Knox Magazine - Fall 2017

FALL 2017

Sherwood Kiraly, Visiting Instructor in English and Theatre and Writer-

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PETER BAILLEY ’74

With office space at a premium in Old Main, it’s not unusual for faculty to double up. But the creative writing department’s Nick Regiacorte and Sherwood Kiraly ’72 have an especially enduring relationship as officemates, one that so far spans five years and two floors. (They started out in OM 217 before moving up to OM 303 a few years ago.) With both regularly meeting with students, you’d imagine it can get a little loud. Instead, Kiraly says, “We’re quite comfortable. It’s remarkable to me how I can have my conversation, and he can have his, and there’s no real sense of cacophony.” Regiacorte agrees. “Sherwood and I have always had a good sense for what each other needs, in terms of space and quiet.” It’s not all business. The two often chat about teaching, about reading, about their kids. They also play the occasional game of catch between their desks. “So far, no broken windows and no permanent injuries,” reports Regiacorte.

Welcome to their office.

Open Door

-in-Residence & Nick Regiacorte, Associate Professor of English

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1. Sherwood’s Webster’s Second International Dictionary. “A herculean attempt to make sense of the world and of ourselves. It deserves respect. It's also a big cool looking book.”

2. Sherwood’s The Home Book of Quotations. “I like to trace sayings back through their permutations, especially the ones I thought I’d discovered all by myself.”

3. Sherwood Kiraly: “I like Nick, I like talking to him, I like playing catch with him, and I love how patient he is with all the questions I ask him.”

4. Sherwood’s photo: “Me and Booker (his dog), a couple of summers ago. I’m on the way (June 2017) to get him again from Katie’s mom, Patti Jo, in Utah. We do it every summer, and then she comes and gets him in October—although this will probably be his last go-round. He’s 14 or 15 and will have to make the trip in a diaper this time.”

5. Sherwood’s photo: “Me and my daughter, Katie, with Matthew Broderick, during the filming of Diminished Capacity.”

6. More of Sherwood’s photos, left to right: “Actors Forbes Riley

and Finn Curtin in an LA Times photograph after the opening of my play Who’s Hot/Who’s Not in 2001; Ed Helms and me after Commencement and just before I drove him to the airport; a cartoon of the 1940s writer-director Preston Sturges, given to me by a student who I introduced to Sturges’ work.”

7. Nick’s bike. Too nice to leave outside, he carries it up two flights of stairs to the office.

8. Space for a painting by Professor Lynette Lombard. “I got it from her several years ago, but I never received it.” (This photo was taken in June; the painting has since been hung!)

9. Nick’s license plate and map of Maine, where he grew up.

10. Nick Regiacorte: “Sherwood’s part of the office looks great.

But my bookcases are half-empty, as I keep the bulk of my books at home. The church pew (11) is nice, I guess, but my desk is full of papers.”

12. Nick’s green rubber ball. “I throw it against the wall when I want to talk to Monica [Berlin, who has the office next door].”

13. Nick’s family photos.

MAGAZINE VOLUME 101, ISSUE 2

FALL 2017

Committed to the Creatives A Conversation with Robin Metz Knox alumnus and writer-in-residence Sherwood Kiraly ’72 sat down with Professor Robin Metz to discuss 50 years of creative writing at Knox, leading to a few conversational tangents along the way.

Departments

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A Field Guide to Knox Student Publications Through the years, student publications have come and gone, some have changed names, many have won national awards, and each offers its own unique perspective on life at Knox. Explore a selection of current student literary publications at Knox.

Open Door

Inside front cover

2 East South Street

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The South Lawn

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Knox Writes

Page 42

Flashback

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Class Knox

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Parting Shot

Inside back cover

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“What do you do with a creative writing degree, anyway?”

It’s one of the first questions that worried parents ask. Fifty years of alumni from Knox’s Program in Creative Writing fill us in on what happens after graduation.

Page 21 The wood type shown on the cover is 20 pica French Clarendon, part of a collection donated to Knox by Harry (Hal) Keiner ’67.

Kelly Clare ’16 chose the only visible lead type, a ‘k, n, o,’ and an ‘x,’ all Bodoni, from Seymour Library’s collection. Photo by Peter Bailley ’74

100 Years of Class Notes Over its 100-year history, one thing has been consistent in practically every issue of the magazine: Class Notes. Learn the story of the last century, from World War I to the dawn of the Internet Age, through select alumni Class Notes submissions.

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editor Megan Scott ’96

layout designers Becky Hale

Special thanks to Melissa Archer, Professor Monica Berlin ’95, and Lori Reed.

Ami Jontz Pam Chozen

Contributors, Writing & photography

assoCiate editor

Adriana Colindres

Peter G. Bailley ’74,

Brea Cunningham

News & Photography

Celina Dietzel ’17

Knox Magazine is published twice yearly by the Office of Communications, Box K-233, Knox College, Galesburg, IL 61401-4999; Phone: 309-341-7760; Fax: 309-341-7718; E-mail: knoxmag@knox.edu.

It is distributed free of charge to Knox alumni, students, parents, and friends.

The magazine welcomes information and story ideas. Please query before submitting manuscripts.

ISSN: 0047-3499

Elise Goitia ’18 Cheri Siebken

Visit us online at magazine.knox.edu.

PETER BAILLEY ’74

assistant editor

Can we say excited?

Senior Class Officer Donna Boguslavsky takes a selfie with Honorary Degree recipient and Commencement speaker Eva Longoria. Needless to say, Donna was pretty darn excited.

Editor’s Note Telling the Story of Knox

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hen I’m called upon to talk about what it is that I do for Knox, whether it be at a conference or an alumni gathering or in a job description or even during a passing conversation in the grocery store, I often say that I help tell Knox’s story. While that seems like a relatively simplistic answer, I believe it truly sums up what I do in my job as editor of Knox Magazine and as the College’s vice president of communications.

EVAN TEMCHIN ’10

For the last 13 years, I’ve worked with talented and passionate individuals to tell the stories of other talented and passionate individuals—in print and online, in photos and in video, in 140 characters and 40,000 words. Our work, in a nutshell, is meant to encourage more talented and passionate individuals to spend four years of their life on this campus, to move their family to this prairie, to engage with their alma mater, or to invest in the future of this College. And much of that work is featured twice yearly in this publication, which officially turns 100 years old this month.

For a century, this magazine has told the story of Knox, its alumni, faculty, and students, in articles, photos, and its beloved Class Notes. The magazine, like the College itself, has experienced many twists and turns, taken on many shapes and sizes, editors and schedules, and names throughout the years, but it has always remained true to its mission as one of the primary vehicles through which we showcase Knox to the world.

The magazine published its first batch of stories exactly 100 years ago in October 1917, and in 1967, two Knox faculty members, Sam Moon and Robin Metz, decided to formally introduce an academic program dedicated to creative writing. Over the course of its 50 years, this program has grown in size and prestige. It seems particularly fitting to me that both Knox Magazine and the Program in Creative Writing are celebrating milestone anniversaries this year as both, at their heart, are dedicated to storytelling. We celebrate this serendipitous event in this issue of the magazine with a series of articles dedicated to the creative writing program, along with an overview of the magazine’s history told through a century of Class Notes.

Other celebrations have taken place throughout 2017, including readings and alumni gatherings both on and off campus and the creation of a stunning collection of letterpress broadsides featuring the work of our faculty and alumni, as well as a few literary luminaries like Marilynne Robinson. But there is one celebration that is particularly worth noting (or at least I think it is)—after 100 years of publication, the magazine is finally entering the 21st century with a brand new digital edition.

“The magazine, like the College itself, has experienced many twists and turns.”

Magazine content has been available on the Knox website for a little more than a decade, but it’s never had its own stand alone website, one designed specifically to showcase magazine content. So, 100 years after its first publication, we are proud to announce the launch of magazine.knox.edu, a website that features everything you’ll find in the print edition of Knox Magazine, plus more. We’ve added multimedia features, such as video and slideshows, and we’re even planning on some podcasts in the near future. We will feature expanded features and profiles (see the interview with filmmaker Insiyah Saeed ’03), along with exclusive online-only content. We hope to publish magazine-length feature stories throughout the year and to introduce a few new magazine sections, such as the “Question of the Month,” which will allow us to feature more alumni voices outside of Class Notes.

Essentially, we’ve given Knox yet one more way to tell its story, and that’s something worth celebrating.

—Megan Scott ’96

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2 East South Street Letters to the Editor And More Anniversaries!

Kudos

While we covered most all of the 2017 anniversaries in the spring issue’s Editor’s Note, we did miss two: the 150th anniversary of Pi Beta Phi and the 10th anniversary of the Eta Kappa Chapter of Kappa Kappa Gamma. Congratulations to both chapters and thanks to everyone who wrote in to let us know. Here’s a highlight from our correspondence:

The spring issue of the Knox Magazine is impressive. I thank everyone concerned for a beautiful magazine.

—Loyally, Dorothy Thomas Wharton ’55

Yesterday, Pi Beta Phi celebrated its 150th birthday. It was founded at Monmouth College on April 28, 1867 . . . [and] is regarded as the first national women’s fraternity.

Illinois Beta chapter was founded at Lombard College in 1872, and the Illinois Delta chapter was founded at Knox College in 1884. In 1930, Lombard College was forced to close due to pressures brought on by the Great Depression, and the two chapters subsequently combined to create the current Illinois Beta-Delta chapter.

Significant “7s” Very nice issue of the Knox Magazine!

—Barbara Fay ’61

Family Connections Very nice article about Adam Vitale in the most recent Knox Magazine; however, you failed to mention that his aunt (the former Susan Lass, now Susan Vitale ’63) is also a Knox graduate. I am sure she would like to be recognized.

—C. Robert Woolsey ’63

Another dandy! Great work by all. And it’s not just quality. The quantity too.

This last one is almost as thick as a New York City phone book!

—Kent Kriegshauser, friend of the College

Town-Gown Connections

Corrections

It was heartening to read in the recent Knox Magazine of the connecting links Knox and the community of Galesburg are making and doing. Wonderful work indeed! In my Knox days of the late 1960s, they were the “townies” and we were the students—the connections between us were often non-existent or tense. Hats off once again to Knox’s efforts to build bridges not walls between and among humans of all types. Without question, these efforts enhance the planet. And hats off again to the Knox Magazine for your quality and the manner in which you let us know of some of the many special things and people who make up Knox.

—Topper Steinman ’70

In the Class of 2012 notes, Jun Young Cho from Gyeonggi, South Korea, was described as serving in the Korean Army, when, in fact, he served as an intelligence and interpreter officer at the United Nations Command/ Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command/United States Forces Korea.

In the “Deaths of Friends” section, Gene Devita was referred to as a friend of the College, instead of a professor (he taught history from 1966-74), as well as a resident advisor. Knox Magazine regrets these errors.

Send us your letters!

Knox Magazine welcomes the opinions and comments of its readers. Write to the Editor, Knox Magazine, Box K-233, 2 East South Street, Galesburg, IL 614014999, or e-mail knoxmag@knox.edu.

Letters should refer to material published in the magazine and may be edited for length or clarity.

KNOX MAGAZINE Fall 2017

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President’s Note The Power of the Knox Experience

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rom my first encounter with a group of Knox alumni at a Fifty Year Club event in 2011 to this day, seldom a week goes by without a powerful demonstration of how remarkable Knox alumni are: passionate about ideas and deeply engaged with the world around them. As a group, they exhibit a zest for learning unconstrained by disciplinary boundaries or by age, along with a deep admiration for the faculty and staff who instilled and nurtured their enthusiasm.

KENT KRIEGSHAUSER

Two recent experiences strengthened my belief that Knox alumni are truly special. Last month, as part of the 50th anniversary celebration of Knox’s creative writing program, my husband, Ray, and I accompanied Professors Robin Metz, Liz Carlin Metz, and Sherwood Kiraly ’72 to a Knox alumni event at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) in Ashland, Oregon. Over the course of OSF’s 82-year history, 20 million people have seen a production. The scale of the festival’s operations is stunning: 11 plays in rotating repertory in three venues during a season of nearly nine months, along with an astounding array of educational programs for the local and regional community. And the quality is extraordinary: vibrant theatre works spanning centuries, brought to life in a beautiful setting in the Pacific Northwest. All this accomplished by a staff—artistic, administrative, educational, and production—of nearly 500 individuals.

Here’s the remarkable thing: among those 500 people at OSF are four Knox grads, including Ted DeLong ’00, general manager; Sarah Zimmerman DeLong ’00, costume design assistant; Mikah Berky ’09, assistant charge scenic artist; and Franzesca Mayer ’13, wardrobe technician. All four of them are operating at the highest level of American theatre, loving their work and contributing to extraordinary performances every day.

Seeing this quartet of Knox alums reminded me of another alumni event at Argonne National Laboratory in Argonne, Illinois, this summer. The laboratory grew out of the University of Chicago’s work on the WWII Manhattan Project, and today describes itself as “a multidisciplinary science and engineering research center, where talented scientists and engineers work together to answer the biggest questions facing humanity, from how to obtain affordable clean energy to protecting ourselves and our environment.” Like OSF, four Knox alumni work at Argonne: Donna Mielke ’81, research scientist; Deborah Maurer Myers ’84, chemist; Ira Goldberg ’76, strategic finance and economics; and Patricia Bereck Weikersheimer ’86, coordinating writer/editor. Notice that all three divisions of the Knox curriculum are represented: science, of course, but also social science (economics) and the humanities (writing and editing). What a testament to the power of a broad liberal arts education!

The same over-representation of Knox alumni at extraordinary places can be found at entities as diverse as the Peace Corps, the Mayo Clinic, the NCAA, the international healthcare company Abbott, and the global law firm Kirkland & Ellis (where Roger Taylor ’63, my predecessor, had an illustrious career prior to his presidency).

I have come to the conclusion that wherever people come together in an interdisciplinary effort demanding creativity, excellence, dedication, and passion, Knox alums are likely to be there in far greater than any expected numbers. Such is the power of the Knox experience: that mysterious alchemy by which individuals are gathered from far and wide to a small campus in rural Illinois, where they are transformed and energized through their interaction with each other and with the faculty and staff who are dedicated to their learning, and then fan out across the globe to do great work.

Please write and tell me if you are at one of those places where more than an expected number of high-powered Knox alumni are producing acclaimed fine and performance art, operating cutting-edge entrepreneurial businesses, producing innovative science and technology, and building a better world as physicians, lawyers, educators, counselors, and social activists. I’d love to hear your individual stories, which together, comprise our Knox story.

—Teresa L. Amott

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ince its creation 50 years ago in 1967, Knox’s Program in Creative Writing has grown in both size and prestige.

Creative writing is consistently one of the top majors at the College, and faculty members are widely published and awarded in their fields of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and playwriting. Its students produce award-winning work in and out of the classroom, and its alumni receive fellowships from top graduate programs and have been awarded the American Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. There’s clearly something special happening here on the prairie.

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Rita Dove even recognized this during her visit to campus last March: “The creative writing program at Knox is actually pretty phenomenal,” she told our local NPR station, Tri States Public Radio. “When I think of the number of students who’ve come through it, and the quality of their work...I don’t know if any other university can boast of having such an amazing program.”

So how should Knox Magazine celebrate the program? Well, we decided to touch upon what we consider to be three elements that are vital to the success of creative writing at Knox: Its faculty (one in particular), its students, and its alumni. And we hope that after reading the following articles you’ll recognize that special something, too.

KNOX MAGAZINE Fall 2017

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COMMITTED “CREATIVE A Conversation with

BY SHERWOOD KIRALY ’72, VISITING INSTRUCTOR IN ENGLISH AND THEATRE & WRITER-IN-RESIDENCE

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n the fall of 1967 there was no creative writing major at Knox College, but there were two

professors dedicated to helping students who wanted to write. Sam Moon, who had been at Knox since 1953, was tall and thin and radiated benign integrity. Robin Metz was an intense young man with thick dark hair, thick dark mustache, all forward motion, just arrived at Knox from Princeton and the Iowa Writers Workshop.

He radiated integrity too, of a more potentially confrontational nature.

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TO THE

S” I was a new arrival as well, a freshman who thought he might want to write for actors but had no idea how to go about it. Robin wasn’t my teacher then; he worked with the fiction and poetry writers, and I was one of Sam Moon’s two Beginning Playwriting students. (The other, Mary Maddox ’71, would later become a novelist.) But word got out quickly on the student grapevine that Robin was (1) sharp and (2) cool, in an exhilaratingly intense way.

In a climate becoming increasingly volatile, politically, racially, sexually, and culturally, he encouraged—and expected —students who thought they were committed to truth to prove it in their writing, to write with emotional honesty.

He was an academic iconoclast in an incendiary time. He was political. He proselytized for writers. He held workshops outdoors. He made you work. He made you want to work.

He brought with him a double-edged commitment, to writing and the students who pursued it.

I can testify that the unforced aura of honesty he shared with Sam Moon provided, for a young man whose own character was half-formed, a much-needed something to shoot for. Students sometimes have a penchant for spiritual hero worship, but the two professors showed no particular desire to be gurus—Sam didn’t want Moonies, or Robin Hoods. They did, however, want to elicit the best we had in us; they met us face-to-face and found out about each of us, acknowledging the different places we came from.

I got to know Robin, and I eventually attended one of his workshops inadvertently because it took place in my

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Robin Metz

apartment, which I shared with one of his students. I don’t remember a great deal of what my professors said while I was at Knox—that’s much more a comment on my focus than on theirs—but I still recall things Robin said that day, about writing and writers, while he sat on our living room floor.

After four years I went away to Chicago and later to California. And over the ensuing decades, Robin remained at Knox, where he taught, wrote, and fought for the cause of the creative writing program with relentless, evangelical fervor, cajoling and sometimes battling with a series of presidents and deans.

Coming from a blue-collar upbringing in Pennsylvania, he had found, at Princeton and Iowa, that writers in academic settings were often treated as second-class citizens. (“In Iowa, the artists were in Quonset huts held over from WWII that weren’t air-conditioned or heated, and at Princeton, Philip Roth was one of my teachers there, he never had an office, they didn’t even give him an office, he’d won the National

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Book Award.”) It was only in Robin’s later years at Iowa, he says, that the writers’ workshop “became so famous that the English department wanted it back.”

So Robin took it upon himself—first in partnership with Sam Moon, and, after Moon’s retirement in 1985, with colleagues such as Ivan Davidson and Robert Hellenga—to build, at Knox, an unprecedented undergraduate creative writing program, that would eventually include workshop courses in fiction, poetry, playwriting, screenwriting, and nonfiction, courses on single authors (including Yeats, Hemingway, Woolf, Beckett, Richard Yates—another Metz mentor and friend—Toni Morrison, Flannery O’Connor, and August Wilson), and student-group odysseys to Dublin, to Cuba, to London, to the earth from which some of that work grew.

As he proposed these increasingly audacious plans, Robin and the Knox administrators weren’t always on the same page. His insistence on continued expansion of the department often met resistance or outright refusal. But his persistence, his energy, his conviction that what he was proposing was for Knox’s good—how could it be bad, after all, to have the greatest undergraduate writing program in the history of the universe?—wore down and usually overcame that resistance, so that today . . .

It is officially the 50th anniversary of the birth of the Knox creative writing program—a birthday chosen primarily because it coincides with Robin’s arrival. In the half-century since, he has nurtured, mentored, and hectored thousands of students, in workshops and one-on-one, encouraging them to do all they’re capable of, to find their personal approach to art and life.

The enthusiasm and achievements of the faculty and students have fed each other, to the point that, as Robin points out in the Knox brochure released to help celebrate the half-century milestone, “…currently, Creative Writing is the largest major at Knox… the size of the Creative Writing faculty has grown from two writers in 1967 … to nine (widely published and awarded) writers today….Small wonder that Poets & Writers magazine (New York) featured Knox (with Oberlin and Sarah Lawrence) as one of the top three undergraduate writing programs in the nation.”

Knox student writers have won so many awards, in competitions such as the Nick Adams short fiction contest and in literary magazines such as Catch, that, Robin has said, “if it were for a basketball team, banners would be flying from every building.” Of even more importance, both to Robin and Knox students past and present, the department has nourished an inner soil for the development of the creative

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ROBIN HAS NURTURED, MENTORED, AND HECTORED THOUSANDS OF STUDENTS, IN WORKSHOPS AND ONEON-ONE, ENCOURAGING THEM TO DO ALL THEY’RE CAPABLE OF, TO FIND THEIR PERSONAL APPROACH TO ART AND LIFE.”

PETER BAILLEY ’74

Top: Metz and fellow creative writing professor Monica Berlin ’95 with students at Galesburg’s town square.

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At right: Metz reads from his award-winning poetry collection Unbidden Angel.

process which allows them to thrive not only in writing-allied areas after graduation, but in virtually any other career they pursue.

I left Knox in 1971, to become an editor in Chicago and, later, a writer in California, and didn’t return except for a couple visits until 2010, when Robin—showing a typically Metzian willingness to gamble on his judgment of an exstudent’s capabilities—got permission to bring me back to lead workshops in fiction, playwriting, and screenwriting.

I knew, of course, that in the intervening years Robin had been gone from strength to strength as an eminent Knox professor, and I had read his stunningly powerful book Unbidden Angel, poetry dedicated to his late wife, Liz Jahnke.

I knew also that with his present wife, Knox theatre department co-chair Liz Carlin Metz, he had summoned up the extra energy to found and maintain an acclaimed Chicago

theatre, Vitalist, which had already presented several critically hailed plays, including his own Anung’s First American Christmas.

His c.v. by then included a carpet-sized list of achievements, titles, honors, and awards as both teacher and writer, a few of which included the Rainer Maria Rilke International Poetry Prize for Unbidden Angel, the Dylan Thomas Poetry Prize, the Marshall Frankel American Fiction Prize, and both the untenured and tenured Philip Green Wright prizes for distinguished teaching. Now he was Philip Sidney Post Professor of English and director of the Program in Creative Writing.

About that program: Upon my return to Old Main, I found an English department which had grown to nearly a dozen accomplished writer-teacher-academics, each uniquely qualified for their primary form or forms, each committed, in true Metz (and Knox) tradition, to their students. I was a freshman again—intimidated again, too. Big guns everywhere.

The Gizmo offered a vintage Twilight Zone temporaldislocation effect. It looked much as it had 40-plus years before, as did the students—a few of whom resembled Michael Shain ’72, Bruce Hammond ’71, and Judee Settipani ’71, who had been there with me the first time around. My old student friends weren’t there, of course. The Knox people I’d known had all changed and gone.

Except for one, sitting at a small table across from a student, leaning forward.

I couldn’t figure it. Not only was Robin Metz still there . . . he hadn’t burned out! Firebrands burn out, don’t they? The first president and administrators he’d battled on behalf of some imagined creative writing department were gone. So were the second and third presidents and the second and third wave of administrators. Like us, the students of the previous century—we were all puffs of smoke. But Robin Metz was leaning forward to find out what this Knox student had to say for himself.

I couldn’t figure it. I had to find out how he did that.

–––––––––––––––––––––––– When the 50th anniversary celebration schedule was set up, it included on-campus readings from celebrated writer alumni, plus several trips for Robin, to attend alumni events and reunite with former students in Chicago, San Francisco, New York and other venues. Last December, as these scheduled events were about to begin, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He began a grueling first round of chemotherapy shortly thereafter. I assumed, upon hearing of this, that it

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would prevent his attending the out-of-town anniversary events. Through April, he had made them all.

Also in April, he sat down in my kitchen to reflect on the way his teaching evolved over his years at Knox, and I got a chance to ask him how he went from a firebrand to a kind of eternal flame in his fight for the “creatives.” Here are some excerpts from our talk.

Q: You’ve been referred to as the Dumbledore of the Knox creative writing department….Is that acceptable to you?

A: I actually think of it as flattering because I loved him on the screen— Q: It’s meant to be— A: For the record, as we speak, I have no hair except the last little fringes of my mustache, which I’ve decided to let fall out naturally.

Q: That was the one change in you from seeing you in the Gizmo when I was a student, talking to writing students. I came back 40 years later and everything was different—except one thing, and that was you, sitting at a table, talking to a student about their

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work. And the only change I could see in the 40 years was that the mustache— A: —was white.

Q: You have such a network of student writers that have built up over the years and now you’re seeing some of them on the (50th-anniversary city-visits)— A: It’s been great, it’s why I’m doing it, really…. I’m so proud of them and what they’ve achieved and, in a lot of instances, I don’t know the full range of their achievements. I get to hear that, and then I bring it back and tell my current students about it, and, in some ways, I serve as a belief bridge for contemporary students—to believe that actually by doing this study at Knox that it can go somewhere.

Q: I haven’t had as much experience in other places as you have, but I did see some other students when I was in California, and it seems to me that Knox students for some reason were much more jacked up about the idea of what they were trying to do than most of the ones I’d seen…

A: I think there is something about the culture of the place, really, and all of us … are at least partially responsible for having created that.

“

IN SOME WAYS, I SERVE AS A BELIEF BRIDGE FOR CONTEMPORARY STUDENTS—TO BELIEVE THAT ACTUALLY BY DOING THIS STUDY AT KNOX THAT IT CAN GO SOMEWHERE.”

Q: It’s good for peripheral things too. By the time I left Knox I was a really good typist, and I got a job as a temporary typist at Field Newspaper Syndicate, typing columns by Ann Landers and Roger Ebert and that crowd …. Basically I was using tools I got at Knox, not quite in the way that I was working at Knox but still with writing and writers, and I’m sure that happens with hundreds of the students….

A: We have to convey to the students that what we instruct them in is not the creative product—though that’s what we seem to say: Write this great short story or play or poem or series of poems, and be so proud and happy of the product, and try to get it published. But what we’re really focused on is the creative process. And when you stress that and begin to model your teaching in ways that allow for that, then there’s value that’s being transferred to the students and the student’s way of thinking. Whether or not their product ends up being saleable and establishing them in that career, they get to be the people who, in a whole range of industries, become the creators— Q: The creative ones there— A: Yeah, right, and you know there’s this whole class of workers now known as the “creatives”— Q: Oh really?

A: Yeah, it’s like the buzzword of American commerce.

“The creatives.”

DON HAMERMAN

Q: “We need more Creatives.”

A: Yeah, and they’re hired to be the problem-solvers in any range of situations— Q: And that makes sense.

A: It does because—to use a cliché—“thinking outside the box” is what you do every time you write a poem or a story, you have to work your way through the problems involved.

So this whole moral/ethical question, “Are you selling a bill of goods when you’re selling someone on the arts because they imagine themselves on the big screen or the New York Times best-seller list,” now you can honestly say that what you’re conveying to them will be valuable and useful in their careers whether or not they remain directly in the arts.

Q: Is there anything left undone? Is there anything left for you to write? You’ve been busy.

My experience here is that I can’t write while I’m teaching, except during breaks.

A: Well, that’s something of an issue for me personally in a way. I’ve written and published a lot but not as much as I want to, and I have such a backlog of stuff that I really want to do, both fiction and poetry… and plays! In particular, I’ve been dying to do this one play which is actually an adaptation of a lesser-known Hemingway novel, and I just think it’d be so great for the stage—even though I subsequently discovered that there was a perfectly dreadful film once made of it.

Q: Which one is it?

A: Garden of Eden.

Q: All right, I want to ask you something—I was trying to figure out why you didn’t burn out…. I had a job at a newspaper syndicate and after 10 years I burned out. I knew everything I had to do there and from then on until I left I was just there. And I came back here, and I saw what you’d built and that you were still as committed to the individual students as ever, nothing had changed. My theory is that it’s the students in a way that give it to you— A: Sure— Q: —because of the nature of our work—it’s emotional and it’s intense, and it’s exhausting, but it’s also exhilarating, is that—?

A: Even if I was teaching the same literature course every year, I wouldn’t teach the same book somehow. I’m always changing because just to do the same thing … makes you more expert in it and more polished, but in some ways you grow farther and farther from the students, right? So, in our kind of work, in the workshops, you’re always beginning at ground zero.

Q: And everyone is a new set of problems— A: Right, there’s no workshop where one was ever like the next, even from one term to the next, even if you had mostly the same people it would still be different. So that’s generating….

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I asked some English department colleagues to provide their own article on Robin in “one or two sentences.” While chafing at this preposterous restriction—and in some cases, of necessity, impelled to bend it—they rose to the challenge.

“

Robin’s vision and his tenacious and unending faith in the arts, in language, in each new generation of writers to immerse themselves in a tradition begun long before they were, to carry forth that tradition, and to make from that tradition something new, are just a small part of what I think of when I think of this man I call one of my dearest friends, still call my mentor, have been proud and humbled to call my colleague for now 19 years. His care, his attention, his commitment and loyalty, his joie de vivre, his deep compassion—all unmatched—have influenced so many of us who now aspire toward and aim to honor him in our own work.”

—Monica Berlin ’95, Associate Director for the Program in Creative Writing and Chair of the Department of English

“ “

His dedication to the students, and the creative writing program, is absolute.”

—Natania Rosenfeld, Professor of English literature Robin’s an artist, so he offers creative solutions to problems and, sometimes, creative problems with impossible solutions. That’s one reason his students love him, that imaginative challenge he sets for them; it’s also the reason he so often has unimaginative administrators hiding under their desks.”

—Rob Smith, John and Elaine Fellowes Distinguished Professor of English

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KNOX MAGAZINE Fall 2017

There was a big boost in my personal life when, in honor of Liz Jahnke, Liz Carlin and I decided to start this (Vitalist) theatre in her memory in Chicago, and it was great for Liz and it was great for me, and it put us in the Chicago world.

The collaborative efforts of working in the theatre as opposed to our lonely writer world was exhilarating. And then I started this London course, which we do every two or three years, so there was all that world to learn about in London, and it’s such a gorgeous city. So we feel at home in London and New York and Chicago and in the country and here. I’m not a Knox person that hates Galesburg, I just love the whole thing, but it’s also true that I’ve taken it in small doses. I have all these other things to do so when I am here I’m happy for what . . . it’s so easy to go to the hardware store! (laughter) I mean to go and buy nails and screws, think in Chicago what it’s like if you have to go out, when we’re building a set in the theatre, and I’m running all over town trying to find a parking space so I can get 10 bolts!

Q: Well, I hadn’t thought of that—that you built out as well as keeping the core.

A: I think that’s what kept me fresh, honestly. And then I would bring that stuff back as part of the teaching stuff here.

Q: But now Knox has built out too, in that regard.

A: Well, and once I’d done London I realized—I don’t know what it was that made me start single-author courses— Q: Oh yeah!

A: —maybe it was Virginia Woolf, but I realized that almost no literature programs anywhere (were) getting any depth for particular important authors.

Q: Shakespeare maybe— A: Shakespeare, and there were courses in Milton and Chaucer, Knox had always had those, but contemporary, twentieth-century writers—our young people first of all hardly knew their names, much less the depth of their work. So if you had a study, just in one person’s life and work, you could extrapolate from that to your own life and career, plus other writers, and you would see a dimension to it. So I started this long string of—I don’t know, I probably have done 12 or so.

Q: Is there anything that strikes you, looking at the way creative writing started and the way it’s grown, is there anything you feel left undone, anything you’d change, and what do you feel best about?

A: Well….I love it that we’ve just trounced the other ACM schools (in the Nick Adams short story contest)—

KNOX COLLEGE ARCHIVES

“

Robin Metz and Sam Moon, co-founders of the Program in Creative Writing, circa 1983.

Q: Yeah, I love that little chart—(in the 50th anniversary brochure listing Knox’s Nick Adams winners compared to other colleges in the ACM).

A: (laughter) And I love the other one, the Catch one too.

And partly I think this goes back to the feeling, not at all so much for me personally, but that sort of class thing that I was talking about before, that the arts have been tolerated in so many institutions but they’re always the first thing cut whether in high school—they can’t put the band together anymore or they don’t have any money for theatre—they’re always expendable. And I was so determined here to find a place that was vulnerable to the idea that the arts were not expendable, that we could become central to the success of the place. And so I’m proud that we have made a space for the arts here with creative writing.

But left undone—and maybe I’ll still have time—I feel we are so close to being able to make part of our arts picture, film production, and I feel it’s so crucial—and we should be doing animation and stuff like that….

“ “

I first formed a bond with Robin while talking to him from a phone booth in Vietri sui mare, Italy, the summer before 9/11. I wasn’t sure where to go after living for a year in paradise, and he made me feel like I belonged at Knox—should return to teach there in the fall. . . .

Sometimes I feel like we grew up in the same woods, either side of Cheney Creek. . . . Since that time, I have gotten to know Robin on the grounds of poetry and fatherhood. It is because of a story he once told about one of his children, who remembered talking to him through a closed door, that I keep the door open when I’m at my desk at home. Because of Robin, I believe that writing and parenting are not separate lives.

Also, I believe in the near-holiness of interruptions.”

—Nicholas Regiacorte, Associate Professor of English Robin has always served as an inspiration for his colleagues, as well as for his students.”

—Robert Hellenga, George Appleton Lawrence Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of English; Distinguished Writer in Residence Robin chastised me once when I was his student. I’d tried to condense an entire lifetime into a short story, and it was too massive to constrain within the form. ‘This is the tip of an iceberg,’ he said.

‘What’s under the water is the size of a damn continent.’ So it is with my attempt to summarize his impact on my life and the lives of so many others. He is a continent of a man.”

—Cyn Fitch ’00, Associate Professor of English

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“

Once, during a particularly heated English department meeting, I lost my head and called Robin a two-pronged name ending in ‘ucker.’ Even though he kept right on talking, his meditative glance in my direction acknowledged my frustration (he felt my pain!) and assured me that it would continue for yet a while longer. (I don’t mean this to be in any way backhanded. I love Robin.)”

—Barbara Tannert-Smith, Associate Professor of English

“

Robin Metz is one of the most empathic people I’ve ever met, and certainly the most honest, brutally so at times. He also forever changed the course of my life. I published a short story in Catch my freshman year, and after reading it, he tracked me down.

He sat down with me on the Gizmo patio and told me I needed to be a writer. And that’s exactly what I did. I went from being a very troubled kid to a focused, purposeful one, and that is all due to Robin….He is also one of my favorite people in the world.”

—Katya Reno ’99, Visiting Assistant Professor

“

Life with Robin is a magical roller coaster. Or maybe a tilt-a-whirl.

No, wait. Life with Robin is both.

Definitely both. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

— Liz Carlin Metz, Smith V. Brand Distinguished Professor of Theatre

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Q: You’re still a good teacher, you’re still—I keep learning stuff from you, the last few years.

A: You know, what you said before about how we get from the students—it’s from our friends, too. I think what actually makes great teaching is the people who are genuinely in conversation with these other people that they’re talking to— who are sometimes called students, are sometimes called friends, and sometimes called wives or lovers. We’re just wholly engaged with this other person, then we give them our person, then we’re getting it back— Q: —we get something back— A: —and you go home at 12 o’clock and that’s … exhausting but I never felt tired when I was doing it.

Q: It has to do with keeping it new, and it has to do with the people you’re with.

A: And see—here’s a big change: I shifted from teaching the product, teaching people to do the product, to showing them it was more important to learn the process. We’re thinking, “What is creative writing about? We’re teaching the creative process.” And I even went and studied all this neuroscience stuff and everything about how creativity is really happening, and I was thrilled to bring that to bear.

The other big change that came for me was I realized there’s a profound difference between thinking of yourself as a professor and thinking of yourself as a teacher. Because as a professor, you are there to profess, and your first and primary obligation is to the world of your material—to pay honor to the accumulated tradition of this wonderful thing that you are teaching. To be a teacher is actually to take the student, where they are, and to bring them as far as you can toward this wonderful body of knowledge and understanding—but it’s about them. When you’re professing I would say, “Look, I’m kind of infamous for getting off subject, and if I get an idea … it’s like a white-tailed deer tail just went up, bobbing through the woods, and I’m running helter-skelter after it, and follow as best you can, and I’ll see you up ahead on the ridge.” I used to actually say that. Now, it’s like, “Come along—if we lose sight of the deer we’ll walk around this way, are you all with me? We’ll catch it coming back the other way!”

A Field Guide

to Knox Student Publications

BY MEGAN SCOTT ’96 & ELISE GOITIA ’18

Knox, like most colleges and universities, has a long tradition of students voicing their opinions, sharing their art, or commenting on campus news, among other endeavors, through various publication vehicles. Student newspapers, journals, and magazines were just as prevalent in the early years of our prairie college as they are today. Through the years, student publications have come and gone, some have changed names, many have won national awards, and each offers their own unique perspective on life at Knox.

Here is a guide to our current student publications.

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Catch

QuiVeR

ESTABLISHED: Origi-

ESTABLISHED: 2006

nally established in 1922, officially became Catch in 1971

PUBLISHED: Twice yearly since 2013

WHAT IT PUBLISHES:

PUBLISHED: Twice yearly in the fall and spring

WHAT IT PUBLISHES: Fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, as well as journalism, visual art, drama, music and musical scores, theatrical design, and translations. True to its origins, Catch’s philosophy “is to make student voices heard . . .

Catch may be a drop in an ocean of arts magazines, but we believe there is magic in putting love into such little things.”

HOW YOU CAN READ IT: Catch staff host a release party upon each issue’s publication, where copies of the journal are distributed to attendees. Contact the journal directly for current or back issues (if available).

HOW IT IS DIFFERENT FROM OTHER KNOX PUBLICATIONS: Catch is a selective magazine, seeking to represent the highest quality of work as a showcase of the best art Knox students are producing.

Magazine Pacemaker Awards and Finalist Recognition in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2010, and 2016. *Known as the CCLM National Collegiate Competition’s First Place Award at that time.

AWARDS: Catch has

INTERESTING FACT:

won numerous national and international awards in its history—it received the National Program Directors’ Prize from the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) in 1983*, 1986*, 2003, and 2014. It received the Associated College Press

There are many stories on how Catch got its name.

One version comes from Nicholas Brockunier ’69, who believes it may have originated from “the idea of catching good written work (as a fisherman or a ball player).”

knoxcatch.com

Quiver’s philosophy is “devoted entirely to the promotion of works of literature and art in all the genres, including humor, sci-fi and fantasy, and young adult. Knox College students, faculty, and alumni are welcome to submit anything from fiction to films to fingerpainting—if it can be uploaded to the web, you can submit it!” Josh Althoff ’19, the current editor, adds: “We’re always on the lookout for pieces that establish themselves as different than the norm, whether that means stories told from new perspectives or in different universes.”

HOW YOU CAN READ IT: Quiver started as an online journal, but a print edition is currently published twice yearly.

New issues are distributed at receptions celebrating the latest release, and current or back issues

(where available) can be obtained by contacting the journal.

of the best undergraduate writing in the country.

HOW IT IS DIFFERENT FROM OTHER KNOX PUBLICATIONS: It’s a

Quiver was originally an online journal dedicated to humor, speculative fiction, and children’s literature and was the home of three individual publications in 2006: Diminished Capacity (humor) was published in the fall; Wynken, Blynken and Nod (children’s/young adult) was published in the winter; and The Third Level (sci-fi/fantasy) was published in the spring.

magazine that focuses mainly on genre writing and art. “Knox has always been more friendly than most colleges to genre writing, and Quiver emerges as an outgrowth of that,” adds Altoff.

AWARDS: “Nesting Instinct” by Lizz Fong, which was featured in an issue of Quiver in 2016, was submitted to and, ultimately, published in Plain China, an online anthology of some

INTERESTING FACT:

knoxcollegequiver.blogspot.com 18

KNOX MAGAZINE Fall 2017

CellAR dOOR ESTABLISHED: 2006

HOW YOU CAN READ IT:

PUBLISHED: Twice

New issues are handed out at a Cellar Door release party.

yearly

WHAT IT PUBLISHES: It accepts all work, from short stories to visual art to essays to mathematical proofs. It aims to include not only student work but also that of faculty and staff, and well-known writers or artists outside of Knox (for example, Kevin Stein, the Poet Laureate of Illinois, wrote for the first issue.)

THe COMMON ROOM

HOW IT IS DIFFERENT FROM OTHER KNOX PUBLICATIONS: Essentially a writing workshop that ends with a publication, editors accept any piece that the author is willing to revise and publishes the polished version.

ESTABLISHED: 1997 PUBLISHED: Annually WHAT IT PUBLISHES: Literary criticism

INTERESTING FACT: The spring 2017 issue celebrated Cellar Door’s 10th anniversary and included alumni work, including a piece by its founder, B.J. Hollars ’07, who noted in an opening letter: “Cellar Door was always about celebrating the attempt. It was about publicly conceding that writing is hard but confirming, too, that the difficulty of our task is also the source of our joy.”

HOW YOU CAN READ IT: You can read new issues online; a print anthology was published in 2016. The Common Room benefits from

the freedom of its format, which allows the publication to link to other sites. “This is especially thrilling because it reflects the connectivity and reflexivity of literature and theory about literature,” says Mary DiPrete ’15, former editor-inchief.

HOW IT IS DIFFERENT FROM OTHER KNOX PUBLICATIONS: The Common Room remains the only journal published solely online, and its focus is primarily on scholarly writing.

INTERESTING FACT:

Room (found on the second floor of Old Main), a place where literature and ideas about literature are often shared. The name was the idea of Wendy Prellwitz ’99, an English major.

Publication founders liked the specific resonance that the title carries for those individuals who know Knox’s Common

knoxenglishdepartment.com/the-common-room KNOX MAGAZINE Fall 2017

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Gone But Not Forgotten Since the publication of Knox’s first student literary magazine, The Knoxiana, in 1851, dozens of student publications have come and gone in the College’s history. For those literary history buffs out there, here is a list (in alphabetical order) of all of those publications that were once in circulation on campus: The Adelphi Quarterly, 1860-1861 • BLADU, 1999-2005 • The Brainstorm, 1989 • Cameo, 1938 • THE COUP D’ETAT,1881-1898 • Cultural Vibes, 1995-1998 • Das Ding an Sich, 1908 • Dialogue, 1965-1967 • The Examiner Observes, 1952-1955 • The Federalist, 1896 • Folio, 20112016* • Freshman Follies, 1917 • Fusion, 2010-2012 • The Gadfly, 1900-1905 • The Knox Leisure Hour, 1890 & 1894 • Knox Life, 1896-1897 • The Knoxiana, 1851-1857 • The Knoxiana and Knox Collegiate, 1856-1858 • The Oak Leaf,1856-1857 • The Oak Leaf and Knoxiana,1856-1857 • The Knox Collegiate Magazine,1857-1858 • La Tour Eiffel/La Giralda, 1923-1925 • The Ladies’ Garland, ca.

1858-1862 • Move Over Prince Charming, 1974 • On Politics, 1896-1897 • The Pantheon, 1869-1870, 1872-1873, 1888 • Mischmasch, 1870-1871 • Phpah-Hotep, Jr: His Book, 1909 • Prospects, 1977-1982 • The Purple Aeolus, 1914 • The Round-Up, 1 907 • Spectrum, 1983-1984 • The Students’ Ark, 1862 • The Students’ Farewell, 1857 • The Yellow Jacket, 1906-1912, 1914-1915, 1920, 1922-1926, ca.

1938, 1980 • The Black Damp, 1913 • The Prattlesnake, 1916 • The Scullion, 1921 *Folio is actually on hiatus for the moment. A new editorial board has been selected, and they plan to publish their next issue in the coming year.

P.S. If you’d like more information on each publication, we recommend contacting Special Collections & Archives, who graciously provided us with this fascinating list!

THe KNOX STudeNT (TKS) ESTABLISHED: 1878 PUBLISHED: The print edition of TKS is distributed weekly on Thursday evenings on campus and is mailed to subscribers on Fridays during the academic year. The online edition is updated regularly and features online-only content, including multimedia.

WHAT IT PUBLISHES: TKS has been student-written, student-run, and student-read since its founding. It has a long tradition of being an independent voice for students, reporting on the cultural, social and athletic life of the college.

HOW YOU CAN READ IT: The website is the best way to keep up with current news stories during the academic year.

Print editions are distributed free of charge on campus through five kiosks

on campus, as well as on the door of the Publications Office in Seymour Union and in the Hard Knox Café.

Individuals can also subscribe ($60/year).

HOW IT IS DIFFERENT FROM OTHER KNOX PUBLICATIONS: TKS is Knox’s only newspaper run entirely by students, for students.

AWARDS: TKS has received numerous awards from the Illinois College Press Association (ICPA), Associated College Press, and the Society of Professional Journalists in its history. Most recently, the paper

theknoxstudent.com 20

KNOX MAGAZINE Fall 2017

received a recordbreaking 20 awards from the ICPA in 2017, including a first place award for general excellence.

INTERESTING FACT: TKS was founded

by S.S. McClure, who, after graduating from Knox in 1882, created McClure’s Magazine, one of the first publications in the field of American investigative journalism (commonly referred to as “muckraking” journalism).

“What do you do with a creative writing degree, anyway?” **************

It’s one of the first questions that worried parents ask.

Fifty years of alumni from Knox’s Program in Creative Writing fill us in on what happens after graduation.

BY PAM CHOZEN

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To outsiders, creative writing might sound like an impractical major. At first glance, the only obvious career path it offers is becoming a published author, and even outsiders know it’s hard to get published—and even harder to earn enough money from it to keep the lights on. Otherwise,

1. Definitely consider going to graduate school.

Of the 149 creative writing alumni who responded to our survey, nearly 60 percent attended graduate school. (That’s not unusual for any Knox alumnus/na—historically, 65 percent of Knox graduates, regardless of major, will enroll in a graduate program within five years of graduation.)

FYI: Six alumni reported that they now teach at the college level.

you can … teach English? Work in publishing? Outsiders see a world that needs more accountants and nurses and engineers, not poets

Graduate degrees earned by creative writing alumni

and playwrights.

It looks different from the inside.

Studying creative writing teaches students more than how to craft a beautiful poem or a memorable story.

It also helps them become keener observers, awake to new ways of seeing the world and able to help others see it, too.

Since Knox’s Program in Creative Writing was established in 1967, nearly 800 students have graduated with a degree in creative writing; year after year, it tops the list of Knox’s most popular majors. Knox Magazine reached out to those alumni to ask about their lives now—the careers they have pursued, whether they are writing and publishing, and how their education informs the work they do now. Here’s what we learned from them.

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KNOX MAGAZINE Fall 2017

M.A. - 29% M.F.A. - 44% Ph.D. - 5% J.D. - 8% MBA - 2% M.L.S. - 2% Other Master’s Degree - 10%

2. Probably write professionally, even if you don’t always get paid for it.

Fiction 24% Nonfiction 47%

About 60 percent of respondents report they have become published authors—but fewer than half of them have gotten paid for their writing. Often, the line between “paid” and “unpaid” work is a little fuzzy. How exactly do you categorize contributor’s copies, the native currency of underfunded literary journals? What about online writing that builds your reputation and portfolio but doesn’t actually earn you cash?

What about the job in public relations or marketing that requires you to write, but not to write, well, creatively?

Poetry 29%

What creative writing alumni are writing, by genre

Are creative writing alumni getting paid to write?

40% Yes

40% No

20%

It’s complicated

********************************************************************** 3. Find your own career path, and that’s okay.

It turns out there are plenty of ways to be a professional writer that don’t involve bringing a laptop to the neighborhood coffee shop as you work on your novel or screenplay. Few creative writing alumni describe their job as “writer,” even though many actually make a living writing and publishing books, stories, or plays. Instead, their titles run the gamut from “content creator” to “publication specialist” to “editor in chief.”

Even more work in fields that seem wholly unrelated to creative writing.

They’re teaching, practicing law, working in a wine auction house. One is a software developer; another works in aerospace manufacturing. Yet the overwhelming majority say they draw upon their creative writing education in their work.

“I remember Robin Metz telling us in our senior portfolio class that, with writing skills, we could do anything,” recalls Malissa Kent Webber ’07, currently communications manager at Weyerhaeuser. “That’s been completely true for me. I’ve worked at major corporations—Amazon, Expedia, and Starbucks—and, at each one, my writing skills are what landed me the job.”

89% Yes

5%

Are creative writing alumni using their education now?

No

6%

It’s complicated*

*Sometimes it’s because they’re not working right now, or they’re writing but not as their primary career, or writing is something they’ve used in their work before, but not currently.

Like we said—complicated.

KNOX MAGAZINE Fall 2017

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4. Keep using what you learn in workshop, whether you’re a writer or not.

“Honestly, learning how to exist, and speak, and contribute in a room with brilliant, creative people has been the greatest gift that the creative writing program gave me.”

After you leave college, it’s rare that anyone asks to read one of your poems or stories and then discusses it at length with you. Yet the workshop experience continues to resonate throughout the lives of creative writing alumni.

“The workshop atmosphere—being able to accept and give feedback—has been so instrumental in my professional career,” says Jake Marcet ’07, now a senior SEO analyst. “Honestly, learning how to exist, and speak, and contribute in a room with brilliant, creative people has been the greatest gift that the creative writing program gave me.”

Paul Smith ’89 is chief quality and compliance officer at Advanced Flexible Composites, a manufacturer of temperature-resistant, non-stick materials for food, aerospace, and military manufacturing—about as far from a poetry workshop as you can imagine. Still, he says, “Reading poetry really helps teach problem-solving; workshops and slams teach one to get a thick skin and embrace criticism and change.”

“I could not have anticipated my career path after college,” says Erin Daugherty ’13. “I am a poet turned data analyst turned entrepreneur. More than anything else, the experience of the writing workshops, with their unwavering vulnerability and dependence on collaboration, taught me the importance of sincere listening. Of everything Knox taught me, this is the lesson I return to most often.”

********************************************************************** 5. Feel like you are part of something special.

“The power of Knox’s program was the connections we made with professors, who were working writers,” says Mariah Oxford ’91, a freelance writer, editor, and designer. “We could see their struggles and successes; we could see them as people.”

“I believe that I got a creative writing education at Knox that I couldn’t get anywhere else,” adds Tasha Coryell ’10, now working as an English instructor. “I didn’t love everything about Knox, but I got more attention from my professors there than I did in my graduate program, and they taught me how to be a prolific, publishing author.”

“I’m routinely jealous of my past self,” says Sam Martone ’11, who works at website builder Squarespace. “After Knox, even in graduate school or other writer communities, it’s difficult to find a space as passionate and driven and just plain thrilled about writing as Knox’s creative writing department was.”

I feel like my adult life started when I entered Robin Metz’s Intro to Creative Writing class. I found my tribe.

Rachel Hall ’86, now an English professor herself When we asked alumni to name their most memorable professor, many responded with a whole list of names. It turns out that every single person who has taught creative writing at Knox is someone’s favorite.

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KNOX MAGAZINE Fall 2017

Celebrating

100 years of Class Notes The most enduring part of the alumni magazine is the section written by alumni themselves COMPILED BY PAM CHOZEN

Over the last 100 years, Knox’s alumni magazine has changed its format, its frequency, and even its name. But one thing has been consistent in practically every issue: Class Notes. Collectively, these alumni submissions tell the story of the last century, from World War I to the dawn of the Internet Age. Here are a few of our favorites from the last 11 decades.

The Teens Miss ellen browning scripps, Class of 1859, of LaJolla, California, whose gift of $100,000 to the recent Half Million Dollar Endowment raised by Knox College was such a great factor in the success of that fund, has recently given $15,000 to the Y.W.C.A. to build a “Hostess Home” at Camp Kearny in San Diego. –1917

Jesse a. Crafton, Class of 1912, was dragged away from a remarkable success in Galesburg’s little theatre—the Prairie Playhouse—which Jesse founded, when war was declared. He is sergeant in the 123rd Heavy Artillery Band and is now stationed at Fort Logan, Houston, Texas. –1917 reuben J. erickson, Class of 1911, first lieutenant in the Medical Corps of the U.S. Army, is stationed with the South Midland field ambulance British Expeditionary Forces in France. He writes: “I have been in France now five weeks and went through one of the most uncomfortable battles the English have had. All the men who did get back consider themselves lucky. I have learned what shells sound like and what dugout life is. The most picturesque experience so far was being fired at, at close range, by a Boche plane when out looking at the trenches with the colonel, who has since been killed. It is a great life! Also, rather dirty!” –1918 Franz l. rickaby, Class of 1916, who spent the summer at Charlevoix, Michigan, took an 800 mile walk from that place to his home in Grand Forks, North Dakota. He carried no money and earned his way by playing the violin. –1919

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The twenties On December 6, 1920, Congressman edward J. King, Class of 1891, introduced in the House of Representatives a bill to provide for the independence of the Philippine Islands. The bill is now in the hands of the committee on insular affairs. –1920 dr. harry n. torrey’s, Class of 1900, $200,000 yacht Tamarack burned to the water’s edge near Elizabeth City, North Carolina, some months ago. Dr. Torrey was on a duck-hunting expedition at the time, and no one aboard was injured. –1922 Greenwich, the winter home of dr. harry n. torrey, Class of 1900, at Savannah, Georgia, was burned by flames which broke out in the early morning, completely destroying the fine old southern mansion and all of its furnishings. Dr. and Mrs. Torrey and their children are now living

aboard the Torrey yacht, anchored in the Savannah harbor, whither they moved immediately after the fire. Dr. Torrey, members of his family, and the corps of servants were in the house when the fire was discovered about 3:30 o’clock in the morning. The loss is estimated at $500,000 including the house, furnishings, and Mrs. Torrey’s jewels. –1923 l. elizabeth Clark, Class of 1870, writes, “It is difficult to make the student of today understand how very different things were at Knox 55 years ago. That girls were competent to recite or compete with boys in any study was at best a morbid question. For the first two years girls recited all lessons at ‘The Sem.’ (Whiting Hall)— so, you see, we did not know the boys of those years any more than if they had been going to another school.” –1924

emma haigh Fisher, Class of 1877, has spent time since last May with her daughter in Tunghsein Peking, China. Her home in Tokyo, Japan, was destroyed by the great earthquake of September 1923. Fortunately Mrs. Fisher at the time was spending a few days in the mountains and felt the quake only a little. –1925 Although this information will seem trivial ten years from now, roy C. ingersoll, Class of 1908, went from Galesburg to Chicago in one hour and six minutes—by airplane, of course! –1928 nelson dean Jay, Class of 1905, was among the financial experts who assisted the official American delegates, Owen D. Young and J.P. Morgan, at the Reparations Conference held in Paris to fix Germany’s annual payments to the Allies of the World War. –1929

The thirties Tinkering with an old Ford while he was an undergraduate helped to qualify him for the job of manufacturing the mechanical “gadgets” which furnish the background noises for radio drama, according to n. ray Kelley ’28, who presides over the National Broadcasting Company’s sound effects laboratory. –1930 george h. Cameron, Class of 1912, of River Forest, Illinois, recently won $1,000 as the winner of the word building contest conducted by the makers of Dutch Master cigars. He submitted a list of 1,102 common English words made of the words “Dutch Masters.” –1932 Two recent issues of the American Mathematics Monthly give credit to elisabeth giles ’34 of Galesburg for solutions submitted to certain mathematical problems proposed last year in the pages of that magazine. –1934

After an absence of some years, bill senn, ex-’26, returned to Knox early in January with the intention of completing the work for his degree by June of this year. Bill has lately been playing professional football with the Chicago Bears. –1931

toshi yamamoto ’34 has been appointed to the consulate of the Japanese empire at Nanking, China. After graduating from Knox, Tosh entered the employ of a large importing and exporting house and later served as interpreter for the English manager of large tin mines in Japan, but in the present crisis he is one of those selected for civil government service and in that capacity has been sent to China. –1938 harold n. graves, Class of 1908, who is an assistant to the Secretary of the Treasury, is the government official in charge of working out plans for the decentralization of the Internal Revenue Bureau. … Those fortunate persons who pay enough income tax to the government to get into arguments about said tax will not have to chase down to Washington when their reports are questioned, but can settle the argument at the closest divisional office. –1939

The FORTIES M.h. “Max” harrison, Class of 1913, says that life is much as usual in India despite the war.

Some rise in prices was suffered and there is much indignation in India against Hitler, so that many men of that country are enlisting as soldiers, some to serve in Europe. –1940 russell duncan brown ’42 is Knox’s first top-flight hero of the war. Bombardier Brown has been identified as the gallant gunner who distinguished himself on the epic flight of Captain Whaless, as described in President Roosevelt’s report to the nation. Despite a wounded hand, Brown kept guns blazing from

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both sides of the stricken plane. He has been awarded the Order of the Purple Heart. –1942 lt. stanley schrieber ’40 was killed in an airplane accident somewhere in the Pacific this month. –1943 Capt. James h. runyon ’40 met two Knox men on a trip to Paris. On Easter Sunday he attended church there with dean Jay, Class of 1905 and Knox trustee, of the Bank of Morgan in Paris. On another occasion he met lt. harold hawkins, ex-’38, and together the Knoxians saw the big parade when the colors were given back to the French Army. –1945

hermann Muelder ’27 is addressing groups of German prisoners of war at Fort Sheridan and Camp Grant. The lectures are part of a series started at the request of the former Nazi soldiers and are paid for by the prisoners themselves. Mr. Muelder is tracing the growth of democracy in America. –1946 Galesburg will have a new drive-in theatre this spring. It is now under construction as a projected started by al Christiansen ’40, who plans to operate it as soon as it is completed next month. –1949

The FIFTIES Among the first mail that the United States has sent by jet aircraft was a letter from Lt. Col. Max stubbs ’40, who is stationed at Hickam Air Base in Hawaii, to his parents in Monmouth. The envelope, especially designed for the historic occasion, had on it printed “Carried by U.S. Air Force B-47 Stratojet.” –1951 When residents of Elmhurst see Charles b.

Johnson ’31 going to work with an umbrella under his arm, they are sure rain is on the way.

Mr. Johnson, who has been with the Chicago weather office since 1951, is chief service officer for the bureau which has hit the nail on the head 87 percent of the time in their forecasting during the past year. –1953 In addition to her teaching duties at the Indianapolis branch of Purdue University, Mary dilworth Mendiones ’36 finds time to write successful magazine articles. In the May issue of Charm, Dr. Mendiones tells how to spend a week in New York for $50 in “New York—A Vacation Bargain.” –1954

Walter braden (Jack) Finney ’34 has just published a new book, The Body Snatchers, which will be available at your favorite newsstand in a Dell Publications edition for 25 cents. All readers, please note.

–1955

Hollywood, California, and is currently planning a tour of military installations with troupes of recording artists. –1956

satellite to be launched as part of the International Geophysical Year. –1957

Kenneth W. Freese ’42 is now working in the engineering drafting department of the Liquid Rocket Plant of Aerojet General Corp. in Sacramento, California, the supplier of motive power for the second stage of Vanguard, the earth

Now living at Blue Hill, Nebraska, thomas Mcspadden ’18 is a “poet of the plains” as an avocation. He recently wrote eight stanzas for President Eisenhower on “The Cold War Christian” to arouse church folk to perils of communism. –1959

Mary ann ruzecki ’55 is a weather analyst for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Her present task is recording messages and gyrations of Tiros, the 270-pound weather-eye satellite, which circles the Earth 14 times daily. –1960

go overseas. “We’ll send 20 surveyors, four civil engineers, and five geologists to Tanganyika.

They put in a 66-hour week and still hang around after classes with arguments and questions. Very stimulating, and every college teacher should have it so good!” –1961

William Wedan ’49, en route home from Iran, where he had been on assignment for MorrisonKnudsen Construction Co., met a Knox student in Tokyo—takashi Kurisaka ’64. In a city of nine million, this accidental meeting astonished all concerned. –1964

homer “duke” harlan ’40 was on the instructional staff of the first U.S. Peace Corps group to

Mary lee patterson ’51 is in the middle of a baseball career, working on the business staff of the Kansas City Athletics. –1963

Joyce Witcraft ’64 is a digital computer programmer at U.S. Naval Supply Depot, Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. She is in a group studying requisition processing for naval supplies.

She writes: “I was happy to see that Knox has added a major in computer science.” –1965

Mary lyon Ferry ’44 is production and promotion manager with Zephyr Records in

The SIXTIES

robert a. borzello ’58 is editor of the National Insider and The Heretics, tabloid sellers on newsstands. Both papers are slanted toward “sensational controversy,” according to the Chicago Sun-Times, which quoted Borzello: “We’re for free expression of all ideas … the kind of stuff you used to see in the Hearst days.

Spicy divorces. Pin-up girls. Hollywood stars … Then the daily newspapers went respectable.” –1967

C. robert Woolsey ’63, veteran of four years of ROTC at Knox, is now also a veteran of Vietnam.

After training ... he became assistant constructive engineer for the First Logistical Command and volunteered for Asian service with the 864th Engineers. He worked on projects at Cam Ranh Bay, 155 miles north of Saigon, also near Nha Trang, sometimes under attack. –1966 C. James burkhart ’65 heads the mathematics staff at the newly formed Carl Sandburg Junior College, Galesburg. –1968

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The SEVENTIES Joseph J. sisco ’40, U.S. assistant secretary of state, was a key figure in the day-to-day maneuvers that led to the cease-fire negotiations between Israel and the United Arab Republic.

–1970 Army Major Kenneth townsend ’60 received his second award of the Bronze Star Medal in Vietnam in January. He is executive officer of the 7th Battalion, 8th Field Artillery, near Bien Hoa. –1971 emmett F. butler ’23 spoke at the annual Credit Women International Boss Night in April. His topic was “How to Confuse People without Really Trying.” –1973 g. Kirby holland ’63 writes, "Of course we see bob seibert ’63, who recently became chairman (he says ‘chairperson’) of the Knox Political Science Department.” –1974

ATTENTION CLASS CORRESPONDENTS: Several of you have sent in class notes which just missed the deadline for this issue (mainly because we adhered to the deadline for the first time in recent memory). –1976

susan rusk holland ’67 is president and founder of S.R. Holland, Inc., a Chicago-based executive search firm specializing in the placement of women in management. Holland has been manager of recruiting services for the past two years at Women’s Inc., the first executive search firm for women in management. –1978 nancy Cane beelman ’58 reports, “Homecoming Saturday began with a coffee before we were ‘treated’ to the event of the weekend—the 1958 Class Movie! I was quite right in thinking that we should all join forces and buy the thing to start a reunion bonfire. Ahggggs! We sat there watching the silent screen and suddenly the film broke. The projectionist announced that she was trying to fix it but that we had to understand that it was very old film....” –1979

The EIGHTIES Christine herbes ’70 is producing for television a dramatic series on great American women. The first program, Under This Sky: Elizabeth Cady Stanton in Kansas, was broadcast in November 1979. Herbes plans to produce dramatizations based on the lives of Margaret Fuller, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Mother Jones. –1980 barb davis Warman ’71 wrote from Managua, Nicaragua, where she is probably doing the low crawl to her desk. Barb is working there parttime as a maternal and child health care advisor for the Agency for International Development (AID) developing programs in sex education, program management, and general family planning. –1981 Cheryl spangler scott ’70, Des Moines, has left Better Homes and Gardens magazine and now works for Woodsmith, a magazine for woodworkers, which was founded in her basement four years ago. –1983 gary h. Moerke ’56 is an extra in feature films and television shows. He recently played the pilot of the Carringtons’ private jet in an episode of Dynasty and will appear in a Dr. Pepper commercial to air soon. –1984 dr. patricia gronemeyer Carrell ’62 received the Paul Pimsleur Award for Research in Foreign Language Education at the Annual Meeting of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) in New York City.

She is associate dean of the graduate school, professor of linguistics, and professor of

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psychology at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. –1986 irene bowman landis ’36 and husband Howard went to Mesa, Arizona, for the Cubs’ spring training and exhibition games. Irene is a “Die-Hard” and fears another year of suffering is coming to all Cubs fans. –1987 Jeff McCasland ’82 writes, “I am a government marketing consultant for Dun and Bradstreet, live about a mile from Washington, D.C. (in Takoma Park), and am a struggling standup comedian at night. I got my hair cut, and I wear suits.” –1989

Kathryn Calvert bloomberg ’62 is the first female mayor of Brookfield, Wisconsin. Bloomberg has previously worked as a high school mathematics teacher and started a summer theatre camp in Massachusetts for children with acting skills. She later entered manufacturing when she came up with the idea for Shrinky Dinks, a plastic toy on which children draw and then shrink and harden in the oven. –1988

The NINETIES richard hoover ’69, Los Angeles, California, is the production designer for Twin Peaks. He was also art director for the miniseries The Family of Spies and production designer for Torch Song Trilogy. –1990 Marcia hammond basichis ’69 is vice president of development for Spelling Television. Marcia was responsible for developing Beverly Hills 90210, as well as five new series. She resides in Sherman Oaks, California. –1992 Wendy scherwat ducourneau ’72 writes [following the Class of 1972’s 20th Reunion]: “Campus as a whole looks pretty good. I had forgotten the brick sidewalks, and was amazed at how difficult it can be to walk on them in heels.

Most of the out-houses are gone, as well as the health center. It looks like thermal-pane windows have been installed on Old Main, and apparently some work has been done on Alumni Hall. In speaking with Owen Muelder ’63, he says it

includes a new roof and some window repair— basically just enough work to keep the building from further deterioration. Renovation of Alumni is supposedly next on the list—great news for those of us who spent 90 percent of our Knox years inside its walls!” –1993 anne rennison ng ’63, physics major, got an M.S. in physics at Emory, did housewifing and kid raising, and is now a “Silicon Valley nerd,” writing test programs for a small startup firm. –1994 John podesta ’71 is leaving his post as aide and democratic operative to the Clinton administration in order to become a visiting professor at Georgetown University law school. At Georgetown, he will teach a course on congressional investigations, another on legislation, and he’ll work with Public Defender’s Office in Chicago. –1995

Jackie Crooks Murnane ’77 writes: “So here’s the deal. I agreed to become a Class Correspondent for the Knox Alumnus a long, long time ago, but after sending in my first letter, there was no publication for a long, long time. I tried not to take this personally. I mean, this is the 90s— right? I understand all that bureaucratic restructuring stuff. Unfortunately, I haven’t heard from anyone in the Class of ’77. I am also trying not to take this personally, but it cost me a whole session with my therapist. I mean, this is the 90s—right?” –1996 scott gibbons ’91 is involved with the music scene, having released several albums with his band, Lilith, as well as getting one track from his new post-industrial band, Orbitronik, on a compilation CD entitled Into Topographical Space, that came out in October on World Domination Records. –1997

VERY RECENT HISTORY The AUGHTS a.t. “tom” McMaster ’40, former Illinois state representative, was instrumental in converting Snakeden Hollow State Fish and Wildlife Area in Victoria, Illinois, from a strip mine to a state hunting and fishing preserve. Snakeden Hollow Lake was recently renamed “McMaster Lake” in his honor. –2000 Jim dunlevey ’54 states that he has not succumbed to the use of email because (1) “he has no need for instant communication with anyone” and (2) “the absence of email saves him from becoming a cantankerous old crank that is constantly foisting his ideas on others.” –2001 Our pal Casey (do we actually need her last name?) Kremer ’73 wrote of her intentions to “kick some purple and gold butt” at the Harley Knosher Golf Outing this summer. We cannot verify whose butts were bloodied; no scorecard was ever sent in for publication. –2002 Charles donaldson ’48 sent a brief email: “At the age of 80, if anything unusual, exciting, or for that matter, even immoral happens, I’m happy to have somewhere to brag about it.” –2004 bob rothe ’56 is now retired from his job as critical mass physicist at Rock Flats (Colorado) Nuclear Weapons Plant. He has just completed a book on the history of the Critical Mass Laboratory at Rocky Flats. Bob built 1,700

critical assemblies using plutonium and enriched uranium during his professional career. –2005 donna Quasthoff herendeen ’82 writes, “Of all the places I have gone to school, my fondest memories are of Knox. My senior picture was taken at a Green Oaks Prairie Burn. Dr. Peter Schramm, biology, introduced his students to prairie vegetation in his classes.

I went on to write a thesis on a native grass at Michigan State. I have prairie plants—lead plant, switchgrass, and prairie dock—growing in my East Coast front yard just to remind me of the ‘real’ vegetation in Illinois.” –2006 Jane davis ’85 writes, “I teach humanities at the College of DuPage. I have entered the curmudgeon phase of my career and spend much time lamenting the skills and capacities of today’s students while dramatically wagging my finger to anyone who will listen as I intone, ‘See, THIS is what No Child Left Behind has done.’” –2008 John (scott) luthy ’78 held forth as usual at the Reunion and is global products manager for Molex, Incorporated. We did not get a full explanation on why he had to change his name to John. –2009

susan payne etheridge ’83 reports that “I am still in Utah, working as a pediatric cardiologist at the children’s hospital. I am part of a group of M.D.s who travel to West Africa and Central America to teach subspecialty pediatrics to general pediatricians, residents, and medical students. I am married, have two stepchildren, three dogs, and a cat. I have learned to ski adequately.”

–2011 Mary Jacobson ’66: “I’ve been trying to clear my basement of nearly 50 years of saved ‘treasures,’ including every piece of paper my daughter ever touched, every Christmas and birthday card I ever received, and on and on. ... I was moving along expeditiously until I reached the Knox collection: my diploma, letters from special people, photographs, and a few term papers that earned good grades. I sat down and looked at every piece with quiet attention. I was amazed at the care taken by my professors in critiquing my papers— detailed, honest, constructive, respectful. And I looked at the photos and reread the letters and was so grateful, all over again, for having those people in my life.” –2012 graham troyer-Joy ’08 is doing standup comedy, writing for blogs, and developing age-related knee pain. –2014 James sheppard ’14 currently teaches English in Austria and thinks a lot about rhubarb. –2016

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Congratulations to Four Faculty Four members of the Knox faculty received promotions this June—Brandon Polite ’03 and Gabe Raley received tenure and were promoted to associate professor; Julio Noriega received tenure and was promoted to full professor; and Monica Berlin ’95 was promoted to full professor. Knox Magazine asked each of them a few questions about their time at Knox, their current research, and their personal aspirations (we even asked them to pose with a meaningful object). Here’s what they had to say:

Associate Professor of Philosophy Brandon Polite ’03 Brandon earned his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign and his B.A. from Knox.

His scholarship on the philosophy of music has been published in a variety of journals, including Pragmatism Today, and has been presented at conferences in five countries, including the UK and Lithuania. Last year, he was a featured philosopher on the blog of the American Philosophical Association.

Brandon is an active member of the Knox community and has served as a member of the First-Year Preceptorial

Steering Committee, faculty editor of The McNair Journal of Multidisciplinary Research, and faculty advisor of Knox College Philosophy Club.

Why Knox? When I was in graduate school, I always knew that I wanted to teach at a place like Knox. The more intimate setting of a small liberal arts college—found in our smaller class sizes and ample opportunities to work with students one-on-one—is more conducive to doing philosophy in the way I think it ought to be done. It turns out that there is no school more like Knox than Knox, so I leapt at the opportunity to return to teach at my alma mater (first as a visiting instructor) when it was extended to me exactly a decade ago this summer.

If money and time were no object, what problem would you tackle?

Time travel. George Lucas seriously needs to have been stopped from making the prequels!

PETER BAILLEY ’74

Monica is pictured with the ampersand sign, which was once “the 27th letter of the English alphabet.”

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BREA CUNNINGHAM

Brandon is pictured with his electric guitar.

Professor of English Monica Berlin ’95 Monica, who currently serves as chair of the English department, received her B.A. from Knox, M.A. from Western Illinois University, and M.F.A. from Vermont College. Her poetry and nonfiction have been published in numerous journals and magazines, including The Kenyon Review, Water Stone Review, and Cimarron Review, among others, and has received various awards, including the Heartland Poetry Prize and New Measure Poetry Prize. Her collection Nostalgia for a World Where We Can Live, winner of the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry Open Competition, is forthcoming from Southern Illinois University Press. She is a recipient of the Knox Young Alumni Achievement Award and the Philip Green WrightLombard College Prize for Distinguished Teaching.

What is your most memorable moment at Knox? Each spring, the faculty and senior creative writing majors take a walk, usually in considerable wind, to Carl Sandburg’s birthplace. When we cross in a long line, usually two-by-two, the Fourth Avenue bridge— where we can look over to see campus

The South Lawn

Julio earned his Ph.D., M.A., and a Graduate Certificate in Latin American Studies from University of Pittsburgh.

He also earned Licenciatura in Hispanic Literature and a B.A. from the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos. His research on Indigenous cultures has been widely published, including, most recently, the book Poesía Quechua en Bolivia (Quechua poetry in Bolivia).

Currently, he is working on a new

If you weren’t a professor, you would be a ____? An Indigenous musician.

Associate Professor of Sociology Gabrielle Raley Gabrielle earned her Ph.D. and M.A. from the University of California-Los Angeles and her B.A. from Evergreen State

PETER BAILLEY ’74

Julio is pictured with a hand-woven alpaca wool blanket, called qonpi, qata or lliklla, that belongs to the Indigenous community of Chinchero, Cusco.

What is your most memorable moment at Knox? My most memorable moments happen frequently: each time that a student comes into my office convinced they can’t do something, and then finds a way to do it.

If money and time were no object, what problem would you tackle?

By tackle, I assume you mean not just study but remediate. In this case, I believe systemic racism is one of our most disgusting and pernicious social creations. As a white person, I benefit from it every day of my life, always in unearned and undeserved ways.

I don’t feel guilty as a white person, I feel motivated.

Gabe is pictured with a hammer, which symbolizes the everyday work of making, rebuilding, and deconstructing our social world. ’74

Professor of Spanish Julio Noriega

Describe your current research/ creative work. My research is intriguing, yet at times arduous, for it involves extensive fieldwork within isolated migrant communities of Indigenous heritage people: studying, documenting, and compiling poetry written in the Quechua language by marginalized writers in Peru and Bolivia. Broadening beyond the examination of the Quechua language and literature, my academic curiosity includes Andean bilingual and migrant literature, Latin American literature, and Andean cinema, and has resulted in the dissemination of my studies as anthologies, essays, short stories, and critical reviews throughout the international community of scholars.

College. Her scholarship has been published in Contemporary Sociology and American Families: A Multicultural Reader, and she has presented her work at the American Sociological Association and the Annual Conference on Social Theory, Politics, and the Arts.

Gabe has been very active in campus service and leadership, including development and implementation of the InterGroup Dialogue curriculum and training and serving as chair of Campus Diversity Committee, faculty mentor for McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program students, and faculty advisor for student clubs and organizations.

EY BAILL

If you weren’t a professor, you would be a ____? Like many writers I suspect, I fantasize about opening a bookstore some day.

book-length project, which explores Indigenous messengers in transatlantic short stories from 1526-1942. Julio is chair of the Latin American Studies department and has served as director of the Knox in Barcelona program.

PETER

and the Sandburg house and other parts of town in every direction and then look down below us at the river of trains—that’s the moment. I try to slow so I can turn around to take in the whole scene, all our writers around me, then I like to let them pass me, to let them walk far enough ahead that I can watch them as they come off the bridge and down into the neighborhood, as they make their way.

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PETER BAILLEY ’74

Full-Stack Software Developer at Argo Group, Chicago “Knox gave me the chance to explore my interests and provided me with resources I never imagined possible that prepared me to face the real world challenge with confidence.”

Psychology, Interpersonal Communications (Self-Designed) Double Major Elementary School Teacher through Teach for America, Gary, Indiana

Anthropology & Sociology Major, Business Minor Pursuing a Master’s Degree in Nursing, University of Illinois

EMILY TREVOR Arts Administration Self-Designed Major, Theatre Directing Minor

ALEJANDRO BELTRAN Chemistry Major

PETER BAILLEY ’74

“Knox made me realize that growth begins at the end of my comfort zone.”

Pursuing a Ph.D. in Chemistry, University of Maryland

PETER BAILLEY ’74

Computer Science Major, Studio Art Minor

“I wouldn’t have had internships, gone abroad, or completed two off-campus studies without the resources we had here.”

STEFFI ANTONY

DAKOTA STIPP Computer Science Major; Music, Theatre Double Minor PETER BAILLEY ’74

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Account Manager at the Heart of Western Michigan United Way and Co-Founder of Fresh Water Performance Lab theatre company, Grand Rapids, Michigan “Start-Up Term was incredibly helpful in learning what it actually takes to creating a business and running it.”

“I’m a first-gen, low-income [student].

I came to the United States when I was 10. Now, I have three fellowships and a stipend. Now, I’ll be working with a Latino professor and representing minorities in a STEM field. It’s exciting.”

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JINGLUN DING

STEPHANIE CORDEROGONZALEZ

SUBMITTED

Three-hundred students (and one) received their diplomas on the beautiful Sunday morning of June 4 and officially entered the world as Knox graduates. Actor, philanthropist, and activist Eva Longoria delivered the Commencement address, reminding the graduates of the value of their degree.

“As hard as you worked to get here . . . an education like yours is still a privilege—a very rare privilege that not everyone gets to experience. When you receive your degrees today, you will be among the few in the world with such an education,” she told them. “And as my mother never ceased to remind my sisters and me—‘to whom much is given, much is to be expected.’”

Living up to Longoria’s expectations, members of the Class of 2017 have big plans post-Knox, from entering the workforce to pursuing graduate school and everything in between. Here’s what’s next for a few members of the class:

ELENA IATROPOULOU-BANNAT ’18

What’s Next for the Class of 2017?

Pursuing an MFA in Sound Design, Yale School of Drama “Part of [my interest in sound design] comes from my experience as a sound designer in the theatre department, but computer science also really helped a lot.”

The South Lawn StartUp Term Sharpens Entrepreneurial Talents Knox students sharpened their entrepreneurial skills in a real-world environment through StartUp Term, where teams build companies offering a variety of products and services. The five teams from this year’s StartUp Term established businesses in multiple fields: art, aviation, food, apparel, and software development. Some of the teams are continuing to pursue their efforts, even though StartUp Term officially ended with the conclusion of Knox’s 10-week spring term.

For example, Bluebrick Collective, which is working to establish a “creativity incubator” in Galesburg, launched “The Summer of Engaged Arts,” offering workshops and a collaborative space for anyone—especially young people—to create art.

In addition, Chart Air, an aviation services business, was invited to join the 2017 session of Elmspring, a real estate accelerator that supports technology startups through a robust network of real estate and venture partners. As a participant in Elmspring 2017, which started in late June, Chart Air receives seed capital, access to Elmspring’s network of advisors and mentors, office space at the Chicago tech hub 1871, and other professional services and resources.

Cortney Hill ’17, who was a member of the Chart Air team, said StartUp Term was “extremely valuable in the sense that we talk about business-related things in the classroom, but having real-life business experience is a completely different ballgame.”

Bridget McCarthy ’18, who worked on Bluebrick Collective, described StartUp Term as “an amazing opportunity for all of the teams because we have had such freedom to make mistakes and, also, to flourish.”

Open to students from all academic disciplines, StartUp Term provides an opportunity to transform original business concepts into real services and products.

Students accepted into StartUp Term work from office space in the Bondi Building in downtown Galesburg.

“Being off-campus really starts us thinking outside the Knox bubble,” McCarthy added.

StartUp Term 2017 students mostly set their own schedules and decided how to accomplish their goals. Throughout the process, they were mentored by four Knox faculty members: John Dooley, William and Marilyn Ingersoll Chair in Computer Science; Jaime Spacco, associate professor of computer science; John Spittell, Wagner Distinguished Chair in Business; and Tim Stedman ’09, visiting assistant professor of art. Part of StartUp Term also involved discussions with Knox alumni with entrepreneurial experience.

Sparks UPSTANDER. Someone who will take action when they witness harassment, as described by Lecia Brooks, outreach director for the Southern Poverty Law Center, during her visit to Knox and Galesburg, February 21, 2017

“Go where you’re uncomfortable.

Go somewhere where

YOUR VOICE will find you.”

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Rita Dove as part of the Creative Writing 50th Anniversary Visiting Writers Series, April 10, 2017

“@tashaaaaaaa (Tasha Coryell ’10),

YOU’RE FAMOUS You’re in the @KnoxCollege1837 Magazine!”

Erin Dreyfuss ’10 on Twitter, April 26, 2017*

“I’ve always been political

AND AN ACTIVIST as well as a person of faith. One doesn’t cancel out the other.”

Monica Corsaro, new director of spiritual life, who joined campus in May 2017

“We cannot demand transparency from the administration without addressing the fact that students must

GET INVOLVED on the campus and with the administration if they would like to see change happen at Knox.”

Editors of The Knox Student in the May 25, 2017, editorial, Thoughts from the Embers *Editor’s note: And now you’re famous too, Erin!

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Close to $15 Million Raised from Alumni and Friends; Knox Fund and K Club Set Records Knox ended another strong fundraising year in June, as donors gave almost $15 million to support Knox students, faculty, and the academic program during the 2016-17 fiscal year (July 1, 2016-June 30, 2017). In total, 7,622 alumni, parents, and friends gave $14.9 million to the College.

This year’s results included a new record for the Knox Fund, or annual operating gifts. Last year’s record of $3,808,585 was surpassed by more than $20,000 for a new record of $3,828,952. The K Club, the official booster club of Knox College Athletics, also had a record-breaking year, raising $158,000 to support Knox student-athletes and the athletics program, $30,000 more than last year’s recordbreaking $127,000.

“I continue to be inspired by the dedication of the Knox community, whose generosity helped us achieve another record-setting fundraising year,” said President Teresa Amott.

This year’s total fundraising came from 4,223 alumni and 3,399 parents and friends. In addition to the Knox Fund, their support funded: • $2.5 million for enhancements to the physical campus, including upgrades to the second floor of George Davis Hall, housing the modern languages and political science departments; gifts toward the new Whitcomb Art Center; and the first phase of the renovation of the Umbeck Science-Mathematics Center; • $2.8 million to the endowment to support faculty compensation and student experiences; and • $5.8 million in realized estate gifts in support of scholarships and College operations, including more than $3 million in an endowed fund with annual income to support the new Power of Experience grant, which provides incoming students with $2,000 to fund an experiential learning opportunity during their junior or senior year.

The majority of the almost $15 million is in support of Above & Beyond: Initiatives for Knox, a series of fundraising projects and priorities that build on Knox’s historic strengths and invest in the College’s future. Since 2011, the Above & Beyond initiatives have received gifts totaling $12.6 million for Alumni Hall; $8.2 million for the Whitcomb Art Center, which opened for classes in January; $3 million to support the

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first phase of renovations to the Umbeck ScienceMathematics Center; and $57 million in support of faculty and students and other campus facilities. In total, Above & Beyond has raised more than $80 million to date.

In recent years, private gift support has surpassed endowment income to become Knox’s second largest source of income after tuition. As of March 31, 2017, Knox’s endowment stood at $140 million.

“Our alumni, parents, and friends continue to make investments in our prairie college, and for that, I am extremely thankful,” added President Amott.

K Club Catches Fire In the seven years since the K Club was founded, annual donations have grown by more than $100,000. In its founding year, the K Club raised $20,000 from 128 alumni, parents, and friends. When the books were closed on fiscal year 2017, nearly 400 alumni, parents, and friends had given $158,000 to support Knox’s student-athletes and the athletics program.

The results are a direct result of dedicated alumni, who have stepped up to contact classmates on behalf of the club and to sponsor nationwide events and challenges, including this year’s 32 for 32 Challenge. The challenge featured seven Knox letterwinners pledging to give an extra $32,000 to support Knox student-athletes—if the College could raise $32,000 in 32 days. Donors stepped up to the plate and knocked the goal out of the park.

“The growing strength of the K Club is a direct reflection of the growing strength of Knox’s athletic program, and I am confident that our alumni, parents, and friends will continue to support Knox athletics during this transformative moment,” said President Teresa Amott.

The South Lawn Fired Up/ Burned Out

PETER BAILLEY ’74

Fired Up Emily Trevor graduated with a self-designed major in arts administration and minor in theatre directing. “I am so thrilled that the new arts administration minor will encourage more artists at Knox to take business classes,” says Trevor. “For me, the classes I took in the business and management department have been hugely empowering and essential to my education.”

New Minor Combines Arts, Business Knox’s new minor in arts administration will give students the skills they need for a more rapid career trajectory as practicing artists or arts managers. Faculty in business & management, economics, theatre, music, studio art, creative writing, dance, and art history developed the minor, which includes required coursework in business, accounting, marketing, arts, and an arts internship.

“In developing the minor, we looked at the skills an arts manager needs that are portable between all of the arts,” says Elizabeth Carlin Metz, Smith V. Brand Endowed Chair in Theatre Arts and program director for the new minor.

Metz and John Spittell, Wagner Distinguished Chair in Business, co-taught a new core course for the minor this spring, Introduction to Arts Administration. Seventeen students took the course, which covered topics like grant writing, organizational principles, community relations and programming, board and audience development, and business ethics. The class included real-world case studies and a hands-on introduction to local arts organizations.

Metz says that the minor, coupled with current Knox programs in art, dance, creative writing, or theatre, gives the individual artist a business platform needed for success.

“This becomes a pathway that a person who’s passionate about the arts can take to continue to sustain and contribute to the arts.”

Arts administration is the fifth new minor that Knox has introduced in the last two years; astronomy, design, health studies, and statistics were introduced during the 2015-16 academic year.

A lot of attention is paid to our history at Knox, particularly regarding Abraham Lincoln, but we sometimes forget that there are two professors who help to keep this legacy alive, breathing new life into our 16th president with their ongoing research: Rod Davis and Doug Wilson, co-directors of the Lincoln Studies Center. This spring, they received the inaugural Legacy Award from the Abraham Lincoln Institute in recognition of their achievements. They also received the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize Special Achievement Award; the only other past recipient is Steven Spielberg.

We sure are #KnoxProud of our resident Lincoln scholars.

Smoldering A 180-year old campus with many historic buildings has its share of maintenance issues, including the notorious steam pipes underneath campus. These pipes have caused frustration for many dedicated facilities employees through the years, but this spring takes the cake—a steam pipe on the east side of Old Main sprang a leak, literally cooking the ground and various cables around it. Weeks of work and yards of new sod later, the pipe was fixed in time for Commencement. Let’s all give a big shout out to our facilities folks for their good work (and cross our fingers that no new leaks spring anytime soon).

Welp, after trying to write this section about five different times, we figured out something . . . we’re burned out on Burned Out. At least for this issue. Oh, there was plenty we could write about, from the ongoing saga in the Illinois State Capitol to recent polls regarding perceptions on higher education, but it just wasn’t happening. Instead, let’s all think about a few more things were Fired Up about and see how that feels . . . like how amazing the new Whitcomb Art Building looks in the spring or the fact that the new Prairie Fire logo received a CASE Silver Award for visual identity programs. Ah, that feels much better.

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I am Knox — Samantha Nichols ’20 Vitals Hometown: Waimea, Kauai, Hawaii Major/Minor: Undecided (but leaning toward biology!)

Campus Involvements: Prairie Fire Women’s Golf Team, Student Athlete Advisory Committee Class Year: 2020

PETER BAILLEY ’74

How did you decide to come to Knox?

I was actually recruited to play golf here. I visited the school on a recruiting trip, as well as others, but I decided on attending Knox because from the moment I stepped on campus, something felt right; it felt like I was home. I grew up in a town even smaller than Galesburg, but I always felt so isolated (which was accurate since I was on an island!), and I always wondered what a big city would be like. Knox fulfilled that wish for me, being an hour’s drive away from Peoria and the Quad Cities, but it also had the same small town feel that I grew up in and have always loved. On top of all that, Knox had a great academic reputation.

Three Facts about Samantha She isn’t used to playing golf in pants and a jacket. She says it was one of the hardest adjustments to make during her first Midwestern winter.

She’s looking forward to the new golf simulator on campus this fall.

She knows exactly how many miles she is from home (4,166 miles, but who’s counting?).

What’s it like to be so far from home, and in such a different environment?

I was homesick for the first month here, because I was so used to having my family there and my friends just down the street, and now I am an ocean and half a continent away from all of that comfort. During orientation, I did a library session with some of the volleyball girls. I met two of my best friends here, Valerie and Sherry. They’ve helped me through all the struggles I’ve been through, including my first winter, hard classes, being homesick, harder sport competitions, and much more, and we’ve made so many memories together that have made me who I am.

It made me realize that although home is great, it will always be there. This is my time to experience things I can’t experience on a small island.

What do you hope to do with your Knox degree?

I hope to go to medical school, which has always been my dream and being at Knox has made that dream seem more attainable. The classes may be very challenging, but it is molding me into a critical thinker who will be ready to tackle whatever comes next in my life.

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The South Lawn With cake and kind words, members of the Knox community celebrated the careers of three retiring professors this spring: Professor of Anthropology Larry Breitborde, William and Marilyn Ingersoll Professor of Computer Science John Dooley, and Szold Distinguished Service Professor of Classics Stephen Fineberg. Together, their careers represent 76 years of teaching and administrative experience at Knox.

Breitborde taught at Knox for 22 years and is known for his sense of humor, his dedication to his students, and his passion for teaching.

Professor Emeritus of Anthropology Jon Wagner said he viewed Breitborde as an “ideal exemplar of the spirit of Knox.”

“Like his academic colleagues, Larry counseled students, became fond of them as individuals, and went out of his way for them personally when the occasion arose,” said Wagner.

Breitborde received his M.A. and Ph.D. in anthropology at University of Rochester in 1978. He came to Knox as dean of the College in 1995, stepping down from that position in 2013 to continue his career at Knox as a professor. His teaching interests include language and culture, SubSaharan Africa, and linguistics. During his career, he received various grants and awards, including a Fulbright Dissertation Award, a Fulbright Africa Regional Research Award, research grants from the National Science Foundation, and a National Endowment for the Humanities grant.

After a 16-year career at Knox, Dooley is remembered as a knowledge-

PETER BAILLEY ’74 (3)

A Trio of Faculty Retirements

able and inspiring teacher, mentor, and colleague.

“I always enjoyed his stories from working in the corporate world, and he helped me grow my interest in project management,” wrote Andrea Tait Block ’04 of her former professor. “I believe because of the education I received and his experience which he shared with us, I have been able to reach my career goals more quickly.”

Dooley spent almost 20 years working in the computer industry before he joined the Knox faculty in 2001. His teaching interests include software development and computer security, and he was one of the faculty members for StartUp Term, an immersive experience where students create and run their own businesses.

Dooley’s teaching earned him the 2016 Philip Green Wright/Lombard College Prize for distinguished teaching by a tenured faculty member. In addition, he has written dozens of publications, book chapters, book reviews, and presentations and is the author of four books, including, most recently, Codes, Ciphers & Spies: Tales of Military Intelligence during World War I.

Fineberg taught classics at Knox for 41 years, beginning the year after he received his Ph.D. in classics from the University of Texas in 1975. His teaching interests have been Greek language, art and architecture, and Greek and Roman origins of Western thought. He is known in the Knox community for his passion for teaching and learning and commitment to students.

Keith Jones ’89 notes that after 30 years in the teaching business, “I can say easily that Steve remains one of the most important influences on me as a thinker, a scholar, and a teacher.”

As a faculty member, Fineberg served as chair of the classics department and as an advisor to off-campus programs (College Year in Athens, Newberry Library, and London-Florence), as well as past director of the Newberry Library and Florence programs. He was also a visiting senior associate member of American School of Classical Studies in Athens, Greece.

In 2014, Knox alumni and students accompanied Fineberg to Greece to study Greek art and architecture.

All three were named professors emeriti at the June Board of Trustees meeting.

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Students Experience Life as Medical Professionals Two groups of pre-med students recently learned firsthand what it means to be a medical professional.

In a cooperative effort between Alumni Relations, the Bastian Family Career Center, the Pre-Health Program, and the Center for Teaching and Learning, 11 students spent their

BREA CUNNINGHAM

spring break on a medical immersion trip. They traveled to locations around the Chicago area to shadow alumni involved in a variety of different careers in medicine, from pediatrics to surgery.

The experience, students said, was very rewarding.

“Shadowing Knox alumni professionals was much more personal,” said Madeline Lag ’17. “Knowing they had similar educational values made them

feel like mentors. Also, seeing graduates of Knox in such esteemed positions made reaching career goals seem more tangible.”

Lag worked with Dr. Eric Williams ’85, a chiropractor, and was inspired by his approach to his work. She said he showed her the power of positivity and the transformative role it plays in one’s own life as well as others’.

In addition to job shadowing opportunities, students also participated in an alumni networking program at the Union League Club of Chicago, visited an examination room in the Robert H. Lurie Medical Research Center of Northwestern University, and heard a presentation on health care financing by a Northwestern University physician.

A few months later, six students considering careers in health care spent two intense weeks in June getting an idea of what it’s like to be a medical student. They used a surgical drill on a cadaver’s skull, learned how to read electrocardiograms and close wounds with sutures, and encountered other aspects of medical school training during the Pre-Med Immersion Course at Jump Simulation Center in Peoria, Illinois. Jump Simulation Center is a

collaboration of OSF HealthCare and the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria.

“The program was more than I ever thought it would be,” said Meaghan Dorsey ’19, a biochemistry major who plans to attend medical school. “Everyone at Jump is so focused on innovation and including technology in health care in order to provide the best possible care.”

During the immersion program, students put in long days getting hands-on experiences that also included shadowing medical professionals in the hospital and in outpatient clinics, responding to the medical difficulties of simulated patients, and experiencing virtual reality technologies.

At the end of the program, participants received a certificate of completion from Jump, OSF HealthCare, and the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria.

Support from an anonymous donor enabled Knox students to participate in the immersion program.

“This program has challenged me and caused me to work hard and push myself past anything I have ever done or been expected to do as a pre-med student,” Maggie Brick ’18 said.

Go Figure

12,755 Pounds (or 6 tons) of waste diverted from the dumpsters and donated to local organizations during move-out 2017

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3 Members of the Class of 2017 joined the Peace Corps

09.65 School record in the indoor 60m hurdles set by first-year studentathlete Michaela Kowalewski

PETER BAILLEY ’74

ELISA GOITIA ’18 CONTRIBUTED TO THE REPORTING OF THIS STORY

The South Lawn

Celebrating a Milestone Graduating from college is a momentous occasion, and if you are the ďŹ rst member of your family to graduate, well, that calls for a special celebration. For the second year in a row, Knox hosted a First-Generation Celebration and reception for graduating seniors and their families during senior week. From the looks of the photo above, this year’s celebration was enjoyed by all.

125 Knox alumni connected with students through the KNect: Knox Networking Program last year

20 Illinois College Press Association Awards awarded to The Knox Student in March

$158,000 Raised for the K Club last year, the most in college history

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Three to Pursue Fulbrights

PETER BAILLEY ’74

PETER BAILLEY ’74

SUBMITTED

BY CELINA DIETZEL ’17

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Three Knox alumni are pursuing Fulbright awards to complete teaching assistantships for the 2017-2018 school year. Emily Malec ’16, Cortney Hill ’17, and Raeann Boero ’17 are among a select group of U.S. citizens who have been chosen to teach, conduct research, and provide expertise abroad through the prestigious Fulbright U.S. Student Program.

Malec, an Asian studies major, will teach English in South Korea.

Hill, a political science major, and Boero, an anthropology and sociology major, will both teach English in Malaysia.

Fulbright awards are funded by the U.S. Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board. Applicants are chosen according to factors such as the quality of their proposal, their academic record, and their personal qualifications. Nearly 6,000 people apply for the Fulbright U.S. Student Program each year and roughly 25 percent of applicants receive awards.

Since 2006, 22 Knox students have been selected for Fulbright awards, including three award recipients in 2016. Overall, dozens of Knox students, faculty members, and alumni have received Fulbright fellowships and scholarships.

KNOX MAGAZINE Fall 2017

100+ Study Abroad Opportunities Now Available With Knox’s recent addition of more than 40 pre-approved study abroad programs, students who want to study off-campus can now choose from nearly 100 different opportunities, from tropical island biodiversity in Panama to public health in Thailand or language and culture in Morocco. The additions reflect current students’ interests, in terms of geographic locations and topics they want to explore.

“I wanted students to have good information about lessfrequented locations and program options for study abroad,” said Brenda Tooley, director of the Eleanor Stellyes Center for Global Studies, which coordinates Knox’s study abroad and off-campus programs.

“The idea was not to compete with our own strong programs with a language and culture focus but to add opportunities for students through programs with emphasis on complex global issues of interest to students in majors across the College—such as globalization and climate change,” she added.

The South Lawn 10 Years of Peace Corps Prep

Knox students already have a track record of participating in some of these additional opportunities, which take place on six different continents and represent a geographic expansion for the College’s pre-approved off-campus programs. The new set of pre-approved programs also offer generous financial aid and scholarship opportunities for students.

Roughly 50 percent of Knox students participate in study abroad and off-campus programs at some point in their undergraduate education. That’s a dramatic increase from just four years earlier, when about 32 percent of Knox undergraduates participated in study abroad, either in term-length programs or short-term immersion programs.

In 2016, Generation Study Abroad recognized Knox and 11 other U.S. higher education institutions for exceeding their goals to boost students’ participation in study abroad.

Generation Study Abroad is a five-year initiative of the Institute of International Education (IIE) that aims to double the number of U.S. students who study abroad by 2020.

In 2007, Knox became the first college or university in the country to enter into an agreement with the Peace Corps to create a Peace Corps Preparatory Program. The program, which involves a specialized curriculum and experiences, aims to better equip students for international service and widen the pool of qualified candidates for the Peace Corps’ rigorous application process.

Knox students and alumni have a long record of success with the Peace Corps, with more than 200 alumni having served since the Peace Corps was founded in 1961. Last year, for example, Knox had three Peace Corps applicants—all of whom had gone through the Peace Corps Prep Program and earned a certificate. All three were accepted as Peace Corps volunteers.

Based on alumni information, at least nine Knox alumni currently are or soon will be Peace Corps volunteers, working in agriculture, education, health, community economic development, and youth development. They serve in Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Morocco, Myanmar, Rwanda, Uganda, and South Africa, as well as in the Peace Corps Response Program, which sends experienced professionals to undertake short-term, high-impact service assignments in communities around the world.

In addition to helping students prepare to be strong applicants for the Peace Corps, Knox’s Peace Corps Prep Program also benefits students and alumni who pursue other forms of community service. One of those alumni is Raeann Boero ’17, who completed Knox’s Peace Corps Prep and received a Fulbright fellowship to teach English next year in Malaysia.

Marilyn Barnes ’17 also completed the Peace Corps Prep Program this year and is serving in AmeriCorps through City Year, which provides mentorship and academic support to at-risk students.

Barnes, an anthropology and sociology major, has been interested in the Peace Corps since high school. While she hasn’t yet applied, she believes the Peace Corps Prep Program “will continue to help me throughout my future.”

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First Impressions “I was in the girls’ bathroom forever.”

The first sentence of I Must Have You (SkyHorse Publishing, 2017) by JoAnna Novak ’07 Novak’s kaleidoscope of 1990s America, filled with vibrant imagery from Riot Grrrl graffiti to Michael Jordan posters, is a harrowing story of addiction and obsession that reflects the complexities of girlhood and womanhood.

Peter Cozzens’ Epic Journey Peter Cozzens ’79 is the author or editor of 17 books on the American Civil War and the American West. He recently retired from a 30-year career as a foreign service officer in the U.S. Department of State, where he served primarily in Latin America. In 2002, he received the American Foreign Service Association’s highest award for exemplary moral courage, integrity, and creative dissent. Prior to joining the Foreign Service, he served as a captain in the U.S. Army, where his focus was on military intelligence.

His most recent book, The Earth Is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West, received the 2017 Gilder Lehrman Prize in Military History and was chosen by Smithsonian Magazine as one of the top 10 history books of 2016.

When did you start writing your first book?

I started writing when I was an army officer and completed it during my first tour of foreign service. It kind of languished because I didn’t know what to do with it, but with the assistance of someone with publishing contacts, I was able to get it published in 1990. It was a Book of the Month Club selection and a History Book Club best seller. After that, contracts came sort of easily, and I either wrote or edited 16 books during the course of my foreign service career. When I had the opportunity to retire at age 55, I took a chance and was able to devote myself full time to writing and concentrate on moving to the next level in terms of getting an agent, getting a contract with a top publisher (Knopf), and securing a contract for a second book.

The subtitle of The Earth Is Weeping is The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West. Why is it an epic story?

The scope of the book covers three decades and ranges from the Canadian border into northern Mexico, and from California east to the Missouri River.

It’s a huge expanse in terms of the

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many different tribes and conflicts, so I think that qualifies as something epic in scope. It took two-and-a-half years of research, which included a month total in trips west visiting sites, many of which were on private ranches or public lands from the Texas Panhandle to the Northern Plains to the Pacific Northwest. I walked the ground at the majority of the sites about which I wrote. It’s something intangible, in part, but it helps you add authentic color to the writing if you see the ground. The sites of the Indian wars that I wrote about are, for the most part, in as close to pristine condition as something can possibly be, so I was able to get a feel for what the areas were like, what the vegetation was like, what the terrain was like—to get the whole sensory experience.

Why have your books focused on the American Civil War and American West?

As a kid growing up, I always had an interest in military history, in particular the Civil War. At Knox, that interest took a back seat to my evolving interest in international relations and living abroad. My interest in military history re-emerged when I was in the army,

Knox Writes which gradually developed into an interest in the American West, and, now the American Indian experience in general. My next book is a biography of Chief Tecumseh.

I did not study American history at Knox, nor did I study Native American history. I’m self-developed in that respect. I did not go to graduate school in history, but my Knox experience and the emphasis on writing at Knox was more than sufficient to give me confidence and develop my skills in writing.

What part of the creative process do you enjoy most?

I love the research because it satisfies the detective in me. I do all my research myself, digging through obscure primary source material and making connections. From that, I develop a story and see where, perhaps, I differ from previous interpretations of events. That appeals to one part of me. The writing appeals to a very different part of me, the creative part. So I really enjoy both equally.

The funny thing is, once the book is published, it’s something of a letdown, sort of like having a child that’s going off to college.

The book’s published and it belongs to readers and is no longer yours. I’m already looking toward what I want to work on next. No sooner was The Earth Is Weeping published than I was already into my next book. It’s the process that I enjoy more than anything else.

What advice would you give to aspiring writers?

Even when I was in foreign service, I tried to keep the discipline of working a certain number of hours in the evenings and on weekends. If you’re going to wait for inspiration, you’re not going to be real productive, so you have to sit down and just plug away at it.

There were days when, in the course of eight hours, I only put two paragraphs on paper, and the next day it would all come together. You have to treat it like a job and just plug away at it whether you feel inspired or not.

Peter Cozzens received an Alumni Achievement Award from Knox College in 1999.

Books by Members of the Knox Community Learning About Objects in Infancy Routeledge, 2016 amy Work needham ’87 How do young infants experience the world around them? How similar or different are infant from adult experiences and how do they progress from relatively sparse knowledge to much more elaborate knowledge and expectations in just a few months? Needham provides an extensive overview of her research on infant learning with a particular focus on how infants learn about objects.

Trench Warfare: How to Win the War to Educate Our Children Hugo House, 2016 dennis geraghty ’60 In 1983, the federal government issued a report on the status of public education in the U.S. It concluded that not only was public education failing, it was failing at every level, kindergarten through college.

This book explains why, after spending hundreds of millions of dollars, public education is still failing in 2017.

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Knox Writes Flock Together—A Love Affair with Extinct Birds University of Nebraska Press, 2016 bJ hollars ’07 From neophyte to experienced birder, Hollars’ memoir reveals the call to become a global citizen and the journey to embrace ecological responsibility. Moved by species of birds lost to time, through science, history and lyricism, Hollars explores what can be learned from extinct species.

Making Sense of the Hebrew Bible Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2016 robert butterfield ’65

Into the Mystic: The Visionary and Ecstatic Roots of 1960s Rock and Roll

Routeledge, 2017 emre sencer, associate professor of history

Park Street Press, 2017 Christopher hill ’75

Originally from Turkey and a specialist in German history, Sencer looks at the connections between the two militaries and feelings of fear and insecurity—and the drive for order in the rather vague and insecure world of the interwar years of the 1920s and 1930s—that were very similar in both countries.

Music critic Christopher Hill examines the visionary, spiritual, and mystical influences on the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, the Incredible String Band, the Velvet Underground, and others to show how 1960s rock and roll music transformed consciousness on both the individual and collective levels.

Forest Park: Images of America Arcadia Publishing, 2017 don Corrigan ’73 & holly shanks Forest Park includes vintage images, local memories, personal stories, and unique points of view of the park known as the “Heart of Saint Louis,” which features the Saint Louis Zoo, The Saint Louis Art Museum, The Missouri History Museum, The Muny, and the Saint Louis Science Center.

The park was also home to the 1904 World’s Fair and Summer Olympics.

KNOX COLLEGE ARCHIVES

Thanks to recent archaeology, it is now possible to paint a factually reliable history of Israel and make strong connections between texts in the Hebrew Bible and actual events.

Butterfield offers concise responses to some of the questions his students and parishioners have been asking him for decades as a professor, pastor, and author.

Order and Insecurity in Germany and Turkey: Military Cultures of the 1930s

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Class Knox

Flashback Pulitzer-winning Poet Who is the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet who visited Knox this year to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Knox’s Program in Creative Writing?

(Hint: She also gave the address at Knox’s 144th Commencement, which was featured on the cover of the Knox Alumnus, now known as the Knox Magazine). Do you remember the year when she gave the address?

Let us know at knoxmag@knox.edu.

To read responses to last issue’s Flashback photo, Support Our Troops, visit knox.edu/knoxmag.

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Alumni News

A FIJI Sesquicentennial

TOM FOLEY

More than 150 members of Knox’s Phi Gamma Delta chapter and their guests gathered in Galesburg in April to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the fraternity’s founding at the College. The Gamma Deuteron chapter of Phi Gamma Delta was first established at Knox on April 5, 1867, and, since then, nearly 1,700 Knox men have been initiated into the chapter. A total of 112 Gamma Deuteron chapter alumni from 24 states and the District of Columbia made the trek to Galesburg for a full weekend of friendship, food, and fun. Another 28 undergraduate members and a pledge class of 12 added up to 152 FIJIs and FIJIs-to-be attending all or some of the weekend’s events, including a Pig Dinner banquet, picnic, community service projects,and golf outing. Read more about the anniversary online at www.knox.edu/knoxmag.

Knox’s Alumni Network

NOW IN THE PALM OF YOUR HAND Knox KNect App • Find alumni near you • Build your professional network • Stay in touch with classmates

Download now on Apple and Android.

www.knox.edu/knect

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Class Knox The Knox College Board of Trustees officially welcomed five alumni to its ranks on July 1, 2017: Barbara A. Baird ’73, John T. Lawler ’88, Laurence J. Msall ’84, Derek Papp ’01, and John J. Straus Jr. ’73. Baird, Lawler, and Msall will serve as general trustees, Papp as alumni trustee, and Straus as past chair of the Alumni Council.

Baird, a 1994 Knox College Alumni Achievement Award recipient, currently serves as the Horace White Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Cornell University. She has been honored for her work with the New York Academy’s Harold Lamport Award for Biophysics and Physiology and a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, among others.

After holding a variety of roles at Ford Motor Company since 1990, Lawler is currently the executive vice president and controller for Ford Motors and was, most recently, CEO & President of Ford Motors China. He has a wealth of experience in business strategy, particularly related to market analysis, pricing strategy, and product programs.

Msall is currently the president of The Civic Federation, a tax policy and government research organization. Before joining The Civic Federation in 2002, he held a variety of political appointments, including senior advisor for economic development for Illinois Governor George Ryan.

Papp is a board-certified, orthopaedic sports medicine physician employed at MedStar Good Samaritan Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. He also has a part-time appointment at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, where he teaches residents, and serves as a team physician for the Baltimore Orioles and their minor league affiliate, the Aberdeen Ironbirds.

Straus is client services manager for Exponent in Chicago. His professional specialties include new venture startups, public affairs, government relations, business development and marketing, media relations, and project management. He served as chair of the Alumni Council for the last two years and is a recipient of the Knox Service Award.

Meet The Alumni Trustee: Derek Papp ’01 Knox Magazine recently spoke with new Alumni Trustee Derek Papp about his Knox experience, life after Knox, and plans for his new role on the Board.

SUBMITTED

Board Welcomes Five Alumni

What were some of the highlights of your Knox experience?

Highlights of my Knox experience . . . traveling to West Africa with my Advanced Preceptorial class, spending a summer working in Professor [Diana] Cermak’s organic chemistry lab, working in the Lincoln Studies Center with Professors [Rod] Davis and [Doug} Wilson, and transcribing original records from the early Galesburg Jewish community in the late 1800s with Professor [Penny] Gold. I also remember playing campus golf and running around Lake Storey with the cross country team.

Talk about your life after Knox.

After Knox, I attended medical school at Johns Hopkins and stayed for my residency. I completed a sports medicine fellowship in Miami, Florida, and returned to Baltimore where I’ve been practicing. I have also served as a part-time assistant professor of orthopaedic surgery at the Johns Hopkins Hospital since 2011.

Currently, I’m one of the team physicians for the Baltimore Orioles. I started with some simple game coverage when I was a chief resident in 2009, and have been a member of the Major League Baseball (MLB) Team Physician’s Association since 2014.

Why have you chosen to stay involved with the College?

I’m still involved because I love Knox College. I loved my time there as a student, the relationships I built, and the path it put me on for my life.

What do you hope to accomplish as an alumni trustee?

I hope my time as an alumni trustee will allow me to help the other trustees make solid, sound decisions that position Knox to succeed in the next 10-20 years—and keep me connected with the students while I’m a part of the group. It really is an honor.

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Bobbie Stout Goforth ’52 has traded views of the Mississippi River

1940-1941 Class Correspondent: Megan Clayton Knox College, Box K-210, 2 East South Street, Galesburg, IL 61401, 309-341-7476, pclayton@knox.edu

1942 We are Knox.

You are, too.

If you attended Knox for one year, two years, or graduated with honors, you are a Knox alumnus/a. You are the best reflection of Knox College and the education it provides. So, keep us informed. Tell us what you’ve been up to, if you’ve been promoted or honored, or simply say hello. Here’s how: • Contact your Class Correspondent; • If you don’t have a correspondent, e-mail, call, or “snail mail” us directly (see below); • Or have other media sources send us press releases, articles, and publicity.

Please send information about births, marriages, and deaths directly to: Alumni Records Knox College, Box K-230 Galesburg, IL 61401-4999 Email: records@knox.edu Send all other updates, correspondence, or questions to: Pam Chozen Class Notes Editor, Knox Magazine Knox College, Box K-233 Galesburg, IL 61401-4999 Email: pachozen@knox.edu Please note that Class Notes may be edited for space and in accordance with the Knox Style Guide.

Of the 13 members of the Class of 1942, only Rosemary Creighton Swise was able to attend Commencement 2017 to celebrate the 75th anniversary of her graduation from Knox College.

Special front-row seating was arranged for her and for her family, who also joined the celebration. Two sons, two granddaughters, and a grandson-in-law came with her that day. Rosemary was recognized during the ceremony and presented with a lovely bouquet of flowers by a Tri Delta sister. Rosemary would be quick to say that she hasn’t done anything special, but we think that celebrating 75 years since graduating from Knox is very special!

Class Correspondent: Megan Clayton Knox College, Box K-210, 2 East South Street, Galesburg, IL 61401, 309-341-7476, pclayton@knox.edu

1943 Burl George says he doesn’t have much news, though he continues to stay active. He and classmate Art “Jack” Holst talk often and have solved all the world’s problems between them. Burl mentioned that he was specially invited to an airshow in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, this summer because he was a WWII bomber pilot. Maybe he will give us a report in the next issue.

Class Correspondent: Megan Clayton Knox College, Box K-210, 2 East South Street, Galesburg, IL 61401, 309-341-7476, pclayton@knox.edu

1944 Barbara Lemke says that her only news is that, at 94, she has given up driving. Fortunately, she has church friends who take her to appointments and some great caregivers who help during the daytime. She doesn’t travel anymore, so we won’t see her at Homecoming or Commencement. She does send her very best regards to all her classmates of 1944.

Class Correspondent: Megan Clayton Knox College, Box K-210, 2 East South Street, Galesburg, IL 61401, 309-341-7476, pclayton@knox.edu

1945 Class Correspondent: Megan Clayton Knox College, Box K-210, 2 East South Street, Galesburg, IL 61401, 309-341-7476, pclayton@knox.edu

1946 Pontiac, Illinois, is still home for Jeanne Turck Harris, and she believes she is the last in her group of Siwasher friends in the area. She continues to be active—playing bridge and exercising

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her mind with crossword and cryptograph puzzles. She wishes all her ’46 classmates happiness and good health.

Class Correspondent: Megan Clayton Knox College, Box K-210, 2 East South Street, Galesburg, IL 61401, 309-341-7476, pclayton@knox.edu

1947 Class Correspondent: Megan Clayton Knox College, Box K-210, 2 East South Street, Galesburg, IL 61401, 309-341-7476, pclayton@knox.edu

1948 Elizabeth Harler Van Steenwyk writes, “I’ve had a long tour of problems, including an accident at the winery, falling on my head and having to spend time recovering in two different hospitals, the last one in a residence apartment where I live and can leave to visit friends and relatives occasionally. At the same time, my house had to undergo some serious repair work, so I can’t go home yet. It was nice to see Teresa Amott when she toured this part of California last spring. We had a great time, laughing and talking most of one morning here, and she sent me a spectacular book about about Galesburg. In return, I gave her my latest published book, How Kate Warne Saved Abraham Lincoln. It won a major literary award from the American Book Award Association the previous year. There’s more about it in last spring’s Knox Magazine. Thanks Knox, for the wonderful publicity in your school magazine.” ❯ Harry Babbitt writes, “Luis and I are spending several months in Medellín while it is winter in Buenos Aires. We have a three bed-room apartment on the 24th floor with a nice view of the mountains and part of the city. It is an amazing city. I celebrated my 90th birthday on March 2.

When I go out, I have to use a walker. We are a five-minute walk from a MEGA MALL (12 stories with more than 300 stores). We often ‘dine’ at KFC, where they have a complete meal for a little over $3. Luis takes good care of me. I’ll probably never be back in the States; however, I am very lucky to be looked after and live in some of the most beautiful cities in Latin America— probably about the only region safe from terrorism these days.” ❯ Jim Moser reports, “At my age there is more to think about from the past than in the future. Ruthie and I traveled a lot, mainly in Europe, and I always wrote long and detailed notes, including important things like the food we had. Along with the many pictures for which Kodak provided unlimited film, those notes have provided me with comforting memories, and, on occasion, my memory still helps me add to them. In addition, because my forebears left many letters and notes and one wrote an autobiography, I self-published a modest-sized one for my family. Also I continue to work with fellow Kodak retirees to recall and document our activities in the now declassified programs of covert Cold War overhead reconnaissance. Two or three days a week at RIT’s Osher Lifelong Learning

Class Knox for glorious views of the Rocky Mountains. program fills much of the rest of my time. I still live alone in my three-story townhouse on the brink of a wooded hill and look down to a creek leading to Lake Ontario. How much longer I can do this, I don’t know.” ❯ Sid Norris adds this: “I wish that more would respond but they haven’t. I try to get in a couple of rounds of golf each week, with diminishing results. Life is good in Oregon, and I grieve at the status of our nation with the current idiot in command…he, too, will pass.”

Class Correspondent: Sidney E. Norris 3135 Agate Street, Eugene, OR 97405, 541-683-6160, senorris@comcast.net

1949 Like many others, Sam Rinella had a knee replacement last year. He spent Christmas Eve having a stent put in the artery to his heart. He spent most of the first part of 2017 in rehab; however, he is well now and is most proud to claim two (and a third on the way!) great-grandchildren, along with 11 grandchildren. Sam says, “Hello to all my classmates still around. We’re the ones with a different Knox Prexy every year.

We managed to accept these changes. Knox was a great time in my life. I’m still in Quincy, and so I didn’t migrate too far.”

Class Correspondent: Megan Clayton Knox College, Box K-210, 2 East South Street, Galesburg, IL 61401, 309-341-7476, pclayton@knox.edu

an occasional newspaper, and despair at the state of the world. My best to Knox College, which made it all possible. I still treasure those ASTRP days and the wonderful world of Sigma Nu and my Brothers.”

Class Correspondent: Megan Clayton Knox College, Box K-210, 2 East South Street, Galesburg, IL 61401, 309-341-7476, pclayton@knox.edu

1951 Class Correspondent: Megan Clayton Knox College, Box K-210, 2 East South Street, Galesburg, IL 61401, 309-341-7476, pclayton@knox.edu

1952 Bobbie Stout Goforth moved cross-country this summer following the death of her husband, Bob, in January. She sold the house and car and moved from Memphis to Denver, where she is on the 11th floor of a senior building. She’s traded views of the Mississippi River for glorious views of the Rocky Mountains. Her daughter and family

helped make the move—from the house Bob designed 46 years ago and from friends accumulated over her years since Knox—not only tolerable but an adventure. ❯ Mary Ellen McNamara McArdle had just returned from a trip to Phoenix to spend time with Mary Doyle Strauss ’51 when I contacted her. The two women have kept in touch via Christmas cards each year, but Mary Ellen says it was wonderful to be together again after many years. She says they had a lot of catching up to do. ❯ It was a pleasure to see Dorothy White Mrkvicka this summer at a Knox/FYC lifelong learning day at Argonne National Laboratory. Dorothy had a special interest in the event since she worked at Argonne for several years. ❯ We’re a year late in sharing this news, but Diane Goodrich Pretzer and husband Wally celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary on July 26, 2016. They were married in Basel, Switzerland, in a government registry office, followed by a religious ceremony in at the Basel cathedral. Both are now retired professors from Bowling Green State University, where they

I’m sorry to have to share news from Julia Richardson McNally that her mother, Beverly Mason Richardson, passed away in June. ❯ Bob Willett faithfully writes, “I hope there are still a few of the Class of 1950 around but will update my life for those of us left. My wife of 60 years, Donna, has Alzheimer’s now, so our future travel is limited; however, we splurged and took a nine-day tulip time river cruise in April, then came home for three days before we boarded the Holland America Zuiderdam for 16 days to Copenhagen. We had planned to visit foster kids in Berlin and Sweden, but our health required us to get home, so we came back on May 5. I’ve been fortunate enough to have a new book accepted by Potomac Books, an imprint of the University of Nebraska Press, titled The Hunt for Jimmie Browne: The Story of an MIA, and just signed the contract. Probably be a year before it hits the stands. Potomac has also agreed to republish my book, Russian Sideshow, a story of the AEF in Russia in 1918-1920, Then Air & Space, the Smithsonian’s publication, bought a piece on “Black Christmas 1946” about air disasters over Shanghai on Christmas Day, and another about a commemoration flight done by the Flying Tiger Historical Organization, when they flew a C-47 from Australia to the Chinese Flying Tiger Heritage Park in Guilin and presented it to the Museum. Quite a story. I’m not sure when either will run, but I got paid so that isn’t all that important. Other than that, I sleep late most days, read

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Rosemary Creighton Swise ’42, who observed the 75th anniversary of her graduation from Knox College, was the recipient of a special tribute at Knox’s 2017 Commencement on June 4.

“Rosemary’s mother, grandmother, brother, husband, sons, daughter, and granddaughter have all attended Knox, and she is an active and loyal alumna,” President Teresa Amott said at Commencement. “She remembers the mood on the campus that fateful day in 1941, when Pearl Harbor was bombed, and she is here with us today. Rosemary, receive our congratulations on this milestone.”

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Jerry ’57 and Jackie Geis Treece ’55 have visited all seven met. (And now they’ve celebrated their 51st.

Congratulations twice!)

Class Correspondent: Megan Clayton Knox College, Box K-210, 2 East South Street, Galesburg, IL 61401, 309-341-7476, pclayton@knox.edu

1953 Class Correspondent: Nevin C. Lescher 295 Reed Avenue, Windsor Locks, CT 06096, 860-623-0550, nesu@cox.net

1954 Age and world unrest may have slowed some old Siwashers, but not all the Class of ’54. At least two had Europe on their summer travel plans. ❯ As he often does, Ron Leganger scheduled about five weeks in Germany, England, Norway, and Poland. Ron also has a new car back in Florida and new eyesight, with multifocal implants on both eyes. ❯ Dave Kurtz accompanied a 16-yearold protégé to compete in the 2017 Junior World Slalom Championships in Bratislava, Slovakia, in June and also to race in July at the Olympic Slalom Course in Augsburg, Germany. ❯ Back home in Galesburg in May, more than 150 members of Phi Gamma Delta celebrated the 150th anniversary of the Knox chapter, and the oldest of the more than 100 alumni present was 1954’s Ron Pearson. ❯ Betty Darnell Nelson comments that seeing her children retire makes her feel old, but she is justly proud of their careers.

Daughter Sue has a University of Iowa M.A. in flute performance, is the author of The Flute on Record—the Early Years, and has just retired from 30 years of teaching flute at Bemidji State University. Son Paul has retired as a middle school band instructor, has published three books on autism inspired by his autistic son, Michael, and is in demand as a speaker on the subject. Betty writes that she is coping with being alone after husband Russell Nelson ’53 passed away last year and is keeping busy with various community groups. ❯ Your correspondent has largely retired from community activities but is completing a history of the local Sun City Library, to be published in a very limited edition.

Class Correspondent: Jim Dunlevey 27419 Embassy Street, Menifee, CA 92586-2005, dunlevey@aol.com

1955 While we enjoyed the 90+ percent humidity here in the tropical rainforest of Stuart, Florida, Al and Barb Behringer Paulus ’56 escaped to an Alaskan cruise from the 2 percent humidity of Tucson. Good timing! When we flew to Anchorage for a cruise many years ago, our ship had a fire, and the cruise was cancelled. We went to Denali instead, and were given a Caribbean cruise as consolation, but we’d still like to take the cruise. ❯ Russ Fuiks and wife Jan are still inveterate travelers. This year’s trips include the Cottonwood, Arizona, area; Oxnard, California;

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Portland, Rockport, and Bar Harbor, Maine; plus an Atlantic cruise to see five lighthouses. When they’re back home in Colorado, Russ tries to get to a couple of the Colorado Knox Alumni Club events every year. He hasn’t seen another ’50s alum there but has seen a picture of himself with son Dave and Dave’s wife Britt attending a ballgame on the Knox website. ❯ Jerry ’57 and Jackie Geis Treece are another traveling couple.

They have visited all seven continents, the last trip in February to Antarctica. Before that, they spent a week at Iguazu Falls, Argentina, which they report is a must-see. The Treeces live in Jacksonville, Florida, and, along with many others of us, thought “Prairie Fire” was an odd name with a fox for a mascot. The Jacksonville baseball team is called “Jumbo Shrimp,” which is even worse. “Siwash” sounds pretty good in comparison, don’t you think? ❯ After reading about my hip repair and then replacement, Bill and Sandy Reimers Herzog wrote from their home in a retirement community in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, that they are doing fine with their own replacement parts. As you may remember, Bill taught at the University of North Carolina for years. He reports that he was recently asked, by a grandparent whose grandchildren are considering colleges, what stood out for him about the intellectual side of his Knox years. He said, “It was the ‘atmosphere of infectious curiosity’—an atmosphere where asking good questions stood equal to having a head full of answers, where so many of the Knox faculty clearly shared and ‘infected’ their students with a love of learning. I think that we can all be proud of that and think of personal examples where the value of curiosity has served us well. It is what stands out to me about Knox and its professors. I trust that it still exists.” Well said and very true. I’m sure Bill was that kind of professor. ❯ We were with Phil ’54 and Beverly Brockman Decker in London many years ago, when Bev called Phil “Curious George” because he had insatiable curiosity and took us off the beaten path many a time. Also, curiosity is why I spend entirely too much time in front of this computer “Googling.” ❯ Jim Rogula spent two years in the army after graduation and then joined the American Chicle Company. The company had a number of executives who were Knox alumni, and he was asked to spend a few days on campus interviewing graduating seniors and hiring a few. Vern Stisser ’62 was one of the students interviewed—and hired.

Jim was impressed with Vern’s enthusiasm and abilities. Jim wrote: “Little did I realize that one day Knox would honor his memory with Stisser Field.” I Googled “Stisser Field, Knox College” and found it is the football field at Knosher Bowl.

Mr. Stisser gave $1.6 million to support the football program in perpetuity. I hope Jim went into personnel somewhere, since he was a keen judge of potential success. ❯ Don Weston died in March of this year. I know you join me in sending sympathy to his loved ones. ❯ Jim Lockett sent a clipping about the cancellation of Bill O’Reilly’s

Killing Patton movie after harassment allegations came to light. You may remember from my last column that O’Reilly’s statement that there never was an escape from a prison camp differed from Jim’s father’s, since Colonel Lockett, along with two other prisoners, was an escapee. That misinformation was never aired. Sometimes things work out. ❯ I am on Facebook, without understanding how it works, but one of Jim Nethery’s children posted his picture on his birthday. How I became a lucky recipient, I don’t know, but he looks good. ❯ Tony Liberta, who has served and represented our class so well over the years, reported he attended a luncheon on campus to honor recipients of our class’s endowed scholarship named for The Rev. Charles (Pete) Hosutt.

One of the recipients, Jose Guevara ’17, will serve in the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic beginning this August, and the other, Rebecca Katz ’18, is pursuing a major in chemistry and minors in religious studies and creative writing. She founded and is the present chairperson of the Knox Interfaith Council. Tony’s visit was just before Flunk Day, and the campus was buzzing with excitement and guesses about when it would arrive. He reports the preparations for the current Flunk Day’s rite of spring were much more elaborate than back in our day. Have you seen the photographs of current Flunk Days online? Amazing. I think we had a barbecue, a baseball game, and a trip out of Lake Storey. Any Flunk Day memories? ❯ Our travels are limited to graduations and weddings since my days as a hiking tourist are over. Our youngest granddaughter graduated from Georgetown Law in May, so the family gathered in Washington, D.C., to celebrate. We flew to Illinois twice in July to attend family weddings. At long last, we will be great-grandparents in December. We are thrilled, and eager to meet the youngest of our clan. ❯ Thanks to those who helped me out with news. I hope I am as lucky next time. Veritas!

Class Correspondent: Dorothy Thomas Wharton 3511 S.E. Fairway West, Stuart, FL 34997-6033, 772-220-9433, dtwharton33@gmail.com

1956 By the time this class news arrives in Knox Magazine, our current summer weather will be only a pleasant memory, but the timing of our activities can be as relaxed as we are in our retirement years. There are advantages! ❯ Stan Anton reports that he and wife Jenny spent a memorable evening in April as guests of Mack Trapp and wife Carol. They attended a gathering of more than 60 Phi Delta Theta Foundation trustees and guests in Naples, Florida. Mack adds that he learned Stan and Jenny are avid skiers, pointing out that this was not a varsity sport at Knox.

Mack also spent time in Chicago with Jim Krughoff ’55 and Art Carlson ’57, both Siwash Hall of Fame athletes. Art fosters a gathering of Knox football greats at the Greek Islands

Class Knox continents, the last trip in February to Antarctica. restaurant in Chicago. Jim has accumulated a world-renown collection of “automatons,” selfdriving music machines. Mack also discovered that he and fellow Soangetaha golfer Bob Sparks now have learned to drive balls from what is known as the grandmothers’ (aka grandfathers’) tees. ❯ Dan Kimble and wife Reeva continue to live in Eugene, Oregon, where Dan has become an enthusiastic watercolor painter. For anyone interested, he has some images on his home page; just Google “Dan Kimble paintings.” During his senior year, Dan took an art class from Isaac Peterson and has been interested in painting ever since. ❯ Before heading to Arizona for the winter, George Melton and wife Sara hosted their annual four-family gathering at their Peoria, Illinois, home this summer. Folks arrived from Boston, Minneapolis, and Phoenix to help ensure that the 14 cousins know each other as they grow up. George writes that everyone stayed with them because no one wanted to miss anything by staying in a motel. The previous summer the clan met at Destin, Florida, and enjoyed the white sand beach. ❯ Harriet Ewing Harburn moved to Oro Valley Arizona, from Bainbridge Island, Washington, two years ago to spend time with family—quite a change in climate! She says they spend a good bit of time traveling. Recently, they took a jazz cruise from Los Angeles to Vancouver, British Columbia, followed by a visit with friends in Seattle. Last summer, they enjoyed a Northwest Passage cruise from Vancouver to New York City, and this summer saw them cruise from London to Iceland and Greenland. They live in a retirement community, where Harriet plays a lot of bridge. ❯ Bob and Judy Bowers Rothe ’58 commemorated their 60th wedding anniversary with a celebration in Boulder. Colorado, on June 11.

Bob notes that the actual anniversary date was June 14, and, fortunately, Judy did not file for divorce in the intervening three days! More than 100 family and friends gathered to help celebrate on a sunny warm afternoon at a beautiful lake with a mountain vista. A New York vocalist sang three romantic ballads, and their eldest son introduced a brand new publication (a Shutterfly picture book about Bob’s life-long model railroad empire). In addition, the “entertainment period” featured an unveiling of Judy and Bob’s love letters to each other, written during a period of separation when they lived in different states from 1956-57. Bob had sealed this collection in an inaccessible box that was not to be opened until their 25th anniversary, but something got in the way of the opening until the 60-year mark. Judy and Bob are planning to move to a retirement community either in 2019 or 2020. The downside is that they will no longer have the space to work with children and young adults. Since 1970, they have hosted about 90 foster children, from newborns to kids in their late teens, with troubling situations, and 29 high school-aged foreign exchange students. They also have hosted young adults from all over the world through the Up With People program, with Bob also leading

many on an 18-day wilderness/rafting experience. ❯ The eclipse on August 21 caused quite a stir in our town of Independence, Oregon, which was in the path of totality. It coincided with our annual Experimental Aircraft Association fly-in, which attracted more than the usual amount of airplanes because of the eclipse. Hotels and campgrounds were sold out months in advance— absolutely amazing. Bob and I helped with the fly-in and hosted a California couple and two pilots from Ontario, Canada. ❯ I’ll end this with a plea to send news for the class notes at any time—either by email or by letter.

Class Correspondent: Ricky Jung Schwarzler 854 Cessna Street, Independence OR 97351, schwarzler@msn.com

1957 Another achievement for the Class of ’57: We have reached the 60 year mark of our graduation from Knox. That day was always one of the most memorable in our lives. ❯ Heard from Art Mampel that he might have earned the title of class poet laureate. He has been sharing his poems for some time at local taverns in the Seattle area. Art told me that doing this was one of his bucket list desires. ❯ Trevor Winebright and wife Barbara celebrated their 60-year anniversary this past spring. That is two big 60-year happenings in his life—marriage and graduation. He also added a new title, Great-Grandpa, with both a new great-grandson and great-granddaughter.

Told of how much he enjoyed attending the 150th anniversary of the FIJIs. Trev heard from our old friend Bill Shaffer and discussed the Knox-Lombard Athletic Hall of Fame. ❯ Nancy Niederman O’Connor suffered the loss of her husband last October. We certainly wish her well and offer our sympathy. She keeps her spirits up by walking a nature trail three times a week. Her four grandchildren also keep her busy. The youngest of the four currently attends the University of South Carolina. ❯ The O’Dowd family celebrated the graduation with honors of grandson Sean from the Wharton School last spring. Nice to know that the beat goes on for our family.

Class Correspondent: Jack O’Dowd 4837 88th Street E., Bradenton, FL 34211-3606, 941-224-7850, jodowd310@msn.com

1958 Congratulations to Harriet Drew Barringer (Hatsie) for receiving an Alumni Achievement Award at Founders Day. I attended the impressive ceremony in February. Hatsie received this prestigious award for 30 years as a teacher, and guidance counselor. In retirement, she has tutored 50 kids as a Guardian ad Litem (CASA) work. She also trained five service dogs from puppy stage. She received several volunteer awards in her home area of Ormond Beach, Florida. Hatsie’s grandfather, William P. Drew, taught classics at Knox from 1906 to 1930. Drew

Hall was named for him. Seventeen Drews followed him to become Knox graduates. Hatsie enjoyed her day at Knox prior to the ceremony, spending time with students and attending a class. She thought that with the many changes over the years, Knox continues the tradition of encouraging students to explore their world and work toward improving it. ❯ Mary Ann Jalovec Gleason still lives in downtown Chicago on the Magnificent Mile, where she is walking distance from shops and events. Mary Ann and daughter Lisa spent a couple of weeks in Japan. Lisa’s dream was to see Mt. Fuji, but it rained the day they were scheduled to be there. She commented that Tokyo is densely populated, as is the rest of the country. Mary Ann has been fortunate to have traveled to many places, such as Bangkok, Thailand; Vietnam; and Russia. She makes a trip every year to see her son and his family of five children in Scottsdale, Arizona. She feels blessed to have both her daughter and a second son with three kids nearby. She says life is good! ❯ I had coffee with Caroline Porter-Evans in May when she spent a few days in Galesburg and headed to Starved Rock State Park for a reunion of Kewanee High School friends. This spring I also saw Larry Colwell and wife Olive in Galesburg; both are well. ❯ Janet Van Der Sluys Brown was a peer reviewer for the U.S. Department of Education for six weeks. She worked with teams of professionals from all over the country to evaluate applications for Upward Bound and Upward Bound Math-Science. Both are funded to provide academic support to low-income, first-generation students, preparing them for college. Janet said it was very rewarding … and keeps the brain working. ❯ Ann Jung Finney sent me a note that Joan Ross Krenzer died on March 31, 2017.

Joan and husband John Krenzer raised two children in Oak Park, Illinois, where she taught school and piano lessons. In addition to her work as a piano teacher, she served as one of the carillonneurs at University of Chicago’s Rockefeller Memorial Chapel for three decades. She got the job after first seeing the carillon (a set of six dozen bronze bells controlled by a single keyboard) on a tour of the chapel. When she spotted a notice placed on the carillon’s keyboard advertising lessons, she called and learned how to play the instrument. Performing required climbing 271 steps to the top of the chapel tower, a space that also attracts peregrine falcons. Her obituary in the Chicago Tribune noted that she especially enjoyed playing show tunes. Even after being diagnosed with stage-4 cancer, she continued to climb those twisting stairs to the top of the chapel to play. She also enjoyed their grandchildren’s activities, riding bikes, and going to concerts. ❯ John Lynch died on January 29, 2017.

After Knox, he went on to Yale Medical School.

He was a veteran of the U.S. Navy and practiced ear, nose, and throat medicine in Everett, Washington, for many years. He leaves behind wife Pat and three children. He enjoyed being a member of the Medical Joggers Association and

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“Thank you, Norm Porter ’61, for being the ONLY classmate Washington Trails Association. ❯ I’m also saddened to report that Susie Swanson Lisio died on February 20, 2017, in San Diego. One of Susie’s major activities for many years was Rotary, for which she served as local president and attended many national conventions. She received the coveted Honor of Distinction when she retired. She enjoyed traveling with husband Don Lisio ’56, spending time with their two children, and of course … the grandchildren. Their daughter is an attorney with the National Consumer Law Center in Boston, and their son has an important position with the federal government.

She eagerly helped Don with his research and writing books, carefully editing and critiquing his manuscripts. Don said Susie was always a happy person and expressed that in service and helping others. Both Pat Ruffolo and Mondo Lopez mentioned Susie’s favorite Knox memory was the senior class play, Anything Goes. ❯ Mike and Pat Craig Ruffolo continue to enjoy community involvements, travel, family, and friends. In summer 2016, they went on an interesting WWI history tour of Belgium and France; later in the year, they enjoyed a great golf trip with friends in England and Scotland. This year, Pat and Mike will revisit some favorite parts of the West. ❯ Nubs Schactner ’55 and I enjoyed a great FYC/Galesburg Knox Club lunch event at Bishop Hill in June. John Norton, Bishop Hill scholar and Swedish historian, and Jon Wagner, professor emeritus of anthropology, presented interesting lectures and a walking tour of the historic utopian village. ❯ Many thanks to classmates who share information for the column ...

Class Correspondent: Letitia Luther Schactner 246 East Dayton Street, Galesburg, IL 61401-1833, 309-342-0748, letnor@comcast.net

1959 Dave Ehlert writes, “Nothing too exciting to report. Just finished teaching a summer calculus course at Indiana University at South Bend, where I teach part-time. Teaching calculus reminds me of the math courses at Knox with Professors Stephens, Lindstrum, Ross, and Ohman. Still live in the country northwest of Buchanan, Michigan. Still have one llama which my 3-year-old great-granddaughter helps me feed.” ❯ Paul Hohe and wife Elva have sold their winery and moved back to their old neighborhood in Marin, California. They will continue to spend summers in Chicago where they connect with lots of Knox friends. ❯ Larry Blasch reports, “I don’t have any great news, but note the value of my Knox alumni license plate frame. I got a note under my wiper on the 4th of July from a 2001 Knox grad. She and her family were vacationing on Seabrook. I contacted Megan Clayton at the alumni office and got her email address and contacted her; we had a nice visit last Friday. That shows the power of letting people

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know you are a Knox grad!” ❯ From Gig Harbor, Jim and Janet Eiszner MacDonald share, “We just received information about a Knox trip or meeting to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in September. Had just returned from Arizona with a stop at Ashland to see a play. We look forward to the September event with other Knox alums.

Best wait for publicity to see if this will really occur!” ❯ Bob Grover says, “Here’s some news.

When I was in Port Charlotte, Florida, in March to watch one of my grandsons play baseball (he plays shortstop for Denison University), I connected with Nick and Betty Burgland Karay ’60.

They live in nearby Tarpon Springs, which has a large Greek population (sponge divers), so Nick fits right in. Had dinner with them at a great Greek restaurant near the harbor. They were getting ready for a big Greek wedding of one of their grandsons—whom I also met, together with his beautiful fiancée. Also spent lots of time at my grandson’s ball games with Dave Brackman ’81, a Phi Gam who organized the big 150th pig dinner in April and who lives in Tampa. Dave’s son, Danny, is a freshman pitcher on the Denison team. Small world. We see Conny Drew Tozer from time to time and hope to see Paul Hohe and his charming wife, Elva, at some Cubs games this summer. I keep busy volunteering at a farmer’s market in Lincoln Park, at the new Park at Wrigley, and for First Tee of Chicago. I just celebrated my 80th birthday with wife Jane, four kids and spouses, and six of eight grandkids at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island. It was a blast.” ❯ Jan Cox Butts says, “I had a great summer!

For 18 days in June, I was in Lisbon visiting my AFS exchange student, daughter, and family. Five of those days were experiencing life in a little town called Montegordo on the Algarve. What a beautiful beach, little resort village, coffee cafés, and lots of delicious seafood and Portuguese pastries! Blue skies and rather high temps, but after a cold and cloudy winter in upstate New York, it was very welcome! Lisbon was great and very interesting, too. A lovely old city! While I was home, the summer was spent attending either softball and soccer games to watch my granddaughter or baseball games to watch my grandson. ❯ Mary Coyne Karau writes, “Things are the same here. I continue to travel more than the average person, I guess. I spent three weeks in Italy, both north and south, at the end of April and into early May. Then I went to Missoula for over a week to see Eva and family. Came home for a short interval and then went to Bend for a bit over a week. Got home July 1 and planned to be home for the remainder of the summer. In October, I hope to make several short trips, all grouped together, to Scotland, Wales, and then back to Italy for a week. In the meantime, I’m busy with friends and still do a lot of cooking for myself and them. I hire people to work in my yard but supervise them closely! I go in the summer to the more-or-less Shakespeare theatre out near Spring Green. They do a fair number of plays nowadays that are not Shakespeare, includ-

ing A Flea in Her Ear by George Feydeau.” ❯ We heard from the daughter of J. Paul and Lisbeth Reed Mitchell ’62 that Paul passed away on March 15, 2017. After graduating from Knox, Paul earned a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in American history from the University of Denver.

He also received a master’s degree in urban planning from Rutgers University. While the majority of his career was spent in academia, he spent a year working in city government in Seattle. After stints at Penn State, Memphis State University, and Southern Methodist University, he joined the faculty of Ball State University in 1970, ultimately retiring as chair of the urban planning department in the College of Architecture and Planning in 2002. He is survived by Lisbeth and by daughters Melinda, Ann, and Jennifer and their families. ❯ Bob and I traveled to San Francisco in February at the invitation of Mike ’58 and Pat Craig Ruffolo ’58. We visited their grandchildren and our nieces and grandnieces.

John and Rachel Humphreys Paluska have built a very interesting and “green” home in Marin County across the bay from San Francisco.

We were invited there for lunch and were lucky that Duane Paluska and wife Ellen were visiting.

We spend a wonderful afternoon catching up and getting to know Rachel and John’s son, Pablo Leon. ❯ Shortly before we arrived in California, we were notified that Susann Swanson Lisio ’58 had passed. We were able to express our condolences to Don Lisio ’56 by phone. Mondo Lopez and wife Jackie had been very supportive of and helpful to the Lisios during the last few years.

They live fairly near Don and Susie. ❯ Thanks to all who sent news. Please stay in touch.

Class Correspondent: Louise Bost Wolf 3 Gilbert Park, Knoxville, IL 61448, 309-337-6435 (cell), wolfl@grics.net

1960 Just when he thought he could finally retire, Curtis McCray was asked in March 2017 to serve as interim president of Wright State University until July 1 when the new university president came on board. He has plenty of experience, since he has served as president at the University of North Florida, California State UniversityLong Beach, Milliken University, and NationalLouis University. Since Curtis and wife Mary MacDonald McCray ’60 live in Grayslake, one or the other of them had been making the sixhour trip to Dayton, Ohio, where the university is located, for five months! ❯ Mary Kent Knight is working her way through her travel bucket list.

In fact, when I contacted her, she responded from the Danube River, where she was drifting from Amsterdam to Budapest! Other travel destinations have included three cruises—Capetown, South Africa; New Zealand to Singapore; and Venice to Lisbon. What is left, you might ask?

Mary quips, “I just need to get that hole-in-one on the links and then I can settle back in my rocking chair!” She is back in Lake Forest after

Class Knox to write. You should be showered with blessings. . . ” —Suella spending the winter in Florida, and looks forward to spending happy times with her family. ❯ Knox can add another author to her list of alumni.

George Hook, under the nom de plume Gregory Cliveden, has just published The Conventioneers’ Guide to Cruzing Hillaryously over Trump. In it, he analyzes political issues, including originalism versus living constitutionalism and replacement of the allegedly arcane presidential primary process, political conventions, and Electoral College. Look for it on Amazon.com. ❯ Bill Graning writes, “Barbara and I continue to enjoy our retirement years by putting our extra time to volunteering for local charities, but this has not prevented me from still getting out three times a week to play golf year-around here in Pinehurst, North Carolina. We thought we had given up our cruising a couple years ago, but, since then, we have cruised the Amazon River, the Panama Canal, and are scheduled to cruise to Greenland and Iceland next summer. Just cannot get away from all that food and being pampered, I guess. I have been talking to Denny Geraghty about his recent experiences in writing and publishing a book, Trench Warfare: How to Win the War to Educate Our Children. It is based on his high school, Knox, and military learning experiences, as well as his 26 years of secondary classroom teaching and six years as a Teacher in Residence as part of the University of Colorado-Denver program supervising secondary student teachers. I have read his book and highly recommend it to those of us who are concerned about our grandchildren’s and great-grandchildren’s education. The book lays out why many of our educational systems continue to fail and presents a solution by developing a methodology based on an economic model of simple supply and demand. There are several appendices at the conclusion that provide examples of his very innovative teaching methods. Further information on his book can be found on his website www.dennygeraghty.com or through his publisher www.hugohousepublishers.com. Now that he has finished his book, he and his wife, Jeanne, are again enjoying their active Colorado outdoor life. Denny plans to attend this year’s Siwash Golf outing outside of Chicago that has been going on for nearly 20 years. It appears that 1960 classmates Bill Beanblossom, Bob Bennett, and Joe Pankus will also be in attendance yelling ‘FORE.’” ❯ Alice Jacoby published a book, From the Flood to the Reign of George III: Developmental History and the Scottish Enlightenment. It is available through Amazon.com, and Barnes and Noble online bookstore. The book explores the works of 18th century Scottish philosophers and their impact on historical writing. Alice passed away in December 2015 but her children were able to see her book be published this year.

Class Correspondent: Dick Aft aftd@fuse.net

1961 Thank you, Norm Porter, for being the ONLY classmate to write. You should be showered with

blessings according to the amount of gratitude Suella feels. ❯ Norm writes: “I married wife Gail in 1964 in Chicago (med school); lived in Tampa, Florida, four years ( OB residency); Millington, Tennessee, two years (Navy); Fort Lauderdale, Florida, for 10 years (private practice); Banner Elk, North Carolina, for 4.5 years (private practice); then Lynchburg, Virginia, for 32 years (1985–2017, same wife!). We finally found the perfect small city (population: 80,000). We live outside the city limits, but the downtown on the James River has been revitalized with many new restaurants, theatre, shops, loft apartments, and outdoor events along the river—nice to get down there if we want some culture—we even have opera! Our house is only 15 minutes from anything in town, including the airport. There are great schools in town, including Liberty University, Lynchburg College, Randolph College, and Sweet Briar College just up the road. If we want to hike or picnic, we are 20 minutes from the Blue Ridge Parkway. Also, there is so much history with Tom Jefferson’s summer retreat, Poplar Forest, in town; plus, we are only 30 minutes from Appomattox Court House National Historical Park, where we take our visiting friends to see the end of the Civil War. We are an hour from Virginia Tech and University of Virginia, and 2.5 hours from the Atlantic coast. Finally, I have always felt we may be the safest city in the U.S., due to the lack of tornadoes, hurricanes, blizzards, mudslides, forest fires, and terrorists.

The tourists are mostly nice but sparse, and, wonderfully, we are not close to an interstate!

Fall and spring are spectacularly beautiful, and we do get some snow each winter. It does get hot in the summer, but we live on a small lake, and when we are in the lake, we forget about the heat.

We love Lynchburg, Virginia! Come on down, y’all!” ❯ Thanks, Norm. Are you the Chamber of Commerce director? You should be. Sounds like a wonderful place. ❯ In order that our class not be dropped completely from Knox Magazine, two intrepid reporters are offering our own response to the letter we sent. Since almost all of us have moved frequently, we hoped you would tell us your favorite places you have lived. ❯ From Ella Major Morin of Suella: “I grew up in LaGrange, Illinois, and, after college, I moved 25 times during husband Michael Morin ’60’s Army career. I liked moving—most of the time! I learned a lot from living ‘around!’ The learning places included Texas, California, Georgia, Washington, D.C., Germany, and, lastly, Carlisle, Pennsylvania for 25 years. I feel as if it is my hometown. While we lived there, we could participate in history and book clubs, art classes, a quilting group, a community theater, community chorus, high school, college, and adult sport opportunities. And we restored a home built in 1753. I miss those times.” ❯ From Susan Shea Worthington, the other half: “Born in Cleveland, lived in Chicago (playmates with Barbie Stryker Slater!), reared and educated in Missouri and Galesburg. As some of you know, my first husband was a career naval officer. We lived in Coronado, California;

Monterey, California; Norfolk, Virginia; Monterey, California, again; Coronado, California, again; Fairfax, Virginia; and Slidell, Louisiana.

Lovely places all, but my favorite was Coronado.

It was perhaps the closest to my hometown of Lexington, Missouri. Lexington must be my favorite, because I’ve resided here for the past 30 years. No doubt about it—a charming small town with beautiful antebellum architecture, reeking with history, full of friendly people, and only 40 miles from Kansas City when the mood strikes for bright lights, major sports, and congested traffic. I am a widow and up to my earlobes in community activities.”

Class Correspondents: Susan Shea Worthington 1611 South Street, Lexington, MO 64067-1431, 660-259-4559, skworth@cebridge.net Ella Major Morin 11234 54th Avenue N., St. Petersburg, FL 33708-2949, 727-290-6984, ellanell1963@yahoo.com

1962 Kate Calvert Bloomberg: “After a very compelling plea for news from the class celebrating 55 years of post-Knox lives, the responses were a bit tepid. I could fill a book with my life over the past year … trip with granddaughter Sara through Europe, very uninspiring golf in Myrtle Beach, three new great-grandsons, two weddings, and a partridge in a pear tree. Anxious to see you all in October and will make careful notes so your lives won’t escape the next Knox news.” ❯ Sandra Sherrick Schuldt: “Our nephews and their mother from Hillsdale, Michigan, visited us in early July in Iowa City. The boys are investigating colleges/universities in preparation for future college enrollment. David and I were delighted to host these two special boys when they toured the University of Iowa, home of our beloved Iowa Hawkeyes, and Knox College, my favorite small liberal arts college! The Knox orientation was well-done and quite informative for parents and students alike. Everyone was friendly and more than happy to answer questions. The boys were very impressed with the small average class size of 17 and the freedom to design individual courses of study. The Knox experience was brought to life by two students who very capably led the campus tour and described enthusiastically both academic and student life at Knox.

Knox has done a fantastic job of keeping up and improving their facilities to accommodate the changing times. As an alumna, I was very proud to share the day with prospective students and to witness Knox putting its best foot forward as always.” ❯ Betsy Wallace Empen reports, “Joe Empen has been busy grooming flowers and vegetables.” ❯ Karen Gould: “My only ‘news’ is that Frank and I will take our first Road Scholar tour in October—to the Utah Parks.” ❯ Monica Heidecker Graham reports, “I always enjoy reading about our friends’ activities and rewards but do not send news from me because just being at Knox for two years does make me think it

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Pam Norton ’64 learned about fabric, architecture, and Bob ’66 and Carol Romsa Parke ’67 Helping Undergraduates Make Ethical Choices Bob ’66 and Carol Romsa Parke ’67 have established the Parke Ethics Fund to help students recognize ethical issues and engage them in the development of strategies to assess such situations and to make principled choices at Knox College and after graduation. Carol shares why they established the program.

Why did you choose to endow a fund to support ethics instruction?

At Knox, Bob majored in economics, and I majored in education. As a CPA and chief financial officer for a Chicago bank, Bob had many situations in which there was pressure to make unethical choices to increase expediency or profits.

Newspapers were reporting corrupt business deals almost daily. In the education field, there were many reports of teachers changing students’ answers on tests and students cheating on tests, papers, and research results.

One of our daughter’s professors reported that in a simulated exercise, students did anything they could to win the game with no regard for their methods or who was hurt by them.

We felt that the tide needed to turn and that ethics needed to become a major principle in our society.

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Why do you think it’s important to teach ethics at the undergraduate level?

The undergraduate level is the first preparation for careers. It is our hope that ethics will be at the forefront of current students’ education and become ingrained in them as they encounter ethical training in many different aspects of their education.

Describe your Knox experience.

Both of us came from small towns and sheltered childhoods. At Knox, we were introduced to many different points of view and a much broader vision of society and our place in it. We moved from learning facts to learning to think, analyze, and come to our own conclusions. The liberal arts background prepared us to adapt to the many changes we’ve seen in the 50 years since our graduation.

What has been the impact of your Knox experience in the years since Commencement?

The education we received at Knox gave us a good, solid foundation for graduate school and our careers. Bob’s 40-year career in business would not have been as successful without the analytical skills he learned at Knox. We are happy that we are now able to give something back.

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might not be appropriate. [Eds. note: It is! If you attended Knox, you’re a Knox alumna.] I will soon have a new address and perhaps knowledge of that will allow more friends to visit, since they will be able to visit and leave the winter cold as I am going ‘home’ to Phoenix, Arizona, after 60 years! I can no longer tolerate the cold and ice, especially at my downsized place; we do not have a yard, and I must walk Francesca the dog early A.M. and late P.M. Francesca and I have seen Bob and Barb Cady Schmid in Arizona the last two winters and look forward to seeming them much more often.” ❯ Dick Wertz writes, “I confess up front that I am not the most devoted of the Knox alumni—the last time that I have knowingly been with another Knox graduate (other than members of my family) was on graduation day in 1962. Nothing personal, I just have had few occasions to travel back to the Midwest.

Thus, it was with amazement that I noted the young couple in Knox T-shirts sprinting up the 9-percent inclined access road to the Alhambra in Granada, Spain, a few weeks ago. Having walked up the long access road earlier that morning, done the three-hour walking tour of the old fort, and stumbled halfway down to a nice bench in the shade, the best that I could offer was a weak, ‘Go Siwash!’ From the look of confusion on their faces, I assume that the runners were recent Prairie Fire-era graduates or thought that I was just another trinket vendor. In any event, they did not stop, and I missed another chance to connect with a real Knoxite. This year’s Reunion is out— after the Alhambra incident, I vowed to hit the gym every day until I can do the equivalent of the access road climb without getting winded—but maybe I’ll pencil-in Galesburg for October 2022.

Best regards to all.” ❯ Lis Reed Mitchell writes, “My husband, J.Paul Mitchell ’59, died this past March. We would have been married 55 years as of July. I recently visited with Bob and Barb Cady Schmid and Mary Kent Knight ’60. I keep in touch with Nicky Parsons Stratton and visited her in August.”

Class Correspondent: Kate Bloomberg hankandkate@msn.com

1963 Class Correspondent: Ramona Reed Landberg 21500 Baltic Drive, Cornelius, NC 28031, 704-892-4637, landberg.group@outlook.com

1964 On our way home from visiting snow-birding friends in Florida, Val and I met with Al and Karen Hummel Crumbliss and were elated by Al’s improvement. Karen writes: “Al has made significant progress in many ways since his stroke last July. He misses driving, but we did enjoy an Amtrak trip to see family in D.C. Al is gradually getting back into his chemistry world, and we are occasionally out in our social world, so life remains interesting.” ❯ Leslie Martens Nauta:

Class Knox mead at the Medieval Congress at Western Michigan University.

1965 Joe Thompson wants to invite the entire Knox Class of ’65 (and spouses) to the Midterm MiniReunion, Thursday, May 31, 2018, through Monday, June 4, 2018, at the Drake Hotel, 140 E. Walton Place, Chicago, Illinois. (The hotel’s phone number is 855-516-1090.) “Theme: Lord is willing, and we’re still alive. The idea: Come during those dates to the Drake Hotel (or just do whatever the heck you want—it’s CHICAGO!).” ❯ Larry Horist writes, “It’s been a lot of years

since I have been in communication with Knox alumni. Here is a quick update. Serving as president of the Knox College Young Republicans launched a career on the edge of politics that got me an office in the Nixon White House for a time, an unsuccessful run for the Republican mayoral primary in Chicago, and a lot of years advising both Republican and Democrat candidates. Started my consulting business in 1975, as one of the early home-based computerized businesses. Served such clients as the Reagan White House, magazine publisher Steve Forbes, Nobel Laureate economist Milton Friedman, and scores of other interesting clients. Ran the City Club of Chicago for 11 years and led a successful fight to save the old Chicago Theatre. My business brought me to a lot of trips to China, where I served as foreign investment advisor to the city of Harbin and operated the Harbin Business Exchange. I am currently semi-retired (which means I am busier than ever) in Boca Raton, Florida, working on my kick-the-bucket list. Just finished a sci-fi screenplay (and two more in the offing) and a major book on racial history in America.

Could be very controversial. Churning out a lot opinion pieces for newspapers around the nation.

In the meantime, I raised six kids—three biological and three informally adopted. My youngest bio kid is 23, making me one of those ‘fathers after 50.’ Keeps me feeling and acting young.

Never got rich and never (yet) accomplished all

my goals, but I have had one very exciting and happy ride so far … and am still on board for more. But no life is without its moments of sadness, and mine are the loss of a Marine grandson in Afghanistan and the passing of my Knox roommate and lifelong dear friend, Joel Lasker ’66.” ❯ Roberta Sargent Packard earned a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in nursing and has practiced in Flagstaff, Arizona, New Mexico, and, most recently, at Oregon Health Sciences in McMinnville, Oregon. ❯ Pamela Mott notes that she enjoys playing golf in Sarasota, Florida.

She also has rental properties, and anyone interested can contact her for vacation. She recently adopted a dog (dachshund/beagle mix) from the local humane society. She says this is the hottest year in Sarasota history. ❯ Patricia Velde Kamienski lives in Lincoln, California. She is retired from teaching and enjoys her seven grandchildren and labrador. Two of her children live in California and the third lives in Illinois. ❯ Wife Beverly and I recently acquired a bouvier puppy and are in the process of training her. We continue to ride our horses on our farm and watch the deer roam about—quiet and peaceful.

Hope to see you at our mini-reunion in Chicago at the Drake Hotel in June 2018. Please contact Joe Thompson for details.

Class Correspondent: Terry Rothstein, M.D. 220 N. 32nd Street, Parsons, KS 67357, antiquarian@wavewls.com

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“In addition to following grandkids with pride and still selling houses, I am excited to have my second gallery showing and reception for my paintings in July. My work is in watercolor, pastel, and acrylics. I belong to several art leagues, but my main gallery is in Antioch, Illinois.” ❯ Mike Pope: “We have sold our house and moved into a seniors’ independent living apartment. We really like it and do not miss the house maintenance and upkeep. (We still have an extra bedroom and bath for visitors.) And we continue to enjoy traveling throughout the states and internationally.

We visited with Don and Catherine Hardinger Shriver ’66. Catherine has now retired, but Don continues on and on.” [Nothing new there…] ❯ Ralph Gehlbach: “After 42 wonderful years of marriage, last June, I lost Rosie to pancreatic cancer. But we were able to be present for the birth of our first grandson on June 3 in Longview, Texas, and she bonded with him for a week before passing—a major goal. I have just moved from the Austin area into a newly opened retirement community in Longview near my daughter and face a nearly insurmountable array of boxes resulting from insufficient downsizing.” ❯ More adventures from Pam Norton: “My friend from Australia came for six weeks. While he was here, we made a trip to Southern Illinois seeing parts of the state I didn’t even know existed, such as the only tupelo and cypress swamp in the ‘North’ and Giant City State Park south of Carbondale. We stopped in St. Louis and Springfield so he got a real dose of Americana. Our second trip was to Savannah and Charleston, both glorious in the spring. Home a couple of weeks, and I then trained to Lansing and drove back to Kalamazoo with another friend to attend the 52nd Medieval Congress at Western Michigan University, which draws those interested in studying medieval times from all over the world. There were 354 sessions to choose from on everything from fabrics to architecture to medicine to making mead—all interesting. Now I am home for the summer, phew!” [And your eagerly awaited traveler’s guide comes out when?] ❯ Karen McCauley: “I still teach psychology, counseling issues, and astrological delineation online for Kepler. I spend as much time as possible interacting with my soonto-be-age-four grandson and with my rescue dog.

It’s seldom boring in the Portland area and somewhat reminiscent of the ’60s in California.”

Class Correspondent: Terry Klopcic klopcic2@roadrunner.com

A Mini Phi Delt Reunion Phi Delt brothers Rod Carlson ’65, Richard Izzett ’65, and Kirk Elifson ’65 recently had an opportunity to spend a few days together in Atlanta, Georgia. As guests of Kirk, the three Knox alumni played a couple of rounds of golf at the Druid Hills Country Club in Atlanta. Although Kirk was a great host, he mercilessly drubbed his guests on the golf course. Rod and Rich claim that with a little more knowledge of the course they would have given Kirk a run for his money.

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Pam Harrison Stoffel ’68 shares that she and Jim finally realized their

1966 This is the first column from the Class of ’66 since our 50th Reunion last fall. Steve and Jo Strehle Sommers and our Reunion committee did such an amazing job to make our weekend memorable that I want to give them a big shoutout here. Jo and Steve write: “The Committee worked hard to put together a successful and fun Reunion weekend. We know that our donation hopes for a $6,666,666.66 total was only a Gizmo dream. What we do seriously hope is that members of our class won’t wait for our 75th to come to another Homecoming.” ❯ Some of our class turned Reunion into a jumping-off point for further travel. Susan Beck Hoff writes: “On our way back to New York, from Galesburg, my friend Paula and I spent two days in Chicago.

We intended to visit the Museum of Science and Industry one morning and then check out the University of Chicago campus, especially the Robie House, because we had visited the Wright home and studio when we stayed with Jo and Steve before the Reunion. Well, as Robbie Burns said, ‘The best laid plans ...’ We were so enchanted with the museum—as fascinating to me today as it was when I was a child—that we only had time enough to walk past the Robie House.

We also went into the Loop and Marshall Field’s (still can’t quite call it Macy’s) and then to Millennium Park—fabulous! Next, we went to Pittsburgh and the Andy Warhol Museum, then off to Fallingwater, perhaps Wright’s most notable design. After that, a visit to the Flight 93 National Memorial and Gettysburg, then back to Long Island. We thoroughly enjoyed the Reunion and our subsequent sightseeing road trip home.” ❯ Good news from Jim Johnson: “My November knee replacement allowed me to cycle across Michigan, Ontario, and New York on the Northern Tier in June and hike the Appalachian Trail in the White Mountains in July. Thank you to medical science! At the Reunion, I could barely walk.” ❯ A sadder note from Judy Ducay Moen: “After a long struggle with the effects of Alzheimer’s disease, Dale, my husband of almost 50 years, died. Unlike many others, he was pleasant and seemed happy up to the end. In 1965, thanks to his bringing a car when he came to visit, he was responsible for my roommates and me actually seeing the Knox football team beat Monmouth in our senior year.” ❯ Jo Ellen Maurer Sandburg sent this update: “In May, we had another wonderful trip to France; we try to visit at least once a year. After giving 28 tours of France and after 36 fabulous years of teaching in Arlington Heights and Barrington, I now tutor high school international baccalaureate students and started an adult French program here in Palm Coast, Florida, where we reside on an oceanside golf course. The past few years, I have designed private French tours for clients and friends.

Husband Jeff, who is from Galesburg, and I go back to visit the ’Burg frequently, but recent visits have missed Homecoming events. We see our

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Galesburg buddies more often than we do the Siwash gang. However, Jeff’s license plate is SIWASH 1, and mine is SIWASH 2, so we do pay our respects. We keep waiting for a Knox alumnus to spy one of our cars somewhere to validate that there are other Siwashers driving around! I enjoyed the photos from our 50th and the many stories. No one in our class has changed one bit!” ❯ So good to hear from Bill McVey: “I keep working toward full retirement but never quite make it, which is also the case for Leoni, my wife of (dare I say it) 48 years. You have to admit that being married for 48 years is a pretty neat trick for someone who is only 45 years old, but more about perceived age versus actual age another time. The good thing about semi-retirement is the flexibility to take advantage of events and opportunities during the week. Leoni and I went on the alumni tour of Argonne National Laboratory at the end of June and were blown away learning what all they do there. The day at Argonne was even better because Dixon Slater and Bob Weinstein were also on the tour, which gave us the chance to play Siwash Catch Up.” ❯ Pat Emard Greenwald writes she and Ray Greenwald ’64 enjoyed our 50th, then returned to her post-retirement passion: an after-school homework club for kids in the subsidized housing surrounding the one-room schoolhouse of which she is the curator. Sixteen children, grades one through seven, run in for a healthy snack, homework help, and enrichment activities. The schoolhouse bursts with the same sounds it experienced 100 years ago! ❯ From Mike Denniston: “I blog from time to time about stuff that I find interesting and/or frustrating; expect a new article in the fall. July 12 was Thoreau’s 200th birthday. It is impossible for me to think about Thoreau without thinking about Moon’s English 102 class. I did not much like him or his methods, but that was by far my most memorable non-science class.” ❯ Larry Sommers writes: “Since Reunion, I have completly recovered from the total replacement of my right knee, and the new equipment works fine; I just had the left knee done and assume that will be equally successful. Having retired from my retirement job, I’m a full-time writer and, having published a couple of short stories, am now deeply engaged in a major historical novel. It’s about Norwegian immigrants in Illinois during the abolition era and the first part of the Civil War. About a third of the way through the first draft, and it’s going very well.

Joelle and I continue to be committed to our local Congregational Church and its state, national, and international affiliations. She now chairs the Missions and Outreach Ministry Council of the National Association of Congregational Christian Churches. And I, having retired as editor of the national magazine, The Congregationalist, am (happily) just along for the ride.” ❯ Halcyon Schomp Blake sends this update: My business, Halcyon Yarn, has now fully transitioned to my daughter’s ownership. Will and I will visit Nepal this fall, where our former

exchange student/son is the World Bank’s representative, and daughter Liz loves her post-doc fellowship at Haverford. We spent last winter on our trawler in Charleston and expect to do the same this winter.” ❯ Tom Anderson: “I’ve enjoyed being on the Knox Board over the past several years. Sue Fuerst Anderson ’71 and I have enjoyed all the relationships—with faculty, with the leadership team, and with a talented, curious, engaged student body. Knox continues to do good work and merits our support. Sue and I have enjoyed Indianapolis and will spend the next few months following two granddaughters’ volleyball schedules.”

Class Correspondents: Judith Holland Sarnecki 630 Wheeler Street, Neenah, WI 54956, 920-725-1430, jsarnecki@new.rr.com

1967 Tom Collins writes: “I plan to return to Galesburg a bit early for our 50th Reunion to do a clay workshop for current students. I’ll work in the ceramics studio of the new fine arts building on Thursday and Friday before the Homecoming festivities begin. Somehow, in the past 50 years, I have accumulated many ceramic ideas that I can share with our new clay students. (The hotels of Galesburg have all agreed that attendees are welcome to return a day or two early to watch this historic event.) I just took delivery of 226 square porcelain plates that I am preparing for our 50th Reunion. So if all 228 known classmates attend our reunion, only two will have to share a plate!” ❯ Dave Byrne: “I retired from teaching math at Downers Grove South High School in 2000. Busy with my large extended family and maintenance since then (too many toys!). Seven children and too many grandkids to keep track of and to see all their sports and school activities.

Have the normal aging health issues but nothing serious yet. I have lost contact with ADE brothers and other classmates except for a few emails in the recent years. Unable to attend the 50th Reunion due to family obligations, including archery deer hunting; I still feed my family healthy venison!” ❯ Denny Chase: “I live in Dana Point, California. I’ve been in business for 40 years and visited more than 80 countries, with another 15-20 trips on the drawing board. Two great kids and four grandkids. (The problem with Class Notes is they end up sounding like Christmas letters, but, look—I just summarized a life in four sentences!) Frankly, my last year at Knox was a real drag with Vietnam hanging over our heads.

As it turned out, we graduated on Sunday, I went to work for IBM in Chicago on Monday morning, and my parents received my draft notice on Wednesday. I spent six years in the Army—two years active, four years reserve. Fortunately, I did not have to serve overseas. I look forward to seeing everyone at the Reunion.” ❯ Nancy Meyer Darman: “Home is Huntington Station, Long Island, where I’ve lived for 32 years. I retired last

Class Knox three children are not coming back to live in their house. year after 27 years as accounting supervisor for an electronics firm. I love retirement—going into New York City regularly for concerts and Broadway shows, museums, and the botanical garden. I long ago lived in Germany for two years. I just returned from a trip to Italy, where a community group I’m part of sang in a choral festival, performing two masses, one in a basilica in Rome. It was wonderful. I loved to sing in the Knox Choir and have continued ever since, in church and community choirs. Sometimes there are surprises in life: I became an assistant coach for my daughter’s soccer travel team. I had never played soccer! I have two children, one in Alabama and one in Albuquerque, and an adorable 2-year-old grandchild.” ❯ Dick Fiddes: “After Knox, I attended Northwestern University Law School and received a J.D. degree in 1970. I practiced with a law firm in Chicago for eight years, then moved to Cincinnati to accept a position with the law department of Federated Department Stores (now Macy’s). I retired in 2010 and now volunteer as board chair of a credit union in Cincinnati and stay as active as progressing arthritis (I had a hip replacement last February) will permit. My wife and I have enjoyed many wonderful travels with classmate and close friend Quentin Pletsch and his wife, including a river cruise on the Rhine this September. My wife and I have two kids: son Mark graduated from Miami University (Ohio), where he was a fraternity brother and close friend of Greg Wotring, son of Dave ’65 and Paulanna Hatchett Wotring. Mark and Greg remain good friends today. ❯ Eric Johnson: “I’m retired and just sort of hang out and fix things I’m told to fix!” ❯ Jack Turner passed away on May 9, just a month short of his 75th birthday and our 50th wedding anniversary. He had enjoyed a rich and full life after Knox. He felt fortunate to get to live in our beloved Pacific Northwest, pursue the elementary teaching and instructional computing career he loved, raise two great sons, and live close to them and two grandkids. I am grateful for the condolences and support I’ve received from you, my college friends. See you at the Reunion!

Class Correspondent: Anne Talley Turner 50 East 39th Place, Eugene, OR 97405, anneturner345@gmail.com

1968 Lee Balgemann shares that they moved from River Forest to Westchester in May. New address is 11436 Enterprise Drive, Westchester, Illinois, 60154. He is also a co-chair on our 50th Reunion committee, “which is a blast!” ❯ Mark Burkhalter reported that “Mark Van Pernis (MVP) visited me in May in Oregon for a few days. After a visit to Portland, both of us traveled to Medford, where I live, and enjoyed visiting some of the many vineyards in beautiful Southern Oregon. We are both retired from law practice.

MVP still lives in Kona, Hawaii.” ❯ Alice McClenahan Burk reports, “In April, Bob and I

spent two weeks in Paris visiting our son, who lives there. After a side trip to Normandy, we joined a riverboat cruise through Holland and Germany and ended with four days in Switzerland. Stopped in Chicago on our way back to California to visit my side of the family, all University of Illinois graduates and Cubs fans, naturally. At home, our main focus is on our two granddaughters, 6 and 3, both of course beautiful and talented. A man walking by our house recently noticed my Knox license plate holder and stopped to tell me his granddaughter has been looking at Knox as a possibility in 2020 to play on the softball team. I gave him my number.

Knox has also been looking at her. I was sad to learn Nadine (Deanie) Guker, former Post Hall suitemate, passed away recently. She struggled for years with MS. I look forward to a possible fall reunion with Linda Richards Colacurcio, Heather Milliken Daina, and Jo Ann Johansen.” ❯ Alan Birkner enjoys retirement and just finished a fifth cruise, from England to Portugal and back. Youngest child Steve Birkner ’03 recently married and lives nearby. ❯ Pam Harrison Stoffel shares that she and Jim finally realized their three children are not coming back to live in their house. “We are about to vacate our five-bedroom home in favor of a two-bedroom and have spent the last six months renovating.”

They planned to move following a trip to their home on Sea Island, where they planned to spend the Fourth of July with their eldest son and his family and youngest son and his girlfriend. “In early August, we headed to St. Louis to stay with our youngest son, saw Sue Bennetsen Postel and husband Roy, and then went to Chicago to attend a wedding. I really pray we are able to complete the move before I return to teaching and directing in September. I have more than a full class load next year and will direct both shows. We celebrated our 45th wedding anniversary in June and found it hard to believe that that many years have gone by. Aside from a hip replacement in April that has me pain-free, we are healthy and look forward to living on one floor instead of four. Keeping up with the four grandchildren, 7 and under, takes more energy than we bargained for!” ❯ Kathy Suter sends health and happiness to all fellow classmates. “I lived in Washington, D.C., until 2013, married Ron Allan, and spent more than 20 years working for Jack Morton Worldwide as creative director. In 2000, I was awarded the job of media production manager for the National Museum of the American Indian within the exhibits department. For the next 12 years, I provided the creative direction for media-based information in our Washington, D.C., and New York City facilities and led a talented team. I had the privilege of traveling to Native communities with our video crew, recording the stories, histories, and contemporary events of those communities. It was life-changing, and I loved every minute. I retired in December 2012 and spent the next six months getting one husband, two cats, and a 40-foot con-

tainer of belongings to Hawaii. We love it here and are constantly busy with house renovation and a very active garden. I also volunteer as president of the Hawaii Museums Association and as a member of the Bishop Museum Association Council. Who knew retirement would be so busy? I really enjoy keeping up with other ’68ers on Facebook and Chip Evans, who keeps it so lively. I’ll try to make 2018 in Galesburg … a long way from Kealakekua, Hawaii!” ❯ Janet MacKay shares that, in fall 2016, she traveled to Cuba with her sister for an educational tour. “It was a spectacular opportunity to connect with the culture, art, architecture, and general beauty of what I feel is an extraordinary country. We were enjoying a tour of Cienfuegos when someone learned that the Cubs won the World Series, and we celebrated appropriately that day with mojitos and cerveza! I have booked a return trip for fall and look forward to learning more about this country.” I’ll report back! It’s been fantastic keeping up on the Knox 68 Facebook page. Chip Evans has done an admirable job drawing class members back together, and I encourage anyone to give Facebook a try. I have been reminded of so many people and feel lots more connected to my Knox ‘experience’ than I have for many years.

I plan to make a real effort to be in Galesburg for our 50th. Thanks, Chip!” ❯ Chip Evans shared “Nancy Leo Moore, Bill McVey ’66, and I attended a Knox Alumni event at Argonne National Labs in the western suburbs of Chicago. We saw the Visualization Lab, Mira Supercomputer, and Advanced Photon Source. All were amazing. Anyone can use Argonne resources if your research is worthy and for free if you share your results.

Three Knox alumni currently work there.” ❯ Al Bryant, in the investment management industry since 1971, is one of the founders of Segall Bryant & Hamill (SBH) and currently a principal and senior portfolio manager. Prior to co-founding SBH, Al was partner and senior vice president at Stein Roe & Farnham, for 21 years. He has a B.A. from Knox, an MBA from Indiana University, and is a Chartered Investment Counselor. ❯ Classmates who joined our Knox 68 closed Facebook group during 2017 include Mark Lipton, Janet MacKay, Chris Stalle Norseng, Bill Thompson, Ron Zaba, Al Bryant, Ken Foerster, Maureen Timmons Honegger, David Dowley, Pat Smith Musson, Bonnie Newon Preis, Todd Gessner ’69, Ken Furst, and Will Millard. We are waiting for you! ❯ We just celebrated our 44th anniversary, visited rainy Door County, attended our granddaughter’s christening in Connecticut, and will go to Michigan. Our yard is taking over with all the rain! Thanks for sending all these great notes.

Class Correspondent: Susan Meyer Mika 1519 North Kennicott Avenue, Arlington Heights, IL 60004, 847-253-7719, pottatea@comcast.net

1969 Class Correspondent: Bill Combs bcombsi@yahoo.com

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“Looks like I failed retirement.” —Tom Culbertson ’70

1970

1971

Helen Hayner Kuhl writes, “So I got your email when my husband and I are in an apartment in Rome for 12 days. Thought I’d share. Our daughter did a destination wedding here 10 years ago, and I always wanted to come back at a more leisurely pace to see the sights. Had to come in the hot month of June, not my first choice, but my second daughter is due in September, so we can’t travel then. We have survived 90-degree sun and have done 20,000 steps a day to see the sights and love it. Eating and drinking too much, of course, but very glad we can still do this sort of stuff! So get your knee fixed so you can keep up. :)” ❯ From Pete Drummond: “Daughter Katie Drummond ’04 and husband Cory Bonstead ’04 had twins, Peter and Corinne, in February. Katie is a partner in the Rock Island law firm of Winstein, Kavensky, and Cunningham, where she concentrates on criminal defense. Daughter Becca Drummond ’06 just got engaged and will marry next April. Just returned from a successful archery bear hunt in Alberta with Jim Kilts.

Score was Knox Team 2, Bears 0. I did learn that if you are less than two feet from a bear, you are too close. By the way, Harry Wong is now a New York fashion model with the Bella Company.

Word has it he also does bit parts in TV and movies where they need a background Knox graduate. Look him up.” ❯ A note from Tom Culbertson: “Been a while since I emailed. A lot has happened in the last couple of years. In November, Mary Anne and I moved to Westlake, Ohio, to be closer to daughter Christine (she and her husband just bought a house in Lakewood). I spent last summer fixing up the old Victorian house in Fremont so that we could sell it. I painted the whole outside and most of the inside and rebuilt the front porch. It sold in two days.

Before working on the house, I finished a twoyear project writing new text for the all new exhibits at the Hayes Center for the 100th anniversary of the museum. I also did a lot of painting and building of exhibits. I also finished a 12-year project writing a biography of Rutherford Hayes (it was mentioned in the last alumni magazine). Looks like I failed retirement. Since arriving in Westlake, I have painted everything that doesn’t move inside our condominium. Now I am building bookcases and furniture. I golf about once a week but find the courses in the area are flat and not very challenging.” ❯ A quick update from Sue Harastany Goering: “Not much new here. We try to keep busy exercising and doing things with the Newcomers Group and the Senior Center. We have noticed that the more things we join … the more responsibilities we end up with.”

Class Correspondent: Nancy Hoover Debelius 865 Gayer Drive, Medina, OH 44256-2901, 330-723-5658, Knox1970@zoominternet.net

John Pilcher (aronia.us@att.net) is the president of Coldbrook Farm, Inc. He was a featured speaker on aronia product development at the 2017 Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Convention.

Aronia, high in antioxidants and with a distinctive flavor, is used in foods and beverages. Aronia wines won seven medals at the 2016 Finger Lakes International Wine Competition. Many of the award-winning berries come from John’s Coldbrook Farm. ❯ Bob Fischer (rafischer1@aol.com) term-limited out as president of the Naperville Area Homeowners Confederation in May. The mayor proclaimed his last day in office as Bob Fischer Day. ❯ Charley Stivale (ad4928@ wayne.edu) achieved his 200 RYT certification as a yoga instructor, signifying that he has completed a 200-hour yoga teaching program registered with Yoga Alliance. He has taught at Northville Yoga Center in Northville, Michigan, since January as part of his transition from university teaching to retirement activities. ❯ Neil Blevins (nblevins2006@comcast.net) and wife Ruth traveled to Tanzania in search of Ann McConachie. After two weeks searching the Serengeti and only finding elephants, lions, leopards, giraffes, hippos, cheetahs, and rhinos, they finally located her in the town of Babati. He reports: “Our time with Annie was truly special. Her devotion to these children, this school, and these people was inspiring. I know others in our class have also volunteered or donated, but those who haven’t, should.” I second Neil’s thoughts. ❯ Don Raleigh (DJR@email.unc.edu) accompanied a University of North Carolina alumni group on a cruise along the Danube, lecturing on Balkan and East European history. He spent July in Moscow and Dnepropetrovsk (now Dnipro), Ukraine, working in local archives on his biography of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. ❯ Steve Phillips (knox.1971@gmail.com) and wife Peggy are retired. Steve teaches microbiology part-time at Richland College in Dallas. Steve also reported the sad news that Dr. Allen Hiebert, who taught chemistry at Knox, passed away last year after a lingering illness. Steve added: “He was a terrific teacher and many of us chemistry and biology majors have a Hiebert (and a Kooser) story or two.” ❯ Jane Langer McGuire (jmcguire@ unm.edu) let me know that Besançon alumni and friends, especially those in and/or familiar with the Knox Class ’71 group, are welcome to join her, Bruce Wyatt, Charley Stivale, Mary Myers Fasbender, Ted Fagerburg, and others for a mini mid-year reunion in 2018 in Besançon.

Completing the survey at the following link will collect your input for travel planning: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/XGTNYDL. Think about it! ❯ Bill Ford (wrford49@gmail.com) is retired except for a couple of trusts he administers. That leaves him time for golf and travel, including spending time with his grandkids—with daughter Julie bringing another granddaughter into the world soon. Son Steve was recently mar-

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ried and works as an assistant in Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s office. Recently, Bill and Cathy met up with Kevin Murray and wife Liz in Arizona for some hiking and golf. ❯ Judy and I, together with Jan Augustyn and Mike Dickenson, saw Larry Baldacci (lbaldacci@ earthlink.net) in a wonderful production of Ragtime. Larry will be in the Steppenwolf for Young Adult production of The Crucible, which will run throughout October on the Steppenwolf main stage. ❯ The Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award has been conferred on Knoxville News Sentinel syndicated columnist Mildred L. Culp (knoxnews.com/mildred-culp), for “career longevity and … unwavering excellence.”

Millie has published articles on workplace trends (workwise.net), celebrating lesser-known workers, affirming entrepreneurs, and providing advance notice of the ills of technology on the human spirit. ❯ Penny Wells LaValle (Penny.WellsLaValle@suffolkcountyny.gov) reports that she still works, and husband Ken still represents New York’s Senate District 1. Mary Myers Fasbender (mfasbender@gmail.com), Andrea Stamm, and Carol Siegel Clegg traveled together to Las Vegas, Mexico, and Hawaii. Andrea and Mary also knocked Alaska, Canada, and Arizona off their respective bucket lists. Steve and Gail Sims Smith (gssmith.ergc@gmail.com) plan to sell their home in Illinois and join their daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren in a home they bought together in Temecula, California. Gail and Steve will travel back and forth between that house and their house in Leesburg, Florida, near their son, enjoying spending time near both of their children, even though they live on opposite coasts. ❯ Paula Wolf Irrgang (irrgang@ outlook.com) retired in August after 25 years at the Austin Public Library. ❯ Andrew Saelens, son of John (saelensj@aol.com) and Lynda Greco Saelens, married Kelsey Freeman on June 17 in Washington, D.C. ❯ John Flood (jtflood39@ gmail.com) retired in 2015, after 39 years in consumer graphics. He now runs, bikes, golfs poorly, and goes to Cub games as many happy hours as possible. He and wife Carol’s three children are married and live close by, with two grandsons and a third due in October. ❯ Mary Maddox’s novel Darkroom won first prize in fiction at the 2017 Annual IndieReader Discovery Awards at BookExpo America, a major trade show in New York City. Judges praised her book for its “sharp, quick dialogue and nice descriptive passages.” Darkroom recounts a woman’s search for her vanished friend, which leads her into an underworld of powerful men with deadly secrets. Mary lives in Charleston, Illinois, where she taught at Eastern Illinois University. She now devotes her time to writing fiction and riding her Andalusian horse. ❯ I attended a sad but beautiful memorial service for Brian Allen in Dunlap, Illinois, where I saw Steve and Gail Sims Smith, Walt and Lilli Williams Davis ’74, Rabbi Bob Ourach and Nancy Ourach Friedman ’74, and, of course, Julia Nance Allen. Bob gave a beautiful eulogy

Class Knox for Brian. It says a lot when both a rabbi and a Methodist minister provide beautiful eulogies of your life and many friends—going back to high school—attend. I will miss Brian. ❯ I also saw Riley O’Connor recently when I was in Rockford watching my daughter play baseball at the same time that Riley and Meredith Fradine O’Connor were attending her high school reunion. ❯ I am still working on our 50th symposium. I do want all to know that we want viewpoints from various political perspectives represented on the panels. If you are interested in getting involved, please let me know.

Class Correspondent: Jerome A. Tatar 333 Wilshire Drive West, Wilmette, IL 60091-3151, 847-251-4889, jerry@tatarlawfirm.com

1972 Marilyn Carbonell is head of library services at Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City.

“This is my 11th year as director of a large research library and archives in a beautiful facility, the Bloch Building, designed by Steven Holl. In 2016, I received a new honorary title as Emerita Research Librarian IV from University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) as one of the first UMKC librarians designated with emeritus status.” ❯ Graham “Cush” Copeland writes, “After 28 years teaching high school science preceded by 10 years of work in the Rocky Mountain oilfields, I am officially retired. Having been a teacher for so long, I am used to having summers off, so I don’t really feel retired yet, but come the first day of school next month, I expect it to really hit me.” ❯ Deirdre Poste Cummings writes, “Packing, packing, and more packing for my impending move. Not fun.” ❯ Carol Daugherty Egan writes, “Tom and I became grandparents May 7, 2017, when Jaxon Thomas Egan was born. We get to enjoy ‘snuggle time’ regularly, as the family lives next door.” ❯ Deb Howard writes, “My first report since graduation: After working for 27 years at a local nonprofit community organization building and preserving affordable housing serving Central Brooklyn, I retired as executive director this past January. Partner Jerry and I have been together for 40 years, and daughter Emily and her husband are about to have a baby boy. Perfect timing, retirement and now becoming a grandmother! I am active in my church, serve on several local nonprofit boards and sing in two choirs, so life is good. I attribute my career in community development to my experience on the ACM Urban Studies program where I spent my senior year and two years afterward as a VISTA volunteer in Uptown Chicago. Hope all are well and if ever in New York City, look me up!” ❯ Ron Lipton writes, “Checking in from Albuquerque … finally have hung it up with playing music. It was fun for a long time, but finally just burned out. At least I went out with a bang, with Jeff Bridges and T Bone Burnett sitting in with us at the New Mexico Film and Music Festival after-party on June

10. I look forward to doing more traveling from this point on. Hawaii is high on the bucket list.” ❯ Jim Rosenthal writes, “I attended the 35-year reunion of my Southern Illinois University School of Medicine class of 1982. Some of us still practice, but many are either slowing down or retired and looking for ways to have fun. Many of my med school classmates spent their careers as family physicians—this was possible because they got a great education at a low price. Those days are over. There was much talk about the Illinois budget, or the lack of one, but the med school carries on … Speaking of that, I still have fun with my cars, my boat, and playing the guitar. I suppose I’ll have to grow up one of these days ...” ❯ Bill Sowle writes, “Once again writing from Colorado and the wonderful Aspen Music Festival. This summer I traveled extensively through New Mexico—Land of Enchantment, and it truly is. Albuquerque is just a big, fast city; however, I did kayak down the Rio Grande, which was particularly high this spring. Santa Fe is steeped in history; I visited the Georgia O’Keeffe Art Museum and the local favorite Meow Wolf, a delight for all the senses. Wine festivals, White Sands, Civil War forts, New Mexico Museum of Space History, Solar Observatory, and many other interesting locales before ending up in the quaint little town of Taos. Much of my time was spent hiking in the mountains still covered with snow, making hiking a challenge ... magnificent views and cool temperatures. After Aspen, I plan to head to one of my favorite cities Telluride, Colorado.” ❯ Steve Suskin has continued his theatre-as-hobby career in Virginia, where he has lived since 2012. Recently, he played multiple roles in Aaron Sorkin’s The Farnsworth Invention.

Next up is the role of Peter in Jesus Christ Superstar. Then he will repeat the role of Danforth in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, a role which he last played on the Harbach Theatre stage at Knox.

“This time there’s no need for stage makeup.”

He has “grown into” the role. He approaches his second anniversary working as director of philanthropy at Beth Sholom Village, where he resides.

“New address: 4004 Atlantic Avenue, Apartment 1912, Virginia Beach, Virginia 23451, less than 100 yards from the ocean. What’s not to love?

Y’all come & visit!” ❯ Ross Terman writes, “Tom and Monica Damme Minion visited us last January. We gave them the grand tour of Miami and South Florida, including a day trip to Key West, an airboat ride in the Everglades, and the best Cuban food in town in Hialeah. As the saying goes, a good time was had by all. Otherwise, same old, same old. Work, doctor visits, etc.” ❯ Vince Throop writes, “The Pine Lands—the water is black and tastes faintly of winter green, the trees are stunted, and the sky meets the forest with a hint of promise. I long for the mountains, but the money’s good, and the contract is good for a while.” ❯ Sandy Wawrytko writes, “As for news, I write from Taiwan, where I recently finished my annual intensive class at a Buddhist university. I will leave for a conference in Singapore in a few

days for the International Society for Chinese Philosophy. Will make two presentations, one on Asian leadership philosophies and another on comparative aesthetics (ancient Greek dualism vs.

Chinese allocentric approaches in music, painting, and poetry).” ❯ Mark McIntosh has been named vice president for research and economic development and vice chancellor of research, graduate studies and economic development, a joint appointment between the University of Missouri System and the University of Missouri (MU). McIntosh has served as MU’s interim vice chancellor for research, graduate studies, and economic development since 2015. ❯ Wendy Scherwat Ducourneau writes, “Swam SCY Nationals in April, winning six medals and achieving eight personal best times. So happy to have renewed my participation in this sport!” ❯ Please post your news and photos on Facebook at Knox College Class of ’72.

Class Correspondent: Wendy Scherwat Ducourneau wjsd@jps.net, Facebook Group: Knox College Class of ’72

1973 Bob Bolier continues to enjoy retirement in sunny Sarasota, Florida, for the majority of the year, playing senior softball, golfing, boating, biking, and playing tennis. Bob continues to travel and play tournaments year round with his 65-70 year-old softball team and will continue to do so as long as his legs hold up. He managed to visit with and play golf with Kyle and Sue Dicks Vantrease ’75 earlier this year. Anyone heading to the Suncoast from November until mid-May is welcome to contact him at bob_bolier@yahoo.com. ❯ Mike Cavanaugh is still in Washington, D.C., working at the AFL-CIO and believes in building the progressive movement more than ever. He adds, “Have you seen what’s happening to our country?” Mike and wife Dianne have been married 40 years and have two wonderful children, two wonderful children-in-law, and the world’s greatest grandson, Michael Graceon Cavanaugh—all of New Jersey. He hopes to bring them all to Galesburg someday. ❯ Don Corrigan complained about his Sam Moon typewriter pinkie, and Greg Divers complained about his Harley Knosher football knees at a July Knox get-together in St. Louis. On sabbatical from Webster University, Corrigan recently published Forest Park and has another tome underway, tentatively titled Squirrels In Popular Culture. Corrigan, editor of Webster-Kirkwood Times Inc., won three first-place awards for writing in this year’s Missouri Press Association Contest for newspaper writing. Divers, professor of German at Washington University, has scaled down his academic career to devote more time to his bicycle. Corrigan and Divers invite other St. Louisarea bicyclists to join them for some bike rides along the Mississippi from Pere Marquette to

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“I get to ‘play’ the old geezer who graduated 42 years Grafton, Illinois, where the drinks are on Don at the River City Cider House. ❯ Pat Rusk Fitch and husband Morgan are living the dream in a tricked-out penthouse atop an office building in downtown Tucson, Arizona. They still “tread the boards” in a very active theatre scene. Thank you, Dr. Bob Whitlatch! ❯ Jane Goeltz Stetson still works but is actually starting to think of retirement. Her new knee is doing well, but exercising has gotten old. She and husband Fran continue to drive to Kansas to see daughter Emily, and they looked forward to another trip on August 21, when Emily’s home was in the path of totality during the eclipse! ❯ Isabelle Czarkowski Goossen retired at the end of March and is still in the process of getting used to it. She continues to be on the boards of two for-profit organizations and two nonprofits, including Knox. As a result, she has been back to campus quite a bit and states that it looks great. She has no plans to move from Chicago and would love to catch up in person with other local class members. ❯ Jackie Powell Hope just finished her 26th year as the music director/organist at her United Church of Christ congregation and also works as a part-time reporter for The Dickinson Press in Dickinson, North Dakota. Last fall, she began a degree in theatre at Dickinson State University.

Her current project involves directing an adaptation of Dracula with the local community theatre group, which opens on Friday, October 13. She jokes that they are always on the lookout for new blood in their troupe. She recently traveled to Helena, Montana, for the wedding of son Patrick.

He is an environmental lawyer with the state of Montana, whose wife Ashley is a professor of accounting at Carroll College. ❯ Joan Raming McGuire reports that one of her grandsons soon will start at DGN High school, his brother will be in eighth grade, and that these young men have always lived with her. Joan has been retired for a year and a half, is single again, and plans to attend our Reunion in 2018. ❯ John Straus has recently completed a two-year term as chair of Knox’s national alumni council and now has the honor of serving a two-year term on the College’s Board of Trustees, ex officio, as Alumni Council immediate past chair. He notes that Knox is fortunate to be able to take advantage of the breadth and expertise of trustees’ talents and wisdom. Proof can be found on campus at the new Whitcomb Art Center, in the expansive and challenging curriculum, and in the quality of the students. He jokes that current students are so bright, he probably couldn’t get admitted today.

He encourages all to visit, as our alma mater has never looked better. To those who responded to John’s question about why our class is less active than other classes when it comes to the percentage who are donors, he apologizes; his email contained a typo, so he received no responses.

If you wish to comment, his email address is strausjj@aol.com. Please pass along to John your questions, comments, or concerns about the College, so he can be our voice at the trustees’ table.

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❯ Last October, Mary Waldner moved to a beautiful spot right on a river in upstate New York. She works much less and enjoys the stunning beauty all around. ❯ Chris Eik Winick reports that the Class of ’73 was well-represented on the spring alumni trip to Florence, Italy. The group was able to experience Florence through the eyes of Margot from Professor Emeritus Robert Hellenga’s Sixteen Pleasures. Joining Chris in the fun were John and Kathy Donovan Bucher and George Haskell and wife Patty.

Chris reminds us that plans will soon be underway for our 45th Reunion! There are many exciting things happening on campus, so hopefully many from our class plan to attend. If you have any suggestions or would like to help with the planning, please send Chris an email at chris@winick.net or drop an email to alumni@knox.edu.

Class Correspondent: Nancy Bakos Hunter 5280 Easley Way, Golden, CO 80403-1161, 303-278-3163, n.hunter@platte.com

1974 Hello 1974 alums: Keep your eyes open for “lost” buddies from our years at Knox. We are committed to finding them regardless of when or where they graduated. Looking for: Patrick Hall, Steve Marshall, Debi Rose, and Steve Freese. Found Wayne Hedenschoug in Springfield, Illinois, but am still looking for his email address. Some of us now Facebook with James Holyfield. Who else are we missing? Let me know and I’ll get our topnotch investigators to do a search. ❯ For now, let’s hear it from folks who we don’t have to search for (applause!) ❯ Lin Yeilding Bowie taught her last semester at the College of San Mateo this summer and retired in August. She says: “I look forward to lots of volunteer work and some travel.” ❯ Congratulations to Leslie Brooks, who recently won a Silver Nautilus Book Award for her magical fantasy, Alannah. ❯ Bryce Anderson wants us to know that Jim Wetherbee has died: “I’m just really bummed that another one of my Knox College dorm mates is gone.” We hear ya, Bryce. ❯ James “Jim” Rollin Wetherbee, 65, died March 26, 2017, at his home in Galesburg. He was born March 11, 1952, in Galesburg. He married Narelle Anne Royal in 1984 in Australia, and later married Elena V. Gordiyenko in 2013 in Galesburg. He is survived by his wife; his two sons, Jackson Taylor of Galesburg and Benjamin Charles of Lake Forest; and stepson Dimitriy Apenko of Dnepro, Ukraine. Jim was a teacher in Sydney from 1974 to 2011. He was a ceramist, sculptor, and painter. He received a Master of Fine Arts from Southern Methodist University in 1978. He had a specialty in art history. At his funeral, Harley Knosher and Bob Bondi officiated. ❯ Mark VanRaden sends in this update: “Since retiring from the National Institutes of Health 11/2 years ago, a number of health issues (self and family) have postponed much of the fun and ad-

venture I had anticipated! Still, I enjoy life in Ann Arbor, Michigan, occupied mostly with family, including daughter Gwynneth VanLaven ’04, son Joel VanLaven ’96, and a granddaughter (in middle school). All three live within 1-1/2 miles of us. Note that Lise Levie ’75 and I have now been married 43 years, which I know some of you may find hard to believe. That big event took place a day before I graduated and a day after I started my first job—at Butler Manufacturing in Galesburg, which then laid off its entire workforce in early 1975. I’d love to hear from Knox friends!” ❯ You can still find Ernie Buck in Texas, where he works as a Medicaid medical director.

But don’t worry—he still travels. “Just back from a Rome-to-Barcelona cruise. Planning hikes through New Zealand.” He did the Baltic on Windstar last year and recommends it. (Okay, put this on your bucket list!) ❯ Terry Algren Bruner checked in this time. “Nothing to share for now but enjoy seeing news about other classmates!”

Thank you, Terry! ❯ Bob Sahm reports that for the first time in many years, “we were able to gather the daughters and have a family vacation at the Cape (Cod), where we used to go each year.” ❯ Allyson Shaffer Sawtell has retired from her job at the Denver Inner City Parish, where she had been for 10 years. “I’ll miss it terribly, but, since I have spent 40 years in nonprofit and church work, I have to admit I really look forward to a bit of a break. In retirement, I hope to become even more activist than I already have been around a host of social and environmental issues and to pursue a new interest in poetry/songwriting for social change. And do some traveling with my husband Peter—mostly car camping in Colorado and the Southwest, before all the National Parks, monuments, tribal lands, and archeological sites are destroyed by the current administration (sorry, but I feel strongly about all this!). Anyway, that’s what’s up with me.

And maybe, when I have more free time, I can actually get back to Knox and see what’s going on over there!” ❯ Pamela Mitroff is senior director of health reform compliance at the National Association of Health Underwriters in Washington, D.C. She writes that she is “watching the actions in Congress on health reform. In my current position, I help health insurance brokers understand the requirements of laws that impact their employer clients. Passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA, aka “Obamacare”) seven years ago represented a sea change for employer plan compliance. Now it seems as if we’ll be back at the drawing boards … or, maybe not! Only time will tell.” ❯ Darryl Coburn is senior manager at Cemco Systems in Chicago. His boss and “friend for 29 years had to exit his business due to MS. I spent six months selling the company (and me) to a firm in St. Charles, Illinois. I now commute about nine minutes to work instead of 45 minutes. Life is good. Son Alex Keefe ’06 moved back from Vermont to return to Chicago as political news editor at WBEZ (NPR affiliate). Great to have him back.” ❯ I’ll wrap up our class notes

Class Knox ago.” —Michael Lincoln ’75 with my news: Both my husband and I retire this fall and will stay in Colorado. We plan to continue in the museum field as consultants. This summer we traveled to Brussels, where Steve had a book signing (Lakota performers in Wild West shows in Europe) and then on to Norway to meet “new” cousins, visit family sites with local historians, and do research in the National Archives.

Spent time in the Lofoten Islands above the Arctic Circle, where my great-grandfather worked in the cod industry in 1880. Loved the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo. If anyone needs Norway souvenirs, I’ve got more than I need!

Class Correspondent: Monta Lee Dakin 303-979-9307, mld780@aol.com

1975 The kindness of friends was evident from my Knox classmates’ responses to my bicycle accident and broken hip in early summer. I fully expect a return to biking, motorcycling, rollerblading, RVing, volunteering, plus skiing at Beaver Creek this January! Thanks from your Class Correspondent. ❯ Ken Kidd shared that he broke his hip in a bicycle accident six years ago.

Ken, a physician in Whitewater, Wisconsin, says that hip fracture for those over 75 has a 25-percent one-year mortality rate. “See how smart we were to get ours out of the way!” ❯ Tim Burke felt my pain, as he was recovering from right shoulder scope to address the arthritic result of what he calls “30 years’ worth of bad cross-country skiing technique.” Tim is retired from infectious disease practice with Essentia Health but helps out with nursing home rounds six days a month. ❯ Valerie Hiatt Burke has changed her primary art medium to fused glass. She sells her work at a local gallery in Superior, Wisconsin, and does some technique and design teaching.

Son Stuart is a hospital pharmacist, and daughter Emily, who has two young sons, teaches high school science. “Even though our time at Knox is ever-receding in the rear view mirror, we cherish our time there and the educational opportunities it afforded us. Trust us, Duluth/Superior is not as frozen and forbidding as its reputation; we would love to touch base with any of the Knox extended family who may be up this way, as did Harry Wolin and wife Karen last summer.” ❯ Eric Helgeson writes, “We’ve lived in the East Bay for 40+ years. Yvonne Arcus came to University of California, Berkeley, for a Ph.D. in molecular biology, and I followed. We have two kids: Kirsten is working on a Ph.D. in linguistics.

David is a web engineer in San Francisco. Yvonne and I have had careers in the biopharmaceutical sciences. I currently manage a R&D analytics group developing proteins for treatment of hemophilia, multiple sclerosis, cancer, and other diseases. In June, we had a delightful visit with Bob Hennes and Kay at their home in the Wisconsin Northwoods, joined by Christopher Hill, who drove up from Madison. It had been decades

since we all got together. During college and after, Bob, Chris, and I had shared lodgings with Thomas Coolsen. Unfortunately, Tom (T.C.) passed away on March 4, 2017, in St. Augustine, Florida, where he had relocated after working at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. He was quite fond of his years at Knox and requested a remembrance there. So in October, Chris, Bob and I will gather for a memorial service for Tom on campus. For more information about this 2017 Homecoming remembrance ceremony, contact Christopher Hill at chillcom2003@yahoo.com. ❯ Michael Lincoln sends this update: “After 14 years of teaching at Ohio University and five years as artistic director/head of the theatre division, I got my first sabbatical in the last six months of 2017. One of my many planned trips is to visit Knox for three days in November and interact with the students about a career in the professional theatre. I get to ‘play’ the geezer who graduated 42 years ago!” ❯ Vickie Silldorff Welsch enjoys her hobby of quilting, plus she’s already encouraging us all to try to get some more folks from Class of 1975 to attend our next big Homecoming. To that end, she asks if anyone has current info on her old roommate, Diane Kamiak Hashim. ❯ Annette Kolis Mandel and husband Alan are busy following their six kids and 10 grandchildren around the world. (“Why won’t they stop moving?!” she asks.) Currently Annette is a trustee for the St. Louis Metropolitan Sewer District, sits on the Central West End Development Committee, volunteers for the USO, plays some golf, and walks her beautiful Vizsla, Rusty (whom she kidnapped from her son when he deployed to Afghanistan). ❯ Brian Rose and his wife finished a CD (Songs from Colorado) last fall. Brian says, “It will not win any awards, but was fun to make.” Their recent retirement travels have been to Phoenix, Chicago, New Orleans, Alaska, plus Madison. ❯ George Szostkowski reflects, “My Knox years were a springboard for further education and self-exploration. After Knox, I continued the conjugation of verbs and obtained an M.A. in Slavic languages and literatures from the University of Illinois at Chicago, thus fulfilling the best that professors Momcilo Rosic and Wasily Fiedorow instilled within me.” George credits skills he developed as Knox Union Board films chairman with contributing to his successful sales and marketing career in the steel industry. He remains in contact with a close circle of Knox classmates— Jim Cooke ’76, Sverre Falck-Pedersen ’74, Rich Burke, Neil Schaye, Mike Wright, Pete Hopkins, and James Millhorn—“despite geographic distances and the encroachment of Father Time.” George married Xiaochen Wang in 2012. He still pursues his “lifelong interests of travel, all things related to cinema, literature, and writing short stories.” ❯ Nancy Knapp has recovered from her cancer treatment. She and her husband are headed to a job-sharing situation in Kayin State in Myanmar, where they will be organizing the start-up of a 24-bed teaching

hospital built by an NGO called Global Neighbors Canada, in Kawkareik, about an hour west of the Thai border. “Another adventure!” ❯ Michael Cinquegrani still practices cardiology full-time at the Medical College of Wisconsin/Froedtert Hospital in Milwaukee.

“We are very proud of our daughter, a sophomore at the University of Notre Dame.” ❯ Amanda Roberts LaRosa reports, “I work for Aussie Pet Mobile in franchise development in, possibly, the best position of my career! Son Jake graduated last year with a degree in theatre (directing) and works as a struggling actor, and husband Joe continues on in software development project management.” ❯ Sheri Sprung Morrison’s travels took her to see Barb Epstien ’76 and husband Julian in Redmond, Oregon, in August to view the solar eclipse. Makes me recall Carly Simon’s song from 1972! ❯ Late addition: Judy Middleton Anderson shares that she was diagnosed with kidney cancer this spring. Judy, we’re all rooting for you.

Class Correspondent: Jeanne Pankanin jeanne.knoxfriend@gmail.com

1976 I have not received many updates lately (hint, hint), so this column will be short … I recently connected with Malik Jones ’77 via Facebook, whom I haven’t seen in 40 years. In addition to Knox, we also went to high school together at St. Ignatius in Chicago. He looks great, and it is a real treat to get updated on his life. ❯ Yours truly attended the famous Phi Delt-FIJI golf outing in June 2017. This was the sixth year of this event.

Tim Loch ’78 attended the outing and brought the first-place trophy from last year’s event. This year’s outing was a close match, with Norm Hillner ’79 and his team winning first place. The Phi Delts had won the tournament in 2016, so the close match did produce an exciting finish.

The event has become quite a fun tradition, with nearly 40 golfers (including Tony Lee ’75, Ray Albertina ’79, Steve Laudel ’79, Jim Straus ’78, Tom Stelter ’77, Doug Duff ’78, Dave Bates ’78, and Tom Bannos ’80) in attendance this year.

Kudos to Norm Hillner and Tim Loch for their efforts in keeping this fun tradition going. ❯ I did see George ’74 and Mary Marselus Rosic at a local concert earlier this summer. They are well, and Mary is very pleased with her decision to retire. ❯ That is all for now. Send me some updates! Otherwise, you will read more about the Phi Delts. As you can see, this column has been pretty sparse.

Class Correspondent: George M. Pearce 1114 Forest Avenue, Wilmette, IL 60091-1655, 847-256-5968, george.pearce@hklaw.com

1977 Greetings all! By the time you read this, we will have likely had a fabulous 40th Reunion, so stay tuned for details of that event in the spring issue of the magazine. Brief update on my household:

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“I think if I thought I could get away with it I would rescue Our oldest, Ben, has graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a degree in global healthcare policy and accepted a job at a public policy firm called IMPAQ in Washington, D.C. Should be exciting times! Tom and I are still digesting our trips to Australia and New Zealand after retirement and will put together the photo books and bide our time until our next adventure, wherever that may be. ❯ Roger Strukhoff got in touch to reminisce about his life and give a shout-out to the alma mater: “There are a number of idiots in Silicon Valley and elsewhere who denigrate the value of a liberal arts education. To me, it is precisely the education I received at Knox that has driven me to receive maximum insight and joy from my life and career, be curious about everything, and reap the rewards of that curiosity. The abstract thinking I developed while studying music theory, to list just one example, continues to reap rewards in my job and life in the technology business. The lessons I learned in all of the other courses I took—whether I did well in the class or bombed out of it—added several levels of nuance to my point of view and have allowed me to experience life in full color, with an understanding of other people’s talents and points of view. Those of us who attended Knox in the ’70s benefited from a familiar roster of great teachers and great friendships. To my friends, thanks, and sorry we haven’t been in better touch through the decades. To my teachers, living and passed, let me extend particular appreciations to Professors Baylor, Wilsen, Farley, Kogen, Stephens, Haring, Moon, Fineberg, Bro White, and Herr Van der Meulen. And a special shout-out to Pinky Gibbons, of course.” ❯ James Munro went to the Green Oaks Prairie Burn this past April.

“I never made it to a burn while I was there, and I had the time, so I went up. Take a look at the story about it on the Knox website: knox.edu/news/annual-burn-restores-prairie.” ❯ Gary Hoag shared: “During the last two school years, I have taught at the Northern Virginia Juvenile Detention Center. I had been a special educator in a Fairfax County high school since 2004, where I specialized in reading. Working in an alternative setting has made me a better teacher; I’ve had to teach math and science (out of my ‘comfort zone’), and I work with traumas that, formerly, I had mostly only read about. I recently moved to a new place in Old Town, Alexandria, Virginia, and bought some land on the Greenbrier River in West Virginia; I plan to build a cabin there for some future semi-retirement. I teach GED classes in the evening and still maintain a busy schedule teaching students who have various learning issues. When I find the time, I umpire youth baseball games on the weekend. Son Duncan recently completed his first year at Christopher Newport University and, like his father, is interested in all things related to history and literature. I delight in the opportunity to discuss/argue about various books he has read recently.” ❯ Bruce Hall has spent some of the last

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40 years as a serious cyclist and, at Reunion time, will have just completed the Dempsey Challenge, a two-day event to benefit individuals and families impacted by cancer. Bruce brings us this update: “While not riding as much as serious riders, I’ve managed long-distance rides in Canada and Europe and some regular commutes in D.C. and Maine. After not quite 20 years in D.C. working with computers and networks at Datatel (Ellucian) and later PBS (and playing softball and volleyball there, too), I got married and moved to Lewiston, Maine, with Kathy Lawrence (a fellow Midwesterner from Ohio who went to Ohio State University). We’ve spent the last few years raising two boys. Eric just finished his first year at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. Jason just finished eighth grade at the Lewiston Middle School. Most years since 2007, I’ve ridden the Trek Across Maine Lung Association fundraiser with one of the boys on the back of our tandem bicycle (a KHS Milano for those interested in that subcategory of bicycles). We’ve also spent a lot of time at the Taylor Pond Yacht Club (it may be a pond and the yachts may be dinghies but it is a wonderful place to learn to sail). When not helping to organize ‘Bike to School Days,’ I’ve worked with computers and networks at the State of Maine Judicial Branch (majoring in political science came in handy after all) and, currently, at Bates College in Lewiston, another small liberal arts school that reminds me daily of how important Knox and everyone there was to me.”

Class Correspondent: Sarah Kaull 52 Ober Street, Beverly, MA 01915-4733, 978-810-0181, skaull@icex.com

1978 John/Scott/Luth Luthy attended 2017 Commencement and reports the campus looked great.

He says, “Despite what some may have thought beforehand, Eva Longoria gave what I thought was a very good address.” In May, while in Springfield to see a Boston concert, he met up with fellow Phi Delt Bob Thompson. They shared some food and drinks prior to the show and enjoyed reminiscing about the Knox days.

Luth admits to being fuzzy on the details after all the carousing but reports Bob is currently the owner/operator of a bicycle shop in Springfield and is married to a wonderful lady. Together, they have approximately five children, with the youngest heading out to college this fall, and Bob is thinking about retirement in the next few years. Luth also stopped by Tom Morgan’s Triple Crown Trading on Tom’s birthday to wish him well. Tom’s business is sports memorabilia (from cards to posters to jerseys and more!), and he hosts a radio show on Saturday mornings at 7:00 a.m. on ESPN in Chicago. ❯ Jim Foley was able to spend four days on campus facilitating the new business intensive seminar for Knox students. He says it was great to be on campus and interact with students, all of whom were impressive. The goal was to introduce non-business students to

business fundamentals, such as operations analysis, innovation, team skills, and financial analysis. Best of all, it was in the new Whitcomb Art Center, which is beautiful. During a lunch break, he had to visit the old and new quads and reports they looks nearly identical to our stay there years ago (a true marvel, considering the wear they have seen!). ❯ I was very pleased to hear from Debbe Rigney-Hays. Her avocation of sketching has led her to an online community, as well as the Chicago Urban Sketchers. She lives in Galesburg and can take Amtrak to their events and annual symposia. Following in the true liberal arts tradition, she never took art classes, but now enjoys sketching and these communities a lot. At the end of July, she volunteered with the International Urban Sketchers Symposium in Chicago. She got to see, hear, and meet some of her favorite artists/sketchers from Australia, Indonesia, England, and the Netherlands. ❯ Barb O’Brien had the pleasure of welcoming Debbie Royal Dwyer and husband Terry to her home this spring. They were in town from Australia for her mother’s birthday, and it was great fun to spend time with them. Barb also saw Rosa Soto ’79 and her family recently and enjoyed her son’s graduation party in December. She talks to Judith HladikVoss ’79 and Maria Vosnos Garcia regularly.

Barb bought a new house last summer after three years as “daughter-on-duty” with her parents.

She is planning a kitchen and exterior remodel to make the house her own and hopes construction will start soon. Just for fun, she volunteered to organize a quilt show this year, too—if anyone is in or near Hinsdale, Illinois, the first weekend in April 2018, stop at the Community House to see everyone’s beautiful work. She still enjoys work but is starting to think ahead to retirement, like many of us. ❯ Jim Straus says hi from Chicago, probably still wearing his Cubs hat unless one of the grandkids has pulled it off, and is happy to report that his older brother, John Straus ’73, was recently named to the alumni trustee position on Knox Board of Trustees. Pretty exciting and a great choice for Knox. ❯ Errick Cameron could only share that he was sitting on the deck on the Outer Banks overlooking the Atlantic with a full moon, finishing a bottle of greppicante while conquering his eldest son in chess (but, hey, that is enough). ❯ Darrell Merschak is busy launching a new cloud network business but spends every free moment sailing. He sent a picture, but the vessel was so large he could not fit it all in the picture. ❯ Glen and Kathy Mihalovic Thompson ’77 have lived in Plymouth, Minnesota, for the past 14 years. Recently, Glen retired from a 40-year retail management career at JCPenney, while Kathy continues to work in clinical research for Boston Scientific. Both their adult children still live and work in the Minneapolis area. They are first-time grandparents to a grandson born in January 2017. When not spoiling him, Glen golfs, kayaks, and tries to secure long-term care insurance in case Kathy slows down and can’t wait on him any longer (Ed.

Class Knox 100 dogs. —Brian Cox ’79 note: Just kidding). ❯ Cathie Brewer Schmit says hello from Nebraska. Middle daughter Karin just got back from Thailand a few months ago, where she worked at an elephant refuge, then got married in July. Cathie was excited about seeing family and friends, but also looked forward to things calming down. Youngest child Hailee was the maid of honor, and Cathie did ALL the flowers. She and husband Greg are not ready for retirement and plan on another 3-4 years of work, God willing. ❯ Brent Petersen continues to reside in Cary, Illinois, and has worked as a family physician in Algonquin since 1986. He and wife Cheryl have four children. The older two work in the Chicago area, and the third has recently moved to Brooklyn. Their youngest is a senior in college. Brent and I and many others recently participated in the annual FIJI-Phi Delt golf tournament here in the Chicago area. It was great to see many of our fellow ’78 graduates in attendance. We also had a great trip back to campus in April for a FIJI gathering to celebrate 150 years on the Knox campus. That puts us in elite company among fraternities around the country.

Dave Brackman ’81 did a great job of organizing it. The undergraduates were also instrumental in making it happen, and they were a great bunch of guys. The campus looks great. I particularly enjoyed seeing former roommate Tim Hays, who had not been back to campus since we graduated! ❯ Tad Daley also showed up, traveling round trip via Amtrak from Washington, D.C., to Galesburg. He says the brothers there did a lot of reminiscing about their FIJI class president, the late Paul Brauer. Tad reports that he hung around campus until Monday morning.

On Sunday, he ate in the cafeteria until they kicked him out at 2 p.m., then read books in the Seymour Library until they kicked him out at midnight, then kibitzed with students in the Gizmo until they kicked him out at 2 a.m. He says if he only could have been kicked out of the late and lamented DTL, his “back to the future” adventure would have been complete.

Class Correspondent: David Bates 174 Haversham, Houston, TX 77024-6248, 713-722-0815, dbates@gardere.com

1979 Hey gang, I hope everyone has had a great summer. I know a lot of you are celebrating our 60th birthdays … Happy birthday to all who have already or are turning the big “60.” We are halfway to 120! I did have the opportunity to help Rollie Thomas celebrate his birthday up in Quincy. It was a surprise party and a good time was had by all … ❯ For all my FIJI brothers, it was a wonderful 150th Anniversary of our Chapter at the Annual Pig Dinner held in April. We had more than 150 current and alumni FIJI join in the festivities at Soangetaha Country Club. Some of the notable classmates were Norm Hillner, Jim Mocogni, Tom Bannos, John Pritchard, Chuck

Barstow, and Joe Morrison. ❯ I hate to make this all about the FIJIs, but we also had our Annual Paul Brauer ’78 Memorial FIJI vs. Phi Delt Golf Outing in Chicago. I’m proud to say the FIJIs regained the coveted trophy after stumbling last year to the Phi Delts. I can’t tell you how great it is to see many of my old friends and classmates at this event. It never ceases to be entertaining. Class of ’79 attendees were: Howie Hagemaster, Ray Albertina, Steve Laudel, Bob Szyman, Norm Hillner, Joe Morrison, Jim Mocogni, and Joe Nichols. If I have forgotten anyone I apologize. ❯ Since nobody ever writes me, I guess I’ll fill you in on what’s going on with me. I have three dogs that adore me. We adopted a blind dog, Louie, and he makes me laugh out loud every day. Not because he runs into things, but he amazes me with how he gets around without any help. I’m the neighborhood dog whisperer, and our yard is the dog park. I think if I thought I could get away with it I would rescue 100 dogs. My wife and I go on our annual vacations with one year in Puerto Vallarta with a group of friends and the next in Kauai, Hawaii, with just the two of us. That is pretty much the highlight of our existence. ❯ I really would like to hear from you all. Don’t you want to see your name in print?! Let me know what you are up to.

Class Correspondent: Brian Cox 21 Briarcliffe, Collinsville, IL 62234-2913, 618-406-7014 (cell), bjcox5257@att.net

1980

Greetings from the Class of 1980. Joe and I hope all are well. ❯ David J. Workman writes from Logansport, Indiana, home of the Fighting Berries, “The last of our children, Katie, recently got engaged. Patrick is a great young man even though he is a Cubs and Notre Dame fan. We’ll work on that. Otherwise, life is good. Wife Beth and I are trying to visit all the national parks before we become too feeble. The other day in a store the clerk looked at me and asked if I had the internet. It didn’t hit me until I got out in the parking lot and Beth told me I just got ‘old’ by the clerk. So here’s to senior discounts and early bird dinners. I will take great enjoyment, though, when I start taking Social Security and know part of it is coming from that clerk’s check.” ❯ Steve Hazelrigg reports that he has been the chairman of cardiothoracic surgery at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine in Springfield since 1993. He and his wife have four wonderful kids—three out of college and one more to finish.

Everyone is healthy and doing fine. ❯ Karen Barnhart Bush writes that she and husband Scott just celebrated their 28th wedding anniversary and that she plans to retire in May 2018 after 33 years working at the campus ministry for the United Church of Christ at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Eldest daughter Jessica (25) recently moved to Charleston, South Carolina, and their youngest, Trevor (22), completed his undergraduate degree

in electrical engineering a semester early at UIUC and is now working on a master’s degree.

Although Karen transferred to UIUC sophomore year, she still considers her Knox class as her college class. Karen sends her love and good wishes to all. ❯ Judy Heitman Miller writes, “I am the legal services director for a legal aid clinic, serving the 16th Judicial Circuit in Illinois. I earned a juris doctorate from Northern Illinois University College of Law in 2008 and am licensed to practice in Illinois, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, and the U.S. Tax Court. Son Brad is married and lives in Providence, Rhode Island, where he is a computer software engineer. Daughter Rebecca lives in Seattle, Washington, where she works in the marketing division of a large tech company.” ❯ Fritz Goeckner cheerfully writes, “Tracy Bell ’81 and I continue to live in Burlington, Iowa. She is still dedicated to caring for her patients after 23 years practicing medicine here. She enjoys knitting in her spare time. I am out of a job as stayat-home dad because they all grew up and left. I continue to make the occasional photograph and am looking at substitute teaching to fill some of my spare time. Bennet, our oldest, is in graduate school in math, and Cleo and Peter have both just finished undergrad. Peter is about to start a year teaching English in Korea.” ❯ Carol Runyon writes from the great Southwest, “This August, I reached 32 years in property management of apartments and still love it! This is my fourth year on a property five minutes from Arizona State University; we are 50-percent students, and they do keep me hopping! My son just turned 21, which is hard to believe. He works and goes to school. My siblings who went to Knox are well: Susan Runyon-Davis ’77 and husband Michael still live in Tennessee. They are proud grandparents of two precious little girls.

Brother Dan Runyon ’86 and wife Kim are well and just moved to Colorado. My mom has some difficult health challenges, but she lives at home with her wonderful husband, Lloyd. We are blessed to have quality time with her. FaceTime and speakerphone are amazing, and she handles them well.” ❯ Meribeth Nudelman writes, “I have two daughters. My oldest is 25 and finishing up a master’s program at Oxford University in England, and my youngest is 21 and will be a senior at the University of Michigan. I manage a team of engineers, and my company was acquired

by Dell Technologies last September, so lots of changes for our team. We still have our jobs, so we plug ahead and hope it stays that way. My husband has taken a leave from work as an attorney and is walking the Appalachian Trail from Northern Virginia to the end at Mt. Katahdin, Maine. So right now it is quiet at home with just me and the animals.” ❯ On a personal note, I (Roy) wanted to thank everyone for all the wonderful prayers, well wishes, emails, cards, and “hats.” Bald is beautiful! It turns out the chemotherapy treatment itself was far more challenging than the cancer it was fighting!

Thanks again!

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“I really think that if everyone understood the meaning of ALOHA Class Correspondents: Roy Brandys 1818 Feather Nest Drive, Cedar Park, TX 78613-1414, brandys@barronadler.com Joe Moore 1431 West Fargo, Chicago, IL 60626-1810, 773-848-5796, joe@joemoore.org

1981

1982 Class Correspondents: Sharon L. Schillereff 7780 W 38th Ave., #404, Wheat Ridge, CO 80033, 303-885-7185, Sschil7470@yahoo.com Chris Bohm Gavlin 4246 Howard Ave., Western Springs, IL 60558, 708-246-1419, cgavlin@gmail.com

1983 Class Correspondent: Laura Thompson Sears 132 Heath Place, Westmont, IL 60559-2644, 312-899-1660, lsears@gouldratner.com

1984 Class Correspondent: Valerie Jencks 300 E. 5th Avenue, Suite 235, Naperville, IL 60563, 630-579-8070, knoxcollege84@gmail.com

1985 Judi Shaw-Rice writes, “After practicing internal medicine for 20 years, I returned to school to complete a master’s degree in medical management, as well as other certifications, and have been working as a medical director with Humana for five years. I have loved living in Houston, Texas, for the past 36 years! I have two sons in

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We received this update too late to include in the last issue but are delighted to share it now. ❯ Mark Chelmowski writes, “Last December, Chris Daniels, Ward Dietrich, Nolan Hetz, Susan Thiel Shelton, and I joined Mike Takehara at the Chicago Cultural Center for a very special premiere of a short movie called The Orange Story, which starred his 80-something father, Dr. Joe Takehara, in the role of a JapaneseAmerican shopkeeper on the West Coast who lost everything when he was imprisoned in an internment camp during World War II. Mike’s father, a retired dentist, was himself sent to an internment camp as a child in California and was sought out to play this role by the writers and producer of this movie. A thought-provoking panel discussion followed, which discussed the risk of history repeating itself because of anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiments increasingly being heard today.” ❯ Jun Adachi reports that he has worked with other Knox alumni in Japan to organize an alumni group there. “As we had five first-years from Japan this past year, we are interested in re-organizing alumni group activities. We had a send-off event for five first-year students last June, a get-together with current students in December, and and event with several alumni in February.” He says they are focused on

recruiting more Japanese students to Knox and hope to organize an event with President Amott—who lived in Tokyo during her childhood—one day.

Class Correspondent: John Nicolau 930 Huckleberry Lane, Glenview, IL 60025-2302, 847-657-6311, j.nicolau@comcast.net

Tokyo Knox Club Jun Adachi ’81 reports that he and other Japanese Knox alumni have started to host Knox Club events in Tokyo. This photo comes from their June 2016 student send-off, wishing five first-year students from the area a successful journey to Galesburg.

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college.” ❯ Kathy Mateer Gedamke writes, “My biggest news is oldest daughter Sarah’s wedding.

She had gone off to work at a summer camp in Virginia last May, and decided to stay on, because ‘there was this boy.’ By Christmas, she was engaged. She was married May 14 (yes, Mother’s Day!) to Melvin Marple in Staunton, Virginia.

The whole family drove up for the wedding, taking an extended vacation. In the fall, Melvin returns to school at Liberty University, where Sarah hopes to study as well. Career-wise, I still work as a professor of mathematics for Keiser University, where I have been since 2005. There have been big changes this year. Keiser is celebrating its 40th anniversary, as well as its goal of reaching level-six accreditation. My campus just moved into a brand new facility in Tradition, Florida. With the move, I upgraded to a new math computer lab, where we will soon implement our new quality enhancement plan for developmental math. I was also privileged to be a part of the committee that formulated the plan.

Finally, we have a new pet! My girls have wanted a dog for some time. After searching far and wide for just the right one, we finally found a little female shepherd mix puppy just a few blocks from us.” ❯ Barbara Reidy Moore writes, “Inspired by the Peace Corps work of friend and classmate Casey Jones ’87, I, along with Diane Newell and Marcia Damato ’87, are setting up a fundraiser for Muni University, Arua, West Nile, Uganda. Casey works tirelessly and selflessly as a nursing instructor at Muni, which is in need of funds for student scholarships and equipment.

Email caseyinuganda@gmail.com or look for Barb, Diane, and Marcia at Homecoming for more info on how you can help.” ❯ Mark ’86 and Kathryn Morgan Leider write, “We are in the 10th season of growing Belgian Hardy Mums in the fields of Knox County. We love to attend the Appleton Firehouse Pancake Breakfast and frequent the new clubhouse restaurant at Oak Run Golf Course. We love to find live music venues in Galesburg and Monmouth. Mark has been known to perform on open mic nights, as he has taught himself to play guitar! Our kids are scattered in Portland, Oregon; San Francisco, California; and the Chicagoland area. This coming year, we will celebrate 120 years of being a family-owned and operated business. Mark’s greatgrandfather came over from Luxembourg and started growing in Evanston. Our kids are fifth generation! Visit our website at leider.us to see more of the seasonal plant products we produce.” ❯ Debbie Dehm writes, “I have returned to Illinois for a few months after living eight years on Maui, and then I will move back to Sedona, Arizona. While in Illinois, I hope to have a workshop at the metaphysical bookstore about ‘How to Manifest in the Fifth Dimension.’ I will also be offering private channeled readings in person and by phone. No, I never had any kids or got married; my spiritual walk is my life. I really think that if everyone understood the meaning of aloha and practiced it we would have world peace and probably no prisons.” ❯ Connie Harvey Lamb

Class Knox and practiced it we would have world peace.” —Debbie Dehm ’85 writes, “Son Colin graduated as salutatorian from Fred J. Page High School in Franklin, Tennessee, on May 27, 2017. He will attend the University of Dayton in Ohio this fall, where he will study psychology and Spanish. He will also follow in his dad’s footsteps and run at the collegiate level as a member of the Flyers’ men’s cross-country team.” ❯ Michael Spires writes, “I was privileged to be in the ’Burg earlier this year for Steve Fineberg’s retirement reception. I’d been asked to be one of the speakers but wound up having to publish my remarks as a letter to the editor of The Knox Student when several of the speakers before me went over time. Also, effective July 1, I became the president of the National Organization of Research Development Professionals (NORDP), a post that I’ll hold for one year (through June 30 next year). NORDP is a young but growing organization (incorporated in 2010, with more than 700 members nationally and internationally as of the most recent reports). We had our biggest-ever annual conference earlier this year in Broomfield, Colorado, just outside Denver, with nearly 500 attendees, and I served as the conference chair. My current term on the NORDP Board of Directors will end next year, though I intend to stand for re-election to another four-year term.”

Class Correspondents: Margaret VerKoulen Lynn mvlynn@comcast.net Jane Davis jedavis_ill@hotmail.com

1986 Peter Weber has been named president of United Benefit Advisors (UBA), the nation’s leading independent employee benefits advisory organization. He is based in the company’s Chicago office. Prior to joining UBA, he served as president of The Health Insurance Trust for the Illinois Association of School Boards for six years, and as its staff liaison to the Workers Compensation and Property and Casualty Trust.

Class Correspondent: Susan Bantz 2012 Shady Lane, Muscatine, IA, 52761, 563-554-9213, bibliophile@knoxalumni.org

1987 Dear Class of 1987, 30 years have passed since we graduated from Knox. Holy cow! Looking at the photos of 2017 Commencement brings back so many fond memories. I enjoy seeing Facebook updates from classmates. Many of you will travel to Galesburg this fall to celebrate our 30th Reunion. I, unfortunately, will not be able to make it. Please send updates and stories for the next issue of Knox Magazine.

Class Correspondent: Lisabeth Simms Belman 12701 York Mill Lane, Clarksburg, MD 20871-4034, 301-972-3751, lisabeth1208@verizon.net

Casey Jones ’87 Peace Corps Veteran Returns to Service Casey Jones MS, CNS, RN, is a clinical nurse specialist in critical care and trauma, with an emphasis in palliative care. He is currently in Arua, West Nile, Uganda, where he is serving under the Global Health Service Partnership, a collaboration between Seed Global Health, the Peace Corps, and the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, teaching the first and second classes of nursing students at Muni University.

What are you doing in Uganda?

Our focus is to provide the expertise for nursing and medical schools. One of the biggest problems in Africa right now, as far as the medical side of things, is that there are very few people who open up their practices to teach. What attracted me was the opportunity to have a higher impact with my teaching and to come and study what it is people here need as far as nursing education.

It was really an outstanding opportunity at Muni. We opened the school with 26 nursing students. This year, we have enrolled 40 freshman students. We’re taking them to the next level, which is a bachelor’s in nursing science.

Do you have any goals as to what you would like to accomplish at Muni University?

We were very fortunate that Seed Global Health gave us a good start in our skills lab, but my focus is to build the most outstanding skills lab in Uganda. I plan to raise money so that we have mannequins and simulators. I’m working on a grant right now so that we can get a cadaver lab. I’m also working to bring a professor to teach EKG readings. That skills lab piece is where I want to focus my attention.

You decided to stay a year longer than you planned. Why did you extend?

I see myself as a good educator and a strong advocate for students. I feel like I’m just now starting to understand their needs and starting to help them. I felt like another year would give me an opportunity to really stand on my own and be a better proponent for these nurses in training.

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This is the second time you’ve served in the Peace Corps, the first being in 1990 when you went to Guatemala. How did Knox prepare you for these experiences abroad?

Because I had so much contact with international students and so many friends from different places around the world as a Knox student, I wasn’t shy about jumping in and talking with people and making my way. Being in the Knox Program in Barcelona really shaped my language skills, so I had no problem with language at all when I went to Guatemala. I think those two things set me up for a lifetime of being a traveler and being very curious about countries around the world.

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Bill Feste ’92 is still “keeping it weird

1988 April Lander was elected to the Board of Governors for Region 10 (all countries outside the U.S.) of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). She recently hosted the Board in New Zealand and visited the ASCE United Arab Emirates and Philippines sections. She planned to visit the Japan Section in September.

Class Correspondent: Gayle Pikrone Richardson 1220 Crestview Drive, Batavia, IL 60510-1180, gayle.richardson35@gmail.com

1989 Class Correspondent: Mia Jiganti 1850 W. Cortland, Chicago, IL 60622-1035, 773-278-0814, mjiganti@prodigy.net

1990 Mr. and Mrs. Potato were walking down the street with their potato son lagging far behind.

Mr. Potato stopped, went back to his son and stomped hard, saying … Oh wait. I only threatened to tell jokes if no one wrote, and you’ve all been saved. ❯ Kim Marckwardt Gegan responded, “So no one sent any updates? As your former roomie, I implore that you ‘donut’ (ha ha, get it?) send any more veggie jokes. I only have the fondest memories of my years at Knox, and it amazes me how many years have passed since we graduated because in many ways it seems like just yesterday. My son is 16 and a junior in high school, and it won’t be long before he forges his own path. My daughter is 12 and a little diva, as only preteen girls can be—she’s in seventh grade now. My husband turned 50 at the very tail end of last year, and, lucky him, we’ve had an adventurous year going to Roatan, Key West, Mexico, Ireland (I didn’t go on that trip), plus we’ll head to Peru for the holidays. Other than that, I love my work, as a manager at a major insurer—leading, developing, and building relations with my team. I hope that all is well with you and hope more of our former classmates send updates.” ❯ Karen Mahoney Clatch wrote, “David Clatch ’89 and I have four children: David Jr. (22), Danny (21), Madison (17), and Fitzpatrick (11)— we call him Fitzie. We live in Glenview, Illinois, where we run a preschool called Poko Loko that David’s mother and father founded in 1965. We also run a new Poko Loko that we opened last year in Morton Grove. David also runs Good Times Summer Camp in Glenview with our three oldest children. I love our work, but the best part is being able to work with David and our kids.” ❯ Lisa Castello sent, “I still work at Morton East High School in Cicero. It has been 26 years of teaching chemistry. I coached poms/dance for 12 years and have been adult staff for the Snowball Club for the past seven years. In 1995, I got an M.A. in mathematics and computer science education and have since worked my way up to M.A.+60 taking a wide range of

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classes, including photography, field trips, and, of course, chemistry.” ❯ Dan Snell wrote, “I have taught high school English for the past 27 years—the last 25 at Ridgeview High school in Colfax, Illinois. Beth and I just celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary on June 3. Eldest child Arden just graduated from the Savannah School of Art and Design, and she got married this summer. She is a fashion designer for Abercrombie and Fitch in Columbus, Ohio. Son Adam is a junior student at Illinois State University studying psychology. And my younger daughter is a sophomore at Ridgeview. I love spending time traveling with family and friends, writing songs, and drinking a fine ale on my deck as the sun goes down.” ❯ Dorothy (Dara) Kozlowski, director of the neuroscience program at DePaul University, and Michael Hoane recently wrote a chapter together, “Neuroprotection and Neuroplasticity,” for The Essential Brain Injury Guide, Edition 5.0, published by the Brain Injury Association of America. ❯ How fun to hear from folks, catching up, and seeing where everyone is! I’m reachable on Facebook, email, and regular post, so write away! And in case you’re wondering about that potato son, after being stomped on, he was told to “Ketchup.”

Class Correspondent: Darcy Turner 520 Colony Woods Drive, Chapel Hill, NC 27517, bonetbien1@nc.rr.com

1991 From Julie Scannell: “How incredibly cool was it to watch the Knox women’s soccer team go all the way to the NCAA Championship Tournament last fall? Daughter Lucy and I were delighted to join Richard “Fuzzy” ’86 and Kathy Hansen Foster, Craig Owens, Mike ’89 and Beth Campana Lenz ’89, and Mike Pomatto ’90 for the game, which was hosted by the incomparable Sara Burton, who is associate director of athletics for varsity programs and senior woman administrator at Washington University in St. Louis. Their legendary season ended, of course, on the heels of our 25th Reunion. What a terrific turnout for that, and so amazing how little everyone has changed! It was a special treat for me to catch up with Craig Creado, all the way from London (thank you Asif Ahmed for inspiring him to do so) and Marc Saphir, who took a break from entertaining political dignitaries and supermodels to fly up from Bogota. You need to make the trek more often! Getting everyone together for the class photo was truly a highlight. I know I keep yammering on about it in every freakin’ piece of rah-rah correspondence I send, but there really is something about Knox people, despite all the years and miles between us. I’d stand on a riser with you guys, any day. No glorious Saturday afternoon at Knox would be complete for me without tailgating with Nicky Reeve, Mary Spenceri, Amy Ragnini Olson, Dawn Davies Clark, Kathy and Fuzzy, Jonathan Yates, Dave Murphy ’90, the fabulous

Lenzes, Jim Saranteas and wife Kristin, Richard “Stump” Stempinski ’89, and, of course, Chad Eisele ’93. Thank you, Sara Leary, for stepping up to help me coordinate our Reunion—a glamorous role that I know many of you envied! If I heard correctly, Kellie Monroe offered to host all of us at her lake house for our 30th Reunion. If you’re on Facebook, please join the Knox College Class of 1991 Alumni group— it’s our best channel of communication these days. JJ (Jonathan Sheinkop) promised me he’d start sending cash every month to all the members of this group, so it’s a solid investment of your time to click that button. Also, I still have t-shirts commemorating our entry to the 25 Year Club. Email me at juliesc@yahoo.com if you’d like one! Speaking of Facebook, I have to give one more shout out to Tim Martin, who moved to Ireland over a year ago and shares photography that is nothing short of wonderful, and Chris Connor, who keeps building the most gorgeous functional art through his business, Connor Wood Bicycles. We have a lot of awesome here, people. A lot of awesome. See you again in Galesburg this fall!” ❯ From Colin Graham: “My ‘update’ isn’t much of an update, as it is pretty much the same as it was a decade ago. I work as a business affairs attorney for talent and literary agency ICM Partners in New York City. I live in Connecticut with my wife of 16 years and 11-year-old twins.” ❯ From Rebecca Reichert-Cuffe: “It has been more than 25 years since I graduated from Knox College! I’m sorry to have missed the Reunion last year. I’ve lived in Dania Beach, Florida, for 15 years since moving from Washington, D.C. I recently transitioned from the international development field to the education field. I’m senior manager in the grants administration department of the Broward County School Board. I spend my time writing and shepherding grant applications for federal, state, and foundation grants to benefit the more than 271,000 students in Broward County. While I miss international development and traveling, I can’t think of a more important field to be in than education, especially with two boys, 11 and 6, in the public school system.

Spending my time trying to impact students’ academic success and college and career readiness, I’m very grateful to Knox College for guiding me in my career pathway, particularly the influence of the Barcelona, Spain, study abroad program and my work experience as the program’s assistant. My father still lives in Illinois, so hopefully I’ll be able to visit Knox for a future Homecoming.” ❯ Jonathan Sheinkop: “I write this note from a vineyard hotel in Tuscany, Italy, where I’ve had a marvelous time with wife Shelbi. We left our seven-year-old at home and feel equally guilty and elated at our temporary freedom. I do hope our daughter knows how to use the microwave well enough and finds the food we left in the freezer. Anyway—things are good, and I hope more of our classmates will write in their updates.

I stockpile them even if you send one the day you read this. Email jonathansheinkop@hotmail.com.

Class Knox in Asheville.“ Class Correspondent: Jonathan Sheinkop 260 Cary Ave, Highland Park, IL 60035, jonathansheinkop@hotmail.com

1992 Greetings, Class of 1992! I hope by the time this issue hits your mailbox, our 25th Reunion is in the books, and I have had a chance to see all of you in person, share a beer at Cherry Street, and laugh a lot with you. For those of you who can’t make it—don’t be shy! Write in and share your news. We’d love to hear from you. ❯ Brad Coats wrote: “Well, after a successful career as a luchador wrestling in Chihuahua as ‘El Gato Gigante,’ which I was forced to end due to a truly unfortunate wardrobe malfunction, I decided to take some time off. I had an unsuccessful tryout with the Laker Girls, but, alas, it was not to be. I have enjoyed moderate success as a Going-Outof-Business-Sign Twirler, but, as the economy has improved my chosen field has come crashing down. I am currently debating whether to be a professional satirist, or, since I often mistake coincidence for irony, I think maybe I’ll write songs for Alanis Morissette. I could go on with my exploits, but really I can’t be late for my very important date.” ❯ Glenn Waddell Jr. wrote: “This has been a busy year. I successfully completed my comprehensive exams this spring and am now a doctoral candidate working on my dissertation.

The end is finally in sight, and yet the real work begins! I look forward to the process, the writing, the worrying, and the stress. Yes, I am a glutton for punishment. I still have all the traveling giving presentations on mathematics education. This year, I have been invited to Saskatchewan, Canada, in October to present. On a different note, I had the pleasure of having Tom Walker and his three wonderful daughters—Susie, Heather, and Amy—stay with us for a night.

They were on a cross-country summer camping trip and were able to make Reno a stop. It was wonderful catching up with Tom and meeting his family.” ❯ Bill Feste wrote: “Still keeping it weird in Asheville; was recently selected to be an American South Teaching Fellow by the University of North Carolina, largely due to using primary documents, namely letters, and a penchant for pulling over pickup trucks with Confederate battle flags in order to have long, intense, and emotional conversations about symbolism, perception, race, false heritage, and changing people’s perspective with mind-altering narcotics.

Yup, keeping it weird in Asheville.” ❯ Alice Nighswonger wrote: “My oldest daughter will attend Knox this fall. I am so very proud. I have sold foreign language books for 25 years, and I am now part owner in the company. I live in Evanston with my two teen daughters, four cats, and ugly dog. I really look forward to seeing everyone in October!” ❯ Lisa Angert Davis wrote: “I have three kids: two in high school and one in middle school. They are very well. My husband just received a faculty appointment at Brown University. I am #1 in sales in the com-

pany I work for (Crunchi Cosmetics).” ❯ Kelly Lynn Hogan wrote: “Big life event alert: I’m engaged to a really wonderful guy, Peter Dolan, who’s in media production here in Chicago. Not an actor, but in the industry, and speaks the language of my profession, which is all-around wonderful. We plan to get married Labor Day Weekend on Robin and Liz Carlin Metz’s farm on the Mississippi outside of LaCrosse, Wisconsin. Love surrounds this event. Jamie Quercicagrossa-Green, Kristin Kutzner-Huzar, Jennifer Voortman, Lindsay Durr ’94, and Paul Nijensohn are all on the invite list, along with Erik ’93 and Karen Rosenkoetter Nussbaum ’98, who will respectively compose music and sing for our ceremony.” ❯ Carrie Wild was the recipient of the Fort Wayne Museum of Art’s Purchase Award at the Covington Art Fair June 24-25 in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where the museum bought her ink and watercolor painting Celestial Sparrow for its permanent collection. ❯ Brett Barnhart wrote: “We are thoroughly enjoying our fifth year here in Geneseo, Illinois.

This is the longest we’ve lived in one house as a family! Bridget Barnhart ’18 will graduate this fall from Knox, two semesters early! She has a major in Asian studies, has been consistently on the Dean’s List, and spent fall term in Japan last year. Son Broderick joined the Air Force working in avionics and is stationed at Edwards Air Force Base outside of Los Angeles. My youngest two daughters (Lucy and Julia) are working their way through grade school. We’ve recently adopted an Australian shepherd puppy (Maggie) into our family, and she keeps us very busy! Can’t wait to see everyone this fall!” ❯ Kristen Waicosky Niedner wrote: “I relocated to Phoenix, Arizona.” ❯ Tammy Thorsten Ragnini shares, “As for me, it’s been another hectic year in my house.

I am in my 22nd year with SunGard Investment Systems (recently acquired by FIS)—currently as a global analyst. My four daughters keep me young with their busy lives. My eldest will be a junior at Vassar College, and I will send another one off to Denison University this fall. It will be weird with only two in the nest at home, but I am super-excited for them. See you all in October …

Cheers!”

Class Correspondents: Celine Gura Matthiessen 6417 Marlar, The Colony, TX 75056-7119, 469-384-1805, celmatthiessen@hotmail.com Tammy Thorsen Ragnini 912 S. Summit, Barrington, IL 60010-5057, 847-382-4022, rragnini1@yahoo.com

1993 Daniel Rosenberg is the 2017 winner of the Soon to Be Famous contest, an award sponsored

by Illinois libraries recognizing the best self-published novel of the year. Rosenberg won the award for The Towers Still Stand, an alternative history that imagines a scenario in which the 9/11 plot failed. As winner, Rosenberg will tour Illinois

libraries this year and next to promote the book and to talk about the self-publishing process.

Look for his book on Amazon or at a local Illinois library near you. Daniel lives in Highland Park, Illinois, with wife Debbie and two boys, Jonah and Evan. ❯ Brenda Gregoline: “Brian Begy and I still live in our Chicago bungalow; our kid will be a high school freshman in the fall.

Brian’s now a senior software engineer at Guaranteed Rate, and I am still managing editor of a whole bunch of medical journals. This summer, we headed to Iceland for a family vacation and lots of midnight sun—packing those sleep masks.” ❯ Randi Stouffer: “As of this summer, I’m now lucky enough to live just a hop away from Sree Yedavalli in McKinney, Texas. I’ve accepted a job as a clinical pharmacy specialist in mental health with the North Texas VA Health Care System. Northern Illinois winters, you’re dead to me.” ❯ Martin Witte: “My first-ever update: After Knox, I ended up going to China to ‘teach English’ for several years. I learned Mandarin along the way and have used the language in my work since the early 2000s. Knox degree in hand, I have toiled as a house painter, Nestlé chocolate factory worker, and administrative assistant at a U.S. military language school and at Northern California’s largest residential mental health facility. For more than a decade, I have researched and written about China’s human rights situation, which is deteriorating, not unlike any tint of civility in American politics—first in life, then on social media. I lived in San Francisco from 2001 until moving to a nearby city in 2015.

I have bought a house—okay, my wife bought most of it; I’m a human rights activist in the Bay Area, do you understand?!—and have two young daughters (the wife did most of that, too). I know that being a parent is a profound privilege that I barely deserve, and I see that, if fire threatens our home, I can call Alex Marshall to drive over from Salinas to put it out. I no longer recall the sensation of a 31-inch waist or mourn the memories of Midwestern snow or regret not asking my father those leftover questions. I draw rarely and irregularly maintain a personal blog: I hardly post anything to it, since I’m always editing. Thanks, Knox: You made me overly self-critical, skittish to pull any trigger, ever wringing ideas over in my mind. Some mornings, it’s amazing I can even get out of bed. (Now I don’t have to send another update until 2041. Come visit. Here, it’s beautiful.)” ❯ Jean Anderson O’Brien: “I’m a little late to the party, but on March 5, 2015, husband David and I became parents to Neil! Now I understand what all those parenting clichés are about. He’s a delightful child and at 2.33 years old teaches us something every day. His first summer, at three months old, we took him straight to Galesburg for Railroad Days and to meet Richard Stout (unfortunately, Laura Lane was out of town). I decided to continue working, which was good for me, and just celebrated nine years with a pipe organ builder in the Chicago area.” ❯ Jenny Hager: “I’ve been in Los Angeles

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Tammy Rosen ’94 won a Kindle Scout nomination for her Ander Monson ’97 Creative Writing Alumnus Wins Major Arts Grant Ander Monson ’97 has written a total of six books, including three works of nonfiction (Neck Deep and Other Predicaments, Vanishing Point, and Letter to a Future Lover), two collections of poetry (Vacationland and The Available World), and a novel, Other Electricities. He directs the MFA program at the University of Arizona and also edits DIAGRAM magazine, the New Michigan Press, and Essay Daily.

He has received several prizes for his work, including a Howard Foundation Fellowship, the Graywolf Nonfiction Prize, the Annie Dillard Award for Nonfiction, and the Great Lakes Colleges New Writers Award in Nonfiction. He received Knox’s Young Alumni Achievement Award in 2008.

Earlier this year, he was selected for a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship. With the award comes a $50,000 grant, which he will use to finish a new book about the 1987 action film Predator, which he hopes to use to “illuminate and disambiguate a few of the many strands of our present weird culture swamp.”

What was your reaction to the news you’d been awarded a Guggenheim?

Shock, to be honest. Though I’ve been lucky enough to publish six books and to get to do work that I love, I don’t tend to have great luck in these kinds of fellowship competitions. I’ve applied for something like 15 of these sorts of grants, and my ethos is—and has been for a long time—that I put in the time and application as a way of focusing what I’m thinking about a book project. It’s about the process, not winning the grant. Though I have to say being selected for a grant feels pretty good too.

The book I pitched seemed like a particularly long shot, being that it’s about an undistinguishedseeming (not to say less than awesome) subject, the 1987 Schwarzenegger film Predator. So to get the letter that not only did the foundation choose to support me with a Guggenheim—but also to support Predator—was particularly surprising— and heartening.

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In what way do you think your Knox College education helped get you where you are today?

Hard to know exactly, but certainly Knox offered me the freedom to explore not just writing but a lot of possible futures. Being part of an exciting and supportive community imprinted on me somehow, and every place I’ve been after that I’ve been trying to remake that community to help grow writers and students. It also showed me that there’s no subject too ridiculous—or small—or stupid-seeming—or strange that it can’t reveal something important when looked at closely enough.

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since 2000. I no longer teach at the college level, but am in the studio full-time. I had a 10-year hibernation in which I just focused on raising my son and developing the work, and I am happy to say that once I put my mind to exhibiting and participating in the art community, it started happening. I am in two exhibitions currently in L.A., one in Manchester, and will exhibit in Berlin and Brisbane in September. Life’s good, and luckily we (my husband and 12-year-old son) get to hang out with Marielle Farnan, husband Scott Fears ’92, and their daughter on a regular basis. And, yeah, I still play soccer (but it’s more and more difficult).” ❯ Donald P. Shriver was sworn in as an associate judge of the 17th Judicial Circuit of Illinois on March 3, 2017. Previously, he worked at Shriver, O’Neill & Thompson, a firm established by his father, Donald L. Shriver ’64. He reports that mother Catherine Hardinger Shriver ’66, ever the Francophile, still teaches part-time at middle and high schools. Wife Jennifer Deacon Shriver ’93 obtained a master’s degree in education and has embraced her second career as a high school math teacher. They live in Rockford with their three children: Cassie, Charlie, and Jilly. ❯ Doug Domenick: “We’ve had a busy couple years. We moved from our home of 12 years in the Beverly neighborhood of Chicago to Hyde Park. In April, after 20 years as a facilities manager for Schiff Hardin LLP, I moved to Chapman and Cutler LLP as their director of facilities and office services: so far, so good. I got to spend time with several Knox grads recently— Marc ’96 and Lisa Harrison Piane ’93, Elena Rakochy ’95, Tommaso Lesnick ’92, and Mark Johnston.” ❯ Jenny Zinkel Fulton: “I live in Empire, Colorado, with husband Lon and three children: Aerah, 9; Zoe, 6; and Finn, 4. We moved here a year ago from Central Illinois, when I took a job as the public information officer for the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office. I love my job, and we love Colorado!” ❯ And the promised Sree Yedavalli update: “Howdy from Deep in the Heart of Texas! Wife Nalini and 12year-old sons Arjun and Amith are living the American Dream here in North Texas. Since last I posted, I’ve successfully helped businesses attain their IT goals as a project management professional and am now in a long-term commitment at the Richardson Fabrication facility for Texas Instruments. Oh, I also unsuccessfully, but with pride and integrity, ran for public office in May 2017, for Trustee for the Plano Independent School District. One of the benefits of running is that I meet monthly with a trio (now quartet) called ‘Dem Vibes’ to practice jazz classics and bebop hits. I continue to cherish my friendship with Rebecca Gillan Ballard and husband Joshua and their growing sons. I recently had Lindsay Huffman-Dilks ’97 and husband Craig over for dinner at Rancho Del Sree. Another time, I had the Ballards over for brunch with Susannah Gillan Gawor ’99. I hope to bump into Jennifer Lonsdale-Schram ’94 when she visits her brother in Frisco, Texas.” ❯ I continue

Class Knox first children's book, THE DRAGON'S CAVE. to be busy ferrying the boys to their various athletic endeavors. My eldest is taking driver’s education and turns 16 in November. I can’t wait to have an assistant chauffeur. Currently, I’m gearing up for the start of the second season of the Richardson Community Chorale (a startup nonprofit chorale that a few singing friends and I started last summer) and implementing my long term plan to run for city council in 2019. ❯ Please make it a point to come to the October 2018 25th Class Reunion—The Greatness in Galesburg! (I’m working on a slogan. I got a little time.) ❯ Okay. Happiness and prosperity to you all!

Class Correspondent: Rebecca Gillan Ballard rballard@knoxalumni.org

1994 Thank you to everyone for submitting your updates. Continue to regale us with your fortysomething lives, because, you know, 40 is the new 30.

Or maybe 20. Because we are just that cool. ❯ Alexis Bouffard shares that she is well and “living at 9,000 feet west of Denver with husband Mike, two dogs, and two cats. After Knox, I lived in Zaragoza, Spain, for about six months before heading to grad school—where I met Mike. After earning a master’s degree in kinesiology, I worked in diabetes research for several years. I decided that I wanted to expand my medical knowledge and went back to school to become a registered nurse. Currently, I work at the Denver VA as a certified diabetes educator. I love my patients and my work; it’s both challenging and rewarding! I spend most of my free time hiking/snowshoeing with my dogs, volunteering as a camp nurse for Camp Kesem (a camp for kids whose parents have cancer), reading, and throwing pots on the wheel. I miss my Knox community and hope everyone is well!” ❯ Tammy Rosen tells us that she won a Kindle Scout nomination for her first children’s book (ages 9-14), The Dragon’s Cave, which was published in April 2017 under the pen name Rose-Marie Lyttle. Congrats! ❯ Gabi Kupfer Zolla writes the morning she sent the update to me that she ran into Erik Nussbaum ’93 on the subway in Chicago—it’s strange when this happens, and I’m sure it’s happened to some others of us! Gabi is the chief operating officer at CAEL—a national nonprofit that connects learning and work for adults with headquarters in Chicago. She lives in Lincoln Square with her family. Her daughter went on a service trip to Guatemala this summer and then headed to Whitney Young High School in the fall (alma mater of Michelle Obama!). A 10-year-old son keeps them busy with nonstop baseball. She adds, “I am so happy to have my Knox BFF, Bridget Coughlin, in Chicago!” Bridget is the CEO and president of Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. ❯ Carlos Bill moved to Sayulita, Mexico, in 2016 to work at Colegio Costa Verde, a small international private K-9 school. He teaches Spanish and ecoscience, running the garden and compost and

raising money for the garden program. In the evenings, he teaches English to adults in the community while also growing his business selling homemade natural products. He moved into Tierra Luz, an eco-community, and lives completely off-grid. He is also currently the property manager for Tierra Luz, along with a few homes in the area. He continues to develop new products for the market, play guitar, and ride his motorcycle to secluded beaches, and enjoys living in a small beach town. ❯ Ralph Pennel writes, “I still live in Somerville, Massachusetts. The East Coast treats me well. I accepted a full-time position at Bentley University teaching poetry and writing, and will begin the new position in the fall. Currently at work on my second book of poetry, which I hope to have completed by the end of the summer. Although I’ve been out here for eight years, I still feel like a tourist in my own town at times. So much to take in. So much to love.” ❯ Reid Broda shares that “Jennifer Quinn Broda and I returned to Knox to see daughter Quinn Caitlyn Broda ’17 graduate from Knox on June 4. It was a good opportunity to get to celebrate and return to Galesburg. I had visited a few weeks before and was able to see Professor Rod Davis at the Knox County Nursing Home.

It was a good visit, and he is in good spirits. Son Malcolm graduated high school and will attend the University of Michigan in the fall. In June, we also moved from Oak Park, Illinois, after 17 years and are now in Edison Park in Chicago. Hope to see people soon.” ❯ I’m still a physician at Emory University Hospitals working in wound care and hyperbarics in Atlanta, Georgia. I just got back from a wonderful trip with my family to Japan for two weeks, where we took the Shinkansen (bullet train) and other railways all over the country to see as much as possible in our time there. Traveling with our children (ages 4, 6, and 9) definitely made it a trip and not a vacation. We all enjoyed the food, gorging on ramen daily. Even the gas station sushi is good! Until next time, arigato gozaimasu!

Class Correspondent: Lisa Preston-Hsu 217-649-7889, story.of.a.kitchen@gmail.com

1995 Mimi Doyle Russell took recently took a vacation in Hong Kong with her husband, where they were confronted with the heat and humidity right after a typhoon hit. They still had fun. She still works as a teacher’s assistant in Bartlett, Tennessee, for all of the second and third grade classes at her school. She has decided to go back to school and get a master’s degree in teaching and is in the process of applying to a program.

One more test to take, and her application should be finished! Keep your fingers crossed! ❯ Ann Pieper recently returned from a trip to Iceland with her mom, husband, and two sons. They celebrated Ann’s youngest son’s graduation from high school. He will attend Millikin University next year to study chemistry education. Ann’s oldest

son is 20 and is a pilot instructor waiting to get on with a commercial airline carrier. She is trying to adjust to this empty-nester thing! She still practices school, municipal, and family law in Peoria, Illinois. If you have the chance, she and her family highly recommend visiting Iceland. It was super cool! (Pun intended, of course.) ❯ Sandra Idol Shumaker recently started a new position as the grants compliance officer for the OSF Healthcare System. She says she “is finally leaving college,” as, up to this point, she has worked in higher education. ❯ Joel Huffman works as a small animal veterinarian and lives in Elburn, Illinois, with wife Heather, who is an equine vet, and their four-year-old son, JJ. ❯ Nicole Havelka lives and works in Columbus, Ohio, fostering creativity and offering resources among the churches of the United Church of Christ. She is also in the early stages of research on a passion project of hers that explores connections between Christian and Yogic spiritual practices that she hopes will someday become a book.

Class Correspondent: Rev. Nicole Havelka revnhavelka@gmail.com Facebook, Twitter, Instagram: @revnhavelka

1996 Class Correspondent: Kathryn Dix Biallas 1418 East Colter Street, Phoenix, AZ 85014, 602-944-7466, kathybiallas@gmail.com

1997 Jen Hahn Keller is excited to announce the publication of the first of a three-volume series, The Many Faces of Elgin, that tells the story of amazing people in her hometown. Follow the project at facebook.com/ManyFacesofElgin. ❯ Aaron Cohn writes: “I live in St. Louis County and recently became fully licensed as a marital and family therapist in Missouri. Currently, I work as a psychometrist at Jewish Family & Children’s Service and plan to finish my Ph.D in family therapy at Saint Louis University in December 2017. I’m getting married to fiancé Bryan in October. In the past few years, I have contributed articles to The Family Journal, Journal of Family Psychotherapy, and Encyclopedia of Couple and Family Therapy, among others. ❯ Norah Webster writes: “In May, I left my job as a meeting planner for Rotary International after 12.5 years, and am currently cycling Eurovelo 13, the Iron Curtain Trail from Norway to Turkey, with a friend. I write this update from Pärnu, Estonia, on July 10, more than 1,500 miles into the trip. We aim to finish near the Turkey/Bulgaria border by mid-October.

My plans after that are a little up in the air, but I hope to do some more cycling, possibly in Australia and New Zealand, and will volunteer at the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, Korea. When I return to the U.S. next spring, I’m not sure where I will settle, but I have my eye on Madison, Wisconsin. To follow my cycling blog, search for my name on crazyguyonabike.com.” ❯ Novia Pagone writes: “After five years in higher

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“Headed to Berlin in September with Rick and the Dalmatians

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education administration at the University of Chicago, I’m thrilled to report that I’ll join Governors State University this autumn to teach fulltime in Spanish, gender and sexuality studies, and media studies. I can’t wait to get back in the classroom! Another big change has been our move to La Grange, about a year ago. I miss living in Chicago, but the space for our dog to roam, our garden, and screened-in porch make it worth it. I look forward to seeing everyone at Homecoming!” ❯ Michelle Allmendinger writes: “For the past three years, I have been a full-time grad student working on a Ph.D. in higher ed administration at Michigan State University. This summer, I completed the data collection for my dissertation, and so this next school year, I’ll be analyzing my data and writing up the results (and job hunting).

Should be an interesting year!” ❯ Jeremy Darnell writes: “I just completed my first year as superintendent of schools for The Gibson CityMelvin-Sibley (GCMS) School District in Gibson City, Illinois, where wife Kim, daughter Adlee (7), and I live. I enjoy staying in contact with many Knox alumni, including Matt Stines ’98, a fellow superintendent who has been a great mentor after being my pledge father so many years ago!” ❯ Kate Haennicke writes: “I have switched from practicing law and now focus on anti-money laundering and counterterrorist financing. I oversee a program for a company that operates in 12 states to help them detect financial transactions that may be potential money laundering or potential terrorist financing. I love what I do, and it is certainly a challenge with ever-changing environments! Additionally, I published my first book, Death by Perfection, a suspense thriller that invites you into the mind of

Aimee Gall ’98 with daughters Norah and Juliette.

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the killer while experiencing a fast-paced investigation.” ❯ Julie Keck is currently the director of education and outreach for Seed&Spark, a funding and distribution platform for independent filmmakers. Last year, Julie worked with a team of female filmmakers to produce the first season of F*ck Yes, an adult sex-ed series focused on enthusiastic consent and good sex. Episodes have screened at Cinekink and Outfest. Season 2 is due out in fall 2017. Season 1 can be viewed on SeedAndSpark.com. ❯ Brad Pritts and his family—wife Lisa, daughter Micaela (9), and sons Ashton (7) and Emmett (3)—are in Columbus, Ohio. Brad does projects with the Special Education Department in the area of family engagement. Lisa is a massage therapist at a chiropractic clinic. Micaela starts fourth grade in association with a program for the deaf and hard of hearing.

Ashton is in third grade and is way into soccer, loving goalie. Emmett is a blooming artist and will be a sibling language model in Micaela’s program for preschool this next year. It’s a fun season of life!” ❯ Greg Szymczak writes: “Wife Linda and I were just blessed with a little baby boy on July 5: Felix Oliver Szymczak. We also have a four-year-old daughter, Olivia. We both live and work in the city in Chicago; I’ve been with U.S. Cellular for over seven years and currently work as a lead strategy analyst. Get to visit with some of my old Knox colleagues from time to time— most recently, we met up with John Gorby and his family.

Class Correspondent: Josh Mika 6619 Mountain Ridge Pass, Plainfield, IL 60586-2844, jrmika@gmail.com

1998 It’s not surprising the Class of 1998 seems so busy; after all, we are all digging into our forties.

Together, we’ve been traveling the world, hard at work, being creative, taking care of families, coaching teams, and, perhaps most heartening, finding time to connect with each other. It would be great to hear from more of us, and especially the folks I didn’t know as well. ❯ I’ve enjoyed spending this summer training for triathlons (shorter distance, not IRONMAN), and I’ve made new friends along the way. Our backyard hobbies of gardening and skywatching have continued to pay dividends at the dinner table. We’ve enjoyed lots of garden salads and conversation about all the amazing things happening in the sky, particularly the August solar eclipse. ❯ Sam LeDeaux writes, “I live in St. Charles, Illinois.

Son Quentin starts third grade this fall. He has dabbled in many things, and currently is part of a community theater production (with adults!) of The Wizard of Oz. I am a junior high administrator in Oswego. I also coach football at Oswego High School, and coach Midwest BOOM 7 v 7 football in the off-season. We are national champions, sponsored by Adidas, and travel throughout the country for tournaments.” ❯ Elizabeth Flanders Monaco writes: “We moved back to

Texas over New Year’s this past year. We live in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and Jason Monaco has taken a new job with Celanese as the group CFO and head of financial planning and analysis. Our kids are heading into 11th, eighth, fourth, and third grades now. Our family is on the go with all our kids’ activities and adventures.

This summer, Alex and I returned to Honduras for our fifth summer together to serve in a school and an orphanage in Tegucigalpa. We have really enjoyed investing in the community there. The rest of our summer days are filled with swim team, gymnastics, and cheerleading for our girls.

Life sure is busy! At almost 17, Alex has hit lots of milestones. He drives now and has his first job at a local ice cream joint. I can’t believe that we are already talking about college. Didn’t we all just graduate?! Maybe we will have a visit to Knox with him in the near future.” ❯ Sherry Sullivan Malone writes: “Greetings! I hope everyone is well. Husband Micah, two furfriends, and I have wrapped up our third year in Cairo, Egypt, where Micah and I work at an international school. This summer, we transitioned to Guangzhou, China, where I will be assistant principal of the secondary school (grade 7-12), and my husband an International Baccalaureate (IB) design and technology teacher. We will be there for at least three years and plan to eat and travel our way through China and the region. Before we leave Africa, I will climb Mount Kilimanjaro, and Gavi Rosenthal will visit me in Egypt one last time. I was also fortunate to see Season Clauss ’99 in Vietnam and Angela Schultz in Chicago this year. Checking in with some of my Knox friends was a highlight for me!” ❯ Michael Vanlandingham writes: “I am almost finished with my master’s degree in secondary education and will start student teaching in the fall. I will be certified to teach in January. Brianna Vanlandingham just turned 16, Makenna is 13, and Corinna is now 6. They have grown so fast. Corinna had kindergarten graduation in May. I will blink and she will graduate from high school. Mistie is doing as well as she can. Please go to www.rsdhope.org and learn more about this debilitating disease. We still live on Lake Eufaula in Eufaula, Oklahoma. I am still at Oktaha Public Schools. I look forward to finally teaching. One more year to our 20th Reunion. Hope to see everyone again really soon.” ❯ Aimee Gall writes: “Hi all—it’s been so long since I sent an update! I’m (finally) a physician assistant in surgical oncology, specializing in upper GI cancers.

That includes malignancies of the pancreas, bile ducts, gallbladder, esophagus, stomach, small intestine, abdominal cavity, and retroperitoneum.

This position goes beyond anything I ever thought would be available to me, so I’m extremely grateful. Older daughter Norah is almost 9 and blows me away by how grown up she is.

Younger daughter Juliette is a feisty and sensitive 4-year-old who is more like me than people realize. I love to post pics of them all over Facebook. ;) We live in Forest Park, which is between Oak

Class Knox

Sherry Sullivan Malone ’98 and husband Micah say they have prepared for their impending move to China by eating dumplings.

Park and River Forest, just west of Chicago. I’m still a runner and actually one of the founding members of my local women’s running group, Best Foot Forward. It’s an amazing group—totally supportive and nonjudgmental. From September to May, I’m very involved with Housing Forward, formerly ‘PADS,’ an organization to help the homeless. We provide meals and shelter to 40-70 local adults needing a place to stay. On Fridays, I bring clothing, shoes, and toiletry donations that I solicit from my local Facebook mom groups to the local churches that host the shelter sites. My mother struggled with mental illness and homelessness—it feeds my soul to be able to help these men and women each week.

My work hours are long, but I don’t take calls and always have Saturday and Sunday off, so I spend those days with my kiddos. In the summer, we like to go to our local pool, go to concerts in the park on Sunday evenings, enjoy local ice cream, go to the nearby zoo, meet friends at one of our many local parks, hit the beach, and simply sit on our front steps eating fruit and catching up. I’m thinking of taking them down to visit Knox this Homecoming and next. I partied with the seniors for three consecutive Senior Weeks, so why not celebrate a few Homecomings? Join me for some happy nostalgia. P.S. How are we in our 40s already? Here’s to an awesome next 40 years!”

Class Correspondent: Kip Conwell kipconwell@gmail.com

1999 Ed VanDeSampel reports: “Figured I would send an update as I’m not sure the last time I’ve

done so … Wife Janelle Scheer VanDeSampel ’01 and I have spent the last couple of months quite busy, as we’ve had to pack and move. In the purchasing of our home, we’ve not had to travel far—fewer than two miles actually—but it was more the pure pain of having to pack everything up, shift it over to our new home, and now begin the unpacking process. Talk about Christmas in July—not having remembered what went in which box! We are neighbors with Erin Fasbender Manheim ’01 and husband Nick. Just prior to moving, our newest addition, Roseanna Mae, arrived healthy and happy, on April 24. The VanDeSampel clan spends a lot of time traveling around from soccer game to soccer game [soon to be in Kalamazoo] enjoying son Isaac’s team play ... Who knows, maybe one day he will suit up for the Purple and Gold! If not at soccer, we usually spend our time chasing our other daughter, Genevieve, who has begged us to sign her up for soccer as well. G also spends a great deal of time trying to be a second mother to Rosie—so I think we’re all in trouble! Both my wife and I are teachers—Janelle at a high school in St. Charles and myself at an elementary school in Schaumburg. I’ve spent 13 years as a 5/6 multiage teacher and, for the last four years, as an acceleration coach/gifted education resource teacher. Janelle took a position for this year and next known as a teacher on special assignment, in which she works on developing social studies curriculum and professional development for the district. I tend to hold down a part-time job (more of a hobby job really) at a Binny’s Beverage Depot for the last 11 years, and my knowledge of the craft beer scene continues to grow. Occasionally, Dave Krueger ’01, Jon Beaty ’00, and I get together to brew a few quick batches to share with friends and family—something we need to figure out how to schedule a bit more often. If not working, reading, or spending time with our kids, we’ll often be found reading or hanging out with friends, always trying to search for a few more hours to fit into the day. There’s quite a large Knox contingent in the general area! It’s funny to look back so many years to where it all started and where we are now and to think how quickly time has passed—yet Knox is always and ever present in our lives. Our Knox friends have become more like family. My FIJI brothers know the phrase not for college days alone, and it is true.

We’ve been blessed to have all of our paths meet up in the Galesburg bubble known as Knox College, and from that point on, stay together some 20-odd years later.” ❯ Robin Dufresne graduated in 2016 with a Ph.D. in counselor education and supervision from the University of Toledo.

After a year in La Crosse, Wisconsin, as an assistant professor at Viterbo University, she has moved back to Ohio to join the faculty at Bowling Green State University. She is excited to be teaching future counselors. Best of luck to Robin! ❯ Congratulations to Mathys (Thys) Meyer, Ph.D, who was named the dean of student success at the University of Pikeville (Pikeville, Ken-

tucky) after a national search. ❯ Tami Gillip Rudolph has been promoted to finance manager at QuintilesIMS in Overland Park, Kansas. Nice work, Tami! ❯ Mark Beirn headed to Berlin in September with Rick and the dalmatians and a Fulbright scholarship to conduct research for his dissertation in urban history. Any and all Knoxies passing through Central Europe next year should know they have a place to stay with Mark in Berlin. He visited Galesburg in the summer for a garden party at Steve Jones’ ’72 house and keeps forgetting to write how nice it was to run into Lindsay Hansen at a German Studies conference in Kansas City. ❯ Courtney Sommers Mahar and her husband relocated from the Northern Virginia/ D.C. metro area to the Portland, Oregon, area last August. Her husband accepted a new job, and she accepted a position teaching middle school math, which has kept her on her toes. They really enjoy the Pacific Northwest! ❯ Lindsay Hansen Brown got married on April 29 to William Brown. “In 2015, we bought a house in Canoga Park, which is a 20-minute jaunt from Malibu, in the West San Fernando Valley. We have a guest room and welcome visitors! I’ve been lucky in the last few years to see friends from Knox when I travel for conferences.” ❯ Things are pretty well here in Southwest

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and a Fulbright Scholarship.” —Mark Bern ’99

Knox in Denmark Valerie Saks Kihslinger ’99 enjoyed a “mini-Knox Reunion” in Copenhagen, Denmark, this summer while her family was on vacation in Europe. Left to right: Husband Kevin Kihlsinger, Hanna Stenfeldt Essner ’99, Valerie Saks Kihlsinger ’99, with Will Lion ’00 in the back.

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I was on the may 29 episode of JEOPARDY! and won second place for

2000

2002

Class Correspondent: Jennifer Parker parker_jen78@yahoo.com

The spring was a busy one for me! In March, I purchased a condo in downtown Denver (a longtime bucket list item—check!). In May, I closed the chapter on 15 years in the publishing industry and accepted a new position with Oracle. Bring on the tech world!—Jennifer Wreyford ❯ Jennifer Kuschel compressed many life events into the span of four months—selling two houses, buying a dream home, and getting married to Travis Johnson. Erika Frahm and Jennifer Wreyford attended the January 21 celebration in Fargo, North Dakota. ❯ Dan Hegedus shares: “I got my master’s degree in international education from SIT Graduate Institute in 2014 and am in my 10th year teaching at Johoku Gakuen Junior and Senior High School in Tokyo, Japan—a typical Japanese academic high school, where most students go to prestigious Japanese universities.

One of my students was admitted to Knox and is about to begin his sophomore year. I never thought I would be able to connect Knox to my professional life in this way, and I wish him luck as he continues his Knox experience!” ❯ Matt and Rachel Rucker Cochran welcomed another baby, Lucas Ambrose Cochran, on August 27, 2016. ❯ Heather Frankland accepted a position in Santa Fe, New Mexico, to work in sexual violence prevention at the Department of Health.

2001 Rachel Horner Brackett reports, “I received tenure at Black Hawk College in 2016. I continue to teach courses in anthropology, archaeology, and women’s studies.”

Class Correspondent: Allison Honaker allisonhonaker@hotmail.com

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Wisconsin. Kevin and I took our kids (Owen is 11, and Ellie is 8) to England, Denmark, and Sweden in July for close to three weeks. We enjoyed good food, beautiful sites, and amazing friends, including Will Lion ’00 and Hanna Stenfeldt Essner. Will has worked and lived Germany for several years, but keeps in touch regularly. Even though Hanna was at Knox for only one year, we have been friends for more than 20 years and somehow manage to see each other every few years. We were so happy to spend time with both of them!

Class Correspondent: Valerie Saks Kihslinger S3042 W. Salem Ridge Rd., La Farge, WI 54639, 608-268-6903, vsaks@hotmail.com

Several Class of ’99 friends got together from all over the country in Charleston, South Carolina, to celebrate turning 40! Included in the gettogether: Nelsie Birch (Charlottesville, Virginia, area), Wendy Salger Spizzirri (Elgin, Illinois), Nicole Danielewicz Dalton (Clinton, Illinois), Allison Wenk Maki (Northbrook, Illinois), Rebecca Hurst (Durham, North Carolina, area), Alana Brennan (Boston, Massachusetts, area), Amanda Weimer Ziehm (Arlington, Virginia), Puja Bammi Desai (Chicago, Illinois), Kristy Neal Wilson (San Francisco, California), and Tara Miller-McCluskey (Charleston, South Carolina). “Many of us had not seen each other in 10 years, and the trip solidified that it needs to happen more often. Knox friends are truly friends for life!”

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BFF Reunion

Ben Rowland ’99 shared this photo of Matt Daniels ’99 and his bride at their Hawaii wedding.

Class Knox the day. — Megan Clair ’04

2003

Kathleen McDowell recently marked a decade of living in Sydney, Australia. ❯ Shawn Kendall writes, “I recently left my job at Groupon in Chicago to start a new travel company, Trademark Vacations. Wife Jacquie Ouart Kendall and

I celebrated our second wedding anniversary this July 4.” ❯ Dell Longbrake Gardner and husband Ian welcomed Ruth Ann Nettie Gardner on March 28. ❯ Sean Underwood and Caitlin Corbett welcomed second child Ada Corbett in February. Sean also reports that he received a Master of Information and Data Science from University of California, Berkeley, last December.

He started a new position as senior data scientist at TCDI in Greensboro, North Carolina, in June (though they will continue to live in Chicago). ❯ Cynthia Barounis and Stefanie Boese celebrated the arrival of son Noah Henrik Boese on December 31, 2016.

Class Correspondent: Allison O’Mahen Malcom 8134 Gridley Avenue, Wauwatosa, WI 53213-3049, allison.o.malcom@gmail.com

2004 Emily Bell says, “Husband Sean Patton and I welcomed son Steely on December 31, 2016! I also started a new job as a psychologist at DavisMonthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona.” ❯ Tiffiny Ramirez Grace says, “Not much has changed for us. We adopted an elderly dog named Maverick. :)” ❯ Katie Drummond Bonstead says, “Cory Bonstead still coaches football at Knox, and I still work at Winstein, Kavensky & Cunningham in Rock Island. We welcomed twins born on February 22, 2017 (Corinne and Peter). They already have the Knox spirit and cannot wait to root their dad on this fall. Go Knox!” ❯ Megan Clair writes, “My big news was that I was on the May 29 episode of Jeopardy! and won second place for the day.”

Class Correspondent: Susan C. Vitous Johnson 1312 Iles Avenue, Belvidere, IL 61008-1407, susanvitousjohnson@yahoo.com

drive home, which led to a pair of surgeries for her (what a one-upper!). Grace, Claire, and Henry all loved school this year. Grace will move to first grade, while Claire starts kindergarten, and Henry will start his second year of Pre-K, but don’t let that fool you—they’re all smarter than me, for sure! As for me, I just wrapped up my 12th year teaching and will continue in fourth grade, as well as coaching tennis, where my programs have continued to enjoy success. My girls concluded their third straight undefeated season in conference, while the boys repeated as conference champions, and I was honored to be selected for a few awards myself. After earning the Illinois High School Coach of the Year Award, I was selected as the USPTA Midwest High School Coach of the Year and was recently notified that I will receive the National High School Coach of the Year Award this fall in Orlando. The year 2017 is certainly going to be a hard to top!” ❯ Harrison Strauss writes: “I moved to Indianapolis for work and had a chance to catch up with Isaac Schumann.” ❯ Jacqueline Dehne Scafidi is happy to celebrate in a new home as of June 30 with husband Matthew and girls

2005 Alexandra Birnbach writes: “I had the wonderful pleasure of visiting Marissa Parkin and Ian Stephen in late March at their home in Sydney, Australia. What a fantastic trip! Back home in California, I work as a reference librarian in Marin County and enjoy getting to see fellow Bay Area Knoxers Ben Maddox, Conni Edwards, Dan Lieberman, and Eileen Gulik.” ❯ Mike Boettcher remains in Washington, D.C., with wife Zoe Berman ’07. Since January, Mike has been completing a Department of Defense legislative fellowship on Capitol Hill in the office of Senator Tom Carper (D-Delaware). The fellowship continues through the rest of 2017. Mike has helped to advise the Senator on defense, foreign policy, and national security issues, and feels fortunate to be on the Hill at such a unique time in American history. ❯ Jon Betts reports: “Oh boy, things have been busy for the Betts. Henry kicked the year off with surgery at Lurie Children’s Hospital (he’s great now!). Not to be outdone, Steph decided to get appendicitis on the

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Prior to this, she received tenure at a community college in Washington, but decided to go back into public health in order to work in violence prevention. Although a hard decision (and she will probably go back to teaching eventually), she is happy to be back in the Southwest—the land of sunlight. ❯ Tahlia Weis Sadoski writes: “My four-year-old son and I are moving back to my home state of Wisconsin, where I’ll join the Marshfield Clinic as their fourth vascular surgeon.” ❯ Norman Golar and wife Regina celebrated their 10-year anniversary on June 30, 2017. ❯ Tom Viner writes: “I continue to practice law in Cedar Rapids and the surrounding area at Viner Law Firm PC, which I founded three years ago. Now approaching my 13th year of criminal defense and family law, I practice with three other attorneys and am proud to run a successful pre-law internship program with Coe College (which has helped produce a dozen or more attorneys). I have completed my first marriage. I enjoy being a father IMMENSELY; to wit, I have plans to expand my family this fall, and by plans I mean I have a baby on the way. I live in the woods with my four-year-old, Lindy, and enjoy driving my two Studebakers around eastern Iowa during the summer and fall. I was happy to spend time last summer with Brooks Goedeker and Mike Kraycinovich ’03. I continue to work with Tau Kappa Epsilon as a member of the board for the University of Iowa Chapter. Things are going well.” ❯ After almost 12 years as a Minnesota resident, Ami Jo Lawin bought a cabin with a lake view, just 17 miles west of downtown Minneapolis. She’s now working on her retirement plan. ❯ Kate Grigg writes: “I’m excited to share I completed my master of pastoral counseling degree in May! I still live in Connecticut, working part time at an addiction treatment center and building my private practice. Enjoying my life and feeling grateful!” ❯ Greg Kupsky continues his work with the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, but in January, he and his family moved from Honolulu to northern Virginia. They also welcomed daughter Maia Grace in April. Greg and wife Amanda couldn’t be happier, and Sam (7) and Ellie (4) adore their baby sister. ❯ Eric Miller writes: “I married the love of my life, Christelle Abadia, on February 19 in a beautiful ceremony in St. Petersburg, Florida, surrounded by family and friends. In May, I participated in my second year as a StartUp Term judge, listening to brilliant pitches by Knox’s future entrepreneurs.”

Class Correspondent: Jennifer Wreyford 1700 Bassett Street, #407, Denver, CO 80202, 813-482-4112, jwreyford@gmail.com

The Class of 2000 mourns the unexpected death of classmate Daniel Korvas, who died on April 13, 2017. Dan started a web design company, Connections Marketing, and served as an Illinois High School Athletics basketball official. He will be missed.

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“It’s all dogs all the time, and I wouldn’t have it any other Insiyah Saeed ’03 She Started It: A Documentary on Women Tech Entrepreneurs Insiyah Saeed ’03 is co-director and producer of the award-winning She Started It, the first feature-length documentary film on women tech entrepreneurs that shows what happens behind the scenes of running a tech start-up as a young woman.

With a goal of reaching one million women and girls, the film has screened at festivals, schools, colleges (including Knox!), universities, and conferences. Corporations across multiple worldwide offices, including Microsoft, Google, Adobe, Salesforce, Survey Monkey, Bank of America, Lyft, and AIG, plan multiple screenings as part of their diversity and inclusion efforts.

The film has been selected by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and the USC School of Cinematic Arts for the 20172018 American Film Showcase, America’s premiere film diplomacy program. Saeed will represent the film at Embassies around the world starting this fall.

Why did you commit to this project and what do you hope to accomplish?

As a journalist, I’ve always been interested in compelling stories to tell, especially about entrepreneurship.

After moving to the Silicon Valley, I began to notice the untold stories of incredible women entrepreneurs. When I met my co-founder, Nora Poggi, in 2013, we felt compelled to produce a documentary following the real life stories of women starting tech companies, the first film of NATALIA NAZAROVA its kind. We wanted women and girls (or anyone interested in entrepreneurship!) to watch this film and think, “if she can do it, I can do it!”

What do you think is the biggest issue that keeps women from becoming entrepreneurs and reaching their goals?

Nowadays there are fewer barriers than ever for entrepreneurs trying to pursue their dream idea—whatever the outcome may be. There is an abundance of resources for all aspects of entrepreneurship: for developing prototypes, for finding avenues for pitching their ideas, and for learning best practices from the experiences of others.

The biggest issue we found during our research is that many people, and women in particular, were afraid of failure. We explore the theme of learning to fail well in the documentary, as a prerequisite to becoming a resilient entrepreneur.

Another issue we found faced by women was the lack of exposure to what it means to work in the tech field. The impression most women had was that it would be “too hard” or that being in tech involved sitting at a computer all day. I think those impressions are rapidly changing, with the sheer amount of outreach efforts from organizations such as Made with Code, Girls Who Code, and countless universities.

Programs by Facebook, Google, Dell, Intel, Code.org, and many other organizations and conferences have sprung up to highlight STEM fields and their importance for the next generation of women. We hope our film also contributes by providing a close up perspective on what it means to be a tech entrepreneur.

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Alexandra and Vivian. ❯ Nina Gutierrez Martin writes: “Ben Martin and I bought our first house this past December and will never move before a holiday again! We have been busy tearing up our backyard and planting grass and flowers. Our boys love the space to run and play and are very excited for a possible garden next summer. The oldest just finished up kindergarten and was ready for a summer of fun playing with his brother, who will be 3 in September. Ben is still with Jack Link’s, and I rock the SAHM gig and share a love for Jamberry.” ❯ Nathan Totz: After completing a Ph.D. in mathematics at the University of Michigan and postdoctoral studies at Duke University and University of Massachusetts, Amherst, he has accepted a tenure-track faculty position in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Miami. ❯ Marissa Parkin writes: “We still love life in Sydney and have been here for over three years with no intention of leaving anytime soon. I started a new job with Adventure World Travel in May—we specialise in tailor-made cultural and wildlife journeys all over the world. I joined the North America product team, where I get to research fabulous travel itineraries, write descriptions of exotic holidays, and look at adorable photos of polar bears all day. In July, we made it out to Denver for the wedding of my cousin and fellow Knox alum Jennifer Hoben ’09 and had the chance to catch up with some other Knox friends on our trip: Letty Luke, Alexandra Birnbach, Colleen Shelly ’14, and Nick Maxfield ’06.”

Class Correspondents: Marissa Parkin moeparkin@gmail.com Ashley Steinsdoerfer Gottlieb 815-245-3648, agsteinsdoerfer@aol.com

2006 Rebecca Meyerson was accepted to University of Maryland School of Nursing and was very excited to enter their Clinical Nurse Leader master’s program in August. ❯ Devin Hogan writes, “I’m now the Democratic Farmer-Labor Party (DFL)-endorsed candidate for Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board Commissioner At Large (citywide)! The DFL is Minnesota’s version of the Democrats. I earned the party’s endorsement on the first ballot at our July 8 convention, which is a HUGE deal for a first-time candidate. I’m running on a platform of increasing the accessibility of our parks for traditionally marginalized communities through new recreation options and partnership across governments. It’s been a pretty competitive race, and the endorsement provides a lot of momentum for our campaign as we head towards the election on November 7. I look forward to continuing to meet new people across the city and hear their stories about how we can use the parks to build a twenty-first century vision for a park system that serves us all well.” ❯ Karen Kovitvongsa Straehl and her husband welcomed Saya Melina Straehl, their first child, on July 6, 2017. ❯ Sarah Kilch Gaffney and

Class Knox way.” —Bill Mayeroff ’07

2007 Greetings Class of 2007! Our 10-year Reunion is upon us—time sure flies! We hope you enjoy these updates.—Michael and Laura ❯ From Jessica Drew: “After many years at Northwestern University (and a short stint at the Chicago Botanic Garden), I joined the Lyric Opera of Chicago in June as their human resources associate. I plan to get my SHRM-CP certification in the next year, which is less fun than it sounds, and recently celebrated my 10-year anniversary of moving to the Chicago area.” She continues to dote on her husband of three years, Darren, and adorable cat Muriel. ❯ Donovan Griffith writes, “I left my post in July as a senior legislative adviser to Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner to take the position of deputy director of the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. To any Knox people in Springfield, Illinois, my family and I have moved back and would love to connect!” ❯ Karen Hilberg was sad to leave her teaching career after suffering a brain injury in an accident at Englewood High School, where she was working.

She now volunteers at Chicago Books to Women in Prison. ❯ Joe Kerley toured Eastern Europe with his choir, the Northwest Chamber Chorus, this summer. They performed in Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. ❯ Karen Kinderman still lives in Chicago and continues her work as a project manager for a software company downtown. She has traveled quite a bit and recently

spent 10 days in Kazakhstan visiting Ben Taylor (who has taught in Astana, Kazakhstan, since last fall) before heading off to Berlin, Amsterdam, and London. She spent a week last fall in Iceland with Karlina Trachsel herding sheep, seeing the Northern Lights, and enjoying local cuisines. She looks forward to the 10-year Reunion in October and catching up with her fellow classmates. ❯ Katya Manak got married on June 17, 2017, to John Fuentes, and Maureen McDonnell ’09 served as her maid of honor. ❯ Bill Mayeroff writes, “My life has gone to the dogs in the best way possible. I graduated FetchFind Academy last December and have been working as a professional dog trainer ever since. I work as an inhouse trainer for a group of dog daycare and boarding facilities in Chicago, in addition to teaching group dog training classes some evenings and weekends. It’s all dogs all the time, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. There’s probably more to tell, but I’ll stop, lest this begin to sound like the intro section of an OkCupid profile. Oh yeah … I’m still not married and still have no kids. Both of those are probably for the best.” ❯ Adam Nader got married in September 2016 and joined a cardiology practice in July 2017. ❯ Michael Sales and wife Rachel expect their first child, a boy, in mid-November. At time of deadline, a name has yet to be chosen. By time of printing, we should have one! Finley is a contender for a first name, and Knox is in the running for a middle name, so we may just have a Knox baby! Because of our due date, I’m sad to report that we will be unable to attend our 10year Reunion, but I know that the Class of 2007 will celebrate as only we can! ❯ Amy Watts writes, “Amy Watts Paintings is now has a showing at Gallery Malaika, 17 Rue de Savoie, 75006 Paris, France! The universe is too kind, and I cannot believe my good fortune! The piece on display is acrylic and multimedia and titled Awakening. Also, my son, Brann Watts Canavan, was born October 22, 2016!”

Class Correspondents: Laura J. Wentink Marcasciano 5650 Abbey Drive, Apartment 3P, Lisle, IL 60532-2558, ljmarcasciano@gmail.com Michael C. Sales 8 Maillet Street, Winslow, ME 04901, KnoxClassof2007@gmail.com

world and feel super-humbled and grateful for these opportunities. I have presented my dance style of Bharatanatyam across India—from tiny villages to prestigious auditoriums and in several other countries as well. Another exciting adventure is the opportunity to teach classical arts to underprivileged girls at my foundation. I have traveled to Europe for the past three years to participate at the amazing Brave Kids Festival for a month each year, teaching indigenous Indian art forms to marginalized children from 19 other countries and in turn learning their forms! That is a huge step forward for the girls from the slums in Delhi. My heart is full—so grateful for this chance for my girls! And well—my creative spurs truly flowered at Knox—so I’m eternally grateful!” ❯ Hamed Aziz has worked for a foreign exchange agency in East Central Illinois for two years now and has brought exchange students to the schools and communities. ❯ Ladipo Lawani just finished his MBA at Columbia Business School and started a peanut manufacturing business in Nigeria. Check it out at www.mrekpa.com. ❯ Adrianna Greising Crawford says, “Hello from Madison! Big news for us this year is that we will welcome baby Crawford in September!” ❯ Sara Torina Rodriguez and husband Dave welcomed their second baby girl, Audrey Elise, on May 21. Leah, who is 3 years old, loves being a big sister. ❯ Jessica Platt loves the job that she started last April, where she serves as an employment specialist for the St. Louis Arc. In addition to volunteering with her dog, Jessica has also started mentoring a 20-year-old and a 10-year-old. They keep her on her toes, but that makes life all the more exciting! ❯ Marius Tan and wife Stephanie

2008 Natasha Robin Berman recently moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She and her husband have resettled there because, starting this fall, she will attend the University of Pittsburgh to pursue an M.S. in genetic counseling. ❯ Jasmina Ruano-Schroeder and husband Josh are expecting Baby #1 in August 2017! ❯ Yvonne Ramirez Takane and husband Matt welcomed their first child, Clark Toshimi Takane, on April 11. She also began a new job as senior front end developer with KPIT Technologies. ❯ Neha Bhatnagar says, “I have performed all over the

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husband Brian also welcomed a baby girl, Lilah Kilch Reed, on June 14, 2017. She says, “Zoe, now 6, is a proud big sister and is headed to first grade in the fall.” ❯ Sylvie Davidson Wheetman writes, “I’ve been keeping busy in the theatre and music worlds. I recently appeared in two very different world-premiere plays. One was the country-music musical Troubadour at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta, in which I played a hopeful singer/songwriter in 1950s Nashville. I got to work with country artists Kristian Bush and Radney Foster, which was amazing. The other was a stage adaptation of T. Geronimo Johnson’s award-winning novel Welcome to Braggsville—a “coming-of-age novel for a new generation [which] intimately explores how all Americans are linked to—and culpable in—the country’s racial injustices”—at Book-It Repertory Theatre. And, in August, husband Trevor Wheetman and I finally started recording an album, which we’re funding via an Indiegogo campaign that many Knox friends have generously contributed to.

Thank you all! In the fall, I’ll return to Seattle to play Abigail in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible at ACT Theatre.” ❯ Jason and Allison Beale Cascio ’04 welcomed a baby girl, Laurel Elaine, into the world on May 2. Big brother Jack just turned 2 in July. Jason and Alli and family just moved to Iowa City, Iowa, where Jason starts his residency in internal medicine.

Class Correspondent: Megan Rehberg megan.rehberg@gmail.com

Awakening, an acrylic and multimedia painting by Amy Watts ’07, which was recently on show at Gallery Malaika in Paris, France.

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Erica Stringfellow Tully ’08 and Miriam Gillan ’08 went to visit expected their first child, a son, at the end of August. They will then move to a new house close to the beach just outside of Amsterdam! ❯ Andy Fitz says, “We had a baby boy, Benjamin Isaac, in April. His 2-year-old sister, Alexandra, is great most of the time helping out with him, but has recently discovered that she is in fact a 2-year-old and totally acts like it. I still teach physics at Stevenson High School in the northern suburbs of Chicago.” ❯ Erica Bailley got married on June 24 to Matt Helton. They will likely move to Bloomington-Normal, Illinois, soon, so she will have to commute to her job in Peoria at Caterpillar, where she is the trademark asset manager in the intellectual property group. ❯ Kathryn Sweet says, “In June, I moved to Ann Arbor (which, incidentally, is the birthplace of my singing sisterhood, Sigma Alpha Iota) to start an exciting new job as an information security analyst for Duo Security! I also got to see Yvonne Ramirez Takane and husband Matt on a couple of recent trips to D.C., and I can’t wait to meet their new superbaby!” ❯ Jenny Davis had a beautiful wedding on an Alaskan cruise with Kyle McClear. They recently moved from Chicago to Cleveland and bought their first house! ❯ Quinnetta Miller Bellows says, “I’ve started a new job as senior manager, learning and coaching at StriveTogether. While still a bit sad about leaving the teaching profession, I’m super-excited about the work I do with Strive.” ❯ Adrienne Doubet married her soup snake/greatest love, Mikail, in the presence of her favorite humans on June 10, 2017, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. ❯ Emily Jensen works at Rush University Medical Center as the administrative manager for the outpatient section of hepatology (i.e., ultimate troubleshooter extraordinaire). She is excited to start grad school in September at Rush’s health systems management program. Emily attended two Knox weddings this year. She was the weekend coordinator/sometimes bartender for the Amanda Chavero ’09/Clint Moore ’09 wedding in May. Emily was also very happy to attend the wedding of Agnes Vetinde and Chuck Boland with some of her favorite people, also from the Class of 2008: Louis Munoz, Megan Butler, Liza Fate, and Vida Lozano-Alvarado. ❯ Erica Stringfellow Tully and Miriam Gillan, along with Erica’s husband, Patrick, went to Orlando, Florida, together to celebrate Erica’s new job: going back to teaching fourth graders! They also went to visit the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, because duh.

Class Correspondents: Miriam M. Gillan miriam.gillan@gmail.com Erica Stringfellow Tully e.stringfellow4@gmail.com

2009 After working as a paralegal for an environmental nonprofit in Portland, Oregon, Claire ValentineFossum heads to Vermont Law School this fall to study energy and natural resource management.

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❯ Katie Fronczak has amassed approximately 170 episodes of Jeopardy! on her DVR but has no time to watch any of them. Also still detecting violent crimes against children and whatnot. ❯ Brian Zhang now helps selling movie tickets at Atom Tickets in Los Angeles. Also looking to get a puppy, rumor has it they are great company, and delicious (jk ... mostly). ❯ Amanda Look got married in Chicago in July. Husband Michael secured a contract to work for an International School as a school counselor in Doha, Qatar, in the Middle East. They plan to relocate in August.

Amanda will run the special events team at Georgetown University-Qatar. They’re excited about this crazy new adventure as newlyweds! ❯ Erica Anton married Mattie Carruth November 5, 2016, in Tryon, North Carolina. They planned to relocate back to Erika’s home state of Washington in August 2017. ❯ Sarah Williams writes, “I still live it up in Chicago with my two cats and partner and just celebrated my fourth year at The Anti-Cruelty Society, where I teach kids about being kind to animals.” ❯ Maren Reisch earned a master’s degree in higher education leadership from the University of San Diego in 2016. She moved back east to Cambridge, Massachusetts, last summer, where she currently works at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, coordinating curriculum for the Executive MBA program. ❯ In the past year, Sam Bouman has been a baker, cab driver, and baker again in Portland, Oregon, all while doing volunteer journalism “of varying value and quality” for KBOO Community Radio. ❯ Jill Bergantz Carley married a handsome, perfect man, Loren. She is director of sales and marketing for a Bay Area-based engineering firm and sometimes wears a pink hard hat to work.

She spent last summer at the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. Her corgi’s Instagram (@westerndogviolet) has more followers than there are people in her hometown. She grew way too many tomatoes in her garden this summer, and wrote some poems about it. ❯ Molly Wilson reports, “I’ve finally left the barren wasteland of Wyoming—Ph.D. in hand—for a position as assistant professor of counselor education at a little college in Grand Rapids, Michigan.” ❯ Erin Warford writes, “I got married on December 17, 2016, to Kevin Knowles (not a Knox alum, but otherwise an awesome human being!). I teach history and archaeology as an adjunct at Canisius College and at Hilbert College.” ❯ Kevin Goetsch has recently started as director of data at Home Chef. He still lives in Chicago, now with two kittens! His time is split between machine learning, playing with Raspberry Pis, and rock climbing. ❯ Olivia Engel is living in a Zen sangha for a short while. ❯ Matt Baker says “S.” ❯ Jen Hoben Quick got married on July 9 and quickly followed that up by making a big move with her husband from Denver, Colorado, to Santa Fe, New Mexico. She will work as a public policy fellow with the New Mexico Public Education Department. She’s excited to explore her new set of mountains and eat delicious New

Mexican cuisine! ❯ Amanda Chavero writes, “Clint Moore and I put a ring on it this May and moved to Colorado five days later. He joined the men’s soccer coaching staff at the Air Force Academy, and I work in fundraising for the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs. He’s a Colorado native, so it’s one big homecoming for him; I’m not sure about all this outdoorsy stuff, but I don’t have to feel bad about never washing the bugs or mud off my car here, and the accidental hike I found myself on last week wasn’t too bad.” ❯ Jaclyn Anderson reports that she finally left Illinois for a job in Houston. ❯ Kathleen Beeson writes, “I got hitched to Spencer Masterson in October 2016, out in the woods of Oregon during what became known as ‘the storm of the century.’ Attendees included: Sam Bouman, Maddie Ettlin, Kaley Morlock, Andrew Brasher ’10, Sarah Burger ’08, Phil Peterson ’10, Jules Trachsel ’10, Annie Zak ’11, Abby Clayton ’10, Josh Hosmer-Quint ’13, and, of course, maid of honor Haley Beeson ’14 (P.S., Josh and Haley are getting married next :)).” Joyous indeed! Kathleen continues to plug along on her Ph.D. studying how neurons form proper connections. She gardens like mad, bikes a whole heck of a lot, and says “Hello!” to y’all! ❯ Ryan Cash is still chasing the music dream, living in San Francisco and working as a production manager for the Greek Theater in Berkeley, California. ❯ Sam Jarvis married the love of his life, Kate Heitkamp Jarvis ’12, and they hold the world record for Knox alumni at a wedding (see the photo if you don’t believe me).

Class Correspondent: Sam Jarvis 1059 Lincoln St., Galesburg IL 61401, 309-368-7885 samuelpaulleejarvis@gmail.com

2010 Class Correspondent: Lauren Assaf knoxcollege2010notes@gmail.com

2011 Hi, everyone! Lots of new updates from our classmates this go-around. As always, let me know how I’m doing and how I can best serve you as Class Correspondent. ❯ Akiba Bradford accepted a job as a field representative for California State Assembly Member Tony Thurmond.

She is a board member on the Community Police Advisory Board for the City of Oakland, where she advises the police chief, mayor, and residents on community policing. She was a founding board member and selections director of the New Leaders Council Oakland chapter, a national 501(c)(3) organization that trains progressive leaders in progressive politics and entrepreneurship. ❯ Emma Beyer finished her first year at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, where she writes for the Columbia Missourian and Vox Magazine. She also writes for Missouri Life magazine and recently had an article published in newspapers across India. ❯ Caitlin Fones visited Sara DeMaria out in North

Class Knox the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, because duh.

Lindsey Hansen ’99 and William Brown—April 29, 2017

Courtney E. Wiles ’02 and John N. Taylor—October 1, 2016

Eric Miller ’02 and Christelle Abadia—February 19, 2017

Mary Reindl Henderson finished a M.S.W. degree at St. Ambrose University and moved to Champaign with DeAndre Henderson ’10. She works as a therapist working with teen girls in a residential setting. ❯ Arianna Timko is completing a pre-doctoral internship in clinical psychology at the Oklahoma University Health Sciences Center in Oklahoma City, doing health psychology and trauma work with veterans and children, and watching the buffalo roam. ❯ Brigette Demke signed up for a sprint triathlon and a half-marathon. She’s officially sometimes a charge nurse and training some of the new people. She and Cole Atcheson ’13 signed a lease on a new place together! ❯ Dami Olotu works in marketing analytics at Sears Holdings. She spends almost all her free time traveling. So far this year, she’s been to three countries and six cities across the U.S. ❯ Molly Stein accepted a new position in the structured finance group at First Midwest Bank in Chicago in August 2016, and is engaged to John Tomazin. ❯ Lucas Motta currently lives in Portland, Oregon, and works for the Oregon State Athletic Department as the senior manager of business development, handling Oregon State’s athletic corporate sponsorships. ❯ Luke ’08 and Sam Claypool Temple have settled in Denver, where she enjoys her role in development for Habitat for Humanity of Metro and Denver. Thinking about her time 21/2 years ago in Tanzania, she launched a purposeful travel organization called Live Dunia (livedunia.org), with a purpose to connect global citizens with sustainable impact in Tanzania. ❯ Brett Daley farms outside Cresco, Iowa. He recently helped create a nonprofit organization that promotes energy efficiency and renewable energy sources in Howard County, Iowa. ❯ Amanda Sicoli accepted a position clerking with the Honorable Patrick J. Schiltz in the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota. She returned to her law practice at Gray Plant Mooty in the fall. ❯ Brianna Chavez was recently recognized as an Outstanding Case Worker by Adopt US Kids, an organization that helps connects children in foster care with families. She

earned a master’s degree in social work and now works as a placement supervisor in Albuquerque, New Mexico. ❯ Kusum Hachhethu is in Rome working as a nutritionist for United Nations World Food Programme. ❯ Marnie Shure is now a managing editor of The Onion. ❯ Kristin Niehoff Weisenberger and her husband bought their first home! Her daughter is four, and her son will be two in September. Her biggest adventures now are updating the house and the occasional family outing. And watching her bearded dragon eat insects … ❯ Grace Fourman and Kevin Wickman ’09 got engaged this past spring and moved home to Chicago. ❯ Lexie Frensley married Jonny Gersten in Miami, Florida, and they are now settled in Portland, Oregon. They had a blast celebrating with Kelsey Kreiling ’09, Sandy Guttman ’10, Laura Pochodylo ’14, and Sam Martone ’11.

Class Correspondent: Tim Schmeling trschmeling@gmail.com

Celebrating with the Browns (center) were Anne Duda Mayes ’97, Autumn Anderson ’98, and Noah Schwartz ’97.

Dakota. ❯ Christian Mahone completed a master’s degree in educational leadership from the University of Illinois at Springfield, with special honors, and was awarded the Education Department’s “Outstanding Student” award, serving as class marshal during Commencement. Christian recently moved into an administrative role at Washington Middle School in Springfield, Illinois. ❯ Sam Harrison works in a financial office in Chicago and misses the dish room. ❯ Willi Carlisle Goehring teaches literature at a small college in Arkansas and tours with a one-man play at festivals and colleges across the country.

He still plays banjo, calls square dances, and generally lives the good life. ❯ Pat Dooley is about to follow partner Melanie to Boston as she becomes a first-year medical student. He is a crazy cat person and very excited to explore Boston. ❯ Ruby Goh celebrated her five-year anniversary at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in London and is rethinking life post-Brexit. ❯ Eric Ballard got engaged to his best friend, Liz Thompson. He is also working on a B.S. in mechanical engineering and has interned at the National Solar Thermal Test Facility at Sandia National Labs researching concentrating solar power. ❯ Carl Svensson does commercial real estate research in Los Angeles, California. ❯ Laura Johnson Hopfauf manages a small cross-functional team for JLG Industries, part of Oshkosh Corporation, which is rated one of the most ethical companies in the world. She and Tyler Hopfauf ’10 live in Maryland, where they kayak, hike, and look for cheap flights to new countries, hopefully hitting number 10 soon. ❯ Sasha Murphy and Sean Frohling ’10 went on a honeymoon to Spain and France and had a fabulous time! ❯ Kelly Wiggen matched with a veterinary cardiology residency at the University of Missouri and will live in Columbia, Missouri, for the next three years. ❯ Alix DeWald is exploring beyond the veil while making sure she does not know with much certainty, but some. She works and teaches as a bodyworker in Prescott, Arizona, with her partner of one year, specializing in four-handed ritual massage. Her cat was working on his summer dreadlocks. ❯

2012 Erin McKinstry spends her summers at the end of a 60-mile dirt road in McCarthy, Alaska, in the middle of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. She recommends living in the middle of the woods.

She’ll finish her second year of journalism school at the University of Missouri in spring 2018.

She’s very excited that her voice has been on the radio. ❯ In the five years following graduation, Jamie Jang, from San Carlos, California, has worked on a wildlife study in high Nevada desert, worked for a nonprofit, and is now learning the ins and outs of architecture at his father’s firm. ❯ Ellen Ramsey continues to oversee the NAIA Eligibility Center and travels during her spare time. ❯ Amanda Wollrab Archer celebrated her first full year of living in Orange County, California, with husband Joel and cat Archie. Her new home state has allowed her to catch up with her old roommates, Anne Heberle Barnett and Adrienne Wagner, earlier this year. She can’t believe it’s been five years since the three of them lived together! ❯ Julia Shenkar had nothing to report but just wanted to be included. ❯ Greg

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Kyla Tully ’13’s daily life involves “catching baby frogs in the

Katya Manak ’07 and John Fuentes—June 17, 2017

Amanda Chavero ’09 and Clint Moore ’09—May 27, 2017 FRONT (LEFT TO RIGHT): Carmen Knight Aken ’08, Elvith Santoyo ’13, Shana Sewick (athletics), Emily Jensen ’08, Julie Layer (advancement), Kate Haslem ’13, Caitlin Prange (formerly of athletics), Amanda Chavero ’09, Clint Moore ’09, Lexie Vernon (athletics), Katie Lilly ’12, Chase Chavero ’13, Adrian Torres-Ibarra ’14.

BACK ROW: David Aken ’12, Dan Jackson (athletics), Blake Harrison ’09, Zach Kirven ’09, Russell Baker ’09, Jeff Wozencraft ’10, Cary Archer ’09, Jake Gorbaty ’09, Jared Jaggers ’10, Chad Eisele ’93, Cortney Hill ’17.

Noth still lives in Washington, D.C., and eloped in Croatia in June with his long-time girlfriend, Alyssa. (Jack Moore, Tommy Veague, and Sam Bernstein accounted for half the wedding attendees.) And, after nearly a decade of living a few feet from each other—beginning at Knox—Greg and Tommy have been neighbors since last fall.

The distance took getting used to, but both are adjusting well. Missing WVKC, Greg and Sam started a weekly-ish podcast to stay sane under this crazy administration—check out Trump Stakes on your favorite podcasting platform! ❯ Monica Prince from Lakewood, Colorado, accepted a poetry fellowship at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania, for the 2017-2018 school year. Up until now, she has been working five jobs in her field of English, performing poetry, publishing her work, and living extravagantly in Denver, Colorado. She still goes on annual reunion trips with her favorite Knoxies and can be reached at monica.prince28@gmail.com. ❯ Aaron ’09 and Anne Heberle Barnett have had an exciting and busy year. After Anne graduated from medical school, they moved to Augusta, Georgia, where she will begin her residency in internal medicine.

However, their greatest excitement and joy of the year is celebrating the birth of son Sean. ❯ From Colorado Springs, Colorado, Rayann

Parkinson-Puntoriero writes: “Joseph Puntoriero ’13 and I have PCSed back to the States and are living the ’Merican dream. I was able to continue to work with Navy Federal. We just got done vacationing with family and have planned a vacation to Vegas, baby! In between then and now, we are doing all the outdoor activities possible in Colorado—and there are many!” ❯ Anna Casey graduated with a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Texas in May and headed back to Illinois to work as a fellow at the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting in Champaign. ❯ Jamie White became an American citizen, got engaged to a Trump supporter, and hired as an instructor at Florida Atlantic University. He’s still adjusting to the second part. ❯ Alexandra Greer Slagle and husband Jeremy expected their first child in the middle of August and continue to love living in South Carolina. ❯ David Aken, Chicago, has approached the completion of Year 1 of intensive care nursing experience, and works in the adult intensive care unit at Presence St. Joseph of Chicago. He plans to apply to schools for nurse anesthesiology after completing Year 2. Additionally, he has found more time to explore the great outdoors with wife Carmen Vargas Aken ’14 and their two dogs. ❯ Emily Berarducci married Greg Potember on June 20, 2017, in Steamboat

Springs, Colorado. The wedding was officiated

by Emily’s good friend Sundee Perkins ’11.

Emily designed and built the French program at Steamboat Springs Middle School, where she currently works as a French teacher. ❯ Zackary Michel Herbst writes, “After three years in St. Louis working in the pharmaceutical industry, I have found myself in Seattle, Washington. Currently, I am with the University of Washington’s Department of Medicine, working with a great team to develop a drug treatment and cure for Human African trypanosomiasis [sleeping sickness] and Chagas Disease. Also, I am certified in natural science illustration through the University of Washington and have begun doing freelance illustration work. I credit my Knox experience as a foundation that has left me stepping into the pools of both science and art.” ❯ Ivy Reid lives in Chicago, alongside Anna Munzesheimer, Nellie Ognacevic, and Crisanda Benson-Davis ’10. She works full-time in professional theatre as the master electrician of Lookingglass Theatre Company. She shares her life with partner Matt Weede and a scruffy terrier, Xena. ❯ Julia Trumpy gained her master’s degree in library and information science from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign in December 2016. In June, she accepted a job in Collierville, Tennessee, where she is the new

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Serving for the Korean Army as an intelligence and interpreter officer at the United Nations Command/Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command/United States Forces Korea for three years, has helped Jun Young Cho ’12 gain knowledge about the interconnected nature of diplomacy, information, military, and economics; he has served as a translator to four-star generals. “I hold my experience and expertise as a valued interpreter to the Command Group very dearly,” he writes.

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Class Knox bathrooms [and] shoo-ing deer and turkeys out of the lobby.”

Adrienne Doubet ’08 and Mikhail Dance—June 10, 2017

Kate Heitkamp ’12 and Sam Jarvis ’09 — November 5, 2016

LEFT TO RIGHT: Pam Wagner ’08, Ann Marie Albright ’08, Briana Goodwin ’08, Brigid McClelland ’07, Jenna Finley Young ’08, Sonali Mishra ’08, Jessica Bauer Cheney ’08, and Jessica Strache Brandis ’08.

local choirs and encourages any Knox grads in Boston to come say hello! ❯ Kristal Romero’s Eat, Pray, Love lifestyle was extremely short-lived.

She moved to Washington, D.C., in January and now works at a nonprofit in the workforce development/opportunity youth space. ❯ Renni Johnson writes, “On May 1, I started my dream job, as associate manager of digital workflow support at Penguin Random House in New York City. I help develop and test technology for manuscript editing, tagging, and flow into design. I create documentation, provide training, and assist editors with troubleshoots. I love that what I do makes the editing and production process more

efficient. Hopefully, by taking advantage of technology and enforcing methodical procedures, we’ll see more great books from more authors put out into the world. I also had a short paranormal romance novella published digitally by Evernight Publishing under the pen name Renni Acre.” ❯ Kyla Tully reports, “I just finished a three-month stint as the assistant production manager at American Players Theatre in Spring Green, Wisconsin, and am now leading their front-of-house team—my daily work life involves catching baby frogs in the bathrooms, shoo-ing deer and turkeys out of the lobby, and being an amateur meteorologist. In my spare time I visit

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youth services librarian. She has had a lot of fun exploring the area and learning the culture of the Mid-South. ❯ Brann Gallagher writes, “I’m excited to begin law school at Boston College this fall in pursuit of a J.D. degree. It is a three-year program, so I will complete the degree in 2020. I moved to the Greater Boston area in August (in Brighton).” Brann was an environmental studies major with a minor in philosophy and says, “I’m very grateful for my Knox education.” ❯ Kelly Grant lives in Chicago with her best mate, Elvis the shih tzu. In September 2017, she said goodbye to the Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center (where she worked with Patrick Dooley ’11), and became a full-time student in Rush’s generalist entry M.S. in Nursing program. She’s excited to be a nurse (and catch up on zzzs) in two years! ❯ Karl and Audra Adolph Bair ’09 have returned from their extensive summer travels more in love and more focused than ever. Karl has also become the advisor to a local university’s retirement plan. The two are now planning their next trip to Hawaii! ❯ Michael Whitt, Aurora, Illinois, just got hired as a special education teacher in the Quad Cities. He is engaged to Shannon Bruton.

They are excited about moving to Iowa together and starting their new life there. ❯ John Williams is in the third year of using his green thumb on a Central Illinois vegetable farm while exploring the various horseshoe options at local restaurants after work. In addition, he has been elected to two board of director positions in local food organizations.

Class Correspondent: Aparna Kumar aparna.kumarboehm@gmail.com

2013 John William Budding has lived in Boston since he concluded his post-bacc research in 2014. He has advanced his career serving as the human resources coordinator for the Harvard University School of Dental Medicine, covering all HR functions for the school. He continues to sing in

Ellen Ramsey ’12 traveled to Washington, D.C., with fellow alumni Thomas Veague ’12, Greg Noth ’12, Jack Moore ’12, Annika Paulsen ’12, and Bobby Stuebi ’12, and others.

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Michael Moroney ’14 finally quit his office job to

Lexie Frensley ’11 and Jonny Gersten—December 30, 2016

Gregory Noth ’12 and Alyssa Sutherland—June 4, 2017

LEFT TO RIGHT: Kelsey Kreiling ’10, Lexi Frensley ’11, Sandy Guttman ’10, and Sam Martone ’11.

The wedding party included Jack Moore ’12 (on the left of Alyssa). Second from the right is Thomas Veague ’12.

the dude—Keegan Siebken ’11—and four furbabies at our home in Milwaukee.” ❯ Franzesca Mayer makes lingerie out of recycled bicycle tubes: www.rubberlesque.com. ❯ Dominique Potts is studying school psychology at Loyola University Chicago. She starts her third year this fall and will serve as an intern at Bremen High School District. ❯ Justin Dingle transitioned from temp to full-time employee at Wells Fargo Home Mortgage and bought a house with Jill Krippel ’13 in Springfield, Illinois. “Come visit us!” ❯ Anna Novakova Bailliekova reports the Bailliekova family has grown by 70 pounds in the last six months. In December, Anna and John Baillie Bailliekova ’08 adopted black lab mix puppy Radar, and, in June, they became first-time parents to Nadezhda Jane (prospective Class of 2039). Their days and nights are full of wonder, delight, and diaper changes. ❯ Luke Yanos writes, “Marie Fourman and I moved to Washington, D.C., in September. I’m working on my second master’s degree, attending Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies studying international economics and Southeast Asia studies. Marie works at Georgetown University Hospital as a physical therapy tech while she works toward physical therapy school. Dog Pickles is also thinking about going back to school.” ❯ Nate Beck works for an IT company in Denver, Colorado, and plays horn and signs for an Eastern European folk ensemble called Planina! ❯ Matt McKinney works as a reporter at The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, Virginia. ❯ Blair Peters married Tyler Atkinson on January 21, 2017, in Streamwood, Illinois. Christina Colman stood up as a bridesmaid, Autumn McGarr sang a rendition of “Your Song” for the first dance, and various Knox friends were in attendance. ❯ Matthew Turley and Monique Noto got engaged at Disneyland. They plan on getting married in 2018. ❯ Sophie Townsend, husband Gaige Spencer, and precious dog Ginger have recently moved to Peoria and currently live with Justin Steele and Casey Spencer. They are looking for a home, and Sophie begins work at Quest Charter Academy in the fall as its physics,

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chemistry, and earth science teacher. ❯ Justin Steele writes, “Though I was extremely close to being homeless during my last year of medical school (the title to my upcoming memoir, cowritten by John Evan Feeley), I was graciously saved by Casey Spencer and Sophie Townsend in a zany turn of events! Using technology developed by Dr. Shaunak Mulani ’12, I am now super-tall, buff, and have extremely thick hair...on my back. We spend our spare time formulating scenarios where Johnathon Bass and Manish Patel would be forced to adopt the three of us (the plot to my upcoming sitcom, starring Nicolas Osuna ’17 and Michael Gasparro). If you’re ever in Peoria, swipe right on us!”

Class Correspondent: Danny Schaefer danielcschaefer19@gmail.com

2014

Manny Ceja and Noelia Fraga are engaged to be married next year. ❯ Sona Diallo started teaching English for medical professionals at a medical school in Besançon, France, in September. ❯ Hannah Black started the new year by moving to a new city (Madison), starting a new job (cleaning cages at Harlow Primate Lab at University of Wisconsin-Madison), and moving in with a significant other! She will finish a master’s degree in December and plans on getting certified to teach high school science in Wisconsin. She also studied abroad in Borneo for two weeks in July! ❯ Chris Frane finished his master’s degree in bioinformatics from Johns Hopkins University and is now looking for a job in research. ❯ Meagan Kapes married Elliot Busby on July 29, with many Knoxies attending and standing up in the ceremony. ❯ Amber Hogan is a nurse on a cancer floor at Barnes Jewish Hospital. She started a master’s program in nursing education at Webster University this August. ❯ Michael Moroney finally quit his office job to go to a coding bootcamp. ❯ Anna Lemen finished a third year in Kuwait teaching third grade at the American School of Kuwait. In July, she began a new job at the American School

Blair Peters ’13 and Tyler Atkinson—January 21, 2017

Foundation of Mexico, Monterrey. She teaches third grade there and is working towards a master’s degree. If anyone wants to visit, come on down. ❯ Amanda Axley married Pier Debes ’10 in July. They have been in the process of buying a house in Iowa City, where she will move so that she can pursue a master’s degree in library science. ❯ Hannah Compton moves to Philadelphia this fall to begin a master’s degree in costume design at Temple University. ❯ Ashley Wolfgang moved to New York City with Steve Selwa ’13 in May and started working as an email programming associate at dotdash’s lifestyle website, The Spruce! She’s living the dream—getting paid to write in the city she’s always dreamed about! ❯ Karyn Kraska moved into the city of Chicago in May and has enjoyed the beach and biking everywhere. She finished graduate school for school psychology and has been offered a position as a psychologist within Chicago Public Schools. ❯ Allison White graduated with a master’s degree in school counseling from the University of Iowa. She moves to Ottumwa, Iowa, in the fall to start work as the counselor at Douma Elementary School. She also got a tattoo and enjoyed a lot of memes about covfefe. ❯ Jess Ranard became the night manager at a rad-ashell bookstore in downtown Washington, D.C. She now drinks Four Loko AND Mad Dog. ❯ Jordyn Stewart recently began working as an actor in a children’s theatre with Kohl’s Wild Theater, a performance group at the Milwaukee County Zoo. She also just did a traveling children’s theatre show with a company called “bug in a rug theatre,” acting alongside Jason Powell ’00, who wrote the music and lyrics for the show. ❯ Emily Park will start a graduate program in school counseling at the University of San Diego in the fall and has spent the last seven months teaching English in Florence, Italy. ❯ Allison Fabino Carr is still working on a Ph.D. in chemistry at Northern Illinois University: 60 percent done, 100 percent exhausted. ❯ Kiley Harrison traveled solo through nine countries in Europe and Southeast Asia and is the assistant director at a children’s summer camp. ❯ Maricruz Osorio

Class Knox go to a coding bootcamp.

Paul Lebryk ’14 and Kristine Weller ’12—July 22, 2017 Front Left to Right: Tina Shuey ’13, Stephanie Peter ’13, Kristine Weller, Paul Lebryk ’14, Aimee Neilan ’13, Vicky Mei ’12.

finished her first year of a Ph.D. program. It’s the perfect time to be a political scientist. ❯ Grant and Paige Anderson Lowe moved to the Menlo Park area in August because she just accepted a job at Facebook! Grant works as a technical writer at a small tech consulting firm. ❯ Ryan Hansen and Emily Diklich will get married in January. He currently works as a program therapist at a therapeutic day school called Parkland Preparatory Academy in Streamwood, Illinois.

He is also an adjunct professor in the art therapy and counseling department at Adler University, where he also serves as a community member on the university’s institutional review board. ❯ Kelsey Witzling is getting an M.A. in dance/ movement therapy and counseling at Antioch University New England. She lives with dog Louie at The Putney School, a boarding high school on a dairy farm in Vermont, where she works in the counseling center and teaches consent and sex education. ❯ Chelsea Embree has taken a new job as a research librarian at an electrical engineering company. She had worked as a reporter for three years, so she’s really excited to be able to publicly express opinions again! #feminist #nobannowall #blacklivesmatter Chelsea was also the maid of honor in the wedding of Danika Hill and Ryan Paulus, which was beautiful and perfect. #confirmed Chelsea still lives in Idaho, so, accordingly, she’s learned how to go fishing. ❯ Besides successfully correcting the IRS on money he did not owe and recently realizing he owns a “dad” wallet, Alan Avitia earned a master’s degree, works in local government management in a Chicago suburb, and is a member of a local printing studio. ❯ Tom Courtright finished Peace Corps Fiji in December, spent four months farming and traveling by bus from Mexico to Peru, and took a group of high schoolers to Fiji this summer for a month. ❯ Natalia Binkowski got engaged to fiancé Andrew Kaplan and currently works as a behavioral health clinician within the Presence Health System.

PETER BAILLEY ’74

Middle Row: Daniel Johnson ’13, Regina Rosenbrock, Kate Haslem ’13, Hannah Basil ’13, Rebekah Bally ’12, Dana Pierce ’14.

Seniors Give Back #forKnox “Knox doesn’t happen without you.”

That was the appeal that the Class of 2017 Senior Give Back (formerly known as Senior Challenge) Committee posed to their fellow classmates as they worked to meet the challenge presented by Knox Fund Steering Committee Co-Chairs Joe ’85 and Margaret Flanagan ’85: if 200 seniors give back to Knox, the Flanagans would contribute $2,500 to the campaign.

And if 100 seniors joined the Finley Society by making a gift of at least $100, they would throw in an additional $1,250.

Inspired by the challenge, 163 seniors made a gift in April at the Almost There Fair, shattering the previous one-day giving record set by Class of 2016 (110 senior gifts). By the end of the campaign in early June, 206 seniors gave back #forKnox, raising a grand total of $16,825.17.

This year’s Senior Give Back #forKnox was organized by a committee of 15 student volunteers pictured above. Front row, left to right: Marilyn Barnes, Steffi Antony, Almira Karajic, Jazmin Morales, Vicki Martin, Cortney Hill, Zooey Brewer, and Elisabeth Zarnoti. Back row: Bryan Coleman, Jose Guevara, Sarah Lottman, Jesse Okwu, Sean Treacy, Donna Boguslavsky, Jonathan Yeoh.

Class Correspondents: Esther Farler-Westphal and Natalia Binkowski Knoxnotes2014@gmail.com

2015 Class Correspondent: Erik Gustafson gustafson.erik.j@gmail.com

2016 Carly Taylor and Jess Hale live (somehow) and work (too much) in Bellingham, Washington, a year out from graduation, miraculously without major incident. They’ll mark their sixth year of Knox-induced friendship and second year of economy-induced roommateship with plans to continue drinking excessive amounts of Barefoot

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“It feels good to see my name in the paper.” —Matt Koester ’17, who Pink Moscato, which tastes only slightly worse when not purchased from the Quickie.

Class Correspondent: Vanessa Garcia vjgarcia@knox.edu

2017 Rachael Landman spent the summer interning with Sitka Salmon Shares in Sitka, Alaska, alongside Knox professor Nic Mink. This fall, she moved back to her hometown (Albuquerque, New Mexico) to complete a year-long internship in sustainability and urban agriculture education. ❯ Matt Koester writes for The Galesburg Register-Mail. “It feels great to see my name in the paper,” he says. ❯ Emma Thornton-Kolbe has a new job as a lab manager and research assistant in the Peifer lab at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. ❯ Olivia Keipp has continued the work that her StartUp Term team (which includes Madison Belka) began last spring term.

“ChartAir was one of nine businesses that was accepted to the Elmspring Accelerator at 1871 in Chicago,” she says. ❯ Diandra Soemardi started graduate school at the University of Maryland in August. ❯ Moriah Chermak is excited to attend the pre-health professions certificate program at San Francisco State University in the fall. ❯ Elisabeth Zarnoti cashiered at Target during the summer and spent time with family until her College Possible AmeriCorps position began in August in St. Paul, Minnesota. She is a proud owner of a purple female betta fish.

Class Correspondent: Elisabeth Zarnoti elisabeth.zarnoti@gmail.com

Marriages and Unions Lindsey Hansen ’99 and William Brown on 4/29/17.

Courtney E. Wiles ’02 and John N. Taylor on 10/1/16.

Jennifer Kuschel ’02 and Travis Johnson on 1/21/17.

Eric Miller ’02 and Christelle Abadia on 2/19/17.

Katya Manak ’07 and John Fuentes on 6/17/17.

Jenny Davis ’08 and Kyle McClear on 9/4/16.

Adrienne Doubet ’08 and Mikhail Dance on 6/10/17.

Erica Bailley ’08 and Matt Helton on 6/24/17.

Agnes Vetinde ’08 and Charles Boland on 7/1/17.

Erica Anton ’09 and Mattie Carruth on 11/5/16.

Kathleen Beeson ’09 and Spencer Masterson on 10/15/16.

Amanda Chavero ’09 and Clint Moore ’09 on 5/27/17.

Jennifer Hoben ’09 and Justin Quick on 7/9/17.

Erin Warford ’09 and Kevin Knowles on 12/17/16.

Lexie Frensley ’11 and Jonny Gersten on 12/30/16.

Emily Berarducci ’12 and Greg Potember on 6/20/17.

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Kate Heitkamp ’12 and Sam Jarvis ’09 on 11/5/16.

Gregory Noth ’12 and Alyssa Sutherland on 6/4/17.

Kristine Weller ’12 and Paul Lebryk ’14 on 7/22/17.

Blair Peters ’13 and Tyler Atkinson on 1/21/17.

Amanda Axley ’14 and Pier Debes ’10 on 7/30/17.

Danika Hill ’14 and Ryan Paulus ’14 on 6/4/17.

Meagan Kapes ’14 and Elliot Busby on 7/29/17.

Deaths Louise Dalton Streedain ’31 on 2/19/17.

Fred Apsey ’40 on 4/21/17.

Ruth Miner-Kessel ’41 on 1/29/17.

M. Marna Jean Mills Scott ’42 on 3/17/17.

William Crawford Jr. ’42 on 4/4/17.

Rosalyn Kanan Szerlong ’43 on 7/8/17.

Priscilla LeVett de Stigter ’44 on 4/29/17.

Mary Graves Conover ’44 on 7/15/17.

Virginia Jordan Coffing ’45 on 2/17/17.

Alice Huff Poulos ’46 on 3/9/17.

C. Drexel Kaminsky ’47 on 2/18/17.

Mary Eastman Gray ’47 on 6/15/17.

John Blake ’48 on 11/5/16.

Hugh Arnold ’48 on 11/15/16.

Jarvis Cecil ’48 on 11/4/16.

Rosemarie Surta Hanus ’48 on 12/29/16.

Harry Luehrs Jr. ’48, date unknown.

Shirley Wahlgren Nelson ’48 on 1/18/17.

Cora Jeanne Ellsworth Wylie ’48 on 1/15/17.

Burton Zuege ’48 on 5/1/17.

J. Peter Creighton ’49 on 10/21/16.

Charles Hatfield ’49 on 1/8/17.

Richard Skinner ’49 on 5/6/17.

Theron Hughes ’50 on 10/9/15.

Wayne Ashley ’50 on 12/13/16.

Joan Englund Diamond ’50 on 1/10/17.

Joan Kunou Chambers ’50 on 1/14/17.

Grant Bullis ’50 on 1/26/17.

Donald Heidorn ’50 on 2/27/17.

Russell Barstow ’50 on 3/2/17.

Frances Gordon Fisher ’50 on 3/21/17.

Mary Neagle McConoughey ’50 on 3/22/17.

David Williams ’50 on 4/18/17.

Kenneth Westerdale ’50 on 4/27/17.

Betty Nowlen Walton ’50 on 5/31/17.

Beverly Mason Richardson ’50 on 6/10/17.

Beth Jury Myers ’50 on 6/21/17.

Hiroshi Ozaki ’53 on 5/7/16.

David Reynolds ’55 on 3/5/17.

C. Don Weston ’55 on 3/31/17.

Alfred Stegman ’56 on 1/19/17.

Nancy Merrill Swertfager ’56 on 1/29/17.

John Goltermann ’57 on 12/31/16.

James Roberts ’57 on 5/2/17.

Susanne Swanson Lisio ’58 on 2/20/17.

John Lynch ’58 on 1/29/17.

Joan Ross Krenzer ’58 on 3/31/17.

Everett Cassens ’59 on 5/29/16.

Marilyn Behle Graham ’59 on 7/19/16.

Karen Parrish Towers ’59 on 12/17/16.

Gail Greenholt Engen ’59 on 3/1/17.

J. Paul Mitchell ’59 on 3/21/17.

Carl Andreason Jr. ’60 on 2/9/17.

Linda Christensen ’60 on 6/2/17.

Geoffrey Kennedy ’61 on 1/15/17.

Dan Littell ’61 on 1/16/17.

Donald Pont ’62 on 8/27/16.

James Schroeder ’62 on 5/22/17.

Carla Poppen ’63 on 5/30/17.

Jan Rogozinski ’63 on 1/27/17.

Paul Hartley ’63 on 2/18/17.

Bruce Spencer ’63 on 11/5/16.

James Zamrazil ’63 on 10/8/16.

Claudia Bourne Farrell ’64 on 1/27/17.

Steven Pflederer ’64 on 1/29/17.

Lawrence Beckhouse ’65 on 2/14/17.

Howard Mower ’65 on 1/29/17.

Roger Fox ’66 on 3/8/17.

John Turner ’67 on 5/9/17.

Judy Hampel Webb ’67 on 7/10/17.

Nadine Guker Geiger ’68 on 2/16/17.

Helen Szwed Lockhart ’68 on 6/2/17.

P. Lynn Sharp ’68 on 3/27/17.

William Thompson ’68 on 5/31/17.

Harry Dalsey ’69 on 5/4/17.

Charles Arensberg ’70 on 2/11/17.

Carolyn Lohnes ’71 on 6/5/17.

Valerie Van Deventer Reger ’71 in 2016.

Brian Allen ’71 on 2/24/17.

Sue Main Woy ’73 on 12/29/15.

James Wetherbee ’74 on 3/26/17.

Edward Satkevich ’77 on 6/29/17.

Wanda Noftsger ’81 on 4/26/17.

Richard Kleinman ’80 on 8/4/17.

Robert Kasarskis ’83 on 8/1/16.

Theresa McMichael ’84 on 3/22/17.

R. Brett Knabel ’97 on 7/11/17.

Daniel Korvas ’00 on 4/13/17.

Gianna Bamonti ’05 in 4/21/17.

Deaths of Friends Ann Emery, wife of Donald Emery ’50, on 4/5/14.

Gwendolyn Blake, wife of John Blake ’48, on 11/9/14.

Vernon Reichle, father of Lou Ann Reichle Mack ’74, on 2/28/15.

A.C. Dickson, friend of the College, on 8/27/15.

William Oostenbrug, friend of the College, on 12/1/15.

Dr. Harwood Sturtevant, husband of Mary Lampe Sturtevant ’48, on 12/13/15.

David Mack, husband of Lou Ann Reichle Mack ’74, on 1/3/16.

Dewitt Click Jr., husband of Margaret Lawton Click ’64, on 2/29/16.

Gail Bullis, wife of Grant Bullis ’50, on 5/6/16.

Rosie Gehlbach, wife of Ralph Gehlbach ’64, on 6/16/16.

Clarice “Clare” Curtis, friend of the College, on 9/1/16.

Stephen Fettig, husband of Janice Thies Fettig

Class Knox writes for Galesburg’s THE REGISTER MAIL 4/18/17.

Susan Whittaker, mother of Nikki Malley ’98, music, on 4/23/17.

Addie Mae Stedman, mother of Tim Stedman ’09, art and art history, and grandmother of Aaron Scott, maintenance, on 4/24/17.

Janice Candor, sister of Gene Youngquist ’59; mother-in-law of Jeri Candor, formerly of Advancement; and grandmother of Amanda Chavero ’09 and Chase Chavero ’13; on 4/25/17.

Mable Kraft, wife of Victor Kraft ’54, on 5/3/17.

Ann Weikel, formerly of history, on 5/11/17.

Delores Hensley, mother of Sharon Hensley ’04, on 5/20/17.

Beth McGruder-Whiting, mother of Janell McGruder, counseling, on 5/21/17.

Dorothy Hardine, widow of Russell Hardine ’43, on 5/21/17.

Hyeli Collins, wife of Sterret Collins ’86, on 5/23/17.

Joanne McIntyre, grandmother of Garry Barton ’09 and Aaron Barton ’12, on 5/29/17.

Donald Cantrell, father of Steven Cantrell ’86, on 5/29/17.

Sara Ann Bowman, formerly of dining services, on 5/31/17.

A. Vic Bizarri, husband of Trudy Bizarri, dining services, and father of Cory Bizarri ’96, on 6/2/17.

Robert Pierro, father of Madison Pierro ’17, on 6/7/17.

Betty Swanson, mother of Barry Swanson, educational studies, on 6/8/17.

Carol Weyhrich, wife of Glenn Weyhrich ’62, on 6/10/17.

Don Totten, husband of Evelyn Totten, formerly of the Dean of Students office, and father of Mark Totten, maintenance, on 7/4/17.

Margy Fay Sexton, friend of the College, on 7/7/17.

Joyce Keating Allison, mother of Stuart Allison, biology, on 8/2/17.

In Memoriam Robert Castendyck ’44, Emeritus Trustee Emeritus Trustee Robert “Bob” Castendyck ’44 passed away Monday, August 14, 2017.

He is survived by his wife, Margaret Lord Castendyck ’47, two daughters, and four grandchildren.

He entered Knox in 1940 with the Class of 1944, yet left to serve his country during World War II in the Army Air Corps. He ultimately graduated with a degree in economics in 1947, and was an active member of Beta Theta Pi fraternity during his time on campus. Castendyck received his law degree from Northwestern University in 1950 and practiced law in Sterling, Illinois, where he also served as the first legal counsel for Sauk Valley Community College. He retired from his legal career as a State of Illinois Circuit Judge.

Castendyck joined the Knox College Board of Trustees in 1994 and was voted to emeritus trustee in 2005. He made his first gift to Knox while serving in the military, and he and his wife became members of the Lincoln Douglas Society, which honors those who give $100,000 or more to the College, in 2008.

His most significant service to the College came through his encouragement of a cousin, Col. Charles W. Timme, to include Knox in his estate plans. Col. Timme, who had no ties to the College other than through the Castendycks, left Knox $3 million for the endowment upon his death in 1993. The endowment led to the Charles W. & Arvilla S. Timme Chair in Economics, held first by emeritus faculty member Roy Andersen and now held by Professor Steve Cohn. In addition to the chair, the endowed fund also provides research funds for students, originally through the Ford Fellowship Program and, now, through the summer research program known as ASSET (Artists, Scholars, Scientists, and Entrepreneurs of Tomorrow). The main economics classroom in George Davis Hall is also named in Timme’s honor.

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’68, on 10/15/16.

Allen Hiebert, former associate professor of chemistry, on 11/14/16.

Vernie Stoneking, father of Deborah Stoneking Watson ’77 and Dennis Stoneking ’81, on 11/16/16.

Richard Westergren, friend of the College, on 11/29/16.

Jane Reichel, wife of Martin Reichel ’71, on 12/18/16.

Margaret Cash, wife of Leo Cash Jr. ’49, on 12/21/16.

Donald White, friend of the College, on 12/22/16.

Ted Landberg, husband of Ramona Reed Landberg ’63, on 12/31/16.

Robert Goforth, husband of Roberta Stout Goforth ’52, on 1/3/17.

William King, father of Jennifer King Stripe ’06, on 1/30/17.

Louise Shay Johansen, former chef at Phi Delta Theta, on 2/2/17.

Duane Sandberg, father of James Sandberg ’77, on 2/7/17.

Frances Lundeen, friend of the College, on 2/9/17.

Dr. John Pascucci, former assistant professor of finance, on 2/10/17.

Bernetta Mims, friend of the College, on 2/14/17.

Beverly Maddrell, friend of the College, on 2/16/17.

Edwin Johnson, friend of the College, on 2/21/17.

Don Elliott, husband of Sheri Elliott, Advancement, on 2/25/17.

Henrik Ahlgreen, father of Caroline Ahlgreen ’19, in February 2017.

Cheryl Marshall, mother of Riley Nelson ’20, in March 2017.

Janice Sloan, mother of Doug Sloan ’96, on 3/19/17.

Carole Calahan Hunter, friend of the College, on 3/21/17.

Selma Kosier, friend of the College, on 3/24/17.

Eleanor Stamm, friend of the College, on 3/26/17.

Wilford Hecox, husband of Anne Martin Hecox ’46, on 3/29/17.

Robert Eichhorn, father of Thomas Eichhorn ’65 and friend of the College, on 3/30/17.

The Rev. Jon A. Sibley Sr., husband of Vicki Yarbro Sibley ’75 and father of Jon Sibley Jr. ’00 and Kyle Sibley ’09, on 4/3/17.

Jean Lehman, wife of Jesse Lehman Jr. ’47 and mother of Elizabeth Lehman Gurnack ’73, on 4/11/17.

Barbara Weber, wife of William Weber ’49, on 4/11/17.

Dale Yeager, father of Patricia Yeager McCrery ’91, on 4/13/17.

Harvey Templeton, father-in-law of Steve Cheesman ’80, on 4/15/17.

Burton Squires, former professor of physics, on

KNOX MAGAZINE Fall 2017

83

Taking Flight in George Davis Hall Origami cranes mysteriously began appearing in the stairwells and windows of George Davis Hall last spring. No one knows who placed them there, but everyone enjoyed watching these delicate birds take flight.

Photo by Isaiah Smith ’20

84

KNOX MAGAZINE Fall 2017

Parting Shot

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