1980 Tom Marlitt classnews1980@alum.colby.edu Mark and Patty Valavanis Smith are holding onto their seat belts as they navigate life in Andover, Mass., with their two teenaged boys. So far so good, thankfully. Mark, an independent general contractor for six years, manages commercial projects with an emphasis on medical suites and clean room construction. Patty is in year 22 as an internal communications editor for IDG and gets her musical fix singing in a women’s a cappella chorus. Y Robert Crawford’s second book of poetry, The Empty Chair, won the 2011 Richard Wilbur Award. His poem “Odds Are” won the 2011 Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award, and “The Numbered Stars” won the 2010 New England Shakespeare Festival Sonnet Award. He’s a trustee of the Robert Frost Farm in Derry, N.H., director of the Hyla Brook Reading Series, and coordinator for the national Frost Farm Prize. Robert and his wife, poet Midge Goldberg, moved to Chester, N.H., and live on 11 acres on the shore of Whetstone Pond with his two stepchildren, Hannah and Ely, and his daughter, Alexa, who’s at Emmanuel College. Y Mimi Brodsky Kress is busy with 26 homes under construction in the DC area. She’s active on several community nonprofit boards. Mimi caught up with Martha and Charlie Jacobs last summer and is hoping to get to Maine this summer to see Debbie Pugh Kelton and Gretchen Huebsch Daly. Y Carrie Weeks DiProspero moved to Cape Cod last year. She’s an educational assistant (all the joys of teaching with none of the after-school hours and responsibility—no report cards!) at Eastham Elementary. Her daughter Chelsea just announced her engagement and is planning to move back east from Montana. Y Alf Seabury sends aloha from the Big Island in Hawaii. He’s been using the Mandarin Chinese he learned at Colby to concentrate his marketing efforts on Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the rest of East Asia. Y Scot Lehigh has been busy renovating a closet on the fourth floor of his house and “tuning up all the skills I learned at Colby, so I’ll have something to fall back on when the newspaper industry finally gives up the ghost.” When he tires of home improvements, he heads to Sunday River, where he often runs into Lawry Foster. Y And speaking of Phi Delts, I got an e-mail attachment with a photo of a ski weekend at Lawry’s N.H. cabin featuring Scott Butterfield, Mark Garvin, Elliott Pratt, Chris Perrin, and Andy Goode,
looking like a good time was had by all (judging by the bottles in the background). Y Tamara Hannah recently joined the law firm of Belongia, Franklin & Shapiro in an of counsel position to assist with transactional real estate and entertainment practice in Chicago. She’s still involved in the real estate world in Miami and Chicago. Y Lori Batcheller contributed a chapter to the just-released book Until They Have Faces. Lori was in Steamboat in February, skiing nearly three feet of powder and was then off to N.M. to teach yoga for a week. Y Michael Fanger’s daughter, Rachel, is a sophomore at Muhlenberg, and his son, Jonathan, is a junior at St. Joe’s Prep in Philly. Michael’s wife, Linda, teaches government at Burlington Community College, and Michael is still CEO of Eastern Funding LLC, which celebrated its 15th year. Mike was planning a March ski trip in Colo. with
economics at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, is one of about six women in the U.S. who coach men’s collegiate rugby. In her seventh season, she was elected to serve as the Virginia Rugby Union’s men’s college coordinator, and her team earned VRU’s 2011 Men’s Collegiate Sportsmanship Award. Saranna credits Mark Govoni, who started the Colby women’s rugby team. “Without him, I never would have gotten into the game and become a coach.” A photo of coach Thornton and her team is on our class page. Y Dani Nemec Micsan is contemplating retirement from the federal government after husband Jim retired with 30 years of service. She is reaching out to any Colby grads living in southern California, because her daughter has decided to move to L.A. and “Mom has jitters!” Y Our condolences and best wishes for a new beginning to David Rocks, who lost his wife,
Saranna Robinson Thornton ’81, a professor of economics at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, is one of a half-dozen women in the country who coach men’s collegiate rugby. Saranna is in her seventh season. Jonathan Smith ’78. Y Carol Mordecai Myers and Weezy Swift were also planning a spring ski rendezvous in Vail. By the time you all read this column, the snow will have melted and we’ll be trading ski boots for flip-flops. I look forward to hearing news of everyone’s summer adventures.
1981 Steph Vrattos classnews19081@alum.colby.edu Nice to hear from Jay Driscoll, who writes that he and wife Mary Lou, Pat Murphy and wife Barbara, and Bob Norton and wife Teresa recently met in downtown Boston for dinner. A highlight was Pat talking about playing hockey at Fenway Park for the Boston Fire Department against the Boston Police team where, naturally, he scored a goal and had an assist against significantly younger competition. Rumor has it he was looking to complete the Gordie Howe hat trick (when a player has a goal, an assist, and gets in a fight all in one game), but couldn’t find a willing partner. Pat is a BFD captain and has been active for 24 years. Bobby is a lawyer, and Jay is in the insurance business. Y Saranna Robinson Thornton, a full professor of
Jacqueline, last May to pancreatic cancer. He and daughters Esme, 16, and Adriana, 14, are moving to Berlin, where David will start his new job as an editor-at-large for Bloomberg News, helping correspondents across Europe craft feature stories that will be published in Businessweek and on the Bloomberg wire. Y Paula Hinckley and husband Carl Sack welcome any Colbyites to stop by their new luxury real estate office in Meredith, N.H., on Lake Winnipesaukee. They have four children, a spunky dachshund named Banjo, and expect their first grandson in June. Y An hour north, in North Woodstock, N.H., Maureen (Hagerty ’84) and Jay Polimeno own Polimeno Reality, the only full-service real estate company in the White Mountains’ Pemigewasset River Valley. They are “having a blast following daughter Aimee ’14 around Florida and New England watching her play softball for the Mules.” Jay writes that Joe Herman ’82 joins them whenever he can. A photo of mom, dad, and daughter when Colby played at Tufts last spring is on our class page. Y Finally, a wonderful Colby “family” story. Jennifer Sears Supple, an environmental science major at Colby, is very proud of her Colby sons. Jared ’13 is a biology major and captain of the men’s
Nordic ski team. Will ’12, who graced this magazine’s fall cover for an article on Colby’s Environmental Studies Program, will graduate in May with a double major in environmental science and biology, and a geology minor. “We each had Professor Russ Cole, one at the beginning and the other at the end of his career at Colby. He has been a great influence on both of us.”
1982 Nancy Briggs Marshall classnews1982@alum.colby.edu I’m really looking forward to Reunion Weekend and our 30th! Andrea Brantner has been diligently and patiently guiding our reunion committee through the process of making plans for May 31-June 3. The committee consists of Alisa Diehl Bernat, Carol Birch, Caroyn Berry Copp, David Fanger, Susan Roberts Kuzia, Tracy Don MacDonald, David Marcus, Paul McGovern, and Donna Stock. Our weekend kicks off with the President’s Golf Tournament at Belgrade Lakes Golf Club followed by a reception at the Maine Lakes Resource Center in Belgrade Lakes village. I hope everyone will be there so we can catch up on the past 30 years! Also, I apologize for missing the deadline for class notes in the last issue of Colby, but you can find them online at www.colby.edu/mag. And now, on to current notes from our classmates. Y Paul Veilleux reports that life is not too terribly exciting in Connecticut, but they are doing well. The best news is that his older son, Chris, returned safely from his third tour in Iraq, and they are now preparing/planning for his wedding in the fall. The bride is a wonderful girl he met when they were stationed in Germany at V-Corps Headquarters. Paul’s younger son, Ryan, is doing well as a manager at both The Children’s Place and GNC. Paul’s wife, Andi, continues to be simply awesome as a senior personal banker at Liberty Bank. His 80-year-old mother-in-law, who lives with them, is still more active than most people half her age. Paul continues to work for VirtualLogger (call recording and much more) and enjoys it. He also keeps busy as the local Lions Club president. Y Bob Benjamin reports he is still dealing with lots of interesting challenges as we work to sustain our troops while simultaneously conducting responsible retrograde of equipment. He has a new job title—distribution management chief for the Joint Sustainment Command-Afghanistan—and some new responsibilities. Bob is looking forward to getting back in May. He hopes to be home in time for his son’s graduation from Vassar.
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