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NMH
DONNA EATON-MAHONEY 97 Gifford St Falmouth MA 02540-3306 dmeato@aol.com DANA L GORDON 106 Westphal St W Hartford CT 06110-1183 mounthermon1967@comcast.net
Class of ’66 at reunion
ery now and then). Alan Coulter has stayed true to his love of the great outdoors and continues to inspire our youth, instructing for the National Outdoor Leadership School, leading backpacking and canoeing trips in northern Canada, and working for Outward Bound, teaching sea kayaking on the Outer Banks of NC. Stuart Bennett still looks good and is “still hitting on 8 cylinders.” Stu practices law (business litigation) and lives in Shelburne VT, where he skis with his son, and plays and coaches lacrosse with his daughter, now at UVM grad school in education. Stu plans to drop in on Kingsley Parker in NYC and get us an update. Bob Bruce is still swimming and amazingly getting better at it. He swam his lifetime best time in the 1,500-meter freestyle 3 years ago. Bob lives in OR and has returned to nearly every reunion. Great to see Peter Weeks at reunion. Must admit I didn’t recognize him at first since my last image of Peter was this muscle-bound Goliath in the locker room. Peter is currently assisting his wife with her law practice. Jim Weiss has been an inspiration, reunion chair, and key organizer for our class. Jim manages a financial investment firm in CT and still finds time for our class and yoga, and he can dance. Benson Blake still looks the dapper sailor. Ben recently sailed his 53-ft sailboat off the coast of Nova Scotia. He frequently sails up and down the East Coast, stopping in on NMH alums along
Ben Blake ’66, Jean Penney Wheeler ’66, Stuart Bennett ’66, and Alan Coulter ’66 at reunion
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the way, and he has done some transatlantic sails. Great that Georges Rocourt made it back to the reunion. Georges has had an interesting career, initially as chief economist for a financial company that financed a couple very successful movies—the 2nd Flipper movie and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He got to rub shoulders with a lot of Hollywood folks. Georges has been living in Switzerland for the last 8 years, where he is teaching economics at a Swiss university. He recently toured Barcelona with 110 students. Wil Everhart is another inspiring leader of our class. Wil has been a tireless fundraiser and spokesman for our class. Wil is looking forward to retiring from his career in the medical supply field and plans to spend more time fly-fishing near his home in PA. Bill Gresham has made it back to many of our reunions. This one was quite a road trip for Bill and family, traveling from Des Moines IA, dodging tornadoes along the way. Bill’s 3 children are all married, and Bill is in retirement mode. Dave Edsall is also retired but still likes to swim regularly. Dave was a big help during reunion planning, performing an Internet search for lost members of our class. He found names and addresses for several lost alums and wrote letters to each of them. Hopefully, we’ll find these alums. Peter Talmage lives in Northfield and is the true environmentalist. He has put his mechanical engineering skills to good use and has been teaching solar energy and energy conservation courses at Greenfield Community College. He recently decided that the 12-mile each way bike ride to work was a bit too much, so he built a 3-wheel electricpowered reclining bike. I tried it. It was really fun and can go nearly 30 mph. The batteries on the bike get recharged from the solar panels at his house. The solar panels power his entire house. In fact, he feeds power back to the electrical grid most of the time. Peter also showed a few of us at reunion the 500X power telescope he built and the observatory shed in his yard where it’s housed. If we all lived like Peter, there wouldn’t be an energy crisis. So classmates, mark your calendars, 5 years from today—You Will Be at Our 50th Reunion. Trust me, you’ll have a tremendous time, and you will even get to laugh along with your former Northfield sweetheart. ‘Til then, Happy Trails.
Brad Waterman proudly reports the marriages of both daughters, Kerry to Michael Epstein 10/09 and Lauren to Andrei Kallaur 4/10. Brad’s son Brendan lives in the Sierra Nevada Mts. Brad was named by Washingtonian Magazine as 1 of a select group of tax lawyers whom taxpayers should engage “when the IRS calls,” based on peer review. After 37 years with 2 law firms, Gary Barnes set up his solo practice and really enjoys it. He still represents CPA firms defending malpractice claims and proactively advises on risk management. He also enjoys the occasional gig as a neutral mediator or arbitrator. Son Tyler Barnes ’96 lives with wife Meghan and Gary’s grandson Maddox in CT. We heard from 2 Beths. Beth Goodman Kiendl works part time as a nurse at Brattleboro Retreat. She’s also into singing, the outdoors, and traveling when possible. She has a new knee, a great husband, 2 very cool kids, and lots of friends and enjoys living in VT “where there’s some hope of sanity.” Beth Gordett is expanding the educational business she started in upstate NY a decade ago. Big Mind Learning runs programs and tutors in all subjects, specializing in math, science, and writing. One exciting development is a blending of writing and yoga called Saga Yoga, which she runs with son Daniel. One of the organization’s goals is to help students of all ages develop skills in emerging technologies and clean energy. Check out their website at www.bigmindlearning.com. Linda Hoff-Hagensick Irwin visited Moody Bible Institute to meet with their dean of counseling and found it to be a very nostalgic experience. They have a Northfield room and a little D L Moody museum, and their church is very much like the Northfield Auditorium. Linda says it’s worth a visit if you’re in her neck of the woods (Chicago). Debby Buhrman Topliff’s website has a new name that should be pretty easy to remember: www.debbytopliff.com. Since retiring from teaching 4 yrs ago, Helen Fowler has been fulfilling her travel dreams. She’s studied poetry writing on the Cote d’Azur and art in Florence as a member of Boston-based Teachers as Scholars, and taken other trips to Italy, Mexico, Alaska, England, Costa Rica, Paris, Greece, Spain, and Morocco, She’s also toured the western US national parks. Son Chris is doing postdoctoral studies in viral immunology at Scripps in CA, and daughter Sarah recently completed nursing school. Helen is thrilled that she has been able to visit with grandson Joshua in CA about every 3 months. She