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Kleefisch in Trier,” she writes. “Unfortunately she had suffered from a stroke and is confined to a nursing home, but it was still good to see her and visit with her son and his family.”
1968 Reunion 2023, June 9–11 CLASS SECRETARY Rick Melpignano rickmel713@gmail.com
1969 Reunion 2024, June 7–9 CLASS SECRETARY Deborah Bliss Behler debbehler@aol.com CLASS PRESIDENT George Peters geo47peters@gmail.com Dick Brogadir still practices dentistry after 50 years — “a dream job,” he writes. “I work two days a week. I have no collection worries, no managing employees, no concerns about no-shows or broken equipment. And they even pay me. Fortunately I still have my health and skills. I am lucky and blessed. Bettina and I have seven grandchildren whom we see often. How great is that!”...Mary Buckson Fuller is “catching up on travel. First time at the Grand Canyon in 2022, and headed to Kenya and Tanzania in April!”...Greg DeLisle finally retired from Willie Ross School for the Deaf, in Longmeadow, Mass., “after 41 years there and 53 years in deaf education. When I graduated from Bates, I had no idea that such a career was even a remote possibility, but I enjoyed every year.” He also really enjoyed the 50th Reunion and sends thanks to those who planned it….Colin Fuller, his daughter Meaghan Fuller Stoddard ’00, and her husband, Ian, completed the Big Bear Marathon in southern California in November. Colin’s time of 4:14 qualifies him to run in the 2024 Boston Marathon. A cardiologist, Colin urges us all to “keep moving, as little as 10
JUDY MARDEN ’66
Gretchen Hess Daly enjoyed a fun cruise up the Inside Passage in Alaska last July with 18 family members and friends. She returned to Maine with an unwanted souvenir: COVID. “Thanks to vaccinations and boosters, it was a mild case.”...Aija Ronis Hopstock is enjoying partial retirement from the insurance business and spending quality time with her grandchildren — 5-year-old twins, a boy and girl. She, David, and family are all in good health although taking life more slowly. “My weeklong bike rides are now short, a leisurely 20 miles.”
PHOTO CREDIT
CLASS PRESIDENT Nancy Hohmann nhohmann@yahoo.com
Keeping It Greene In nearby Greene, Bates retiree Judy Marden ’66 continues to safeguard her land from development. She had previously established the Marden-Chittick Refuge, a 200-acre conservation easement. Recently, she protected her historic farmhouse through an easement with Maine Preservation, which was notarized in the college’s Muskie Archives by college archivist Sam Howes, with classmate Bill Hiss ’66 attending. “It’s wonderful to know that these easements will travel with the deeds forever, and no matter what happens to me, the land will stay forever wild, and the antique farmhouse will be protected from development or destruction,” says Marden. The house, which dates to the late 1700s, and the land got the name Alpine Farm around 1870 when it was a dairy operation. Marden purchased the farm in 1975 with the help of the late Jane Parsons Norris ’46, a local banker who went to bat for Marden, a single, divorced woman, so she could secure a mortgage.
minutes of jogging or 30 minutes of walking at least a few times a week, to enjoy a longer and healthier life.”...The concept of retirement has no reality for Peter Handler. As a climate activist, he’s a group leader of the Philadelphia Chapter of Citizens’ Climate Lobby and a co-founder and principal of Honoring the Future. And he is also a custom furniture maker. The lease on his studio wasn’t renewed, so Peter has gone in with a friend on a different workspace. His wife, Karen Singer, is in remission after a diagnosis of multiple myeloma, six months of chemotherapy, and a stem cell transplant. Peter adds that their grandchildren live nearby — their grandson is 5 and his sister was born “two days after the Insurrection.”…William Menke bought an Airstream Atlas (Tommy Bahama Special Edition) last fall and drove it 1,500 miles westward from the point of purchase in New Jersey to see his daughters: Kris and her husband, Craig, in Issaquah, Wash., and Anna and Jackson in
Berkeley, Calif. “Have now visited all states except three. Idaho and Utah are my new favorites.” He’s back at home in Twain Harte, Calif….Larry Power is “still laughing about the ‘reading of the rules for incoming Batesie males’ at our 50th Reunion. Priceless!”... Pastor Sam Richards told us about the February production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream offered by the youth theatrical troupe he oversees, the Southern Maine Association of Shakespearean Homeschoolers, aka SMASH. Held at Monmouth’s Cumston Hall, longtime home of The Theater at Monmouth, the three-performance run was “entertaining, excellently acted.”
1970 Reunion 2025, June 6–8 CLASS SECRETARIES Stephanie Leonard Bennett slenben@comcast.net Betsey Brown efant127@yahoo.com
CLASS PRESIDENT/ TREASURER Steve Andrick steve.andrick15@gmail.com CLASS VICE-PRESIDENT Barbara Hampel barbaraph@live.com James Glinski directs his energies in two directions since retirement: contributing to the history of Scituate, Mass., where he and Susan Denniston ’72 reside, and helping protect the South Shore environment. “Combining both interests, I wrote an article for the North and South Rivers Watershed Association on the history of the saltwater marshes of the South Shore.” He has also published a new local-history book, The Ceaseless War Against Intemperance: Scituate’s AnteBellum Temperance Movement, and joined the Scituate Historical Commission….John Shea spent a week on campus during the Bates Film Festival in April
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