Class Notes 1950s 1951
Phan Wannamethee, now 97 years old, has
been secretary-general of the Thai Red Cross since 1991. He also serves as president of the World Buddhist Fellowship. A veteran Thai statesperson, he served in key diplomatic positions, including permanent secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Thailand; Thailand’s ambassador to Germany and, later, the Court of St James (U.K.); and secretarygeneral of ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
1957 Michael Meltsner
1960s 1960
Robert J. Ailes and wife Patricia have moved from Tampa, Fla., to Frederick, Md., to be near several of their five children and 16 grandchildren who now live there. Rob’s email address is rjailsmd@gmail.com. n Polly Shaw Feitzinger met Oberlin’s ensemble in residence, the Verona Quartet, at a concert presented by the Asheville Chamber Music Series in North Carolina. The quartet includes alumna violist Abigail Rojansky ’11. “I could see them doing the math as to how old I must be!” jokes Polly, 36
MUDD-RAKING When the architects designed Oberlin’s Seeley G. Mudd Learning Center, they failed to take into account the weight of the books, as many people have noted—totally incorrectly— in the years since its construction, captured here in images from the 1972 Hi-O-Hi. (The sinking college library story has become such a trope for campuses across the country, it has its own entry in the fact-checking website Snopes.) Recent visitors to Wilder Bowl encountered a similar muddy state over the last year, as geothermal systems were installed underground for Oberlin’s, well, groundbreaking Sustainable Infrastructure Project.
who serves on the series’ board and leads its program committee.
1962
Jim Payne wrote his fifth book of kayak
adventures, In Dutch—Again! A Kayak Adventure in the Heart of Holland (Lytton
Publishing), about his trip on the Rhine River. A political scientist who has taught at Yale, Wesleyan, Johns Hopkins, and Texas A&M, Jim took up kayaking as a recreational diversion; his first act of “running away from home” was a trip down the Potomac—at age 57. Since then, he’s made 14 trips on
CO U R T E S Y O F O B E R L I N CO L L EG E A R C H I V E S
published his second novel, Mosaic: Who Paid for the Bullet? (Quid Pro Books). Hired by Thurgood Marshall in the 1960s, Michael was first assistant counsel to the NAACP Legal Meltsner ’57 Defense Fund during the Civil Rights Era. He is a professor of law and former dean at Northeastern University. n Elsa Ludewig Verdehr is the clarinetist of the Verdehr Trio, which recently released three CDs on Crystal Records, bringing its total output for the label to 28 discs. The first of the three features works by Mozart, Beethoven, and other masters; the second showcases commissions made by European composers; and the third consists of music by American composers. [w] verdehr.com