15 minute read
Class Notes
WFS alumni attended the Class Agents, the Alumni Board, and Alumni lunch in the WFS Library Learning Commons in February 2020.
CLASS OF 1962
Bob Lessey has spent his time during the COVID-19 lockdown keeping in contact with medical colleagues via videoconferencing, which saves him traveling to Baltimore; taking an online acting class at the Academy of Fine Arts; and tutoring his 5-year-old grandson on reading and vocabulary via Zoom.
CLASS OF 1970
Tom Scott shared this update from the ongoing service project that he is involved in with Christ Church, “Last summer while on their mission trip to the Dominican Republic, our youth began to build the water treatment facility on the campus of the Episcopal Academy for Little Kiddies. This facility will provide clean water for the school and will be sold to the community to raise funds for the school. This week, the facility is 90% completed and should be up and running next week. It is very exciting to see a project we started near its completion! A grant from our Outreach Committee has helped fund this project. The Episcopal Academy of Little Kiddies is in its third year of operation and has 90+ children registered, providing a preschool experience for the children of Jalonga and neighboring villages. The solar energy project is providing consistent electricity for the school and the water treatment facility.
“This summer marks the 17th year for our Youth Mission Trip to the DR, and we’ll build a playground area for the school and install several raised beds to plant fresh fruits and vegetables for the community. It is such an honor and joy for our youth and mission team to serve and partner with our dear friends in Jalonga, Dominican Republic. It has been a life-changing experience for all.
Many, many WFS students have been on these trips.
The Solar project was initiated by Roth Johnson ’14 and his dad, Scott secured the panels and participation of an installation group and Katrina Winfield ’20 was the youth trip leader the past 2 years.
Last year we started a water project to use solar power to provide fresh water to the village, which provides people with better access to fresh water at a lower cost, and the price then covers the maintenance of the solar and water systems.
And it survived a hurricane!” Amy Davis ’72 and nephew Eddie at Emerald Bay Overlook, Lake Tahoe, California
CLASS OF 1972
Amy Davis shared this news with us, “I retired from PNC Wealth Management in 2018 after a 32-year career as a trust officer in Wilmington, Delaware. In my free time I have been studying Latin at the University of Delaware Academy of Life Long Learning. I also enjoy gardening, cooking, interior decorating, travel, and spending as much time as possible with my family.”
CLASS OF 1978
Michael Pardee sent this update, “After more than 40 years of exile since my WFS graduation, I’m finally moving back toward ‘greater Wilmington,’ Philadelphia, to be exact. I will begin in July an exciting new role as a Master Educator at Revolution School in Philly. It is an innovative, place-based, project-based, civically-engaged school that is just getting started. Most of my career since HS and college has been in various educational realms. But I haven’t made it back to any WFS events since our graduation and my parents’ move away from Delaware. I look forward to breaking that string and reconnecting with some ’78 classmates soon.”
CLASS OF 1979
Carol Quillen was quoted in a March 10, USA Today article, “How do we rebuild trust? A year after the admissions scandal, presidents say college must change. Six leaders of elite colleges tell USA TODAY the Varsity Blues scandal caused them to question the fairness of college admissions.”
Carol, president of Davidson College stated, “It seems to me that the postsecondary education sector is being asked to educate many, many more people much more quickly at a much lower cost for an uncertain economic future. And so how do we participate in doing that? It’s our job to make sure that it’s available to everyone. Not everybody is going to
want the same kind of education. So differentiation is good. We should support each other as we differentiate and offer different things to different groups of learners.”
CLASS OF 1980
Mark Raphaelson was featured on April 3, 2020, Delaware Online/The News Journal article as a reader-nominated local hero. An excerpt:
Mark Raphaelson’s goal right now is to keep his business, Johnnie’s Dog House and Chicken Shack in Talleyville, afloat during this coronavirus pandemic. Despite his efforts, business at his Concord Pike location is about 40% of what it normally would be.
Even with the decreased profits, Raphaelson still donated time and food for New Castle County paramedics last week. He brought fried chicken, green beans, mac and cheese, rice, and dessert to the men and women who are helping sick and injured people throughout the pandemic.
“I grew up here, and you know I try to be involved in with the community as much as possible,” Raphaelson said. “Those guys are on the front line.”
Raphaelson is just one of the many Delawareans stepping up to help others during the coronavirus pandemic. Dozens of readers have recognized their neighbors, like Raphaelson, as local heroes during a stressful time.
His food, often deemed “comfort food,” brings joy to people, he said. He wants to continue to bring that joy during this crazy time.
“Every day you know they’re putting their health at risk when they go and do their job,” he said of the paramedics.
Tracey Quillen Carney’s focus as Delaware’s First Lady is to support efforts that, in a foundational way, help give children a chance to succeed.
On May 30, 2020, Tracey Quillen Carney and Caroline Jones wrote a Special Op-Ed to the USA TODAY NETWORK, Let’s remember some of Delaware’s most vulnerable — kids in foster care.
They wrote, “Routines and regular contact with friends and trusted adults are important for all of our children. For foster children, the stability of schedules and relationships, and the comfort of human connection, are absolutely essential. These children have hypersensitive stress response systems, even if they often don’t have the words to express their needs. Consistency and reliability are their main buffers against the longterm effects of trauma.” Tracey partners with Kind to Kids Foundation and First Chance Delaware to support these efforts.
Tracey also thanked essential school employees in the Colonial School District as they distributed 18,000 meals to local students during the COVID-19 lockdown.
CLASS OF 1987
Ethan Cooperson, Research Analyst, was interviewed by Joe Castellano on the Sports Virus, April 17, 2020, about his stats career. The interview can be found on YouTube.
CLASS OF 1999
Avigail Dadone shared this news, “My husband and I were thrilled to welcome our first child on Feb 3, 2020. A boy, Arden Nissim Altfest. We live in Brooklyn, NY.”
Eden Wales Freedman released Reading Testimony, Witnessing Trauma: Confronting Race, Gender, and Violence in American Literature (March 2020). It is an extraordinary engagement with trauma and its witness across American literature.
Keith Byerman, author of “Remembering the Past in Contemporary African American Fiction,” writes of Eden’s book, “Eden Wales Freedman provides a significant analysis of the complexities of witnessing traumatic experience on the part of narrators, characters, authors, and readers. She instructs readers on the many ways we can fail as witnesses and the resulting damage if survivors are not believed, and what we need to consider to be more effective at it.”
CLASS OF 2004
Andrew Chepurny is living in Valhalla NY, married to Christa Chepurny, and working for Sirius Computer Solutions.
Justin Hugelen-Padin and his wife Laurel welcomed a second son, Javier, June 20, 2019. Big brother Henry was born on June 2, 2017.
CLASS OF 2005
Kaci Loeffler Pike provided this update, “I am living in Burlington, NC, and married to J.R. Pike. We have a daughter, McKenna, turning 3 this month. I am now a yoga instructor and personal trainer with a Master’s Degree in Sport & Exercise psychology. Mark Raphaelson ’80 has owned Johnnie’s Dog House and Chicken Shack in Talleyville since 2008 (Photo: KYLE GRANTHAM/THE NEWS JOURNAL)
Tracey Quillen Carney ’80
Phoenix Mellow ’08 Photo by Jenna Schoenefeld
Jakob Katzen ’16, McDaniel College, Senior, GK
Eleanor Napoli ’16 and Simone Veale ’17
CLASS OF 2019
Ali Miller ’19 spent her first semester in UD’s World Scholars program. She studied at The University of Aukland in New Zealand from July to November 2019. She’s looking forward to a more traditional on-campus experience sophomore year, and another semester abroad her junior year. Ali (right) is pictured in marketing materials from The University of Aukland.
CLASS OF 2008
Phoenix Mellow was featured in a May 6, 2020, Popular Mechanics article titled, “How Citizens Are Helping Healthcare Workers Fight the Coronavirus” written by Jenna Schoenefeld.
Schoenefeld wrote, “Phoenix Mellow is a costume designer who most recently worked on the NBC show A.P. Bio until production was halted due to the coronavirus. Now, she’s making masks with her sewing machine in her apartment using fabrics she had in storage boxes. Mellow researched mask patterns online, including old patterns from the 1918 flu pandemic, before designing her own pattern. She’s made about 60 masks so far, sending some to friends and family, and donating others to senior-citizen facilities.”
“We have to fight this together because you can’t just think you’re on your own,” said Phoenix.
Before the COVID-19 lockdown, Phoenix was busy with other projects. She was featured in an April 1, 2020 article on diginmag.com written by Cindy Maram, titled “Costume Designer Phoenix Mellow on Designing for Films.”
This is an excerpt from the article: “Costume Designer Phoenix Mellow has designed ornate, fashion-forward costumes drawing praise and recognition for her standout designs for stars such as Katie Perry, movies like ‘Black Panther,’ and most recently for her work with ‘Sylvie’s Love’ and Tessa Thompson in the Sundance Film Festival 2020 love story set in the late 1950s and early 1960s cool jazz era. The film by writer/ director Eugene Ashe also stars Nnamdi Asomugha and Eva Longoria. We had the wonderful opportunity to speak with the exceptionally talented designer during and following the festival regarding her broad design background, and her process working with celebrities on motion pictures, TV series, music videos, and web series.
Dig IN: How was your experience at the Sundance Film Festival 2020? Any fond memories or highlights in particular?
PM: I was ecstatic to attend the Sundance Film Festival this year for ‘Sylvie’s Love.’ As a filmmaker, it’s inspiring to see so many movie buffs in one place. Everyone there has an incredible passion for filmmaking. I flew in and out for the premiere and I was lucky enough to catch snow driving through the mountains into Park City, which is so refreshing coming from Los Angeles. Some of my favorite moments included displaying the costumes and my sketches at the Acura Lounge after-party. Everyone had just seen the film and were so excited to discuss the costumes!
Dig IN: So, you’ve been a costume designer for television series, feature films, commercials, web series, and music videos, what would you say has been the most rewarding for you?
PM: I love working on a variety of projects. I think having a diverse background in design gives a fun edge to my work. Each project has its own challenges, but I love putting it together like a puzzle— working out the different budgets, time frames, designs, and characters. Working with all types of creatives has been really rewarding for me. I feel that I am almost a chameleon designer. I change my style based on research. I don’t like to always stick to one style or story. I like showing a change in the character throughout the project. I think each project has really allowed me to reflect on my purpose as a costume designer and how I can help tell this story or help this actor or musician become this character.
Amy Tryon is a Juris Doctor Candidate, 2021, at American University Washington College of Law and is a member of the Administrative Law Review’s Executive Board.
CLASS OF 2009
Sammi Shay was a lecturer in the Loyola Women’s Studies and Gender Studies Program’s 2020 Feminist Lecture Series on February 20, 2020. Her talk was titled “Addiction is a Feminist Issue: Temperance, Twelve-Step, and Challenges Today.” From the University’s marketing for the series, “Sammi is a graduate student at Loyola University Chicago’s School of Social Work, specializing in Heath. She completed a Certificate of Advanced Brief Interventions for Substance Abuse Among Minority Communities in April 2019, and was recently accepted into Loyola’s Opioid Workforce Expansion Training Program. She holds a BA in Dance and American Studies from Connecticut College. Sammi is proudly three years into recovery, which informs and inspires her present and future work.”
CLASS OF 2010
Samuel Finkelman has been named a 2020 Stephen F. Cohen-Robert C. Tucker Dissertation Fellowship recipient. The
Cohen–Tucker Dissertation Fellowship (CTDF) Program for Russian Historical Studies supports the next generation of US scholars to conduct their doctoral dissertation research in Russia. Sam is a Ph.D. candidate in History at the University of Pennsylvania.
According to The Association for Slavic, East European, & Eurasian Studies website, Sam’s dissertation “Ghetto, Gulag, Geulah: Jewish Nationalism, Inter-ethnic Encounters, and Collective Memory of Catastrophe in the Post-Stalin Soviet Union, 1953-1982”, explores the encounter between Jewish and Russian nationalist intellectuals and activists in the post-Stalin Soviet Union, focusing on their mutual efforts to construct collective memories of national catastrophe. The protagonists are Soviet Jews who endeavored to revitalize Jewish national consciousness throughout the Soviet Union in the decades following “the black years” of postwar Stalinism and their Russian interlocutors.
David Jiminez is living in Orlando, Florida, and sent this update, “I work as a direct support professional for the department of children and families, in addition to the screenwriting and videography I have been doing for the past 3 years.”
CLASS OF 2011
Samuel Davis is living in Fort Collins, Colorado, and wrapping up his Ph.D. in counseling psychology at Colorado State University.
CLASS OF 2012
Julian DeOliveira is currently living in New York City, working in Financial Product Sales at Bloomberg LP.
CLASS OF 2013
Chris DiMaria, reporter for KJRH Channel 2, in Tulsa, OK, is taking on a new role as weekend sports/anchor reporter for Channel 2.
Cavender Salvadori joined the Temple University XC/Track team as a graduate coach.
CLASS OF 2016
Jakob Katzen has been named to the Centennial Conference’s 2020 Men’s Lacrosse All-Sportsmanship Team. According to the Official Website of the Centennial Conference, “The 2020 Men’s Lacrosse All-Sportsmanship Team features one student-athlete from each institution that sponsors the sport. NCAA Division III and the Centennial Conference. The Centennial All-Sportsmanship Teams recognize student-athletes who exemplify the fundamental values of respect, fairness, civility, honesty, and responsibility both on and off the field or playing surface.
These student-athletes were selected by the head coaches from their respective teams.”
Eleanor Napoli and Simone Veale ’17 ran a marathon in celebration of Simone’s 21st birthday. The marathon was run on 6/3/20 as a way to stay active during the COVID-19 lockdown and the money raised from their run was donated to the Delaware Center for Racial Justice.
The pair was featured in a June 4, 2020 article in Delaware Online.
“At first, it was a way to get out and stay active and then we realized the pandemic was going to continue for a while,” Napoli said. “So we wanted to stay in shape and keep doing it and we were having fun and talking along the way and the miles just kept getting piled on. So then Simone had this idea to run a marathon on her birthday. Let’s go!”
Feeling what they were able to do Wednesday was a privilege, the pair also made their endeavor more than just about themselves.
Citing the attention devoted to racial unfairness sweeping the nation, they aimed to raise money and awareness about the Delaware Center for Racial Justice, which celebrates its 100th anniversary this month. They agreed with the center’s approach, Napoli said, that change begins by listening to those who are impacted.
“Typically for marathons you donate to a charity,” Veale said of the fund-raising nature of most running events, “so we had talked about wanting to do something for a charity. Especially given the current situation with all the protests, we were really inspired to do something that would make a difference.”
CLASS OF 2017
Hannah Kushner wrote, “I’m finishing my junior year at Lehigh and am planning to graduate a semester early. My major is in IDEAS (integrated degree in engineering arts and sciences) with concentrations in civil/environmental engineering and urban policy (really a mix
CLASS OF 2017 AND ’18
Alicia Thompson ’17 and Donovan Aldridge ’18 were in the same program in Buenos Aires, Argentina for UD’s winter session.
of political science, sustainable development, and urban studies). I am on track to earn Lehigh’s Presidential Scholarship upon graduation, which awards a free fifth year of tuition to students graduating with a 3.75 GPA or above and plan to use this to earn a MA in environmental policy. Outside of the classroom I am involved with the College Democrats and Lehigh Dancin’, and have also done some engineering mentoring and environmental activism.
“I started this semester studying abroad in Copenhagen and was having an excellent time exploring the city and learning about urban planning through the climate-change-oriented Scandinavian lens. I particularly enjoyed experiencing bicycle urbanism and hygge (loosely translated to ‘coziness’). The Coronavirus was slow to make a presence in Denmark, but the Danes were quick to take precautions once it became a serious threat. Because of that, I had a very abrupt exit, having to leave my host family and return home with about a day’s notice. Like you, I am now completing the semester on Zoom.
“If the public health situation improves this summer, I have an internship lined up in the resilient and sustainable engineering design unit at the Port Authority of NY & NJ. This will be my third professional experience, following a civil engineering internship at the design firm Sasaki and a planning internship at DelDOT. I’m not quite sure where I want to end up, but I’m definitely gravitating towards resilient transportation planning, which I think really started with my extended essay.”
