❯ In 2013, Kate Donoghue, along with fellow Knox alums Keegan Siebken ’11, Ivy Reid, Anna Munzesheimer, Spencer Graham, and Paul Lurenz, founded Anaemic Theatre Company in Chicago. The company’s inaugural production of Passion Play by Sarah Ruhl opened in August 2014. Kate lives in Andersonville with Trevor Sorenson ’10 and Cricket the dog. ❯ Erin McKinstry resides in sunny Fort Collins, Colorado, where there is never a shortage of microbreweries or bicyclists. She serves as an Americorps VISTA at a small non-profit that helps people with disabilities. She spends her free time taking hikes with her dog Lotus, cooking up a storm, and cartwheeling down the street. ❯ Maisie Maupin says 2014 has been a big year for her. She graduated from film school AND she discovered Tinder?! She is unstoppable! ❯ Katherine Mackin is a mental health worker in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She works for Community Involvement Programs. This fall, she will attend St. Catherine’s University for her master’s in clinical social work. ❯ Steph Nunez graduated with her master’s in athletic training and is excited about her internship in North Carolina. ❯ Jules Ohman is a second year MFA candidate in fiction at the University of Montana. Her chapbook of short stories, Vertical Streets, won the Merriam-Frontier Award and was published in the summer. Her first published essay, “Model Girl,” was published in Willow Springs in June. She lives with Jesse Sindler ’13 in Missoula, Montana. ❯ David Aken is proud of his 4.0 GPA in DePaul University’s master’s entry nursing practice program. He was invited to join two honor societies for his academic achievement: Psi Sigma Phi and Sigma Theta


Class Knox advice at the united nations development programme in beijing, china. Tau. He finished a clinical rotation with Rehab Institute of Chicago and learned how to help patients with spinal cord injuries return to their home environments. ❯ Peter Thomas can’t believe he’s been living in Seattle for a year! He’s wanted to live here since he was 13, and it’s a dream come true. He says it is just as green and rainy as he could have possibly wanted. He is in a graduate program for mental health counseling at Antioch University Seattle. He reflects: “It’s hard work, but Knox definitely prepared me for it.” ❯ Cat Erickson moved to Tenri, Japan, in August. She works as an assistant language teacher with the Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme. ❯ Emma Gingold and Josh Wood will get married in November! ❯ Jamie White is in his second year as an MFA in poetry student at Florida Atlantic University. He received the Association of Writing and Writing Programs’ Intro Journals Award in Poetry; was published in the Colorado Review, JMWW, and Decades Review; and began working on a book manuscript. He sounds busy but mostly watches HGTV and eats cookie dough in bed. ❯ Matt and Lauren Smith Rafacz live in Woodstock, Illinois. Matt is a lead teacher (first-third grades) at Montessori Pathways School. They enjoy their new apartment, which is one floor above a chocolate shop! ❯ Eleanor Ognacevic calls Chicago home and works 9-5 at Jameson Sotheby’s International Realty as their marketing/agent services assistant. She lives with fellow Knox alumni Keegan Siebken ’11 and Kyla Tully ’13 and Tootsie (dog) and Spats (cat). She says: “Chicago is where I was destined to live, surrounded by incredible theater, any type of food I desire, and the fact that I don’t have to drive! In a nut shell, I’m just living happy!” ❯ After working as a reporter for two years in Monmouth, Annie Pittman said: “Goodbye, for now,” to Galesburg. She is earning her MFA in poetry at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. A prairie girl at heart, she is pleasantly overwhelmed by mountains and the coast. ❯ Aparna Kumar moved to Seattle in July 2014, is graduating from her master’s in experimental psychology program, and wrapping up a UX Research Internship at Amazon in December 2014. ❯ Bess Cooley is in her second year in the MFA program in poetry at Purdue University. She teaches composition, which makes her grateful she didn’t have graduate teaching assistants at Knox, and is managing editor of Sycamore Review. ❯ Ben Wetherbee finished year two working in the Admission office at Knox. ❯ Yumna Rathore graduated from University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs with a master’s in public administration, majoring in policy analysis and research and minoring in development planning and environmental sustainability. Yumna now works as an international consultant for communications advice at the United Nations Development Programme based in Beijing, China. ❯ Elise Hyser is a second year medical student at Edward Via College of Osteopathic

Medicine. She is pursuing a career in pediatrics and is excited about summer research at Lurie Children’s Research Center. ❯ Rachel Clark happily attends graduate school, swing dances, and teaches Zumba in Iowa City. As a member of the Health, Brain, and Cognition Lab, Rachel studies how physical activity can improve cognitive abilities, especially during aging. As often as possible she rides her bike all over the rolling hills just outside Iowa City. Class Correspondent: Audrey Todd todd.audrey.anna@gmail.com

2013 Class Correspondent: Rup Sarkar 4419 St. Charles Avenue, Unit 3, New Orleans, LA 70115, rsarkar@tulane.edu

2014 Hi everyone! We are Natalia Binkowski and Esther Farler-Westphal, your 2014 class correspondents! We want to hear all about your post-grad life events for years to come and to share your successes with the rest of the Knox community. Whether you get a new job, move in with another Knox alum, or win a Nobel Peace Prize, send all of your accomplishments our way! You can send them to Natalia at nbinkows@ knox.edu or Esther at efarler@knox.edu, and we will be sure to share your stories! Class Correspondents: Esther FarlerWestphal efarler@knox.edu Natalia Binkowski nbinkows@knox.edu

Marriages and Unions Charles Thompson ’60 and Jane Josephson on 6/14/14. Nedra Joseph ’99 and Ajay Nayak on 12/1/12. Jessica Adelman ’06 and Natan Mandel ’06 on 6/1/14. Karin Kovitvongsa ’06 and Philip Straehl on 9/28/13. Brian Werner ’06 and Lindsay Hoyt on 3/1/14. Farah Ahed ’07 and Hasan Rahimtoola on 1/16/14. Jess Drew ’07 and Darren Odom on 3/15/14. Jennifer Golz ’08 and Mike Reidl on 6/22/13. Molly Wilson ’09 and David Dinkins on 5/10/14. Samantha Eggert ’10 and Chris Paul ’07 on 7/27/13. Colleen Harden ’10 and A. Hamed Aziz ’08 on 3/22/14. Alison Hidden ’10 and Jeff Sobczyk on 8/9/14. Aaron Palmer ’11 and Andrea Johnston ’10 on 6/29/13. Lauren Smith ’12 and Matt Rafacz ’12 on 6/15/13. Paige Anderson ’13 and Grant Lowe ’14 on 6/8/14.

Deaths Eleanor Phelps Pico ’35 on 2/12/14. Roy L. Westerfield ’38 on 3/24/14. Bette Baldwin Keller ’39 on 2/05/14. James Zamrazil ’39 on 5/26/14. Margaret Simmons Dewey ’40 on 12/4/13. Robert E. Bohan ’40 on 3/22/14. Leno Tattini ’40 on 3/26/14. John C. Easterberg ’40 on 6/15/14. Mabel Hatch Sharp ’41 on 5/20/13. Barbara Anderson Henderson ’41 on 11/18/13. Ada Livingston Douglas ’41 on 1/12/14. Vivian Holmes Hammerberg ’41 on 7/1/14. Frederick C. Norlin ’42 on 12/26/13. Mary Stuart Jobst ’42 on 1/27/14. Lawrence W. Sawhill ’43 on 5/18/13. Grace Copeland Balkema ’43 on 11/20/13. William K. Scupham ’43 on 1/11/14. Mary-Alice Allen Linde ’43 on 1/31/14. William E. Claypool ’43 on 2/19/14. Janice Kysor Van Schuyler ’43 on 6/1/14. Mary Schutt Lyman ’44 on 8/8/12. Robert L. Walton ’44 on 4/7/14. Warren Manley ’44 on 4/29/14. Margaret Smith Mulligan ’44 on 4/29/14. Gene Sackey ’44 on 4/13/13. Estelle Sager Leven ’45 on 8/23/13. Mae-Belle Wight Mader ’46 on 12/12/13. Betty Wetmore Metcalf ’46 on 12/25/13. Marilyn Bryan Griswold ’46 on 1/8/14. Robert E. Kilbride ’46 on 2/5/14. Jean D. Burchett Morley ’47 on 1/6/14. Philip R. Pearcy ’47 on 1/17/14. Jeanne Keller Handlin ’47 on 2/11/14. Robert “Sam” Malley ’47 on 5/31/14. Rosemary Lundeen Johnson ’47 on 6/26/14. Peter Van Trigt Jr. ’48 on 12/8/13. Edmund T. Roberts ’48 on 1/13/14. Frank “Chico” A. Carrico ’48 on 4/4/14. Ernest E. Bassi ’48 on 5/28/14. Leonard C. Donohoe Jr. ’49 on 6/13/13. Kathryn Conover Gibson ’49 on 1/4/14. Allen Mann Jr. ’49 on 2/4/14. Elaine Kerry ’49 on 4/17/14. Dorothy Sherman Hogeland ’49 on 6/6/14. Glenn P. LeFevre ’50 on 5/10/12. Charles “Chuck” J. Gibbs ’50 on 2/17/14. Bernice Kahlenberg MacKenzie ’50 on 2/18/14. William H. Webster ’50 on 5/4/14. Dr. Frederic “Fred” G. Lauder ’50 on 5/5/14. Dorothy Jacobson Bingaman ’51 on 1/1/14. Patricia Kimble Simmons ’51 on 2/8/14. William “Bill” C. Van Trigt ’51 on 3/19/14. Tullio Garzone ’52 on 6/5/2012. Carolyn J. Wallach Ash ’52 on 10/21/13. William A. Goodwin ’52 on 12/7/13. Mary Spenader Harkness ’52 on 12/29/13. John M. Maxwell Jr. ’52 on 1/8/14. Richard L. Matteson ’52 on 2/13/14. Donald R. Stroben ’52 on 5/26/14. Judith J. Juers ’52 on 5/31/14. David W. Duncan Jr. ’53 on 12/16/13.

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In Memoriam Ivan Davidson, Professor Emeritus of Theatre

FILE PHOTO

Ivan Hugh Davidson, professor emeritus of theatre, died July 8 at his home in Mobile, Alabama, at age 76. Davidson joined the faculty in the fall of 1969, serving for many years as theatre department chairman, as well as serving on numerous standing and appointed committees. In 1970, he cofounded Knox’s Reperatory Theatre Term, the only undergraduate theatre program in the United States that combines academic study in theatre with all of the business that is vital to operating a professional repertory theatre company. He was the recipient of the Philip Green Wright-Lombard Prize for Teaching Excellence and the Caterpillar Faculty Achievement Award, as well as three National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Fellowship Awards. A noted acting and voice teacher, Professor Davidson presented workshops around the United States, as well as London, Stratford-on-Avon, Rome, Frankfort, Moscow, and St. Petersburg. He taught in London with the American Colleges of the Midwest program there, and at the famous Moscow Art Theatre. He both acted and directed at the professional, university, and community theatre levels. He was the mentor to numerous students who went on to highly successful professional careers in theatre, movies, and television. Deliberately trained as a generalist, during his career, he taught courses in all aspects of production design, acting, and directing, and the full range of dramatic literature and theatre history. In addition to his work in the theatre department, he was instrumental in Knox's Creative Writing Program, where he taught playwriting. He also created and taught courses in the campus-wide Freshman Seminar, Freshman Preceptorial, and Senior Perspective programs. A memorial will take place at Knox on Sunday, October 12, at 1:00 p.m. in Harbach Theatre with a reception to follow in CFA Lobby. Alumni wishing to send tributes may send them to ivanmemorial@knox.edu. These tributes will be collated into a memory book for the family. Memorials may be made to the Knox College Merriweather Thompson Theatre Fund.

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M. Laura Johnson Forbes ’53 on 2/11/14. Robert W. Quirk ’53 on 5/23/14. Nancy Phelps Callarman ’54 on 4/8/13. Katherine Theodoras Anderson ’54 on 11/13/13. Frank T. Lohmann ’54 on 12/19/13. Russell “Russ” W. Schwem ’54 on 3/14/14. Ronald C. Anderson ’54 on 4/18/14. John M. Mellican ’54 on 7/6/14. F. Eugene Ziles ’55 on 12/16/2013. Donald E. Meents ’55 on 6/18/14. Mark L. Seaman ’56 on 5/18/14. Paul Robert Stalker ’57 on 11/6/13. James J. Zourek ’57 on 3/29/14. Christopher G. Money ’57 on 4/30/14. Carol Rich Hertenstein ’57 on 5/22/14. Levantha Fisher Litsey ’58 on 9/19/13. Carole Wilson Smrz ’58 on 3/16/14. Richard “Dick” Clark ’58 on 5/11/2014. Robert Edwards ’59 on 11/18/13. Douglas L. Peltzer ’60 on 4/17/13. L. Jill Pearson Ingersoll ’60 on 5/4/14. Robert G. Moldal ’60 on 5/24/14. Lenore Bergeson Brinker ’61 on 6/26/13. Judith Parry Wade ’61 on 11/01/13. Robert J. Lee ’61 on 4/16/14. Bonnie Fuller Jennings ’62 on 1/10/14. William H. Fauerbach ’62 on 3/3/14. Cherie Christy Ziech ’63 on 1/23/14. Judith Moore McNabb ’63 on 4/29/14. Robert Stahl ’64 on 10/18/13. R. Denison “Denny” Stewart ’64 on 2/7/14. Roberta “Bobbie” Hallquist Brown ’65 on 1/11/14. L. Edwin McGrew ’65 on 1/29/14. Arthur J. Adams ’66 on 2/15/14. Sandra Stevens ’66 on 3/17/14. Richard A. Fritz ’66 on 5/11/14. Janet Burandt Goebel ’68 on 2/5/14. Jan O. Carter ’69 on 1/29/14. Janet Neubaum Kovarik ’70 on 1/12/14. Louis H. Moreth ’73 on 1/17/14. Jan R. Jerabek ’73 on 4/10/14. Greggory G. Golemo ’73 on 4/14/14. Lynn Schaller ’74 on 1/21/14. Jon A. Borendame ’77 on 9/19/13. Ellen Myers Womack ’79 on 12/8/13. Thomas E. Sikora ’79 on 1/19/14. David K. Van Drunen ’81 on 12/15/13. Greg S. Engstrom ’84 on 7/5/14. Vicky Donaldson Stoneking ’94 on 12/5/13.

Deaths of Friends Amy Mitsuuchi, mother of Edie T. MitsuuchiSmith ’80, on 6/2/12. June Elwert Stange, sister of Ann Elwert Blum ’57, on 8/28/12. E. Beatrice Fox, friend of Knox College, on 9/8/12. Cleo Walls, grandmother of Cameron J. Posey ’12, on 9/8/12.

Paul Jackson, husband of Carole Cushman Jackson ’66, on 12/07/12. Margaret R. Fucik, mother of Edward M. Fucik Jr. ’68, on 3/2/13. Ann H. Hieronymus, wife of Edward H. Hieronymus ’32, on 4/27/13. Charles Mathews Dick, friend of the College, on 5/10/13. Dr. Michael S. Sidell, friend of the College, on 5/19/13. Ernest M. Nicholas, husband of Carol M. Thompson ’64, on 5/21/13. Carl E. Stone, friend of the College, on 8/9/13. Maria Y. Tumbaga, mother of Samuel Y. Tumbaga ’76, on 8/15/13. Doris McRaven, wife of Joseph D. McRaven ’43, on 8/23/13. Edward L. Jones, father of Piper A. R. Jones ’13 on 8/24/13. Richard E. Walton, husband of Elizabeth Fischer Walton ’51, on 9/23/13. Dr. Glenn E. Gurganus, friend of the College, on 10/29/13. Gerald J. “Chic” Anderson, brother-in-law of Dean Hill ’52, on 12/4/13. Elinor Ruth Pritchard, sister-in-law of Shirlee Sandborg ’76, on 12/5/13. James Steinbach, father-in-law of Lisa Steinbach, business office, on 12/5/13. Raymond G. Root, parent of Ronald L. Root ’73, on 12/7/13. Corporal Chad E. Condreay, nephew of Steve Hall, information technology services, on 12/8/13. Jerry R. Walter, brother of Tom Walter ’74, on 12/12/13. G. Dean Storm, grandfather of Jennifer O’Hern ’01, on 12/14/13. Stephen E. Smith, uncle of Jeff Long ’87, on 12/15/13. Rob Shelley, partner of Corrina Repass ’99, on 12/15/13. James J. Rygelski, former publicity staff, on 12/18/13. Conley Spivey, attended air cadet training at the College, on 12/23/13. Stephen M. Fox, husband of Pamela Eubanks Fox ’76 and son of Russell W. Fox ’50, on 12/24/13. Earl L. Stevens, father of Chris ’93 and Gary Stevens ’73, on 12/28/13. Robert Blum, husband of Ann Elwert Blum ’57 and father of Richard Blum ’73, on 1/4/14. Roger A. Klein, husband of Emi Takahara Klein ’65, on 1/4/14. June A. Russell, wife of Robert Russell ’49, on 1/8/14. Robert F. Taft, former associate professor of history, on 1/12/14. Mary F. Stubbs, wife of C. Maxwell “Max” Stubbs ’40, mother of Gerald B. Stubbs ’68 and Donald R. Stubbs ’70, mother-in-law of Diane Scott Stubbs ’69, on 1/18/14. Walter F. DeCrane, father-in-law of Debbie DeCrane, information technology services, on 1/19/14.


Class Knox Lillian M. Bostert, wife of Russell Bostert ’41, on 1/21/14. Ronald C. Bland, brother of Paula Bland Shannon ’93, on 1/25/14. Helga Sandburg Crile, daughter of Carl Sandburg L1902, on 1/26/14. Ray Hensley, grandfather of Amanda Byerly Cervantez ’14, on 1/26/14. Bonnie J. Harmon, sister of Martha Graham Boro ’74, on 1/29/14. Teddy A. Kennelly, father of Kyle Kennelly ’70 and Kevin Kennelly ’76, on 1/29/14. Nancy Brown-Bucher, sister of Tom Walter ’74, on 1/31/14. Terry N. Haywood, friend of the College, on 1/31/14. Debra Ann Pogatchnik, sister of Diana Cermak, professor of chemistry, on 2/6/14. Michael L. Brown, father of M. Todd Brown ’00, on 2/8/14. Helen H. Groebner, mother of Barbara Groebner Rohde ’72, on 2/8/14. Richard Ward Pratt Sr., former groundskeeper, on 2/8/14. Phyllis A. Fritz, mother of Ken Johnson ’73, on 2/10/14 Christiana Jane Raether, former admissions and financial aid staff, on 2/15/14. Helen Benedict, wife of Donald Benedict ’38, on 2/22/14. Dennis Bailey, former facilities worker and husband of Denise Bailey, president’s office, father of Michael W. Bailey ’99 and Michelle Bailey Vella ’95, and brother of Mike Bailey, facilities, on 2/24/14. Leatrice Burket Hobbs, friend of the College, on 2/24/14. Theresa L. Fox-Allen, aunt of Alexander Fox ’10, on 2/26/14. Shirley G. Blust, mother of Michael Landon ’71, on 3/1/14. Robert E. Walker, father of Mary Kay Baldwin ’72, on 3/1/14. Willard C. Cox, father of Dion Cox Mercier ’72, on 3/2/14. Bridget Gray, mother of Cathy Gray ’82, on 3/6/14. Nancy Taylor, wife of Karl Taylor ’60, on 3/6/14. Betty Begley, mother of Diana Beck, professor of educational studies, on 3/9/14. Robert G. Miller, retired professor of military science and father of Lee Miller ’72 and Gary Miller ’77, on 3/11/14. Hugh Wayne Reno, father of Richard Reno ’63, father-in-law of Donna Scott Reno ’63, and grandfather of Christopher Reno ’98, on 3/14/14. Pauline C. Melton, sister of George Melton ’56, on 3/20/14. Steven Gaffney, husband of Sarah Kilch Gaffney ’06, on 3/22/14. Betty Franson, wife of Raymond L. Franson ’49, on 3/25/14.

Mary R. Porter, wife of Carroll D. Porter ’32, on 3/27/14. Shirley Williamson, mother-in-law of Mark Wilson, advancement office, on 3/29/14. Donna Keller, mother of Kathryn Keller ’73, on 3/31/14. Ann Wikoff Sigwalt, wife of Robert Wikoff ’29, on 4/1/14. Jan Tanzer, wife of Milton Tanzer ’53, on 4/1/14. Edward Glenn Bartlett, grandfather of Melody Boyd Junker ’03, on 4/1/14. Winifred Wennerstrand Chilton, former instructor of string bass, on 4/2/14. Richard N. Sweet, father of Kathryn Z. Sweet ’08, on 4//7/14. Jean Marie Johnson, mother of Alan D. Johnson ’75 and Clark E. Johnson ’79, on 4/10/14. Roberta B. Tower, wife of Jack B. Tower ’50, on 4/10/14. Michael J. Wilder Sr., son of Louise Wilder ’77, on 4/13/14. Marian Luthy-Failor, mother of John Scott Luthy ’78, on 4/15/14. Jim Malik, former professor of chemistry, on 4/17/14. Kenneth Robison, son of Katherine Parkins Robison ’37 and Charles Robison ’34, on 4/20/14. John C. Amott, father of President Teresa Amott, on 4/27/14. Janet Tanner, retired dining services staff, on 4/30/14. Genevieve Ries Yaw, friend of the College, on 5/1/14. Naomi Harris Nordhielm, wife of Berndt “Nord” E. Nordhielm ’43, on 5/2/14. Ella S. Kauffman, wife of Frederick C. Kauffman ’58 and mother of Andrew F. Kauffman ’89, on 5/4/14. Stephen R. Axley, father of Amanda J. Axley ’14 and Jackson Danner Axley ’15, on 5/13/14. Dennis Kamano, husband of Ann Wisshack Kamano ’64 and father of John Kamano ’89, on 5/16/14. Faith Coddington, mother-in-law of James Thrall, associate professor of religion and culture, on 5/18/14. Mary Ann R. Middleton, mother of Robert K. W. Middleton ’99, on 5/31/14. Andrew J. Lundeen, father of Julie Nelson, business office, on 6/9/14 Martha Longbrake, mother of Dorothy “Dell” E. L. Longbrake ’03, on 6/24/14. Sue Jane Simonson Lescher, wife of Nevin C. Lescher ’53, on 7/2/14. Ivan H. Davidson, Professor Emeritus of Theatre, on 7/8/14. Gary Francois, Professor Emeritus of Psychology and father of Miava Reem ’01, biology department, on 7/30/14.

In Memoriam Gary Francois, Professor Emeritus of Psychology Knox College Professor Emeritus Gary R. Francois died July 30 in Galesburg. Francois came to Knox n 1963 as an instructor in the psychology department. He was named associate professor, then professor, before retiring in 2002. In 1997, he was named the Szold Distinguished Service Professor of Psychology. During his time at Knox, Francois was very active in his field with numerous publications and committees, as well as serving as chairperson of the Department of Psychology, Assistant to the President, and interim vice president of Advancement. Francois’s honors and awards included belonging to Psi Chi National Honor Society in Psychology and FILE PHOTO receiving the Faculty Citizenship Recognition at the American Association for Higher Education 1994 national conference. He was a member of American Psychological Association, Midwestern Psychological Association, Southwestern Psychological Association, Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology, Sigma Xi, Council of Undergraduate Psychology Programs, and Council of Teachers of Undergraduate Psychology. In the community, Francois was instrumental in establishing Carl Sandburg College, where he served on the Board of Trustees and Foundation Board. He was a Paul Harris Fellow of the Rotary Club, served on the OSF Foundation Board, and served on the Galesburg Civic Art Center Board. He was an Eagle Scout and member of the Order of the Arrow, serving as a leader as well as on the local and district Boy Scout councils for many years. After retirement, he learned to fly and volunteered with the National Stearman Fly-In each year. Memorials may be made to the Knox College Library.

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Parting Shot

Joining Art & Prayer The Newman Club, which aims to increase understanding of the Catholic faith on campus, sponsored an Interfaith Prayer Tree during senior week. According to a message from the club, the idea behind the tree was “that people will write their prayers on pieces of paper and then, using yarn, hang them from the tree, sort of like an ornament . . . Together with those from other faith paths, we’ll make a temporary space on campus that merges together art and prayer.” Photo by Peter Bailley ’74


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