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out in East Texas in Emory and love to ride ATVs. There is not even a McDonald’s or Walmart out there; it is wonderful! I love to go antiquing and spend weekends at flea markets hunting for treasures and got my boys into it as well! I work in Dallas at JE Dunn Construction Company as a project coordinator. I still ride horses once or twice a week, depending on soccer schedules. Life is good, loving Texas!” Allison McWilliams reports: “Finishing up my third year back at Wake Forest as director of mentoring and professional development. Love being back in Winston-Salem and at Wake, and have enjoyed getting to see Kathy Oakes, Clint Acrey, Jason Lang (when we can find him), Laura Virkler and Nicole Epstein Ramsdell again. Also really love being back close to my family in Durham and Raleigh. If any one’s ever headed this way, stop by!” Clint Acrey reports: “I’m living in Winston-Salem with my wife, Stuart, and daughter, Ellie. who is starting kindergarten in the fall. Occasionally Allison McWilliams, Kathy Oakes, Jason Lang and I will have a mini DA gathering. We’d love to expand the group if there are other DA alums in the area! In 2011 I left GMAC to open Acrey Insurance Agency. I’m fortunate to work with my brother and DA alumnus Brad Acrey (’04) every day. I’m also coaching tee ball, and despite my best teaching and genetics, I haven’t passed along the ability for Ellie to hit a baseball.” Matthew Hawkins reports: “Staying busy in Port Orchard, Wash., (close to Seattle) with work (regular and Navy reserve duty), finishing up another graduate degree and four kids (all 6 and under) excited to see me the minute I walk in the door. Maybe one or more of them will be a 48
better basketball player than I was. Good chance we will be relocating back to the East Coast this summer in the D.C. megalopolis. I’m not looking forward to exchanging NW summer weather for swamp heat and humidity.” Laura Ritchie Taliaferro reports: “I still live in Norfolk, Va., where I am the speech pathologist at our neighborhood elementary school. My husband, Lloyd, is now working for a tugboat company. Our two boys, Lawson (9) and Bo (7), are very involved with baseball, which is where we spend most of our weekends.” Lee Sullivan reports: “Big news for us was having our second daughter, Louise, last year! And Lucille turns 5 this year. We are still living in London, and I’m still doing effects for films; recent projects include The Great Gatsby and the Total Recall remake. And I’ve now passed the 10 year mark as an expat. ...” Jessamy Selim reports: “Married 12 years this summer, still living in Greensboro. Dan is working as a media sales manager at WFMY TV. And I am now working full-time as an account executive at Rock92 and 107.5KZL. Michael (9) and Jack (7) are doing great at Greensboro Academy. We are all looking forward to our trip to Jackson Hole/Yellowstone Park and our stay at a dude ranch in Wyoming this July. Although, I am not so sure about this sleeping-outside thing.” Becky Davidson reports: “I live on a lovely mountain near Chattanooga, Tenn., and have been in the area for seven years. It’s gorgeous. I’m a clinical social worker in private practice and my kids, Julia and Sam, are 10 and 8, respectively. With spare time I seek out places to mountain bike or visit the S.C. coast, where I hang with my brother, Ben (’88), and often get to see the Reves sisters and their families.”
DURHAM ACADEMY RECORD | SUMMER 2013 | WWW.DA.ORG
Class of 1994 Bev Foulks bevfoulks@gmail.com
The Class of 1994 continues to have its fair share of new babies, jobs and doctoral degrees to announce. Betsy Reves Sidebottom reports that things are a little crazier in Charleston with the arrival of her son, Wesley, in March 2013. He is adored by his twin sisters, Ella and Reves, who are 18 months older than him. Betsy continues to work part-time at the Medical University of South Carolina in the marketing department. She writes, “Richard and I love our growing family and try to maintain our sanity in a house full of laughter, baby talk, dirty diapers, two dogs and surrounded by a constant state of chaos!” Sean Bilsborrow also added a third child to his family with the birth of Parlan Quinn Bilsborrow on 12/12/12 — a date that Sean says “even I will have trouble forgetting.” Parlan joins big brother Jet (6) and Sasha (5). This is Sean’s 12th year coaching the DA boys tennis team, which had a 7-0 beginning to its season. Brent Hilpert’s second daughter, Mackenzie Grace, born Oct. 7, joins older sister Molly, age 3. Brent will be leaving Woodward Academy in Atlanta after 15 years to begin a job at the Boys’ Latin School of Maryland in Baltimore. He will be a grade dean in the upper school and teach a couple of sections of chemistry and physics. Molly Williams Pugh welcomed a baby girl, Alwen Rebecca Pugh, into her family on April 2. She weighed 8.9 pounds, was 21 inches long and had a beautiful head of silky dark hair, which was a stark contrast to her sister Meredith, who turned 3 on March 31; Meredith was in the 6-pound range, 19 inches long and bald at
birth. Molly teaches at Episcopal High School in Virginia. In the fall she taught a new course to juniors on American Protest Literature, which started with founding literary fathers (Paine, Jefferson, etc.) and then followed three broad categories — race, gender and environment — and included Tupac Shakur and Bill McKibben. Taking advantage of being so close to D.C., they attended several protests to observe and analyze their “literature” or their words about themselves. Millie Barritt is in Chapel Hill and working as a gastroenterologist at UNC. She now has two kids at DA: Connor in second grade and Tyler in kindergarten. Incidentally, Connor is a friend and classmate of Collin Thornburg, who is Bronwyn Leech Thornburg’s son! Bronwyn writes that her daughter, Shea, will be joining her big brother Collin when she starts kindergarten at DA in the fall. David McCoy reports that he has a new job at Bank of America in Charlotte as AVP in mobile banking technology. Shara Lee earned her doctorate from the University of Central Florida in educational leadership with a concentration in higher education in December 2012. Her dissertation was about building transferable skills through undergraduate education. As for myself, after spending the fall semester on maternity leave following the birth of my daughter, Haley Lynn McGuire, I returned to teach Asian Religions at UNCWilmington this spring. I still enjoy living at the coast and being able to reconnect with former DA classmates and teachers (Dave Gould!) in Durham and Chapel Hill. I hope everyone has a wonderful summer, and I look forward to hearing from folks again next year!