Virginia “Lee” Miller Royen ’74 Margaret A. Degasperis ’75 David E. Covintree ’76 Ida Mitrani Schnipper ’77 Amanda Burr ’70 reports: “Greetings to all my classmates. I am still the fulltime pastor of the United Methodist Church of Palm Springs, California, where I have been serving since 2007. During the 42 1/2 years since graduating from Columbia, I have never stopped being a nurse. I have only taken two breaks from formal clinical practice during that time. I finished my MSN in 2009 and have returned to clinical nursing, taking a per diem job as a hospice admissions nurse. I think one of the greatest gifts of nursing is that a nurse can practice in so many different areas and specialties. There is so much variety; we should never get bored.” Betty Watts Carrington ’71 reports: “Working in full-scope midwifery in Brownsville, Brooklyn; teaching students at SUNY Downstate; and serving the Nurse Midwifery Program at Columbia with a clinical affiliation at Harlem Hospital made for an exciting career. I retired in the fall of 2004. My goal since then has been to serve southeast Queens, New York. I serve on the boards of directors for Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Epsilon Pi Omega Day Care Center, Alpha Phi Alpha Senior Center, Queens Sickle Cell Advocacy Network, Inc., and the National Association of University Women, Northeast Section as Recording Secretary. My son, Michael, and daughter-in-law, Lynn, are the parents of my two grandchildren — Kevin, 19, is a college freshman, and Kayla Anne, 16, is a high school junior in California.
My daughter, Lynn, and son-in-law, David, live nearby in Bellerose, New York. Karen Hellrich ’71 started a retired nurses group in Wilmington, North Carolina, eight years ago that is still very active. The group has donated money to the University of North Carolina at Wilmington School of Nursing and to an orphanage in Haiti after the earthquake. Last year, they donated dental hygiene supplies to a former member who is in the Peace Corps in Dilijan, Armenia to help people living there. Rebecca Wilson Moldover ’71 writes: “After working in diverse settings and raising my four children, I’ve settled into working with my husband in his private practice in Manhattan. We have five grandchildren who, along with our children, happily take up our spare time.” Ramón Lavandero ’72 lives in Salt Lake City and continues working as a senior director on the American Association of Critical Care Nurses national staff. He also is a clinical associate professor at Yale School of Nursing, where he was president of the alumni association, and now serves a second term on the dean’s external advisory board. He was inducted as an American Academy of Nursing fellow in 2002 and serves on the academy’s 2013 program planning committee. In 2011 he received the Outstanding Achievement Award for Practice from the Nursing Education Alumni Association at Teachers College, Columbia University, and was inducted into TC’s Nursing Education Hall of Fame.
Frances Gass ’73 reports: “I have been teaching parenting education for nearly 30 years in Bellingham, Washington. I teach through Bellingham Technical College and as a self-employed contractor to DSHS. (A lifetime ago, I worked in public health with our new dean, Bobbie Berkowitz!). My husband recently retired from a general pediatrics practice. I have a son living in Minneapolis who is working in public health and a daughter who is getting her PhD in epidemiology at Emory University. She just had twin boys with her partner, Heather. Grand-parenting is the best! I would love to re-connect with classmates. Email me!” Merry Juliana Menden ’73 works full-time as a family nurse practitioner in southern Delaware. Her 23-year-old son, Joshua, continues his studies in Delaware. She continues to see her twin, Holly, in New Jersey. The five Menden girls, of whom Merry is the youngest, all work in the medical profession as physicians and nurses. The sisters remain close, and meet annually for a vacation, this year in Deer Isle, Maine. Judy Best ’74 lives in New Jersey. She has had a varied career, from working with hemophiliacs, as a hospital patient educator, and as a clinical liaison for Clinitron beds, to practicing risk management. She received an Adult Nurse Practitioner degree from Seton Hall University. She is now retired and enjoys her three Airedale terriers. Marsha Gottlieb Bronsther ’74 teaches at two schools of nursing in the D.C. area. Her passion is community health. She received a master’s in public health from Hebrew University in Israel Spring 2013 • 51