CLASS NOTES 1973 “I was in the class of 1973 but missed my senior year at Country Day when my family had the opportunity to go to Brussels for my father’s job with P&G. My undergraduate studies were at Dartmouth College, and PhD-MD work at Case Western Reserve University. After doing leukemia research at the University of Oklahoma and the University of Iowa, I retired in 2020. I currently reside in Iowa City with my wife of 43 years, Dee Dee Stafford, but we spend most of our time in south Chicago to be near my daughter, Kate, son-in-law, Alan Hutchison, and grandson, Malcolm.” - Thomas Carter
with former CCDS parent, Rick Rust. Julie works in research and development for Morgan Foods in Indiana, and she shared her experiences and answered student questions about her career in Food Science. Mrs. Butler said that Julie’s presentation was well-received, and it was great to re-connect!
2001 1991 Jessica Dessner ’91 and her spouse Ole Sondresen live in the Piedmont region of Italy and are hosting Ukrainian refugees and raising funds for immediate and continued relief efforts. Jessica has aggregated efforts with other residents in Alba and together they have produced extraordinary outcomes. To date, over 100 Ukrainian families have been provided with support, housing, and everyday necessities because of their efforts.
1994 Julie Tumolo Neawedde ’94 provided her expertise via a Teams chat with Paula (Williams) Butler’s CCDX course on Applications of Chemistry and Engineering in March, taught
Yasmin Mariam Kloth ’01 will have a debut collection of poetry published this fall by Kelsay Books. Ancestry Unfinished: Poems of a Lost Generation explores what it means to be from “here” through the lens of a first-generation American whose parents emigrated to the U.S. and Canada from Cairo, Egypt in the 1970s. The cultural (Egyptian) and ethnic (Lebanese/Syrian) layers of her family memories are revealed in poems through the generations of women—grandmothers, mothers, and daughters—who taught her “how the falucca travels” and how to mourn the losses she knows her own daughter collects each year she’s “pull(ed) in a current/further from her heritage.” Ancestry Unfinished will be available through Kelsay Books and Amazon.
2003
2005
“I am currently on the Board of Trustees for the Society of Presidential Descendants and Board of Directors for National First Ladies Day. We are so very excited as we very recently were able to have National First Ladies Day to be recognized on the National Calendar and will be celebrating this Saturday April 30, 2022. This day is a day of community service honoring all First Ladies or a specific First Lady of the volunteer’s choosing. Participants can join the conversation by learning more about the women who’ve set tradition, supported the president, and became role models for many by reading memoirs, touring museums, or watching documentaries about the first ladies. We are also currently in the process of getting it tagged into legislation to be approved by The House and Senate as a federal holiday.” - Patricia Taft
Sally Dwyer Hernandez and Javier Hernandez welcomed their third child (and first boy!) on April 29, Oliver “Ollie” Hernandez. He is being smothered in big-sis kisses and mom and dad couldn’t be prouder!
Zak Butler ’05 spoke to the computer science II class via Teams about cybersecurity and life at Google. “I believe that computer science is helpful in any job because it teaches you how to solve complex problems. Computer science is all about breaking a problem up into small steps that are easily consumable and can be easily communicated to others.”
2008 2004 Ashley Durand ’04 and husband Andrew Tople and Grandpa Dick Durand ’73 welcomed Eliot Richard Tople on April 11, 2022.
Composer Peter Dayton ’08 and Navona Records present “Stories out of Cherry Stems,” an album of original vocal chamber music with carefully curated texts spanning multiple centuries. Soprano Katie Procell and numerous selected performers navigate a persistent tension between
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