40 CLASSNOTES
1960s ’61 C
Dave Cook will be the first tee and 18th green announcer for PGA TOUR’s Deutsche Bank Championship. He is currently featured in a national TV Titleist golf commercial. He will also be reprising his role as Alfred, Batman’s butler, later this year in Caped Crusader-Gotham Underground. Seth Hoyt writes, ”Dick Stasney and I were snail-mailing back and forth this spring. ’Stas’ reports that he’s looking forward to next January 1, when he no longer will be president of a 2,200 member medical staff in Houston. Grandpa Stas says it’s ’more fun watching 7 grandkids growing up.’” Howard J. Morrison, Jr. reports that he had his first Choate talk with grandson Hamilton Moore (age 18 months)! Michael Palmer writes, “My wife, architect Cathy Simon, and I recently returned from a two-month residency at the splendid American Academy in Rome. There, she delivered a paper on urban waterfront restoration while working on a book on the same topic. In our last two weeks we were joined by our daughter Sarah, her husband Dillon DeWaters, and our grandson Nico. The five of us wandered around Rome and took a side trip to Naples and Pompeii, the latter much transformed since I first visited in 1965. During my stay in Rome I prepared a talk for a poetics awards celebration in St. Petersburg in late November. While there I was able to connect with old friends in the poetry world and meet many young writers. A new book of my poetry, The Laughter of the Sphinx, will be published by New Directions in June, and I continue my now 40-some years’ collaboration with the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company based in San Francisco, where I serve as artistic advisor and often produce texts to integrate with the music accompanying the work.”
’62 C
TOP Mid October 2015 at an ATO fraternity Reunion Weekend
at UNC Chapel Hill were several Choate alums pictured from left, Gary Gischel ’60, Gil White ’62, and Wade Logan ’62. Not pictured: Tim Werbe ’61. The weekend honors past ATO members and helps finance current chapter scholarship awards. MIDDLE Deaver Brown ’62, (right), visited Preston Tyree ’62 in Austin in early March. The posed in front of the Willie Nelson statue that graces the front of the building that houses the Austin City Limits show. The statue is just across the street from the Austin City Hall. BOTTOM Rob Snyder ’69 and his brother Phil ’68 presented their film, The Bag, an environmental horror comedy at the Winter Film Awards Independent Film Festival 2016.
Deaver Brown traveled to Austin from his home in Lincoln, Mass., to attend a conference. While there he stayed with Walter “Preston” Tyree ’62 who is a longtime resident of Austin and an advocate for transportation and active living. He writes: “We had a lot of catching up to do. One of the stories that we remembered was the time the wrestling team went to Mount Hermon and because the wrestling and chess teams overlapped, we held the chess match in the bleachers of the gym. Choate dominated both matches.” Deaver was co-captain of the wrestling team with John Bowman.
’62 RH Davyne Verstandig writes, “I continue to live one of my passions, teaching creative writing and literature at UConn, to give weekend writing workshops, and to give poetry readings, and I have begun to take on individual clients who want a writing teacher - some for a novel and some for memoir. To teach is to learn.”
’63 C
Bruce Fenton writes, “I am now the executive vice president and general counsel of Business Credentialing Services, Inc., as well as a board member. We correct third-party insurance and documents to comply with contractual requirements and are the only provider of effective insurance compliance management, having created and defined the industry. Our clients are top companies in the world and include six in the Fortune 500.”
’63 RH Margo Heun Bradford has bought a house in Kittery, Maine, and will move there (from Bethesda, Md.) this summer. She and Margo Melton Nutt vacationed in England (the Cotswolds) for two weeks in April, and got together with Donna Dickenson. Tina Close is moving to Bozeman, Mont. Donna Dickenson and her husband, Chris, spent Christmas in New Mexico with daughter Pip. The highlight was snowshoeing in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, followed by a Japanese-style hot tub in the pinewoods outside Santa Fe. Penny Griffith Dix has been doing lots of docent work at the New Britain (Conn.) Museum of American Art, and loving it. Her 10-year-old grandson flew by himself from Omaha at the end of March to visit her for his spring break. Alice Chaffee Freeman visited Holly Smith in Florida in March. Anne Carroll Furman writes, “I am in Delray Beach, Fla. It has been quite the travel year. Thanksgiving in Santa Monica, Des Moines, Iowa for Christmas, back to Santa Monica in January for my granddaughter Leia’s third birthday. Drove down to Florida in February, visiting friends on the way, then heading to Ireland until the first of May.” Margo Melton Nutt went to a friend’s timeshare in Westbrook, Conn., for a week in January. In seven days, they went to five art museums, two historic homes, and even managed some shopping at consignment and antique stores. Reeve Lindbergh Tripp writes, “In February, I visited my daughter in California and celebrated her son’s second birthday. My Vermont daughter and her seven-year-old came with me, which was wonderful fun. I’m doing a bit of writing, as always, and some work with the Vermont Arts Council and other organizations here and there.” Reeve will speak about her father and the Spirit of St. Louis on May 4 in Montpelier, Vt., as part of the Vermont Humanities Council lecture series.
’64 C
Jeff Gould and his wife Laurie moved to St. Petersburg, Fla., but returned for the Thanksgiving Day holidays in Essex, Conn., to celebrate with their four grandchildren.