Bates Magazine, Winter 2025

Winter 2025 28 Gene Clough, a Bates teacher with humble zeal and boundless curiosity.

36 1984 was “not a time for Bates to stand proudly looking backward.”

54 In Gomes Chapel, a healing display of patience and impermanence.

“That’s what drives us: helping students succeed.” Page 42

Source: Pieck’s address at Convocation on Sept. 3, 2024, which focused on grief and resilience. Pieck is the Clark A. Griffith ’53 Professor of Environmental Studies.

Grieving our losses develops the capacity for dealing with change, setbacks, and frustration. We learn to accept the uncertainty inherent to living. We realize that we, too, will change and grow from experiences we want and those we don’t. In this process, we often discover we’re even more capable and stronger than we thought.

The

Carter and Muskie

President Carter’s 1985 visit (“Recalling when Jimmy Carter visited Bates,” BatesNews, Dec. 29, 2024), the Muskie Archives, and Edmund Muskie ’36 himself hold a grateful and special place in my heart.

I was a Bates senior and had been working to organize Muskie’s 2,000plus boxes of material with Lisa Bishop ’86 and Nate Grove ’87. It was dirty, complicated, and a heck of a lot of fun. And it was an incredible honor for me to be asked to give President Carter, Sen. Muskie, Maine Gov. Joseph Brennan, and Bates President Thomas Hedley Reynolds a private tour prior to the dedication. In person, President Carter was everything that we read about today. To this nervous Bates senior, he was kind, reassuring, and so friendly — but also engaged, thoughtful, and interested.

At the dedication, standing tall next to President Carter was Muskie, one of Bates’ most famous alumni, a global statesman, and a fierce and capable legislator. Watching the genuine bond between these two incredible men will always be one of the greatest honors of this Batesie’s life

Jim Ross ’85 Westport, Conn.

Joe’s Influence

What a special human being Joe Castonguay is (“Thoughts from a Bates combat veteran on Veterans Day,” BatesNews, Nov. 15, 2024). He reminds me of a custodian/watchman I knew and loved at Bates in the 1960s, Mr. Beaulieu. Like Joe, “Mr. B.” was a role model for students: smiling, optimistic, and positive, and genuinely interested in student life — a hard worker. I am thrilled Joe is on campus and works around students who will learn from him.

Bill Farrington ’66 Plymouth, Mass.

Teachers

Below is a selection of comments from alumni about beloved and influential professors who recently passed away: Gene Clough, Sue Houchins, Rob Farnsworth, and George Ruff

Gene Clough was so smart, interesting, quirky, and too selfless and thoughtful of others. Ahead of my 30th Reunion, he contacted me and said he had my lab notebook — surprising, yet not out of the realm for Gene.

I remember things he told me, how he was never bored because he always had some problem he was working on, and if he were waiting (like for a bus, queuing, or a missed

What a world-benefitting legacy Sue Houchins left. Look at her resume, her focus on helping others and the less fortunate, her wide-ranging vision, her directive expertise, and her unbounded wisdom and faith. Truly, a progressive thinker and a credit to humankind.

A good life, lived strongly.

Harold Dana Pope ’81 Francestown, N.H.

connection), he’d just pull out the problem and get back to work on the solution.

I told him how much I use what I learned from him in my law practice helping my clients (e.g., to understand and critique accident reconstruction). Because of what Gene taught me, I’m never bored.

James Stern ’88 Denver, Colo.

A geology major, I was adrift for a thesis subject at the beginning of senior year. One day, Gene told me he’d picked up a device over the summer in California (probably at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory) and gotten it repaired by someone (at Caltech, maybe) with a part he found (who knows where).

The device measured the strength variation of gravity. “Let’s figure out how you can use a gravimeter to do some really interesting geophysics,” he said. “Oh, and while I picked it up for a few hundred dollars, it’s worth about $10,000 so don’t drop it when you’re out walking across the ice on the lake.”

I spent a fascinating and fun year modeling the subterranean structure of southern Androscoggin Lake using that device, a surveyor’s transit, a bathymeter, and an immense amount of math.

You, and your joy, will be missed, sir.

Matt Buchman ’80 Gloucester, Mass.

Rob Farnsworth modeled intellectual prowess without ego, depth of thought without cynicism, and precision with curiosity. He didn’t shy away from the soul of nature, art, tragedy, joy, people. With Rob, it wasn’t just about a few poetry classes or being a nice professor. It was about building a lens for seeing and processing and creating and celebrating and making meaning.

Cricket Alioto Fuller ’05 Hope, Maine

George Ruff was a remarkable teacher, mentor, and friend. Although I graduated with a chemistry degree, I did my senior honors thesis through the physics department, cheered on and supported every step of the way by my next door lab mate, Professor Ruff.

When I returned to Bates for my five year Reunion, a smiley note on the bulletin board from him proclaimed, “Welcome home, Dr. Coulter.” He left an indelible mark on the world. I am so proud to have known him.

Sarah Coulter ’96 Pleasanton, Calif.

Comments are selected from Bates social media, BatesNews, and email for relevance to Bates College. They are edited for clarity and length.

Email: magazine@bates.edu

Postal:

Bates Magazine

Bates Communications and Marketing

2 Andrews Rd. Lewiston, ME 04240

famous hug: Jimmy Carter embraces 6-foot-4-inch Edmund Muskie ’36 during the September 1985 dedication of the Muskie Archives. At left and right are Bates trustees Vincent McKusick ’44 and Bill Trafton.

FRANK SITEMAN

Lighting the Way

at this time of year , the setting sun directly illuminates Hathorn Hall—the first building on our magnificent campus. The sight is both a glowing reminder of Bates’ history and a beacon of inspiration as we consider, as we always do, the best path forward for the college.

This spirit of dynamic reflection and aspiration will guide us as we launch a strategic planning project at Bates this year. This work will, ultimately, develop the priorities for the next phase for Bates, and will by nature be forward-looking — but it will also be rooted in our enduring mission and values. Ideally, the strategic planning process will allow us to take a clear-eyed look at our strengths, confront emerging challenges, better understand the expectations of prospective students, and seize opportunities as they present themselves.

The work of strategic planning is an invitation to dream big, but also to act deliberately. It’s a process that involves deep listening, hard questions, and thoughtful prioritization. Over the next two years, we will engage broadly with those who know and care about Bates in conversations about what the college can and should be in the decades ahead. Together, we will shape our aspirations and define what is needed to achieve them.

This process will also lay the foundation for an ambitious fundraising campaign tied to Bates’ 175th anniversary in 2030. By aligning our vision with the resources to make it a reality, we will ensure that Bates is positioned to thrive — not just in the present, but for generations to come.

As I have spoken with various college constituencies about the strategic planning process, I have said repeatedly that the end goal is a thoughtful and actionable plan — not a wish list. It will be a well considered roadmap for moving Bates forward, informed by evidence and shaped by the voices of our community.

None of this work happens in isolation. A steering committee will lead the charge, and has already begun its work to better understand our position in the higher education landscape and the views of prospective students and their families, and to identify three to five broad areas of focus. In the fall of 2025, working groups organized around these areas of focus will begin to explore how they might take real and meaningful shape at Bates. Throughout, members of the college community will be invited to share their ideas, concerns, and aspirations and to have a say in where we go next.

I’ll close by referring you to this issue’s story about Bates’ decision in 1984 to end the requirement for standardized test scores as a consideration for admission. We were ahead of our time in making this change—and it’s a powerful example of how well this college can think strategically about its mission, the students it serves, and its future. I know that the same commitments will guide us well in our current planning effort. I’m ready. And I’m grateful to all of you, who help ensure that Bates continues to light the way forward. Here we go!

garry w. jenkins, president

Strategic planning is an invitation to dream big, but also to act deliberately. It’s a process that involves deep listening, hard questions, and thoughtful prioritization.

On the first day of the winter semester, Jan. 8, 2025, three friends catch up in Ladd Library.

Fleeting Frost

Winter made a brief appearance before the break, retreating soon after. In this early December drone photo of a snowy campus, Lake Andrews is not quite frozen, while snow struggles to cling to the dark pavement. Notice the dash of blue atop the Lane Hall pillars — that’s the recently painted pediment.

MATT HAMILTON ‘25

15 students named Emma are enrolled this year.

16 students named Andrew are enrolled this year.

My most surprising experience has been playing Bates rugby. I never thought I’d play sports in college. I have never loved a sport like rugby. Although I’ve only been playing for a few weeks, I hope to play all four years of college.

ETHAN VULCAIN-SOWKEY OF FLUSHING, N.Y

WHAT A SURPRISE

At the 30-day mark of the fall semester, Director of Photography and Video Phyllis Graber Jensen headed onto campus to invite a few members of the Class of 2028 to pose for a portrait. Along the way, she asked each, “What has surprised you most in your first 30 days at Bates?”

Honestly, it was really a nice, loving campus, but then midterms came up, and we decided to get busy and go hard-working. Despite all the busyness going on, everyone’s still very friendly, and really social too. I was really happy to see that.

AIDEN HABAS OF HULMEVILLE, PA.

One of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned is that I have the freedom to carve my own path and shape my journey, creating a future that is uniquely mine.

YASMEEN KHAN OF DIX HILLS, N.Y.

The Maple Syrup Club explores all aspects of maple sugaring.

The Breaks at Bates program funds students to host events during college breaks.

I’ve been really surprised by how friendly people are. It feels like everyone knows everyone on campus, and they all hold on to little details about each other, and community forms around you really quickly.

RAMONA MCNISH OF ALAMEDA, CALIF.

The Winter Carnival torch run spans 27 miles from the Maine State House to campus.

The most surprising thing has been how nice everyone is. Just a big family. Random people in your classes that you’ve never talked to will come up to you in Commons or wherever and start a conversation.

SEAN GÓMEZ OF MADRID, SPAIN

World of Talent

From local heroes to global advocates, the 491-member Class of 2028 arrived from 38 U.S. states plus Washington, D.C., and from 29 countries outside the U.S., with a wealth of talents and achievements, including students who:

• Advocated to end early marriage in Bangladesh, stopping 456 marriages

• Rehomed 900 dogs across six countries through a Russian dog-socialization program

• Organized a Queer Ball and other LGBTQ+ events for students

• Tutored Afghan girls barred from school by the Taliban

• Created a trail with interpretive text, Braille, and QR audio web interface for the visually impaired as an Eagle Scout project

• Conducted research on Black maternal mortality

• Researched climate change impacts on coral reefs

• Categorized fossils for the Field Museum

• Sang lead alto in the Beijing Philharmonic Choir

• Earned White House honors for environmental advocacy

• Became their school’s first female wrestling captain

• Served as lead builder on an internationally competitive robotics team

• Won grand champion for their steer at a Future Farmers of America show

Welcome to Maine!

First-year students Sami Kim (left) of San Diego and Malina Young of Los Angeles stopped on the Historic Quad to capture a fluffy snowfall on Dec. 5 with their phones. “This is my first time experiencing snow falling from the sky,” said Young. Kim added, “This is my first time living in snow.”

Sky Art

The northern lights danced across the Maine skies — and above Olin Arts Center — on Oct. 10 as a major solar storm reached Earth.

Clay Play

Leahey Field now features a hybrid surface. Natural grass covers the outfield surface, while synthetic FieldTurf covers the infield, foul territory, and bullpens, with green turf mimicking grass and brown turf representing typically dirt areas.

The FieldTurf installation features baseball-specific DoublePlay turf, replacing poorly draining marine clay soil with layers of crushed stone for improved drainage and playability.

The new surface will allow for expanded use — earlier in the spring and later in the fall. It also addressed a familiar geological problem at Bates: clay-rich soil, which drains poorly and becomes mucky when saturated and ceramic-hard when dry.

The revamped field includes a new drainage system directing runoff to Lake Andrews, plus rerouted irrigation for the natural grass areas.

The field is the college’s third baseball field. The first was next to Rand Hall (where the Gillespie Hall residence now stands), and the second was at the northern end of Garcelon Field.

To create space for Olin Arts Center in the mid-1980s, Bates moved the field to a new location across Campus Avenue, which, in 1990, was dedicated in honor of longtime coach Chick Leahey ’52.

Six stone benches surround Lake Andrews.

Hathorn Hall has five entrances.

Workers install sections of FieldTurf on the infield of Leahey Field, with green turf mimicking grass and brown turf representing traditional dirt areas.

JAY BURNS

250-plus hand sanitizing stations are around campus.

Model Employee

Each model at this year’s Trashion Show got shouts and applause from the audience, but the biggest was for Cheryl Lacey, the longtime director of dining services who began her retirement a few weeks later at semester’s end.

“I know how much our staff care about the students,” said President Garry W. Jenkins, who served as a judge for this year’s show, held on Nov. 20 in Gray Athletic Building. “To see our students give the love right back is a beautiful thing.”

Lacey’s quirky, almost extraterrestrial outfit featured an eclectic amalgamation of plastic food packaging: pasta bags, coffee bags, chocolate chip bags, a bag for limes, a bag for clementines, a container for watermelon, milk machine parts, alternative milk item packaging, and broken CDs.

Perched atop her head like an antenna was the discarded pump from inside a coffee creamer carton.

With lots of support from the college’s dining operation, Bates is one of the 10 “Top Performers” among undergraduate colleges listed by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE).

Student Eco-Reps help to raise awareness of the need for environmental stewardship with programs like the Trashion Show, featuring students, faculty, and staff modeling outfits crafted from campus trash and other throwaway items. (See also Bates in Brief, “The World.”).

For Lacey, there was a message in the material. “One of the things about packaging in food service is that there’s a lot of plastic,” Lacey said. “It’s necessary because you’ve got to worry about food safety. You have to worry about freshness and quality so it’s necessary but most of that’s not recyclable.” Someday, she hopes, food packaging will be sustainable and safe.

Lacey’s participation in creative and illuminating events like the Trashion Show will be part of her legacy as an engaged and dedicated Bates staff member.

“The show calls attention to the issue of waste and trying to divert waste from the waste stream. But beyond that, it just brings out the creativity in people and you see the most inspiring outfits. It’s amazing to see what people can do with trash. Amazing.”

Muskrats are among the animals living in Lake Andrews.

Hooded mergansers feed on crayfish in Lake Andrews.

THEOPHIL SYSLO

Director of Dining Services

Cheryl Lacey poses in her Trashion Show outfit in front of a colorful backdrop in Gray Athletic Building.

Federal law requires satisfactory progress toward a degree.

The Catalog is the official agreement between Bates and its students.

‘Wholesale Exclusion’

Associate Professor of Philosophy Paul Schofield has become a prominent voice on the moral and social implications of homelessness. His research and writing focus on what he calls the “unique injustice” of being unhoused, an issue that Schofield first began to explore during the pandemic after volunteering at a local food pantry and soup kitchen.

Homelessness, Schofield argues, isn’t merely extreme poverty — it’s a form of “wholesale exclusion from society.” In his widely shared Washington Post op-ed, he contends that progressives should more seriously address the crime and disorder associated with homelessness, which complicates efforts to resolve the issue compassionately. “Crime and disorder make it hard for everyone to live together peacefully,” Schofield says.

Schofield’s work extends beyond academic theory; his advocacy also includes shining a spotlight on photographers like J.M. Simpson, whose work he helped amplify on social media. Simpson’s images, which humanize the lives of unhoused individuals, went viral after Schofield shared them, prompting coverage by Seattle Met Schofield is now working on a book titled Exiled in Their Own Land, which argues for a homeless civil rights movement and explores the challenges faced by unhoused citizens.

“So much of what we do in society presumes that people have a home to go to, like when we all retreated to our homes during the pandemic,” he says.

“There’s been some writing by philosophers about homelessness, but not a ton, so it’s been rewarding to think and write about a topic that hasn’t already been debated to death.”

Students can earn independent study credit for academic-year work, not summer work.

A protester speaks with a line of Seattle, Wash., police officers during the George Floyd protests on May 30, 2020. Activists and social critics serve complementary roles in U.S. society, explains Assistant Professor of Politics Lisa Gilson.

THIS JUST IN

A sampling of recent articles by faculty, plus one student

Asymmetric Effects of Positive and Negative Commodity Price Shocks During Civil Wars

Publication: Defence and Peace Economics • Authors: Daniel Riera-Crichton and coauthor • What It Explains: How changes in the prices of commodities, like oil, affect conflict in countries. While falling prices tend to increase conflict, rising prices can also make it worse, especially in countries with weak institutions and dependence on fossil fuels. Improving institutions, diversifying economies, and stabilizing prices could help reduce conflict.

Student Preferences for Treatment in College Counseling Centers

Publication: Journal of American College Health • Authors: Kathryn Graff Low and Joanna Cloutier ’23 • What It Explains: Student preferences for mental health treatments. Individual therapy was preferred, with male students favoring self-help options. It highlights gender and racial differences in treatment preferences and calls for more personalized mental health services in colleges.

Holocene Surface-Rupturing Paleo-Earthquakes Along the Kachchh Mainland Fault

Publication: Scientific Reports • Authors: Shreya Arora and coauthors • What It Explains: The seismic history of the Kachchh region in India, identifying three major surface-rupturing earthquakes in the last 10,000 years. It emphasizes the need for better seismic preparedness in the region due to the ongoing earthquake hazard.

Activism versus Criticism? The Case for a Distinctive Role for Social Critics

Publication: American Political Science Review •

Author: Lisa Gilson • What It Explains: How activists and non-activist social critics serve complementary roles in society. Activists push for direct change, while critics promote self-reflection and preserve democratic discourse, highlighting the value of distinguishing these roles in democratic engagement and political reform.

DEREK SIMEONE

“Jess” stands before her home in the “Jungle,” a longstanding encampment in Olympia, Wash., in this photograph by J.M. Simpson, whose work Paul Schofield helped to amplify.

Paul Schofield

THE COLLEGE

Bates curtails energy use during heat waves to help offset demand on the energy grid.

Facility Services manages planning, construction, renovation, and maintenance of buildings.

Grief & Love

You won’t find “grief-love” in Webster’s, but when the Rev. Brittany Longsdorf used the term on Oct. 25 in Gomes Chapel, its meaning hit home for her Bates audience.

Longsdorf, the college’s multifaith chaplain, was among the speakers at a campus remembrance service one year after the mass shootings in Lewiston on Oct. 25, 2023, that killed 18 people.

Feelings of grief, she said, are “simply another form of love,” and over the past year, Bates and Lewiston have grieved together. “Our grief-love has bound us to each other in profound and new ways.”

In his remarks, President Garry W. Jenkins spoke of the duality, too: “We meet in shared grief, and care, and in love, and also in shared reflection and hope for our neighbors, our city, our community.”

During the service, the sanctuary was bathed in blue, the color of Lewiston High School, and the altar displayed the names and photographs of the 18 people killed in the shootings and a garland of ribbons upon which Bates community

members had written blessings, wishes, and hopes for Lewiston. “We have tied these many blessings and words of love to a common rope, a single thread, as a symbol of our ties in this community,” said Longsdorf.

Reflections on the mass shootings were part of the fabric of the fall semester. Sonja Pieck, the Clark A.

Griffith Professor of Environmental Studies, devoted much of her Convocation address to the concept of grief, offering advice to the college’s newest students: Don’t push aside important emotions like grief.

Pieck’s research explores how land and nature become meaningful to people. She has researched the conservation

A student bows his head during the reading of the names of the 18 people killed in the mass shootings in Lewiston.

Held one year after the mass shootings in Lewiston, a remembrance service on Oct. 25, 2024, in Gomes Chapel offered the college community an opportunity to reflect on the relationship of grief and love.

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

The seal of Bates College must be circular.

Bates is incorporated in Maine as a “public benefit corporation.”

Any Bates community member can submit a nomination for honorary degrees.

of the once-militarized Iron Curtain borderland between the former East and West Germany, where violence and death, and thus grief, were part of the border’s history.

She recalled how, in fall 2023, she and her students in the course “The Politics of Wildlife Conservation” were studying species extinction. “Grief had been our constant companion,” she recalled. After the shootings, her students

explored the difference between grief and despair, noting that grief was the dominant emotion. “Grief was everywhere. Despair, however, was not,” Pieck recalled. “A trip through Lewiston neighborhoods showed the living, changing facets of grief — fear, sadness, confusion, anger — and also love, connection, community care, courage.”

In contrast to despair, grief is alive, said Pieck. “Grief is born from the loss of something we love...a hallmark of care and the price we pay for the joy of loving.”

Students can learn life lessons from grief, she said, such as how to slow down to “become sensitive to even the tiniest magnificence.” And how to be resilient, the “capacity for dealing with change, with setbacks, with frustration — the uncertainty inherent to living.” And finally, grief teaches the power of community, “opening us up to our common humanity and bringing us together,” said Pieck. Ultimately, grief asks us simply to keep going. “It touches us and moves us so deeply,” said Anzal Isaak ’26 of Lewiston during the remembrance service, “but then it asks us to find our way forward.”

In December, Rosanna Ferro joined the college’s senior leadership team as vice president for student affairs, overseeing a division that comprises 13 campus life and student services departments. Ferro comes to Bates from College Track, a comprehensive college access and completion nonprofit where she was the inaugural chief of education. Prior to College Track, she was vice president for student affairs and campus life at Ithaca College.

“We are thrilled to welcome Rosanna Ferro to Bates College,” said President Garry W. Jenkins. “Her commitment to fostering inclusive communities, her proven leadership, and her dedication to student success will be great additions as we move forward with a vision of community, academic excellence, and engaged citizenship.”

Sonja Pieck, the Clark A. Griffith Professor of Environmental Studies, offered reflections on the 2023 mass shootings in Lewiston during her Convocation address.

PHYLLIS GRABER

JENSEN

PHYLLIS GRABER

JENSEN

Rosanna Ferro

During the remembrance service in Gomes Chapel, the altar honored the memory of those killed in the Lewiston mass shootings.

CITY PALETTE

photography by phyllis graber jensen

Colorful and creative, a wave of public art has burst onto downtown Lewiston in recent years: huge, splashy murals on historic brick buildings, shapely sculptures rising skyward, and even cleverly decorated cornhole boards at the farmers’ market.

Cat Quotes

Quotes from Bobcats, gleaned from the weekly Bobcast podcast.

Isabelle Meltzer ’28 (right) of Summit, N.J., overcame first-tee jitters in her first college match, the Husson Eagle Invitational, to earn co-medalist honors with fellow rookie Sarah Wicks ’28 (left) of Tampa, Fla., each shooting 75 at Bangor Municipal Golf Course.

Take Two

Field hockey

standout Anna Cote ’25 (left) of Auburn, Maine, concluded her All-American career this fall. Her sister, Paige ’23 (right), also earned All-America honors in the sport. The Cote sisters join four other sibling pairs who both earned All-America honors at Bates:

• Hannah Johnson ’20 and Tim Johnson ’27 (swimming)

• Caroline Depew ’16 and Jonathan Depew ’18 (swimming)

• Lindsey Prelgovisk ’16 and Kristy Prelgovisk ’19 (swimming)

• Noah Gauthier ’08 and Dustin Gauthier ’05 (throwing)

A campus pickleball challenge drew 25 teams this year.

1. “I don’t check the record. I see we’re playing Bantams, and cats eat birds.”

— Women’s soccer player Isabelle Bernal ’28 of San Francisco, Calif., on her mindset before a game vs. the Trinity Bantams, which the Bobcats won, hence “cats eat birds.”

4. “Sometimes I’d be on the sidelines thinking, ‘Oh my God, these girls are so cool.’ And then you realize they’re your teammates and you’re the one pushing them in practice every day.”

— Field hockey player Haley Dwight ’27 of West Newbury, Mass., reflecting on her rookie season in 2023.

NESCAC sponsors championships in 27 sports across fall, winter, and spring.

2. “I’ve been playing football since I was 6. The first time I stepped on the field I immediately loved it.”

— Football linebacker Ryan Rozich ’27 of Cromwell, Conn., on loving the game.

5. “I like to trash-talk the player, just telling him it’s not his day. But as a freshman, the pressure’s also on me.”

— Rookie men’s soccer goalkeeper George Nassar ’28 of Newtonville, Mass., on the moments before his penalty save that made ESPN SportCenter’s Top 10.

3. “I just had to place it in the corner. But in the moment, I was freaking out: ‘Please don’t miss. Please don’t miss.’”

— Women’s soccer player Rachel Suh ’27 of Bellevue, Wash., on her winning goal vs. Trinity.

6. “My coach said it looked like I was going to throw up.”

— Women’s golfer Isabelle Meltzer ’28 of Summit, N.J., on her first-tee jitters prior to her first college match. She settled down, shooting a 75, good for co-medalist honors with fellow rookie Sarah Wicks ’28.

ABBY SPECTOR

Around 120 students support Bates Athletics through various campus jobs.

The student job “Contest Operations Assistant” includes scoreboard and clock management.

Headphones/earphones are required when using portable devices in Athletics facilities.

Turf’s Up

Russell Street Track and Field has undergone its biggest upgrade since its opening in 2001: Synthetic FieldTurf has replaced the grass surface, affording nearly yearround playability, and stadium lights now surround the complex, expanding the facility’s use from daytime into the evening.

The $3 million project was a donor-college collaboration. Alumni, parents, and friends contributed $2 million, and Bates provided the balance.

The improvements follow the installation, in 2022, of a new and improved track surface, Mondo Sportflex Super X 720.

At a Sept. 28 dedication event during Back to Bates weekend, Anna Masumoto ’25 of Seattle, a senior captain of the women’s soccer team, explained how Bates student-athletes feel when they have the support of both the college and donors.

“We feel the benefits every time we step out onto the field,” Masumoto said. “This field is more than just a new space for us to play, it is a symbol of the future we’re building for Bates athletics.”

She expressed thanks to the Bates community for “this step forward and for believing in the future of Bates athletics.”

Opened in 2001, Russell Street Track and Field has been substantially improved in recent years. In 2022, the college installed a new track surface, Mondo Sportflex Super X 720 and, in 2024, installed a FieldTurf playing surface, a new scoreboard, and stadium lights.

Double Feature

Bates fans were doubly delighted to see the Bobcats twice featured in ESPN SportsCenter ’s nightly top-10 plays of the day — both showcasing the talents of first-year soccer players.

The first top-10 gem, on Sept. 3, showcased the talents of Isabelle Bernal ’28 of San Francisco, Calif., who made a dazzling back heel flip for a goal vs. Husson University.

The second top-10 sealed a thrilling men’s soccer road win on Sept. 10 at the University of New England. With 55 seconds left, goalkeeper George Nassar ’28 of Newtonville, Mass., dived to deny a penalty kick.

Scan here to watch the Bobcat top-10 highlights:

Noah Greiff ’27 of Washington, D.C., and an Amherst opponent rise together for a header during the teams’ Back to Bates match on Sept. 28, one of the first games on the newly renovated Russell Street Track and Field.

THEOPHIL SYSLO

THEOPHIL SYSLO

ARTS & CULTURE

Watch the Momenta Quartet livestream on March 14: bates.edu/music/concertrecordings.

Bates multifaith chaplains are available to all members of the campus community.

In fall 2018, Museum of Art Director Dan Mills directs a forklift placing a bale of recyclable plastics outside Commons, part of artist Adriane Herman’s sustainability-focused installation Out of Sorts. Under Mills, the museum consistently developed original and compelling exhibitions and related programs.

Artful Legacy

Daniel Mills, director of the Bates College Museum of Art for 14 years, retired at the end of the fall semester, concluding a tenure that has seen expanded and diversified collections, a robust program of dynamic exhibitions, and greater engagement with the campus and community.

“When I arrived, the museum had a fine reputation but was understaffed and under-resourced,” Mills said. Over the years, he has overseen a doubling of staff, exponential growth in endowments, and the addition of more than 2,000 objects to the collection.

“Dan has been a keen observer of national trends and has organized exhibits involving emerging artists and

topics of national interest,” said Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty Malcolm Hill. “He has overseen many positive changes at the museum and leaves behind a rich legacy.”

Dan has been a keen observer of national trends and has organized exhibits involving emerging artists and topics of national interest. He has overseen many positive changes at the museum and leaves behind a rich legacy.

This gelatin silver print by an unknown photographer shows Marsden Hartley in Cannes, France, in 1925. Under Mills, the museum solidified its role as a steward of the Marsden Hartley Memorial Collection.

The IMStudio in Coram is a multimedia projection space integrating technology and the arts.

Music lessons cost $575 per semester for 11 lessons, each 45 minutes.

New to the Museum

Mills said that he’s proud of these collections and acquisitions during his 14 years as director:

• Ashley Bryan Collection : 50-plus works by the late African American artist, recognized as one of Maine’s cultural treasures for his paintings, prints, illustrations, puppet making, books, and storytelling.

This colored porcelain work by Jane Peiser, titled Vase is part of the museum’s Jane Costello ’60 Wellehan Collection.

“One part of the role of the director is to be an arts advocate,” Mills said. “The museum has accomplished this by expanding programs and partnerships that result in having art be part of our campus community’s lives through academic, cultural, and social programming.”

Through such programming, Bates students have been able to “meet artists, explore new ideas, and experience those ‘aha’ moments when the direct engagement with art deepens their understanding,” he said.

Under Mills’ leadership, the museum also solidified its role as a steward of the Marsden Hartley Memorial Collection, the largest collection of works by the renowned, Lewiston-born modernist, and expanded the Bates-Hartley connection with the establishment of the Marsden Hartley Legacy Project, the first comprehensive, annotated online catalogue of his paintings and works on paper.

Bates offers music lessons on instruments including the Arabic nay, oud, and tabla.

• Barbara Morris Goodbody Photography Collection : More than 125 photographs on themes of empathy and compassion.

• Carl Benton Straub Collection : More than 100 artworks that represent Straub’s belief in art’s ability to enable understanding of one’s place in the world, including our environment and landscape.

• Jane Costello ’60 Wellehan Collection : Nearly 100 paintings, ceramic vessels, baskets, drawings, photographs, and prints with a focus on Maine-connected artists.

• Collection of Shaman art from Vietnam and southern China : One of very few in the U.S., developed in partnership with Trian Nguyen, an associate professor of art and visual culture.

From the Ashley Bryan Collection, given to the Museum of Art by Henry Isaacs and Donna Bartnoff Isaacs, Bryan’s undated painting “I Cannot Reach It Yet.”

Robert Solotaire’s oil painting West Harpswell Baptist Church is part of the museum’s Carl Benton Straub Collection.

LEWISTON

The 10-foot statue commemorates Ali’s 1965 knockout victory in Lewiston...

Musical Moments

Commuter traffic rumbled past the homey building located on Main Street, but out back the vibe was more settled. Not tires and engine noise but classical music was the sound of the moment.

In early October, two Bates students and a newly appointed assistant professor of music helped to bring the soothing beauty of music, through piano and voice, to an audience at the Looking Ahead Clubhouse, a vocational center for adults living with mental illness.

The Bates musicians performed as part of the national Gather Hear Tour, led by pianist Miki Sawada, who is visiting various towns and cities to perform for audiences who may not typically have access to live music.

At the clubhouse on Oct. 4, she and the Bates students and their professor performed outside on the deck behind the building, located just a mile from campus; clubhouse members sat close by.

Jahan Baker-Wainwright ’25, a biochemistry major from Cottage Grove,

Wis., played Beethoven’s Sonata No. 8 (“Pathetique”), while Marrich Somridhivej ’26, a biology major from South Windsor, Conn., performed Amy Beach’s “Summer Dreams” alongside Sawada.

Zen Kuriyama, who joined the Bates faculty this fall and directs the College Choir, sang two pieces by Franz

Schubert: the emotionally charged “Der Doppelgänger” and the uplifting “An die Musik.” Choosing contrasting selections was intentional, said Kuriyama. “We wanted songs that represented a binary of mental states — one ecstatic and joyful, the other frenetic and dark.”

Chris Gepford, who is director of the Looking Ahead Clubhouse, said that the event hit some important notes. “We had recently started a relationship with Bates,” through the Harward Center for Community Partnerships, “and this was a wonderful way to start our partnership,” he said.

For the students, the Gather Hear performance was a meaningful opportunity to connect through music. Somridhivej, who has been playing the piano since age 6, noted how he has typically performed for judges or a competition jury, where the focus is on technical precision.

At the clubhouse, his performance “became less about perfection, and more about connecting with people and sharing the beauty of music.”

A Muhammad Ali statue will be installed outside Lewiston’s Bates Mill No. 5...

Jahan Baker-Wainwright ’25, a biochemistry major from Cottage Grove, Wis., performs Beethoven’s “Pathetique” sonata during the Gather Hear concert at the Looking Ahead Clubhouse on Main Street in Lewiston on Oct. 4.

The Gather Hear Tour brings classical music to audiences that might not have access to live performances.

DARYN SLOVER

The privately funded statue will be unveiled for the 60th anniversary of Ali’s victory in May...

The statue depicts Ali looming over fallen Sonny Liston, based on Neil Leifer’s iconic photo...

What’s in a Name: Franklin

A side street extending south from Campus Avenue opposite Chase Hall, Franklin Street is among a few thoroughfares near campus named to honor the Boston-based industrialists who founded Lewiston’s mills in the 1800s and supported Bates College in its early days.

But in the case of Franklin Street, the name honors a company rather than a person.

The Streets

Besides Franklin Street, Nichols, Bardwell, and Wood streets are named

Zenos Frudakis, known for Philadelphia’s Freedom installation, is the sculptor.

for Boston-based industrialists: Lyman Nichols, Josiah Bardwell, and William Barry Wood.

The Franklin Company

Starting in the 1830s, local investors bought up large parcels of land on either side of the Androscoggin River, with an eye on the river’s water-power potential. Benjamin Bates entered the scene by 1857, establishing the Bates cotton mill in 1850.

In 1857, strapped for cash due to a recession, the local investors sold their shares to the newly created Franklin Company, a holding company controlled mostly by Benjamin Bates and other Boston-based industrialists.

The Franklin Gift

Flush with land, water rights, and a new infusion of financial capital from Boston, the Franklin Company continued to build mills along the river; importantly, the company also developed Lewiston’s downtown infrastructure, donating land for educational, religious, and cultural purposes.

The company gave five acres for the site of Maine State Seminary, which was crucial

to Lewiston being chosen for the site of Oren Cheney’s newly chartered school. Franklin donated another two acres to Bates in 1876, where Chase Hall now stands, and gave a strip of land measuring 63 feet by 511 feet to Bates in 1898 to become part of Garcelon Field. And in 1955, Bates purchased 15 acres from the company for $166,000; it’s where Leahey Field, Merrill Gymnasium and other sports facilities are located.

Among the company’s other 19th-century gifts were 11 acres for the downtown park, now Kennedy Park. An 1898 editorial in the Evening Journal noted that “hardly an industry of note in this city but the Franklin Company has in some way contributed to its encouragement while the religious and charitable organizations have always found in it a staunch supporter.”

Franklin Today

Still involved in local business development, Franklin was praised by the Lewiston-Auburn Economics Growth Council in 2005 for supporting the redevelopment of the city’s southern gateway.

Rescue Ready

Last August, Lewiston firefighters took part in training exercises at a Bates-owned house at 126 Wood Street that was slated for razing. Firefighters practiced ventilation operations on the roof and how to enter the building, locate individuals trapped on an upper floor, and remove them safely.

When possible, Bates invites the Lewiston Fire Department to train in old buildings prior to demolition. The local firefighters value the opportunity because realistic firefighter training sites aren’t easy to come by — especially ones that are just a half-mile from Lewiston’s downtown fire station, which ensures that firefighters are still in a position to respond to real emergencies as they’re training.

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While most street names near campus are named for people, Franklin Street is named for a company with a deep history of supporting Lewiston and Bates.

THE WORLD

French students can do oral history projects in francophone communities here and abroad.

International students are defined as non-citizens who require a visa to be in the U.S.

The flowing, colorful outfit designed by Shristi Tamang ’28 (right) of Kathmandu, Nepal, and modeled by Mari Nolasco Alcantara ’28 (left) of Tlaxcala, Mexico, drew inspiration from indigenous Tamang traditions of Nepal.

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Mari Nolasco Alcantara ’28 of Tlaxcala, Mexico, models her classmate’s Nepali-inspired outfit during November’s Trashion Show in the Gray Athletic Building.

Bates waives the $65 application fee for international students.

Bates is part of the largest international scholarship program: Davis United World Scholars.

Study abroad advice: Bring flexibility, humor, and wellhoned observation skills.

A Trashion Show mainstay over the years as an emcee, judge, and model, Professor of French and Francophone Studies Kirk Read exhibits his trademark joie de Trashion Show

Trash to Tintin

Fashion globally, act locally was a theme of the 19th annual Trashion Show, held in the Gray Athletic Building after the Harvest Meal.

Shristi Tamang ’28 of Kathmandu, Nepal, drew inspiration from her home country, specifically the tradition of Tamang Selo, a music and dance of the indigenous Tamang people of the Himalayan region of Nepal. In terms of fashion, “it’s about vibrant skirts and a top,” she said.

Accompanied by traditional music, Mari Nolasco Alcantara ’28 of Tlaxcala, Mexico, modeled the outfit, showing off a light, airy skirt made from discarded gift-wrapping paper and accessorized with flowerand-resin jewelry that Tamang crafted herself. “Real flowers,” Tamang said, pointing toward a bright purple flower on Alcantara’s necklace.

“Even the earrings are made from real flowers.”

Professor of French and Francophone Studies Kirk Read created what he called “acleisure”: academic leisure wear. Reflecting his long interest in the Belgian cartoon character Tintin, the outfit was made from 25 years of collected The Adventures of Tintin calendars. (Helping him with the outfit was Kerry O’Brien, retired assistant dean of the faculty.)

“I am a fanatic of Tintin,” Read said. “I am both an advertisement and a ‘trashionista.’”

For her Trashion Show outfit, Shristi Tamang ’28 designed a necklace and accessories, crafting them with flowers beautifully preserved in resin.

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

Book suggestions from the college’s annual Good Reads summer reading list:

BOOKS

Stranger in the Shogun’s City by Amy Stanley

Suggested by Bill Hiss ’66, retired staff : Based on decades of letters, an exploration of an early1800s Japanese woman’s struggle for independence and how, after three divorces, she made her way to Edo, which would become Tokyo.

Bobcat Blooper

How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water by Angie Cruz

Suggested by Emily Kane, sociology faculty : A novel in the form of monthly reports of job-counseling sessions for a 50-something Dominican woman in New York City. Funny, engaging, and addressing important social issues.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

Suggested by Stephanie Pridgeon, Hispanic studies faculty : Metaphors and images from video games shed light on authentic, compelling stories of childhood friendships that wax and wane into adulthood.

Topless Cellist by Joan Rothfuss

Suggested by Samantha Sigmon, Museum of Art staff : A Juilliard-trained cellist and an avantgarde musician and artist, Charlotte Moorman championed contemporary art on the fringe in the 1960s and ’70s.

Inspired by the epic and unintentionally funny baking fails on the Netflix cooking show Nailed It!, this tasty (if homely) baked Bobcat, created by the staff of the college’s Sponsored Programs and Research Compliance office, showed up at last spring’s Edible Books Festival.

BATES HISTORY

QUIZ

Fifty years ago, U.S. Sen. Ed Muskie ‘36 received a national honor, alongside playwright Neil Simon, baseball pitcher Catfish Hunter, pro golfer Johnny Miller, actor Ted Knight, NBC Today Show host Jim Hartz, and others. What was the award?

Fathers of the Year for 1975 by the National Father’s Day Committee.

Answer : Muskie and the others were named

For one of their sports portraits this fall, seniors on the women’s cross country team paid tribute to their beloved home course, Pineland Farms, a sustainable nonprofit working farm in Gray. At Pineland, workouts might end with a visit to see baby calves and a stop at the farm’s market for a bottle of chocolate milk from Smiling Hill, another sustainable Maine farm. “We love Pineland!” says co-captain Lily Miller ’25 of Claremont, Calif.

Charmed, I’m Sure

The Bates Bobcat, looking more like a werewolf, was part of a silver charm bracelet listed on eBay featuring 12 Maine-related charms. Colby and Bowdoin were also included, along with a lobster, moose, the state seal, a sloop, and Sugarloaf Mountain.

‘HOW DOES

Gene Clough, who died Oct. 23, 2024, at age 77, had a warm heart, boundless zeal, and infectious curiosity that inspired generations of students to find joy in exploring and understanding their technology-driven world. Through this tribute by his former student Noah Petro ’01, followed by photos and stories of Clough’s life, we remember a Bates teacher who empowered students to have confidence in how things worked, from the ground up

BY NOAH PETRO ’01

At a pre-graduation

NOAH PETRO

luncheon in 2001, Noah Petro, top right, poses with Gene Clough, seated, and Lewiston High School educator Tom Stocker, who was Petro’s mentor as a student teacher in the local public schools.

IT WORK?’

GENE CLOUGH TAUGHT ME HOW TO BE CURIOUS.

I can’t look at data from the moon, especially the far side that he loved so much, without channeling his passion and curiosity.

Gene’s fascination with the far side of the moon epitomized who he was as an educator. The moon’s far side is the realm of the explorer. One cannot simply see the lunar far side from Earth: We need to build machines to take a human or an instrument there to do that for us. In that way, it represents the best of human curiosity. The best of a teacher like Gene Clough.

I vividly recall the first time I met with Gene: Oct. 20, 1997. He was filling in for Professor of Geology Dyk Eusden’s 100-level class. That day, Gene introduced the notion of studying the geology of the moon and planets and how space exploration also offers insights into the history of the Earth.

Afterward, I introduced myself to him and started a conversation that, as Gene would put it, went on for years. He introduced me to the field of planetary geology, supported my academic interest and helped me craft an undergraduate education that prepared me for graduate school and an eventual career with NASA, where I am the project scientist for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Gene loved the notion of exploring and understanding what we don’t know by breaking large problems down into small, discrete chunks. From understanding the evolution of the moon and lunar topography to how machines work, he approached problems by starting with fundamental questions. “How does it work? What drives it?”

Gene wanted students to challenge all assumptions, to not just accept what they were told as true but also to explore why it may be true. His First-Year Seminar, “Anatomy of a Few Small Machines,” pushed students to learn how to make, build, and fix machines. Students learned not only how things worked, but knew how they worked.

I vividly remember in a geology thesis presentation how a student made an assertion that the Coriolis force, which is caused by the Earth’s rotation influencing wind and ocean currents,

could cause river sediment to accumulate preferentially on one side of a lake versus another.

Gene and I spent about 20 minutes using basic math and assumptions to prove to ourselves that, indeed, such a phenomenon could occur. I took away from Gene that one should always seek to simplify a problem to as basic a math or physics question as possible. Gene applied this idea to each of the many academic fields he taught: geology, physics and astronomy, education, rhetoric, math, computer science, as well as independent studies in a range of topics — even Swedish.

When I was in graduate school at Brown, Gene visited me for a day. We toured a Soviet submarine near the city, and while we were inside, he pointed out parts of the sub that didn’t make sense until we stepped outside and saw how everything connected. Afterward, he said, “I think now that we’ve seen it all, we should go through it one more time, just to be sure!” And sure enough we did. That was Gene in a nutshell. It’s not enough to see something; you should want to know it as well.

Hardly a day goes by without a lesson, a quote, a philosophy from Gene crossing my mind.

Gene opened a door for me, showing me the world of planetary science. He’d always say that he only opened that door and it was up to me to run through it. But he did far more than that: He also taught me and others how the door worked and how to open doors for others. n

NOAH PETRO ’01 | Petro is the project scientist for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, NASA’s ongoing mission to map and measure the moon, and for the Artemis III Mission, NASA’s first mission to send humans to the lunar surface since 1972.

BEATING THE ODDS FOUNDATION

CIRCA 1955: Workshopping with Dad

This family photo shows Gene Clough as a child with his father in the basement workshop of his father’s father in Wilmington, Del.

Clough came from a family of fixers and even inventors, where the reaction to a broken household item was, “Do we fix, or replace, or get someone else to look at it?”

His paternal grandfather invented two products: StaClene, a paint-can holder for a brush, and ReachItWrench, which could hold and screw a small nut onto a bolt deep within a cavity.

The family might not have always done the repair, but “we almost always did the diagnosis, and this attitude and ability was supported by a substantial machine shop in the garage,” Clough wrote in his memoir, Technology from the Very Bottom. “When my junior high school friends would play ball in the streets after school, I could go into the garage and make things out of steel.”

CIRCA 1968: Undergrad at Caltech

Clough poses for an ROTC portrait while he was an undergraduate at the California Institute of Technology, where he earned bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in physics.

1985: Tenure denial

Appointed as a tenure-track assistant professor of physics in 1978, Clough was, in 1985, denied tenure. He was equanimous, acknowledging that a key criterion for promotion, research output, had been lacking because he preferred to focus on teaching.

He told The Bates Student he had “no negative feelings” about the college. There were “no villains,” he said, describing his Bates experience not as “preparation for something else” but as a “useful, productive time of my life.”

Nearly always, a negative tenure decision means the faculty member leaves the college. But Clough’s zeal for helping, teaching, and solving problems made him a perfect fit for a newly created position, director of technical support services.

CIRCA 1955

CIRCA 1968

GENE CLOUGH

1986: Documenting Olin

Clough’s transition from professor to technical support coincided with the construction of Olin Arts Center, and Clough played a key role in the design of Olin’s concert hall by offering input on acoustics and technical features.

Here, with Ray Viere of Facility Services, he’s capturing video of the Olin dedication in October 1986.

An avid photographer, Clough created a time-lapse film of Olin’s construction with an ingenious device that he built inside a Lane Hall storage room that faced the Olin construction site.

The setup featured a film camera (Paillard BOLEX H-16 Reflex) and an electric intervalometer that pushed the film camera’s single-frame button and wound the film to the next frame. A Tork clock system turned the camera off at night and on weekends.

He also created a slideshow capturing the building’s creation and the growth of the arts at Bates. The show employed nine

slide projectors displaying 900 of Clough’s own slides, and featured innovative crossfades that displayed up to five images on the screen at one time. Clough insisted that all music used for the soundtrack be by Bates students.

In his work in technical support, Clough videotaped hundreds of Bates events and performances that are now preserved in the Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library.

1990:

Being with BCTV

In Hathorn Hall’s basement, students operate the controls of closed-circuit Bates College

Television. Clough advised BCTV beginning in 1988, and legend says that he laid much of the system’s connecting cable himself, threading it through existing underground conduits.

“He was relentless in his dedication to giving students the technological backbone to create and deliver programming,” said Craig Patton ’91. “He crawled into places and got dinged up on our behalf. He was a model adviser to the fledgling BCTV club, always available and supportive but letting us make the decisions, as long as what we wanted to do was feasible.

“The other thing I remember is how much he hated it if we thanked him on air. Which, of course, we did regularly because he deserved our gratitude. Gene Clough was humble, kind, and healthily obsessed with his work. BCTV was a huge part of my college experience, and I’m eternally grateful to him for making it all possible.”

1998: A Student rating

In the 1990s, Clough returned to teaching after working in audio-visual support. The Bates Student took notice in its “Bates Rates” segment, giving Clough an up vote and quipping that it would take a small army to replace him as an “uber-techy bad ass.”

In addition to BCTV advising, Clough advised the Photography Club and the Mirror yearbook. “Gene is the Mirror’s mentor,” the editors wrote in 1993. “Whenever we needed a photo or advice, Gene was ready and willing to help.”

2001: Buckling down

This vintage brass belt buckle was a gift from Clough to Noah Petro ’01 after Petro’s successful senior honors thesis defense.

The buckle commemorates the Viking touchdown on Mars in 1976. Clough had been fascinated with the buckle ever

since working with the U.S. Geological Survey in the late 1970s in Flagstaff, Ariz., where many of the geologists wore the buckle. Clough secured a dozen of the buckles for his students.

“It was Gene’s ambition that his students have part of that legacy, and I’m proud to wear it to this day,” says Petro.

2001: Connecting at Reunion

At Reunion 2001, Clough talks with Andrew Stabnick ’91 outside Chase Hall. That year, he received the College Key’s award for faculty and staff. As was noted in Bates Magazine, Clough was “renowned for his seemingly bottomless reservoir of devotion to students and alumni needs”:

• Offering his home for families to stay at graduation;

• Pulling all-nighters at Reunion to help with setup and programming;

• Cooking a Thanksgiving feast (where everything, even the applesauce, is made from scratch) for students in his First-Year Seminar;

• Teaching himself Swedish, then teaching a course in it. Stu Abelson ’97, then president of the College Key, praised

NOAH PETRO

Clough for being “what Bates is all about: passion for living, passion for learning, passion for giving back to the community.”

2005: The iron lung

At his home on Nichols Street in August 2005, Clough eases into a working iron lung, on loan from a local hospital. A member of the Association on Higher Education and Disability, Clough was an early advocate at Bates for improving the accessibility of campus buildings. It’s said he lived for part of a summer in Adams, in a wheelchair, to evaluate its accessibility.

He taught the Short Term course “Experiencing Disability” in the 1990s to give students the opportunity to experience obstacles faced by people with a variety of disabilities.

2005: Man and machine

Clough seems completely at home amidst the machinery at the Saugus (Mass.) Iron Works,

a National Historic Site, during a field trip for his First-Year Seminar, “The Anatomy of a Few Small Machines.”

The course encouraged students to regard machines and technology not as black boxes, but extensions of our minds and hands. It was his way of realizing, in the words of the Bates mission statement, the “emancipating potential

of the liberal arts” for his students by helping them achieve technological literacy.

“It brings a kind of serene joy to people who feel that they are walking around in a world that they understand,”

Clough wrote in his memoir, “rather than one in which they are surrounded by toys and gadgets built and understood only by other people

LINCOLN BENEDICT ‘09

2005

whose sole goal is to sell their products.”

2005: Having a blast

Clough feeds coal to a blast furnace that he and his students built outside Carnegie Science Hall in fall 2005. The project

taught students how to smelt copper ore into copper.

2014: At the chalkboard

In October 2014, Clough teaches his First-Year Seminar, “Anatomy of a Few Small Machines,” in Carnegie Science Hall on the Friday of Back to Bates, which welcomed parents and families to his classroom.

2015: Moving along

Clough didn’t drive and preferred to do anything he could do by himself.

From his perspective, asking Facility Services for help with a move would be a complete waste of human and mechanical energy. So when it came time to shift offices as

CIRCA 1968

his retirement drew near, he trucked all his stuff using a hand cart.

He hated seeing vintage technology be tossed aside. In 2009, when the original manufacturer couldn’t support a 1970s-era electronic church carillon in nearby South Paris, Clough came to the rescue. He created a schematic to understand the equipment, found the defective component, and manufactured a new electrical control chassis.

2015: ‘Envoys of beauty’

In September 2015, Clough helps passersby, including Dan Brause ’18 and Yinya Huang ’17, view the Blood Moon, when Earth’s moon is in a total lunar

LINCOLN BENEDICT ‘09

SARAH CROSBY

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eclipse, through a telescope outside Carnegie Science Hall.

On many clear nights, Clough set up shop on the sidewalk outside Carnegie, inviting visitors to stargaze and learn about important astronomical events, whether a Blood Moon or Mars on its closest approach to Earth in 60,000 years (in 2003). Inside Carnegie, he gave planetarium shows on diverse and unexpected topics such as how astronomical factors influenced the 1944 D-Day invasion planning.

On one viewing night in February 2015, he offered a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson: If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.

2016: Retirement

Clough laughs during a party held in Carnegie Science Hall to celebrate his retirement from the Bates faculty.

2021: Having pi at home

At home on Nichols Street, Clough holds A History of Pi, pointing out to visitors a page with pi expressed to many decimals. Even as dementia took hold, Clough could recite pi out to 50 decimals.

2021: Down to earth

Clough smiles after completing his tandem skydive at SkyDive New England in Lebanon, Maine. As Clough battled dementia in recent years, his friends and Bates colleagues Sylvia Deschaine and Jacob Kendall found ways to keep him physically active and engaged. That’s how Clough went skydiving, floating to the earth, a smile on his face.

JOSH KUCKENS

FREDDIE WRIGHT

SHRED VIDEO

‘N REGRETS’

Forty years ago, Bates’ decision to drop the SAT sparked a national shift in college admissions — but it didn’t happen without strong opposition BY

JAY BURNS

Bates grew stronger and expanded its reputation during the presidency of Hedley Reynolds (right), seen greeting Benjamin Mays, Class of 1920, at Commencement in 1981.

THE VOTE

by the Bates faculty, 40 years ago in the Filene Room in Pettigrew Hall, wasn’t even close: 58-27 in favor of making the submission of SAT scores optional for admission.

It was the vote heard ’round the country. Within two weeks of the Oct. 1, 1984, decision, Bates became part of — and would ultimately lead — a national conversation about the value of standardized tests, fueled by a New York Times story published in newspapers nationwide.

Today, around 80 percent of U.S. four-year colleges and universities do not require the ACT and/or SAT for admission.

Six years after the 1984 vote, then-Dean of Admission and Financial Aid Bill Hiss ’66 called the vote “a bold move and one we haven’t regretted.” And now, in its fifth decade as a test-optional pioneer, Bates still has no regrets, says Leigh Weisenburger, vice president for enrollment and dean of admission and financial aid.

“Standardized tests and a student’s subsequent scores are rooted in inequity,” she says. “Our test-optional admission policy removes a barrier for many talented and promising students, and we see it as a natural extension of our progressive history and mission dedicated to access and inclusion.”

Follow-up studies over the years have supported what Bates believed to be true in 1984. Standardized tests are no better than a student’s high school grades as a measure of academic potential. At worst, they can filter out and discourage talented students who are already underserved by U.S. higher education.

In retrospect, the 1984 decision to go testoptional seems obvious — a slam dunk. But thanks to a first-year reporter’s account for The Bates Student, the only record of the discussion, we know that there was staunch opposition to the proposed legislation on that Monday afternoon in the Filene Room.

Specifically, two titans of the Bates faculty were firmly opposed to making SATs optional. One was Dean of Students Jim Carignan ’61, who had joined the history faculty in 1970 and was appointed dean of students about a decade later by Bates President Hedley Reynolds. The other was Carl Straub, who had joined the Bates religion faculty in 1965 and was named dean of the faculty in 1974.

Covering the October faculty meeting for the Student was a cub reporter, Howard Fine ’88, whose story for the Student included telling quotes from Reynolds, Carignan, and Straub.

With a formidable disdain for flash over substance, Straub said that a decision to drop the SAT requirement had nothing to do with education.

“THIS IS NOT THE TIME FOR RIGIDITY. IT IS NOT A TIME FOR THE COLLEGE TO STAND PROUDLY LOOKING BACKWARD.”

— PRESIDENT HEDLEY REYNOLDS

President Hedley Reynolds, seen at Commencement in 1979, was “far more willing” than his predecessors “to change Bates in profound, systemic ways,” said Bill Hiss ’66, who served under Reynolds as dean of admission and financial aid.

“It is more a marketing issue. I see no evidence that convinces me that the proposed [legislation] will increase the number or quality of applicants.”

In his quoted remarks at the meeting, Reynolds agreed that the legislation had a marketing angle, but one “which will, in the long run, bring more good students” to Bates. Indeed, the prospect of good publicity for Bates was a selling point, Fine recalls. “There was an awareness among the faculty that if SAT scores were made optional for admission, it would garner national attention since so few schools around the country had taken that path.”

Meanwhile, Carignan argued that “moving away from the SAT signals a retreat” from an important measure of academic strength at a time when “we are making real strides in strengthening our [application] pool and advancing the image of the college as academically strong.”

Professor Emeritus of Psychology John Kelsey was in the room that day, and he recalls agreeing with some of his colleagues that SAT scores were helpful predictive tools.

Forty years after the vote, he’s aware of the privilege of that perspective. “As majority white and male academics, we had the bias that SATs measured something quite important: ‘What was your SAT score?’”

Kelsey has long experience as an adjunct application reader for Bates Admission. While not recalling his own vote that day, he does remember the “highly persuasive argument that SATs

were highly correlated with socioeconomic status, and thus biased against a variety of groups we all wished to attract to Bates.”

The fall of 1984 at Bates was a typically busy time on campus in light of local, national, and global events. There was the visit to Bates by Lisa Birnbach, author of The Official Preppy Handbook, to do a TV segment for NBC’s Today show, then hosted by Bryant Gumbel ’70.

There were incoming ripples from the looming Reagan-Mondale presidential election. On campus, a mini-controversy erupted over the two state liquor inspectors who, posing as construction workers, raided a Milliken House party.

But the drama of the SAT vote rose above them all.

“It was regarded as a big deal,” recalls Fine, who went into journalism after graduation and is a longtime reporter with the Los Angeles Business Journal. Despite the opposition from Carignan and Straub, the legislation passed easily. Kelsey described the faculty sentiment this way: “We agreed to do a kind of experiment. And I judge that experiment to be largely a success.”

One reason the legislation sailed through, perhaps, is

This photo collage from the 1984–85 Mirror, the year of the faculty’s vote to make SATs optional, captures a typically busy year at Bates.

Dean of the Faculty Carl Straub, seen at Commencement in 1977, was unconvinced that making SATs optional for admission would strengthen the applicant pool.

MUSKIE

that the faculty Committee on Admissions and Financial Aid, chaired by Anne Thompson of the English department, had done its work.

Supported by Hiss, whom Reynolds had plucked from the faculty of nearby Hebron Academy in 1978 to lead the Bates Admission team, the committee presented a compelling 20page report to the faculty, the result of five years of research. (Drake Bradley, Dana Professor Emeritus of Psychology, made major contributions to the college’s statistical research before the vote and in follow-up studies.)

The report presented what is now a consensus in the college admission world: that SATs are “not critical to making good admission decisions” and that the use of standardized tests like the SAT presents a series of ethical issues. Those include troubling correlation of test scores to family income; the rise of SAT coaching, again benefiting wealthier students; and how high school teachers were beginning to alter their curricula to, in the words of one high school teacher, “teach kids how to take the [SATs].”

After the vote, a Bates Magazine story noted that Bates students with weaker test scores, including minority students, rural students, and

low-income students, “have made great contributions once enrolled at Bates.” That fact, according to Thompson, “cast a great deal of doubt on the fairness of using the tests for admission purposes.”

The report included results from a questionnaire sent to guidance counselors at 95 high schools, which indicated that SATs were hurting the college’s efforts to build a larger and stronger applicant pool. Increasingly, students were using a college’s mean SAT scores, as published in guidebooks, to opt out from applying. If a student’s score was below the mean, they didn’t apply (too hard to get in); if their score was above the mean, they didn’t apply (too easy to get in).

“By not requiring SATs,” the report concluded, “Bates could encourage a greater diversity of students to apply who are capable of succeeding at Bates, but who, for cultural or financial reasons, have not scored well and are currently being discouraged from applying.”

In 1990, Bates dropped all standardized test requirements, including ACTs. In a follow-up article in Bates Magazine that year, Hiss noted that the academic strength of a student body isn’t a measure of who is admitted, but who applies And when Bates dropped the SAT requirement, applications jumped by a third, and the quality of the applicant pool remained high.

(Growing the applicant pool also had the additional benefit of improving Bates’ selectivity, as published in college guidebooks, a hoped-for result of an optional-SAT policy that Kelsey recalls being in the air and was also noted in Fine’s reporting in fall 1984.)

Sharing his thoughts recently, Hiss said that the growth of the pool meant success at meeting a charge from his boss. “When I was hired, Hedley, in our first conversation, gave me a one-sentence charge, which I remember verbatim and have

English professor Anne Thompson chaired the faculty Committee on Admissions and Financial Aid, which submitted the optional-testing legislation in 1984.

Dean of the College James Carignan ’61 (left), seen with Carl Straub and Associate Dean James Reese circa 1980, believed that dropping SATs would “signal a retreat” from an important measure of academic strength.

many times quoted to our staff and others over the years: ‘Take the applicant pools up and down the social and economic ladders, and spread out geographically.’

“He thought we were too narrowly middle class and too narrowly New England. He was right on both counts. So the optional-testing decision, six years later, was one step among many in having Bates become a national college and then an international one, with a much more complex array of student backgrounds.”

The charge also reflected what Reynolds and others saw coming, a decline in New England’s share of the U.S. population. Expansion was a business decision in addition to an educational and mission-driven one.

By any measure, Bates in the 1980s was indeed growing stronger and expanding its reputation under Reynolds, whose focus was on enrollment, facilities, and, especially, support for the faculty, which took the shape of a near doubling of its size, strengthening academic credentials, and lowering the student-faculty ratio, from 15-to-1 to 13-to-1 (today it is 10–1). And this might be a second reason that the Bates faculty responded positively to the SAT legislation: respect for Reynolds’ forwardlooking leadership of the college.

A former history professor and dean at Middlebury, Reynolds “understood faculty governance, he understood the intellectual life, he understood the importance of faculty scholarship, and faculty support — everything,” recalled Hiss in a 2005 oral history for the Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library. Compared to prior Bates leaders, he was “far more of a visionary about Bates, far more willing to change Bates in profound, systemic ways.”

A day after the faculty vote, Hiss was in Boston with Admission colleague Wylie Mitchell (later to become Bates’ admission dean), attending the

The college’s test-optional policy is a “natural extension of our progressive history and mission dedicated to access and inclusion,” says Leigh Weisenburger, vice president for enrollment and dean of admission and financial aid.

annual conference of the National Association for College Admission Counseling.

At the NACAC meeting, the pair met with Ted Fiske, education reporter for The New York Times, who had just begun what would become the highly influential Fiske Guide to Colleges. “We had lunch with Ted, and he broke the story,” recalls Hiss. On Oct. 9, with Bates prominent in the lead paragraphs and throughout, Fiske’s story ran in the Times under the headline, “Some colleges question usefulness of SATs.”

Meanwhile, The Bates Student had broken the news four days earlier, in its Oct. 5 edition. Fine’s story offered perhaps the most telling quote about how Bates rolled under Reynolds. “This is not the time for rigidity,” Reynolds said. “It is not a time for the college to stand proudly looking backward.”

While Bates was not the first college to drop SATs, it has done more than most to advance and lead the test-optional practice through follow-up studies. Such studies, often conducted by Bates and supported by members of the Bates staff and faculty, were capped off by a 30-year, widely reported analysis co-authored by Hiss and Valerie Wilson Franks ’98 in 2014.

Through the years, Hiss, his successor Wylie Mitchell, and Weisenburger have all been sounding boards on the topic for colleges looking to become test-optional as well as high school guidance counselors, students, and families navigating what test-optional means in practice.

“It’s been a 40-year commitment for me,” said Hiss, who retired from Bates in 2012. “But maybe the larger story is 40 years of Bates and Bates people doing the work to make the college a major force in changing American definitions of promise and intelligence.” n

Bill Hiss ’66 (left), a major figure in the testoptional movement at Bates and nationally, is seen in 2018 meeting with Ngan Dinh ’02 at the newly established Fulbright University Vietnam in Ho Chi Minh City, where Dinh is vice president for student affairs. Hiss was consulting on admission and financial aid practices.

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COMMON S What We Have

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Over

the course of one day and 4,789 meals , Bates’ talented dining staff serves up a nutritious, caring, and community-focused experience for Bates students

Just a few ticks past 4 a.m., when most Bates students are still asleep or powering through an all-nighter, Dining Services baker Jane Herrick arrives at Commons, the first of a crackerjack dining team that will number 70 on this Tuesday in mid-March.

Morning to night, they will serve 4,789 meals to around 1,800 Bates students in the college’s single dining hall, providing a nutritious, caring, and community-oriented dining experience.

About a century ago, Virginia Woolf wrote, “One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well,” a notion now well-supported by research that shows a clear connection between nutrition and physical and mental well-being.

For example, the majority

of the body’s serotonin, which regulates mood, appetite, sleep, and cognition, “is actually produced in the gut,” says Dr. Heidi Walls, head team physician for Bates Athletics. “Some people talk about the gut as a second brain of the body.”

Food and diet, says Dr. Wendy Kjeldgaard, a psychologist with Bates Counseling and Psychiatric Services who specializes in treating eating disorders, affects “your cognitive functioning, your ability to regulate stress, and your capacity to experience really strong, powerful, negative emotions.”

Then there’s the benefit of dining with friends, which decades of research — and the experiences of Bates alumni — can attest to.

Christine Schwartz, Bates’ indefatigable associate vice

president for dining, conferences, and campus events, and her team sweat the small stuff (such as sourcing sriracha sauce when it became scarce) and bigger stuff, like creating inclusive approaches for the wide variety of dining traditions, cultures, and needs presented by today’s Bates students.

Supporting the well-being of students means offering options for many palates, including organic, locally sourced, vegan, and vegetarian foods, as students today are more thoughtful than ever about how their food choices fuel their bodies and minds.

“The work we do is integral to the educational mission of the institution and the success of our students,” says Schwartz. “That’s what drives us: helping students succeed.” — HJB

HUCK TRIGGS ’24

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4:04 a.m.

The first to arrive at Commons is baker Jane Herrick, right around 4 a.m., when she gets to work preparing frozen dough and the ingredients needed to make dozens of pastries, rolls, and desserts. Herrick lives in Lewiston near campus; other staff live in Auburn, while others travel from surrounding towns like Sabattus, Turner, Minot, Greene, and Lisbon Falls.

5:02 a.m.

Food vendors make deliveries through the course of each day. Some deliveries are small, like donuts from the Italian Bakery located downtown. The biggest delivery is the day’s first, from NorthCenter food service. They deliver everything from cereal, tea, and milk to chicken tenders, vegetables like cauliflower and broccoli florets, and products for the soft-serve machines. That’s upwards of 600 cases in all.

5:15 a.m.

Gerry Villeneuve, a veteran of 20 years, works in sanitation. He steers the Tomcat Sport heavyduty floor scrubber outside the Chu Dining Room, which is no small job, particularly during a Maine winter or the state’s famous mud season.

5:24 a.m.

Michael Staffenski, the associate director of culinary and retail operations, stops for a moment after a meeting with a cook to share what he’s most proud of in Commons. The first point of pride is the students. Second is the consistently great reviews from various professional organizations. “We’re good at what we do. Yes, we’re busy. But we have systems in place to manage the flow,” Staffenski says.

5:37 a.m.

Herrick is no-nonsense as she explains the specific protocols for mixing ingredients, freezing dough, and baking sheets of goodies made the previous day. She moves quickly, and doesn’t look up as she talks. From one tray or counter to the next,

4:04 a.m. 5:02 a.m.

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5:37 a.m.

6:25 a.m.

6:29 a.m.

Herrick works patiently, carefully, and on any given day could be baking 80 to 300 muffins, around 14 loaves of banana bread, nearly 500 ginger-brandy cookies, and about 700 dinner rolls. There’s also sheets of Key lime cheesecake to cut up and wrap, and Danishes and cinnamon rolls to prepare — all of it made from scratch.

Villeneuve likes to joke around with the 5-foot-2 Herrick about how the short counters and kitchen carts were custom made for her (which is not true, but hearing Villeneuve say it with a booming laugh, it’s easy to believe).

“We are always moving here, but it’s nice to stop and visit,” Villeneuve says with another dose of laughter.

6:25 a.m.

Well before the first bite of the day is taken in Commons, the staff gathers samples of each food item in case testing is later required, part of Dining Services’ rigorous health-safety protocols.

6:29 a.m.

Josh Lajoie, a first cook in Dining Services, brings more than muscle power and culinary artistry to Commons each day. “Josh brings positive energy, is a team player, and has an incredible skill set. He’s just so good at spreading love around,” said Christine Schwartz.

Lajoie said working in Commons is more than a job. What he loves best about the experience is “the feeling of belonging and being a part of something you know well with others.”

6:40 a.m.

Mohamud Osman used to work on a hospital maintenance staff cleaning windows, so he aims for perfection when he cleans the glass on the front and back doors of Commons.

Osman helps the Bates crew in many ways: cleaning the floors, cleaning pots, and cleaning the dishwasher to name just a few. He always waves to everyone in greeting and pitches in where he’s needed.

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6:40 a.m.

“I like working in Commons, I like the people, I like my managers. They’re good people. They always ask me what I need, and they ask so nicely. Whoever needs help here, I help them,” he says.

With surnames like Desrosiers, LaFleur, and Theriault, quite a few Commons workers are multigenerational Lewiston citizens with deep French Canadian heritage. Others, like Osman, are newer citizens from countries around the world. For about 28 percent of the Dining, Conferences, and Campus Events staff, English is a second or third language; interpreters who speak French or Spanish are often part of staff meetings.

7:08 a.m.

Tuesday is omelet day, which

means that Brad McArthur — “the Omelet Man” — is a welcome sight to students. A 28-year veteran, McArthur makes each omelet to order with whatever students want: cheese, bacon, spinach, peppers, onions — and extra hamburg for those who want it. Rather than pointing out ingredients for McArthur to place on their omelets, students select their own toppings and spoon them into cups to give to McArthur.

7:35 a.m.

Cameron Frary ’24 makes a waffle in classic Bates style with lavish toppings: strawberries and syrup.

7:51 a.m.

7:35 a.m.

It’s common in Commons to find members of sports teams enjoying both meals and Bobcat camaraderie. Here, laughing together are basketball teammates Marc Begin ’27 of Jacksonville, Fla., Elliott Cravitz ’26 of Denver, and Peter Psyhogeos ’26 of Yarmouth, Maine.

At a window nearby are members of the men’s and women’s rowing teams. On this day they had good news to report: Later in the day, at their boathouse on the Androscoggin

River, they would participate in the age-old rowing ritual of putting in the docks.

“It marks the start of our season,” said Quinn Gleason ’26 of Wayland Mass., who had just finished an egg bowl. “Spinach as a base, red onions, cheese, sometimes beans, two eggs, and then any kind of protein I can find. Delicious!” She has her eggs over easy. “Always. The yolks kind of freak me out.”

7:53 a.m.

Pat Schoknecht, the vice president for information and library services and college librarian, and Leigh Weisenburger, vice president for enrollment and dean of admission and financial aid, have both been up for hours.

For Schoknecht, it’s how she rolls. “Already been to the gym,” she says. Weisenburger is up early up early with her two young children, one of whom, a 6-year-old boy, hits the ground running each morning. “Very early,” she says.

Nearby is Jackson Quinn ’24 of Falmouth, Maine, finishing breakfast and some reading for his course in behavioral economics, taught by Sandra Goff, associate professor of economics. He was finishing

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7:51 a.m.

a chapter on “intertemporal choice,” which involves making decisions that result in tradeoffs between costs and benefits that occur at different points in time.

We asked him how many pages he had. “Maybe five more,” he said, thumbing the pages. And with just seven minutes left before 8 a.m., that was a clue to wrap up our interview. (Postscript: Quinn finished his reading on time.)

8:54 a.m.

McArthur, “the Omelet Man,” serves another student. “The omelets that come at the end of the shift are the best, after you get the grill seasoned with other flavors from the vegetable juices, from the meat juices,” McArthur confides. “It enhances the flavor. It’s the same principle as a castiron cooking pan.”

Lorenzo Songsare-Shevy ’27 of Uttenreuth, Germany, says his favorite omelet has “various meats, spinach, and tomato. I’m Italian — I have to like tomato.” He has never been an early-morning person. “But I’m trying to change that now.” He sees the benefits, at least when it comes to breakfast. “The lines are shorter now, and my friends are here. I’m relaxed.”

Noa Hart ’27 of Hastingson-Hudson, N.Y., describes her wake-up times as “airport times.” She’s a rower, and they rise early for workouts. “I woke up at 4:20,” she says. “Tuesdays are my favorite day because of omelet day. I live for omelet day. And we get to be first for omelet day.”

9:01 a.m.

In the days after the Lewiston shootings of Oct. 25, 2023, Bates had to ensure that students had food in the midst of a shelterin-place order. “We still came in, because the kids had to be fed,” said Staffenski.

Afterward, students made their appreciation clear and visible. “The whole wall at the Napkin Board was full of thank yous,” he said, referring to the cork board where Bates students share feedback on napkins that get pinned to the board for all to see.

9:26 a.m.

The flow in and out of Commons continues. “The line is tragic,” says a good-natured Josh Ezerioha ’27 of Bowie, Md., as he waits for the first of two omelets. “I have just enough time to get here before my next class.”

The football player never misses the omelet bar. Never.

7:53 a.m.

8:54 a.m.

9:01 a.m.

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He waited 25 minutes for his first of two this morning. But as a 200-pound linebacker at Bates, Ezerioha needs more than one.

Xinchen Zhong ’24 of Shanghai also never misses the omelet bar. She also likes the pho and food at the vegan bar. All of these choices, she says, are aimed at healthy eating. “I like the omelets because they’re mostly protein. It limits the carbohydrates,” Zhong says.

9:45 a.m.

After attending a second-floor meeting of the President’s Council, a group of staff members who direct college programs, President Garry Jenkins confers with Mike Hussey, a member of Jenkins’ senior leadership team.

Then Jenkins heads downstairs to the dining hall. “There’s Garry. He’s the chillest president ever,” Ezerioha says. “I had three presidents at the prep school I went to, and he is the most chill.”

As Jenkins moves around the beverage bar before heading to a morning meeting, he takes his time and looks out at the dining room, where students talk with friends, cram for classes, or eat breakfast. In Commons, Jenkins rarely intrudes on these moments, but, instead in his body language and demeanor, he lets the students know: “They can chat with me, if they wish.”

Then he ticks off his favorites in Common: the tofu pad Thai and the waffles. “But those are a treat,” Jenkins adds.

“To be honest, when I first heard about the reputation of the food in Commons, I thought, ‘How great can it be? It’s institutional.’ But it really is a reputation well-earned. It’s something to be proud of and makes an enormous difference for the college,” Jenkins says.

That, of course, is because much of the food in Commons is prepared in house, sometimes using favorite family recipes shared by staff and students.

10:13 a.m.

If you want to get Bates students to light up, just have James 9:26

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11:53 a.m.

Reese (standing right), longtime associate dean for international student programs, stop by a table in Commons at mealtime. The beloved dean is with Allison Brown, the associate director of Bates Counseling and Psychological Services (left), and they’ve stopped to chat and share a laugh with Tamaki Hashiramoto ’24 (seated left) of Tokyo and Britton Gorfain ’25 of New York City.

11:49 a.m.

The youngest diner at lunchtime is asleep right now. That’s 16-month-old Sunny Sue, the daughter of Jon-Michael Foley (right), a member of the Facility Services grounds crew, and his wife, Rachel Nutting (left).

Rachel comes to campus once a week from her gym, CrossFit 196, where she’s the owner and head coach, to have lunch with her husband and daughter. “Sunny Sue comes from a long line of double first names,” quips Jon-Michael.

Today he’s eating Thai grilled chicken, and spaghetti from the pasta bar, plus some fruit salad. “Fruit, every time,” he says.

11:53 a.m.

Opened in 2008, Commons put much of the food prep — and the preparers — into full view of appreciative diners.

The Commons “servery” clusters a variety of stations,

or “bars,” into a critical mass of temptation. Rather than a strict flow from check-in to serving line to chair, students enter, scope out the scene — who’s where, what’s to eat — then circulate through the marketplace. The heart of the servery is the giant brick-and-copper oven, ringed by a counter offering the most popular eats: pizza, pasta, soup, salad, and deli.

12:32 p.m.

Nine hours after the workday begins, it’s time for some of the dining staff to focus on the next day. Violet Bernard, cold kitchen supervisor, gets to work making to-go egg and cheese sandwiches for the following day.

Bernard has worked in Commons for 12 years. She’s

12:32 p.m.

proud that some of her own recipes have been used, such as her baked pasta dish and her Greek grandmother’s soup, Yia Yia’s Lentil Soup, a favorite because it is both vegan and gluten free.

Her greatest joy at Bates is connecting with students, including student workers. She offers as proof a text from a former student from Ghana — Nerissa Brobbey ’15 — who had a flair for dressing in stylish, hip outfits. Bernard looks up and shows off Brobbey’s Facebook posts of her posing in fashionable dresses.

“It’s hard to see them graduate. I think of these kids as my kids,” Bernard says. “They need comfort food. But I want them to eat healthy. It’s a place for them to hang out together and keep their bellies full.”

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Here’s a partial accounting of what was offered at the various bars for lunch:

Bobcat Bar : Beef shepherd’s pie, breaded haddock, spicy potato wedges, steamed broccoli

Grill : Thai grilled chicken, long grain white rice

Brick Oven : Crunchy turkey melt

Vegan Bar : Jasmine rice, braised red cabbage, broccoli, falafel

Pasta Bar : Pasta options with a variety of sauces

Deli : Potato pesto soup, chicken noodle soup, sandwich fixings

Bakery : Desserts including vegan pumpkin pie, key lime cheesecake bar, chocolate cake

12:41 p.m.

Lunch is in full swing, both down below in the main dining hall and upstairs in the Gorayeb Mezzanine, at left.

There, Haley Ganzer ’27 of New York City and Braedon Parker ’27 of Kearney, Neb., relax at a table by themselves, having slipped the bonds of academia, if only for a moment. They’re waiting for their friends, and their friends’ friends, relishing the idea that there may be some in the group they do not know — yet.

“We always sit up here, because it’s quiet,” Ganzer says. “My roommate introduced me to her friends, and we all kind of stuck together. It’s easier to hear people up here.”

4:10 p.m.

Dining Services staff members

Diana Mba Oyana (left) and

4:20 p.m.

At the vegan bar, Matthew Escorsio, a first cook, prepares samples of the food that will be served at supper. In the foreground is a yummy side dish with carrots, yellow squash, kale, parsley, lime, red onions, red peppers, black beans, and cherry tomatoes — among other goodies.

4:22 p.m.

The late-afternoon light spills into Commons as Molly Furman ’24 of Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y., works on her laptop.

She’s been doing some people-watching in Commons, but with an academic purpose: a sociology project about student perceptions of Commons and 12:41 p.m.

its traditions, such as how students don’t use trays, or how, when someone drops a dish, everyone claps.

Are those traditions intimidating to newcomers, or merely folksy and fun? “One time I was eating with a professor and he asked, ‘Why are you not using a tray?’ And I said, ‘I don’t know!’ I think people don’t want to look different, you don’t want to stand out.”

5:11 p.m.

When diners finish their meals, they return dishes and flatware to a conveyor system that delivers the dishes to the dishroom, where (from left) Dining Services workers Ryan Bouchard, Abu Guhat, and Ali Hamse take over.

The solid waste stream includes about 100,000 pounds of product that goes to compost

Sonia Roy finish their early dinner before the supper crowd arrives.

annually, and an additional 140,000 pounds of food scraps that go to feed the pigs at Sourground Farm in Sabattus, Maine.

5:23 p.m.

Student worker Axelle Tougouma ’27 of Fada N’Gourma, Burkina Faso, takes her position as a monitor at the exit door from Commons. Later on in the evening, she’ll pitch in to help the staff tidy up the dining room.

She’s enjoyed getting to know her dining colleagues, whether longtime Mainers or new Mainers who’ve immigrated to the Lewiston area. “There is such a genuine bond within us carried by discussions around different topics. My favorite is talking about winter, which I am not a fan of compared to Mainers. What more valuable work is there than learning from each other?” 4:10 p.m.

6:09 p.m.

Inês Reis ’27 of Angra do Heroismo, Portugal, works for Dining Services in the evening. Here she gets frozen french fries ready for the deep fryer.

“Commons is a big part of the Bates community,” she says. “I’m glad I get to contribute to it all. Everyone gives so much to provide the best experience, and being part of the behindthe-scenes is exciting, especially on busy days!”

Reis gets kudos from her bosses for handling the deep fryer, a deceptively challenging job, whether it’s fries or chicken tenders. The work is “hot and busy,” says Staffenski.

6:29 p.m.

It’s halfway through the fourhour dinner period, and some students are heading out for evening activities, while some happily linger with friends and laughter.

8:04 p.m.

Cristina Salazar ’24 (right) has some fun catching up with dining staffer Sonia Roy. “I love being able to go into Commons and saying hi to everyone,” says Salazar. “At this point, they feel like family to me and have provided me with a huge sense of belonging and home.”

Roy is originally from Peru, and Salazar, who is from San José, Costa Rica, values their shared Latin American heritage. “I am able to connect with her so closely through language and culture! I feel like she’s a mom for me while being so far away from mine.”

8:42 p.m.

Among the last, lingering diners in Commons were two classmates who had just met: Rahaa Jeagar “RJ” Nikzat ’27 (left) of Mashhad, Iran, and Josh Ezerioha ’27 of Bowie, Md., originally from Lagos, Nigeria.

They engaged in conversation about their experiences as international students at Bates and their impressions of life in the U.S. They came together thanks

6:09 p.m.

Here’s the menu this evening:

Bobcat Bar : chicken stuffed with broccoli and cheese, salmon piccata, Israeli couscous, chateau blend

Grill : beef pastrami, shoestring fries

Brick Oven : pizza

Vegan Bar : vegetable chili, tofu tikka masala, brown rice, caponata Siciliana

Pasta Bar : pasta options with a variety of sauces

Deli : potato pesto soup, chicken noodle soup

Bakery : dinner rolls, carrot cake, Lucky Charms marshmallow bar

to a conversational matchmaker, of sorts: Tracy Stevenson, a cook’s assistant, who suggested they might enjoy each other’s company.

9:23 p.m.

After doing one final check-in with his crew, Billie Coburn, board plan manager for Dining Services, heads to the front of the building to lock the doors.

Before closing up, Coburn checks in with the dining staff to see who needs help. Pitching in is a big part of the culture, says Coburn. For example, Ramadan has just begun, which means that as many as a dozen colleagues who are Muslim will break their daily fast with Iftar and prayer just after sunset. Other staff switch jobs for the hour their colleagues are praying.

Coburn printed out the sunset times for March and April so he’s certain when it occurs. “Today it was 6:43 p.m., and there were seven people. We’ll get it done. It’s the holiest month in the Islamic calendar.”

Earlier in the evening, he was on the phone briefing a supervisor on a mini-emergency. A gasket blew on the soft-serve ice cream machine, creating a huge mess that the staff cleaned up. A repair they agreed, could wait until the next morning. n

Writing and reporting by Deirdre Stires, Jay Burns, and Hannah Kothari ’26

HUCK TRIGGS ’24

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VENERABLE CUNGIA TSOM pours grains of sand while building the mandala in Gomes Chapel in June. “The nuns have trained intensively for the last year,” said Venerable Tenzin Dasel ’88. “It’s mind training.”

‘ TO THE GRAIN OF SAND ’

During a visit to Bates organized by Venerable Tenzin Dasel ’88, Buddhist nuns from Tibet meticulously crafted a stunning sand mandala in Gomes Chapel, a display of patience and impermanence, offering healing in the wake of tragedy

STORY BY MARY POLS

CHOOSING SAND from small dishes holding more than a dozen colors, the nuns filled conical metal tools that allow them to tap out a stream of sand, grain by grain.

As the group of Buddhist nuns from Tibet carefully poured grains of sand onto the colorful mandala steadily taking shape on a low table in the Peter J. Gomes Chapel, Venerable Tenzin Dasel ’88 offered a gentle spoiler alert on the impermanence of things.

Soon, the mandala, a geometric configuration of symbols used in Tibetan Buddhism and other spiritual practices, would be complete. It would be exquisite, planned out “to the grain of sand,” as Dasel said, in the minds of a handful of nuns from the Jangchub Choeling Nunnery in Mundgod, South India.

But then it would be gone, poured into the campus pond, Lake Andrews, in a ritual enacting the final words of the Buddha: “Impermanence is inescapable. Everything vanishes.”

During the fourth week of June, the nuns, who were touring the U.S., worked on the mandala in the chapel. On Monday they chalked out a design of a Medicine Buddha, specifically chosen for this stop on their tour, which had already taken them to Minnesota, Kentucky, and Ohio.

The nuns worked from memory, without diagrams, imagining where every grain of colored sand should go in the mandala. They chose sand from small dishes, more than a dozen colors — hues of blue, green, pink, yellow, and orange, made from crushed and dyed marble.

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Filling long, narrow metal funnels with the chosen color, they used another tool to tap and scrape the funnels’ serrated ridges, which released sand from the tiny spout in a thin stream, grains at a time, growing the intricate design from the middle out, their rhythmic tapping and scraping filling the quiet of Gomes.

Other than their trips to the dining hall at Commons for meals and pauses for two sacred dances, the three nuns worked tirelessly to fill in a vision they held only in their minds, rather than on paper.

“Memorization is a beautiful meditation,” Dasel said. “The nuns have trained in this for the last year intensively.”

They studied five mandalas specifically, training with monks, and had to pass exams before the trip. “It’s mind training. And very rigorous. It’s much more rigorous than the training I did

every day to play basketball at Bates,” when she was known as Lisa Blake, “or even writing a thesis” for her sociology major.

By Thursday afternoon, June 27, the mandala was finished but for the outer circle. A steady stream of visitors to Gomes, which was open to the public during the day, continued to grow, thanks to media coverage of the event by local newspapers and TV stations.

Some visitors sat quietly in the pews, watching from afar, while others edged up to the gold ribbon the nuns had put down to keep a little distance between their meticulous work and onlookers. Lewiston Mayor Carl Sheline stopped by to check on the progress and greeted Dasel.

Among the visitors was Gautham Vijayan, a doctoral student who was on campus attending a Gordon Research Conference.

VISITORS WATCH as Buddhist nuns create a sand mandala at the Peter J. Gomes Chapel on June 25, 2024. From left, Venerable Sherab Dolma, Venerable Sonam Dolma, and Venerable Cungia Tsomo.

A MANDALA comprises an exquisite geometric configuration of symbols used in Tibetan Buddhism and other spiritual practices.

Vijayan said he saw the nuns in Commons and was curious. Growing up in India, it was rare for him to interact with Buddhists so he welcomed the chance to meet them and learn about their project. “Here I felt really comfortable talking to them,” he said.

Dasel, who serves as a spiritual advisor in Buddhism to the Multifaith Chaplaincy at Bates, had secured grant funding for the nuns’ visit to Maine from the Frederick P. Lenz Foundation for American Buddhism. The nuns had created sand mandalas at other stops on their U.S. visit, but Dasel specifically asked them to create a healing mandala to help with the ongoing recovery from the mass shootings of Oct. 25, 2023. Hence the very specific choice of the Medicine Buddha mandala, known as the embodiment of healing energy.

Among the observers in Gomes, there was a palpable sense of gratitude for this gift, and also a sense of engagement, a sort of silent cheering

section. Associate Multifaith Chaplain Raymond Clothier visited during the week, supporting the nuns by delivering water, opening doors, and refilling paper towel dispensers, and observing the beauty being created not just in colorful sand, but in those interactions.

“My experience has been a gradual awakening to the realization that what is happening here is truly astounding,” Clothier said. “The art is stunning, but the process draws people into the moment: the clinking of the metal funnels as they are filled, the rhythm as they are finessed like a güiro [the percussive musical scraper] to dispense sand through a thin tube, almost like a pipette, and the clanking as they are emptied back into the bowl.”

THE NUNS CREATED a Medicine Buddha mandala, known as the embodiment of healing energy, to aid in the ongoing recovery from the mass shootings of Oct. 25, 2023.

“It’s sacred movement as much as it is art,” he added. “The people who come to watch feel themselves becoming a part of something that is unfolding moment by moment, grain by grain. When they leave, they may not be able to articulate what they have just participated in, but they are grateful to have been a part of it.”

Visitors become vested in what they’re witnessing. After the nuns huddled to discuss some element of the design, Linda Johnson, who came from South Portland to observe, approached Dasel to ask about the nuns’ visibly apparent expressions of

“ CREATE AND OFFER ALWAYS YOUR BEST, YOUR PERFECTION. BUT DON’T CLING TO THAT, BECAUSE IT ’ S GOING TO CHANGE.”

—VENERABLE TENZIN DASEL ’ 88

concern. Had something gone wrong?

Maybe, Dasel answered. Sometimes, as the nuns created from memory, they weren’t satisfied with the outcome. When that happened, the group conferred and perhaps even decided to erase and start a section over. If they had to do that, Dasel told Johnson, the age-old process was to invert their metal funnels, and carefully suck the element that wasn’t quite working away from the mandala. “The first vacuum cleaner maybe,” Dasel joked.

The mandala is “an expression of perfection and beauty,” Dasel said. Before the nuns dissolved it into the waters of Lake Andrews at the end of the week, they would offer grains of sand to those in the community who want to hold onto a small embodiment of the nuns’ visit. “It’s very blessed with this intention of creating healing.”

For Clothier, witnessing the process was a vivid illustration of how healing energy is generated. “I think it shows people where healing and beauty begin: by stitching life together from the inauspicious bits and pieces

at hand,” he said.

The mandala was completed on Friday, June 28, bringing the blessings of clarity of the mind, the heart, and beauty into a physical manifestation for the communities of Bates and greater Lewiston. Then came the final part of the process, where the nuns swept the mandala from its place in Gomes Chapel and dissolved the sand into the waters of Lake Andrews.

Dasel said that Westerners are often quite “shocked when they see what the dissolution ceremony entails: collecting all those colors and wiping it all into a sacred box and bringing it to a body of water and just letting it all go again.”

But despite the physical embodiment of the mandala being gone, the blessing remains — if you allow it to, she said. “Things in the material world are impermanent. You can’t just press pause and say, ‘I want to keep it like that forever.’

“So create and offer always your best, your perfection. But don’t cling to that, because it’s going to change.” n

VENERABLE

TENZIN DASEL walks between pews toward the narthex of Gomes Chapel on June 26, 2024. While the physical embodiment of the sand mandala is now gone, Dasel said, the blessing can remain.

Who, What, Where, When?

Send your Bates news, photos, story ideas, comments, tips, and solutions to magazine@bates.edu.

Correction

A note in the Spring issue provided incorrect information about the death of Susan Hellen Fitzgerald ’73. Mark Harris ’73, Susan’s ex-husband, had informed us that Susan passed away in February, but the published note misstated her name and related information. We regret the errors.

1889

In May the Sun Journal profiled Arthur Hatch, a native of Wilton, Maine, thought to be only the second blind college graduate in the U.S. Sightless since infancy, Hatch developed study skills at the Perkins Institute for the Blind and Massachusetts School for the Blind in South Boston, wrote the newspaper’s Steve Collins. After further study at the Wilton Academy (run by Bates graduate I. C. Phillips), Hatch matriculated at Bates. “Hatch covered his expenses by lecturing across Maine on temperance, which he strongly favored, and education,” Collins reported. “Hatch’s professors at Bates praised his ability, integrity, character, and steadfastness.” He became a preacher, educator, author, and writer of political songs popular in Iowa, where he settled after a peripatetic pastoral career.

1936

The threats posed by pollutiondriven climate change were clearly understood by leaders including U.S. senator and Clean Air Act champion Edmund Muskie more than 50 years ago — despite today’s prevailing perception that such understanding has emerged only more recently. Historian Naomi Oreskes, basing her research in

part upon Muskie records archived at Bates, has shown that he “warned his fellow senators that if air pollution went unchecked, it would ‘threaten irreversible atmospheric and climatic changes,’” the media organization Grist reported in August. Orestes hopes her research will “put the lie to the myth that has been propagated that the Clean Air Act had nothing to do with carbon dioxide.”

1941

Reunion 2026, June 12–14

CLASS PRESIDENT Margaret Rand alpegrand@aol.com

1947

Reunion 2027, June 11–13

CLASS SECRETARY/ TREASURER

Jean Labagh Kiskaddon jean.kiskaddon@gmail.com

CLASS PRESIDENT Vesta Starrett Smith vestasmith@charter.net

1949

Reunion 2029, June 8–10

CLASS SECRETARY Carol Jenkinson Johnson rollincarol@comcast.net

CLASS PRESIDENT Bud Horne budhorne@gmail.com

CLASS VICE-PRESIDENT Beverly Young Howard

1951

Reunion 2026, June 12–14

CLASS PRESIDENT Bill Dill

CLASS VICE PRESIDENT Wilfred Barbeau whbarbeau@gmail.com

Marilyn Jean Johnson Bird of Waterville, Maine, was honored by an international travel club for the range of her ramblings: She has visited more than 150

countries and territories. “It’s the greatest experience you can have because you learn about different people,” she told the Morning Sentinel in August, not long after her most recent trip, to São Miguel Island, off Portugal. That’s where she received the Silver Status award from The Travelers’ Century Club, which requires members to have visited at least 100 different lands. “I was there four days. We had an amazing time.”...Betty Kinney Faella and Tony attended the International Submariners Congress in Dublin, Ireland, in May. The following month she showed up at Reunion with her daughter Joan Faella Haskell ’74, celebrating her 50th Reunion; Joan’s husband Franklin Haskell ’73, celebrating his 51st; and Franklin’s mother, Liz Dyer Haskell ’49, celebrating her 75th!...From Union, Maine, Norma Reese Jones sends a quick greeting: “Hello to all ’51ers. Remembering the good years at Bates.”...Robert Wilson is “still moving along in Santa Fe! In July, I finished a short story about a romance in New York, and I’m working on the next. At 95 I may be approaching the end, but I’m not there yet.”

1952

Reunion 2027, June 11–13

CLASS SECRETARY Marilyn Coffin Brown mcbrown13@verizon.net

CLASS PRESIDENT Webster B. Brockelman Jr. weborjen@aol.com

1953

Reunion 2028, June 9–11

CLASS PRESIDENTS Ginnie LaFauci Toner vatoner207@gmail.com Dick Coughlin dcoughlin@maine.rr.com

Paul “Swede” Anderson suffered a stroke in July, not long after losing Jean. He has some left-side paralysis and is in a nursing home undergoing therapy, reported his daughter, Sally Anderson. Classmates are rooting for him....Jean Chapman Neely completed her “93rd trip around the sun” in July. “My neurologist put me on a new drug for my myasthenia gravis, and it’s been a big success so far. Hope it continues.”

1955

Reunion 2025, June 6–8

CLASS PRESIDENT Beverly Hayne Willsey stonepost@cox.net

CLASS VICE-PRESIDENT Merton Ricker mertr33@gmail.com

Hal Hunter finds “purpose in activities that benefit my rural county (28 people per square mile): volunteering at the food pantry (which I founded), visiting socially isolated seniors, and otherwise helping people stay in their homes as they age.”... Silver Moore-Leamon writes: “Most of us in the Class of ’55 are now in our 90s, which doesn’t seem real but makes us appreciate as never before the applause we — and older classes — get for just appearing in the Alumni Parade! Some of the warmest friendships for life for me are with Sue Ordway Pfaltz and June Ryan Gillette, beloved classmates who share those memories so senseless to everyone else.” Silver adds, “I had the privilege of being in a foursome spanning years 1955 through 2004 that talked with one of Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies Rebecca Herzig’s classes about Bates before technology changed so much. I enjoyed it thoroughly. I wish my classmates could have been there to hear the gasps greeting curfews, different rules for women and for men, and the one which appeared to truly offend them — the bell system to alert you (and everybody else who might be interested) that someone was here for you. The conversation among the four of us and Dr. Herzig following the class was lively and enlightening. More of this sort of opportunity would be valuable for all concerned, I believe.”

1956

Reunion 2026, June 12–14

CLASS PRESIDENTS

Alice Brooke Gollnick agollnick725@gmail.com Gail Molander Goddard acgpension@gmail.com

This from Brenda Buttrick Snyder: “Our lives have slowed down quite a bit, but we are still very grateful to be healthy and able to participate in community events. Bruce and I have been at Cornwell Manor (a Pennsylvania CCRC) for nearly 14 years, and still enjoy its residents, staff, and activities. Somehow daily chores — mainly paperwork, cooking, and PT — seem to take more time than they used to, but I’ve also been able to enjoy art classes and work on our residentsassociation newsletter. Bruce is working on his autobiography and is looking forward to springtime in his gardens.” She continues, “We mourned the deaths of two very dear friends this year — Nancy Mills Mallet and Cappy Parker. We shared so many life experiences with them and treasure the memories. Thank heavens that we’re still able to keep in touch with other old friends.”...“Looking forward to a 70th Reunion doesn’t seem

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

at all possible,” writes Diane Felt Swett. “But with the changes that are coming and are soon to be made, maybe the world as I knew it is about to end. Don’t tell me I can only own an electric car! The loss of Nancy Mills Mallet last July was devastating. Living near each other for years, we had many chances to get together along with Brenda Buttrick Snyder and Bruce. Nancy was such a good person and a true friend.” She adds, “My world was somewhat limited when I broke my hip in November of last year. Don’t ever do it — the original bones are better than the replacements.”...Ruth Foster Lowell and Neil “are enjoying our home in Greensboro, N.C., especially when we get together with our five sons and their families,” she writes. “We like to cook, and were joined by 20 family members at Thanksgiving. My 90th birthday celebration featured a cake decorated by our great-grandchildren. Weekly band rehearsals with my trombone continue to be fun and challenging. An RV trip to Maine in September included a visit to the beautiful Bates campus!”... Dee Hirst Holman lost Waner in late March. She is receiving 24-hour care at Coburg Village in Rexford, N.Y., and their son Kyle and his family are nearby. Sons Scott and Terry are in Oregon.... Peter Hutchinson was “sorry to hear about Fred Huber,” who passed away in early 2024. Peter’s article about his Antarctic service aboard the U.S.S. Glacier appears on the U.S. Naval Institute’s Naval History site. “Otherwise, no news. I read and write. Sometimes I watch the news. No one now remembers me, but I liked Bates. I had a good Navy career: seaman to lieutenant commander, and life after.”...Loe Anne Kimball Pino reports that she and Richard tried Arizona for a while but didn’t like the heat. “We came back to Florida, where Kimballs have been spending summers for generations,” and she plans to get involved in politics. “The kids (kids? Retirement age!) are scattered. Oldest is a commercial real estate appraiser with an office in Boston but has moved to North Carolina. The second son is in a prison in Maine and writing a play about it.” Their daughter is “one of the 10 most powerful women in NYC, according to New York Magazine. Grandkids are spread from Maine to North Carolina. We have five great-grands and one on the way.”...Nancy Libby MacLean writes that “Garvey ’57 keeps asking me: ‘When did we meet?’ ‘In 1953, when you were a freshman working in Commons with me.’ That was 71 years ago! We had no idea that we would still be living together in 2024! We are indeed blessed. Back in my home of Scarborough, Maine, with a scattered family of 21, only five of whom live locally.

Two young great-grandchildren and one due this summer. I wish we could know if one of them might choose Bates 16 or 18 years from now! (My mother, Abbie Small Libby, Class of 1924, and several other relatives since then would be very proud indeed.) So many memories of meeting our classmates in 1952 — required Chapel attendance organized by class, and then alphabetically, with attendance being taken. Required classes, fun dances, Outing Club trips, and, of course, the Mayoralty with Kirk Watson.” She adds, “We enjoy books, movies, but we don’t enjoy all the events happening in the country and world around us!”... Gail Molander Goddard wrote from New Hampshire last spring: “As I sit in my condo gazing at the snow falling it looks like the beginning of winter rather than the beginning of April. We had more than a foot of snow last night and a week ago we also had a foot of snow. My poor daffodils are poking their heads up despite the confusion. My life here in New London stays pretty much the same: bridge, volunteer driving for the Council for Aging, church activities, and two book groups.”...Rufus Oguntoye usually receives “mail of the Class of 1956 with gladness in my heart. Thanks be to God, I am still in a good state of mind, even though I am incapacitated with sight challenges and move about with the assistance of a walker. I celebrated my 97th birthday on March 3, alongside my children and grandchildren who assist me daily. As a result of this, I have not been able to connect with any classmates since my last Reunion visit, in 2012. My condolences to all classmates for the demise of our class secretary, Fred Huber, in January.”...Elise Reichert Stiles reports from Cary, N.C., that “our building here has a new studio. As I am only a potter here, I am really busy and having fun teaching others. Phillip and I are still playing recorders in a group of seven.”...Jessie Thompson Huberty reports that “2024 has treated me well. I am vertical and mobile (somewhat) and still traveling. In April I went on a lovely trip to Ireland. On New Year’s Eve I leave for Manila for a huge family reunion, an annual stockholders’ meeting, my 90th birthday parties, and a stay of six weeks. Working on a memoir for my grandsons keeps me busy here at home. I am most grateful to Bates for two things: friends I made as a freshman and have held dear for a lifetime, and my four semesters of ‘Cultch,’ which handed me the world on a platter.”...Kirk Watson is still active at The Hand Center in Glastonbury, Conn., “lecturing to current one-year hand fellows — some 300-plus over the years.” He adds, “Having skipped obstetrics and gynecology whenever I could

media outlet:

Portland Press Herald

headline:

Influential Maine lawmakers are about to give up their seats. What’s next for them?

takeaway:

A good lawmaker combines passion and responsibility

A Portland Press Herald story about leadership transitions in the Maine Legislature last spring included Sawin Millet of Waterford. First elected to the Legislature in 1968, he gave up his seat this year after his ninth term as a lawmaker, receiving a standing ovation on his last day. Millett has run a family beef and dairy farm in Waterford for decades; his public service has run the gamut from town meeting moderator to commissioner of the state Department of Administrative and Financial Affairs.

“It’s been a treat to work with people with diverse backgrounds, work across the party lines to get things done and be accountable in all my appointed roles for major functions and programs,” Sawin said. “I enjoyed being accountable.”

He said he’s not leaving state service: He’s running for election to the Oxford County board of commissioners.

SAWIN

MILLETT

• build • create • hope •

trust

create

promise

future

legacy

in medical school, I’m paying the price in progeny, but couldn’t love them all more. Monie, the oldest of eight, is 65 and lives in Colorado helping raise a parcel of great-grandchildren. Hayes, the youngest at 29, lives in Connecticut with no children (yet).” In other news, Kirk “refurbished the lobster boat I built in 1983 and have been anxious to get her into Moosehead Lake.” He laments the loss of best friends Fred Huber this year, and Reid Pepin ’55 in 2017. “Hard to fathom!”

1957

Reunion 2027, June 11–13

SECRETARY

Peg Leask Olney pegolney@verizon.net

CLASS PRESIDENT

Judy Kent Patkin jpatkin@gmail.com

Nan Henson Hey lost Bob in November 2023. “He wrote and edited for 34 years at the thendaily newspaper The Christian Science Monitor, and finished his career as managing editor of AARP’s member newspaper, the Bulletin,” she writes. As Southern correspondent for the Monitor, Bob covered the civil rights movement from 1967–1969, and went on to serve as Washington correspondent, editorial writer, and a managing editor. Nan adds that in October 2023, her granddaughter, Carolyn, and her longtime boyfriend eloped to New Hampshire’s Mount Jefferson, their favorite place for hiking. Carolyn’s sister, Kristina, performed the ceremony. “In their hiking clothes and boots, all three climbed for two hours to the perfect spot and changed into their wedding clothes. They were married at sunset.”...Bill Ryall and Edie celebrated their 65th anniversary with family in July, he reports. “Now looking forward to June 2027 for my 70th Reunion! We enjoy the classes of ’56–’58 monthly Monday meetings on Zoom.”...Mary Sidney Staudenmayer Treyz broke a hip and spent time in a rehab facility.

1958

Reunion 2028, June 9–11

CLASS SECRETARY

Marilyn Miller Gildea marilyn@gildea.com

CLASS CO-PRESIDENTS

Kay Dill Taylor kaytayloronpeaks@gmail.com Peter Post postp74@gmail.com

Will and Bev Husson Callender are in their 64th year of marriage and living independently in South Portland, Maine, Will wrote in August. “But it ain’t easy! The line is thin and the runway short, but it’s weirdly exciting facing

the dancing perils as we try to live fully each beautiful new day. Family is everything: Our daughters, the architects, and our son, the painting contractor, all live within eight miles. Three of the five grandchildren live nearby too. This collective of folks and their spouses musters many a party at our house where others do all the food preparation and cleanup. Sweet deal, yes! Our other two grandchildren are academic rock stars. Marina is a molecular biology major and a senior at Brown. She wants to be a doctor. She also leads a women’s a cappella singing group, as did her older sister Lillianna previously. Lilli is now in the PhD program in chemistry at Stanford.” Will noted that their “greatest joy” is their greatgrandchildren. “Who could ask for more?”

1959

Reunion 2029, June 8–10

CLASS SECRETARIES

Jack DeGange jack.degange@comcast.net

Mary Ann Houston Hermance donmar23@gmail.com

CLASS PRESIDENT

Anita Kastner Hotchkiss ahotchkiss@goldbergsegalla.com

Fifteen ’59ers plus guests dined together at their 65th Reunion, reports Mary Ann Houston Hermance. “What a great evening it was after a few more local classmates joined them for the Alumni Parade. Five more joined the dinner crowd on Zoom to chat with Fred Drayton about Boss Road, his book telling of his life and times working for the U.S. government. Good times were spent in the quiet of the lounge in Kalperis, a new-to-us dorm on Campus Avenue, reminiscing about the old days and what we have accomplished since graduation.”

While the Historic Quad looks like its old tree-shaded self, “much of the rest of the campus is so very different with new dorms, science buildings, etc.” She adds, “2029 will be the next Reunion year for this class and we hope there will be a hearty group to join together with the Bobcat!”...Honors abounded in 2024 for one of Maine’s longestserving and most-experienced politicians, Sawin Millett, on the occasion of his retirement from the state House of Representatives. In July, U.S. Sen. Susan Collins hosted a luncheon for him in his hometown, Waterford, and presented him with a copy of her statement in the Congressional Record recognizing his achievements. In May, fellow lawmakers honored Sawin with a joint resolution and standing ovation. A nine-term representative, he was first elected to the House in 1968 and also held various executive

roles under four governors. But retirement from Augusta won’t mean the end of his career: Barring the appearance of an independent candidate, Sawin is expected to become an Oxford County commissioner in January, representing 12 towns and the unorganized territory of Albany and Mason townships in the county’s 1st District....Fred Ziegler has published another historical study of Monroe County, W.Va., his home in retirement: Red Sulfur Springs, West Virginia: A NineteenthCentury Health Spa in the Allegheny Foreland (35th Star Publishing).

1960

Reunion 2025, June 6–8

CLASS SECRETARY

Louise Hjelm Davidson lchdavidson011@gmail.com

CLASS PRESIDENT Pete Skelley dskelley@satx.rr.com

Jane Braman Allen and Bob keep active — he with gardening, singing, and the Y, and she with book groups, church activities, exercise at the Y, and walking. Jane notes that “the highlight of our year is our family reunion, which we host for a week in North Truro, Mass., every June. Our family continues to grow and we are blessed to see yet another generation grow up. We also enjoy shows and concerts while in Florida as well as on the Cape, where we meet up with Laurie Trudel Raccagni at the Cape Playhouse. We continue to feel sad to learn of the deaths of classmates. We attended the spreading of ashes in Boothbay Harbor, Maine, for Carol Ambler Wagner.”...Joe and Wanda Jones Corn ’62 “fare pretty well as octogenarians,” he reports, “although many of our ‘road trips’ these days are simply to see a doctor — although we did drive to Maine in July. I still enjoy working in my dahlia garden and on model trains in my basement. And I backstop Wanda as she pushes to finish a long-in-theworks book on the couple with pitchfork — that is, the man and woman in Grant Wood’s painting ‘American Gothic.’” She’s aiming for publication in 2025. “We’ll both feel liberated when that happens!”...Bruce Fox and Eleanor plan to attend Reunion 2025. “All goes well with us at Keystone Place,” their active retirement community in Torrington, Conn. “We make annual trips to Aruba, Hilton Head Island, NYC, and Boston. Other than that, we enjoy the activities and life here. And we enjoy both of our grandchildren. Rylan lives in Torrington now that he has graduated from high school and Victoria remains in Florida with her mother. Eleanor and I walk our very active

3-year-old Shetland sheepdog, Malcolm, daily. Hope to see all of you in June.”...Ray Hendess reports that the life that he and Rory Keller share in Petaluma, Calif., is going well. “While the down-and-up Grand Canyon hike in 2002 and the 100-mile bike ride in 2006 are now fond memories, we continue local hiking and biking.” Ray is still on the board of Phi Beta Kappa Northern California Assn. and Rory continues her activities with AAUW Petaluma....Louise Hjelm Davidson reports that “Alan and I are still enjoying good health though mobility issues have slowed us somewhat. We keep busy with church and golf, and have enjoyed visits and weekly Zoom conversations with our family. Being your class secretary for the past 30 years has been a joy and privilege. I regard it as a life ‘sentence,’ so keep communicating your news. See you next June.”...Pete Skelley continues to direct clinical labs in Texas. He writes: “My physical condition reminds me of the patient who tells his doctor about the pain in his knee. After doing a bunch of tests, the doctor tells the patient that the problem is simply old age. The patient replies ‘Yeah, Doc, but the other knee is the same age and it’s fine.’”...Linda Swanson Bradley is “looking forward to our Reunion and hope to see you all.” She’s busy with church responsibilities and with volunteer work at her retirement community. “Although I seldom participate in Road Scholar travel excursions in person anymore, I take great advantage of their wonderful online programs. I just finished a lecture series on the ancient Olympics, and it was fun to see the similarities between ancient and today’s Olympics. It seems that humans haven’t changed too much over the centuries!” Linda doesn’t see her sons as often as she’d like, but “my granddaughters are very involved in high school activities, and their concerts and other events are often livestreamed or on YouTube, so technology has become my best friend!”

1961

Reunion 2026, June 12–14

CLASS SECRETARY

Gretchen Shorter Davis norxloon@aol.com

CLASS PRESIDENTS

Mary Morton Cowan mmcowan@gwi.net

Dick Watkins rwatkcapt@aol.com

Betty Bonnar Kepner has been “creating small environmentally themed textile panels that will be displayed in an immense labyrinth at the Desert Botanical Gardens in Phoenix, January through May 2025. The project is called TOWARD 2050 to bring awareness that action

Truth Is Beauty

Truth be told, Ray Hendess ’60 and his wife, Rory, have a beautiful work of art outside their home in Petaluma, Calif.

Truth Is Beauty, a 16-foot-tall stainless steel mesh sculpture, shows a female figure with arms outstretched high toward the sky. It was created by the artist Marco Cochrane, who exhibited a similar but much taller statue (55 feet) at Burning Man in 2013. Cochrane has said that the figure expresses “feminine energy and power that results when women feel free and safe.”

“Marco’s studio is about a mile from here, We had walked past there many times, and one time that statue was standing there,” Hendess says. “Rory immediately called and asked about buying it.”

The sculpture was previously displayed at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., the Cincinnati Art Museum, and the Oakland Museum of California. The piece stands on approximately 2,500 pounds of concrete in a cylindrical subgrade pier.

“The statue provides a beautiful sight from the house and garden,” says Hendess. “It has amazing detail, including eyelashes!” The original Truth Is Beauty is now displayed at the San Leandro (Calif.) Tech Campus.

must be taken to protect our environment.”...Alan Cate is a member of the Unitarian Universalists of Sarasota. “Our church, in combination with other local churches and synagogues and groups active in the people of color community, agreed to have a historical landmark plaque installed near the busy road that passes the church.” The plaque commemorates six victims of lynching in Sarasota and Manatee counties and was dedicated in a February event that featured residents recounting harrowing family histories related to the killings. “So it is clear that oppressive racism is current in the lives of people today. Hard times are difficult to overcome and not to constantly fret about, but the coming together at this dedication was wonderful to behold. We are proud to display this plaque where anyone can read it and reflect upon how fortunate we are to be somewhat better off now, and how important it is for us all to come together and assist others to enjoy their lives.”...

Carl and Mary Morton Cowan enjoyed meeting Bates President Garry Jenkins following his inauguration in May. Mary continues to give public presentations about Maine’s logging history, drawn from her latest book, Trouble in Nathan’s Woods, and had a book-signing at the College Store during Reunion....Nadine Parker has a big vegetable garden at a park in Nashua, N.H., where she lives. “It’s been almost 10 years for me. It’s very peaceful, and provides a lot of wonderful food. I’m still playing bridge and have taken up mah-jongg. Also still playing in the Nashua Chamber Orchestra. At 85, I’m not moving as fast as I used to, but haven’t given anything up.” She plans to visit Florida in the early spring. She adds, “It would be great to hear from classmates.”...Jerry and Gretchen Shorter Davis met with Bates friends during the summer. They encountered Dick Krause ’60 and Jan, along with three of Dick’s sons and their families, at the annual Fourth of July parade in Millinocket, Maine, where both families like to summer. In August, the Davises ran into Rae Harper Garcelon ’62 at a party for the Good Theater, a popular theater company in the Portland area. Writing in August, Gretchen added that they were planning two trips for autumn: “a Road Scholar in Chattanooga and a Dixieland jazz festival in the Phoenix area.”...Judith Williams Gordon took a two-week Baltic cruise in May and June. She was saddened by the loss of her brother, Robert L. Williams ’57, in September 2023. “A shock,” she notes.

1962

Reunion 2027, June 11–13

CLASS SECRETARY

Carolyn Nelson Webber lynnelson10@gmail.com

CLASS PRESIDENT

Rachel Harper Garcelon raegarcelon@gmail.com

CLASS VICE-PRESIDENT

David Boone doboone@peoplepc.com’

As Marianne Bickford Worden and Kim reported last year, they were able to move inland in Fort Myers, Fla., after Hurricane Ian destroyed their beachfront home in September 2022. “We’re settled in an established neighborhood with a nice view of a lake with birds and other wildlife. Our health is good, and our children and their families are doing well. We still summer in Burlington, Vt., where we visit family and friends. While our health holds, we hope to continue our current routine, including a cruise to the Caribbean and South America this winter.”...

Diana Blomquist Edwards lost Dave just before COVID hit, and in 2023 moved to a suburb of Columbus, Ohio, to be near daughter Kristyne Edwards Stiteler ’91 and her family.

“After many wonderful years in Bethlehem, Conn., a peaceful country town of about 3,000, I am enjoying my new one-floor home here, lovely new neighbors, many new places to explore, a new but smaller garden, and of course, being nearer to two grandchildren. My other daughter, Leslie, and her family live east of San Francisco. Fortunately, I am in good health.”...Tony Cherot and Jeanne are doing well in Santa Barbara, Calif. Writing last spring, he had recovered from a hip replacement and gotten back to “old-guys tennis,” in which “the breaks are longer than the play and you shout, ‘Nice shot!’ instead of chasing a drop shot.”

As for travel, “we are off to Kauai for our semi-annual trip to inspect our vacation rental, change light bulbs, etc. Two nieces’ and one grandniece’s weddings to attend, with travel adventures around those trips.”...

Jean Cushman Holt and Bill ’63 “are doing well (enough). He has his vineyard and winery and other projects. I still do most everything I always did, except at a diminished and less-productive rate. And I still have all my original parts — although, I admit, somewhat aided and supported, i.e., a hearing aid.” She continues, “The sadness we feel about the death two years ago of our daughter, Christina, will always be with us, blunted by time, but the gratefulness for the blessing of her life with us remains. Our other children are doing well, as are grandkids.”

Two of the latter are Batesies: Jordan Wilson ’23 and Lara Wilson ’27, daughters of Mary Holt-Wilson ’92 and Andrew. Jean adds, “One of the greatest joys in my life has been the 21st-century novel course at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the Univ. of Southern Maine. It is particularly nice on Zoom.” The course is based on “a collaborative team-teaching plan that is quite wonderful.”... Hannelore Flessa Jarausch reports: “All is well with me, but Konrad, who has retired from the Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2023. He is responding well to medications, participating in an exercise group, still swimming and playing tennis, even if everything is at a slower pace. We are fortunate to live in an area with excellent medical support.” Before the diagnosis, they spent most of summer 2023 visiting extended family in Germany, “then catching up with our place in Berlin where our younger son and his family had just spent a rewarding year.” Hannelore adds, “I do think back to my time at Bates, with positive memories, especially of Cultural Heritage, which has followed me throughout my academic career and beyond.”...Writing in April, Sharon Fowler Kenrick was “excited to soon become a great-grandmother twice.”...Rae Harper Garcelon, after putting up with pain from a shoulder injured in 2023, had it replaced last July. She is still involved with the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, the senior college at the Univ. of Southern Maine. She has run OLLI’s Outdoor/Walking Club for 15 years, “but I’m thinking I have to give it up sometime. I just finished our schedule for the coming year. It’s a big job, as I don’t put a trail on the list unless I have walked it first. That was hard this spring because we had a lot of rain and then ice on the trails.” Adds Rae, who lives in Yarmouth, on Maine’s coast: “It was a crazy winter here.” During one of the destructive rain- and wind-storms, she was without power for four days — “not fun for an old woman. It was 50 degrees in my condo and I went to bed fully dressed with my winter parka on. Quite the scene.” She was about to retreat to a hotel when power was restored. “Maybe some of you will come to Maine for our 65th Reunion. That would be something.”... Sally Marshall Corngold still enjoys Southern California, and still has one son close by. “Went to a wonderful birthday for Sally Benson ’61. It was a multicourse feast hosted by Lauren Nichols ’00, celebrating the global experiences of her mom, and co-hosted by Isla Gurnon,” Lauren’s daughter with Nick Gurnon ’01....Lorrie Otto

Gloede goes from her home in Delaware to Nutley, N.J., every Tuesday for ballroom social dancing and a lesson....Susan Ramer Lawler and John “are both well, still active, and remain in the same home we’ve lived in for 54 years. However, we are aware that at our age, situations can change suddenly and have begun to look into alternatives.”

In May, after 41 years, Susan retired from teaching as an adjunct professor of English at Rhode Island College. I loved being there, so it was a difficult decision, but the right one, I think. We both enjoy news from Bates and follow the Facebook postings.”...Sandy Smith Boynton writes: “The return of our son, Jamie, wife Rika, and children, after six and a half years in Tokyo, was the highlight of our summer. His new accounting-company position, connecting with colleagues from all over the world, is accomplished locally. However, travel is also included, including to Sweden and the Ivory Coast. Happily, our three children are now all within an hour of us. Laura, a professor at Providence College, and her family live in Providence, R.I. Our son John, whose career is in educational technology, is enjoying a new home with his family in Hopkinton, Mass. Bob and I enjoy gatherings at our New Hampshire lake house. The kitchen is bustling, the boats humming, and the lake laughing and splashing! I look forward to an annual summer retreat to Cape Cod with 10 Wellesley High School classmates!”...Kendall Snow has resided in Manchester, N.H., for 58 years. In 2017, he and the late Marnie Webb Snow ’63 “sold our family home to our son and moved to a nearby residential community for seniors, thus maintaining our status as ‘Granite Staters.’ Our two children blessed us with two grandchildren, one of whom is currently in the Class of ’25 at Bates. I retired in 2014 after a 50-year career as a social worker and executive in community mental health. I was then elected to four terms in the N.H. House of Representatives. I continue to be involved in local and statewide boards and organizations, as well as in a variety of alumni roles at Bates, including serving as the Bates Fund class agent for our class. Marnie and I experienced successful careers, and enjoyed extensive worldwide travels and great family vacations. She passed away in 2022 — but after 62 years as a couple, she will always be with me, a continuing source of inspiration and motivation. For me, it will always be a great day to be a Bobcat!”... Lyn Webber Nelson and Bob Maiz have resided at Springmoor, a senior living facility in Raleigh, N.C., for five years. Springmoor is in a lovely neighborhood, and its campus is charming, “with

winding walkways and huge trees. There are great people here — both residents and staff — and a wide variety of activities and trips, so we feel very blessed to be here.” She adds, “Just two things were difficult for me to adjust to: One was the heat in North Carolina, and the other was, when we moved to our current home, getting used to riding on the seniors’ bus with its identity printed outside in big bold letters! Once I mastered that challenge and got accustomed to the convenience, it’s been all uphill! We’re just a short distance from our former home, so we’ve been able to maintain relationships and activities from that time.”...Bob Witt sends “an overdue response from one of your delinquent class members. After graduating from Bates, I earned an MBA from Tuck School at Dartmouth and a PhD from Penn State. I joined the faculty at the Univ. of Texas in 1968 and served there for 27 years, including 10 as dean of the business school and four as president of the Univ. of Texas at Arlington. I became president of the Univ. of Alabama in 2003, served as president for nine years, and chancellor of the Univ. of Alabama System for four years.” He now serves as professor and president emeritus, and teaches part time in UA’s college of business. He and Sandee live in Tuscaloosa....Linda Zeilstra Kellom wrote in April on a day when “spring has definitely arrived on Hilton Head Island. The azaleas are in full bloom and some camellias and gardenias are still out. Both year-round birds plus migratory shore birds are vocal. This is the month when friends from New England tend to stop by for a visit en route to Florida.”

1963

Reunion 2028, June 9–11

CLASS SECRETARY

Natalie Hosford nataliehosford@gmail.com

CLASS PRESIDENT

Bill Holt wholt@maine.rr.com

CLASS HISTORIAN

Dottie Stone dottie@stone-stonect.com

Bob Hood and Terry “spent June in Maine, where we rented a lovely waterfront cottage on Round Pond in Bristol. We dined four times at Primo restaurant in Rockland, our favorite restaurant, and took a boat trip out to see the amazing puffins. During the winter we spent a couple of weeks in St. Lucia, our second trip there, and another week on a small-boat cruise from St. Pete, Fla., down the coast to Key West and the Dry Tortugas. I continue to serve on the board of the Northern Neck

Orchestra in Virginia, where we have lived for 20 years. We moved there so I could have a big sailboat at a dock in back of the house. My latest boat project is a Hylas 70.”...Sandra Parker Workman Nicolazzi has lived at RiverWoods Durham, a continuing-care retirement community in Durham, N.H., for almost five years. “I sing in the chorus, serve on committees, and participate in Univ. of New Hampshire research. I’m currently learning to use a virtual-reality headset. Very fun.” Writing in August, she was looking forward to a visit with Bates roommate Pat Minalga Walbam in September.

1964

Reunion 2029, June 8–10

CLASS SECRETARY–TREASURER

Rhoda Morrill Silverberg rhodaeric@att.net

CLASS COMMUNICATIONS

Elizabeth McNab ejmcnab@cox.net

CLASS PRESIDENT

Gretchen Ziegler gretchenz958@gmail.com

CLASS VICE-PRESIDENT Kevin Gallager gallaher.family@verizon.net

CLASS HISTORIAN

Dot March Harris dotharriswi@gmail.com

Leigh Campbell, who directed the Bates financial aid program for 39 years and was a graduate of Wiscasset (Maine) High School, was posthumously inducted into the Midcoast Sports Hall of Fame during the summer. A lifelong basketball fan, he served as the official scorer for the Maine Principals Assn. for many years and for Bates men’s basketball for nearly 50 years. Leigh, who died in 2020, was inducted into the Bates Scholar-Athlete Society in 2012 and was recognized as a Maine Basketball Hall of Fame Legend in 2019....David Harrison has retired from Maine’s Jackson Lab after nearly 55 years and at age 82. “Mostly it was a good place to work, but the ending is sad,” he writes. “Like life as a whole — the best we can hope for is, ‘It was mostly good,’ (but) the ending will be sad.” Dave advises folks still in the workplace to look into medical insurance and retirement income early, as those chores are “a pain.” He adds, “Despite problems, I am grateful to be active and enjoying life. Lots of beauty yet to enjoy, love to share, and dragons to fight.”... Gretchen Ziegler met up with Cliff and Pat Dehle Baker at a performance of the musical The Hunchback of Notre Dame at the Carnegie Hall in Lewisburg, W.Va.

1965

Reunion 2025, June 6–8

CLASS SECRETARY Evie Hathaway Horton ehhorton@me.com

CLASS PRESIDENT Joyce Mantyla joycemantyla@gmail.com

CLASS VICE-PRESIDENTS Newt Clark newtonclark@comcast.net Peter Heyel JPTraveler@gmail.com

Kirby Noye passed away in August. Peter Heyel describes him as “one of our friendliest, understated, best classmates: always there when needed, without asking, behind the scenes. After many, many Bates adventures, Kirby and I kept in touch well into the 1970s. I recall visiting him and Marjorie at their home near Rochester, N.Y., where we watched the first moon landing and spent the night.” Peter remembers the “blue Volkswagen” that “spirited us around many evenings — Page Hall, Frye Street, downtown Lewiston — always after dark. And so much more.”...Nick Basbanes and a fellow Bay State journalist filed suit in early 2024 against OpenAI, maker of the artificial intelligence platform ChatGPT, and its business partner Microsoft. Nick and his friend Nick Gage, both of North Grafton, Mass., allege that their copyrighted work “has been systematically pilfered” as feedstock, if you will, for ChatGPT’s on-demand, machinegenerated text. Their suit was subsumed into a consolidated case brought by other nonfiction writers as well as fiction writers represented by the Authors Guild, as The Associated Press reported in July. Nick Basbanes’ publications include 1995’s A Gentle Madness, a study of the art of book collection from ancient through modern times.... Bruce Cooper wrote during a beautiful summer cruise along the Norwegian coast. “At this point, we plan to be at Reunion after No. 3 granddaughter’s high school graduation in Massachusetts. Hope to see everyone there.”...Brenda Kaulback moved back to Maine from Westport, Conn., where she’d been since the passing of her wife, Rosemary Talmadge, in 2021. “In February of this year,” she writes, “I remarried — to another Rosemary. She lives in Maine, and I have moved to be with her in Wells. We also just purchased a house on Balch Pond in West Newfield, where we hope to live part time. It is quite a surprise to be embarking on this new life at age 80, and not an unwelcome one. Besides the name coincidence, we have other things in common. We were both with our late wives for more

than 30 years, our wives died in the same year, we both got our doctorates at 70, and we each have two children. We went to France in September to celebrate my oldest daughter’s 50th birthday in Champagne.”...Ted Krzynowek reports that he and Judi Laming Krzynowek ’66 have fly-fished in New Zealand four times, the last being in 2019, and it’s great for enthusiasts like them. But “we still fish every year in Montana.”...Joyce Mantyla got in touch in July on the eve of a three-week trip focused on Scandinavia. “It’s the mother land, as I’m Finnish!” she noted. Even when she’s not traveling, Joyce spends her summers and autumns in NYC so she can take off at a moment’s notice — but also enjoys “friends here, and, of course, Broadway!”...John Norton lives in Kremmling, Colo., “in the high Rockies close to my son, Jack, his wife Megan, and their daughters. In the summer I fish the beautiful Blue River, a short 10-minute drive from my house.” John notes that he has “written, published, self-published, or am still editing about 20 children’s books. Henry, The Spare Parts Dog is fundraising for more than 20 animal rescue programs. I’m happy to send you a free link.” He has also completed two novels, Escort Service? (“Not what you think!”) and Simple Gifts, based on John’s year with a Habitat for Humanity retail store. He adds: “May I take a moment to remember Harry Mossman ’65, killed in that mistake, the Vietnam War? He was a credit to Bates, his family, and his friends.”

1966

Reunion 2026, June 12–14

CLASS PRESIDENT

Alex Wood awwood@mit.edu

Priscilla Clark has “decided these notes are a nice way to stay in touch with you all, even though our class is notorious for not doing them. I continue to run my Airbnb business out of my home” in Concord, Mass.

“Although I’m no longer able to ride due to all my joint replacements, I teach horseback riding two days a week and am grateful for good health. Hope you are all well — please write next time!”

1967

Reunion 2027, June 11–13

CLASS PRESIDENTS

Keith Harvie kcharvie12@gmail.com

Pam Johnson Reynolds preynolds221@gmail.com

1968

Reunion 2028, June 9–11

Better Together

“It was a good day for both of us,” says Colin Fuller ’69, summing up a morning spent running 26.2 miles with his daughter Erin Fuller Riddell ’18 at the Maine Coast Marathon in Wells on May 5, 2024. “It was cold, which allowed us to run faster for longer.”

Just three weeks after running the Boston Marathon, Colin, who had traveled from Verdi, Nev., for the races and to spend time with East Coast family members, ran a time of 4:39 as one of only three men over 70 among 976 runners. Erin’s time was 4:17. “Oh, to be young again!” quipped Colin, who reports that Erin has recently begun medical studies at the University of Nevada School of Medicine. “Her mother and I are very proud of her.”

CLASS SECRETARY

Rick Melpignano rickmel713@gmail.com

CLASS PRESIDENT Nancy Hohmann nhohmann@yahoo.com

1969

Reunion 2029, June 8–10

CLASS SECRETARY

Deborah Bliss Behler debbehler@aol.com

CLASS PRESIDENT George Peters geo47peters@gmail.com

Chantal Berry Dalton reports that “work is underway for my first published collection of poetry. Working title is Derivatives. I am also contributing to Storyworth, an informal memoir. In October, off to Spain. Jorge will look after the cats!” — that is, spouse Jorge Garcez-Rocha....Debbie Bliss Behler and her sister carved two weeks out of a busy June and July for “a great Rick Steves’ tour of England — from Bath to Wales to Hadrian’s Wall, and back to London. Those Cultural Heritage classes and Janson’s History of Art came to life.” Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour brought the superstar to England at the same time, so Swifties were abundant on trains and in the city. Then Debbie spent the July 4th weekend with her stepdaughter and two of her kids, their spouses, four greatgrandchildren ages 2–5, and two dogs. “Super special to spend time with family,” she writes.... After long consideration, Mary Buckson Fuller writes, “I finally moved from Connecticut to Montana to be close to my daughter and grandchildren. A big move for someone who has always lived in New England!”... Stan Lyford was recognized by the U.S. House of Representatives in April for his 50-plus years of achievement as coach and mentor for the Portsmouth (N.H.) High School girls track and cross-country teams. “With a lifelong passion for giving back to his community and ensuring that every student can succeed, Stan embodies the value of service above self and has had an immeasurable effect on strengthening the Portsmouth community,” noted U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas. Also a math teacher at Portsmouth High until he retired from teaching in 2007, Stan was inducted into the New Hampshire Interscholastic Athletic Assn. Hall of Fame during the fall. Stan and Ann Potter Lyford ’71 live in North Hampton, N.H., and their children are Michael, Tracy Lyford Armstrong ’00, and Curt Lyford ’04....Peter Martocchio and Morea Nalley decided to move to an apartment last spring because the upkeep of their house and yard in Nova Scotia was becoming too demanding.

“Realizing that once our belongings were packed into a van, it made little difference where the van was unloaded, we took the opportunity to return to the U.S.,” Peter reports — specifically, Nashua, N.H.... William Yaner suffered a heart attack that called for emergency angioplasty and two stents. “I share this not-so-uncommon news because the Class of 1969, like it or not, is, shall we say, getting up there, and no doubt (bound to) experience some kind of sobering realization that we’ve entered into a new phase of this wonderful life. It ain’t all bad from my perspective. As the father of a good friend shared with us, ‘I’ve enjoyed every chapter of my life, and fully intend to enjoy this last one too.’ And for each of us that will take its personal contours, whether traveling, or like me, spending quality time with my family, friends, backyard critters and birds (especially crows), reading, writing, and being grateful for every blessing my life has bestowed upon me. Thanks for being a rich part of that, fellow Batesies.”

1970

Reunion 2025, June 6–8

CLASS SECRETARIES

Stephanie Leonard Bennett slenben@comcast.net

Betsey Brown efant127@yahoo.com

CLASS PRESIDENT Steve Andrick steve.andrick15@gmail.com

CLASS VICE-PRESIDENT Barbara Hampel barbaraph@live.com

Pamela Alexander’s fifth collection of poems, Left, won the 2024 Chad Walsh Chapbook Series competition from Beloit Poetry Journal. Earlier books were awarded the Yale Younger Poet and Iowa Poetry prizes, and her work has appeared in many periodicals and anthologies. After leaving the creative writing faculty at Oberlin College, Pam spent five years traveling the continent in an RV with her cat. She has now settled down in Maine....James Glinski has written four books on the history of his town, Scituate, Mass., since he retired in 2017. Available on Amazon is his latest, Tale of Two Towns: Scituate and Marshfield During the American Revolution 1763–1790, which is part of the effort to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution. “I am also a member of the Scituate Historical Commission, which spends a lot of effort trying to prevent the demolition of historically significant properties.”

1971

Reunion 2026, June 12–14

CLASS SECRETARY

Suzanne Woods Kelley suzannekelley@att.net

CLASS PRESIDENT

Michael Wiers mwiers@mwiers.com

CLASS VICE-PRESIDENT

Jan Face Glassman jfaceg1@hotmail.com

1972

Reunion 2027, June 11–13

CLASS SECRETARY

Dick Thomas rthomas14@comcast.net

CLASS PRESIDENT

Erik Bertelsen ecbertelsen@gmail.com

Steve Hoad writes of life changes: “Early in January, my dear wife, Helen, died suddenly without pain or suffering. She called to me that she was ‘going to pass out’ and she did so, immediately passing on to another place. After more than 49 years of marriage and over 50 years of friendship we have had so many times, enjoying many and struggling through others. Those were wonderful years.” Then, in March, Steve was diagnosed with cancer. He later learned that “the cancer is OK, I have a very positive prognosis and, in the exact opposite of what many fear, I feel good 80 percent of the time — a little weak and less useful, but still happy and going-lucky!” He continues: “I mention these things because many of my Bates friendships have eased my mind and assisted my continuing life, and the contacts have been very fulfilling: memories and ideas, political discussions, hugs, phone calls, and emails brighten my days.” A connection he calls “very uplifting” has been with Vanessa Paolella ’21, formerly editor-in-chief of The Bates Student and a Sun Journal reporter. When Steve “reached out to her with a comment about the Student, a great alliance of thoughts and dreams was formed.” (See 2021 for more about Vanessa. — Editor)...Deb Lindquist Thurston is in her 30th year as a public school teacher. “I tried retirement, but that didn’t work out.” She’s a Title 1 teacher — working with students who need extra support in certain subjects — in a K–8 school in northern N.H., “and loving it!”...Steve Mortimer is “enjoying life with Alice Ruvane and as a father and grandfather. I continue to help Trinity Jubilee Center in Lewiston, and am very excited to be running again after a 35-year hiatus due to my arthritic spine. Doing OK in my age group even though 10 minutes only takes me one

mile rather than two these days!” His running buddies at the Bates track include Charlie Maddaus ’73.

1973

Reunion 2028, June 9–11

CLASS PRESIDENTS

Deborah Gahm

debbiegahm1@gmail.com

Kaylee Masury kmasury@yahoo.com

Ira Waldman ira.waldman@gmail.com

Alan David Gould has published four books this year, all available on Amazon: The Brilliance of Miles, a poetry collection; A La Al: Eclectic Recipes with a Twist; Stories of My First 50 Years; and An Instructional Guide for Musicians. “It was a thrill to finalize book projects that were years in the making,” Al says.... Frances Metzger Littleton and Bruce moved from Arizona to Fort Myers, Fla., last April as Bruce accepted the position of county traffic engineer for Lee County....Karen Sowpel Jacob dedicates every Saturday to “pizza night and drinks and politics. I Google a lot so my comments have some truth to them.” She adds, “My physical thing is walking four to six miles four or five times a week. My educational thing is joining two book clubs — one meets in a winery! The other book project is reading banned books, and I participated in a very peaceful protest against the Moms for Liberty. The police were texting and drinking coffee. I felt obliged to read some of these books as a Bates-educated English major, and wanted to know what they are about. I have read Where the Wild Things Are — yes, it is on the Moms’ list — to my grandchildren.” Speaking of whom, she adds, they have given her and Ralph “immense joy.”

The pair took a Seine cruise whose destination was the Normandy American Cemetery, where nearly 9,400 Americans who died during World War II, primarily in the D-Day landings, are buried....Joanne Stato released On Lake Linganore, her second album of original songs, in April. Recorded soon after a jam session at her 50th Reunion that left her “psyched,” she writes, the album’s 12 titles “tell stories and ruminate on various topics, including my favorite children’s book, by William Steig, Doctor DeSoto, the tale of how a savvy dentist mouse outwits a voracious fox,” Joanne writes. Find On Lake Linganore and its predecessor, Talking to Myself, on Bandcamp.

1974

Reunion 2029, June 8–10

20 2 5 BATES FUND

class of 1975 takeaway:

Takako Yamaguchi

media outlet: Artnet News

headline:

Who is Takako Yamaguchi, the undersung painter causing a frenzy at auction?

takeaway:

Perseverance and staying true to self can lead to long-overdue artistic recognition

Media outlets are talking about artist Takako Yamaguchi ’75 surging into the spotlight after decades of quiet work in Los Angeles. Her paintings, which once sold for a few thousand dollars, are now breaking records at major auctions. For example, her 1994 painting Catherine and Midnight sold for $1.1 million, breaking a record at Sotheby’s London, and several other works have consistently outperformed auction estimates.

As Artnet News noted, “Yamaguchi’s seascape paintings in the Whitney Biennial have touched a nerve with their surreal synthesis of abstraction, pattern, and décor from East and West.”

While it’s true that “art-market machinations can be ruthless, taking creators on notoriously damaging rollercoasters of speculation,” Yamaguchi’s long experience of “deep-searching and solid practice” makes her “better placed than most to ride — and hold — this swell of commercial interest into well-deserved, broader recognition for her rich oeuvre.”

CLASS SECRETARY

Tina Psalidas Lamson tinal2@mac.com

CLASS PRESIDENT

Don McDade mcdadecbb@gmail.com

SOCIAL MEDIA

COORDINATORS

Bill and Karen Lord Cunningham karenlc67@gmail.com

Bruce Kenney and Holly “thoroughly enjoyed the 50th Reunion, my first time back and definitely not the last. We’re pleased to have rather mild North Carolina winters and the freedom to travel regularly to Maine, visiting a family cottage, our daughters, and our grandson.”... Bob Lastowski had to miss his 50th Reunion because on that same weekend, graduation was held at the Christian day school where he was serving as interim principal. (He stepped down from that post later in June.) But Susan Evans Brown Lastowski ’75 does plan to attend hers. “We celebrated our 50th anniversary on July 6 — we were married in the Bates chapel.” Bob adds that Susan’s first historical novel, Mighty Wind, Rushing Waters, is now available through the College Store, as well as at brickand-mortar bookstores in Maine, Massachusetts, and Montana. Written under the pen name of Susan Evans, the book is about an Indigenous boarding school in Montana in 1890.

1975

Reunion 2025, June 5–8

CLASS SECRETARIES

Deborah Bednar Jasak Deborahjasak@gmail.com

Faith Minard minardblatt@gmail.com

CLASS PRESIDENTS

Susie Bourgault Akie susieakie@gmail.com

Janet Haines jbh580@aol.com

On behalf of the Reunion Committee, Faith Minard, one of your Class secretaries, kindly requests that ’75ers mark their calendars for their 50th Reunion, June 5–8 — and plan to be there! Also, if you have changed your contact information recently, please send updates to bates. edu/alumni/contact-update

Nancy Johnson Young and Jon look forward to seeing many classmates at their 50th Reunion. She writes, “We are anxious to see how the Bates campus has grown and to enjoy Commons food while sharing stories with old friends.” Meanwhile, they were looking forward to a Holland America cruise through Alaska’s Inside Passage in September. “We’ll tell you all about it in June — see you there!”...This from Ruth Nickerson Robbins in

Arlington, Va.: “My first two years of retirement were spent racing around to welcome new grandbabies and play with the existing ones. They are my favorite activity! I now have seven under age 6 in D.C., Dallas, and L.A. In between I’ve traveled to Florence, Italy, and Chautauqua, N.Y. I attend theater in D.C. and visit the amazing museums here, and take day trips with friends. And I catch up on reading, including taking a course on reading the Bible as literature. In another year or two I’ll decide if I want to move away or stay put for the duration — something I imagine many of you are challenged by, as kids move away.”...Sarah Pearson, who retired in 2022 after a decade as Bates’ vice president of college advancement, has taken a similar position on an interim basis at Swarthmore. Nationally recognized as a leader in her field, Sarah oversaw a neartripling of annual fundraising at Bates, from $12 million in fiscal 2013 to $34.2 million in fiscal 2021. She and her team were crucial to adapting the goals of the college’s Institutional Plan into compelling fundraising priorities that, in the 2017–2022 Bates Campaign, yielded a record $345.7 million — nearly $46 million above the goal. Her interim appointment was announced by Bates classmate Valerie Smith, Swarthmore’s president....Responding to a Portland Press Herald op-ed about lessons offered by Somali immigration to Lewiston in recent decades, Chuck Radis reminded readers that “the seeds for acceptance were already in place in Lewiston,” in part personified by John Jenkins ’74, Maine’s first Black state senator and mayor of both Lewiston and Auburn. “Jenkins was extraordinarily popular in the Twin Cities, particularly in the French Canadian community, which had also suffered from long-term prejudice.” Chuck, whose Jenkins biography was published last year, added in his letter to the editor that “support from the Somali community was demonstrated by the Many and One rally at Bates College on Jan. 11, 2003,” which drew more than 4,000 people to campus.

1976

Reunion 2026, June 11–14

CLASS SECRETARY Jeff Helm

bateslax@gmail.com

CLASS PRESIDENT Bruce Campbell

brucec@maine.rr.com

CLASSMATE

CONVERSATIONS

COORDINATOR

Marjorie McCormick Davis margedavis@comcast.net

JACK PIERSON

Ann Austin-Beck finished several years in senior administration at Michigan State, as interim dean of the College of Education and then as interim vice provost for faculty and academic staff affairs. “I greatly enjoyed contributing to the university in these roles, but I was eager to return to my faculty work (teaching and research) for the last few years of my career. I’m especially busy leading several grants on teaching improvement at the higher education level, and co-leading educators and leaders in government, funding, and business in a multi-year ‘Roundtable’ for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, focused on systemic reform in undergraduate STEM education.” She adds, “I’m looking forward to our 50th Reunion (as unbelievable as that is)!”...Jitske Fennema retired from her psychotherapy practice last January. A resident of Zutphen, the Netherlands, “I am busy with overdue house and garden maintenance, but mainly enjoying being able to manage my own time. I joined two walking groups and a reading club, I play golf, and am taking courses for seniors (writing, filmmaking).” Writing in August, she was looking forward to soon returning stateside to visit Bates and old friends....Shari Spencer Parsons reports that the Parker House Girls held their annual reunion during the spring in Newport. On hand for the gathering, in addition to Shari, were Marge McCormick Davis, Buff Seirup Bachenheimer, Wendy Henderson Waymouth, Kathy Hatcher Butler, Sally Booth Wellman, Clara Smith, and Mary McMahon Dowd Next year: Vermont....Karen Stathoplos is still “working the perfect part-time job, of membership administrator and bookkeeper at Laudholm Trust, supporting the Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve,” in Maine. Meanwhile, husband Kim Krauss “surprised me with a week in Paris for Valentine’s Day at our favorite apartment, where we love cooking in the great kitchen, walking for miles and miles, and eating at Florimond, Goa, Au Clair de Lune, and Paprika.” Writing in August, Karen noted that she and Kim were looking forward to celebrating their 34th with an autumn visit to a favorite lodging in France, Ti al Lannec. She added, “I just spent two days catching up with Donna Clarico when she came for a visit, and we had a festive Zoom call with Ann Marie Blackmon and Martha Wright Nelson.”

1977

Reunion 2027, June 10–13

teacher’s influence

‘Time and Patience’

During Trinity College’s graduation on May 19, 2024, Professor of Mathematics David Mauro ’76 (right) accepted the Thomas Church Brownell Prize for Teaching Excellence from Mitchell Polin, associate dean for curriculum and professor of theater and dance. Mauro was honored for “charismatic teaching and exceptional ability to break down the complexities of any topic. Students express gratitude for the time and patience you devote to them, guiding them to stretch beyond what they thought was possible.”

His teaching philosophy, Mauro says, “holds that without clarity and economy of presentation, mathematics can easily turn from an object of immense beauty to a pit of deep despair.” To avoid falling into that pit, Mauro prepares for each lecture by posing basic questions: “What do I want to say? How do I want to say it?”

CLASS SECRETARY

Steve Hadge schmuddy@yahoo.com

CLASS PRESIDENT Keith Taylor drkeithtaylor@msn.com

David Brooks, a reporter at New Hampshire’s Concord Monitor, was inducted into the New England Journalism Hall of Fame in April. A news veteran of nearly 40 years, David is “a stalwart among the state’s trusted press corps (and is known for) mathematics, accuracy, reliability,” the paper wrote. David came to the Monitor in 2015 after 28 years at the Nashua Telegraph

Though grateful for the Hall of Fame honor, “I must say that the thing I’m really thankful for is being a reporter,” David said at the induction ceremony. “After all, I get paid to badger complete strangers about things

that interest me! It’s a blast and apparently readers, at least some of them, have a blast too.”...

Lynn Glover Baronas writes that “life is great! Mark and I are retired and we are fortunate to spend lots of time with our three grandchildren, Luca, Stella Jo, and Penny. I enjoy my fall and spring weekends in Falmouth (Mass.) with Jane Goguen Baronas and Pam Walch Constantine. In May we visited the Heritage Museums & Gardens in Sandwich, booked our usual 11-mile walk to Woods Hole, and spent many hours chatting and catching up. I am blessed that Bates College gave me such lovely friends (and in Jane’s case, a sister-in-law as well!).”

1978

Reunion 2028, June 8–11

CLASS SECRETARIES

Chip Beckwith chipwith@yahoo.com

Ronald Monroe ronmon74@yahoo.com

CLASS PRESIDENT Chuck James cjamesjr99@gmail.com

“The Class of 1978 has hosted Zoom and social events during the past year,” Chuck James writes. Speakers have included Richard Johnson, curator of The Sports Museum in Boston, and Peter Moore, a former magazine writer and editor who has recently become a cartoonist. “Twenty of us got together in June 2024 at the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass.,” Chuck adds. “We want to hear from folks who might want to participate, have discussions, and get together. Your ideas are welcome. Drop me a line.”

NICK CAITO

CAREER

1979

Reunion 2029, June 7–10

CLASS SECRETARY

Mary Raftery mgraftery@gmail.com

CLASS PRESIDENT Patrick Murphy patrickm@paceengrs.com

Allyson Anderson-Sterling “thoroughly enjoyed our 45th Reunion. So fun to touch base with everyone and dance at the gala. I am now enjoying time with my granddaughter, little Lily Lynn!” Allyson also had fun during a midsummer weekend with five longtime friends, all veterans of Bobcat field hockey, at Mary Raftery’s home in Rhode Island....Bill Bogle is in his first year of retirement. “So far, so good! I am now living on Nantucket for six months of the year and Florida for six. It was great to see all the classmates that came to Reunion.”...Paul Brown performed the “modern man triathlon” in 2023: He retired, went on Medicare, and became a grandfather. “We sold our business, sold our house in Fayston, Vt., and now live on Lake Champlain in the summer and spend winters in Utah.” Paul enjoyed his 45th Reunion and seeing “the usual 30 or so habitual attendees. Looking for big numbers for our 50th!” He adds, “On a sad note, attended Terry Burke’s celebration of life with nine of our classmates,” including Dave Barlow, Nate Wentworth, T.J. Stamas, and Dave Casey.... Marcia Call and Lonnie Rich “are still here in Alexandria, Va., 35 years later. We have four kids –two of his and two of ours — plus four grandchildren! The oldest and the youngest kids are here in northern Virginia, and the middle two are coincidentally in Charlotte.” Marcia and Lonnie are still working, albeit from home. “I own a recruiting company called TalentFront that provides outsourced corporate recruiting for growing organizations that can’t afford to hire their own recruiters.” She adds, “I have big plans to walk across Britain — Wainwright’s Coast to Coast Walk — in 2025 with friends.” Marcia had “a ball at the 45th Reunion — thank you to Rob Cramer for getting me there. Looking forward to our 50th in 2029.”...This from John Casey: “My second daughter, Erin, got married on Aug. 31 in Florence, Italy. Our other daughter, Sarah, her husband, and approximately 30 other friends and family joined us in Tuscany where we rented a villa. My wife Susan and I are thrilled with Erin’s husband, Casey Valente of Needham, who comes from a wonderful family.”... Mark Massa is semi-retired, working three or four days a week at Watermark Capital

Management, of which he is a co-founder and a managing principal. “My big news was my son, Michael, joining Watermark, in Hamden, Conn. He came back from Pacific Beach, Calif., and now resides in Mystic. It’s been a pleasure working with him. I have run into Michael Spotts ’81 in Clinton, Conn.”... Chuck McKenzie is a member of the AARP Massachusetts Executive Council, a volunteer tax preparer for the AARP Tax-Aide Foundation on upper Cape Cod, and a senior advisor to an investment management start-up firm, among other roles. A veteran of more than 40 years in financial services, he worked at client-facing, marketing, asset management, and executive management roles. Chuck’s career took him and Kelly to England and Japan for five years. They returned to Massachusetts in 2019....Chris O’Leary recently retired from software developer Pegasystems and lit out for a “small farm in the Monadnock region of New Hampshire with Baxter, my yellow Lab. I’m enjoying the flexibility and freedom, and am staying busy consulting, traveling, starting a small woodworking business, and staying active in my church. I was sorry to miss our 45th Reunion, but am looking forward to our 50th!”...Mary Raftery “loved connecting with classmates at the 45th Reunion.” She enjoyed her first year of retirement, but nevertheless decided to return part time to her old summer job at the Weekapaug Yacht Club in Westerly, R.I. She “has thoroughly enjoyed reconnecting with that community.”...Sue Reid is continuing “massive renovations” on her house, in Hartland, Vt. “The entire back wall had to be rebuilt,” she reports. “This year the rotten, not very useful 8-ft. deck is gone, replaced with a wraparound beauty anchored by the wood-burning pizza oven I built last year — 3,000 pounds of masonry.” Writing in August, Sue was planning to co-host a culinary trip to Greece and Crete in September. In the meantime, she’s “working on a couple of cookbooks, had my knee replaced, and has been creating recipes, reels, and a whole buncha material on Instagram for 18,000 followers.”...Peter Stevens stepped down as president of JCJ Architecture in Hartford, Conn., at the end of June, but continues to serve as consulting principal. He also ended nearly 20 years as chair of Hartford’s Pension Commission, a highly esteemed municipal employees retirement fund with a $1 billion portfolio, and has been recognized by the Connecticut legislature and Congress for his service in that role....Doing business as Winderlea Vineyard and Winery, Bill Sweat and Donna Morris

have lived and made wine in Oregon since 2006. “We’re always excited to host Bobcats and especially classmates,” he writes. “I was sorry to miss Reunion, but enjoy volunteering with Bates and will definitely be at the next one.”...James Ten Broeck is still co-owner and landscape designer at Waterwise Landscapes in Albuquerque, N.M. “My wife, Barb, and I can usually be found hiking somewhere every weekend.”

1980

Reunion 2025, June 6–8

CLASS SECRETARY

Chris Tegeler Beneman cbeneman@gmail.com

CLASS PRESIDENT

Mary Mihalakos Martuscello mary@martuscellolaw.com

Mike Bonney L.H.D. ’22 was appointed chairman of the board at London-based Autolus Therapeutics in April. A member of Bates’ own board of directors for 17 years, including nine as chair, he is well-known among the Bates community for both his family’s long history with the college and the generosity he and Alison Grott Bonney have shown Bates — achievements recognized concretely in the college’s Bonney Science Center, opened in 2022. Mike brings more than 30 years of biotech and pharmaceutical expertise to Autolus, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing programmed T-cell therapies for the treatment of cancer and autoimmune disease. Longtime head of pioneering antibiotic maker Cubist Pharmaceuticals, Mike is currently a director of Alnylam Pharmaceuticals and chair of Dunad Therapeutics and the Gulf of Maine Research Institute....Investor-services firm Morningstar in May spotlighted the efforts of Christopher Gorayeb, law firm founder and Bates trustee emeritus, to promote equity, diversity, and financial aid for Bates students from marginalized backgrounds. An article on the Morningstar website pointed to his establishment of The Gorayeb Family Fund for Equity and Diversity in 2017, and his support for the Schuler Access Initiative, benefiting Pell-eligible students and low-income and undocumented students. Chris’s “philanthropic endeavors at (Bates) reflect a deep-seated belief in the power of education to transform lives and break down systemic barriers.”...

Jean Maloney Johnson “retired last year, our kids have graduated, and my husband, Dave, and I are enjoying our new mountain home in southwest Colorado. Special guests this

year included Dr. Louis Pitelka, my plant ecology professor and thesis advisor at Bates, and Jeff Ashmun, along with their partners. Wonderful to see each other again, and Lou is still identifying the wildflowers!”... Boon and Beth Hefferman Ooi had a reunion in Stockholm with classmates who live in Sweden: Jonas Nycander, Ian Horne, and Hakan Lonnqvist. “We also had a nice visit with Mark Weaver and Heidi Duncanson ’82 in their new home in Harpswell, Maine.”...Rod Proust is “still on the U-Haul waiting list to leave the Left Coast for good. Every once in a while, I meet DeDe Soeharto ’82 for martini runs, which we think should be an Olympic event.”

1981

Reunion 2026, June 12–14

CLASS SECRETARY

Cheryl Andrews dr.cheryl.andrews@gmail.com

CLASS PRESIDENT Hank Howie hhowie@gmail.com

Susan Doliner was appointed chief development officer of MaineHealth, the state’s largest healthcare system, in May, intending to serve until her planned retirement, in January 2025. Previously vice president of philanthropy at member hospital Maine Medical Center, in Portland, the transition made her the system’s first chief officer of development. Mainebiz reported that Sue “has built a career in philanthropy over three decades. At Maine Medical Center, (she) directed philanthropic programs that generated more than $350 million.”....David Donelan retired from the IT servicemanagement firm SkillStorm in July and immediately embarked on a monthlong cross-country road trip. Five days into the trip, he dropped Bates Magazine a line. “I’ve wanted to do this since I was in my 20s,” he wrote. “My planned destinations include the Outer Banks, Asheville, N.C., Glacier National Park, Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons, Badlands, and Red Rocks. Now that I’m officially a ‘senior,’ I got my lifetime National Parks Pass. What else do you really need?”...Bud Schultz is one of three athletes selected as 2024 Meriden (Conn.) Sportsmen of Distinction. The honor recognizes a standout tennis record that began with his winning, as a high school senior in Meriden, a city championship in singles. He was All-American at Bates three times, New England singles champ and doubles runner-up in his senior year, had an eight-year professional career that found him in all four Grand Slam

events, and, as a coach, worked with such talents as Ivan Lendl, Pam Shriver, and Greg Rusedski. Bud founded Tenacity, an enrichment program for children in Boston, and owns and manages the Cohasset Tennis Club in Cohasset, Mass.

1982

Reunion 2027, June 11–13

CLASS PRESIDENT Neil Jamieson neil@southernmainelaw.com

K Bolduc, a resident of Raymond, Maine, was the subject of a school-staff spotlight in The Bridgton News in May. A science teacher for 35 years at Lake Region High School, she said that during her career in education, she was most proud of “the fact that I was able to take students on environmental field trips in Canada, California, the Florida Everglades, Costa Rica, Trinidad and Tobago, Hungary, and Thailand.”...Lisa Farrell Wilk has begun her next chapter. During the summer, she sold her environmental engineering firm, Capaccio Environmental Engineering, to ALL4, a company “with shared values and culture.” In August she met up with Bates roommate Ruth Mary Hall and spent some time in Maine. The pair stopped in Harpswell, where they visited Heidi Duncanson and Mark Weaver ’80 for lunch and a tour of their lovely new home....Ruth Mary Hall enjoys volunteering as the ACLU of Virginia’s representative to the National ACLU Board. In June, “we had a Biennial Leadership Conference in Atlanta with a wonderful meeting in Ebenezer Baptist Church, hearing Ambassador Andrew Young, now age 92, tell us Dr. Martin Luther King stories.” Ruth is still doing equal-employment opportunity and human resources work for the U.S. Dept. of State, mostly remotely from Charlottesville. She adds, “I continue to donate to Bates, and also have a scholarship in my mother’s memory at the Univ. of Rhode Island College of Nursing for tuition assistance and to fund nurses to attend the Summer School in Addiction Prevention Studies with AdCare.” She adds, “It has been great to reconnect with classmates in the past several years!”...Ben Marcus was appointed chairman of the board of Skowhegan (Maine) Savings in June. Ben, who lives in Cumberland Center with Anita Bernhardt ’81, is a corporate attorney and former managing director at the Portland law firm of Drummond Woodsum. He joined the bank’s board of directors in 2019....Former U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance joined the Brennan Center for Justice at New York Univ. Law School in May as a senior fellow,

providing legal analysis and commentary to advance the center’s work on criminal law and the federal courts. “Joyce will be a tremendous asset in our fight to protect democracy and the rule of law,” Michael Waldman, Brennan Center president and CEO, said in an announcement. Joyce continues to teach at the Univ. of Alabama School of Law, where she is a distinguished professor of the practice of law. She is also a legal analyst for NBC and MSNBC, a columnist for MSNBC.com, and cohost of two podcasts: #SistersInLaw and Cafe Insider

1983

Reunion 2028, June 9–11

CLASS SECRETARY

Leigh Peltier leighp727@gmail.com

CLASS PRESIDENTS

PJ Dearden tribecapj@yahoo.com

Bill Zafirson bzaf@maine.rr.com

Tom Driscoll Jr. was re-elected as clerk of courts for Essex County, Mass. He oversees superior courts in Salem, Lawrence, and Newburyport. “His initiatives and management ability have allowed Driscoll the privilege to oversee a court that consistently ranks among the best-performing in the commonwealth,” the Daily News of Newburyport noted in May, when Tom announced his re-election run. He has served as an Essex County assistant district attorney and, in private practice, was a civil litigator and criminal defense attorney at law firms including his own Driscoll & Associates....John Morefield became a managing director of Elizabethtown College’s High Center, which provides diverse services to businesses and nonprofits in south-central Pennsylvania, in March. John served previously as vice president of data communications, president, and finally chairman of the board at Morefield Communications. During his tenure with that company, revenues tripled to more than $25 million....Gary Silverman and Amber have moved from the Boston area to central New Jersey — specifically Lambertville, a town of about 4,000 across the Delaware River from Bucks County, Pa.... Al Waitt had “the pleasure of old teammates attending an author event in May celebrating the release of my second crime novel, Flood Tide, at the Graves Library in Kennebunkport.” He was joined by “Bates track legends” Marty Levenson ’81 and Nick Velonis. Waitt’s novel is his second featuring LT Nichols, the police chief of the fictional seaside town of Laurel, Maine.

Mark Scholtes ’84, and John Abbott ’88.

Nine Is Fine

In Colorado Springs, Colo., Dave Reynolds ’86 hosted a “grand reunion with many other Bobcats high in the Rockies” last July. “I am starting my 33rd year of teaching English at the Fountain Valley School in Colorado Springs,” he reports. “My wife, Kaja Beenhouwer ’88, teaches art nearby. Both our daughters have flown the nest, and I just published my first book of poetry, a collection of haiku called Coming Storm.”

1984

Reunion 2029, June 8–10

CLASS SECRETARY

Heidi Lovett blueoceanheidi@aol.com

Pamela French Peek and Bob ’64 “celebrated our combined 100th Reunion in June — 40th and 60th. We had a great time and want to thank everyone involved with organizing and contributing to such a great Reunion. Lord willing, we will enjoy the next one together as well for our ‘110th.’”...Maureen Graves Anderson states that 2024 has been “quite a year for me!” It included “going to my niece’s wedding in Kochi, India, my retirement, and a walk across northern Spain on the Camino de Santiago. I will admit I feel a bit out of sorts, but I will grow into this retirement thing.”... Eva Hamori enjoyed “a great turnout at Reunion 2024 and I hope that everyone plans to join the fun in 2029!”...This from Alex Johnston: “After 30 years of teaching in Portland,

I have become a boat captain, and I am stoked with this new opportunity! I purchased a 2001 36-foot Catalina Mk. II sailboat last year and am busy with charters. Bobcats like Dan Calder, David Boothby ’87, and David Reynolds can attest to the healing powers of a journey upon Endurance. Hope to see you on the water!... “It was great to see so many classmates at Reunion this year!” Heidi Lovett wrote in August. She and Randall were about to bring their younger son to college. “We now have a Univ. of Connecticut Husky in the house along with our Univ. of Maryland Terp. It will definitely feel odd around here.” A supervisory policy analyst at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, she was looking forward to some exciting work trips: to Kodiak, Alaska (her first visit there) and Key Largo, as well as Madison, Wis., and Bozeman, Mont.... Karen Palermo Saxena “was sorry to miss Reunion, but while visiting back East I got together with Sydnee Brown Goddard, Julie Flanders and Bert Cole “This last year I became a

grandparent which has been so much fun. I’m still teaching and coaching at our local high school,” in Palo Alto, Calif....Rick Pinard writes from Prague: “Our 40th Reunion was a high point of my year. It was fantastic to spend time and catch up with the ‘kids’ of yesterjour, including some I hadn’t seen since 1984. We even roomed in what had been the freshman dorm for some of us — Smith North — which I probably hadn’t gone into since 1981. That was poignant, yet fun. I have few regrets in life, but not attending more of our Reunions is one. Love you guys!” He adds, “Back home in the Czech Republic with relatives visiting from the States, Elsie and I concentrated on day trips to various Bohemian chateaux, and I roped my daughters and niece into helping me collect mineral water from local spas, including the truly delicious Richardka water.” Rick learned in July that he could retire as of 1 Oct., “so the Czech National Archives await me and my Holocaust research. Please be in touch, if you’re planning to visit Prague.”...Artemis Susan Preeshl spent 2024 leading

the Center of Diversity and Inclusion at Buena Vista Univ., in Storm Lake, Iowa, and teaching English as a second language at Iowa Central Community College, in Fort Dodge. And that wasn’t all. Supported by her fourth Fulbright, she taught communications at the Central Univ. of Tamil Nadu and delivered keynote addresses at two conferences — giving “Transmigration of Culture: Rendering Invisible Culture Visible” at the International Conference on Communication, Cultural Diversity, and Inclusion at Tamil Nadu, and “Life and Existential Threat in a Time of Cipher Shift” at Future Communications: Rethinking Societies, Cultures, and Governance at Pondicherry Univ., in India. Meanwhile, scheduled for publication in 2025, her book Consent in Shakespeare’s Classical Mediterranean: Women Speak Truth to Power is the sequel to her Consent in Shakespeare: What Women Do and Don’t Say and Do in Shakespeare’s Mediterranean Comedies and Origin Stories

Stephanie Richards still enjoys working at Vanderbilt Univ., and is “loving the long gardening season here. I married Ian Macara in late June at our house here in Nashville — it’s never too late!”...Lynn Sleeper Orav, on faculty at Boston Children’s Hospital (cardiology) and Harvard Medical School since 2015, is “having fun leading randomized trials in pediatric heart transplant and ECMO” — a life-support technology — “with a fabulous team, which makes all the difference. But I live for the times when I can be in my Maine happy place, Southwest Harbor. In Massachusetts, Shelley Strowman and I periodically get together, sometimes with our former boss — Shelley and I worked together long, long ago, in our first year after Bates!”

1985

Reunion 2025, June 6–8

CLASS SECRETARY

Elissa Bass bass.elissa@yahoo.com

CLASS PRESIDENT

Lisa Virello virello@comcast.net

Graham Anderson and Shannon Billings “are delighted to share that both of our adult children got married last year, Kelsey in October in Maryland and Alec in December in Massachusetts. It was wonderful sharing those special days with friends and family.”...Elissa Bass published her first novel in April. Happy Hour is the story of KK Rhinehart, who flees a ruptured marriage only to find comfort first with family — and then with bartender Jay, aka “Surfer Guy,” a much younger man she meets

From left: Joc Clark ’87, Dan Calder ’84, Nick Lindholm ’86, Kaja Beenhouwer ’88, Rachel Alfandre ’88, Dave, Brad Turner ’86,

on Cape Cod. “KK might be able to find her joy again, but before that happens, she must navigate viral TikTok videos, a national debate on reverse age-gap dating, heartbreaking loss, and a whole lot of kitchen dancing,” Archway Publishing notes.

Bates friends have been hosting book parties for Elissa — Lisa Virello and Jen Crawford ’01 in South Boston, Leanne Belmont Valade in North Reading, Mass. (“where my reading made Frank Coccoluto blush”), and Karla Austen in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. “Huge thanks,” says Elissa.... Kevin Pomfret’s book Geospatial Law, Policy and Ethics: Where Geospatial Technology is Taking the Law was published in August by Routledge. According to the publisher, this textbook “identifies the emerging legal, policy, and ethical considerations associated with the collection, analysis, storage, and distribution of data that can be tied to location on Earth” — i.e., geospatial information....Kathy Wooster Hahn was re-elected in June to a second two-year term on the board of trustees for the village of Cazenovia, N.Y. (as opposed to the town of Cazenovia, of which the village is a part). She has deep roots in the area and has lived in the village since 2005. Kathy served on the Cazenovia school board from 2010–2017 and from 2019–2022, and now serves on the town of Cazenovia’s Advisory Conservation and Sewer commissions. She is an associate director of corporate environmental, health, and safety at Curia Global Inc., an international biotechnology company.

1986

Reunion 2026, June 12–14

CLASS SECRETARY

Erica Seifert Plunkett ericasplunkett@gmail.com

CLASS PRESIDENTS

Bill Walsh messagebill@gmail.com

Cat Strahan catstrahan@gmail.com

Karen Drugge Kemble conquered the “Big 6-0” during the autumn. “I’m still loving my job at the Univ. of Maine Foundation,” where she is associate director of planned giving. Son Peter is newly married and in his final year at the New England College of Optometry — Karen hopes “he will return to Maine after graduation. Daughter Anna just graduated from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in musical theater. We are thrilled to have her back on this side of the Atlantic!”...Deborah Hansen sold her restaurant, Taberna de Haro in Brookline, after 26 years. “Boston magazine was kind enough to confer upon us

a Best of Boston award one last time. I miss my sweet regular diners and I do not miss the curmudgeons! I’ve started Wine Matters LLC, a wine consultancy to both consumers and the trade.” She adds, “It’s been lovely to get to know Michael ’87 and Sisi Yost Hoye ’87 and their children” — Sara ’17 and Jocelyn ’15, whose husband is Chris Eddy ’15 — “through gatherings with my in-laws.” The connection is Deborah’s life partner, Dan Hirschkop, whose mother had been married to Michael’s father.... Lisa Marshall-Schwiebert, who in 2023 retired from her faculty position of nearly 30 years at the Univ. of Alabama at Birmingham, has started a new chapter: She is co-founder and CEO of InFlammaNova Rx. “Together with colleagues and companies in Birmingham and around the globe, IFNRx is developing innovative therapies for neuroinflammatory and neurodegenerative diseases with funding support from The Michael J. Fox Foundation.”...

Thomas Whalen, an associate professor of social science at Boston Univ., published a new book during the fall: Dynasty Restored: How Larry Bird and the 1984 Boston Celtics Conquered the NBA and Changed Basketball (Rowman & Littlefield). Tom’s several books chronicling highlights of Boston athletics have examined, among others, the Bruins’ 1970 championship season and the glory days of the Red Sox more than a century ago, and his catalog also includes Kennedy Versus Lodge: The 1952 Massachusetts Senate Race (2000).

1987

Reunion 2027, June 11–13

CLASS SECRETARY Val Kennedy brickates@gmail.com

CLASS PRESIDENT Erica Rowell ericarowell@mac.com

Theresa Brennan Geissler “enjoyed seeing Bates through my rising high school senior’s eyes this summer. After her student tour, we ate in Commons, much improved since our days at Bates! I was glad to see that the campus facilities and educational opportunities are keeping pace with the changing times, while keeping personal connections among students and professors a priority. Lexi is my youngest, my fourth child heading off to college! I would like to travel more as she heads off to school. We should plan some Bates alumni adventures, maybe some group travel trips! I’m still living in Herndon, Va., and teaching middle-school special education. Let me know if you are in the D.C. area.”

Rule of Three

Joe Sylvester ’90 (center) walks with Bates summer interns Drew Williams ’25 (left) and Linh Hoang Vu ’26 (right) through the Boston offices of Promethos Capital, a global equity investment boutique that Sylvester founded and where he is a managing partner.

Linh, a mathematics and economics double major from Hanoi, Vietnam, and Drew, an environmental studies major from Guilford, Conn., interned in the firm’s research department through the Bates Center for Purposeful Work. Their projects included research on Promethos Capital’s environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives, which assess the sustainability and ethical performance of business practices.

1988

Reunion 2028, June 9–11

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

Astrid Delfino-Bernard flutistastrid@sbcglobal.net

Ruth Garretson Cameron ruth.eg.cameron@gmail.com

Mary Capaldi Gonzales mary.capaldi.gonzales@gmail.com

Steve Lewis mojofink@gmail.com

Julie Sutherland-Platt julielsp@verizon.net

Lisa Romeo romeoli66@gmail.com

Amy Dowd Bartholomew has stepped back from her veterinary

practice and redirected her attention from fauna to flora. She writes, “After getting taken out by an ungracious show cow (after I performed life-saving surgery on her), I switched gears and am now running Cobble Knoll Orchard in Benson, Vt., with my husband, Rick.” One of their hard-cider brands is Wild Child, which features Amy’s 1968 VW Beetle on the label. “Stop by the orchard if you are in Vermont in September or October!” she writes — and sweetens the offer: “Free cider doughnut to any Batesie!”...Rick Schiffmann was appointed director of airport development at Lamar Airport

From left, front: Eli Toffel ’25 of Brookline, Mass., Sheila Robledo ’26 of Alton, Texas, Andrea Alfozo ’27 of Cary, N.C., Yuleibi De Los Santos ’26 of Bronx, N.Y.; middle: Whitney Miller ’26 of Brooklyn, N.Y., Bradley Starr ’25 of Houston, Texas, Pam Batchelder Johnson ’91; back: Laila Williamson ’25 of Villanova, Pa., Allen Delong, senior associate dean for Center for Purposeful Work.

Carolina ’Cats

In Charlotte, N.C., last June, Pam Batchelder Johnson ’91 (middle right) joined a dinner for the summer 2024 cohort of Bates students who were Purposeful Work interns at various nonprofits. They were joined by Allen Delong, senior associate dean for Center for Purposeful Work, who was in town to check in on the Bates students. For the second summer, the Center for Purposeful Work has supported a “Charlotte Cohort,” a set of internships that include support from Bates for finding and paying for summer housing, plus activities for interns to build community with other interns and with Charlotte-area Bates alumni like Johnson.

in Louisiana, with responsibility for the facility’s advertising program, including cultivating relationships with other airports, orchestrating the procurement process, and managing contract renewals. Previously involved in launching wireless technology in airports, Rick served as vice president of business development and sales for USA Today’s Travel Media Group.... Dean Serpa, deputy chief of staff for operations and administration under former Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, became executive director of the state’s Gaming Commission in March. According to the Boston Herald, Dean told commissioners during a public interview that “I consider myself a manager of people and projects more than anything else. …I like to move projects from A to Z, and I like to lead teams that are moving projects from A to Z.” Dean managed events and travel during the Weld administration, and founded Full Impact Productions Inc. which organized high-profile

galas, fundraisers, and press conferences....A note from Anne “Piep” van Heuven: “After 10plus years in bicycle advocacy, I’ve moved over to…skiing!” She’s now director of government relations at Colorado Ski Country USA, Colorado’s ski-area trade association.

1989

Reunion 2029, June 8–10

CLASS SECRETARY

Sara Hagan Cummings cummings5clan@gmail.com

STEERING COMMITTEE

Sally Ehrenfried sjehrenfried@gmail.com

Deb Schiavi Cote debscote@yahoo.com

Win Brown returned to Maine in October to become president of St. Mary’s Health System — “right next door to Bates where I started my career in healthcare 28 years ago. It is definitely a fullcircle moment for me. Wendy and I are both Mainers and

remain strong. Although I’m in my final year as a trustee, I will continue to visit Lewiston for the next few years because my nephew Hudson Bueschel Svigals is a member of the Class of 2027. (P.S.A. from Hud: For those of you who played rugby, he’d love to connect on LinkedIn, as he is the alumni liaison for the men’s rugby team). If you find yourself in Chicago, let me know!”...Rochelle Johnson stepped down as president of The Thoreau Society after four years. She continues to teach environmental humanities at the College of Idaho, where she holds the McCain Chair in the Humanities. Rochelle publishes creative nonfiction, enjoys spending time with her teenager and husband, Joe Golden, and still runs whenever she can....

This from Lisa Katherine Reisz-Hanson: “After careers in magazine publishing and high tech, I’ve spent the past 11 years in the much more challenging and very rewarding role of fulltime mom in Arlington, Mass. My oldest, who is autistic, ultimately went the ‘unschooling’ route in high school with me serving as his official guidance counselor explaining how his self-directed studies prepared him for college. He started at Hampshire College this fall with my husband and I providing hands-on support as needed. Lots of trips across Massachusetts! My daughter is a senior at a vocational technical high school studying to be an electrician. A career path completely novel for our family. We are all learning about being a ‘trades’ family.”

1991

Reunion 2026, June 12–14

CLASS SECRETARY

excited to return ‘home’!”...Orla O’Callaghan writes: “My days are full, as I continue to homeschool my son, who is now in high school. We have done some fun things together: dinosaur digs, dinosaur bone preparation, and fossil digs. We have also done cross-country road trips to historical sites.”

1990

Reunion 2025, June 6–8

CLASS SECRETARY

Joanne Walton joannewalton2003@yahoo.com

Andrea Bueschel writes: “After several years in New Jersey, I moved back to that same old place, ‘sweet home Chicago.’ I was fortunate to have a full career in university administration, and now, following my (selffunded) sabbatical, I’m looking forward to a return to teaching in Northwestern Univ.’s School of Education and Social Policy. I’m grateful my ties to Bates

Katie Tibbetts Gates kathryntgates@gmail.com

CLASS PRESIDENT

John Ducker jducker1@yahoo.com

Pam Batchelder Johnson works at the front desk of Trinity Episcopal School in Charlotte, N.C. “It keeps me in a good mood!” She adds, “In July, Anne Gambrill James hosted Tracy Talbot, Karen Peterson McNamara, and me in Ogunquit. The three of them worked at The Oarweed restaurant in Perkins Cove during college summers so they enjoyed visiting old haunts, and I enjoyed tagging along!”... Mike O’Brien writes: “After 15 years in the California Bay Area, Julie and I relocated to San Luis Obispo, on the Central Coast, in 2022. Our daughter, Molly, went to college here at Cal Poly, and we always loved the area and its outdoor lifestyle when we would visit. So we bought a house here and have made it our permanent (for now) home.”...Jason Patenaude was appointed chief

DAVE REYNOLDS ’86

executive officer of Hephzibah Children’s Assn., a social services organization in Oak Park, Ill., in June. Jason brought to the role three decades’ experience leading nonprofit and for-profit organizations, including service as executive director and chief operating officer for the Schuler Education Foundation. In an announcement, Jason noted that Hephzibah’s focus on children and family services is dear to his heart. “As adoptive parents, Stephanie (Walquist) and I understand how enriching it can be to form a family through the kinds of foster and adoption programs that Hephzibah provides,” Patenaude said. “Also, as a multiracial family living in Oak Park, we’re deeply committed to supporting Hephzibah’s contributions to our diverse and inclusive community.”

1992

Reunion 2027, June 11–13

executive committee

Ami Berger ami_berger@hotmail.com

Kristin Bierly Magendantz kmagendantz@comcast.net

Kristen Downs Bruno Kris10DBruno@gmail.com

Roland Davis roldav92@gmail.com

Peter Friedman peterjfriedman@gmail.com

Leyla Morrissey Bader leyla.bader@gmail.com

Jeff Mutterperl jeffmutterperl@gmail.com

Stephen Goodwin and Craig D’Ambrosia visited the Minnesota Vikings’ training camp in July. “What a thrill!” Stephen writes. “Craig is a lifelong Vikes fan and had never been to their preseason camp before. We even got to meet former Vikes legend Keith Millard!” Switching sports, he adds that “we are hoping to get to a Timberwolves game in 2024–2025 to watch Anthony Edwards in person!”

1993

Reunion 2028, June 9–11

CLASS PRESIDENTS

Rebecca Throop mfc@wilkinsinvest.com

Lauren Fine laurenkimfine@gmail.com

Colleen McCretton cmccretton@yahoo.com

David López-Carr, a geographer at Univ. of California, Santa Barbara, was the lead social scientist on a diverse international team widely recognized for its research into reducing human infections by a harmful parasite. Published in July of last year by the journal Nature under the title “A planetary health innovation for disease, food and water challenges in Africa,” the

research produced successful techniques for reducing the prevalence of schistosomiasis in Senegal — while also creating a new source of livestock feed and compost for agriculture. The Ecological Society of America (Sustainability Science Award) and National Academy of Sciences (Frontiers Planet Prize) were among organizations recognizing the research — which also figured in honors bestowed on David himself, including a 2024 Research Excellence Award by the Human Dimensions of Global Change, a specialty group of the American Assn. of Geographers....Nicole Rozsman Mills moved to San Diego, and left her position as associate dean at National Univ. to become a full-time law professor there. “I’m very much looking forward to being back in the classroom,” she writes. She adds, “I used some of my newly found free time to visit Bates for the first time since 1994, when I came back for the wedding of Erica Chapman McPartland ’93 and John ’92 (happy 30th anniversary!). Coming back was wonderful and I ran into Betsy Tomlinson ’91 on my tour — we had a great time remembering Bates in the early ’90s. Heading back to California I was wearing my Bates T-shirt, which is how I met Steve ’74 and Elaine Seabrook Drugan ’75. Bates creates such a strong sense of community that we instantly connected and had a great conversation.”

1994

Reunion 2029, June 8–10

CLASS PRESIDENTS

Courtney Landau Fleisher courtney.fleisher@gmail.com

Jonathan Lewis jlewjlew@mac.com

Josie Brown was appointed dean of Hillyer College and the College of Arts & Sciences at the Univ. of Hartford, effective in July. Perhaps better-known to Bates peers as Josie-Anne, she went to Hartford from Point Park Univ. in Pittsburgh, Pa., which she had joined as dean of the School of Arts and Sciences in 2022. She previously served in teaching and administrative roles at Western New England Univ. “I am thrilled to be joining the Univ. of Hartford community, and am particularly excited to be joining Hillyer College and the College of Arts & Sciences,” Josie said in an announcement. “This is a time of wonderful opportunity.”....Jimmy Lathrop was appointed to the Brooklyn Bar Assn. Board of Trustees in a ceremony held in June at the Theodore Roosevelt Federal Courthouse in Brooklyn....Brian McElfatrick was appointed to the board of Florida’s Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority. HART, as it’s

Jen McCoombs Mathews, Emily Volpone, Dalas Cook Bines.

Lucky Seven

Vail, Colo., saw an influx of Bobcats in July when Dalas Cook Bines ’92 hosted a clowder of friends from the Class of 1992 for a long weekend of “amazingly planned and hosted fun, love, and (mild) adventures,” in the words of Marianne Nolan Cowan. “We ran into two more Batesies while we were on a bike ride along the Gore Valley Trail. Batesies are everywhere!” Meanwhile, she reports, Dalas’ spouse, Joel Bines, “smartly stayed home in Texas to stay above the fray!”

known, operates buses, vans, and streetcars in Hillsborough County. Brian is a shareholder, executive committee member, and practice-group leader at the Tampa law firm of Bush Ross. He earned a law degree from Indiana Univ. He and Deborah DeWeese McElfatrick live in Tampa.

1995

Reunion 2025, June 6–8 CLASS PRESIDENTS

Jason Verner jcv@nbgroup.com

Deb Nowak Verner debverner@gmail.com

Nisha Koshy married her Northern Irish sweetheart, Mark Cunningham, in Ogunquit, Maine, in September 2023. Those in attendance included her Bates besties Beth Lurvey Bounds, Bayne Gibby, and Ingerlene Voosen Frick. “I have also loved watching my daughter, Sophia Cocchiarella ’26, perform with the Merimanders — what a trip!

And reconnecting with other alums at Family Weekends.”... Led by Head Coach Gene McCabe, the Washington and Lee Univ. men’s lacrosse coaches were honored by the Intercollegiate Men’s Lacrosse Coaches Assn. as the 2024 Region 4 Staff of the Year for the second straight season and the third time since 2018. Gene, two staff coaches, and three volunteers received the award after leading the Generals to a 16-6 overall record and a trip to the semifinals of the NCAA Division III Championship. Serving as a faculty member at W&L through two separate stints — as an assistant coach from 1998–2001 and as head coach since 2006 — Gene is the program’s all-time winningest coach. He played LAX and football at Bates.

1996

Reunion 2026, June 12–14

MARIANNE NOLAN COWAN ’92

Front, from left: Aya Murata, Kate Criniti, Marianne Nolan Cowan; back: Andrea Corradini,

Michael Graham

media outlet: Bangor Daily News

headline:

Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village marks milestone with herb house renovation

takeaway:

Preserving cultural heritage fosters community and continuity

Last spring, Michael Graham ’94, director of Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village, spoke to the Bangor Daily News about the project to raise the village’s 200-year-old herb house about 10 feet off its granite foundation to permit renovations and expansion into a cultural center.

The new center, said the paper, “will help radiate the Sabbathday Shakers’ message of pacifism, love, hard work and self-acceptance into a distant future when there may be no Shakers left to spread it themselves.”

Shakers are celibate, and new members must come to the faith as adults. Now, there are only two Shakers, and the Sabbathday Lake village is the last Shaker community in the world.

Although not a Shaker himself, Michael has been involved with the village since his time at Bates. He is dedicated to ensuring the Shaker ideals of kindness, love, and hard work remain vital. “Those have been the hands-on, bedrock principles of this place for two centuries.”

CLASS PRESIDENTS

Ayesha Farag

ayesha.farag@gmail.com

Jay Lowe

jameslowemaine@yahoo.com

Described by publisher Little, Brown and Company as “a tightly wound, consuming tale about a 1950s American housewife who decides to get into the pool in her family’s apartment complex one morning and won’t come out,” a novella by Bates Lecturer in English Jessica Anthony was winning industry notice even before it hit the bookstores. Kirkus Reviews gave The Most a starred review for creating “a sharply focused portrait of seemingly average lives in midcentury America [that] reveals the complexities of those lives in the course of one balmy day.” NPR’s Heller McAlpin noted that “I don’t say this often, but this superb short novel, about a marriage at its breakpoint, deserves to become a classic.”...Caren Frost Olmsted’s Olmsted Mural Group completed a mural at Hillview Elementary School in Pompton Plains, N.J., in March. Commemorating the school’s 60th anniversary and adorning an all-purpose room, the artwork uses each letter of “Hillview” to connect with local landmarks and beloved memories comprising the school’s story. As always, creating the mural was a communal effort as fourth- and fifth-grade students and their parents joined Caren in giving life to the project....Dan McGee was appointed coach of a high school girls ice hockey team, New Hampshire’s LebanonStevens-Kearsarge co-op team, in June. A Lebanon native who worked for a tech services firm until 2023, Dan now co-owns the New England Sports Park there. Julia McGee, the youngest of Dan and Kristin McGee’s three children, is a member of the team. Dan played soccer all four of his years at Bates.... Barbara Raths was promoted to executive vice president of commercial banking at Camden (Maine) National Bank in March. Previously director of treasury management and government banking, Barbara now focuses on developing core commercial business while continuing to lead treasury management sales and service strategies. Barbara also chairs the Board of Trustees for the Maine Health and Higher Educational Facilities Authority, serves as secretary of the Maine International Trade Center Board of Directors, and belongs to the Maine District Export Council....Laura Shulman Brochstein is a licensed clinical social worker specializing in children and teens struggling with depression, anxiety, and social challenges stemming from developmental disorders. After Laura’s son was diagnosed with autism, her professional interests

shifted away from nonprofit fundraising and program development and toward social work. She is the clinical program director at Jewish Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Boston and is a practitioner at Touchstone Neurodevelopment Center in Woburn, Mass.... Jonathan Skelley continues as a manager with Advanced Micro Devices in Austin, Texas. Daughter Adrienne is in her first year at Rochester Institute of Technology while twin sister Simone is a freshman at the Univ. of Texas at Austin. (Jonathan’s dad is Pete Skelley ’60.)

1997

Reunion 2027, June 11–13

CLASS SECRETARY

Todd Zinn

tmzinn@hotmail.com

CLASS PRESIDENT

Stuart Abelson sabelson@oraclinical.com

Rob Blood, who belonged to the Chase Hall Committee as a student and went on to found the Lark Hotels brand and management business, was profiled by the trade publication Lodging in August. “Although I wouldn’t say I had a natural inclination toward hotels or restaurants from an early age, I did have an innate desire to create experiences. I also really loved architecture, and the idea of being a steward of historic buildings that play an important role in communities,” he said. He added, “What makes us good at what we do is how we make people feel.”...Pat Cosquer, head coach of men’s and women’s squash at Bates 2008–2019, joined St. George’s School in Newport, R.I., as assistant athletics director and head of squash programs in June. Pat was head squash coach at Hobart and William Smith Colleges from 2019 into 2023, and also served as a consultant for Hamilton College and a performance strategist for Evolveability, a sports and executive team consultancy....Geoffrey Holm “was honored to be the Colgate Univ. delegate to President Garry Jenkins’ inauguration in May.” Geoff, a professor of biology at Colgate, and Ellen Daniels Holm, associate dean of the college at Colgate, are looking forward to spring, when their daughter, EJ Holm ’25, will graduate from Bates....Eric Stirling and West Branch Pond Camps, a remote Maine sporting camp that has been in his family for more than 130 years, were featured in a piece by Boston television station WCVB5. “We like to keep it really authentic, rustic,” Eric told a reporter. Yet if the camp has remained much the same over time, the clientele has changed: “There used to be a lot of big groups of men who’d come

MICHAEL GRAHAM

fishing in the spring and fall, and that’s really disappearing,” Eric noted — giving way to couples seeking “more the nature-based peace and quiet kind of thing.”

1998 Reunion 2028, June 9–11

CLASS COMMITTEE

Doug Beers douglas.beers@gmail.com

Liam Clarke ldlc639@gmail.com

Rob Curtis robcurtis@eatonvance.com

Renee Leduc rleducclarke@gmail.com

Tyler Munoz tylermunoz@gmail.com

Kate Bishop is a Foreign Service officer and staff member with the U.S. Agency for International Development at the U.S. Embassy in Dakar, Senegal....In a Boston Real Estate Times interview in May, Dean Blackey offered advice to both landlords and tenants trying to make sense of the post-COVID market. Landlords should stay flexible, especially with current tenants, said Dean, managing director of the Massachusetts commercial real estate firm R. W. Holmes. “Do what you can to keep them in their space — talk to them, even a year out, and get their sentiments on what they think they’re going to do.” Tenants, meanwhile, shouldn’t “be afraid to go out and look at some different options, if for nothing more than to have some ammunition to bring back to your existing landlord and renegotiate your existing situation.”...Jody Reilly Soja was appointed the eighth head of school at Loomis Chaffee, and president of The Loomis Institute, in November 2023. Jody grew up in Lewiston and is the daughter of Jane Hippe Reilly ’68 and the late Russell Reilly ’66. She is a longtime educator who held various teaching and administrative positions at Indian Mountain School 1999–2009 and from 2015 until last year. She also worked at the Millbrook School and National Cathedral School.... Alexandra Wilke, a waterbird biologist, leads The Nature Conservancy’s Migratory Bird Program at the Volgenau Virginia Coast Reserve. Involving more than 50 miles of wild barrier-island coastline along Virginia’s Eastern Shore, the program protects and manages bird populations and habitats, and supports conservation throughout the Atlantic Flyway. In her graduate work in biology at William & Mary, Alex focused on the conservation status and reproductive ecology of American oystercatchers nesting on the Virginia Barrier Islands. She lives outside of Cape Charles, Va., with her husband and their sons.

media outlet:

NBC’s Today show

headline:

Veteran couple dedicates their life to help Ukraine, Afghanistan

takeaway:

Engagement in humanitarian efforts exemplifies the power of compassion

NBC’s Today show highlighted Christine Quinn Antal ’98 and her husband, Mark Antal, for their efforts to deliver humanitarian aid to Ukraine through their nonprofit, Task Force Antal, which partners with veterans, front-line communities, and governments.

The U.S. Army veterans — Mark as a former Green Beret and Delta Force member, and Christine as a national security legal adviser for Ukraine — emphasized their commitment to activism during the Veterans Day segment. “We are not going to stand back and let this happen,” said Mark. “We are not going to be complacent,” said Christine. The segment featured a live presentation of a Still Serving Award to the couple at Rockefeller Plaza from the United War Veterans Council.

Reunion 2029, June 8–10

CLASS SECRETARY Jenn Lemkin Bouchard jennifer_bouchard@hotmail.com

CLASS PRESIDENT Jamie Ascenzo Trickett jamie.trickett@gmail.com

Tracy Barbaro and Zenas Lu “were sad that we could not make Reunion this year, but have been lucky to see many Batesies in the wild! Reconnected with Rosie Lenehan and Scott McAuliffe in Portland, and saw Erik Thompson ’99 and Sarah Weiss ’01 and family on their visit to Maine from Sweden this summer. And spent lots of

time hanging out with Julie Lundman, Susie Arnold ’00, and Meg MacDougal and their families. We were also lucky to see upperclass soccer teammates Nicole Woodson Hanover ’97 and Gwenn Drapeau ’98. We are still in Cambridge, Mass. Reuben will be 11 in December and loves soccer. I will be enjoying my first fall season of not coaching youth soccer in many years!”... Hanna Bengtsson Franzblau continues her work as a school social worker in southwest Denver — and loves having her two sons attend the same school where she works. Björn will be in fifth grade and Vasa, fourth grade. “As a family, we love cross-country skiing in Colorado in the winter and traveling to the

ocean in Maine in the summer. It was fun to see Erin Carr Vincent and Samara Golden Christman last fall, spending a long weekend in a yurt in the mountains and managing a pickleball, too.”...Anatoliy Bizhko, a native of Ukraine who is president and founder of the NGO Partnership for CorruptionFree Ukraine, wrote in The Hill in July about JD Vance’s 2022 comment, during a broadcast with Steve Bannon, that he doesn’t “really care what happens to Ukraine.” Anatoliy pointed to commonalities between his background and Vance’s depiction of his own youth in the book Hillbilly Elegy. Yet Vance is indifferent to Ukraine’s plight, Anatoliy says, “despite the fact

Christine Quinn Antal ’98 (left) and Mark Antal (center) are interviewed by NBC Today co-host Savannah Guthrie. At right is Marine Corps veteran Mark Otto of the United War Veterans Council.

takeaway:

Ben Ayers

Ben Ayers ’99 chats with a friend prior to his 2020 talk at the Benjamin Mays Center, kicking off the 100th anniversary of the Bates Outing Club.

media outlet:

Outside Magazine

headline:

Two people were sliding to their deaths. And it was silent

takeaway:

Being vigilant and consistent about safety can mean life or death

Writing in Outside Magazine, Ben Ayers ’99 offered expert insight into the events that led to the deaths on Mount Everest last May of British climber Daniel Paul Paterson and his Nepali guide, Pastenji Sherpa. The pair plummeted to their deaths after the collapse of an ice cornice near the summit.

Typically, climbers are clipped into a fixed safety rope as they navigate difficult sections near the summit. Prior to the accident, the trail was crowded with hikers going in both directions: to the summit and from the summit. “Sources told Outside that it’s not uncommon for climbers to quickly unclip from the rope, navigate traffic, and then clip back in,” Ben wrote.

In this case, the two hikers may have “have briefly unclipped from the fixed ropes to overtake slower climbers at the exact moment the cornice collapsed.”

Ben has been based in Nepal for more than 20 years and regularly contributes to Outside’s coverage of Everest and Himalayan mountaineering.

that he comes from a land where people also live in pain, and despite the fact that he wrote a book about that land and how it shaped him.”...In her 17th year at Boston Univ. Alumni Medical Library, A’Llyn Ettien is now head of Resource Sharing and Discovery — “interlibrary loan and cataloging,” she explains. “Two great departments that make kind of a weird pair, but that’s what happens with a small staff. I enjoy what I do and where I am, so — living the dream!”... Rebecca Gasior Altman has been co-teaching a narrative environmental nonfiction course at Brown Univ. Recent essays by Becki have appeared in The Atlantic, Orion, and Science magazines. Her manuscript, tentatively titled An Intimate History of Plastics, is under contract with Scribner in the U.S. and Oneworld Publications in the U.K.

2000

Reunion 2025, June 6–8

CLASS SECRETARY

Cynthia Macht Link cynthiafriedalink@gmail.com

CLASS PRESIDENTS

Jenn Glassman Jacobs jenniferellenjacobs@gmail.com Megan Shelley mhshelley@aol.com

Matt Bazirgan, senior personnel executive with the Buffalo Bills football organization since 2022, was promoted in May to the position of director of college scouting for the team. Matt played quarterback for the Bobcats before spending a year as a coaching intern....Michael Costa became president and chief executive officer of Gifford Health Care in October. He went to Gifford, in Randolph, Vt., from Northern Counties Health Care in St. Johnsbury, where he had served as CEO since 2019. Previously he was the deputy commissioner for the Dept. of Vermont Health Access, the agency responsible for administering the state’s Medicaid health insurance program, and earlier was deputy director of healthcare reform for the state. He and Kristina Godek ’01 live in Norwich.... Stephanie Parker Sherman, who teaches science at Sussex Academy in Georgetown, Del., was named the 2025 Teacher of the Year for Delaware charter schools in May. She joined the school in 2016 and has taught grade levels 9–12 there. Sussex is a public-charter, tuition-free school providing an accelerated program for Delaware students in grades K–12. Stephanie will represent the Delaware Charter Schools Network, along with the 19 district teacher of the year winners, in the state’s 2025 Delaware Teacher of the Year competition.

2001

Reunion 2026, June 12–14

CLASS SECRETARY

Noah Petro npetro@gmail.com

CLASS PRESIDENTS

Jodi Winterton Cobb jodimcobb@gmail.com

Kate Hagstrom Lepore khlepore@gmail.com

Rose Magill Splint, a nonprofit campaign consultant and resident of Falmouth, Maine, was appointed in July to the board of directors of the Children’s Museum & Theatre of Maine....Kate Spencer’s latest novel, One Last Summer, was published in June. “Spencer’s driven heroine and competitive hero will delight readers, as will the fine supporting cast,” Publishers Weekly noted. “This is second-chance romance done right.”...Erik Zwick was appointed managing director of the newly established Specialty Finance Research Franchise at Lucid Capital Markets, a fullservice broker dealer and investment bank based in NYC, in July. He focuses on business development corporations. A chartered financial analyst, he brought more than 20 years’ experience in equity research to the post, most recently serving as a director at Hovde Group covering BDCs and community banks.

2002

Reunion 2027, June 11–13

CLASS SECRETARY

Stephanie Eby steph.eby@gmail.com

CLASS PRESIDENTS

Jay Surdukowski jsurdukowski@sulloway.com Drew Weymouth weymouthd@gmail.com

Greg Hurley was appointed assistant principal at the Galvin Middle School in Wakefield, Mass, in July. His 20-plus years of experience in public education include more than 16 years with the Malden public schools as a teacher and as director of humanities, and he came to Wakefield from the Andover school system, where he worked as K–12 social studies program coordinator. He earned a master’s degree in teaching from Tufts in 2005. Greg and Mollie Chamberlain Hurley ’01 live in Reading....Kevin Porter has launched Resilient Capital Solutions, a clean-energy finance consulting firm. He founded the business to accelerate the cleanenergy transition by designing, implementing, and identifying renewable energy, energy efficiency and decarbonization strategies, and resources for financial institutions, public agencies, building owners, and others.

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

2003

Reunion 2028, June 9–11

CLASS PRESIDENTS

Kirstin Boehm kirstincboehm@gmail.com

Melissa Yanagi melissayanagi@gmail.com

Malinda Gilbert Gagnon, CEO of the cybersecurity firm Uprise Partners, became the 18th member of the Truc Huynh Alumni Giving Society at Maine’s Mitchell Institute in June. The society recognizes Mitchell Scholar alumni who have followed in the footsteps of the late Truc Huynh, a Mitchell Scholar and Bowdoin alumnus known for his altruism. “Access to education is of utmost importance to my husband, Brian, and me,” Malinda said in an announcement. “Growing up in rural Maine, we understand the significance of financial support for education.”....The Vermont Student Assistance Corp. appointed Kirstin McCarthy Boehm to the position of senior director of outreach, research, and development during the spring. VSAC helps students save, plan, and pay for college and career training. Kirstin served as director of career education and outreach for seven years prior to the promotion. Her new role involves direction of research, development, outreach staff, and programming while building partnerships and engaging stakeholders with a focus on equity and opportunity.... Dominick Pangallo, mayor of Salem, Mass., spoke with The Boston Globe in April about his city’s response to an encampment of unhoused people that has drawn complaints from citizens and businesses. “We’re triaging and putting a bandage on a problem that has deep roots in our society. I believe everyone deserves a roof over their head, and a tent is not a roof,” he said. “But it’s extremely expensive to fund shelters and services, and there is a deep housing crisis in this state.’’

2004

Reunion 2029, June 8–10

CLASS PRESIDENTS

Eduardo Crespo

eduardo.crespo.r@gmail.com

Tanya Schwartz

tanya.schwartz@gmail.com

Seamus Collins found himself in the media spotlight as a Chicagoland newspaper described his successes as president of Northwestern Medicine Lake Forest Hospital, a post he took on in April after more than a decade in other roles in the Northwestern Medicine system. A key focus for him has been the ongoing expansion of the hospital’s

Westmoreland Road campus. With its completion in 2026, “(we) expect to deliver that community hospital feel that we once had,” he told the Lake Forest News. Seamus, Dr. Anne Wrigley Collins, and their two children live in Evanston....Eduardo Crespo was appointed regional vice president of Europe, the Middle East, and Africa for PagerDuty Inc., a global leader in digital operations management, in May. Eduardo brings to the San Francisco–based firm more than 20 years’ experience ranging from investment banking to strategy consulting to cloud and software solutions. He was most recently part of leadership at Medallia....K-Fai Steele, whose children’s books include A Normal Pig and All Eyes on Ozzy!, auctioned the world rights to Best Buds, her debut middle-grade graphic novel, in June. The book depicts a friendship that blooms between two girls over their love of gardening, library books, and crows, while exploring the roles they play in community care. Kokila, a division of Penguin focusing on stories that reflect the richness of our world, purchased the publishing rights and will release Best Buds in spring 2026.

2005

Reunion 2025, June 6–8

CLASS PRESIDENTS

Kathryn Duvall duvall.kathryn@gmail.com

Melissa Geissler

melissa.geissler@gmail.com

Sarah Overmyer reports that she and Marselle AlexanderOzinskas road-tripped across Lithuania and Latvia together during the summer and “had the time of our lives.” Last year they attended Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour together and continue, says Sarah, “to feel like teenagers in our hearts.”...Samantha Rosenthal is serving as a visiting assistant professor of American history at Washington and Lee Univ. She taught previously at Roanoke College, where she served as associate professor of history, coordinator of the public history concentration, and co-coordinator of the gender and women’s studies concentration. Her teaching and research interests include 20th-century U.S. history, public history, LGTBQ history, digital humanities, and transgender studies....Ashley Smalley, doing business in Freeport, Maine, as Ashley Smalley Nutrition, has “finally fulfilled a yearslong dream of opening my own integrative and functional nutrition practice. It has been a rewarding experience that continues to push me to grow and learn.”

To Connect and Serve

Michael Philbrick ’04 was recently promoted to patrol sergeant with the Montpelier (Vt.) Police Department, which means he’s often on the streets making connections with local citizens, businesses, and organizations.

He’s posing on Main Street with Rosemary Rosa, a recovery coach supervisor for Turning Point Center of Central Vermont, as they conduct outreach efforts. Being the smallest U.S. state capital (population 8,000), Montpelier has “both a small-town vibe and faces the challenges of a larger city,” Philbrick says. “This demands a progressive model of public safety centered on community partnerships and alternatives to the criminal-justice system.”

Such approaches prioritize conversations with persons with mental health or substance use struggles, offering help, and deploying strategies in harm reduction.

In addition to supervising patrol shifts and community outreach efforts, Michael manages departmental training programs and social media.

MICHAEL PHILBRICK

media outlet:

Jamaica Observer’s All Woman

headline:

Shawna-Kaye Lester talks growth

takeaway: Exploration is vital for career discovery and growth

Shawna-Kaye Lester ’08, founder and CEO of Memorable Essay, a college, medical school, and graduate school admission consulting firm, shared career insights with All Woman, a magazine supplement of the Jamaica Observer

Asked when she’s worked hardest in her life, she pointed to “Cell Hell” at Bates, the notoriously tough cellular and molecular biology course. “I very clearly remember oftentimes trying to decide if I should use the bathroom, take a nap, or study — and I often chose to study.”

To young women starting careers, Shawna-Kaye emphasized the importance of exploration, whether through internships or other means. “I’ve dealt with a lot of people telling me I was not focused when I was simply exploring. Exploration and exposure are critical for finding your career match.”

Finally, she said, “Fall in love with growth. Relentlessly invest in your holistic growth. Your ventures can only grow as fast as you do.”

2006

Reunion 2026, June 12–14

CLASS PRESIDENTS

Chelsea Cook chelsea.m.cook@gmail.com

Katie Nolan knolan06@gmail.com

Johnny Ritzo johnnyritzo@gmail.com

Diana Gauvin Lebeaux is senior director of programs for a Somerville, Mass., nonprofit called the Teacher Collaborative, and she and Ben Lebeaux live in Chelmsford, Mass. In April, she was elected to the school committee there. “As a parent of two children in our school system and as a career professional in education, this was an opportunity to contribute both these lenses to work toward more equitable, excellent education in Chelmsford.”...

Keelin Godsey, Bates thrower and 16-time All-American, was inducted into the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Assn.’s NCAA Division III Track & Field Athlete Hall of Fame in April. The most decorated athlete in Bates track and field history, and twice an NCAA Division III champion in the hammer throw, Keelin becomes the first Bobcat to earn the USTFCCCA honor. As noted on the Bates Athletics site, “With Godsey, the benchmark became not AllNESCAC or All-New England honors, but All-America awards, national championships, and national records.” Keelin came out as transgender before the beginning of his senior year with the women’s track and field team. His experiences before 2005 and since then, from athletic feats to personal trials, were recounted in a 2012 Sports Illustrated special report. “I also want to thank my teammates because I really loved my time on the Bates track team,” said Keelin, who is a physical therapist at an outpatient facility for Johns Hopkins Hospital and is an assistant director of their sports physical therapy residency program....USMC Lt. Col.

William “BJ” Majeski reported in August that he “just finished a successful four-year tour at Marine Helicopter Squadron 1, flying President Biden and Vice President Harris aboard Marine One and Marine Two.”... Ryan O’Connor was named CEO of Global X ETFs, the U.S. affiliate of South Korea’s Mirae Asset Global Investments, in April. A specialist in exchangetraded funds with almost two decades’ experience in the U.S. market, Ryan previously served as a global chief of ETF products at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, where he also worked on building a fund strategist model portfolio business....Michael Williams was named solicitor general for West Virginia, where he directs all appellate litigation and other

high-profile matters for the state. He and Andrea Hopkins ’05 live in Charleston with their children, Molly and Alex.

2007

Reunion 2027, June 11–13

CLASS PRESIDENTS

Keith Kearney

kdkearney@gmail.com

Rakhshan Zahid

rakhshan.zahid@gmail.com

Nate Libby, a former member of the Maine Senate who served as assistant minority leader and majority leader during his decade there, in March became Lewiston’s assistant director of economic and community development. Nate most recently worked as president of housing development for Community Concepts, overseeing a $35 million affordable housing portfolio in Western Maine, and of that organization’s subsidiary Community Concepts Finance Corp.... An actor, acting coach, and filmmaker, Natasha Mayet is also the co-founder of the Cape Town Squad International Film Festival, which has leaned into artificial-intelligence filmmaking with special AI categories and numerous AI films being screened. “We believe in embracing the future of filmmaking and making storytelling accessible to all, and AI does that,” Mayet says. Mayet majored in economics and French at Bates; a few years after graduation, while working a corporate job, she followed an impulse to pursue acting. “For a woman born in Pakistan, this path is not the norm,” she says. “I’m so grateful to Bates because there I found my voice and learned to think outside the box. I’m grateful for individuals like James Reese and my professors like Kirk Read who believed in me and empowered us to succeed.” In Cape Town, Mayet manages a studio for Anthony Meindl’s Los Angeles–based Actor Workshop. In addition to appearing in the Netflix series Unseen, she has had roles in a variety of films including the feature Trafficked, starring Ashley Judd.

2008

Reunion 2028, June 9–11

CLASS PRESIDENTS

Liz Murphy elizabeth.jayne.m@gmail.com

Alie Egelson alisonrose.schwartz@gmail.com

2009

Reunion 2029, June 8–10

CLASS PRESIDENTS

Tim Gay timothy.s.gay@gmail.com

Arsalan Suhail arsalansuhail@gmail.com

SHAWNA-KAYE LESTER ’08

Tim Howard and Madeline McLean welcomed their first child, Amery Ten Broeck Howard, in July. Amery was born at Charité Campus Mitte in Berlin, where Tim and Madeline have lived since 2015. They were married before a large Bates contingent at a castle in Bordeaux, France, in spring 2022. They formerly operated Hinterland, a wine bistro in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district, and Madeline still consults in gastronomy while working as the lead spin instructor at a local fitness and movement studio. Tim was a co-founder of the Web3 Foundation, a blockchain research and development organization in Switzerland.... Anne Mueller Ross joined the U.S. Foreign Service in January and, with husband Jack Ross and their dog, has moved to Lagos, Nigeria, where she is serving a two-year tour as a consular officer....Elizabeth Wilcox Baxter, Owen, and Lillian welcomed Lillian’s sister Bella in January.

2010

Reunion 2025, June 6–8

CLASS PRESIDENTS

Brianna Bakow brianna.bakow@gmail.com

Tiel Duncan vantielelizabeth.duncan@gmail. com

Spencer Holland was elected to partner status at the Bay State law firm Mirick O’Connell. He’s a partner in the real estate and environmental law group, and the public and municipal law group. He represents clients making commercial real estate transactions, and has extensive experience in the acquisition and disposition of commercial, industrial, residential, and mixeduse properties....Publishing in Grit Daily in March, arts writer Alexandra Israel described an evening of sound art in NYC — an audio-forward high-tech multimedia demonstration by Tianyi Sun and Fiel Guhit, and then a found-sound presentation by Aki Onda. “Focusing on the mundane, every day, Sun and Guhit and Onda ask their viewers to look beyond the obvious. Instead, their performances bring attention to our body’s complete immersion in technology and its sounds, highlighting how our brain skips, ignores, or compartmentalizes certain experiences, instead ushering us to actively try to listen in on them all,” she reported.... Rachel Kurzius, reporter for The Washington Post’s “Reporter for The Home You Own” coverage, in March pointed out a little-known consequence of the pandemic: surging interest in bidets. The shortage of toilet paper that resulted from snarled supply chains, in

fact, created a new market for the appliances. “While many have regretted buying their Pelotons or even their homes (during that period), those who installed the bathroom fixture at the height of the Great Toilet Paper Shortage of 2020 are far from remorseful,” she reported. “Instead, they’ve become true believers.”...Alison Leonard is back at Bates, now as assistant coach for track & field and cross country — fittingly enough, as she spent her four student years at the college competing in those programs. Between then and now, she earned a master’s in accounting and an MBA from Northeastern, ran two Boston Marathons, and worked as a volunteer with elite athletes in the 2019 Boston Marathon. She continues a long family tradition of participating in cross country and track & field at Bates, as five relatives — including her father and brother, Thomas Leonard III ’78 and Thomas Leonard IV ’15 — are alumni of those programs....Roy Lockhart was promoted to the position of managing director at Stax, an international mergers and acquisitions consulting firm, in March. Based in the company’s Boston headquarters, Roy leads efforts to support management teams, sponsors, and investment banks by crafting compelling, investor-friendly narratives to facilitate capital raises and exits. He joined Stax as a research associate in 2011....Rachel Straus Tofel Ferrante, speaking to the Lewiston Planning Board in July, described the Maine Museum of Innovation, Learning, and Labor as “a tribute to the people, industries, and heritage that built our past, enriches our present, and creates our future.” Executive director of the museum formerly known as Museum L-A, Rachel spoke on the occasion of the board’s approving the museum’s new location, on Beech Street. The project, the Sun Journal reported, will transform the historic riverside Camden Yarns Mill into an 11,000-squarefoot museum, gallery, and event space that officials hope will become a tourist draw in Lewiston.

2011

Reunion 2026, June 12–14

CLASS PRESIDENTS Theodore Sutherland theodoresutherland89@gmail.com Patrick Williams Patw.williams@gmail.com

U.S. Rep. Jared Golden represents one of just three House districts in the nation that both voted for Donald Trump in 2020 and sent Democrats to Congress two years later. Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, a USA Today analysis noted in

media outlet: VTDigger

headline:

Looking at far-right extremism in the Northeast

takeaway:

Vigilance against extremism is crucial for safeguarding democracy

The five-part podcast If All Else Fails, hosted and reported by Emily Russell ’11 and Zach Hirsch of North Country Public Radio, explored far-right extremism in upstate New York, including why extremist groups and militia movements are gaining support and the threats they pose to democracy in the U.S.

VTDigger, an investigative online newspaper, noted how the reporters “found law enforcement officers who are members of the extremist ‘constitutional sheriffs’ movement who vow that they will not enforce state laws with which they disagree.”

Emily emphasized the potential for significant damage. “Even if folks who have gone down these rabbit holes may be a minority in this country, if you get enough of them riled up, they can do a tremendous amount of damage to our democracy in the U.S.”

EMILY RUSSELL’11

media outlet: Plant Physiology

headline:

Plant Physiology spotlights First Authors

takeaway: Plant science reveals new ways to enhance immunity against bacterial infections

Emerging researcher Nathan Diplock ’17, who recently earned a Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley, was profiled as a “First Author” by the academic journal Plant Physiology

Working with researchers at Berkeley and the University of Melbourne, Nathan served as first author of a paper that explores a plant protein called ZAR1, which helps detect harmful bacteria. ZAR1 monitors how another plant protein, ZED1, interacts with a bacterial protein from a common plant pathogen.

The team’s discovery of a key mutation in ZED1 that allows tomato plants to recognize bacterial invaders could lead to innovative ways to boost plant immunity.

A Bates biology major and now a research scientist at the biotech company BluumBio, Nathan is developing technologies for phytoremediation and bioremediation of environmental contaminants.

April, is one of three that could have lit a path for the Democrats to keep the White House in November. Jared, though, told the newspaper that his campaign strategy can’t be replicated. “It’s just in my blood,” he said. “At the end of the day, it’s just (that) the majority of the voters in this district recognize me as someone who gets them.”... Theodore Sutherland has earned an MBA from Harvard Business School. “My wife, Selamile, and I will stay in Boston with our 2-year-old daughter, Nissi. I launched a search fund to continue my entrepreneurial ambitions, this time in the U.S. I’m excited to reconnect in person with the Bates community — do reach out if you’re in the area or better yet, reach out anyway for a virtual catch-up!”...Andrew Wilcox joined the New York Times Company in June as director of video operations and strategy. He manages the team focused on production and post-production operations, from freelance logistics to media management systems. He previously was a senior adviser at New York City Transit, where he produced high-profile communications initiatives during the first 18 months of COVID-19, and served as vice president of operations for Vice News, where he oversaw operations for a global newsroom that produced short-form news video, an Emmy-winning nightly newscast for HBO, and a prestige weekly documentary series.

2012

Reunion 2027, June 11–13

CLASS PRESIDENTS

Mikey Pasek mikeypasek@gmail.com

Sangita Murali sangitamurali12@gmail.com

Julie McCabe was a Democratic candidate for Maine House Dist. 93, representing part of Lewiston. A high school teacher, she has taught in Maine public schools for 11 years. Among other goals, she sought to strengthen the state’s vocational education resources because, as she noted in a campaign statement, “so many young people are adrift in the traditional classroom model and graduate with limited workforce skills or a sense of what is truly possible for their lives.” She and Matt Campbell have two children....Kelly McManus, a two-sport studentathlete during her undergraduate years, is back at Bates — now as first assistant coach for field hockey. She returns after eight years as an assistant coach at Bowdoin. A team co-captain as a Bobcat, Kelly appeared in 56 contests (53 starts), recording four goals and 13 assists over her four-year collegiate career. She

was also a three-year member of the Bates softball program, taking part in 80 games (75 starts) with the Bobcats. She batted .276 to go along with 16 career stolen bases....Julia Winder Martin and Brad welcomed Henry Owen Winder Martin on May 12. “Henry is adjusting well to his new life in Colorado, although not skiing quite yet!,” Julia reports, and is getting “lots of kisses from Tucker — our 2-yearold golden retriever!”

2013

Reunion 2028, June 9–11

CLASS PRESIDENTS

Megan Murphy megan.a.murphy3@gmail.com

Ryan Sonberg rsonberg9@gmail.com

2014

Reunion 2029, June 8–10

CLASS PRESIDENTS

Milly Aroko mildredaroko@gmail.com

Hally Bert hallybert@gmail.com

Natalie Shribman started a new role as senior rabbi at Temple Kol Ami in West Bloomfield, Mich., in summer 2023. “I’m enjoying my work,” she writes, “and learning lots about myself, my community, and Judaism.”

2015

Reunion 2025, June 6–8

CLASS PRESIDENTS

James Brissenden brissendenja@gmail.com Ben Smiley bensmiley32@gmail.com

Audrey Burns, who first started working for the Bates Admission Office as a student tour guide and is now associate dean of admission and director of recruitment, was a guest on the College Admissions Process Podcast in March. Among other topics, she told host John Durante about Bates’ practice of committee-based evaluation of prospective students — that is, two admission personnel review every application. “We think that having two people in these initial reviews, and always having a conversation about every single application that comes to Bates, helps us do our best work in terms of holistic review processes and really understanding the context and the background of where a student is coming from.”... Tim Campbell is serving as a visiting assistant professor of Earth and environmental geoscience at Washington and Lee Univ. Tim earned a Master’s of Science in glacial geology and a PhD in Earth sciences from Montana State Univ. His research and teaching interests include the paleoclimates of

polar and alpine environments and sedimentology....Molly Lodigiani is a nurse practitioner at InterMed, which is based in Portland and is Maine’s largest physician-owned primary care practice....Mitchell Rider is a postdoctoral research associate at NOAA’s Southeast Fisheries Science Center, where he studies sea turtle movement ecology. Specifically, he develops distribution models for several species in the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic, models that can be used to understand overlap with human-driven threats such as fisheries and vessel traffic. “I’ve always been fascinated by the extensive migrations these animals embark on, so I find myself extremely lucky that every day I get to observe the incredible migrations our tagged turtles are partaking in,” Mitch says in a profile on the science center’s website....Graham Safford joined Clearstead Trust, an investment service in Portland, Maine, in May as a client service associate. He went to the firm from Camden (Maine) National Bank, where he held a similar position with the bank’s Wealth Management Team.... Andrew Seaton graduated from the Univ. of Michigan School of Public Health, receiving a Master’s of Public Health degree with a concentration in health behavior and health education.

2016

Reunion 2026, June 12–14

CLASS PRESIDENTS

Andre Brittis-Tannenbaum andrebt44@gmail.com

Sally Ryerson sallyryerson@gmail.com

Phillip Dube is living in Toronto. “Please say ‘Hi’ if you find yourself here.”

2017

Reunion 2027, June 11–13

CLASS PRESIDENTS

Jessie Garson jgarson4@gmail.com

Matthew Baker mattdbaker13@gmail.com

Fatima Saidi is campaign director for We Are All America, an organization advancing the U.S. commitment to welcome and protect people seeking freedom and safety in this country. On the third anniversary of the fall of Afghanistan, where she was born, she spoke in Vermont at an event highlighting the difficulties facing Afghans trying to attain legal refugee status here. Her own family’s story is an example: While she has managed to bring her siblings here from Pakistan, to which the family escaped three years ago, her mother remains there. As reported by VtDigger. org, “Every time you climb a wall, there’s a bigger wall,” she said.

2018

Reunion 2028, June 9–11

CLASS PRESIDENTS

John Thayer

john.robert.thayer@gmail.com

Jake Shapiro shapirojacob6@gmail.com

Kristyna Alexova is a senior consulting analyst for the Economics & Country Risk group at S&P Global Market Intelligence. She collects and updates economic data to analyze trends from such sectors as finance, manufacturing, consumer-retail, construction, energy, government, transportation, IT-telecom, and tourism. Prior to joining S&P Global, she was an intern at financial services companies including Fidelity Investments and Citibank....Singer-songwriter Alisa Amador released her first full-length album in early June. (And followed that milestone with another one a few weeks later, as she made her national TV debut on “The Kelly Clarkson Show.”) Multitudes stands out for “its bracing emotional honesty,” as Boston Herald reviewer Jed Gottlieb noted. Among the songs on the new album is “Milonga Accidental,” Alisa’s winning submission to NPR’s Tiny Desk Contest in 2022. But this is a new recording that reveals how this iconic tune has evolved: It started out, as she told a WBURFM reporter, “as a mournful song about feeling like I didn’t belong anywhere, and then it just became more and more like a celebratory song about not belonging anywhere....It just feels like a full circle moment to re-release that song with all the new meanings contained within it now.”...Hanna Condon was honored during the spring by a newspaper covering the Florida Keys. On the occasion of her bachelorette party, the Keys Citizen declared her Citizen of the Day for May 31. Born and raised on Key West, Hanna told the paper that she was looking forward to introducing friends to her island home....Kiernan Majerus-Collins earned a JD from the Boston Univ. School of Law in May....Brianna Russell Thornton represents the fourth generation of her family working in a single dental practice in Portland, Maine. Dr. Edmund “Ted” Russell began working at the Woodford Street location in 1964 and was joined there by his father in 1968. Ted’s son Keith joined the practice in 1992, and Brianna, Keith’s daughter, came aboard last year. Brianna told the Portland Press Herald that it is “amazing” to work with her father. She chose her career path early on. “I’ve known pretty much since middle school that I wanted to be a dentist,” she said. “I saw firsthand that you can make such a difference in people’s everyday life.”

• fireworks • laughter • friendship • conversation

• hugs • celebrate • lobster • memories • parade

• stories • alumni • today • together •

conversation

media outlet:

Mastercard “Perspectives”

headline:

The power of mentorship

takeaway:

Mentorship takes many forms, such as connecting others with mentoring opportunities

Koyabi Mamam Nbiba ’20, an analyst at Mastercard North America, shared his insights on mentorship in an essay for the company’s “Perspectives” website.

He credits a doctor in New York City for mentoring him during high school and introducing him to New England prep schools, ultimately leading him to Bates.

At Mastercard, Koyabi has held leadership roles in initiatives supporting employees of African descent and mentorship programs for Black men. “The truth is, you don’t have to be part of a mentorship program to shape the paths of future leaders,” Koyabi wrote. “Professionals should step up to mentor early and often. If that’s not your preference, you can still make a difference by connecting others for mentorship where you see opportunities. Maybe that’s how we can measure our legacy — by how many people we raise up along the way.”

2019

Reunion 2029, June 8–10

Harry Meadows

harry.meadows4@gmail.com

Cara Starnbach cara@carastarnbach.com

Caroline Barnes became associate director of athletics for external relations and senior woman administrator at Saint Joseph’s College of Maine in July. She provides strategic leadership for athletics and is charged with raising the profile of SJC Athletics, which comprises 22 varsity sports and roughly 350 studentathletes. Caroline went to Saint Joseph’s from the Univ. of New England, where she served as student outreach coordinator, and worked previously at Emerson College, where she oversaw athletics communications, compliance, operations, event management, and special events. As a Bobcat, she played volleyball and softball....Thomas Brown joined the Boston law firm of Fox Rothschild as an associate in the litigation department, representing businesses in a range of commercial litigation. He advises clients throughout the process in state and federal courts, particularly in cases involving toxic tort and product liability....Trevor Fry was a summer associate at Ropes & Gray LLP, the Boston-based, internationally operational law firm. “I had the pleasure of working alongside multiple Bates alumni — paralegals Liv Demerath ’23 and Adam Naddaff-Slocum ’22, and attorney John ‘Mac’ McReynolds ’17.” Trevor adds, “I am also thrilled to announce that I have accepted a full-time position at Ropes as an associate upon graduation from Boston College Law School and passage of the bar.”...Wendy Memishian and Nick Orlando ’17 were engaged in July 2023 and planned to be wed in September. “We have been together since my first year at Bates, and are so excited to celebrate with our friends and family, including several Bates alumni.”...Robbie Montanaro became the assistant coach of men’s soccer at the Univ. of Connecticut in August. He had spent the prior year as the first assistant at Adrian College, and was previously head coach at Boston Univ. Academy, where he led the Terriers to an 11-1 record and a league title in 2023. As a Bobcat, Robbie started 47 games in net and made more than 200 saves, and after graduation played professionally in Scotland, Puerto Rico, Sweden, and the Czech Republic....Jack Shea and Nicolas Lemus, both of Brooklyn, had a near-perfect

run at their neighborhood biergarten’s trivia night on July 18. Defeating the other teams, all sextets, the pair won a $30 credit towards their $40 tab through their command of esoteric knowledge.

2020

Reunion 2025, June 6–8

Priscila Guillen

priscila.guillen65197@gmail.com

Maya Seshan mayaseshan55@gmail.com

2021

Reunion 2026, June 12–14

Imani Boggan imaniboggan@gmail.com

Julia Maluf jmaluf120@gmail.com

Jade Zhang jadezhang9843@gmail.com

Nour Al Twal is an associate manager research analyst (multi-asset and alternatives) for Morningstar Research Services, a wholly owned subsidiary of Morningstar Inc. She is responsible for quantitative and qualitative research on investment vehicles including mutual funds, models, and 529 plans. She started at Morningstar in 2021 as a financial product specialist. A Chicago resident, she double-majored in quantitative econometrics and psychology....Kali Brown joined the St. Lawrence Univ. rowing programs as a graduate assistant coach for the 2024–2025 season. She was a four-year varsity oarswoman and coxswain on Bates’ nationally ranked women’s team, which during her time won NCAA championships in 2019 and 2021. Kali previously worked at the Windsor School of the Bahamas as a history and humanities teacher, a resident advisor, and rowing coach. She also served as a history teaching fellow at Kent School while working toward her master’s degree....In her “Letters from Madagascar” series, in the Sun Journal, Vanessa Paolella has explained how the costs of childhood education — it’s not publicly funded — challenge young students in the town where she is a Peace Corps representative. But just reporting the situation did not satisfy her — and, working with a U.S.–based nonprofit that aims to make education more accessible for Malagasy children, by late August she had raised more than $6,000, enough to provide scholarships for about 150 families for four years. “I’m ecstatic,” Vanessa told Bates Magazine. “We had 88 families sign up, so we actually have a surplus. Some of the kids are 7, 8, or 9 years old and have never been to school.” (Tuition

at the local elementary school is apportioned not per student, but per parents). Vanessa added, “I got so much support from the Bates community for this program,” which is affiliated with the Anjiro Initiative. “I had donations from alums from the ’70s, from my own track teammates, some of their parents, even my thesis adviser.”

2022

Reunion 2027, June 9–11

Anna Landgren aslandgren@gmail.com

Rachel Retana rachel7600@gmail.com

Ognyan Simeonov ognyan99@gmail.com

Sean Vaz savyvaz@gmail.com

The 14th annual Southern Vermont Decathlon in August had a certain deja vu quality, as Liam Evans and Evan Koch ’23 engaged in a “fierce battle at the top of the standings for the second straight year,” as the Rutland Herald reported. “After falling to Koch by just 100 points in last year’s decathlon, Evans returned the favor, defeating Koch by 103 points while breaking Koch’s overall scoring record from a year ago.” Evan Koch “was spectacular on the track and in the jumps, winning all six events, but he was unable to overcome Evans’ prowess in the throwing events.”

2023

Reunion 2028, June 9–11

Chris Euston christopher.euston@gmail.com

Jared O’Hare jaredkohare@gmail.com

Olivia Demerath lividem543@gmail.com

Chloe Arons chloe.arons123@gmail.com

Mason Bunker serves as strategic planning coordinator at the National Parks of Boston’s Climate Conservation Corps through Conservation Legacy’s Stewards Individual Placement Program. He is also an AmeriCorps VISTA. An environmental studies major at Bates, Mason later worked with the Rangeley Lakes Heritage Trust in Maine, where he did conservation, interpretation, volunteer engagement, and geographic information systems mapping....Zoe Knauss was promoted in May to business development manager at Montante Solar, a company in Buffalo, N.Y., that builds large-scale public and private photovoltaic arrays. Zoe joined Montante in 2023 and has been instrumental in leading the company’s expansion in the K–12 and commercial rooftop sectors.

reunion awards

Lucky Seven

At Reunion, the Alumni Association honored six alumni for their contributions to Bates and beyond.

Michael Schlechter ’99: Alumni Community Service Award for his volunteer commitment to emergency medical services as chief of Weston (Conn.) Volunteer EMS.

Robin Hodgskin ’76: Alumni Professional Recognition Award for her success in financial services and dedication to philanthropy and community service.

Dr. David Wilcox ’74: Alumni Professional Recognition Award for his 45-year career in medicine and leadership in advancing healthcare.

Alexandria Onuoha ’20: Distinguished Young Alumni Award for early-career achievements in developmental psychology and social change advocacy.

Jennifer Lemkin Bouchard ’99: Papaioanou Distinguished Alumni Service Award for her volunteer leadership on the Alumni Council and support of Bates through admission, career advising, and event coordination.

Ira Waldman ’73: Stangle Award for Distinguished Service for his engagement and dedication to supporting Bates Athletics, Reunion activities, and the John Jenkins Scholarship Committee.

2024

Reunion 2029, June 8–10

Jamie “Midas” Bell was nominated for the eighth annual Donovan Award, honoring NCAA Division III

Ultimate players who exemplify exceptional skill, sound personal values, and leadership on and off the field. A novice to the sport when she arrived at Bates, she served as captain in her junior and senior years, leading Bates’ team Cold Front to its two best seasons since 2019.

“Midas embodies everything the (U)ltimate community

strives for, and is renowned across the region for her friendliness, humor, incredible speed, and unmatched vertical,” the nomination stated....Two days after Anders Corey graduated from Bates with an environmental studies major, he published an op-ed in Maine’s Bangor Daily News calling on the public sector to devise integrated responses to three overlapping problems: the changing climate, homelessness, and substance abuse. The interconnectedness of those issues “requires legislative responses that are also interconnected,” the Yarmouth,

Maine, resident wrote. “Policies need to transcend traditional boundaries of public health, urban planning, and environmental protection to address the root causes, especially the reality of the climate crisis. By investing in comprehensive strategies that include both preventive and responsive measures, policymakers can better protect and improve the lives of these vulnerable people.”

From left: Michael Schlechter ’99, Robin Hodgskin ’76, David Wilcox ’74, Alumni Association President Kevin Moore ’93, Bates President Garry W. Jenkins, Alexandria Onuoha ’20, Jennifer Lemkin Bouchard ’99, and Ira Waldman ’73.

Please email your high-resolution Bates group wedding photo to magazine@bates.edu. Please identify all people and their class years, and include the wedding date, location, and any other news. Wedding photos are published in the order received.

McLean ’09 & Howard ’09

Madeline McLean ’09 and Tim Howard ’09, May 21, 2022, Chateau Rigaud, Pujols (Bordeaux), France. All Class of 2009 except as noted. From left: Henry Sargent Mastain, Robert Friedman ’11, Lexi Kirsch, Sarah Codraro, Madeline, Ben Latham ’11, Tim, Will Gardner, Eliza O’Neil, Emily Sampson, Graham Jones, Perry Kleeman Hardy, Andrew Karp ’10.

Shaw & Fitzgerald ’16

Haley Shaw and Thomas Fitzgerald ’16, June 17, 2023, Phippsburg, Maine. All Class of 2016 except as noted.

From left: Susan Luther Dewey ’88, Kimberly Sullivan ’13, Frances Leslie ’15, Will Dewey ’88, Haley and Thomas, Erica Veazey, Juergen Kritschgau, Matt Keigwin, Ian Ramsay.

Ross ’19 & Bland

Ella Ross ’19 and Maggie Bland (Bowdoin ’18), June 8, 2024, Milton, Mass. From left: Natalie Frost ’17, Olivia Gomez ’19, Madison Liistro ’20, Becca Havian ’19, Ella and Maggie, Lucy Faust ’19, Madeline Dulchin ’19, Jenny Rosenfield ’18, Kudzaiishe Irene Mapfunde ’19, Nicki Brill ’15, Rufus Frost ’88, Jack Strain ’15.

Katz & Mahar ’17

Amy Katz and Ryan Mahar ’17, June 1, 2024, Durango, Colorado. All Class of 2017 except as noted. Back,from left: Sadie James, Andrew Lachance, Parker McDonald ‘18, Nick Michaud ’15, Cailene Gunn, William Cleaves ’16, Maddy Ekey, Jenney Abbott, Jack Anderson, Luke McNabb, Fritz Windover, Ankrish Milne, Halie Lange, Wade Rosko, Halle Johns ’16. Front, from left: Tara Humphries, Emma Marchetti, Moriah Greenstein ’16, Britta Clark ’16, Justine Timms, Audrey Puleio, Jessie Garson, Amy and Ryan, Cecily Tennyson, Alexa Adams, Brent Feldman, John Neufeld, Grace Wright ’16.

Gulley & Chen ’19

Blythe Gulley (Univ. of North Carolina ’20) and Andrew Chen ’19, July 27, 2024, Knoxville, Tenn. All Class of 2019 except as noted. Back, from left: Owen Ahlborn, Julian Stolper, Constantine Gregoire, Ethan Simon, Griffin Golden, Oliver Farnum, Patrick Sheils, William Sanders. Front, from left: Reed Feldman, Claudia Glickman-Stolper, Andrew and Blythe, Jayde Biggert ’20.

Flaherty ’12 & Gray Kelsey Flaherty ’12 and Colby Gray, June 1, 2024, South Paris, Maine. All Class of 2012 except as indicated. Back, from left: Linnea Fulton ’13, Annie Burns, Lucy O’Keefe, Kristen Finn McDonnell, Kiely Webster, Nick Gilpin ’20, Meredith Kelly ’14, Jenn Brallier ’13. Front, from left: Courtney Talcott Fox, Caitlyn DeFiore Donovan, Lauren Dobish Rutherford, Kelsey and Colby, Libby King, Annie King ’13.

Vaules ’22 & Philbin ’22

Rebekah Vaules ’22 and Peter Philbin ’22, July 27, 2024, Rochester, N.Y. All Class of 2022. From left: Amanda Becker, Noah Pott, Johnny Esposito, Eugene Padayogdog, Rebekah and Peter, Eben Cook, Liv Silva, Olivia Dimond, Max Younger.

Balcomb ’14 & Freeze

Hallie Balcomb ’14 and Sam Freeze, June 18, 2022, Gorham, Maine. All Class of 2014 except as noted. Back, from left: Susan Janes ’75, Jonathan Depew ’18, Hally Bert, Ben Wilson ’18, Lucy Brennan, Courtney Doyle, Erin Curry, Grace Vannoy, Kelly Yardley, Susan Russell, Liz Bassani, Zach Abbott, Rachel Baumann, Aisling Ryan, Peter Allen ’65, Caleb Stotz ’18, Karl Fisher. Front, from left: Anne James ’91, Jim James ’91, Scott Balcomb ’75, Hallie and Sam, Abigail Sanborn ’75, Lindsey Loy, Laura Entwisle.

Rankine ’11 & Mercaldo Nikki Rankine ’11 and David Mercaldo (Roger Williams Univ. ’09), August 18, 2024, Warren, N.J. From left: Mary Osbourne ’13, Shervin Chambers ’12, Don Dumayas ’11, Arita Balaram ’12, Rosie Winslow ’11, Nikki and David, Stephanie Cade ’13, Nazsa Baker ’12, Shameena Khan ’11, Tennysha St. John ’13.

Grant ’18 & Harrison

Sam Grant ’18 and Will Harrison, August 10, 2024, Waldoboro, Maine. All Class of 2018 except as noted. Back, from left: Jake Shapiro, Lucas Gillespie, Belle Hutchins, Nate Merchant, Cata Robert, Hannah Conner, Katie DeNoia, Sarah Panzer, Lisa Slivken, Augy Silver, Natalie Adler ’92, Sam Goldman ’03. Front, from left: Hanna

in memoriam

1943

Harold Austin Wright

April 6, 2019

1945

Louis Scolnik

Oct. 10, 2024

1946

Dorothy Strout Cole

May 10, 2024

1947

Betty Kragelund Bois

June 21, 2024

Ruth Barba Nussbaum

May 27, 2024

1948

Nancy Prouty Dey

Oct. 31, 2024

1949

Helen Odegaard Russell

June 1, 2024

1951

George Whitney Hamilton

July 15, 2024

Nancy Moulton King

Dec. 6, 2024

Doris Paine Kirchner

July 7, 2024

Ralph Thompson Perry

Oct. 15, 2024

1952

Webster Bernard Brockelman

July 25, 2024

Nancy Reade Sulides

Nov. 28, 2024

1953

Frances Andrews Bernstein

Nov. 20, 2024

Edith Lorenson Judd

Oct. 27, 2024

Richard M. Raia

Aug. 25, 2024

Alice Huntington Vannerson

Nov. 13, 2024

Grace Ellinwood Wilson

June 20, 2024

Thomas Gibbs Woodman

Oct. 14, 2024

1954

Elizabeth Shaw Bushmiller

Sept. 25, 2024

1955

Ronald Mark Kameny

Aug. 21, 2024

Nancy Howe Payne

Oct. 21, 2024

1956

Kenneth Sutherland MacKenzie

Oct. 16, 2024

Catherine Susanne Parker

Jan. 24, 2024

1957

Wilma Gero Clapham

May 10, 2024

Joan Gagnon Coombs

Aug. 3, 2024

Donald Leslie Flagg

June 16, 2024

James Allen Pickard

July 28, 2023

Joan Mushroe Valeriani

Dec. 2, 2024

1958

Elaine Prentice Flynn

Sept. 10, 2024

Constance Chase Kaplita

May 1, 2024

Philip Chase Tobin

July 27, 2024

Nancy Harrison Zitnay

Oct. 25, 2024

1959

Margaret Chandler Bragdon

June 5, 2024

This issue’s In Memoriam extends through Dec. 13, 2024. See bates.edu/memoriam for more information about members of the community who have passed away.

Peggy Kenny DeSantis

June 24, 2022

Carol Olivia Hamilton

July 18, 2024

Robert Edward Stanton

May 31, 2024

1960

David Bailey Burnett

July 19, 2024

Lawrence Joseph Jennings

Aug. 26, 2024

George Willard Marchant

Sept. 22, 2024

Carol Ambler Wagner

May 14, 2024

1961

Robert Raymond LaFortune

Aug. 16, 2024

Douglas Henry Rowe

May 13, 2023

1962

Paul John Palmer Jr.

Sept. 19, 2024

James Hart Swartchild

May 23, 2024

Edmund James Wilson

Sept. 18, 2024

1964

Alice Winter Empie

July 1, 2024

Meredith Ainscough Parker

Nov. 15, 2024

1965

Holiday Thompson Beverage

June 19, 2024

Stephen Jeffers Burlingame

Oct. 9, 2024

Richard Charles Danosky

Dec. 4, 2024

Kirby Baethig Noye

Aug. 5, 2024

Basil Amund Richardson

Oct. 23, 2024

1966

Carl Richard Johnson

Oct. 6, 2024

Charles Edward Rockett Jr.

Nov. 24, 2024

1968

Philip Franklin Herzog

July 28, 2024

Gerald Ralph Ireland

July 6, 2024

Barbara Bownes McLetchie

July 28, 2024

1969

Maurice Clark Kearney

Aug. 4, 2024

1970

Thomas William Banks

Jan. 9, 2024

Andrews Leland Tolman

Oct. 22, 2024

1972

Dennis Elwood Shevlin

May 2024

1973

Christine Terp Madsen

July 4, 2024

1974

Stephanie Burdwood Armstrong

June 16, 2024

Thomas Matthew Hurst

Nov. 19, 2024

1975

David Joseph Ferrucci

May 27, 2024

1976

Barry Neal Gilberg

June 17, 2024

1977

Dale Kellogg Smeltzer

Dec. 1, 2024

PHYLLIS GRABER JENSEN

1978

David George Scharn Sept. 10, 2024

1979

Hilary Edith Eshelman July 1, 2024

Stephen Edward Mandell Nov. 6, 2024

1982

Scott Richardson Elliott Aug. 14, 2024

Kathy Ann Neale Jan. 9, 2024

1983

Richard Dennett Wilson Jr. Sept. 15, 2024

1989

Ronald Lee Freid Aug. 30, 2024

1991

Rebecca Farr Farwick Sept. 14, 2024

1992

Clare Ralph Greenlaw Jr. Dec. 1, 2024

1994

Robert Daniel Moore Aug. 6, 2024

2017

Gabriel Ulysses Imber Oct. 18, 2024

FACULTY

Gene Alan Clough Oct. 23, 2024

Albert Malcolm Fereshetian Jr. June 22, 2024

Sue E. Houchins Aug. 18, 2024

Ivy-covered Hathorn Hall, as seen in the 1920s. For decades, students like Tom King ’58 lived in Hathorn and rang the bell by hand on the hour and to celebrate important moments, like sports victories and Commencement.

Has a Ring to It

Chris Bond ’81 interviews his friend Tom King ’58 about 1950s life at Bates, including his job as the last in a long line of students who lived in Hathorn Hall and rang the Hathorn bell by hand every class day

by jay burns

UNTIL THE MID-20TH CENTURY , the Hathorn Hall bell was rung many times each day by students carefully selected for their reliability and ability to tell time — not to mention their tolerance for a spartan living situation, as they resided in a room in Hathorn under less than cozy conditions.

One of those student ringers was Tom King ’58, who recently talked with a longtime Bates friend, Chris Bond ’81, about King’s distinctive campus job. The two friends live in Carmichael, Calif., where King, an author of numerous novels, essays, and poems, retired after a long career as a professor at American River College in Sacramento.

King is believed to be the last in the long line of student bellringers before the task was mechanized, in the form of an electric winch pulling a cable looped around the bell wheel, rocking the

bell and causing the free-swinging clapper to strike the interior.

The practice of a student bellringer dates to the 1800s, an era when the Hathorn bell might be the only way for professors and students to know what time it was. In King’s era, the bell was first rung at 6:30 a.m. every day and then up to 19 more times, around 100 times a week. The final toll was at 5:20 p.m. as a call to dinner, or even later to celebrate an evening sports victory.

The ringer’s timekeeping was sometimes the target of sarcasm in The Bates Student. “The college bell-ringer is to be congratulated on his punctuality,” the Student noted in 1879. “It is a comfort to feel that all hours of the day are to be of the same length.”

This fall, Bates replaced the old winch sys-

tem with a new mechanism. Instead of the bell swinging to and fro and a clapper sounding out the notes, the bell now remains still as an electronically activated clapper strikes it from the outside.

Below, Bond talks with King about his job as a Hathorn bellringer (a job that did include some perks), offering a window into Bates campus life in the 1950s.

Chris Bond ’81: How did you happen to attend Bates?

Tom King ’58: My mother was the sole parent and she had pulled off a sort of miracle by becoming a department store buyer without having ever gone to college. Every other buyer in the profession was college-taught.

Out of sheer pluck, she had raised herself up by her spiked heels and become a feisty Southernbelle buyer. And because she had done it the hard way, she wanted to make sure that I got a college education, so she sacrificed tremendously to put me through college.

As a senior in high school in Asbury Park, N.J., I applied to several colleges, and Bates was one of the ones that accepted me. I felt it was a romantic idea to attend a college in New England, alien to me except through reading Robert Frost.

CB: How did things go at the start?

TK: Freshman year I roomed in Roger Williams with three other fellows, and because I was always an introvert it was good for me to unwind a little bit, with more social contact than usual.

I wouldn’t say I was happy, but I was getting someplace in my life.

I worked constantly in the kitchen [in Chase Hall]. The students brought in their plates, which had to be scraped of the residue from their meals into the garbage bin. Then you had to incipiently clean them before loading them into the automatic washer. Then you removed the dishes from the dishwasher and dried them, then stacked them on carts and brought them out for further use.

I remember being in continual fatigue; the theft of hours that might have been devoted to study kept my grades mediocre.

CB: What was the crisis you faced at the end of sophomore year?

TK: My mother’s store in New Jersey closed and she had to look for another job. Suddenly it looked like I was not going to be able to finish college.

That brought another player into the plot: Dean of Men Walter Boyce. He was sort of Lincolnesque — over 6 feet tall, lean and austere. Everyone looked up to him. Dean Boyce took

mercy upon me when he understood the situation. He went to work and, along with a loan, got me a highly unusual appointment: a job lodged in the bell tower of Hathorn Hall, which came with a stipend enabling me to continue with college by ringing its bells.

CB: What was entailed in your role as Bates bellringer?

TK: I was lodged in a room on the top floor of Hathorn Hall. It looked like just another classroom from the corridor, but that was where I and one other bellringer were living. The lodging consisted of upper and lower bunks (I had the top bunk), two desks, and that was it.

Out of the ceiling hung this boa constrictorlike rope, as big around as Arnold Schwarzenegger’s thigh, which came down alongside the bunk bed.

For two years I was bellringer, with two different roommates to share the duties. (We were never good friends, just tolerable roommates.) My first task at 6 o’clock each morning, straining to get the rhythm going, was ringing that thousandpound bell to wake the campus. The two of us were required to ring for all the classes through the course of the day.

Yes, it was a bit of a frenzy sometimes. And we had automatic permission to come in late for our classes.

CB: All “tolled” (so to speak), how many times did you ring the bell each day?

TK: I think maybe I would swing on that big rope about a half-dozen times a day. I might mention that I rang the bell and then five minutes later I

Believed to be the last Bates bellringer, Tom King, has authored novels, essays, and poems and is retired from his career as a college professor.

This undated photo shows the half-ton Hathorn Hall bell. To the left is the cable on a wheel that automated the ringing of the bell, replacing human ringers like Tom King. A new bell striking mechanism was put into place in 2024.

had to ring it again, telling the students they were late to class.

CB: What else do you remember about your lodgings in Hathorn?

TK: One colorful aspect of the situation is that there was a small door, low down, and you could crawl through this door and it would take you to this maze, a dark labyrinth, that included ladders leading up to the roof.

CB: I can envision you up there, with a view worthy of Quasimodo atop Notre Dame.

TK: Yeah. Observe, though, that being distant from my former dorm, and because I didn’t make a strong connection with my belfry roommates,

lodging in Hathorn contributed to my sense of isolation. The hermit-like life of an introvert ran against what influences might have offered a strong social education.

CB: It must have been pretty quiet.

TK: It was interesting, because it was a total transformation. You know, there’d be all kinds of noise, students and teachers getting to their classes outside the door during the day, and then afterwards, it would just be as solitary as a grave.

I’m reminded, though, of another perk. On the first floor where the Cultural Heritage class met, one of the classrooms contained an LP player. And sometimes in the dark of night I would steal down and find records there and play classical Romantic

Tom King’s recollections of 1950s Bates includes the bygone “Mayoralty” tradition. In his first year, his side adopted a Scottish theme, using the play Brigadoon for inspiration. Here, the “Highland Drill Team” marches down Frye Street to campus.

The penultimate bellringers, in 1955–56, were Carl Nordahl ’57 and David Campbell ’56, seen in this Bates Student photograph with Campbell holding the tool of their trade, the big rope.

Mayoralty campaigns featured wild stunts. In 1953, Tom Halliday ’54 drove his 1936 Ford sedan through a wall of flames along Andrews Road, where Alumni Walk now is. In the background is the rooftop of the original Central Heating Plant and smokestack.

pieces. Rachmaninoff sent out into the sleeping dark! It was a great delight occasioning my musicstarved youth.

CB: So you were responsible for waking up the campus. What time did you wake up?

TK: Well before 6, but the trouble was that I was always behind in my studies because I worked in the kitchen. So I’d often be studying through the night to make up for what I didn’t get prepared for class. I had no alarm clock, and falling back to sleep in the early morning would sometimes cause me to miss a bell. I’d anxiously await reprimand, but none came.

CB: What else stands out in your mind from those Bates years?

TK: Mayoralty. Every year in early May the campus was transformed for three days into something quite wonderful. And all the rest of the time a great many of the students prepared for the subsequent year’s event — it was that thrilling.

Mayoralty consisted of the male student population being divided into two halves, each selecting a candidate for “mayor” of Bates, and those two sides vying for the votes of the campus’s coeds.

In my freshman year, we did a Scottish theme, so the males on our side, every one of us, were decked out in kilts. Imagine a campus swarming with identical sky-blue kilts in full regalia, including boots and dapper caps. For our candidate we had chosen Kirk Watson ’56: tall, lean, dark, everything you want in a swashbuckling hero, and this God-sent senior pre-med became “Highland C’ael” Kirk.

We put on the play Brigadoon, with all the dancing and singing. At twilight, we assembled — the excited proponents of our side — at the foot of Mount David. Suddenly we saw, circling the great

mount’s higher reaches, heart-lifting Highland C’ael, trailed by his retinue carrying torches and quietly singing the prologue, “Once in the Highlands.” And boyo, it was dreamy. It put chills up my spine.

After Brigadoon, our side tackled Oklahoma! I had my small contribution behind the scenes helping Jim Kirsch ’58, Bates’ first-string quarterback with scarce experience in public speaking, organize his thoughts well enough to speechify as a credible candidate.

CB: Can you talk about the culmination of your years at Bates?

TK: In my junior year the chair of the English department sent out an invitation to the student body to write the annual Ivy Day ode. Writing had always been my secret passion, and I entered my ode, and I was awarded the win.

Subsequently I was required to read my ode in the chapel before the full student body. The ensuing stage fright seemed life-threatening. But I got through it:

What is this tyrant, strange dimension, Time

Which scatters old friends forth, like wind the chaff Unheeding soft-formed sentiments which, born About these green-lined pathways, subtly thrived? The answer comes: a stern-voiced mystery-sire Who, knowing suffering’s methods, thrusts his brood Forth, like an old, wise parent, from the shade Of these friendly walls — for our struggle in the sun. n

Editor’s Note: Tom King ’58 passed away on Aug. 27, 2024, at the age of 88. We remember him fondly, with respect, and for his poignant recollections as the college’s last bell-ringer.

BILL LAIRD ’54

from the edmund s. muskie archives and elsewhere

‘Hot and Muggy’

The salacious (for the era) “Purity” issue included cartoons like this one, with the headline “Bates Weather Report” above a couple making out and the caption, “Hot and Muggy.”

The Day the Laughter Died

Two days before Commencement in 1928, the senior class staged a lavish mock funeral for the moribund magazine. In this photo, local children watch a Bates senior dig a grave at Rand Field to bury the Bobcat, in the form of a “very small [stuffed] cat” borne to the event “on a very large bier.”

Reading Into It

January 2025 marks the 100th anniversary of Bates students choosing the bobcat as the official Bates mascot. In May of 1925 came another Bates cat, The Bobcat humor magazine. But this feline didn’t survive the decade.

Published in November 1925 in the depths of Prohibition, the second issue was themed “Stude” (study). The cover juxtaposed two male students: a studious type (right) with books at his feet, and the fun-loving, argyle-wearing student (left) reading a college humor magazine with liquor bottles (presumably) at his feet. This illustration was by Gwynne Dresser of the Class of 1928.

Seeing Red

The spring 1927 “Purity” issue of the Bobcat fell prey to President Clifton Daggett Gray’s disapproval. With the Venus de Milo statue dressed in overalls on the cover and the cheeky theme of “Purity,” the issue’s jokes about sex and drinking prompted Gray to suspend the magazine. The cover illustration was by Perry Hayden of the Class of 1928.

outtake

One October night at home, my phone started pinging as friends announced the northern lights. I ran to Lake Andrews to see what I could see. Turns out, not much. The sky was quiet. But it was just intermission. As the show resumed, my phone’s camera read the scene nicely, but for posterity I wanted to use one of my Canons, so I ducked into Lane Hall and rushed back outside. The images from the mirrorless camera were muted, so I swung the camera in circles to create saturated motion. The result mirrors me: slightly off the beaten path.

— Phyllis Graber Jensen

Bates Magazine Winter 2025

Editor

H. Jay Burns

Designer Jin Kwon

Production Assistant

Kirsten Burns

Director of Photography

Phyllis Graber Jensen

Photographer

Theophil Syslo

Class Notes Editor Doug Hubley

Contributing Editor Mary Pols

President of Bates Garry W. Jenkins

Vice President for Communications and Marketing Kristen Lainsbury

Contact Us Bates Communications and Marketing 2 Andrews Rd. Lewiston ME 04240 magazine@bates.edu 207-786-6330

Production

Bates Magazine is printed twice annually at familyowned Penmor Lithographers, just a few minutes from campus. We use paper created with 100 percent postconsumer fiber and print with inks that are 99.5 percent free of volatile compounds.

On the Cover

Josh Lajoie, a first cook for Bates Dining Services, flashes a grin while carrying a big stack of plates during the morning breakfast rush in Commons. This issue’s cover story, beginning on page 42, shares what Lajoie calls “the feeling of belongingness” among the Bates staff and students in the college’s single dining hall. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen.

Nondiscrimination

Bates College prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national or ethnic origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression, age, disability, genetic information or veteran status and other legally protected statuses in the recruitment and admission of its students, in the administration of its education policies and programs, or in the recruitment of its faculty and staff. The college adheres to all applicable state and federal equal opportunity laws and regulations. Full policy: bates.edu/nondiscrimination

3 6 5 4 1

2

FROM A DISTANCE

In late winter of 1905, George French, Class of 1908, took this mysterious photo of nearly complete Rand Hall with a stack of logs in front. Years later, he sent a copy to Bates with a cryptic note: “When ’08ers were amateur constructors.”

1

Bates and Colby both opened women’s residences in 1905, a sign that coeducation was strong in Maine, said newspapers.

2

The log stack is topped with a chair, briefcase (?), and a bottle (?). But why?

3

Someone is peeking through the stack!

4

A second stack is on the porch.

5

Two people, perhaps workers finishing the interior, peer out this window.

6

A boy stands on the walkway.

7

With most roads still dirt, newspaper ads in late winter urged people to buy goods like lumber before mud season made travel difficult.

8

This was once the home of federal judge Frank Coffin ’40, who swore in his friend, Edmund Muskie ’36, as U.S. secretary of state in 1980.

Lewiston, Maine 04240

THE GLOBAL STAGE

Wearing a traditional Mexican dress, Alexis González ’26 of Hanford, Calif., performs a baile folklórico (“folkloric dance”) at the Cultural Performance Showcase in Schaeffer Theatre last fall. The annual event has a “come one, come all” vibe, inviting students, faculty, and staff to celebrate and share traditional performances from around the world.