Contents Features
10 Lifting Off Langley internships changed women’s lives in the summer of ’65 14 Tailored for Protection Class project leads to lifesaving haberdashery 21 Training Astute Citizens Farnsworth turns students into savvy political consumers
Departments 2 24 25 26 28 30 56
On Campus Book Report Get the Picture Notable and Quotable Alumni Seen Class Notes Closing Column
ON THE COVER: A class project led Robert Davis ’12 (left) and Abbas Haider ’12 to start their business, Aspetto, which tailors stylish clothes and ballistic protection. Begun in a UMW dorm room, Aspetto has been featured in such national news outlets as Forbes and Esquire and today sells to government buyers and individuals. Read about Aspetto on page 14. Photo by Adam Ewing
THIS SPREAD: New students gathered at an ice cream social on the lawn of Brompton, the home of President Troy Paino and his wife, Kelly Paino, in late August. They had a chance to make new friends and have lots of fun. Photo by Clement Britt
ON CAMPUS
AIRMEN, CODE BREAKERS, ORWELL, AND TESLA AMONG GREAT LIVES SUBJECTS The William B. Crawley Great Lives Lecture Series returns in January for the 2018 season. Jonas Salk, Charlotte DeCroes Jacobs, author of Jonas Salk: A Life Jan. 25 Women Code-Breakers of World War II, Liza Mundy, author of Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II Jan. 30 Dale Carnegie, Steven Watts, author of Self-Help Messiah: Dale Carnegie and Success in Modern America Feb. 1 Lawmen and Outlaws of the Old West, Thomas Clavin, author of Dodge City: Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and the Wickedest Town in the American West Feb. 6 The Women Soldiers of World War I, Elizabeth Cobbs, author of The Hello Girls: America’s First Women Soldiers Feb. 8 Nikola Tesla, W. Bernard Carlson, author of Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age Feb. 13 The Tuskegee Airmen, Todd Moye, author of Freedom Flyers: The Tuskegee Airmen of World War II Feb. 15 Sam Phillips: Godfather of Rock ’n’ Roll, Peter Guralnick, author of Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock ’n’ Roll Feb. 22 Hemingway and Dos Passos, James McGrath Morris, author of The Ambulance Drivers: Hemingway, Dos Passos, and a Friendship Made and Lost in War Feb. 27 George Orwell, Michael Shelden, author of Orwell: The Authorized Biography March 1 Prince Charles, Sally Bedell Smith, author of Prince Charles: The Passions and Paradoxes of an Improbable Life March 13 Coco Chanel, Rhonda Garelick, author of Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History March 15 The Dust Bowl Girls, Lydia Reeder, author of The Dust Bowl Girls: The Inspiring Story of the Team That Barnstormed Its Way to Basketball Glory March 20 Richard Nixon, John A. Farrell, author of Richard Nixon: The Life March 27 Ansel Adams, Mary Street Alinder, author of Ansel Adams: A Biography March 29 Eleanor Roosevelt and Pauli Murray, Patricia BellScott, author of The Firebrand and the First Lady April 10 Warren Buffett, Alice Schroeder, author of The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life April 17 Napoleon, Jeremy Black, professor of history at the University of Exeter Jan. 18
All lectures are free, open to the public, and begin at 7:30 p.m. in Dodd Auditorium, George Washington Hall. For information, call 540-654-1065 or visit umw.edu/greatlives.
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UNIVERSITY OF MARY WASHINGTON MAGAZINE FALL/WINTER 2017
FALL/WINTER 2017 • VOLUME 41 • NO. 2
Neva S. Trenis ’00 Editor-in-Chief
Laura Moyer
Associate Editor
Anna B. Billingsley
Associate Vice President for University Relations
AJ Newell Art Director
Liz Kuvinka ’96 Maria Schultz M.Ed. ’11 Graphic Designers
Lisa Chinn Marvashti ’92 Hilary Kanter Marty Morrison Ester Salguero ’18 Cynthia L. Snyder ’75 Contributors
University of Mary Washington Magazine is published by the Office of University Relations for the alumni, friends, faculty, and staff of the University of Mary Washington. The magazine staff welcomes your comments. Email: magazine@umw.edu Mail: UMW Magazine 1301 College Ave. Fredericksburg, VA 22401-5300 Call: 540-654-1055. Please help us find you: Email address changes to alumni@umw.edu; mail changes to University of Mary Washington Office of Alumni Relations, 1119 Hanover St., Fredericksburg, VA 22401-5412; call with changes to 540-654-1011 University of Mary Washington Magazine is printed with nonstate funds and is made possible through private support. Read and comment on University of Mary Washington Magazine online at magazine.umw.edu.
ON CAMPUS
A Dodd Auditorium audience showed world-renowned soprano Renee Fleming the love in September as she opened the UMW Philharmonic Orchestra’s 2017-18 Celebrity Series. Fleming, a National Medal of the Arts recipient, said she was excited to make her “Fredericksburg debut,” offering works by European composers followed by Broadway favorites. She answered insistent standing ovations with three very different encores: Bjork’s Virus, Lerner and Loewe’s I Could Have Danced All Night, and finally Puccini’s moving O mio babbino caro. While on campus, she and National Institutes of Health neuroscientist and Soprano Renee Fleming charmed the audience during her September engineer David Jangraw gave a talk appearance with the UMW Philharmonic Orchestra at Dodd Auditorium. about music and the mind, discussing She appeared as part of the Celebrity Series, which resumes in April with a the therapeutic effects of music on visit from Henry Winkler. the brain. Fleming, a four-time Grammy winner, recently retired from the Metropolitan Opera. Kevin Bartram’s national research project and the suite from Hamilton. UPCOMING: The season finale Celebrity Series With Henry Winkler narrating Sergei Prokofiev’s Peter and The Holiday Pops Concert on Friday, Dec. 8, the Wolf on Friday, April 27, 2018. Winkler played with the Irish Tenors – Finbar Wright, Anthony the Fonz alongside Ron Howard in the 1970s TV sitcom Kearns, and Ronan Tynan – who will perform Happy Days. Tickets for the late-April performance go on songs from their best-selling album We Three Kings. sale March 26, 2018. The Library of Congress Project Concert with For tickets or information call 540-654-1324 or visit legendary trumpet player Arturo Sandoval on umwphilharmonic.com. Saturday, March 17, with works from Director
MARY WASHINGTON HAS LOTS TO BRAG ABOUT! The honors keep rolling in, recognizing the University of Mary Washington for its excellence. ê The Princeton Review featured UMW among the top in the nation in its 2018 issue of “The Best 382 Colleges.” ê Money Magazine recognized UMW among the nation’s top colleges and ranked it ninth among Virginia public institutions. ê The Fiske Guide to Colleges recognized UMW as a “best buy” for the eighth time in as many years. Mary Washington is among 21 public and 26 private institutions recognized for delivering outstanding academics and the most reasonable prices. ê USA Today not only named UMW among the best schools in the nation, it also placed UMW at the No. 10 spot in its list of the “Top Ten in Virginia.” ê Zippia, a website dedicated to helping recent college graduates with their careers,
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placed UMW among Virginia’s top 10 colleges and universities for business programs. LendEDU rated UMW among the nation’s best for low debt and for value. In a ranking of 1,161 colleges and universities, LendEDU rated UMW 35th among public colleges and 82nd among colleges overall for the lowest student loan debt per borrower. U.S. News & World Report ranked UMW’s undergraduate program 17th among Southern regional universities, seventh among public regional universities in the same category, 11th in the “best colleges for veterans” list, and 62nd in the “best value” category in its Best Colleges 2018 guidebook. Washington Monthly, which rates schools based on their contribution to the public good, ranked UMW 21st in the “top master’s universities” category of the 2017 Washington Monthly College Rankings and 58th in the “best bang for the buck Southeast colleges” category.
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Norma Woodward
FLEMING ENCHANTS DODD
ON CAMPUS
UMW Theatre began its 2017-2018 season less than a month after the start of fall classes with Christopher Durang’s comedy Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike followed by the perennial favorite Little Shop of Horrors, Nov. 2 through 19. The season continues spring semester with: Feb 15-25 • Dead Man’s Cell Phone by Sarah Ruhl. A provocative and meditative comedy reveals technology as a catalyst for connecting or isolating us. When Jean answers a persistently ringing phone in a cafe, she becomes entangled in a dead man’s life. April 12-22 • Medea by Euripides. This powerful play first performed in 431 B.C. reveals the capacity in all of us to do the unthinkable. A gritty, visceral translation by Robinson Jeffers captures the essence of Medea’s rage, jealousy, and pride.
BROADWAY WEEKEND, MAY 18-20, 2018 Producing Director and Professor Gregg Stull will lead patrons on a weekend of Broadway theater, seeing three of the season’s hottest hits. Patrons get to relax and enjoy the city with prearranged, prepaid round-trip train travel from Fredericksburg, two nights in the Times Square Marriott Marquis, a theater walk with Gregg Stull, a dinner, a wrap-up brunch, plenty of free time, and more. Information and tickets at www.fredtix.com/bway.
UMW THEATRE ROAD TRIPS, FEB. 25 AND JUNE 10 Take a chartered bus to Washington, D.C., to see great shows. Typically, the group departs duPont Hall about noon, a faculty member discusses the production and the theater en route, and on the return ride, patrons enjoy a post-performance discussion. Call 540-654-2233 or visit www.fredtix.com/ event/roadtrip. Familiar by Danai Gurira Sunday, Feb. 25, 2018 Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company Rowdy and affectionate, Familiar pitches tradition against assimilation when the members of a devoted Zimbabwean immigrant family prepare for the wedding of their eldest daughter during winter in Minnesota. Camelot by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe Sunday, June 10, 2018 Shakespeare Theatre Company Camelot tells the legendary story of King Arthur and the knights of the round table – including betrayal and unfulfilled love – with a stunning musical score, including If Ever I Would Leave You, I Loved You Once in Silence, and What Do the Simple Folk Do?
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CLASS OF 2021
Lily Olson ’18, left, and Olivia Whicheloe ’19 in Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike
UNIVERSITY OF MARY WASHINGTON MAGAZINE FALL/WINTER 2017
BY THE NUMBERS:
Geoff Greene ’04
THEATER’S IT!
Move-in day Aug. 23, 2017 ••• First-time freshmen 970 ••• Females/males 65 percent/35 percent ••• Identify as ethnically diverse 28 percent ••• From Virginia 88 percent ••• Number of states represented 26 ••• Foreign countries represented include Argentina, Australia, Nepal, South Africa, and the United Kingdom.
SMARTPHONES RULE Over the summer, incoming first-year students were surveyed about the technology they planned to bring to campus. Most who responded said they would bring two key items – a smartphone and a laptop computer. Of 729 responses, all but two students said they planned to bring a smartphone. Among them, 82 percent were iPhones and the rest Android and Windows phones. Laptops? Of 748 respondents, 56 percent planned to bring Windows laptops, 39 percent Macs, and 2 percent Linux or Android laptops. Three percent would bring no laptop. Desktop computers are decidedly unpopular with freshmen. Of 432 who responded, only 30 students, or 7 percent, planned to bring the relic of an earlier generation.
ON CAMPUS
CUSHMAN, McGINNIS NAMED TO BOV In June, the Virginia Governor’s Office announced the appointment of Devon Williams Cushman ’93 of Richmond and Patricia “Pat” Gwaltney McGinnis ’69 of Washington, D.C., to the University of Mary Washington Board of Visitors. They will serve four-year terms, which expire June 30, 2021. They succeed Kenneth J. Lopez ’92 and Lisa D. Taylor ’85. Cushman has served as senior counsel at Devon Williams Cushman Capital One in Richmond since 2012. From 2005 to 2012, she worked as an attorney for Hirschler Fleischer. Law & Politics named her a Virginia Rising Star in business litigation, and Virginia Business recognized her as Legal Elite among lawyers under 40. She was an attorney for Morris & Morris P.C. from 2003 to 2005. Before building her law career, Cushman was an account executive for GMMB, a public relations and communications agency in Washington, D.C., where she worked with Fortune 500 companies. Cushman has taught advanced trial practice at the University of Richmond School of Law, where she earned a juris Patricia Gwaltney McGinnis doctor degree. She chairs ChamberRVA’s Richmond Business Council Cabinet and Government Affairs Committee. A native of Greenlawn, New York, Cushman received a bachelor’s degree in political science from Mary Washington. She was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, served as Student Government Association president, and was selected as a Virginia Governor’s Fellow. Pat McGinnis is a distinguished professor of practice at The George Washington University’s Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration. Before joining GW, she served during the first two years of the Obama administration as adviser to the White House on presidential appointee leadership programs. She is the former president and CEO of the nonpartisan, not-for-profit Council for Excellence in Government. She formed the Coalition for EvidenceBased Policy and created SAGE, Strategic Advisors to Government Executives, which works to make the government more efficient and effective. McGinnis was co-founder and principal of the FMR Group, a public policy consulting firm. McGinnis served during the Carter administration in the Office of Management and Budget, where she led the effort to create the U.S. Department of Education. She has held senior posts with the Senate Budget Committee and the U.S. departments of Commerce and Health and Human Services. She is an elected fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration and serves on the board of the Congressional Management Foundation. McGinnis serves on the UMW College of Arts and Sciences Alumni Advisory Board. She holds a bachelor’s degree in political science and government from Mary Washington and a master of arts in public administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
PARTNERSHIP MEANS FASTER PATH TO PHARMACY DEGREE University of Mary Washington students now have an accelerated path to a pharmacy career, thanks to a formal agreement with Shenandoah University in Winchester, Virginia. In August, both schools signed a memorandum of understanding that makes it possible for qualified students to earn a baccalaureate degree through UMW and a doctor of pharmacy degree from Shenandoah University’s Bernard J. Dunn School of Pharmacy in seven rather than the usual eight years. Among the prerequisites to apply for admission to the program, students must complete at least 63 academic credits, maintain at least a cumulative 3.0 grade-point average, and score in the 50th percentile on the Pharmacy College Admission Test. “This agreement provides highly motivated students an opportunity to earn the pharmacy doctorate more quickly, decreasing the cost and potential student loan debt,” said Deborah O’Dell, professor of biology, who helped initiate the partnership. “The accelerated dual-degree program also permits students an extra year of earning power in their chosen profession.”
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FACULTY, ADMINISTRATORS VISITING PROF: SCIENCE OF PHONE ADDICTION, RISE TO THE TOP NASPA, the leading association for the student affairs profession, honored Dean of Student Life Cedric Rucker ’81 with its Region III Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Award during a ceremony in June. Rucker, who also is UMW’s associate vice president of student affairs, has worked to build strong organizations for underrepresented students. The award recognizes Rucker’s commitment to advancing diversity and inclusion, and signifies that fellow student affairs professionals value his contributions. Professor of Education Marie Sheckels was named the recipient of the 2017 Waple Faculty Professional Achievement Award last April. Sheckels has held several leadership positions during her 35 years at UMW, in which time she rose from lecturer to professor. Established in honor of Shirley Van Epps Waple ’52, the award recognizes faculty members who have made outstanding contributions to their scholarly or creative area. The Association for Psychological Science (APS) named Laura C. Wilson, assistant professor of psychology, one of 96 Rising Stars from around the world. Wilson’s work focuses on post-trauma functioning, particularly in survivors of sexual violence, mass trauma, and gun violence. She is editor of The Wiley Handbook of the Psychology of Mass Shootings, the first in-depth academic examination of mass shootings from a psychological perspective. Martin A. Wilder Jr., recently retired chief of staff for UMW, received the John A. “Jack” Blackburn Award for Ethics in College Admissions from the Potomac and Chesapeake Association for College Admission Counseling. Beginning in 1979, Wilder held positions in admissions, enrollment, and communications before serving as chief of staff to university presidents Richard V. Hurley and Troy D. Paino.
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DISTRACTION
Cedric Rucker
Marie Sheckels
Natalie Kerr ’95, a professor of psychology at James Madison University, visited UMW as the 2017 Graduate-inResidence in the Department of Psychological Science. Kerr gave a lecture, From the Bedroom to the Highway: The Science of Smartphone Addiction and Distraction, and she presented her research to cognitive and developmental psychology classes. She also met with students who are interested in pursuing graduate school or careers in related fields. After Mary Washington, she earned a master of arts in experimental psychology from Hollins University and a doctorate in social psychology from Virginia Commonwealth University. She returned to UMW for a year as a visiting assistant professor before joining the faculty at JMU. The JMU Department of Psychology honored Kerr with its Outstanding New Faculty Award and an Innovation in Teaching Award.
CABOT CREAMERY EXEC CREDITS MARY WASHINGTON
Laura Wilson
Martin Wilder
UNIVERSITY OF MARY WASHINGTON MAGAZINE FALL/WINTER 2017
Roberta Pilk MacDonald ’72, senior vice president of marketing for Cabot Creamery, returned to Mary Washington in October to speak about leadership. As this year’s College of Business Executive in Residence, she told students, faculty, and regional business leaders that her college experiences gave her the tools to launch her successful marketing career. “I couldn’t have done it without Mary Washington,” she said. “It was the most spectacular educational experience I’ve ever had. My mind cracked open at UMW so that all my curiosity and energy was stimulated.” The dramatic arts major now has almost 40 years of marketing experience – including 28 at Cabot. A Mary Washington student leader, she served as class council president in 1970. She has provided marketing services for the San Francisco Opera, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ford Foundation, American Express, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and other entities. – Ester Salguero ’18
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MIKHALEVSKY NAMED PROVOST; OTHER TOP POSITIONS FILLED The University of Mary Washington has a new provost and a special adviser to President Troy D. Paino. In addition, the colleges of education, business, and arts and sciences all have new leadership, and there’s a new interim vice president for administration and finance. UMW Professor of Philosophy Nina Mikhalevsky became provost in July after serving in high-level administrative positions and teaching at UMW since 2006. As provost, she is the university’s chief academic officer, responsible for oversight of all academic programs, planning and budgets, and faculty matters. She works with the deans and the faculty to lead university initiatives in teaching and research. Nina Mikhalevsky Her areas of academic expertise and research include aesthetics, ethics and political theory, women in STEM, women’s education and pedagogy, and the history of women’s education. Jeffrey W. McClurken ’94 became special adviser to the president in May, assuming many of the duties of chief of staff Martin A. Wilder, who retired at the start of this academic year. McClurken, a professor of history and American studies, also has served as special assistant to the provost for teaching, technology, and innovation. As Paino’s adviser, McClurken is a member of the
president’s cabinet and provides advice on the strategic direction of the university. He is clerk and liaison to the Board of Visitors, and he represents the university to the external community. He continues to teach and remains involved in digital learning initiatives. McClurken has taught at Mary Washington since 1999. Professor of Mathematics Keith Mellinger is interim dean of the Jeff McClurken College of Arts and Sciences, a role most recently held by Professor of English Richard Finkelstein, who continues to teach at the university. Mellinger, who chaired the Department of Mathematics for six years, oversees the College of Arts and Sciences’ 20 departments and 200 full-time faculty members. Mellinger recently directed the university’s Quality Enhancement Plan. Professor of Marketing Lynne Richardson, dean of the College of Business, is interim vice president for administration and finance, filling a vacancy created by the retirement of Richard R. Pearce. Kenneth D. Machande ’94, an associate professor in the College of Business, has been named its acting dean. He also recently received the J. Christopher Bill Outstanding Faculty Service Award for his contributions to the university and the community.
VICE PRESIDENT, EDUCATION DEAN JOIN UMW TEAM Lisa Jamison Bowling ’89 is the University of Mary Washington’s new vice president for advancement and university relations, including oversight of alumni relations. Bowling served for the past seven years as assistant vice president for resource development at Roanoke College, where she was instrumental in a $200 million comprehensive campaign. She also Lisa Bowling led a strategic assessment of the institution’s positioning and branding. Bowling spent 10 years at Ferrum College before joining Roanoke College. Immediately after graduating from Mary Washington with a double major in English and political science, she worked in marketing and public relations for various companies and nonprofits. She earned an MBA from Wake Forest University in 2009. “Few people have the opportunity to help shape the place that was most formative to them,” Bowling said.
“Mary Washington placed me on a path of success, and I hope to parlay my experiences into a powerful impact for the university and its students.” Bowling fills the vice presidency vacated in 2016 by the retirement of Salvatore “Torre” Meringolo. Peter S. Kelly is the new dean of the College of Education, charged with continuing the growth of the undergraduate and graduate education programs and leading the college through its next accreditation cycle, scheduled for fall 2019. Kelly comes to UMW from Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri, where he was an interim associate dean for the School of Peter S. Kelly Health Sciences and Education. Kelly has extensive experience with the accreditation process. He has a bachelor’s degree in education and master’s and doctoral degrees in behavior disorders from the University of Kansas.
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ON CAMPUS
The University of Mary Washington graduated 1,190 students during its 106th commencement in an undergraduate ceremony on May 13 and a graduate ceremony on May 12. Edward Ayers, historian and onetime University of Richmond president, addressed undergraduates Saturday morning on Ball Circle and encouraged them to capitalize on an uncertain future, reminding them that there have been many tumultuous times in American history. Rachelle Serena Dambrose ’17, whose GPA was 3.9, received the Colgate W. Darden Jr. Award for finishing with the highest grade-point average in the four-year undergraduate program. Members of the Class of 2017 take At the graduate commencement on Friday night in a commencement-day selfie on Dodd Auditorium, Navy Deputy Assistant Secretary Jefferson Square in May. John D. Burrow challenged the 155 master’s degree Douglas Sanford, professor emeritus of historic recipients to step up as much-needed leaders. preservation, served for 30 years. Four longtime professors and an administrator were David Berreth, director emeritus of the Gari Melchers awarded emeritus status at commencement: Home and Studio, served for 27 years. Manning Collier, associate professor emeritus of The emeritus title is bestowed on faculty members and mathematics, served for 35 years. administrators who have served the university for at least Steve Hampton, associate professor emeritus of 15 years and who have attained the rank of professor or psychology, served for 37 years. Mary Rigsby, professor emerita of English, served for 25 years. associate professor.
CONTINUING, PROFESSIONAL STUDIES HAS NEW DIRECTOR
BEST PLACE TO STUDY GEOGRAPHY? RIGHT HERE! Students, professors, and alumni of UMW don’t need a map to find the best geography program in the southeastern United States. It’s right here in Fredericksburg. Now, the higher education data analytics and research company College Factual has pinpointed it as well. College Factual has teamed with USA Today to name the University of Mary Washington the region’s No. 1 geography program for 2018. Three other Virginia universities made the list: Virginia Tech at No. 2, George Mason University at No. 6, and James Madison University at No. 7. Others in the Top Ten are the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; UNC at Charlotte; Florida State University; the University of Georgia; the University of Florida; and the University of Tennessee.
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Kimberly C. Young has been named UMW’s executive director of continuing and professional studies, including new certificate opportunities and career development for working adults. Young is focusing on expanding Mary Washington’s credit and noncredit programs for adults. She’s based at the Stafford campus, but courses will also be offered on the Fredericksburg and Dahlgren campuses and in the community. Young has nearly 20 years’ experience in education, consulting, and marketing. She comes to the university from the University of Missouri-Kansas City, where she directed executive MBA programs and led a team in development, marketing, and delivery of programs serving adult learners. She holds a bachelor’s degree in public policy studies from Duke University and a master of management degree and an MBA from Cornell University.
Norm Shafer
UMW GRADUATES 1,190 IN 106TH COMMENCEMENT
SPORTS
Several of UMW’s fall sports got off to an impressive start with rankings among the top Division III teams in the nation. Men’s soccer jumped into the United Soccer Coaches’ national ranking in September. It was their first national ranking since 2010, and their Senior Tommy Mead fends off a highest since their challenge on the way to a 2-1 win final-four season over Roanoke College on Sept. 16. of 1997. Field hockey started with a 5-1 record and climbed to 14th in the nation, as ranked by the National Field Hockey Coaches Association. The Eagles had defeated ninth-ranked Franklin & Marshall College the week before their ranking. Volleyball started the season ranked seventh in the nation by the American Volleyball Coaches Association, the team’s highest ranking ever. The Eagles defeated 16th-ranked Eastern University the opening weekend, and have continued their winning ways. The men’s cross country team consistently has been ranked regionally by the United States Track and Field/ Cross Country Coaches Association of America. And in tennis, the men’s and women’s tennis teams opened the fall semester again ranked in the top 30 in the nation by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association.
SUMMERS NETS WIN AT REGIONAL TENNIS CHAMPIONSHIP For the first time in 17 years, UMW women’s tennis sent a player to the ITA Small College National Championships. Rachel Summers ’20 won the Intercollegiate Tennis Association’s Division III Southeast Regional singles championship in September, becoming the first UMW player to win the bracket since Lea Schon ’01 in 2000. At the national championship, held in mid-October in Rome, Georgia, Summers finished seventh with a win over Ana Maria Buraya of New York University, 6-2, 6-3. A native of Arlington, Virginia, Summers is a chemistry major.
Rachel Summers keeps her eye on the ball en route to winning the ITA Regional Championship, held at UMW in late September.
Clint Often
FALL SPORTS START ON A HIGH NOTE
UMW HOMECOMING
Norm Shafer
Friends get together at homecoming on the sidelines of the women’s rugby game – alumni versus students – on Oct. 21.
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Langley internships changed women’s lives in the summer of ’65
LIFTING OFF By Laura Moyer
O
THER EIGHTH-GRADE GIRLS IN THE LATE 1950s filled their scrapbooks with Elvis Presley pictures, but
Bertha Jo Terry ’66 dedicated hers to Sputnik. So as a junior math major at Mary Washington College in 1965, she was thrilled to see on a bulletin board that NASA was seeking summer interns. To Terry’s delight, she was among six Mary Washington women chosen for summer jobs with NASA at Langley Air Force Base in Hampton, Virginia. The jobs were prestigious and well-paid, and for good reason: NASA urgently needed brainpower for the calculations required to put American astronauts on the moon. As Aviation Week and Space Technology magazine noted in an editorial that year, the summer of
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1965 was “the time when the U.S. effort … began breaking its own new ground, in contrast to the earlier era of stern-chasing the Soviets.” Prompted earlier this year by seeing the movie Hidden Figures – about the female AfricanAmerican mathematicians at Langley during the space race – Marilyn “Marty” Spigel Sedoff got back in touch with four other NASA interns from Mary Washington Class of ’66. They are Alice Ann “Sann” Moore Forry, Mary Kathryn Rowell Horner, Cornelia “Cornie” Bowles Dexter, and Terry, now named Terry Caruthers. Another intern, Evangeline “Eva” Teng Marcus, passed away in 2015. In phone and email interviews with UMW Magazine, the women shared memories of a summer that
was remarkable in American history and liberating, even lifechanging, on a personal level. For all six, then ages 20 and 21, it was the first real taste of adult freedom. Mary Washington in the mid-60s still embraced the “in loco parentis” concept, with curfews, dress codes, and strict rules for socializing with men. Women had to introduce their properly attired dates to dorm mothers, called head residents, who would issue guest cards. The 1964-65 Student Handbook even forbade accompanying a date behind unlighted campus buildings. But at their duplex in Hampton that summer, the women made decisions for themselves. Marty, Terry, and Eva shared the upstairs apartment, with Sann, Mary Kathryn, and Cornie
Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images
Several of the Langley interns worked on typewriter-like Friden calculators, similar to the one shown in this 1960s-era photo.
downstairs. The six pooled grocery money and took turns cooking and doing laundry. “We were amazingly organized,” Terry recalled. Transportation was courtesy of Mary Kathryn’s older sister, who’d left her Chevrolet behind when she went overseas to teach. All six crammed onto the bench seats, and Terry remembers that they sang Harry Belafonte songs in the car before Mary Kathryn dropped them off at their Langley buildings. Each worked in a different area, but the duties were similarly tedious. Mary Kathryn was assigned to a wind tunnel, but she rarely even peeked inside where the testing happened. The engineers would hand over pages of handwritten numbers for her to enter in a Friden calculator that looked like an oversized typewriter. “I’d punch in numbers, and the machine would sit there and go ‘chunk, chunk, kachunk,’ and it would spit out an answer,” she said. Marty was assigned to search for a place on solid ground where a returning space capsule could touch down, instead of splashing into the sea. But she recalls that the only suitable sites were in the hostile countries of China and Russia, and by the end of the summer that effort was abandoned. Terry, too, was stuck using a clunky Friden calculator. But her assignment did have two
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GRADS EMBRACED COMPUTERS, FOUND CAREER SUCCESS Eva Teng Marcus worked at David Taylor Naval Research and Development Center, where she used Fortran programming to aid research into the motion and noise of Navy ships. She stayed home while her three daughters were young, then updated her computer skills through community college classes and resumed her career. She created computerized systems to capture and archive inspection reports for the Maryland Department of the Environment. Marcus passed away in 2015. Marilyn “Marty” Spigel Sedoff started her career with IBM in Richmond. She earned an MBA in 1980. Today she lives in Edina, Minnesota, where her career included computer programming, systems analysis, and computer consulting. She retired as an IT project director in the financial services industry. Terry Caruthers started her career at a Bell Labs subsidiary, Bellcomm Inc., a company formed to advise NASA Headquarters in the mission of getting a man on the moon. There she learned to program computers using the Fortran language. She spent the rest of her career in the computer field, teaching and working other part-time jobs while she raised her family. She retired from Northrup Grumman after 22 years and formed a consulting and coaching business. She earned a master’s degree in 2001. She lives in Mooresville, North Carolina. Cornelia “Cornie” Bowles Dexter went on to work full time for NASA. There, the math and physics she’d enjoyed at Mary Washington came together, “and so began my love affair with computers,” she said. She added that she married “one of the aerospace engineers who hung around that summer.” While working at NASA, she spent a year at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville earning a master’s degree in applied mathematics, focusing on computer science and numerical methods. She lives in Williamsburg, Virginia. Mary Kathryn Rowell Horner worked at IBM, where she first laid eyes on the IBM 360, a room-size computer that she said “could do marvelous things.” Having a logical mind proved more important than her math skills, she said, and IBM taught her the programming language COBOL. She later worked for a computer company that developed software for the banking and finance industry. She lives in Alexandria, Virginia. Alice Ann “Sann” Moore Forry remembers that in their graduation year of 1966, “anybody with a math degree was worth their weight in gold.” She went into the defense and aerospace consulting industry, where she used probability theory. Eventually she entered management, where she found her Mary Washingtoninstilled writing skills as important as her math background. She lives in Portsmouth, Rhode Island.
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highlights for someone who preferred satellites to Elvis: She got to see rocket fuel, and she toured the Wallops Island facility where space testing was concentrated. But the best parts of the summer were evenings and weekends. “It was all about fun. We left work at work, and there was no studying!” Cornelia Dexter wrote in an email. Added Alice Forry, “Any memories I have are more about the fun part than the working part.” Six college women in one house drew keen interest in an area crawling with male interns, engineers, physicists, and Navy sailors. Any housemate who wanted a date could have one. Even Eva, remembered by her fellow interns as coming from a conservative Chinese family, agreed to a date one evening. She was so innocent, Marty Sedoff recalled, that her friends felt compelled to warn her: “If he wants to take you to the submarine races, tell him NO!” Extroverted Terry outdid everyone, with so many dates her housemates started keeping count. They say Terry managed 66 dates in 63 days, though she thinks that number is exaggerated. “I don’t think it was that many, but I did have a date almost every night,” she said. Marty had just gotten engaged back home in Roanoke,
Virginia, so for her dating was out of the question. But one evening a man came to the door to take Terry to a dinner theater, and she wasn’t home. The guy persuaded Marty to go with him so the tickets wouldn’t be wasted. “So here this man shows up in a suit and tie, and he looks lovely, and he takes me to dinner,” she said. At some point in the evening she reminded him, “You realize it’s not a date, right?” And he said, “Yeah, I know.” That not-date became a summer full of platonic outings, but true to his promise, the fellow never even tried to kiss her. By the end of the summer, Marty knew she couldn’t marry her beau from home. “I thought, if I go back and marry this man, I won’t know what the world is all about.” She ended the engagement, to the consternation of her fiancé and their mutual friends in Roanoke. The summer of freedom didn’t derail anyone’s education or ambitions. All six completed their senior year and began careers in math and computers. Several also earned advanced degrees. Though Marty Sedoff recalls that it was a bit of an adjustment to return to all those Mary Washington rules, the women remember their college years fondly. “It was an entirely different life,” Mary Kathryn Horner said, “and one I would not trade for anything.”
Each worked in a different area, but the duties were similarly tedious.
“
I’d punch in numbers, and the machine would sit there and go ‘chunk, chunk, kachunk.”
– Mary Kathryn Rowell Horner
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Story by Edie Gross Photos by Adam Ewing
Abbas Haider ’12 scrolled through his email in August 2015 and spied a note from a contact at the U.S. State Department. The department had purchased nearly 1,300 bulletproof T-shirts from Haider and his business partner, Robert Davis ’12, a year earlier for agents combating corruption and drug crimes abroad. At the time, it was one of the biggest contracts the Mary Washington grads had negotiated through their company, Aspetto, which specializes in armored menswear. The email said an officer wearing one of those shirts had recently been shot three times with a Mini Uzi 9mm pistol. Not only had he survived – he was unharmed. “Your vest saved a life,” read the note. Haider immediately called Davis, who was sitting across the lunch table from a client and rocketed out of his seat at the news. “I remember thinking, ‘This is exactly why we started this business. That guy’s going home to his family because of what we do,’ ” Davis recalled. “That’s exactly what that product was meant to do.” Only four years earlier, the business administration majors had created their first bulletproof suit for a class at UMW. They earned an A, then took their commitment to fashion and
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Tailored for PROTECTION 15
UNIVERSITY OF MARYRobert WASHINGTON FALL/WINTER 2017 DavisMAGAZINE and Abbas Haider of Aspetto
Aspetto owners Haider (left) and Davis review swatch books of fabrics for the custom-made garments they sell, with and without ballistic protection.
function and built what’s been dubbed America’s first bulletproof clothing line. Aspetto offers tactical vests that look like traditional tactical vests, but the Fredericksburgbased company has made a name for itself with more clandestine, safety-conscious apparel: bulletresistant T-shirts, boxer shorts, outdoor jackets, and stylish, tailor-made suits and tuxedos lined with lightweight, removable armor. Their client list includes the U.S. Army, Air Force, and Marines; the Pentagon Force Protection Agency; and numerous local police, fire, and corrections departments – not to mention a collection of NFL players and reality TV stars who have purchased custom-made suits, minus the armor. Aspetto has been featured in publications from Forbes and Esquire to Trigger and Newsweek, which dubbed the company’s goods “Bulletproof Chic” on the cover of an April 2015 issue.
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But Haider and Davis will tell you they’re still proudest of that State Department email. “Most companies don’t ever get feedback about a save,” Haider said. “Those are the types of emails you don’t get very often.”
‘Brands last forever’ On a recent Thursday afternoon, Haider pulled books filled with fabric samples from a compartment beneath an ottoman in Aspetto’s downtown Fredericksburg shop. He offered a crash course in thread counts, fabric composition, and the importance of having canvas between the fabric and lining of a suit jacket to preserve its shape. Perched on a leather couch across from Haider, an engaged couple listened intently. The groom thought he’d like a custom suit for their November wedding. His fiancée, who planned
to wear an imported diamond-studded gown, gently suggested he upgrade to a tuxedo. “Believe me,” said Haider, sensing the groom’s skepticism, “when you have a tuxedo, you’ll find events to wear it to.” A tuxedo it was. Haider, who grew up in Chantilly, Virginia, started selling offthe-rack suits at age 16 when he got a job at Men’s Wearhouse. As a freshman at Mary Washington, he struck out on his own, ordering suits wholesale from China and, later, Italy and marketing them to shops. He often got points for moxie, but retailers hesitated to buy the suits from a college kid whose showroom was essentially the trunk of his car. Haider said he gained more traction selling them to individuals, including friends and customers from his retail days. With help from an English-to-Italian translator, Haider dubbed his operation Aspetto, meaning “appearance” or “look,” and trademarked the name in December 2008. He said he wasn’t entirely sure what Aspetto would become, but he knew he wanted to build a brand, not just a company. “Companies don’t become part of people’s lives,” he said. “But brands last forever.” He soon went from importing suits to importing fabrics and hiring tailors to customize the jackets, pants, and shirts for his clients. “Custom is when we really started to make money,” Haider said. In fall 2011, Haider teamed up with Davis, who grew up in Orange County, Virginia, when the two met in Professor Galen deGraff’s international business strategy class. The seniors spent their mornings measuring clients for tailored suits before heading to class in the afternoon. Ironically, neither could yet afford the bespoke fashions they were pitching to executives. Davis still chuckles about the black shadow-stripe polyester suit, picked up at Goodwill, that he wore to those meetings. “You could’ve sanded a wooden door with it,” he said, adding that one client asked him if he could get one just like it. Davis gently explained to the insurance executive that Aspetto no longer had access to that particular fabric. The culminating assignment for deGraff’s class was to invent a product or service, describe how to market it somewhere other than the United States, and provide a detailed business plan outlining the venture’s success. Haider and Davis already had a product – stylish suits. Was there a way to enhance that product to appeal to an overseas market? “One way to do it was to add ballistics to it,” said Davis. The pair knew about Miguel Caballero, the so-called “Armani of
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Armor,” whose Colombia-based company had been providing chic bulletproof fashions to the rich and famous since 1992. But no American company had entered that arena. The students teamed up with Renegade Armor, a tactical company only three miles from campus, which agreed to make lightweight bullet-resistant panels to fit inside Aspetto’s suits. The firm, run by former Marines, gave Haider and Davis free space in their facility for nearly a year – long after they’d turned in their assignment: a prototype bulletresistant wool suit jacket that now occupies the front window of their Caroline Street shop. “They came up with an A project,” recalled deGraff, now professor emeritus of management, who said there’s a ready market for the suits among diplomats and contractors who want to work in Afghanistan and Iraq. Before receiving those lucrative assignments, they must demonstrate that they have the right protection for the job, he said. “And if they could wear a suit and look good and
still have that level of protection, all the better.” Better still, the project was practical and affordable enough that Haider and Davis could turn it into a real-life venture, said deGraff, who bought a 19th-century-style Scottish tweed hunting jacket – sans armor – from Aspetto for himself. “I don’t know too many students who actually took their idea and did it,” he said. “They had a good attitude about it. They were enthusiastic and involved and willing to do the work.”
From off-the-rack to bespoke and bulletproof While most of Aspetto’s products are wearable, the company has recently been awarded a contract to outfit 59 Army facilities across Pennsylvania with ballistic cubicle walls. Each has a steel core and can withstand a bullet fired from an AK-47, one of the weapons used by a gunman during a deadly attack
While all Aspetto ballistic packages are third-party tested to make sure they meet and exceed National Institute of Justice specifications, Aspetto likes to do its own testing, too. Left, an Aspetto jacket shows bullet holes and the spent rounds retrieved from the anti-ballistic inner layers. Center, multiple layers of Kevlar, an older and heavier fabric, are combined to entrap the bullet and stop its spin. Right, newer products like Dyneema are lighter weight, more flexible, and stronger, making them less obvious under clothing.
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on a recruiting center and Navy Reserve office in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in 2015. Davis and Haider have pledged white-glove service, meaning they’ll personally oversee the delivery and installation of each 412-pound partition over a six-week period. In between calls coordinating the logistics of that project, Davis checks in periodically with his embroidery guy about the Velcro name badges and police insignia he still needs for a waist-high stack of tactical vests parked on his office couch, awaiting delivery to the Washington [D.C.] Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, or WMATA. Haider estimates that government contracts make up about 80 percent of Aspetto’s business, covering everything from bullet-resistant shin guards for officers in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to ultralightweight ballistic vests for agents – human and K9 – with the Pentagon Force Protection Agency. This summer, the company became a General Services Administration-approved vendor, opening up the possibility of even more contracts with the federal government. Aspetto partners with a facility in Florida to manufacture its armored panels, which include fibrous layers of Dyneema, Kevlar, and Twaron in varying thicknesses, depending on how much protection the customer wants – and how much weight they’re willing to carry. It’s the woven materials that stop a bullet from twisting and pushing through the clothing. The company is constantly doing research and development in search of lighter-weight materials that won’t sacrifice protection, Davis said. And all of their products exceed standards set by the National Institute of Justice. For the last two years, WMATA’s transit police department has purchased high-visibility armored vests from Aspetto for the nearly 500 sworn officers who patrol its 1,500-square-mile territory in Virginia, Maryland, and D.C. In addition to liking the product, WMATA appreciates Davis and Haider’s “ease of turning on a dime as far
Fashion designer Brandon Farrior finalizes the window display at Aspetto on Caroline Street in Fredericksburg. He brings a lifelong love of style to the business and stays ahead of trends in menswear to keep customers looking and feeling good.
as addressing any needs customer-service-wise,” said Alicia Blanton, contract administrator for the agency’s Office of Procurement and Materials. “They’ve shown themselves to be young entrepreneurs who are looking forward, not backward,” she said. “That’s something an organization as large as WMATA looks for.” Aspetto sells bullet-resistant items to individuals as well (the T-shirts are very popular, despite the $950 price tag), but only after verifying that each buyer, whether American or foreign, has no felonies. Aspetto passed up an opportunity to have its armored products sold on a popular men’s fashion site that declined to subject potential
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customers to background checks. And a CEO who flew in on a private jet was described by Haider as “none too happy” when Aspetto declined to sell him any bulletproof clothing after discovering he had a criminal history. Their principles haven’t hurt business any. Retail sales have doubled every year, Haider said, and virtually every week brings a new government contract, not to mention new ideas. After three years of work with some mechanical engineer friends, Haider and Davis recently started production on a patented quick-release fastener designed to get tactical vests off swiftly in an emergency. A flexible business plan and a willingness to innovate have helped Aspetto grow from an off-the-rack, bulk-order suit company to one that specializes in custom high-end apparel and cutting-edge protection, said Haider. “What you do today is not necessarily where you’ll be tomorrow, but that’s OK,” he said. “You don’t have to have the perfect idea today. You just have to take that first step.”
Part of the appeal of Aspetto is its well-fitting, tailor-made clothes. Here, production manager Noel McPherson machine stitches a jacket, while (above) a colleague bastes a lining.
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Training Astute Citizens Farnsworth turns students into savvy political consumers By Chelyen Davis
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teve Farnsworth doesn’t want his students to swallow everything they hear from politicians. “What’s important,” the political science professor said, “is that you have a level of resistance to being bamboozled.” He spoke from his small, book-lined office overlooking the University of Mary Washington campus. Farnsworth is a national political pundit, author of five – soon to be six – books on American politics and the media, and head of the UMW Center for Leadership and Media Studies. He seeks to impart a deeper understanding of how American politics functions. In his teaching, his work with international journalists from
former Soviet countries, and his punditry, he deciphers how the media communicate about politics, how public opinion develops, and how to find the truth in what we hear from our elected leaders. In campaigns, honesty often takes a back seat to expediency, he said, and that annoys him. His answer: To help others become “smart consumers of government” who learn to think and evaluate statements and situations for themselves. “It’s important for them to be able to look critically at politicians and political issues,” Farnsworth said of his students, “to make sure they know what they’re getting when they vote for these people.”
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be educated participants in the democracy. “Clearly, he’s respected across the commonwealth and across the country as an expert in politics and someone the media can go to to better understand issues,” Paino said. “That brings very positive attention to Mary Washington.” Farnsworth doesn’t just study politics and media from his office. He talks to politicians and brings them to speak to his classes. Through the Center for Leadership and Media Studies, he hosts campaign debates – in September, the center hosted two debates for Virginia House of Delegates races – and conducts statewide polling on issues like this year’s governor’s race, which also gives students experience in research.
In short, how to resist being bamboozled. Farnsworth has become one of a handful of political science professors at Virginia universities who regularly appear nationally on television and in print news stories as reporters seek context on political issues. Journalists call about 250 times a year now, and his take on political issues has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Canadian CTV, and many other outlets. “I have a sense of how reporters think,” Farnsworth said. He should. He used to be one.
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Norm Shafer
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arnsworth spent the first 10 years of his career as a newspaper journalist, covering city government in Kansas City before moving to Washington, D.C., to cover economics. He had two bachelor’s degrees, one in history from the University of Missouri-Kansas City and one in government from Dartmouth College. He earned a Ph.D. in government from Georgetown University and moved from journalism to academia, but journalism continues to frame his career. Farnsworth has researched how the media shape public perception of politics, and he believes news outlets must do a better job of explaining complicated policy issues. He understands what journalists want when they call him. And because he gives them useful information, delivered in a pithy, easy-tounderstand way, they call again and again. UMW President Troy Paino gets a regular report of mentions of Mary Washington in the news. “Nine times out of 10 it’s because of Steve Farnsworth,” he said. “I’m always impressed by how insightful and astute he is on a variety of topics.” Farnsworth’s public-facing work benefits UMW and the community it serves, Paino said. Farnsworth and scholars like him take seriously the responsibility of helping students – and all citizens – understand complex political issues and
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Steve Farnsworth brings real-world knowledge to his teaching thanks to his journalistic background and experience training overseas reporters.
Farnsworth has led reporter-training seminars in Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Lithuania, Latvia, Armenia, Estonia, India, and the Philippines through U.S.-funded programs. That work allows him to explain to foreign journalists how American democratic traditions work, but also to explain to his students how democracies and media work differently abroad. This hands-on work benefits students, said Distinguished Professor of Political Science Jack Kramer, department chair.
“One of his strongest attributes is that he brings both a very strong academic background … and he brings so much real-world experience directly into the classroom,” Kramer said. “It really improves his pedagogy. He’s not just lecturing out of a textbook.” Farnsworth has won three UMW faculty teaching awards. This year he was one of only 12 college professors in Virginia to receive the State Council of Higher Education of Virginia’s Outstanding Faculty award, which recognizes instructors who “exemplify the highest standards of teaching, research, and service.”
H
is students, too, win recognition. Five students Farnsworth mentored have won national writing awards from Pi Sigma Alpha, a 700-chapter national student political science honor society. Farnsworth believes good writing is a foundational skill. “There are particular skill sets that are offered in a liberal arts college that make these folks very employable,” he said. “If you develop sound habits of writing and rewriting, if you develop sound habits of being thoughtful before you speak, that leads to success professionally, wherever you might go.” Former students praise Farnsworth for making material interesting, fostering discussion, and taking a personal interest in them. He invites all students to one-on-one meetings and keeps in touch with former students, passing along news of internships and job opportunities. Chris Winslow ’01, a lawyer who serves on the Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors, said the lessons he learned from Farnsworth have shaped how he approaches governing in the county. His professor taught him to study issues deeply before acting, which is more important
than ever in this era of quick response and sensational politics. “I like to be thoughtful, and I credit him with pushing me to that place,” Winslow said. “Most modern-day political questions have very complex answers. They deserve thought, they deserve scrutiny, they deserve good judgment. And good judgment comes from being thoughtful.” Being thoughtful about issues also leads to questioning what you hear, said former student and research assistant Ben Hermerding ’15, now the records manager for the secretary of the commonwealth. Farnsworth taught him that there’s a difference in thinking about politics and simply consuming news. “Dr. Farnsworth always views everything political with a healthy dose of skepticism,” Hermerding said. Students describe Farnsworth as perpetually, enthusiastically curious and questioning, and they say he encourages students to debate issues. Emma Valinski ’17, a former student and research assistant, appreciated the free exchange of ideas in class and how Farnsworth never let his own views inhibit the conversation. “The best part of Professor Farnsworth is you can never tell what he’s thinking,” Valinski said. “He has the best poker face … he never pushed you one way or the other opinionwise.” William Wadsworth ’17, who will graduate in December, is Farnsworth’s current research assistant and an intern in the office of Virginia Rep. Rob Wittman. He said Farnsworth fostered his interest in research and is more responsible than anyone for his growth as a scholar and as a professional. “If I hadn’t taken that first class with him, if I hadn’t formed that relationship, I’d be worse off for it.”
“What’s important is that you have a level of resistance to being bamboozled.”
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BOOK REPORT
Books by UMW alumni Fear the Drowning Deep
Beholder’s Eye By Kelly Cherry ’61 Groundhog Poetry Press, August 2017
By Sarah Glenn Peters Marsh ’10, M.Ed. ’11 Skyhorse Publishing, October 2016 Sixteen-year-old Bridey Corkill has hated the sea since she saw something lure her granddad off a cliff and into a watery grave. NPR critic Caitlyn Paxson said the author paints a portrait of an Isle of Man fishing village “where people are disappearing and mythical creatures may be to blame.…When [Bridey] finds a mysterious young man washed up on the beach, she will have to put aside her terror of the sea to protect her loved ones.” NPR named Fear the Drowning Deep among its best books of 2016.
Pretend We Are Lovely By Nicole L. “Noley” Reid ’95 Tin House Books, July 2017 Set in Blacksburg, Reid’s debut novel details a summer in the life of a Virginia family seven years after the tragic and suspicious death of a son and sibling. Kirkus, in a starred review, wrote of “prose that ambulates between stark, hallucinatory, fuddled, and chewy according to the guiding character’s point of view.” Publishers Weekly named it a “Best Book of Summer” and Oprah Magazine a “Book to Pick Up Now.”
Cherry’s travels in the United States, Germany, Poland, Russia, Hungary, western Europe, Finland, and elsewhere inspired this collection. Her poems are clear and deftly crafted, sometimes profound, and often witty.
Weather By Kelly Cherry ’61 Rain Mountain Press, September 2017 Cherry explores weather in poems such as Birds on the Patio Feeders, No. 19, Sleet, Tornado in Wisconsin, Indian Summer, Snow, and Wind. She ventures light years out into the cosmos and returns to the intimacy of thrushes at the feeder and the fluff of her dog’s coat.
Another Bungalow By Maura Payne Way ’94 Press 53, September 2017 Way’s poems explore how home and the small moments of our days imprint memory, meaning, and perspective on our lives.
Virginia Wine: Four Centuries of Change By Andrew A. Painter ’02 George Mason University Press, October 2017 Painter’s book chronicles the personalities, places, and personal and political struggles that have helped establish Virginia as one of the nation’s preeminent wine regions.
The Untold Journey: The Life of Diana Trilling By Natalie Robins ’60 Columbia University Press, May 2017 Robins explores the life that literary critic, author, and New York intellectual Diana Trilling led with literary critic Lionel Trilling. Ms. Magazine recommended the book in its “10 feminist books to read this summer.”
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Books by Faculty The American Middle Class: An Economic Encyclopedia of Progress and Poverty Volumes 1 and 2 Edited by UMW Professor of Economics Robert Rycroft Greenwood, May 2017 This two-volume textbook argues that the American dream is not rising to the top 1 percent of society in wealth, but instead is joining the great middle class through hard work and self-discipline. Booklist, in a starred review, called it an excellent resource for high school, public and academic libraries, and anyone doing research in the social sciences.
GET THE PICTURE?
Give It Your Best Shot This edition’s photo takes us back to the 1980s, when the Mary Washington sciences were housed in Combs Hall. Chemistry and other science departments moved to the Jepson Science Center when it opened in 1998, in part because the Combs lab space was cramped and outdated. The student pictured here studies powders and liquids in a Combs Hall chemistry lab, but that is all we know about her. If you can help us identify her, we’d like to hear from you. Go online to magazine.umw.edu and click on “Get the Picture” to leave a comment. Or send an email with “Get the Picture” in the subject line to magazine@umw.edu. You may also write to: UMW Magazine – Get the Picture 1301 College Ave. Fredericksburg Va. 22401-5300
You Got It! Sally Crenshaw Witt ’64 commented online that the student pictured in the middle in the last edition’s Get the Picture was her suitemate Brunhilde “Prunie” Wyrick ’64. Sally didn’t remember the name of the girl pictured on the right, but she did remember that she had a bright yellow VW bug! Patricia “Bonnie” Polt ’64 chimed in that she was the girl on the right who had the VW, which she named “Bumble” because of its color. Bonnie and Prunie were roommates, and “Nancy,” the girl on the left, lived on their hall, but Bonnie didn’t recall her last name. Bonnie thinks that the photo was probably taken in either their junior or senior year in their dorm, Ball Hall, but she didn’t remember what they were doing or why the photo was taken. These days, Bonnie lives in Fogelsville, Pennsylvania, with her husband; between them they have 11 grandchildren. If anyone identifies the girl on the left, it’s not too late to let us know. Other names mentioned as possible IDs were Allie-Blue Habel Everett ’63 and Sue Parker Burton ’64. Thanks to everyone who wrote in!
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NOTABLE & QUOTABLE
King Honored as Palm Beach Leader The Executive Women of the Palm Beaches awarded Nellie King ’92 its 2017 Women in Leadership Award for the private sector. The award honors women who have demonstrated extraordinary achievements and leadership in the Palm Beach, Florida, community. A noted criminal defense lawyer, King has held local, state, and national roles in legal organizations. She has been president of the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and worked with President Barack Obama’s Clemency Project. The clemency initiative focused on minimummandatory sentencing policies, which had resulted in the incarceration of thousands of Americans for nonviolent drug offenses. King is a past president of the Palm Beach Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and is on the boards of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Boys Town South Florida, and the Criminal Justice Commission. Nellie King was recognized for leadership at a Palm Beach reception. Here she is pictured with retired astronaut Mark Kelly, who spoke at the event.
Winners of the 2017 Alumni Awards were announced during Reunion Weekend, June 2-4. John Anstey ’93 of the Anstey Hodge advertising and design firm in Roanoke, Virginia, earned the Distinguished Alumnus Award. Anstey is a marketing and communications expert, a member of the Public Relations Society of America, and the founding chair of UMW’s College of Arts and Sciences Advisory Board. He has contributed pro bono work for numerous nonprofit organizations in the Roanoke area. Tara Corrigall ’82 received the Frances Liebenow Armstrong ’36 Service Award for her tireless work for Mary Washington and its alumni. A former member of the Board of Visitors, Corrigall has served as an Alumni Association board member, a regional network leader, and a class agent. She was on the advisory committee responsible for hiring UMW President Troy D. Paino.
Virginia Atkinson ’03 was named Outstanding Young Alumnus for her work in disability rights and civic engagement. She is senior access and inclusion specialist at the International Foundation for Electoral Systems and was lead author of the manual Equal Access: How to Include Persons With Disabilities in Elections and Political Processes. She led the development of ElectionAccess. org, a free global resource on the political rights of those with disabilities.
John Anstey
Tara Corrigall
Virginia Atkinson
Grad School Support for Madison Fellow Colleen Miller ’08, who studied history at Mary Washington, earned a James Madison Memorial Fellowship for 2017, supporting graduate study of American history by secondary school teachers of history, government, or civics. Miller, a high school teacher in Rhode Island, was among 53 educators chosen for the competitive fellowship. Recipients receive awards of as much as $24,000 to fund coursework toward master’s degrees, including a
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concentration of courses on the history and principles of the U.S. Constitution. The fellowships are intended to recognize distinguished teachers and to strengthen their knowledge of the origins and development of American constitutional government. Founded by an act of Congress in 1986, the James Madison Memorial Fellowship Foundation of Alexandria, Virginia, is an independent agency of the executive branch of the federal government.
Lanie Pepitone Photography
Alumni Award Winners
NOTABLE & QUOTABLE
Lacy Directs HBO’s Spielberg
Susan Wagner Lacy ’70 brought talent and experience in documentary biographies to her most recent project – Spielberg for HBO. But even to agree to make a movie about one of the world’s best-known directors, she also had to summon her nerve. “I tried really hard not to think about it,” she told The New York Times. “I would have been absolutely frozen.” The Times featured Lacy as the director behind the film, which premiered on HBO in early October. The paper wrote of Lacy, “She’s owned the field of documentary biography for more than 30 years, beginning at PBS – where she created the series American Masters, winning 28 Emmy and 11 Peabody Awards.” Lacy moved to HBO in 2013 with a promise from Spielberg to cooperate with her on the project. Spielberg sat with Lacy for 30 hours of interviews that resulted in the 2½-hour film. His parents and sisters participated, as did A-list Hollywood directors and actors including Francis Ford Coppola, Brian De Palma, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, Liam Neeson, and Leonardo DiCaprio. Spielberg, who had seen the documentary, told the Times that he couldn’t have imagined putting his story in the hands of another filmmaker – until he met Lacy. “She engaged in a way that was so honest and insightful that it disarmed me and I discovered I could fall easily into any conversation with her, even about myself.” Besides the Spielberg project, Lacy has completed a biography of Jane Fonda, and she’s working on one of Ralph Lauren. A native of Baltimore, Lacy graduated from Mary Washington with a degree in American studies; she moved to Washington, D.C., and got a master’s degree in the same field from The George Washington University. Her next stop was New York, where she started in public broadcasting at WNET, developed American Masters, and later became executive director of the series. But at publicly funded PBS she felt growing pressure to raise money for her films and to keep them short – just an hour. After 35 years, Lacy made a difficult choice. HBO came calling, the Times reported, with the promise that Lacy would no longer have to fundraise or shorten her films so drastically.
Mills Leads VT Engineering Alumni Angela Mills ’01 was named director of alumni relations for the Virginia Tech College of Engineering in December 2016. In that role, she is a liaison among development, departments in the school of engineering, and nearly 70,000 living VT engineering alumni. Mills joined Virginia Tech in 2013 as director of alumni relations for the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, overseeing the college’s alumni program, the student ambassador program, and numerous college events. Mills studied business administration with an emphasis in marketing and theater at Mary Washington. Today she serves as president of the UMW Alumni Association. She began her professional career in development working with the National Symphony Orchestra at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. Mills earned a master of public administration degree from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and worked for UT in many capacities in alumni relations and development. She is an active member of the Junior League of Roanoke Valley and is editor of its STAR magazine.
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ALUMNI SEEN
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The Fredericksburg Regional Network and COAR Affinity Group got to work for the Into the Streets event. Back row: Donald Patterson MBA ’13, Elinor Tuhy ’10, Jeanine Meerscheidt, Prentice Einarsen ’92, Karine Close, Amanda Genter ’99, and Karen Thompson Lovas ’86. Front row: Patti Boise Kemp ’69, Emily Genter, Rebecca Heflin Chinn ’08, and Kevin Close.
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In September, more than 150 alumni across generations gathered at the Jepson Alumni Executive Center for the Legacy Breakfast. The sold-out event celebrated families with multiple UMW grads. Among them were (from left) Connie Booth Logothetis ’61, Emily Rossi ’21, and Linkey Booth Green ’63, Emily’s grandmother.
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Members of the Charlottesville Regional Network including (from left) Bill Fritz ’87, Melissa Celii Thackston ’06, Rebecca Smith ’14, Christophe Perdu ’14, and Sarah Spangler ’11, gathered to build a sense of connection. Registration fees were donated to Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Central Blue Ridge.
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College of Business Affinity Group members (from left) Lou Marmo ’94, acting Vice President for Administration and Finance Lynne Richardson, Emma Murphy ’16, Melisa Pilipovic ’17, Robert Whitt ’93, Dodie Whitt ’95, Karen Del Cid ’17, and Emma Ferraiuolo ’17, met in April at Strangeways Brewing in Richmond.
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UNIVERSITY OF MARY WASHINGTON MAGAZINE FALL/WINTER 2017
ALUMNI SEEN
Scenes From Reunion Weekend, June 2-4, 2017
#MWForeverTrue
Mary Washington has a lasting impact spanning beyond your years spent as a student. Lessons learned here influence your personal and professional development. Friendships made here last a lifetime. An entire family embraces you for years to come. You can always come home to Mary Washington. You can always count on Mary Washington ideals to serve you as you transition from student to alumni. You are always welcome and encouraged to engage with the place that helped shape the person you have become. What does “Mary Washington, Forever True� mean to you? Learn more and share your story at alumni.umw.edu/MWForeverTrue.
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No class agent? No problem. Send your news to classnotes@umw.edu. If you prefer to submit Class Notes by mail, send to: UMW Magazine – Class Notes 1301 College Ave., Fredericksburg, VA 22401
Read It
ONLINE
Find the original, unedited text of Class Notes online at magazine.umw.edu.
1940
No Class Agent classnotes@umw.edu Recipients of the Oscar H. Darter Scholarship in History, Maximilian Von Starr ’17 and Andrew C. Steele ’17, graduated in May. Maximilian graduated with distinction.
1941
Dorothy Shaw dorothyshaw1919@gmail.com
1942
No Class Agent classnotes@umw.edu We are sorry to report that Edna Tucker Purdue passed away May 22, 2017, at age 94. Her obituary mentions her many civic and social activities in the Crewe, Virginia, area; her work as a bookkeeper; and her long marriage to the late Z.T. Perdue Jr. Survivors include son Zack T. Perdue III, a daughterin-law, and two grandchildren.
I, Phyllis Quimby Anderson, also use a cane and a walker. I play bridge once a week and do a column for our church newsletter. My son lives with me, which helps with travel. We went to Williamsburg, and we recently had a full weekend in New Jersey with a grandson’s wedding, a family reunion, and my birthday. I found out that I have another great-greatgranddaughter, who lives in Germany.
No Class Agent classnotes@umw.edu
1944
At 93 and 98, Jerse and Rusty enjoy assisted living in Tarpon Springs, Florida. They have three daughters, three sons-in-law, seven grandchildren, six spouses of grandchildren, and 18 great-grandchildren.
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1946
Patricia Mathewson Spring classnotes@umw.edu
1947
Betty Moore Drewry Bamman classnotes@umw.edu
1945
Marjorie “Jerse” Storms Reddoch wrote to say hello after 72 years. She met Marine 1st Lt. Ruskin Reddoch of Troy, Alabama, on a train in 1943, and they were married on graduation day, June 4, 1945, at Fredericksburg Baptist Church.
Elizabeth Cumby Murray uses a cane and a walker, but she still drives and plays bridge four days a week and plays Mexican dominos with four friends. She went to a women’s concert, which brought back memories of her playing the piano for the victory chorus. I was lucky to be in it.
The recipient of the Class of 1945 Memorial Scholarship, Danielle Holzhauser ’17, graduated magna cum laude in May.
Carolyn Johnson Lingenfelser stays in touch with her Mary Washington roommate of four years, Ellie Hunter Adams, and Aileen Robbins Heflin, her suitemate their senior year. Carolyn walks two miles a day, swims, and is now the proud Attending a women’s concert brought back great-grandmom memories for Elizabeth Cumby Murray ’44 to Ella Catherine Cutler of Toano, of playing the piano for the MWC victory Virginia. Ella’s chorus. mother, Megan, is a nurse practitioner in Williamsburg. The recipients of the Class of 1944 Carolyn recently took granddaughter Memorial Scholarship, Sarah Rogers ’17 Lynsi Matthews on a cruise to Bermuda and Stephanie Buckler ’17, graduated in to celebrate Lynsi’s CPA certification. May. Sarah graduated magna cum laude. Grandson Brandon Lingenfelser is an architect in San Diego, and his younger brother, Jordan, is at Virginia Tech.
The recipient of the Class of 1942 Scholarship in Business Administration in Memory of James Harvey Dodd, Ariel Paulk ’17, graduated summa cum laude in May.
Phyllis Quimby Anderson pqhndson@comcast.net
Hugo Iltis, “my guiding lights.” Her mural oil painting of the New Jersey state seal can still be viewed on the walls in James Monroe Hall.
Rusty was a teacher and coach at Tarpon Springs High School. Jerse ran the Reddoch School of the Arts from 1953 until 1983 and exhibited and sold her artwork. She remembers studying with Emil Schnellock and
UNIVERSITY OF MARY WASHINGTON MAGAZINE FALL/WINTER 2017
Carolyn just returned from a trip to London and Paris. She didn’t plan to attend our 70th reunion but has fond memories of the 65th. My son, Mark Bamman, married Kelley Cromwell on July 8 – his first marriage, at age 56. Mark and Kelley met at church, and I am delighted with his choice!
1948
No Class Agent classnotes@umw.edu
Let us hear from you! Deadlines for submissions to class agents: • For spring 2018 issue: Dec. 1, 2017 • For fall 2018 issue: June 15, 2018
1949
June Davis McCormick jaymccee@yahoo.com We were sad to learn of the recent deaths of five classmates. Elizabeth “Liz” Barnes Hornsby of Harborton, Virginia, passed away in January, surrounded by her loving family. Her husband, Beverly Hornsby, daughter Susan, a brother, and a great-grandson predeceased her. Surviving are daughter Jane, two sons-in-law, six grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren, a sister, a brother, and many nieces and nephews.
With her husband, Howard, Blackie bred and showed dachshunds and beagles at their kennel in Delaware and participated in the Westminster Kennel Club dog shows. Blackie also was active in civic and environmental organizations, and she had taught adult literacy classes. Her husband and two sons predeceased her. Blackie was unique, and she will be missed.
Margaret L. Markwood McClench of Blacksburg died in June. After earning a bachelor’s degree in mathematics, she taught math in Fairfax County public schools for 30 years. Her husband, William Wallace McClench II, and son, William Wallace McClench III, predeceased her. Surviving are daughter Mary An oil painting of the New Jersey state seal Keffer, two by Marjorie “Jerse” Storms Reddoch ’45 grandchildren, two still graces Monroe Hall. great-grandchildren, and two sisters.
Liz came to Mary Washington from Accomack County on the Eastern Shore and made many close friends during her four years, including lifelong friend Harriet “Scotty” Scott Brockenbrough. An art major, Liz taught school in both Norfolk and Richmond and retired from Accomack County public schools. Liz was active in church and civic groups, a formidable bridge opponent, and an avid golfer who had achieved a hole in one while playing at a club in Maryland. A plethora of dear friends brought great joy to Liz’s lifetime, as she did for many of us. You can read more about Liz’s life in the unedited, online version of Class Notes. Anne Eakle Rolston Keith passed away in March. Anne, from Harrisonburg, Virginia, was with us only for freshman and sophomore years. She married Donald Keith and lived for a time in Maine, worked with the Castine Scientific Society, and also was president of the Wilson Museum. After the death of her husband of 63 years, she relocated to Richmond to be near a daughter. Survivors include daughter Katherine Keith Baird of Richmond, daughter Elizabeth Keith of San Diego, and a grandson. Frances “Blackie” Horn Nygood passed away in May. While she didn’t “walk” with us, she kept in touch over these many years, returned for a few reunions, and was always a fun participant and witty correspondent.
Virginia Woodley Asby Chapman of Norfolk also passed away in June. Our senior yearbook lists her hometown as Creswell, North Carolina. She majored in sociology and went on to earn a master’s in education. She was an employment counselor and job placement coordinator for Norfolk public schools. Husbands Gilbert R. Asby and A. Hugh Chapman preceded her in death. Survivors include sons Gilbert R. Asby Jr. and Thomas E. Asby, daughter Alice W. Asby, stepson John S. Chapman, grandchildren, greatgrandchildren, nieces, and nephews.
to Marye’s Hilltop for a nostalgic visit. She was there on a drizzly day, but she did stand on the steps of our beloved Ball, where her husband had proposed. Elizabeth “Betty” Fischer Gore was on campus for the annual scholarship donors luncheon in April, accompanied by her daughter. Betty served as sole representative for all Class of ’49 donors, meeting and talking with each recipient as well as her own. Betty planned summer trips with a group from her Woodland Retirement Center in Fairfax, including three days in New York to attend three musicals including the new Hello, Dolly! Next on her list was a September cruise up the coast of New England and into Canada. Our perennial Betty Bond Heller Nichols has spent her lifetime giving of her talents. Here’s a summary, and you can read a more detailed version in the online Class Notes. A talented pianist, Betty Bond accompanied every MWC production and senior recital, and joyfully led and played for the after-dinner songfests. Back in her hometown of Bedford after graduation, Betty assumed programming duties for her husband at the town’s radio station while rearing their three children. After her first marriage ended, Betty Bond was invited to perform with a group in Lexington. During one performance, she caught the eye of Col. Lee Nichols, a VMI instructor, and began her joyful second life.
In May, before more than 100 invited guests in Lexington, B.B. performed a 1½-hour program reflecting a variety of styles. Starting with her first recital piece, she progressed to operettas, show tunes, ragtime, patriotic favorites, ballads, popular songs, and more. An audio engineer from W&L University recorded her words and music in a video on YouTube, Margaret “Peggy” Walton Mason ’49 also making a few DVDs for family returned to the steps of Ball Hall, where once and close friends. upon a time her husband proposed to her. Well done, B.B.
Turning to happier news, Barbara Trimm Wright in South Hill, Virginia, reconnected with Ball suitemates Helen “Bebe” Lowe Eliason, Alice Durham Serapin, and Claire Braun Burrows, all from the Class of ’48. Another suitemate, our classmate Gladys Riddle Whitesides, passed away last year.
Claire wrote to Barbara that she is 92, widowed, and lives alone, but her children see to her needs. As for Barbara, she’s well and keeping as busy as she wants to be. Margaret “Peggy” Walton Mason of Bethesda, Maryland, was in Fredericksburg in the spring and returned
From Lansdale, Pennsylvania, Joyce Hamilton Eisler sent news that she and Joe were to attend the annual meeting of LeadingAge, an association of not-forprofit senior services. Joyce and Joe have been at the Brittany Point residence for 10 years and recently have begun playing
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CLASS NOTES Class Agent, Class of 1950 MWC. Dottie, thanks for keeping us together.” We briefly honored her service, friendship, and dedication to our class. Carol Bailey Miller was in the hospital and unable to come. Billie Mitchell Hanes was also recovering from health issues and couldn’t join us.
Scotty Brockenbrough ’49 and a high school friend met on the Eastern Shore, where they enjoyed a bag of fresh “buttah” beans with “buttah, salt, and peppah.” bocce with other residents. She keeps in touch with Peggy Mason, and they both feel blessed to be in good health. Scotty Brockenbrough forwarded a newspaper article and picture of herself and one of her original high school BFFs, Estelle Tankford, captioned “Lifelong Pals.” Scotty and Estelle met for a fun visit in Hallieford in Mathews County on the Eastern Shore and enjoyed a bag of fresh “buttah beans” which they prepared with “buttah, salt and peppah.” In April, Scotty and son Scott spent eight days with Scotty’s youngest son, Tom, in Onancock. They traversed the Virginia peninsula from the state park at Kiptopeke to Assateague Island. She said the best day by far for her was a kayak trip to her beloved Chatham Farm where she grew up, now a well-known winery. They walked up through the Chatham yard and enjoyed a tasting. Scotty left the boys on the last day to meet her high school BFFs for lunch in Cape Charles. She planned to visit Scott and his wife in Kirkland, Washington, in July.
1950
Marceline Weatherly Morris classnotes@umw.edu First the good news: Mim Sollows Wieland has proved once again to be our superwoman as she recovers beautifully from her second hip replacement. She and Earl are in their retirement apartment in New Providence, New Jersey, just a short distance from their former home. Patricia Head Ferguson visited Easter Island and was intrigued by the 10- to 12-foot-high gods carved out of lava stone, which face out to sea to warn off intruders. Another adventure, which she completed last December, was through the Panama Canal. On June 23, UMW representative Jan Clarke, Florence Overley Ridderhof, and my husband, Juney Morris, and I gathered on Campus Walk to dedicate a bench in memory of Dorothy “Dottie” Held Gawley. The bronze plaque reads: “In memory of Dorothy Held Gawley,
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Now the sad: Anne Osborn Cox, our dear friend “Ozzie,” passed away Jan. 26 in Plantation, Florida, where she and husband Frank had made their home since 1958. Frank survives her, as do two daughters, three grandsons, and a greatgrandson, Jacob, whom she welcomed into the world shortly before her passing. The recipient of the Class of 1950 Arrington Scholarship, James Campbell ’17, graduated magna cum laude in May. Please send me your news to P.O. Box 1, King George, Virginia 22485. It is so special to hear what’s going on in your lives!
Sally Hanger Moravitz is starting her 30th year as a docent in the insect zoo in the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History. Ann Strickler Doumas dropped me a line while reunion events were still fresh in her mind. She was the only alum registered from the class of 1955, so she hung out with sister Ellen S. Richardson ’57. She also saw Mary-Montague Hudson Sikes ’57 and Peggy Gray Williams ’57 and her husband from the Eastern Shore. You can read more about her reunion experiences in the unedited notes online. Ann noted that the Ridderhof Martin Gallery featured the life and work of Margaret Sutton ’26, originally from Abingdon, who worked in the New York arts world and left more than 1,000 of her artworks to UMW. Anne Lou Rohrbach Culwell went to a great-grandson’s wedding in Chicago, had a grandson getting married in Norman, Oklahoma, and expected two new great-grandbabies this summer.
Carol Cooper and I caught up by phone. She said she took a wonderful boat trip on the Queen Mary last year, and we reminisced about many classmates. Dotty Booth Chris Harper Hovis ’55 saw her grandSanders wrote me a daughter Morgan Hovis James ’17 graduate nice note about my recovering from my in May. stroke and arthritis.
1951
No Class Agent classnotes@umw.edu
1952
Corley Gibson Friesen corleyfriesen@comcast.net
1953
Betsy Dickinson Surles surles@infionline.net
1954
No Class Agent classnotes@umw.edu
1955
Christine Harper Hovis chrishovis@aol.com
UNIVERSITY OF MARY WASHINGTON MAGAZINE FALL/WINTER 2017
I, Chris Harper Hovis, attended my granddaughter’s UMW commencement on May 13. Morgan Hovis James ’17 double majored in German and environmental affairs and planned to attend Lewis and Clark School of Law in Portland, Oregon. UMW’s Lisa Chinn Marvashti ’92 included our family in an article on the university’s homepage about 2017 graduates with family connections to Mary Washington. There was a picture of me with Morgan, and the article also mentioned my grandson, Harper Hovis James ’19, who ushered at commencement.
1956
Ann Chilton Power anncpower1@gmail.com
1957
Joyce Bristow Wrestler joycewrestler@gmail.com
1958
1959
The Mary Washington Heritage Society newsletter provided details of Joyce Lee Smith, who arranged a generous bequest to the University of Mary Washington to create the Helen Davenport Smith 1919 Scholarship in History in honor of her mother, who retired from teaching in 1969 after 50 years of service.
Charlotte “Charlie” Wohlnick Wiggs and Arch celebrated their 55th anniversary in Hawaii. They visited Florida in February, then traveled to Italy in April and enjoyed the art, antiquities, and architecture of Florence and Tuscany. From Rome they boarded a cruise ship and traveled to Amsterdam. Charlie and Arch attended the Southwest Tennis Open in Ohio. They are restoring an 18th-century house in Woodstock, Virginia.
Susannah Godlove Sgodlove5465@gmail.com
Ellen Harwood Uzenoff ’73 sent a note about her aunt and our classmate, Roberta Lawless Eylar, who passed away March 9, 2017. Roberta had moved to Chico, California, last year to live near daughter Marion Eylar Vadney. She leaves three children, four grandchildren, and two greatgrandsons. Ellen said her family includes three Mary Washington graduates.
Edna Gooch Trudeau ednanewkent@verizon.net
In Charlie’s family news, son Alan passed his engineering exam. Daughter Tracy’s daughter Anna has performed in many high school plays. Anna’s sister, Molly, received a master’s degree in astronomy, got married, and is pursuing a doctorate.
Here’s a thumbnail sketch of love – 58 years! Inga Kuun Barrett met Jack, a Marine, in summer school Inga Kuun Barrett ’59 has backpacked, her senior year. They met again climbed mountains, and worked with an two years later and alpine resort ministry in Colorado. married in San Diego, with Ruth Osterman Button as bridesmaid. They moved to Loretta Hitchings Tate of Virginia Texas, where they have seen Carolyn Beach passed away April 20, 2017. Carte Harkrider off and on. She had retired after working 20 years for U.S. Sen. John Warner. Inga and Jack both had careers in She loved every minute of it. education. In the past 30 years they have backpacked, climbed mountains, and Elizabeth “Betty” Gould Storms worked with an alpine resort ministry in and her husband, Robert, lost their Colorado. They volunteer in reading with son, Robert, on May 22, 2017. Hispanic first-graders. Inga loves to quilt Eileen Brillinger Harrar’s husband, and garden. Daughter Leslie graduated John “Bill” Harrar, died last May. from Texas A&M and lives with her She is now living with her son and pastor husband, Trey Little, in Houston. his family in Cheney, Washington. Leslie and Trey’s daughter graduated from Deepest sympathy to all who have Ole Miss and their son from high school. lost family members and friends. Judy Townsend Bainbridge and family had a delightful Road Scholar trip to New Mexico, mostly Santa Fe and Taos. They are contemplating Sicily next spring. Mary Lou Morris Wolsey sent news of her travels, ending in Virginia during reunion. Visiting campus brought back many memories. I’ll share more about her adventures in our next publication. Feel free to send me an email, call, or write a letter when you have something you would like to share. Please include the name used when you were at MWC.
high school. Jane said Molly Bradshaw Clark had just returned from a trip to Spain and managed to hurt her hand. She also gave the good news that Celeste Shipman Kaufman is cancer-free! Julia Coates Littlefield and Mo planned to tour England and Ireland in July with their church’s choir. Barbara White Ellis was to have knee-replacement surgery, missing our mini-reunion picnic in early June. Frances Bourke Firth also missed the mini because she and Roger planned to be in England for three weeks. But 12 of us and four husbands did attend our mini-get-together on Saturday, June 3. Everyone looked great. Carolyn Hickman Bowman retired from teaching in Chesterfield County last year. She drove in from Richmond and had returned from a trip to California earlier. Katherine Rowe Hayes continues her political volunteer work as the Republican Committee chairwoman in her county. Marcia Spence Harrison-Thornton continues her private psychotherapy practice three days a week and participates in the “Healing Touch” program. Dorothea Reeder Hruby was there and already thinking about great plans for our 60th in 2019. Mary Fredman Downing worked registration – a multitasking person! She wanted me to tell you of our class’s continuing outstanding contribution in 2015 and 2017. We have given the highest amount both years, over a million dollars each year. Are we great or what? Thank you so much.
Texie Peek Van Devender, who was a day student and is still in F’burg, came. Irene Piscopo Rodgers took the train and stayed all three days. She brought her niece, who was visiting from London. Barbara Gordon McNamee, Marcia Phipps Ireland, and Ann Brooks Coutsoubinas were there. Ann has family in F’burg, so she stayed over. Rita Knupp Burke ’60 wanted to teach first Nancy Gwaltney Gillette and her grade for one more year before she retired. husband opened She loved it so much she stayed for 16! her lovely, spacious home to us for a “happy hour of Jane Tucker Broadbooks and John are conversation” later that day – a great happy in Illinois close to Jon Karl and get-together to keep in touch over a fivefamily. John participates in an exercise year span. Sally Arnold Sullivan called. program and now has dialysis at home, She wrote a poem for our class, which which is easier. Tucker has completed you can read online in the unedited Class his first year at Truman State, and Notes. Wish she could have made it to the Anna and Virginia are doing well in mini, but she is raring to go for 2019.
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Organ Aficionada
A
rp Schnitger was one of the most prolific and influential organ builders of the late 17th and early 18th centuries, a craftsman whose work fueled continued interest in Baroque instruments centuries after his death. Yet Peggy Kelley Reinburg ’58 could find only one article on the German artisan as she toiled away on a paper for her sophomore year organ class. She managed to stretch what little information she could find into eight pages and earned an A on the assignment. But the dearth of knowledge gnawed at her long after she graduated from Mary Washington with a bachelor’s degree in music and minors in languages and psychology. “I couldn’t get the information I wanted, and I was just so eager to know about these wonderful instruments,” Reinburg said. The Norfolk resident went on to write the definitive book on Schnitger while performing on his stunning creations – and those of other builders – in churches, cathedrals, and concert halls all over the world. “The organ is a very complex instrument. You can accomplish a lot more sound-wise on it,” said Reinburg, who studied piano for a decade as a child before adding organ to her repertoire the summer before her freshman year. “I became fascinated at Mary Washington with what’s behind the console at which you sit. I got hooked on it.” After graduating, Reinburg worked as a church organist in Richmond and Washington, D.C., and earned a master’s degree in sacred music and musicology from Northwestern University. She served as the college organist and an associate professor of organ at Mary Washington for 15 years, starting in 1971, and simultaneously served on the music faculty of The George Washington University before teaching at Duquesne University. Pipe organs aren’t exactly
portable, so to play them, Reinburg needed to travel. The Richmond native first went to Europe in 1974 and then roughly every other year after, giving recitals and lectures, touring museums, and visiting seven different music archives in search of historical documents for her book about Schnitger, which was published in 1982. Reinburg was awestruck by the beautiful instruments. A highlight for her was playing the Trost organ at Altenburg castle in Germany, the same organ that composer Johann Sebastian Bach had played in 1739. “To have touched and played the organ Bach had his hands on” was thrilling, she said. “Being in a city with all the wonderful artwork in the churches, just to see this wonderful artwork from people whose names we hear in art history, it’s just amazing. It grabs you so.”
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UNIVERSITY OF MARY WASHINGTON MAGAZINE FALL/WINTER 2017
Her extensive knowledge of the mechanics of organs and the meticulous engineering required to push the wind through the pipes has made her a sought-after consultant for churches and universities seeking to restore historic organs or build new ones. She helped launch Pipe Organ Encounters for Youth, a program of the National American Guild of Organists that encourages young musicians to take up the organ. And in 1999, she instigated a Tidewater concert series, part of the Virginia Arts Festival, which features organists and musicians from the Virginia Symphony Orchestra. Playing the organ is “another art form, which makes it wonderful because you feel like you’re putting something good out there into the universe,” Reinburg said. “I’m very grateful for the road I took.” – Edie Gross
Pipe organ expert Peggy Kelley Reinburg consults on restoring historic organs and building new ones.
In my news, Lucas is growing so tall and is moving on to third grade. He was to participate in the Virginia Beach recreation program for seven weeks this summer. See you in 2019!
1960
Karen Larsen Nelson karenlarsennelson60@gmail.com Jody Campbell Close jclose2@cfl.rr.com From Karen: Peggy Bloxom Verville finally had the delayed surgery on her knee. Patty Morgan Connolly lives in Bloomfield, Connecticut, where she rides her horse, plays racquetball, sings in her church choir, and volunteers.
classes, and does senior yoga weekly. She attends Sunday school and Bible study and takes church-sponsored day trips. Wonder woman Rita Knupp Burke of Springfield, Virginia, spent 43 years in education as a K-12 reading teacher, curriculum specialist, supervisor of elementary schools, and a K-12 supervisor. She also taught night school for adults who did not graduate from high school. After 27 years she was going to retire but wanted to reteach first grade for one year. She loved it so much she stayed for 16 more years! Rita has traveled to 59 countries. Last year, she went to the United Arab Emirates.
Rita is in touch with Bonnie Davis Hall, Dee Merrill Albright, Janet Hook Foley, and Elaine Allsbrook Nix. Elaine, of Kinston, North Carolina, volunteers at church, in the surgical waiting room of Mona Allen Spilo, although in her 20th her local hospital, and at a school to help year of chemo for ovarian cancer, is first-graders with reading and math. She active and happily retired in Stonington, and Del have been married 56 years and Connecticut. Lu Omasta Clark and her have seven grandchildren. Elaine’s BFF, husband now winter in Mesa, rather than roommate Charlotte Noland Downing, Payson, Arizona, in the mountains. has three grandsons, survived the death of her husband many years ago, and still is Natalie Robins Lehmann-Haupt ’60 optimistic and fun. published a new book – The Untold Journey:
The Life of Diana Trilling.
Bonnie Davis Hall is cancer-free and doing great. She got her second knee replacement and is enjoying rides in the sidecar of the motorcycle Ross bought during her cancer years. She has had a note from roomie Carlota Muse Rokita in Vienna, Austria, and all is well with her. Joyce Neill Krost has been busy with visits from friends and family, including one from her son who lives in Albania. She attended her 60th high school reunion in Richmond with Jan Rutan Wright, who lives in Seattle, Washington. Judy Jacobs Winer taught in New Jersey while starting her family. She moved to Clearwater, Florida, 40 years ago. She and her husband have toured most of Europe, and she keeps busy with bridge. Except for a small stroke and a kidney stone this year, she has been healthy. Her daughter is a physician and her son is an attorney. She has enjoyed 55 years of marriage and has five wonderful grandchildren. Lynda Tuck West has two children, lives in Florida, attends therapy pool
Ginny Barber Lamb has been in Westerville, Ohio, since 1998, when Chuck was sent there by the Boy Scouts of America. Her son graduated from Miami University in 1985.
Audrey Maull Tuttle’s three children all still live within 15 minutes of her home in Columbia, Connecticut, and she has nine grandchildren. She taught for a while, then realized life would run more smoothly if she helped husband Bob with his business. Sadly, she lost Bob 24 years ago to melanoma. In late June she planned a trip to Barcelona and a Mediterranean cruise with two granddaughters.
the events in that beautiful setting. Natalie Robins Lehmann-Haupt has a new book out, The Untold Journey: The Life of Diana Trilling, published by Columbia University Press. She had many readings scheduled this past spring and summer. Nancy Moncure Deiss heard from Leecy Thornal Hatch that their freshman roommate in Virginia Hall, Anne Leach Atkinson Eggers, passed away this past March. Anne’s obituary didn’t mention Mary Washington but said she graduated Phi Beta Kappa from William & Mary in 1960. Suzanne Swann Moon, another member of our class, passed this news to Leecy. Nancy still works at the National Gallery of Art, travels all over the United States and Canada, and keeps up with her nine grandchildren. Jan Latven Allnutt and Bob planned a trip to Scandinavia in June. Several years ago they traveled to Iran and Syria, and they have made many trips to Africa. They play tennis year round and have grandsons from toddler to teenage. Jan finds time yearly for a gettogether with college roommates Joey Van Tol Goetz, Betty Bruce Shepard, and Susan Cramer Drouin. They hear from Susan Stanley Sokil, who is fine. This past spring, Diane Delamarre Madgic had a get-together with roomie Judy Davidson Creasy and both their husbands, near the San Francisco Bay Bridge. Tucker Freeman Viccellio reported that she stays in contact with roomie and bridesmaid Cary Tilton Doyle. Jody Campbell Close was looking forward to her eldest granddaughter’s wedding in August. She’s busy with genealogy, doing research for others, giving lectures, and more.
I, Karen Larsen Nelson, found Nancy Jones Chandler on Facebook. Nancy moved to North Carolina, where her children and grandchildren are. She and Betsy A local artist illustrated eight stories Jerri Watts Haskell were Barden Perkins wrote as a Christmas gift for my suitemates her grandchildren. for a year or two. Sadly, Betsy passed away this past February in Texas, where she had Syd Collson Chichester shared moved to be closer to family. She had her memories of the amphitheater worked as a special education teacher on campus and hoped we could and as an elementary school volunteer. contribute to the restoration campaign. We all have memories of
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CLASS NOTES My husband, Darrell, and I made several short trips to Vegas to visit our daughter’s family – four generations, including three granddaughters and five great-grands ages 1 to 6. Our son from Florida joined us on one of those visits with his fiancée, now his wife. Our passion is working with our church, which is embedded in an assisted living and nursing home facility. We spent the summer at our RV resort in the “cool” mountains of Arizona.
1961
Connie Booth Logothetis (A – G) connielogothetis@gmail.com Renee Levinson Laurents (H – Q) arjle@aol.com Lynne Williams Neave (R – Z) lyneave@aol.com Please send news to the designated class agent according to the first letter of your maiden name. From Connie: Encouraged by a business colleague who thought her life adventures should be preserved, Jerri Barden Perkins has written eight stories as a Christmas present for her 11 grandkids. The collection has sketches by a local artist and is dedicated to Jerri’s late husband, Cal, and their grandchildren. Marcia Minton Keech and other friends encouraged her in the project. In June, Jerri planned to meet with a UMW student with whom she had corresponded for the past year, sharing stories about college, medical school, and career choices. Carole Grant LeMay is a guide for Natchez Pilgrimage Tours, specializing in Civil War and Southern history. She and Ralph traveled to the Outer Banks of North Carolina with daughter Jill, her husband, Frank, and their son Jacob, who is “12 going on 20,” Carole writes. She planned a trip to New Hampshire with Bee Stone Byrnes, who lived in Trench Hill during freshman year but didn’t continue at Mary Washington. Carole also planned a girls’ cruise over the summer. Linda Giles Poole lost husband William “Buddy” Poole, in December 2016. They had lived in Houston, Texas, for almost 50 years. We send our deepest sympathy. Kelly Cherry planned to publish another collection of poems this summer with Rain Mountain Press, whose offerings
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are available through the website Small Press Distribution. She lives in Halifax, Virginia, and enjoyed a spring of “open windows, fresh air, birdsong, and the poor squirrels who want to raid birdseed from the feeders but can’t figure out how to do it.” Mary Gilliam Dodson Larson planned a move to Seattle, Washington, to be close to a daughter, son-in-law, 4-yearold granddaughter, and 2-year-old grandson. Another daughter is a captain with Delta and recently got engaged.
high school graduation. This young lady has wisely chosen UMW for college! Emily Rossi ’21 is the granddaughter of my sister, Linkey Booth Green ’63. While in Delaware, we had lunch with Barbie Upson Welch and Chuck, who spent a month in Arizona in February and went on the Queen of the Mississippi music cruise from New Orleans to Memphis in April.
We continue to enjoy life in Wilmington, N.C. Our grandson Leo is 10 and loves surfing and anything active and outdoors. He is an avid reader and has read to dogs in the Carole Grant LeMay ’61 specializes in Civil library’s Paws for War and Southern history as a guide for People program.
Natchez Pilgrimage Tours.
Clara Sue Durden Ashley and Clarence went to Columbia, South Carolina, for her 60th high school reunion. In June, their son Park, his wife, and seven children visited them, and one evening there were 17 family members for dinner and togetherness. Son Dennis passed his professional engineering exam. Clara Sue also shared bad news – she found out her ovarian cancer had returned after 11 years, and she planned to start chemotherapy. Our thoughts and prayers are with Clara Sue, my dear suitemate. Dee Doran Cairns and Doug live in San Antonio at the Army Residence Community. Dee and Doug’s daughter, Cathy, and William Brown live in Montgomery, Alabama, and Cathy and Williams’s son, Chris, and his wife, Jordan, live in San Francisco and were expecting their first baby. Dee and Doug’s son, Rob, and family live in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. Rob’s son Nathan is at West Point and daughter Katye was to start college in the fall. Ellen Gotwalt Willing and Bill can’t travel because of Bill’s health, and she misses escaping the winter cold of York, Pennsylvania, for Naples, Florida, which they did for many years. Their daughter visits one or two times a month, and their grandson recently graduated from high school. Ellen keeps busy with exercise and volunteer work. Andy and I have been busy! We had a wonderful cruise to Cuba in February; a master bathroom upgrade in March; the wedding of my niece in Livermore, California, in April; and a week in Delaware in June for my great-niece’s
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From Renee: Sandra Phillips Conklin wrote a lovely tribute to Dr. Herbert Cover, her chemistry professor, whose passing was noted in the last issue of the magazine. She recalls, “He was a perfect gentleman, an excellent teacher, and an important and appreciated part of my education at MWC.” You can read the rest of her funny and touching memories of Dr. Cover online in the unedited class notes. Sandy and hubby recently acquired a female Tibetan mastiff puppy named Sugar Bear. Donna Henninger Henderson’s granddaughter Eleanor Rose turned 2 in July, and Donna gets to see her two or three times a year. Donna’s son’s three children are 21, 19, and 17. They live on the farm where Donna lives in Troutville, Virginia. The oldest is a senior at Virginia Tech. Donna’s hubby still helps on the dairy farm; she writes checks, runs errands, and plays bridge anywhere, any time! She has been retired 22 years. I’m still busy with UCLA classes, my book group, and a political action committee. I am thinking of selling my house in Los Angeles and moving to the desert. Friends have already done so and often urge me to join them. My wonderful cat Dickens was 18 and not doing well as I wrote these notes. But he still was enjoying walks with my dog, Buddy, and my other cat, Domino, and me at night when it’s quiet. From Lynne: Sandy and I planned a cruise to Alaska in August, celebrating a significant birthday for him. We have two grandchildren in their first year of college. I continue
to enjoy bridge and serving on UMW Foundation Board and the board of our condo in Litchfield, Connecticut. Janie Riles and Jim spend more time in Fort Lauderdale these days, although they still go back to San Diego from time to time. She took a quick trip to Cannes at the end June to visit friends. Pat Scott Peck had a two-week visit with Carolyn Crum Pannu in April. They enjoyed Muir Woods, wine tasting, great museums, and coastal drives to small villages. She hopes all who can will meet next spring in Texas for a mini-reunion. Pat welcomes summertime company in Calais, Maine, a small town on the Canadian border. Eleanore Saunders Sunderland and her 19-year-old grandson visited her daughter in Milan, Italy. Another grandson graduated summa cum laude from Ohio State University and is now working in Tanzania. Eleanore was looking forward to sailing on son Willard’s oceangoing sailboat. Willard is a Russian history professor at the University of Cincinnati, and he dreams of sailing to Russia to navigate its rivers. Lynne Wilson Rupert had an amazing 10-day trip to Iceland in May, returning in time for three grandchildren’s high school graduations and a grandson’s middle school promotion. She looked forward to a high school reunion in Easton, Maryland, in September.
nursing studies. She and husband John Matthews had three sons and raised their family in Martinsville, Virginia. Judy worked as a nurse and was the first female chair of the Martinsville School Board in the 1990s. Kay and Judy met annually to catch up, and Kay stayed with Judy and John when work took her to Martinsville. On a happier note, Kay and daughter Margaret planned a visit to Charlottesville’s Italian sister city, Poggio a Caiano, west of Florence.
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Jane Walshe McCracken janemcc@cox.net Kathleen Lisagor klisagor@yahoo.com Joan Akers Rothgeb erothgeb@earthlink.net Marsha Arlott Wooster has been married to her high school sweetheart for 53 years and lives in Santa Barbara, California. They have three sons and seven grandchildren. They spend two months in New York City each spring, then two months on Skaneateles Lake, outside of Syracuse.
Nancy O’Neal Robinson helps produce short comedic musicals for senior residences. She chairs the student speaker contest for the Lions Club. She and her husband have been able to visit Jerry and Ann Tench Huml and Ken and Sandra McGregor Craig. ’62 said it was
Jane Walshe McCracken fun being back in Mason – not that it looks much like it did when she lived there. Nancy Wright Wright enjoys her retirement home in Springfield, Virginia. Her three sons and family live close by, and her five granddaughters are a source of happiness. The youngest is in kindergarten and the oldest is working at the Smithsonian and enrolled in graduate school. Nancy planned to spend part of the summer in her hometown, where she and her sister own a cottage. She’s busy with the DAR, her church, bridge, and community life. Kay Slaughter shared the sad news that Judy Matthews Kennedy died in spring after a second battle with breast cancer. Judy attended MWC for two years before transferring to U.Va. to complete her
Susan Taylor Pitney left Mary Washington in our junior year and married her Marine officer husband, with whom she raised five children and lived all over the world as he ran an international company. He died of leukemia from Agent Orange, and Sue and her oldest son continued to run the company for several years. Sue lives in San Diego and enjoys visiting her children and 16 grandchildren. She attended our reunion in June. Barbara Hauser Scott was selling her large home and downsizing, still in New Jersey. In 2000, Barbara lived in Paris for a year and visited 12 countries, the trip of a lifetime. She is a grandmother and makes time for book club, mahjong, writing, and swimming. Linda Taylor Horciza received a graduate
degree from Harvard University before teaching in San Jose, San Francisco, and Petaluma, California, where she still lives. She met her husband, a native of Czechoslovakia, in a folk dancing class in the San Francisco area, and they had three children. Sadly he passed away in 2015, but she lives near family including eight grandchildren. It was fun being back in Mason for the reunion – not that Mason looks much like it did when we lived there as sophomores! Emily Lewis, Ann Tench Huml, and I, Jane Walshe McCracken, shared a suite with Joan Akers Rothgeb and Mary Lott Haglund right across the hall – shades of senior year in Ball. Kathleen Lisagor says reunion in June was a resounding success, with 20 members of our class attending. She writes, “Our hearts go out to Julia Shumaker Bailess, whose husband has passed since our reunion.”
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Linkey Booth Green linkeyg@embarqmail.com Betsy Lydle Smith betsy@virtuestraining.com Connie Waterman Lampert and husband Alan planned a holiday cruise to Asia. She continues to enjoy duplicate bridge. Their eldest grandchild graduated from Skidmore College in May. Betsy Lydle Smith went to New Zealand in January to visit friends and attend The Virtues Project Mentorship Conference, where she was honored as an elder of The Virtues Project. Arlene Drescher Wilson had a sale of her paintings to benefit the Nashville Tree Foundation. Arlene’s son Henry was elected president of the Virginia Plastic Surgery Society. Arlene’s travels include an art retreat in Costa Rica and a week traveling up the California coast with Betty Chilton Finkle ’61, who recently lost husband Eliot. Karen Vandevanter Morrison took her granddaughter on a Road Scholar program of making movies. Her daughter and family moved to Oregon, and Karen is delighted to have them closer. Karen still plays 65+ USTA tennis. She and Kent traveled to Ireland during the 100th anniversary of “the troubles.” Suellen Grant Knowles has been getting back in shape after having a
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CLASS NOTES Karen Gustafson ’63 and her husband rented an apartment in Paris for a month. pacemaker inserted. She celebrated by traveling to Texas and Washington to reconnect with family and friends. Betty Caudle Marshall is on the board of directors of the NC Delta Kappa Gamma Educational Foundation, which gives mini-grants to North Carolina teachers. She and husband Tom have seen Anne Marchant Long and Betsey Bourke Christian and husband Meade. Karen Gustafson’s husband, Marty Munitz, finally retired, and they celebrated by renting an apartment in Paris for a month. They did the same in London for summer 2017. Karen lives in Connecticut and has been in touch with Carol Paige Phillips Spruill. They plan to attend our 55th reunion in June 2018. Allie-Blue Habel Everett has exhibited her artwork and taught numerous workshops throughout the country. Daughter AnnClayton “ACE” Everett and husband Liam Cleaver graduated in the Class of ’92, and her other daughter has a daughter who is a freshman this year. I, Linkey Booth Green, also have a granddaughter who is a UMW freshman. I’m still active in AAUW. Please send new email addresses if you haven’t heard from me.
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No Class Agent classnotes@umw.edu Lyle Fowlkes retired after 60 years in the working world, including careers as director of gifted programs in Virginia and lobbying and politics in Maryland. She reads, plays bridge, goes to the gym, volunteers at the library, and keeps up her 125-year-old house in downtown Annapolis, Maryland. She recently spent three weeks in Portugal and was heading to Italy.
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Phyllis Cavedo Weisser pcweisser@yahoo.com I, Phyllis Cavedo Weisser, am still in Atlanta and planned a cruise from Rome to Malta in July and a cruise around Australia in October. Susan Spatig Schmidt ’64 planned to join me for the
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Australia trip – it’s been on both of our bucket lists for a long time.
Evie King Cox and husband Herb retired in 2005 to the Northern Neck of Virginia. They live on the Coan River, which provides oysters, crabs, and fish. They planned a trip to Maui with their son Mark and his family. Pat Sprenkle Davis has moved back to Virginia and lives in Aylett. Linda Patterson Hamilton and her husband celebrated their 50th anniversary in April with a trip to New Orleans. They also recently vacationed in Key West with her sister, Liz Patterson Vawter ’72. They are still enjoying Colorado with their five grandchildren and their parents. Susan Ford Irons and Jim have lived in Yorba Linda, California, since 1976. Susan and Jim planned a river trip through Europe in August. Son Tyler, who lives in Irvine, planned to marry in October, and he and McCall have a baby daughter, Chandler. Sigrid Irmgard Daffner is enjoying retirement in Carmel, California, after teaching German for many years. She is taking a memoir writing class that brings back and sharpens her memories. Lee Smith Musgrave visited Hilton Head Island, Savannah, and Charleston in March with a neighbor.
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Katharine Rogers Lavery hlavery1@cox.net Barbara Bishop Mann and Robert celebrated their 50th anniversary on a Rhine River cruise from Lake Lucerne to Amsterdam. At Bobbi’s yoga class a new member, Elizabeth Bray Saunders Morris ’64, broke out singing our fight song! Bobbi thought of Mary Parsons Black and Mary Kathryn Rowell Horner, who on many occasions have done the same. Bobbi heard from Crystal Winston Metcalf that she was recovering after receiving a kidney donation from son Andy. In March Bobbi attended Margot Lee Shetterly’s UMW presentation about her book, Hidden Figures, and was surprised afterward to learn that our own math-major classmates Terry Caruthers, Marty Spigel Sedoff, Mary Kathryn Rowell Horner, Eva Teng Marcus, Cornelia Bowles Dexter, and Alice Ann “Sann” Moore Forry had done summer ’65 internships at the same NASA facility in Hampton, Virginia. Marty reported that they all lived together in a duplex and worked on assignments such as calculating re-entry orbits for space modules to touch down on land rather than water. (See the feature story about this group on page 10.)
Sadly, Eva passed away in 2015. Mary Kathryn and husband Charlie split their time Margaret “Meg” Cobourn Robinson ’65 between Naples, saw an active volcano and lava flow at night Florida, and from a shipboard tour of the Hawaiian Alexandria, Virginia. Marty Islands. recently organized a high school theater trip to Margaret “Meg” Cobourn Robinson, New York, where 49 Minnesotans husband Kenny, and several friends went saw Waitress, Miss Saigon, Wicked, In to Hawaii in January and toured the Transit, Dear Evan Hansen, and Josh islands by ship. They passed an active Groban as Pierre in Natasha, Pierre and volcano and saw the lava flow at night. the Great Comet of 1812, plus a matinee Unfortunately, Meg fell in June and of School of Rock. Terry visited New fractured a bone in each foot. Meg shared Orleans in April for the jazz fest and news that Barbara Hagemann Hester to celebrate her sister’s 65th birthday. slipped on the ice in December, but is In June, Terry and Don celebrated now therapy-free and able to drive again. their 50th anniversary by taking Alice Funkhouser Flowers shared their two eldest grandsons to Seattle, sad news that husband George Vancouver, and on an Alaskan cruise. died March 24, 2017, after a In April Bobbi, Carolyn Eldred, two-year bout with cancer. Jana Privette Usry, and Lee Enos Kelley attended the inauguration of President Troy Paino and enjoyed a
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true sense of optimism for UMW’s future. Jana continues to do court mediations in the Richmond area and sings in the One Voice chorus. Lynn Smithey Campbell has settled into her new home in the West End of Richmond. Mary Lynn Murray Applegate and her suitemate and fencing partner Joan Cuccias Patton reconnected over lunch in Richmond. Joan also had lunch with Sally Souder while passing through Florida. In April Joan performed in a little theater play called The Dixie Swim Club and had a blast. Sally and Gerry Sargent Habas also renewed their lunch tradition.
In May Pam and TaB joined Pam Ward Hughes and Jim, and Carol Bingley Wiley and Pete, in Brooklyn, New York, to celebrate Bing’s grandson’s bar mitzvah. Pam and TaB’s summer plans included a visit with Lenore Gilbert Bowne and Marty in Cape May. There, Lenore is president of a 100member garden club. In April Lenore caught up with Pam Wald Wagner, her maid of honor some 52 years ago.
then went to another family celebration in Charleston, South Carolina. Sandra visited daughter Amy, Shawn, and their three young children in Denver. Yvonne March spent the winter dodging flu bugs and then assisted husband Chris following his double hernia operation. Anne Powell Young arranged a gala holiday party for seniors 85 and older. Anne and Betty Birkhead Vickers, who lives nearby, enjoy long lunches together. Betty and husband Vic traveled to Kauai, Hawaii, in the spring. Betty stays busy with six grandsons and a toddler granddaughter, and she helps her sons with their entertainment venues in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.
Ambler Carter reports that Anne Sinclair Jones has retired from over 30 years of teaching in Norfolk, Virginia, public schools and enjoys traveling to visit her three sons and their families, and that Nancy “Howie” Betsy Chappelear Tryon attends Ginny Bateman Brinkley ’66 stayed with Thompson games and tournaments involving Susan Roth Nurin ’66 in her apartment Mountjoy also granddaughter Maddy, a super volleyball retired from overlooking New York’s Central Park. player, and has watched Maddy play in teaching so she and Salt Lake City, Spokane, and Las Vegas. husband Jim can Maddy’s team earned a bid to the Junior enjoy their four Olympics in Minneapolis in June. Anne Meade Clagett and John enjoy teenage grandchildren. Ambler heard their quiet life in rural Fauquier County, Judy Wells Clark, an accomplished from Carolyn Kirkpatrick Fuhrmann Virginia, counting their blessings. Cherie pianist, continues to perform in that she had recently returned from a trip Wells Brumfeld and Joe moved back southwest Virginia. Last spring she to Nuremberg, Germany, and was living to the Daytona Beach, Florida, area. gave concerts in Roanoke, Lexington, near her son and daughter in Virginia. They celebrated their 50th anniversary Chatham, and Wytheville with Linda Glynn Hutchinson and Pat Lewars with a trip to Washington, D.C., where three amazing string players. Pace traveled to the United Arab Emirates they had their wedding and reception. I, Katharine Rogers Lavery, am proud and Egypt and planned another trip Ginny Bateman Brinkley and Bill visited that granddaughter Mary Lavery decided to Greece, Bulgaria, and Macedonia. New York for granddaughter Brittany’s after college that she really didn’t want In April Lois Rucker Scott’s daughter opera event at Juilliard, where she is a to teach science and instead enlisted in Holly had a Celtic wedding featuring freshman. They stayed with Susan Roth the Coast Guard. She made the Armed bagpipe and harp music, and little boys Nurin in her apartment overlooking Forces women’s volleyball team and has in kilts instead of flower girls. Holly Central Park and saw the sights including competed against international teams. and her husband now live in Arlington, the restaurant where Seinfeld took place! Virginia, right across the street from Muriel Haley Montgomery and I Susan delights in New York city life, is Lois, Sam, and the rest of the family. met during a beach vacation for our a multilingual tour guide, volunteers at annual catch-up luncheon by the the Metropolitan Opera, and participates Cathe Cantwell Luria and Eric live in harbor in Manteo, North Carolina. in interfaith events. Ginny and Bill also Ajijic, Mexico, where they participate visited Mary Grace Wright Day in her in several music activities and continue Kitty Downs Gregg reminisced about lovely winter home in Naples, Florida. to travel with their English clog last June, when she and husband Don dancing organization. They spent visited Terry and Don Caruthers at Pam Kearney Patrick and husband TaB Thanksgiving and Christmas “up their lakeside home in North Carolina were finishing renovations to their house north” with family and friends, then before attending our reunion. in Cape May, New Jersey, so missed hosted daughter Sacha for a respite connecting with Peggy Beeler Burns In February Mary Bishop Morris and from the Portland snow and rain. when she visited Northern Virginia. Dennis drove from Michigan to Florida, In March Pam visited with Ambler Sandra Hutchison Schanné and Richard stopping to visit Mary’s roomie Muriel Carter, who had recently downsized to attended a rainy April family reunion Haley Montgomery and husband Bob in a Philadelphia apartment in the same in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, Manteo, North Carolina. They continued building with her daughter, son-in-law, to Orlando, Florida, and 9-year-old granddaughter. The where son Jeff and move was tough because Ambler broke his wife work for Linda Glynn Hutchinson ’66 and Pat her wrist before she got settled, but she Disney. From there Lewars Pace ’66 traveled to the United Arab managed to participate in the “sister” Mary and Dennis Emirates and Egypt, then planned another Women’s March held there. Ambler and visited roomie Lynn Pam took in the American Watercolor trip to Greece, Bulgaria, and Macedonia. Norris Harkless in the Age of Homer and Sargent exhibit and husband Ron in at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Lakeland, Florida.
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Finding Art
N
ancy Porter Atakan ’68 stared at the images of the Hagia Sophia in the pages of her art history textbook. A Mary Washington classmate told of visiting the mosqueturned-museum in Istanbul, Turkey. For Atakan, then a teenager from the tiny mountain town of Galax, Virginia, such a place couldn’t be more remote. That she’d left home at all was more than her mother could understand. The only child of a nurse’s aide and a factory worker, Atakan could afford to apply to only one college. She chose Mary Washington for its distance from Galax and proximity to Washington, D.C. As the young art history and studio art major read about the Byzantine Hagia Sophia, she couldn’t imagine that within a few years she’d see it for herself, much less that Istanbul would become her adopted home. She wouldn’t have believed that she would run her own nonprofit art space there, or that her art would hang in galleries in New York, London, and Berlin. Her time at Mary Washington “was the first time in my life I felt happy,” Atakan said. “I adored my classes. I loved everything about learning. I never wanted to leave.” Atakan always had a knack for drawing. But to explain why she chose her path, she quoted artist Jasper Johns, raised in rural South Carolina: “In the place where I was a child, there were no artists and there was no art, so I really didn’t know what that meant. I think I thought it meant that I would be in a situation different from the one that I was in.” During her freshman year, she met University of Virginia sophomore Mehmet Atakan at a Mary Washington mixer, and they married the summer after she graduated. A year later, she moved to his family apartment overlooking Istanbul. Soon she was experiencing the history and culture she’d only read about. She recalls walking through
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archaeological ruins brimming with flowers. “I knew there was no way I could make my family or friends understand the beauty of this country,” Atakan said. She earned a master’s degree in education and a doctorate, writing her thesis on conceptual art in Turkey. She has worked as an artist, teacher, art historian, and art critic. She uses a host of mediums, from needlepoint to photography, exploring topics such as history, gender politics, and her upbringing. She has two sons and two granddaughters. In 2008, she co-founded a space where artists collaborate on research and projects; she named it “5533” for its address in Istanbul.
Forty years after she graduated, Atakan returned to the place where it all began – this time as an accomplished artist. Her collection of candid photos of Turkish women factory workers hung at Ridderhof Martin Gallery as part of the University of Mary Washington 2008 Centennial Alumni Exhibition.
Nancy Porter Atakan is pictured in 5533, the art gallery she founded in Istanbul, Turkey, where she lives with her husband.
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– Kristin Davis
Susie Williams Cluff and Mike moved to the independent living section of the Vinson Hall retirement community in McLean, Virginia. In May Susie and Mike traveled to Kansas for their second grandson’s high school graduation.
misses him greatly, she is relieved that he is free of his disabling disease. We send her our sincerest condolences.
Elaine Gerlach McKelly and Tim of Oxford, North Carolina, took their annual beach trip to Ocean City, New Jersey, with about 30 family members. In other trips, they cruised the Mississippi River from Memphis to New Orleans and traveled to Key West, Florida. Two of Elaine and Tim’s grandchildren are in college and five are in high school.
Nancy McDonald Legat dlegat1@sc.rr.com
Robbie James East and Dennis visited children and grandchildren in Virginia, then traveled to the Texas hill country to see bluebonnets and orange poppies in bloom everywhere. At home in Southport, North Carolina, Robbie volunteers at an agri-educational organic homestead.
won second prize. Eleanor urges everyone to make plans for our 55th in 2022!
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Patsy Monahan Holden retired as a school counselor in 2005 and from being lead therapist at a local psychiatric hospital in 2012, but she continues as a licensed professional counselor one day a week at a local agency and has a small private practice. She and Mike travel to Austin once a month to visit their triplets and their families. They have four grandchildren ages 2 to 15.
Meg Livingston Asensio Meglala46@gmail.com Classmates, we will celebrate our 50th reunion June 1 through 3, 2018. Please reserve the dates and plan to come, and don’t forget your tiara! Let’s continue to demonstrate that the Class of 1968 is unparalleled. Dodo Fisher Roberts has retired after 48 years in IT. She spent summer 2016 on Nantucket, then got her Wilton, Connecticut, home ready to sell after 45 years. Dodo moved in June to an apartment near her daughters and friends. She can walk to everything and not worry about snow in the driveway! She looked forward to helping her mother celebrate her 100th birthday in the fall.
My husband, Dan, and I, Nancy McDonald Legat, celebrated our 50th anniversary in June with a trip to Myrtle Beach, where we’d honeymooned. We planned a cruise to the Bahamas. Our Pam Tompkins Huggins and Jim took three daughters and Thanks to Saffran Potter ’67 and Peggy a bucket list river cruise to Paris and sons-in-law, seven Normandy, and both volunteer in their Ford Poe ’67 for decorating the 1967 reunion grandchildren, Staunton, Virginia, community. The tent on Ball Circle – it won second prize two grandsonsfamily hit a bump in the road when in-law, and three oldest daughter Sally was diagnosed with great-grandchildren breast cancer, but Pam reports that she all live within a couple of hours. Diana Hamilton Cowell and her husband has an excellent prognosis and an even spent February in the Galapagos Islands, Leonora Talley Burger is a therapist more excellent attitude. Pam’s oldest and on a snorkeling trip Diana swam in Annandale and has daughters in granddaughter has completed a year of just above 20 hammerhead sharks! She Manassas and New Orleans. In April she college, and her sister plays high school saw a blue-footed booby and Diego, the enjoyed a Viking river cruise in Eastern lacrosse. KT and family are thriving giant tortoise. Diana, of South Bethany, Europe with family members. Leonora in San Francisco, and Jamie and her Delaware, hosted a French couple recently met up with Mary Carter family recently moved to Staunton. from their sister city, Périers, France. Bishop in Charlottesville. After a career Susan Blosser Wight looked forward to a as a newspaper reporter and feature Kathy Goddard Moss and Tom sold busy summer and a fall golf trip to Spain. writer, Mary has written a book to be their house and spent two months in Maureen Murphy McCart, Carol Lee published next summer. She is married Spain with their daughter and family. Hawtin, Judy Henley Beck, Judy Jackson to Dan Crawford and lives in Roanoke. On their return, they drove all over Jones, and Suzanne the United States, visiting family and McCarthy Van friends before settling in an Oakland, Ness ’69 attended California, retirement community where Suzanne McCarthy Van Ness ’69 is on the UMW President they have found wonderful people and UMW alumni board, and Donna Sheehan Troy Paino’s delicious food. Their complete tour of inauguration. Gladis ’68 is the president-elect. 15,000 miles in a tiny car prepared them It was in Dodd for living in a small apartment, Kathy Auditorium, and said. She said some of her favorite places Maureen said it are Santa Fe, the Grand Canyon, and Eleanor Frith Peters and 23 other brought back memories of Mrs. Dodd as Anza Borrego Desert. In June, Kathy classmates, plus a few brave husbands, her adviser. Maureen works four days a and Tom traveled a “short distance” attended our 50th reunion in June. week at a Catholic all-boys high school, to Ohio for grandson Quentin’s high Eleanor wrote a letter to our class and looks forward a trip to Ireland school graduation and a family reunion. describing the wonderful experience, and in June 2018. Maureen also shared you can read it in its entirety online in Lee Enos Kelley downsized to a senior that Suzanne is serving on the UMW the unedited class notes. Eleanor notes condominium community in Bethesda, Alumni Board and our own Donna that Susan Saffran Potter and Peggy Maryland. Her husband of 34 years, Sheehan Gladis is the president-elect. Ford Poe led reminiscences of our time Kevin, died peacefully in his sleep in Ash and I took an extended Airstream at Mary Washington, and they also April after living with Alzheimer’s adventure in summer, including decorated our tent on Ball Circle, which disease for 10 years. Although Lee
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CLASS NOTES proudly watching our daughter, Anne, graduate from the Denver School of Nursing in Colorado. We also visited Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, and the Washington and Oregon coasts. In September we planned to visit our son Todd and his family in Australia.
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Iris Harrell irish@harrell-remodeling.com Cathie O’Connor Woteki, who served six years as undersecretary for research, education, and economics and was chief scientist for USDA, has joined the faculty of Iowa State University’s Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition. A member of the National Academy of Medicine, she returns to ISU, where she served as dean of its College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and director of the Agriculture Experiment Station from 2002 to 2005. Sharon Dobie has had a very tough personal year. Her 31-year-old son died from complications of scleroderma, and she’s put retirement on hold as she grieves. We send her healing thoughts. Pam Hogan Baynard returned from a tour of Central Europe and said it was fascinating but exhausting. She does volunteer work for her church and makes quilts for Lutheran World Relief, which ships the quilts around the world after natural disasters or to refugees. Lyn Howell Gray attended husband Jim’s 50th college reunion at Randolph Macon, then returned to their home in Africa in June. Anne Witham Kilpatrick has been busy with the Daughters of the American Revolution. She and Roger planned a driving trip to Nova Scotia, visiting friends and family along the way. Eleanor Woollard lives near Yorktown, Virginia, is director of music at Christ Church in Mathews, and has a small private practice as a professional counselor. She does Isaiah Zagar-style mosaics on the square cinderblocks that have held up her house since Hurricane Isabel. Carol Hewitt Guida and husband Hal, both architects, spent a month studying the buildings and garden courtyards around Vicenza, Italy. They also took a trip to Singapore. Carol broke her foot and has been banned from climbing on the roof to clean out the gutters.
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Lesley Fanning Atkinson visited Hilton Head in May with friends from Russell third floor north, Nancy Raisor Schlossberg, Polly Elkins Rosenstein, Donna Bredahl Jones-Searle ’70, and Gabrielle Pagin ’70. Lesley planned a Moselle and Rhine river cruise. She and her husband are retired and visit daughters and grandchildren in California and Colorado.
Jenifer Higgins Clark and husband Dane still run Jenifer Clark’s Gulfstream providing ocean and weather conditions to sailboat racers and others at sea. They provided support for Diana Nyad’s successful 2013 swim from Cuba to Florida and were featured in her book Find a Way.
I, Iris Harrell, am pleased that our Santa Rosa, California, remodeled forever home Bev Holt, wife Deb, and four friends took won a first-place design award locally a river cruise touring the Netherlands and was going for a regional prize. The and Belgium to celebrate Bev’s 70th backyard has eight raised garden beds so birthday. Regina Sneed moved to a Ann can plant and glean without bending retirement community in San Francisco. over. There are no steps anywhere in She continues to volunteer, especially the house, but there’s an elevator to the with her background in law. basement, where we have a grand guest suite. Eventually someone will live down there to take Anne Hoskot Kreutzer ’69 saw the prisoner care of us – after of war camp in Poland where her father our 70th MW reunion. Meanwhile was held after parachuting into Normandy I play pickleball, on D-Day. do yoga three times a week, and have a personal Chibba Watters Miller’s youngest strength trainer, all to keep me feeling daughter got married in February. younger. Life is very good and I have aced Chibba was doing some art and craft retirement. (People said I would fail!) projects at home in Florida. Cynthia Lowdermilk has retired and gotten into her creative side. She likes drawing and painting with watercolors. Anne Sommervold LeDoux Anne Hoskot Kreutzer and Tom spend ledouxanne@yahoo.com time in retirement traveling to see their Joyce Burcham wrote that she ticked a four sons and families in Wilmington and major item off her bucket list on New Carrboro, North Carolina; Richmond, Year’s Day 2016, when she set foot on the Virginia; and Encinitas, California. They Antarctic mainland. She’s now been on traveled to Poland and saw the World War all seven continents. En route she had five II prisoner of war camp where Anne’s fabulous weeks doing the samba in Brazil father was held after being captured and tango in Argentina. You can read parachuting into Normandy on D-Day. the rest of Joyce’s newsy note, including Karen Kilgore Ralston hosted Mary what she’s been up to professionally Washington roomies and suitemates and personally since we graduated, Linda Huff Alderson, Jane Jackson online in the unedited class notes. Woerner, Barbara Marks Poppleton, Joyce met up with Cathy Haringer Bonnie Page Hoopengardner, and Linda Christensen at their 50th high school Marett Disosway in Florida last year. reunion in Alexandria, Virginia. Karen had rented a home there to visit Cathy has moved to a home she built her nearby daughter, who is a research for retirement in North Carolina. professor at Florida Tech, and to host Jean Burgess Botts took a wonderful her son and his family from Colorado. trip to South Africa, Zambia, Karen was selling their Memphis Zimbabwe, and Botswana. home with plans to move to a Florida Helen Kim is president of the Alabama beach, but they planned to keep their Asian Cultures Foundation. She is a house in Breckenridge, Colorado. retired professor from the University of We’re sorry to report that Ellen Alabama at Birmingham, and she and her R. Brown lost her husband, Barry husband are diehard ’Bama football fans. L. Bressler, in February. Jane Bourdow is “sort of retired” after 33
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years as organist and choirmaster at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Alexandria. But she still substitutes as a church organist and performs occasionally. I, Anne Sommervold LeDoux, traveled to Spain and Portugal in March and we’re headed to England, Scotland, and Wales in October.
taught college in San Diego for several decades. We have stayed in touch since college and sometimes get together with Barbara Exline Staller, who lives in Pennsylvania. Barbara lived in Betty Lewis and left Mary Washington to finish her degree at Ursinus College. In May Lisa Barker traveled to Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan with nine others following an itinerary organized by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They experienced beautiful landscapes, multiple languages and alphabets, ancient churches, art, prehistoric petroglyphs, wonderful people, and history.
McFadyen Halliburton, Kathy Bradford Lehman, Anne Toms Richardson, and Brenda Franklin. Karen Jenkins and Philo Funk Liedquist joined this group a little later. Seeing the way these ladies have stayed together for 45-plus years reinforces a belief that friendships formed at our alma mater really do last a lifetime.
My friendships with Cheryl Prietz Childress and Norah Heckman ’73 are the same. Dennis and I were pleased to attend the wedding of Cheryl and Dave’s Karen Laino Giannuzzi son, Alex, last fall. Their daughter, Thea, Kapitankl11@yahoo.com was expecting a daughter in the fall. Marie Droste Martin recently retired Dennis and I also visited California this from teaching Spanish and French in past Christmas Roanoke, Virginia, but then decided to for a get-together teach French part time. Sadly, Marie with about 18 1971’s Mary Bradley MacPherson and Karen lost husband Darrel two years ago. family members. Daughter Laura was ordained in April Laino Giannuzzi co-chair the UMW College It was certainly a and daughter Erin is an artist, jewelry different experience of Arts and Sciences Advisory Committee. maker, poet, and short story writer. from East Coast Christmases but Diana “Diney” Rupert Livingston was very enjoyable. in York, Pennsylvania, for a family Betty Barnhardt Hume retired from wedding and came to stay with me, the Central Rappahannock Regional Carol Smith Howland ’75 and Karen Laino Giannuzzi, for a couple Library in Fredericksburg at the end of her husband recently purchased a of days. Diney sits on the Foundation October and went back in December as home in Luray, Virginia. During Board for Mary Washington and remains a part-time sub. Her husband, Randy the winter they are in Florida, active in many charitable areas since Hume ’75, still golfs every day he can, where they worked and retired. retiring as the general manager of the and they travel to visit a daughter in Our deepest sympathies go out to largest call center for QVC not long ago. Wilmington, North Carolina, and Betty’s Kathy Deneke Clatanoff for the loss She recently moved from Florida to an sister-in-law at the Outer Banks. Another of her husband of 41 years, William apartment in downtown Richmond, daughter still lives in Fredericksburg. “Bud” Clatanoff, a longtime Mary Virginia, and enjoys the city life. Washington professor of economics. Mary T. “Fred” Bradley MacPherson Kathy is staying in Annapolis for now couldn’t join us because of business, but still considers herself a Virginia girl. but Mary and I co-chair the UMW Sherry Rutherford Myers Debbie Bradford Stanley retired this College of Arts and Sciences Advisory sherryhon2011@gmail.com year after almost 31 years of teaching in Committee and chat regularly. She It was such a joy to see wonderful California, 26 as a certificated teacher spends time in Slovakia with her classmates at our recent reunion. Thanks librarian at all grade levels. She’s consulting and nonprofit business, and to Julie Obarski Simpson and Lona under contract for a fourth book in the she’s active in our class fundraising, Kardos Tonelson for assisting me, Sherry series Practical Steps to the Research anticipating a great 50th reunion. Rutherford Myers, with the planning. Process in a Digital World. An avid traveler, Debbie has visited more than Lona retired from 25 countries. Sadly, Debbie lost husband Norfolk public Sisters Joyce Hines Molina ’73 and Grace David Stanley in 2015, after 20 years of schools after 26 marriage. Our sympathies go out to her. Hines Sorey ’70 enjoyed a day trip to years as a library
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Fredericksburg with a tour of Belmont and a stop at Carl’s!
Laurie McIntosh lives in Richmond, Virginia, and does charitable work for the Junior League. They run Boots to Suits, a shop that provides veterans attire for job interviews. Laurie is also an accomplished landscape artist. In March, just before my cruise through the Panama Canal, I visited with Elizabeth “Liz” Keith, who has lived and
media specialist, and now can travel with husband Steve during the school year. She enjoys mini reunions with Gail Sherwood Cervarich, Shirley Harris Sutton, Terri Hall Alford, Nancy Mahone Miller, Sherrie Mitchell Boone, Mary Saunders Williams, and Laurie Clark Crigler. They’re part of the group from Virginia and Willard Halls who ended up in Madison Hall as sophomores. Others include Kathy Duley, Kathy Ray, Mary
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Joyce Hines Molina joyce.molina@verizon.net This spring I, Joyce Hines Molina, caught up with Virginia Davey Addison, who retired earlier in the year. In April I enjoyed a day trip to Fredericksburg with my sister, Grace Hines Sorey ’70. We toured Belmont and ended our day at Carl’s. Still the best! Mary Stevens Portier and Kenneth sold
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CLASS NOTES their Atlanta home and downsized to a house in Athens, Georgia, after Kenneth’s retirement. They’re near one of Ken’s younger sisters. Son Russell and his family live in Madison, Wisconsin, and daughter Sarah and family are in Palm Bay, Florida.
past October. They live in eastern North Carolina, where Faith volunteers at Tryon Palace in New Bern and teaches summer water aerobics. Faith lost her mother in May, and we extend our deepest condolences and sympathy for her loss.
Our 45th reunion is June 1-3, 2018.
Jacalyn Ewansky Bryan is a reference and instruction librarian at Saint Leo University, where she was a former dance professor. She received the Florida Library Association’s Library Research Award at their annual conference in May for her research on the preparation of academic librarians who provide instruction. Jackie has presented this research at conferences in Halifax, Canada, and Saint-Malo, France. Jackie and her husband attended a family reunion in Maui this October.
1974
Sid Baker Etherington sidleexx@yahoo.com Suzy Passarello Quenzer suzyquenzer@gmail.com Class of 1974, hope you are looking through your old MWC stuff for our 2019 reunion, our 45th. Believe it or not I, Sid Baker Etherington, found some of my old catalogs in one of my parents’ trunks. Diane Harvey Smith is a grandmother three times! Son Adam is the father of twin girls, Ami and Mia, and son Ben is father of a boy, Bodhi. The cousins were born within six months of each other. Adam just moved back to the San Francisco area, and Ben was to move from India to Thailand for a three-year gig with the government. In March, Diane and husband Steve visited Ben’s family in New Delhi and traveled in Northern India. Diane reports that Pat Denton Rounds is happily retired and living in Siler City, North Carolina. Pat bought a Queen Anne-style house some years ago and has been diligently working through renovations.
1975
Armecia Spivey Medlock vagirl805@msn.com Mary Ann Pomfrey Casey shared a lovely life update that you can read in its entirety online, in the unedited class notes. She is a retired music teacher, and she and husband Larry are choirmasters at the Presbyterian Church in Fredericksburg. They live on 16 wooded acres in Spotsylvania County, Virginia. Mary Ann is stepmother to Neil and Allison and grandmother of two boys. Mary Ann’s MWC harp studies with Jeanne Chalifoux and organ studies with Peggy Kelley Reinburg ’58 (see story on page 34) have been invaluable in her music career. Faith Geibel Moore and husband Robert spent two weeks in Scotland in October 2016. They also traveled to Berlin this
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Barbara Buchanan Shepherd retired from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in June after 24 years there and 36 years in arts education. She looked forward to travel, visiting her children, gardening, and attending Washington Nationals baseball games.
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Janet Place Fuller classnotes@umw.edu Bobbi Rollins Johnson’s son, Joseph, completed a Ph.D. in physics and accepted a position at Intel in Oregon. Bobbi looked forward to visiting. Martha Weaver Campbell and husband Dave vacationed in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, with grandsons Hampton, 7, and Hudson, 5. Cindy Drury Clark is director of development for the Westport Library in Connecticut, where she and husband Jim have lived for 29 years. To celebrate her recovery from a double knee replacement, Cindy and Jim climbed down the Grand Canyon, spent the night at Phantom Ranch, and climbed back up again the next day.
Jeannette Smith-Sullivan lives in Lake Worth, Florida, and is a professor at Palm Beach State College. She has a Ph.D. in higher educational leadership and specializes To celebrate her recovery from double knee in studies of replacement, Cindy Drury Clark ’78 climbed personality, happiness, and down the Grand Canyon and back up again. student resilience, topics she planned to present at Mary Beth Moore Coya celebrated 30 the International Positive Psychology years as the state and local lobbyist for Association conference in Montreal an association in Northern Virginia. She in July. Jeannette has seen many Mary lives in Reston and enjoys her weekend Washington friends in the past year, home near the mountains of Virginia. including Mindy Campo Thomas, Susan Haas Meyer, Kathy King Wirtala, Toni Showalter Scott, Marylinn Phillips Fleming, and Betsy Beane Fowler ’81. Madalin Jones Barratt She planned to meet Rob Clairwood ’77 madbarratt@aol.com over the summer and Barbara Bacon Mitchell ’80 this fall. She and her six We were sorry to learn of the death of siblings planned a family reunion cruise Rebecca “Becky” Rae Reames on May to celebrate their mother’s 90th birthday. 22, 2017. She was an associate professor for the Crane School of Music at the State University of New York at Potsdam. She earned a master of music degree from Northwestern University and a Barbara Goliash Emerson Ph.D. in music education and choral emers3@msn.com conducting from Florida State University. Betsy Larson Kyker, Carol Middlebrook, Survivors include two sisters, a nephew, Linda McCarthy-Milone, Lisa Jenkins, an “honorary sister” who supported her Liz Sarkissian Gassew (Betsy’s sophomore through her four-year cancer battle, and roommate who transferred to George many cousins, friends, and colleagues. Mason University for nursing school), and I, Barbara Goliash Emerson, met in May at the Willard in Washington, D.C., for their wonderful tea. Betsy’s Anne Robinson Hallerman son, Jake, had been accepted to transfer arhmwc77@yahoo.com
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to Virginia Tech. Linda and her husband downsized from their Georgetown home to a condo in Rosslyn with spectacular views of the Washington skyline. Lisa volunteers teaching English as a second language. And Carol looked forward to retiring from the federal government and traveling.
is registrar at Samford University. Daughter Katherine planned to attend Christendom College in Virginia this fall.
teenage girls and a dog. Now that Cindy and James are empty-nesters, James is retiring and they hope to get back to the mid-Atlantic area in the next year or so.
In July 2012, Eileen O’Connell returned to the nonprofit association world and her first employer out of college when she rejoined the American Academy Marcia Anne Guida of Physician Assistants in Alexandria, Marcia.G.James@gmail.com Virginia. In recent years, she and her Judith Sweetman Gwynn retired after dad have taken a Stephanie Hamlett ’81 received the 30 years with the federal government Seine River cruise and looked forward to traveling. She Lifetime Achievement Award from Virginia’s from Paris to finished her second term on the UMW Women in Public Finance. Normandy, a trip Alumni Board of Directors, which to Hungary and she says was a great experience! the Netherlands, I, Marcia Anne Guida, am still enjoying and trips to Ireland and Italy. Eileen is Carrie Winger Tyer has been a NICU Fort Lauderdale, having recently been a docent at the Smithsonian’s American nurse for 33 years and has worked promoted in my job with Aetna Medicaid. History museum two Saturdays a month. at Mary Washington Hospital since I continue to travel all over the country 2006. She leads the dance ministry Stephanie Hamlett, executive director meeting with physicians and others and at her church, and she and husband of the Virginia Resources Authority, have spoken at a couple of conferences. Mike head the prayer team. Her son Virginia’s infrastructure bond bank, Oldest son Tommy, a high school math is a vice president of marketing and is received the Lifetime Achievement Award teacher, recently got married in New married; her older daughter was getting from Virginia Women in Public Finance. York City. His husband, Dustin, is a data a master’s in music education and is Stephanie also is a governor’s appointee scientist. Middle son Michael recently married; and her younger daughter was to the Virginia Freedom of Information moved back to Boston to be a software doing missions in 11 countries in 11 Council. She enjoys spending time engineer, and youngest son Frank is a months with Adventures in Missions. with grandsons Walker and Charlie. software developer in the Silicon Valley. Two grandchildren were on the way. Elisa Devorshak Harvey has a farmette Don’t forget next year’s reunion – 35 years! Rebecca DelCarmen Wiggins received in Sandy Spring, Maryland, with just a doctorate in psychology from the enough room for dogs, chickens, horses, Ohio State University, is a licensed and a barn cat. She is a small animal psychologist with teaching experience at veterinarian and also is a consultant Auby J. Curtis American University and Georgetown for the FDA’s human medical device DrAubyJ@gmail.com University, and is a scientific research center. She does international veterinary program officer in the NIH Office of To all my good friends and classmates, it’s volunteer work. Husband Brian, a Research on Women’s Health. She’s in been great serving as your class agent all physician, is consulting and traveling. Son touch with classmate Ann Weihsmann. these years. I, Auby J. Curtis, have been Duncan lives and works in San Diego, Rebecca lives in Potomac, Maryland, diagnosed with an aggressive prostate and son Alex was headed to Georgetown with husband Steve Wiggins and cancer and need to pass the class agent graduate school in biochemistry and children Daniel and Elizabeth. torch to someone else. If you’re interested, molecular biology. Elisa had a great please email classnotes@umw.edu. time at our 35th reunion last summer. My sister, Patricia Goliash Andril ’80, and her husband recently bought a Christine Waller beautiful home on the water near Manca is senior Annapolis so they can continue their editor at the Sarah Kosak Calvert ’84 left law practice to pursuit of boating. Patty reports that Museum of Fine become a United Methodist pastor. Cullen Large, son of Dottie Traweek Arts, Houston, Large ’80, was drafted by Major whose publication League Baseball’s Toronto Blue Jays. Pompeo Batoni: A Complete Catalogue of His Paintings, Cindy Williamson-Hamner left a was listed among of the best books 25-year career at Gannett/USA Today of 2016 by Apollo and The Spectator on a buyout in 2008. While she greatly No Class Agent magazines. Another book she edited, enjoyed working there, she began to see classnotes@umw.edu Julian Onderdonk: A Catalogue the demise of the newspaper business. Raisonné, received an award from the She had never married, but about that Center for the Advancement and Study time she was reacquainted with college of Early Texas Art. Last fall Christine beau James Hamner, who was widowed spent a week in Florence, where daughter with three daughters. After two years of Lori Foster Turley Camilla was studying for a semester a long-distance courtship, he proposed at LoriFTurley@gmail.com as a student at Trinity University in the top of the National Cathedral. Cindy Jay Flynn and wife Teresa live in San Antonio. Son Marcus completed got married, moved, and acquired three Birmingham, Alabama, where Jay
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Superintendent ‘Living the Dream’
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needed a black male mentor. White worked with a dozen students over several weeks, and all went on to pass the SOL. “I loved it,” White recalled. “I loved relating to the kids, talking to them, sharing my experiences.” With a new sense of purpose, he took a full-time high school teaching position. And he went back to school to earn his teaching license, opening a door to graduate education. He earned a master’s in educational leadership from Virginia Commonwealth University, then a doctorate in education at the Richmond campus of Virginia Tech. His parents, Frank and Dorothy White, and his daughters, Kiersten and Kayla White, helped him celebrate his 2015 graduation.
All the while, White gained experience in public schools as a teacher, central office administrator, and principal. That range of experience made him a good fit for King William County, a rural division with four schools. There, White has focused on elevating special education, mathematics, and English language learning, and on adjusting to changing demographics. He’s absorbing expertise from his staff, using a skill his schools emphasize to students: “In order to be a leader, you have to learn to listen, and that is key here.” The work has been demanding, and that suits White. “I’m living the dream,” he said. “I come to work every day, and I’m challenged.” – Laura Moyer
School Superintendent David White enjoys a story with his book buddy, first-grader Paul Johnson III, in King William County.
Eugene Campbell
avid White ’92 hopes he can impart a message of resilience to more than 2,200 students whose education he oversees: They will mess up at times. But mistakes can become opportunities. “Failure is an option. It’s what you do afterward that matters,” said White, who’s in his second year as superintendent of public schools in King William County, Virginia. “You can have that ‘Aha!’ moment at any time and get it together.” It’s a life lesson White was fortunate to learn early. He had way too much fun as a freshman at Virginia Tech, and his grades showed it. His parents pulled the plug. Back home in the Fredericksburg area, White applied to Mary Washington, where both his mother and grandmother had worked. He wasn’t the strongest applicant, but Sallie Washington Braxton ’77 in admissions took a chance on him, he said. “She told me that since she got me there, I’d better prove her right.” He did, applying himself to academics, fulfilling Army National Guard obligations, working a second job to pay tuition, and still graduating on time. He blossomed under Mary Washington’s emphasis on writing and critical thinking, and he fondly remembers classes with Professor of Business R. Leigh Frackelton and with James Farmer, the late civil rights leader. After college, he worked as an assistant dean of admissions at Mary Washington, then worked for the United Negro College Fund and in book publishing. Eventually he started his own successful business in the Fredericksburg area. All were good jobs, but “none of them sparked a great passion.” Then a friend in Fredericksburg’s school system told him of some teenagers struggling with Virginia’s science Standards of Learning test. The teens needed remedial help, the friend said, but they also
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his first year at Rice University. After an 11-year career as an attorney, Sarah Kosak Calvert went to seminary and became a United Methodist pastor. She’s in Northern Virginia doing church revitalization and leadership development for about 100 local United Methodist churches. She’d love to connect with fellow alumni who are clergy.
1985
Joanne Bartholomew Lamm jlamm88@verizon.net Michael Weigel’s daughter, Emily, and husband, Kyle Guthrie, welcomed a son born Nov. 13, 2016. Kayden Arlo Guthrie is the first grandchild of Michael and wife Julie. Son Matthew Weigel graduated from high school, son John is 15, and daughter Hannah is 11.
was working to publish The Team the Titans Remember; and he was writing a biography of an army chaplain. From Kim: Agneta Dahl retired from the Coast Guard and settled in Seattle six years ago. Her new career recently took her to Hong Kong, where she met up with Miranda Yen ’86. Agneta said it didn’t feel like 30 years since they had seen each other! Chris Lamm ’85 and Joanne Bartholomew Lamm ’85 have a son who is a UMW junior majoring in political science and minoring in French. Their daughter is a 2013 UMW alum who majored in international affairs. Chris and Joanne’s middle child, a son, graduated from Virginia Tech in 2016 and is an officer in the Army. Chris is still employed with NASCO, and Joanne is an Army civilian. Joanne recently lost both her parents.
Toni Moore Mark A. O’Connell ’87 wrote a book about Milbourne left the newspaper industry the Salem, Virginia, football team that after 20 years and played the Titans of movie fame. now is director of the Bolivar-Harpers Ferry Public Library In February, Renee Allen Kuntz and in West Virginia. Her third child, Maggie, husband Scott got together with Abas graduated from high school in May and Adenan, daughter Colleen, and sister joined the Army, and her fourth child, Hassie to see Marshall Crenshaw at Samantha, is a high school senior. the Birchmere in Alexandria. They got Kathleen Henderson Allenbaugh a picture with Marshall afterward! In joined Johns Hopkins Medicine in May, the wedding of Joanne Brenton March, serving as senior director of ’84 and Mel Shabelski provided a consumer and physician engagement perfect opportunity for a Westmoreland for the national capital region. Hall reunion. Renee enjoyed catching up with Betsy Hanna Brown ’84, Liz We were sorry to learn that Anne Canale ’84, and Dave Hardin ’83. Marjorie Lewis died July 18, 2017, after a long illness. At Mary Washington, Anne was a campus leader and a dynamic radio DJ. After college Anne joined the National AIDS Network, where she used Lisa Harvey her advocacy to seek increased support lisharvey@msn.com and research funding. Her interest in advocacy and humanitarian causes led her to pursue a degree at U.Va. School of Law, where she was on Virginia Law Kim Jones Isaac Review, graduating in 1995. She then mwc87@infinityok.com joined the Powell Goldstein law firm as an attorney specializing in health law policy. Rene Thomas-Rizzo Rene.Thomas-Rizzo@navy.mil
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Mark A. O’Connell retired from the commonwealth of Virginia after 25 years as an adult probation and parole officer. He is a sports journalist, playby-play announcer, and book author. His published titles are Criminal Minds in Real Time and Justice Denied; he
Anne’s mother, Helen Lewis, brother Douglas, and sister Sandy survive her. As for me, Kim Jones Isaac, Ken and I are in our 21st year with our computer business, but we are burned out on IT and looking at other opportunities. My best friend and I own a yoga studio that was recently named among the top 10 in Oklahoma. I continue to hike most weekends and to sharpen my photography skills. Our 30th reunion took place in June. Where has the time gone?
1988
Nee-Cee “Ringo” Baker rstarr66@msn.com Beverly J. Newman bevnewmn@yahoo.com Jay Bradshaw jaybradshaw747@aol.com
1989
Leah M. Wilson Munnis leah.munnis@verizon.net David Kidwell completed his 20th season as conductor of the Holyoke Civic Symphony. He is also in his 18th year as minister of music at the Edwards Church of Northampton, Massachusetts. I, Leah M. Wilson Munnis, am pursuing a master’s degree in systems engineering, so I’m looking to turn over class agent duties to someone else. Write to me and copy classnotes@umw.edu if you’re interested. It’s not much work, and it’s nice hearing from classmates.
1990
Susan Crytzer Marchant march66358@verizon.net
Dawne Y. Curry, an associate professor of history and ethnic studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, is a 201718 Fulbright recipient working in South Africa. She’s the author of Apartheid on Black Isle: Removal and Resistance in Alexandra, South Africa, published by Palgrave ’90, author of Apartheid Macmillan in 2012.
Dawne Y. Curry on Black Isle: Removal and Resistance in Alexandra, South Africa, is a Fulbright recipient working in South Africa.
In March 2017, Brooke Fillmore Herndon was named vice
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CLASS NOTES president of university advancement at Mary Baldwin University, overseeing fundraising and alumni relations. Brooke and husband Greg planned to move from Winchester to Staunton. Susan Hankel Riccio opted for early retirement in spring 2017 after more than 25 years of dedicated service to the intelligence community.
1991
Shannon Eadie Niemeyer sfniemeyer@comcast.net After 23 years as a dental hygienist, Megan Donnelly has opened a franchise of Educational Outfitters, a school uniform store, in Arlington. It also offers spirit wear, athletic apparel, custom logo apparel, and promotional items. Lisa Meadows Foulds runs a daycare, and husband Eric Foulds ’89 works in computers for the Virginia Department of Corrections. Son William studies economics and mathematics at the University of Virginia. Lisa Poindexter Hayslett got to relive some fond memories of her own commencement as daughter MacKenzie Plaia ’17 graduated from UMW in the spring.
get involved with the UMW Atlanta Network and connect with area alumni. Christine Harrison Casey was promoted to director of annual giving and stewardship for Transitions LifeCare in Raleigh, North Carolina. In August, she planned to present and teach a preconference course at the NC Philanthropy Conference in Durham. Wendy Scott Stuck and Ken Stuck ’90 live in Newport News, Virginia, with their two children and a rescue dog. Wendy teaches Spanish in Newport News public schools, and Ken is an archaeologist with the Virginia Department of Transportation. Their daughter headed off to college in the fall. Ken Lopez just wrapped up a four-year term on the UMW Board of Visitors. Last year they had the honor of helping to attract and hire UMW’s 10th president, Troy Paino. Ken lives in Old Town Alexandria, where he walks his 9-year-old triplet girls to school each day on his way to work at the company he founded 22 years ago, A2L Consulting. He attended our 25th reunion and once again roomed with Doug Stanley and Rene Rios.
Helen Heath Thompson Mosher, who attended Mary Washington with us before earning a degree from another university, enjoyed hanging out with Doug Stanley, Mike Helen Heath Thompson Mosher ’92 enjoyed Smith ’91, Tevin ribbing Jeff Miers ’91 about her band Chaney, and others at reunion. Helen beating his in the 1989 Battle of the Bands. enjoyed ribbing Jeff Miers ’91 of the Rabble Rousers Frank and I, Shannon Eadie Niemeyer, about beating them in Battle of the Bands also experienced a recent graduation as in 1989. Members of the ’89 winning son Jake graduated from high school in band, Rex and the Texans, are scattered June. He attends Virginia Tech, and we about, with Chris Johnson in Philadelphia are adjusting to life as empty nesters. and Sean Michael Dargan ’90 moving to Stanford University from Madison, Wisconsin, for his wife’s fellowship.
1992
Courtney Hall Harjung charjung@hotmail.com Husband Tom and I, Courtney Hall Harjung, have been enjoying the recreational, artistic, cultural, and volunteering opportunities in Mobile, Alabama, which you can read about in more depth online, in the unedited class notes. But after 18 months in Mobile, Tom’s company asked us to move back to Atlanta so Tom can once again head up roadway projects in Georgia. When we’re settled, I hope to
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Helen discovered that she and Angel Gooch Tankersley lived in the same dorm freshman year, a fact that had escaped them despite knowing each other in the Fredericksburg area for more than two years. Helen’s older son, Kieran Shaw ’16, has been promoted to ticket services manager at Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington. Rachael Crout and husband Eric met Barbara Elwell Carmichael ’91 and husband Jim, and Tevin Chaney for dinner.
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Amy Morgen Liebert and husband Karl Liebert ’93 live in Burke, Virginia. Son Karl is at Old Dominion University and daughter Morgen is a high school senior. Amy and Morgen attended Awesome Con in Washington, celebrating their inner geek and meeting some of their favorite sci-fi celebrities. In July Amy and Karl got together with Edna Coste Borchetta and husband Gene, Suzy Cole Ferger and husband Kevin, Jennifer Peterson Riggle ’93 and husband Curt, and Amy Larsen DeCarlo ’93 and husband Mark.
1993
Cheryl Roberts Heuser chatatcha@yahoo.com Eric Robert Nolan ’94 is acclimating happily to Roanoke, Virginia, being mentored there in rural Southern living by Paula Merritt Etzler ’92, Mike Merritt ’96, and Miki McCoy Merritt ’97. During a trip this spring to Washington, D.C., Eric toured the Mary Washington campus with Greg Monner ’94. Eric published a short story in the online dystopian literature magazine The Bees Are Dead, where he is a contributing editor. Eric’s poetry and flash fiction have been accepted by Poetry Pacific and the Poems-For-All Project. Tama Welch Press and husband Jon Press moved to Colorado Springs, Colorado, with Jon’s company. Both of their girls are in college in Colorado. They expected a July visit from Reid Smith ’94 and Lisa Milnes Smith ’94 and their kids. James and Nancy Columbia Hilbert are excited that daughter Emily joined the class of 2021 at UMW. Matthew Steele ’94 and wife Sarah live in Richmond with their 5-year-old soccer fiend, Olivia, and their 2-yearold spitfire, Emmeline. Matthew is an analyst with ChildFund International, and Sarah teaches middle school. Matthew completed a Ph.D. in public policy and administration a few years ago and is doing his absolute best to never step foot inside a classroom again! Cynthia Rush Reasoner earned an Ed.D. in educational leadership from Liberty University this year. Tracy Sexton Plummer of Columbus, Ohio, works in IT at Huntington National Bank, where she is on the steering committee for the Women’s Network Business Resource Group. Her 12-year-old son plays as many sports as is
humanly possible. She is president of the McCord Middle School PTA this year. Felicia Marie Baxter is a pediatric hospitalist at Bay Area Hospital in Oregon. She also is a chief medical information officer for iCare.
and prophets” in LGBTQIA Christian movement-building at the Rolling the Stone Away conference in St. Louis, Missouri, this fall. Chris is divorced and lives in the Philadelphia area with their 11-year-old child and a dog.
Nicole Lee Hutnick works for Weaver’s Way Co-op in Philadelphia and planned to start a smallscale photography business.
1995
Becca Dotson earned an M.Ed. in secondary education from George Washington University in 2013 and taught English in Italy. She now teaches English as a second language to middle-schoolers in Takoma Park, Maryland, where she reports she is single with a lovely cat.
Marty Mitchell-Netting received a master’s degree in creative writing and also got married.
Jane Archer jane@janearcherillustration.com
Suzanne Augugliaro Silitch and husband Alec P. Silitch live in Richmond with dog Jackson. She is director of communications for Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of the Arts.
Suzanne Augugliaro Silitch ’95 is director of communications for VCU’s School of the Arts. Lesley Krush Williams teaches high school math at Chopticon High School, her alma mater, in St. Mary’s County, Maryland. Her older daughter studies at the University of Maryland, and she has a daughter and a son in elementary school. Her husband is principal of Northern High School in Calvert County, Maryland.
1994
Jennifer Dockeray Muniz dockeray@apple.com Heidi Zirkle Arthur is a social worker for a national consulting firm that specializes in publicly financed healthcare delivery. Husband Ben Arthur, whom she dated throughout college, is a musician. They live in Manhattan with daughters Ruby, 11, and Lilah, 9. Jennifer McKay McGuckin and husband Andrew live in Alexandria, Virginia, with 10-year-old son Joshua, 7-yearold daughter Ashley, and 12-year-old yellow Lab mix Chelsea. Jennifer teaches kindergarten in Alexandria public schools after teaching first grade for 10 years at St. Mary’s School. She has a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction with a specialty in English as a second language. Chris Paige was to be honored for many years of service as one of many “saints
Andrew Soles lives in Arlington with his wife and three children. After many years with The Nature Conservancy, he is a financial adviser for Northwestern Mutual. Christopher Harrell works in cyber security and lives in Rhode Island with wife Stephanie, 3-yearold daughter Ella Bree, and twin baby boys Carter and Jacob.
The Class of 1997 turnout for Reunion Weekend was nothing short of amazing! You can read about it in detail in the unedited Class Notes online. Attendees included Julie Newell Leslie and Friar Patrick Daniel Tobin from Framar, and honorary Framarite Dave Wrubel. Myronee Simpson came from Gainesville, Florida, where she is working at Oak Hall School as director of college counseling. Jason Terril attended reunion, then left on a two-week vacation to the Galápagos Islands and Ecuador. Mai Trinh and partner Greg traveled to Iceland and Belize with Mai’s children, Anais, 11; Estelle, 8; and Jacob, 6. Her corporate wellness business, Mai Health Now, has taken her to speaking engagements at institutions and companies, where topics included women’s health and chronic disease prevention. David Burns and Holly Bebyn-Burns celebrated their 20th anniversary in July. Julie Wiater Byrne, her husband, and their five children live in Germany. They have hiked Black Forest trails and visited historic sites while learning new languages.
Stacie Tarbet Carson was named Elementary Assistant Principal of the Year for the state of Georgia. She and husband James live Stacie Tarbet Carson ’97 was named Georgia’s in Athens, Georgia, with daughters Elementary Assistant Principal of the Year. Anneliese, 6, and Catharine, 4.
Catherine Potts Bohn has been promoted to associate vice president in the Fairfax office of Dewberry and Davis. She earned a master’s degree in geographic and cartographic sciences from George Mason University and has more than 20 years’ experience providing geographic information systems to support FEMA, state governments, and localities.
1996
Jennifer Rudalf Gates jeni17@me.com
1997
Michelle Trombetta michelletrombetta@gmail.com
Jesse Freese and wife Kelly moved into their newly built house outside of San Francisco with daughters Colbie, 9, and Zoe, 7. Jesse works at Sequoia Benefits, an HR and employee benefits company. Crissandra Finno Domroes and husband Stephen moved to the seaside town of Jupiter, Florida, with children Catharine and Matthew. They expected a baby girl in mid-August.
1998
Erika Giamo Chapin erikagchapin@gmail.com Bonnie Dye and Thomas Merrigan got hitched in 2001. After a little globetrotting (Maryland, New York City, Thailand) they settled in Durham, North Carolina. While in NYC, Bonnie earned
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Woman’s Calling Is Improving Dementia Care
F
rom her childhood home in South Jersey, Rachael Wonderlin ’11 marked university catalogs like a Christmas wish list. The colleges the high schooler liked best went in a must-see file. “I visited a whole bunch of schools,” Wonderlin said. But the moment she stepped foot on the University of Mary Washington campus, “I just had a gut feeling. I loved it immediately. It had everything I was looking for – small but not too small. It was very collegiate, very beautiful,” and it was just a few hours drive from home. Wonderlin came to Mary Washington with a love for older adults – she discovered this as a teen volunteer at a skilled nursing facility – so she majored in psychology with plans to become a geriatric doctor. But after getting a C in chemistry, she figured she wouldn’t have the grades for medical school. An elective course called “psychology of aging” erased any disappointment Wonderlin felt. The class met for an entire evening once a week. “Everybody in that class dreaded it. I loved it,” she said. “Never in my life was I so excited to go to a class for three hours.” When an intimidated Wonderlin had to explain to Associate Professor of Psychology Debra Steckler, then the department chair, why she wanted to major in psychology, the student blurted out, “I’d like to work with older adults.” Steckler stopped, put her pencil down, and looked at her. “Really?” Wonderlin recalled Steckler saying. “That’s really interesting.” So Wonderlin gained an ally and became known as the person who worked with old people. After graduating from UMW, Wonderlin got a master’s degree in gerontology from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Wonderlin settled in Pittsburgh, where she was a program manager,
Rachael Wonderlin is passionate about helping people with dementia and their caregivers. She’s also part of an improv comedy troupe, pictured above.
organizing activities for people with dementia. “I absolutely loved it,” she said. “I was finally doing what I needed to do with my life. I didn’t look back.” That’s when she started to write a blog on dementia care that ultimately turned into a book deal. Johns Hopkins University Press published When Someone You Know Is Living in a Dementia Care Community: Words to Say and Things to Do. She is planning a second book on activities for people with dementia. These days, Wonderlin is a consultant, putting into practice what she’s learned about people with dementia, including redesigning institutional facilities to look more like the places from patients’ predementia lives: a soda counter with a music player; a five-and-dime nursing station; and life-skills stations, perhaps a nursery with dolls, a vanity with hats and scarves, or a
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bait-and-tackle shop. She brings in art, arranges outdoor seating areas, and incorporates aromatherapy. “A lot of my work is based off this theory of normalcy,” she said. “People are happier and healthier when they live the life they’re comfortable with.” Wonderlin returns to UMW once or twice a semester to teach psychology of aging – the subject she credits with putting her on her life’s track. It’s also where she performed with the Undeniably Adjacent improv comedy team, a hobby she continues to this day. “Mary Washington is one of the best decisions I’ve made in my life,” Wonderlin said. “I bleed Mary Washington. You’d be hardpressed to find someone who loves UMW more than me.” – Kristin Davis
a master’s in public health at Columbia and now works for the HIV Prevention Trials Network as a senior clinical research manager. Tom got a master’s in architecture in 2003 and works for Linton Architects. They have daughters Holly and Penny and a rescue mutt named Poca. Julie Garner Goodrich is married with two daughters, Josephine, 5, and Ava, 3. She lives in Northern Virginia and works at Management Concepts in Tysons Corner. Sara Goode and Ryan Kaye ’99 became friends while playing softball and baseball at Mary Washington. Twenty short years later they got married! They now live in Richmond. Darien Berkowitz Jacobson, husband Andy, and their twin sons moved to Seattle this summer.
1999
Amanda Goebel Thomas goebel_amanda@hotmail.com
2000
Jennifer Burger Thomas jenntec14@gmail.com Irene Schinkel Bristow and David Bristow ’01 are glad their third child, daughter Helena, is doing well after spending her first 2½ months in the NICU due to a rare feeding problem unaccompanied by any other genetic anomaly or syndrome. The problem is slowly resolving itself, and Helena is healthy and happy, enjoying normal toddler activities. The Bristow family asks for and appreciates prayers from their MWC alumni family. Irene home schools older daughter Amelia, 10, and son Linden, 5, and especially enjoys teaching them art and music. David enjoys tennis, assistant coaching at a local high school, and working with the Catholic youth in their parish.
children Ryan, 9, and Rebecca, 6, and their 14-year-old Shiba Inu, Riggo. Kevin Perry teaches Latin at the National Cathedral School in Washington. He earned an M.Ed. in Latin from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro. He’s working out the bugs in his vintage motorcycle rebuild, a 1973 Triumph that he used to ride to classes at MWC.
2001
Annie Johnston anniebatesjohnston@gmail.com Caroline Jarvis recently changed jobs but continues to work in London in charity investment management. In January she plans to marry Alex Gee, whom she met through mutual friends. Last January Alan J. Dean retired from the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren Division, after 42½ years of service. Angela Mills is director of alumni relations for the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech. Angela is president of the University of Mary Washington Alumni Association through June 2018. Read more about Angela on page 27.
to local acclaim. He bought a home in the Gentilly neighborhood of New Orleans and got engaged to Allison Albert of Maytown, Pennsylvania. She is CEO of the pet costume company Pet Krewe, and he is founder and chairman of the HIV awareness iKnow Concert Series across Uganda. The 2001 Women’s lacrosse team was inducted into the University of Mary Washington Athletic Hall of Fame. From 2001, the team included Bridget Geiman Dickensheets, Allyson Bristor Brekke, Jenni Foy Smith, Karen Slotsky, and Kate Weller. Heather Carter Vorderbrueggen ’00 (an honorary 2001 senior) was honored as well as members of the 2002, 2003, and 2004 classes.
2002
Travis Jones tljones8@gmail.com Carolyn Murray Spencer turtlecjm@yahoo.com
Virginia Henley Watkins married Edward James “E.J.” Watkins in May 2017. Virginia is a family nurse practitioner in Richmond, Virginia. Rachel Cain Carter attended the wedding. Rachel lives in Culpeper, Virginia, with husband Jon Madelyn Marino ’01 ran a half marathon in Carter ’97 and their two children. Montana in her quest to complete one in Last October, every state. Rachel and Virginia went to San Francisco to visit Lani Carnill owns BetterPlanIt former roommate Sharon Carroll Consulting, helping finance teams and family, including baby Amelia. become trusted advisers to architects and engineers. She plans to live in Madrid, Spain, in 2018.
Madelyn Marino plans to marry Michael Walker of New Jersey in summer 2018. Madelyn traveled with Jennifer Amore and me, Annie Johnston, to Montana in June. We hiked and enjoyed spectacular scenery in Glacier National Park, and Madelyn ran the inaugural Glacier Half Marathon Kevin Perry ’00 is rebuilding the 1973 Triumph in her quest to motorcycle he used to ride to classes at MWC. complete a half marathon in every state. Kate Amey Degnan is a tenure-track Andrew Ward earned a Ph.D. in assistant professor of psychology at international development from Tulane the Catholic University of America. University in New Orleans, where She lives in Falls Church, Virginia, his adults-only children’s book, A with husband Matt Degnan ’99, Bourbon Street Sojourn, was published
2003
Jessica Brandes jessbrandes@yahoo.com Katherine Stephens completed a fellowship with the progressive New Leaders Council and was elected to the Board of Education in Schenectady, New York, where she lives with husband Drew Pearson. In April, Kendra Hitz Steele presented the distinguished alumnus microbiology and immunology seminar at East Carolina University, where she completed a Ph.D. in 2010. She has mutated a sexually transmitted virus that sterilizes the Helicoverpa zea pest, commonly known as corn earworm, an insect costing U.S. farmers billions of dollars
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CLASS NOTES Town Alexandria and works with home buyers and sellers throughout Northern Virginia. She also teaches with Moseley Real Estate School. Ryan is an Army major stationed at Fort Belvoir. Molly is in kindergarten, and Suzi and Ryan expect their second child in November.
Kendra Hitz Steele ’03 presented the distinguished alumnus microbiology and immunology seminar at East Carolina University, where she completed a Ph.D. each year. She is the chief scientific officer and part owner of a company that does this work, Lepidext LLC. Allie Krebs Kochert is a licensed professional counselor in private practice in York, Pennsylvania, with a specialty in peripartum women’s mental health and mindfulness studies. Erik Kochert ’02 and Allie have kids ages 9, 6, and 4. Rebecca Romaneski Sneller and husband Deric are missionaries with Cadence International in Okinawa, Japan. They are parents of Tobin, 7; Evan, 4; and Kara Jane, 2, whom they adopted from China in February. Meredith Camp Rhodes and Jimmy Rhodes ’99 live in Woodbridge, Virginia, and expected their third child in October. They also have 2-year-old twins, a boy and a girl.
2004
Kristin Simmers is in her 13th year of living and teaching overseas and is currently in Bangkok, Thailand. Michael Kuchler and wife Alejandra welcomed daughter Mariana Winifred Kuchler in November 2016. She joins brother Daniel, 3. Carolyn Huckabay and husband Brian welcomed daughter Georgia in October 2016. Carolyn is communications manager at The Food Trust, a national healthy food access nonprofit.
Brandon and Laura Castello Cox have been married 12 years and live at Smith Mountain Lake in Virginia with their six children. Brandon practices family medicine and Laura enjoys home schooling the kids. LoriAnn Maresca Solano, husband Brendan, and children Mariel and Brayden live on Long Island, New York. LoriAnn is a licensed behavior analyst, consulting in schools and homes. She shares her love of essential oils and wellness with others, and she dances and performs when she has the opportunity. Suzi Gallagher Welch, husband Ryan, and daughter Molly live in Occoquan, Virginia. Suzi is a Realtor with the Keller Williams Metro Center in Old
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Shana Muhammad email.shana@gmail.com In November 2016, Megan Anderson married Bobby Groves in Newport, Rhode Island, with several Mary Wash alumni attending. They live in Chicago, where Megan teaches math at Loyola Academy. Christina Rodriguez planned to marry Colin Shores on Oct. 8, 2017, in Nashville, Tennessee. Mary Wash friends from the Class of ’07, Samantha Workman Sarver, Kelly Chappel Rose, and Katie Burton, planned to attend. Christina and Colin live in Baltimore, Maryland. Emily Lovins Fenichel and Ethan Fenichel welcomed their first child, Ruth Claire, in December 2016. Bethann White married Graham Secrest in August. Marcella Cavallaro Wallin ’07 was matron of honor, and Amy Billingsly was a bridesmaid. Nancy-Lauren Raia Buechler and husband John left Manhattan for Long Island, New York, where they bought a house. Nancy cried all the way over the Queensboro Bridge but is adjusting to life in the ’burbs. She finally got a driver’s license, proudly passing her road test on the second try. She and John welcomed baby Ruby Rose, a sweet little redhead, in March.
Carolyn Huckabay ’04 is communications manager at a national healthy food access nonprofit.
Sameer Vaswani sameervaswani@msn.com Matt Lowe was promoted to head of finance and strategy for Tom Ford’s cosmetics and fragrance business, one of the fastest growing brands within the Estée Lauder companies. He and husband Amer Ahmed recently celebrated their third anniversary. They live in New York City and own a horse stabled in New Jersey.
2006
Alexis Slack Shiflet and husband Randy moved to Harrisonburg, Virginia, to be closer to Randy’s family. Alexis is a therapist with HarrisonburgRockingham Community Services Board. Randy is a payroll manager at James Madison University. They have a 2-year-old son, Randy III. Alex Vizzier Stephenson and her husband live in Virginia Beach, where they own Pleasure House Brewing and recently started distributing to Richmond. Alex teaches high school English and community college principles of public speaking. They have two children. Catherine Daniel Nicholson and husband Les welcomed son August last January. They are building a home in Midlothian, Virginia, and plan to move there from Alexandria in 2018.
2005
Allyson “Ally” V. Lee allyvlee@gmail.com
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2007
Sarah Eckman sarahje@gmail.com Daniel Clendenin daniel.clendenin@gmail.com Robert Hughes and Erin Keegan Hughes welcomed daughter Emily Catherine last December, joining siblings Claire and Ben. Sarah Sherman received a master of arts degree in English literature from the University of Virginia and an M.Ed. in secondary English education from The George Washington University. In 2013, she married Jacob Schwing ’06, and they welcomed their first son in July 2016. Sarah and Jacob bought a house
outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where they are both teachers.
2010
2012
Ariel Place is director of admissions for Valley Recovery Center in Sacramento, California, and lives in
Christopher O’Kelley is vice president of Art First Gallery in downtown Fredericksburg.
Josh Rutherford received a doctorate in clinical psychology from La Salle University in Philadelphia in May and is a staff psychologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Kelly Caldwell kellyecaldwell@gmail.com
Marcella Cavallaro Wallin continues to use her geography degree working at Esri, supporting federal government GIS users. She was matron of honor at the wedding of Bethann White ’06 and Graham Secrest. Marcella enjoys mentoring students and serving on the Mary Washington College of Arts and Sciences alumni advisory board. She and husband James live in Burke, Virginia, with their cat, Vera.
Alaha Ahrar became a U.S. citizen May 20. She is Bethann White ’06 married in August a community with Marcella Cavallaro Wallin ’07 as the development matron of honor and Amy Billingsly ’06 as a advocate for FACETS, a bridesmaid. nonprofit that helps parents, children, and others who Folsom, California. She’s working suffer the effects of poverty in Fairfax toward licensure in counseling, and County. A poet and writer, she’s active in she earned a master’s degree in clinical several writing and professional groups. mental health counseling from Argosy Nani Moskal has completed a master’s University in December 2015. degree in social work from Virginia Michelle Ryder completed an MBA Commonwealth University. and a master’s degree in healthcare Stephanie Hintzen works in management at Marymount University. bioinformatics with Boston Children’s She is pursuing a Ph.D. in higher Hospital, Claritas Genomics, and education at Old Dominion University. the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. In March, Aaron Richardson returned Peter Hawes earned a master’s degree to The Daily Progress in Charlottesville in public policy from the University of as assistant city editor. He married Virginia’s Batten School of Leadership Anna Neumeister in April. and Public Policy. His focus is community Sarah Trimble married Andrew Evans development and conflict resolution. at a ranch outside Austin, Texas, in In April, Kyle Allwine ’12 MBA ’15 March. Her bridal party included fellow and Libby Baker MBA ’15 were Eagles Jessica Zeitz Self and Amy Hruska married in Spotsylvania, Virginia. Popp ’09, and two festively dressed The wedding party included Kenneth miniature donkeys, Sally and Opie. Allwine II ’07 MSMIS ’12, Andrew Frisk, and Michael Roche.
2008 Trish Lauck trish.lauck@gmail.com Alyssa Lee alyssa.linda.lee@gmail.com Kristen Roscoe MacMillan and Mark MacMillan ’07 moved to the Richmond, Virginia, area last summer. They expected their first child, a girl, in August. Isaac Kassock married Ashleigh Buyers ’12 on June 17. Zeke Kassock ’09 was best man, with Dave Dalton ’06 and Nathan Woodhead ’17 as groomsmen. Jessica Eustace ’12 was a bridesmaid. Rebecca Helsley Meadows and husband Jon welcomed daughter Ella Char Meadows in May, and they’re delighted to raise her in Charlottesville, Virginia. In April, Sam Shafovaloff and wife Brooke welcomed baby Elias Samuel Shafovaloff.
2009
Elizabeth Jennings elizabethsjennings@gmail.com Alexandra Meier alexandra.m.meier@gmail.com Juliann Boyles Jones and Matthew Jones ’10 welcomed their first child, Benjamin Jones, in May. Rebekah Blackwell Kuller and husband Brad welcomed a son, Pierce Lee Kuller, in March. They live in San Diego, California, where Rebekah is the assistant controller for Borrego Solar Systems Inc.
2011
Hannah Hopkins hhopkins89@gmail.com Kira Lanawala klanewala@gmail.com Garry Kirkland earned an MBA and a graduate certificate in information assurance from Weber State University. He works in cybersecurity in the Salt Lake City, Utah, area. Daughter Tammara is 4. Rachael Wonderlin owns the dementia care consulting business Dementia by Day. She lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with her boyfriend and two cats, Sox and Shooz. You can read more about Rachael on page 50.
Mandi Solomon Msolomon211@gmail.com
Rachel Sheets earned an MFA in theater lighting design from the University of South Carolina in May. She was completing an internship at the Arkansas Repertory Theater in Little Rock before starting her career in Charlotte, North Carolina.
2013
Amanda Buckner McVicker amandabuckner1@gmail.com Andrew Hogan andrew.hogan819@gmail.com Paola Maldonado-Torres received a juris doctor degree and passed the Virginia bar in 2016. She planned to marry Adam William Bell in October in South Florida. Katelynn A. Monti was to be among the bridesmaids.
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CLASS NOTES Avery Dice earned a juris doctor degree from Elon University School of Law in May. Carly Boucher and Jacob McCrumb ’10 were married in May in Springfield, Virginia. The wedding party included maid of honor Virginia Rose Osella ’11 and Olivia Colville ’12, with many other alumni present. Jen Crystle and Mike Pressl plan to be married in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, in June 2018. Jen works at Marymount University and is pursuing a Ph.D. in education policy at the University of Maryland. Britnae Purdy and Andrew Lowdon ’14 married in Durham, North Carolina, in 2016. The wedding party included Taylor Brannan, Caroline Benner, Sarah Lowdon ’11, and Tatiana Haywood Lowdon ’11. Mary Sue Miller McDonald ’62 attended, as did Professor Jack Kramer and his wife. Andrew graduated from Duke University School of Law in May, and the couple moved to Alexandria, where he is a law clerk for the U.S. District Court. Britnae works at UMW as project coordinator to reduce sexual assault, domestic violence, and stalking. Britnae is pursuing a master’s degree in public health through the distance-learning program of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
2014
Stephanie Preston sepreston91@gmail.com Elizabeth Storey estorey@mail.usf.edu
2015
Evan Smallwood Esmallwood15@gmail.com Moira McAvoy moira.jo.mcavoy@gmail.com Evan Smallwood and Aaron McPherson ’12 got engaged in March while on a trip to the Netherlands. They live in Santa Cruz, California, where Evan works in philanthropy at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Adam Hunter and Gwendolyn Corkill ’13 got engaged in May in Boston. Adam is retail operations manager at Crimson Bikes, and he hosts weekly rides and seasonal events in and around New England.
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2016
Quinn Doyle quinnmdoyle@gmail.com
2017
No Class Agent classnotes@umw.edu May Townley showed her artwork at a Fredericksburg gallery and in Richmond, Virginia. She was working on wheel-throwing and other projects over the summer before taking a teaching position in fall with the Arts Center in Orange, Virginia.
IN MEMORIAM Carolyn Carey Bondurant ’38 Mary Pugh Brierly ’38 Emma Crockett Lively ’38 Fleet Carney Morgan ’38 Esther Burruss Bailey ’39 Helen Minor Gibson ’40 Lois Harp Carroll ’41 Margaret Wolffe Edwards ’41 Nan Phillips ’41 Etta Mitchell Spivey ’41 Julia Moseley Wimmer ’41 Marguerite A. Fortmann ’42 Virginia Morgan Johnston ’42 Edna Tucker Perdue ’42 Rebecca Hiltzheimer Houghton ’43 Jane Bonney Mason ’43 Elaine Rolley Alley ’44 Mary Gardiner Starkey ’44 Jean Young Waugh ’44 Marjorie Elaine Cowland Crowder ’45 Phyllis J. Derigon ’45 Anne Dawideit Dickinson ’45 Gloria Post Goodsell ’45 Margaret Pruitt Luce ’45 Elizabeth A. Barksdale ’46 Madaline Scanland Bruce ’46 Mary Ellen Darst ’46 Genevieve Turner Frost ’46 Colleen Hall Massey ’46 Elizabeth Robertson ’46 Marie Radolinski Savage ’46 Alice Griesar Blain ’47 Harriet Sanford Bredin ’47 Mary Cheatham Seeger ’47 Mary Doyle Winters ’47 Laura Wright Nottingham ’48 Marian Messersmith Snider ’48 Elizabeth Phelps Beard ’49 Virginia Woodley Chapman ’49 Elizabeth Barnes Hornsby ’49
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Anne Eakle Rolston Keith ’49 Margaret Markwood McClench ’49 Frances Horn Nygood ’49 Anne Osborn Cox ’50 Mary Jane Diaz ’50 Elsie Davidson Floyd ’50 Lenora Ladd Sloan ’50 Janet Hoos Sonntag ’50 Eloise E. Clark ’51 Janet Graceley Lyness ’51 Ethel Svaby Wagner ’51 Carolyn Burkett Austin ’52 Comella Smith Reynolds ’52 Ann Holt Rowland ’52 Chrysanthe Andresos Vergakis ’52 Ann DeWitt Harvey ’53 Kathryn Garland Obenshain ’53 Frances Gunther Ramzy ’53 Margaret Adele Thomas ’53 Eleanor Reid Easter ’54 Patricia Ashley Mathena ’54 Joyce Stallard Bruce ’55 Patricia A. Headland ’55 Patricia Johnson Hurst ’55 Josephine Jones Sullivan ’55 June Tingler Buie ’56 Louise Robertson ’56 Charlotte Brewer Senneff ’57 Jacqueline McClung Wight ’57 Roberta Lawless Eylar ’58 Elaine Downing Hawpe ’58 Loretta Hitchings Tate ’58 Nancy Brewer McCarthy ’59 Frances Helms Monday ’59 Judith Stetson Coban ’60 Darlene Geer Cumberland ’60 Elizabeth “Betsy” Watts Haskell ’60 JoAnne Sellars Keeley ’60 Marcia Hrabar ’61 Judy Matthews Kennedy ’61 Kathleen Sasso Betts ’62 Susan Buford ’62 Rebecca Blevins Faery ’62 Alice English Lee ’62 Quincy Carter Stuart ’63 Pamela Geer Hesseltine ’65 Laurie Riddell Geary ’66 Joan Hughes Ryan ’67 Mary Helen Tabb Warner ’67 Leslie R. Blythe ’68 Helen Bradford ’68 Jane Harrison Garriott ’68 Sandra Young Hughes ’68 Michele Berger McQuigg ’68 Frances Smith Armstrong ’69 Mabel Cole Brill ’71 Claudith Holmes ’71 Dianne Schmidley ’75 Rebecca R. Reames ’76 Melinda R. Bowles ’77
Gayle A. Lea ’85 Anne Marjorie Lewis ’87 Veronica S. Johnson ’89 Dwayne E. Arruza ’91 Shirley L. Pulley ’91 Julie L. Zimmerman ’92 Christine Warden Gilley ’96 Stephen S. Crow ’97 Christopher A. Hines ’05 Juanita Pitchford ’06 Angela M. Smith ’11
CONDOLENCES Mary Crocker Ball ’52, who lost her husband Barbara Fowler Childs ’52, who lost her husband Eileen Brillinger Harrar ’58, who lost her husband Elizabeth “Betty” Gould Storms ’58, who lost her son Bee Stone Byrnes ’61, who lost her husband Betty Chilton Finkle ’61, who lost her husband Linda Giles Poole ’61, who lost her husband Julia Shumaker Bailess ’62, who lost her husband Jane Pensom Keiser ’64, who lost her husband Alice Funkhouser Flowers ’65, who lost her husband Lee Enos Kelley ’66, who lost her husband Ellen R. Brown ’69, who lost her husband Sharon Dobie ’69, who lost her son Marie Droste Martin ’71, who lost her husband Kathy Deneke Clatanoff ’72, who lost her husband Deborah Bradford Stanley ’72, who lost her husband Lorraine Wright Feuerstein ’73, who lost her husband Faith Geibel Moore ’75, who lost her mother Karen Obenshain ’78, who lost her mother Joanne Bartholomew Lamm ’85, who lost her parents Steve Keiser ’95, who lost his father Carolyn Higgins ’99, who lost her husband Cameron Holmes ’01, who lost his aunt David Denyer ’17, who lost his mother
OBITUARIES Pediatric cardiologist and professor of medicine Louise Wilkes Robertson ’56 passed away June 26, 2017. She had retired as the divisional education director at the Medical College of Virginia (MCV). Dr. Robertson graduated in pre-medicine at Mary Washington College and entered MCV that fall. She was awarded a family practice scholarship and served both her residency and fellowships at the Louise Wilkes Robertson ’56 Richmond medical campus. Primarily a teacher, she established an outreach program for pediatric cardiology and served as a patient advocate in clinics for indigent patient care. Until her retirement, she continued to run a clinic once a week for children and adults with congenital heart disease. A faithful Mary Washington alumna, she served on the Alumni Board; she believed in the power of education, and in 2006 established the Louise W. Robertson M.D. ’56 Scholarship. According to her obituary in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, she enjoyed teaching about health and considered it a privilege to do so. She is survived by one brother, stepchildren, and stepgrandchildren. Mark Reese Sumner Sr., onetime chair of what was the Department of Dramatic Arts and Speech, died June 21 in his native state of North Carolina. Born in 1923, he served three years in the Army and was awarded two Bronze Stars for meritorious service as a member of the intelligence section of the Ninth Army in France and Belgium. His behindthe-lines service during the Battle of the Bulge earned him the Combat Infantry Badge. In recognition of his valor and bravery, France awarded him its highest military recognition, the Legion of Honor. Sumner returned to the United States Mark Reese Sumner Sr. and studied engineering and dramatic arts. From 1950 through 1963, he directed performances at Mary Washington and taught play production and writing. He left to return to North Carolina. Sumner received a number of awards, among them the Amoco Award from the American College Theatre Festival at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Frederick H. Koch Award from the Carolina Dramatic Association, and the Suzanne Davis Award from the Southeastern Theatre Conference. Sumner is survived by his wife, a daughter, five sons, and many grandchildren.
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CLOSING COLUMN
Norm Shafer
President Troy D. Paino wears the University of Mary Washington chain of office, also known as the presidential collar, as he leads a procession along Campus Walk after the installation ceremony. The chain incorporates symbols important to the history of Mary Washington including dogwood blossoms, oak leaves, and the university seal.
UMW Inaugurates 10th President The University of Mary Washington marked a milestone occasion Friday, April 21, with the inauguration of its 10th president, Troy D. Paino. A crowd of nearly 1,000 students, alumni, faculty, staff, and community members packed George Washington Hall’s Dodd Auditorium for the momentous event. Recounting the rich history of the university, which rose from Civil War ashes in 1908 to prepare female teachers, Paino spoke of its transformation from a normal school to the premier public coeducational liberal arts and sciences institution it is today. He reflected on Mary Washington’s trailblazers who, empowered with a liberal arts education, paved the way for pursuing challenging careers in science, government, industry, and education. “Mary Washington is at its best when it is reminded of its mission to serve,” Paino said. “Mary Washington thrives when it understands that its very existence is an
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investment in hope – a hope in the students we educate and a hope in our republic’s future. Mary Wash is Mary Wash when it engages the whole person – head, heart, and soul – and creates an intimacy that is born out of our sense of common purpose.” Since taking UMW’s top role on July 1, 2016, Paino has made a point to listen to the UMW community and formulate thoughts about how to achieve the school’s public liberal arts and sciences mission of creating academic excellence, engaged citizens, and social uplift. As it has for more than a century, the university will continue to prepare the very best citizens, strive to reflect on increasing the diversity of the republic, and offer an education that empowers students to change the world, Paino said. “Here at Mary Washington, we understand that we are bound together through mutual respect and our values of honor, leadership, and service.” – Marty Morrison
“Mary Washington thrives when it understands that its very existence is an investment in hope – a hope in the students we educate and a hope in our republic’s future.” –President Troy D. Paino
Stand forever true with your alma mater today. Make your annual gift to the Fund for Mary Washington. Visit umw.edu/give2umw or call 540-654-1024.
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Splash!
Natalie Eaton ’20 (left) and friend Jeremy Feldhaus enjoy the Rappahannock River on a hot day in September. UMW Campus Recreation sponsored the trip, which introduced Eaton, a computer science major, to kayaking. It has become her hobby. “Ever since the trip, my friends and I have been down to the river much more. It’s such a great resource that we have just a five-minute drive away, and the activities to do down there are endless – provided you don’t mind the outdoors.”