class notes
but party food for the rest of my life.” Mark DeGarmo is busier than ever. He has many dance programs happening all the time in NYC and many are with schoolchildren. You can learn more about his activities, festivals, and concerts on his website: info@markdegarmoarts. org. In his quiet and smiling way, he is bringing dance to so many people. Remember the class he led at the last reunion? He’s also been back to campus to work with NMH dancers. David King sent the best news of the year: 36 years to the day after meeting in a seedy West Village bar, he and Franklin Tartaglione were married on 12/14/11. Michael Watkins dropped me a line: “Just getting my mail and reading that my freshman roommate Dave Dwight and good friend Edith “Cookie” Smith Hall are deceased. I feel terrible not having stayed in better touch with these 2 wonderful people.” Michael would like to find Dave Mojekwu, hopes to eventually get to Haiti to see Richard Morse ’75, and plans to see Jay Thomas soon. Carolyn Cockrell has been living in south FL for 20 years. Her nephew David, son of Patricia Cockrell-Roach ’75, is headed to the U of FL this fall. Carolyn is occasionally in touch with Gwen Lee and would love to reconnect with Winnie Huston. Carolyn attended the 20th and 25th reunions and had a fabulous time reconnecting with old friends and getting to know others. Lynley Cochran Margules had a long illness last spring and was out on disability. She bounced back and now works for the Academy for the Advancement of Children with Autism. She says the iPad rules at this place, where they can sometimes get non-verbal children to communicate through technology. Husband Larry is an optical ultrasound technician, a talented woodworker on the side, and a classic car enthusiast. They own a model-A and a ’57 Thunderbird, a Harley, and a Lotus sports car, and frequently take trips discovering what CA has to offer. Jason is now 26 almost 27 and Adam is 28. They are busy building their careers. Son Adam is a UC Berkeley grad and a successful website designer and hopes to become a financial planner for a realestate company. Jason is an illustrator and artist. You can see his work at jasonzuckerman.com. That’s all for now. Keep the news coming as we ramp up to our 40th. From Bill: Amanda Ristow Schmidtmann lives in downtown Sebastopol CA with her daughter, where she runs a sewing business and puts on the Herdeljezi Roma Festival. She had a great visit to Iowa last summer. Bill Stewart enjoys bucolic El Cerrito CA and environs, besieged by kitties, turkeys, and deer. He is on the board of the West Edge Opera and the East Bay Recorder Society, and sings with Kol Truah, a local chorus. He’s looking forward to a recorder
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and choral workshop in Cornwall this spring. Rob Howland is a consultant in the electric power industry and is working to develop a clean and renewable utility-scale wind-power project near his home in southern VT. His son is a junior at UVM, and his daughter is in Norway as an exchange student. Rob and wife MJ took the empty nest to mean many possibilities and spent the fall of ’11 being tourists in their home state. He is especially impressed with how quickly and skillfully Vermonters repaired the state’s infrastructure after the devastation in Aug from Hurricane Irene. Rob sends regards to friends from NMH and is looking forward to our 40th reunion. John Lazarus reports that we now have a Facebook page—NMH Class of 1973. So far 51 classmates are on it. John reminds that Facebook is the best and fastest way to communicate with classmates. He will post all our reunion details there. You can contact him on Facebook or by email at jlaz15@gmail.com. Greg Burrill describes himself as a substitute teacher, a musician, and a writer/philosopher, who is seeking to live in a way that encourages the whole human family to behave better. He writes: “I like to think that I support NMH wholeheartedly, because of my friendships with you all. I think I won the award as most enthusiastic non-graduate because, for me, it’s all about you guys. I love being around you, and I love our family feeling. And it’s NMH that links us together.” Mark Spitzer lost his mother (89) in Oct and his father in Nov (just shy of 94). He sends “sincere thanks to the NMH gang that has been of great support to me the past couple of months”: Russell Bragg, Jim Michaels, John Lazarus, Erik Lindgren ’72, Chip Elliot ’72, Steve Michaels ’71, and William Hank Bonney ’71. Mark and Kamila live in rural WV and about 3 months a year travel outside the US, visiting relatives, skiing, white-water canoe/kayak/rafting, climbing. Kamila is working as an independent contractor, and Mark looks for work here and there. July/August ’10 he worked in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, for International SOS. Moira Donovan and Mary Bouvier celebrated their 20th anniversary on 10/12/10 by getting married. Their friend (and renowned artist) Peter Gallo officiated the private ceremony on the grounds of their Donomar Inn in VT. They were joined by 50+ friends and family members for a party after. Moira has a blog: www.ninecentgirl.com. “Writing is my passion and I feel quite fortunate to have found such a perfect outlet.” Jay Thomas is at U MI-Dearborn, where he teaches large undergrad classes and tries to keep his research alive. One new project is studying environmentally isolated bacteria that seem to degrade plastics. Jay would like to hear what Wayne King thinks of this. For sabbatical, Jay spent 6 weeks in Montréal. “It was crazy cold, made memories of
NMH winters seem rather warm. Enjoyed an ‘open air’ concert during their Nuit Blanch festival by the St Lawrence River at 11pm.” Jay completed his 3d Detroit Marathon this past fall. Jay has been in touch with Tina Dobsevage ’67, sister of David Dobsevage, and has also met 1 of the theater people David worked with in Paris in the early ’80s. Jay hopes to bring photos of a few costumes David designed to reunion.
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STEPHANIE LYNN GERSON 672 Old Mill Rd #263 Millersville MD 21108 steffilarc@aol.com
Stephanie Gerson writes: Since the last issue, I
spent 5 weeks hiking in VT’s Green Mountain National Forest, renewing both my health and spirit. I tied up an insurance claim involving 2 oil spills and multiple soot and smoke events, during which time 1 of the restoration companies misplaced my entire wardrobe. And by the time you read this, I, as well as most of you, will have reached my 55th birthday. The 5 years ahead will be a landmark for us all, and I wish you all health, happiness, and untold wonders. This season, I have heard from classmates whose lives vary widely. Some are retiring from work, or empty nested, or in physical transition. Some of you are consistently settled. There are stories of children and careers and travel. And sometimes there is a lot of humor. Buffie Judd lives in Atlantis FL She writes: “Happy, healthy, vegan, mom, daughter, sister, wife, friend, volunteer, teacher, certified reboundologist, master gardener, soon to be certified in plant nutrition.” Rebounding is a cellular exercise that combines forces of acceleration, deceleration, and gravity, producing an increased g-force on every cell in the body each time one lands on a rebound device, which looks a bit like a mini trampoline, thereby deriving health and fitness. Daughter Coleman just recorded her 1st singing album and
Buffie Judd ’74 with daughter Coleman, at Saturn Recording Studio in West Palm Beach FL, recording Coleman’s first album.