class notes
from Charlotte Jones Voiklis. In Oct, she visited with Hiba Ramey Fennelly, her husband Jeremy, and their children. She still keeps up with Martha Slater, Geoff Weed ’87, Felicity Bean Beede ’87, and Vivian Bean Curren ’90. Alysa writes: “I love being back in the city, and I get my country fix on weekend visits to my boyfriend’s home upstate.” Alysa also went to NMH for Christmas Vespers, where she sat next to Mary Lou Treat, who proudly described Rory Treat’s new job as senior manager at City Harvest, a program in NYC that helps feed more than 300,000 people each week. Alysa writes: “Before Vespers, we stopped by Pizza Bill’s in Northfield for lunch. I haven’t seen him in over 20 years, and he looked wonderful. He was very excited to have alumni come in and pulled out a few yearbooks and Facebooks to find pictures from back in the day. He has a very slim collection and welcomes anyone who would like to donate their old copies to him. He loves it when any of his old patrons visit. He also jokingly complained that Uma Thurman ’88 never comes back to visit him.” Uma, it’s time for you to come back to your old stomping grounds. Ian Hill wrote in about the unfortunate death of Aaron Baker on 10/1/11. Ian writes: “Aaron passed away suddenly and with no warning and no apparent cause, but, it appears, peacefully in his sleep. There was a service on 10/4 and a memorial celebration and wake on 10/15, which were packed with his loving friends, who also came together to support his fiancée Gyda Arber—they were to be married on 11/5/11. The memorial was held at The Brick, the theater in Brooklyn where Gyda and I work and where Aaron had been a crucial member of the community for the last 5 years. I spoke about his time at NMH and showed pictures of him there and at our class reunions—most of his theater friends didn’t know about that part of his past and were very surprised. A wonderful video compilation of him from a number of plays, and from his rock band/music video years in the ’90s, was also shown, and I’ll post that on the Facebook class page once I can upload it. At some point, Gyda and I plan to take a trip up to campus together and leave a bit of Aaron there in a place he still loved and cherished. I’m glad so many of you got to see him again at reunion this year—some of you noted that you had never seen him so happy, and it’s true. His work and Gyda had given him the most joyous time of his life.” Thank you, Ian, and please send all of our condolences to Gyda and to Aaron’s family. Ian’s theater company, Gemini Collision Works, was recently named one of the People of the Year 2011 by nytheatre.com. Ian’s planning a cross-country trip for fall ’12 and plans to be in touch with classmates about places not to miss. Ian ends with “glad to be in touch with so many classmates on Facebook—we’re an interesting group of people, to be sure.” Bruce Mendelsohn continues to work at MIT and stays in touch with many classmates. In the
fall, he had dinner with Liisa Grady Dowd and her husband Jim Marino. Bruce is stepping down as the gift chair and Julia Callahan Streit will now take the lead for our class. Julia writes: “I would like to extend a huge thanks to Bruce Mendelsohn for his tremendous work as our class gift chair. After our very successful 25th reunion gift, Bruce is retiring (and would someone please send him a school tie and a plaque?).” From the Alumni Office: Rick Sanford is a Navy Lt Commander active-duty reservist now serving in Kuwait, where he commands a force of officers and sailors who provide armed security services aboard civilian cargo ships as they transit the Persian Gulf and the Straits of Hormuz. In civilian life, Rick is a forensic scientist who works for the NYC medical examiner as a criminalist.
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NMH
KIT GATTIS PO Box 38034 Cambridge MA 02238-0282 kitnmh@gmail.com class of ’87 website: www.blackirish.net/NMH/1987/
Happy ’12, everyone. Can you believe that we’re up for our 25th reunion? Surely we’re not that old. I’ll be contacting you with emails and postcards as we try and get everyone who possibly can to come back for reunion. I’ll also see if we can Skype and tweet during reunion so that those of you who can’t make it can still be a part of the excitement. For our reunion I’ve set up Nmh1987.org, which will have information and quick links to the NMH website information for our class. I’ve continued to dance and am making progress on finally finishing my master’s in liberal arts. I’m also continuing to DJ on Harvard and MIT radio stations. Last Thanksgiving I visited my brother Drew ’91, who now lives in DC, and made sweet potato pies all by myself for the 1st time. Inspired by that success, I also made them for a friend’s New Year’s party. My brother Trevor ’93 lives in CA and his wife gave birth to Jasper Ray Gattis on 1/3/12. I am looking forward to seeing you all at our reunion, and might even buy some wode for our annual streak. And now for the news. Matt Albee moved his winery (“Eleven”) out of his home and into commercial space, becoming the largest winery in Kitsap County WA. Wife Sarah was heard to say: “Finally. Can we park the car in the garage again now that the barrels are gone?” John Bete and Robin have returned to NE with
their children Jack (4) and Maris (6). They live on Cape Cod, and John is an osteopathic physical medicine and rehabilitation doctor and works at the Pain Center in Hyannis. Rick Burtt says: “Happy New Year, NMHers. Congrats to Sandy Bergland, Rich Phillips, and Kathrine Clark for goin’ big in ’11. Surf is already up here in San Diego, so let’s all continue that trend for ’12. See ya all at reunion.” Marci Clarke Crowley is back to teaching fulltime at Hampstead Academy (NH), where she teaches a grade 3/4 combination class. She is also looking forward to reunion in June. India Lawrence lives in Brattleboro VT with her husband and teaches high school English in Keene NH. She recently visited with Mira Levinson ’88 and did her best to help consume holiday leftovers. India also mentioned that younger brother Alex Forster ’02 is back in the States in the DC area after spending several years teaching in Seoul, Korea. Jackie Greetham-Robbins Smith got her real estate license and works for a boutique real estate firm, Teles Properties, in Beverly Hills CA. It’s a challenge going back to work with 4 kids, but she loves it. Antonio Tambunan is in Boston, finishing up a master’s in environmental sustainability at Harvard Extension School, tapping the inner hippie that was conceived during the NMH days of tapping maple trees and pressing cider. He did a complete 180 from his Wall Street career, left the “1 percent,” and now works at Ceres, a nonprofit environmental firm. He has also been running Boston Green Drinks, a 400-strong community of Bostonians interested in sustainability that meet each month. Over the last 3 years, he discovered nutrition (better late than never), and has been eating properly for the first time in his life. He managed to lose 30 pounds and is able to wear all his high school clothes. Unfortunately, some of the purple and fluorescent yellow jackets got jeered at by classmates, and he had to donate them to Goodwill. He is searching for Charlie Todd and wants to catch up with Dan Lenihan. Martha Slater recently moved to Cincinnati, which is turning out to be a “best-kept secret” kind of town. She has a 9th grader and 2 6th graders. Her family ran into lots of NMH folks
Susannah McKean Nicklin ’87 and family at the Santa Fun Run in her hometown—quite surreal with 1,500 Santas swarming the park.
spring 2012 I class notes I 91