stay connected... She has a Capitol Hill row house that’s 100-plus years old and is close to a park, Eastern Market, and so many other things. She loves her job as development director for Woodley House (a nonprofit that provides housing and support services for the mentally ill) and has four grandchildren, ages 7 weeks to 7 years, plus a lovely 14-year-old schnauzer who is not amused by 14-degree weather! The best news I’ve heard is that Joan Harney Wiles has completed chemotherapy and is nearing the end of her treatment with radiation. Her spirits are good and she reports that she has a much greater understanding of and appreciation for the challenges of cancer treatment and recovery than ever before. She and husband John intend to celebrate with a visit to New York. Kit Jones Prager and her husband, Allan, celebrated their 40th anniversary by returning to Brazil, where they spent their newlywed years. Highlights were reconnecting with former coworkers in São Paulo, visits to Iguazu Falls and Brazil’s colonial capital of Salvador, several days of hiking, bird-watching, boating, and horseback riding in Pantanal (the world’s largest seasonal wetland), and visiting old haunts and friends in Rio. Their Portuguese came flowing back, after years of disuse. Our class continues to produce budding artists, both in the literary field and as musicians. Laura Stevenson also commented on the cold, snow, and ice in Vermont. She has been distracted from the weather by writing a collection of linked short stories. Liar From Vermont will be coming out in May, and she’s having fun writing a period murder mystery. In addition to taking beautiful photographs (posted on our Facebook page, Abbot Classmates ’64), Lucy Bingham recently penned her first novel. The Talcott House is available in bookstores and on Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble websites. Here’s how the publisher describes it: “A modern version of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, The Talcott House is a fast-paced romantic thriller set in the brooding environs of a waterfront mansion where an evil housekeeper plots to sabotage the passionate love of the two main characters, Stuart and Ophelia. Beginning along the glittering waters of the Mekong River in Cambodia then onto the shoreline of Connecticut, this book is lyrical, scary, and heartwarming. An exciting, page-turning read.” If anyone is interested, they can get more info about the book or buy it on Lucy’s website, thetalcotthouse.com. Gwyneth Walker continues to compose music for a variety of venues. When traveling to Lowell, Mass., for the premier of a new work commissioned by the Massachusetts All-State Festival Chorus, she stopped for a visit in Andover and stayed with Abbey Siegfried (Andover’s organist) and Abbey’s family. Gwyneth has been moving back and forth between her home in Connecticut and her “second home” and composing studio in Vermont. She planned to head to Sarasota, Fla., at the end of January.
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Andover | Spring 2015
[Husband] Dan and I have been busy with activities at church and in our community (Tellico Village [Tenn.] is a great place to be!). We traveled to Hilton Head, S.C., to celebrate our 45th anniversary in November. We enjoyed Christmas in Atlanta with our two younger sons and are looking forward to a visit from our son and his family, who live in Anchorage, Alaska. Now there’s a place that knows about winter weather!
PHILLIPS Ken Gass 2107 Evening Star Lane Bellingham WA 98229 360-393-2612 (cell) agassk@aol.com
Our Pot Pourri was the first to list a student activity that our class launched the fall term 1963—not stickball, but radio PA: WPAA 645 AM. WPAA took to the air with the flip of a switch that was three years in the making. We have Bruce Kauffman to thank for this class notes topic. After reading of Dave Dimlich’s degenerative condition in our reunion book addendum, he wondered about the fate of the radio station: “Last I heard, the transmitting tower for WPAA-FM had disappeared with the rest of Evans Hall. The station had been in the basement. Someone might want to pursue that for an Andover magazine item, especially in light of it being our class that brought the medium in.” Dave Dimlich literally engineered WPAA, starting as a junior, and was at the helm as station manager when it went live. From our Pot Pourri: “Mr. Robert Sarnoff, chairman of the board of NBC, PA ’35, was so impressed that he donated a 10-watt FM station valued at $15,000 to be ready for operation in 1965.” A couple e-mails led to Chris Capano, current director of student activities, who described the circuitous route WPAA has traveled from its primordial beginnings in ’63 to a thoroughly modern online station in ’15. He said, “When the station moved from Evans to Morse, the FM antenna came down and the school did not renew the broadcast license. I believe the timing was only half the issue, as I’ve heard that this was also a time when the FCC was cracking down on profanity; a few students had dropped some curse words into their broadcasts and complaints had been made. “Since that time the radio has streamed online, so you can listen over your computer either on or off campus. “Two summers ago, a water leakage issue in Morse led to a complete gutting of the station office and recording studio. ... This ended up being a blessing in disguise as OPP [the Office of Physical Plant] fixed things beautifully, and it gave the kids a chance to organize the station in a way that had not been done for what might have been decades. Since then, the station has continued to stream online and has also served as the onsite recording studio for many students.”
If this bit of class history strikes a chord with you, send your reflections to me for the fall issue. Though reported as “lost” in our reunion planning, Vijay Shah has been in regular contact with Conway “Doc” Downing, the latter supplying photo documentation of the two of them sharing holiday cheer at the Yale Club in NYC under a portrait of classmate George W. Bush (see http://1drv.ms/1GRs7VV). According to Doc, “For the past two decades or so we have lived within walking distance of one another in Washington and get together for a proper martini most Fridays. I often rib Vijay about how it was apparent to me, upon arriving at Andover as a junior, that he had attended schools in India since kindergarten that were just as exclusive as PA or more so. We bonded since then at Rockwell.” Tim Booth regaled us at our reunion about sailing to Guatemala and deciding to pull up his NY stakes and stay. He reported, “Hola from Guatemala. Certainly enjoyed seeing everybody at reunion. It was interesting to see how we have grown together and are now enjoying each other’s company. “We continue to build our new home here... living in the boathouse, our first project [see http://1drv.ms/1GRs7VV]. ...We really love Guatemala, though it’s an adjustment from ‘everything now’ in the U.S. We live in a rural fishing community about 45 minutes’ boat ride from the nearest town of any size. I am part of a non sibi effort here to provide continuing education grants to locals. Public support of education stops at the 6th grade. “We will be cruising in Belize and Honduras when this goes to press, but hope some of you might consider a visit next year. Welcome mat will be out.” Peter Schandorff was admitted to St. Louis’s Barnes-Jewish Hospital just before Thanksgiving for, in his words, “spinal fusion, which is meant to correct problems that have left me in pain and unable to walk any distance. The procedure and rehabilitation will take me out of commission for two or three weeks.” Plenty of time to be ready for his legendary April 2015 guided tour in China for PA ’64, right? Nearly seven weeks after the first surgery, Logan “L.E.” Sawyer reported that “[Peter] has had infection in the surgical area and had three follow-up collateral surgeries. A fifth is scheduled soon [for bone grafting]. Since his original surgery was before Thanksgiving, he has had a miserable time of it.” A call to Peter’s hospital room found him to be the “the smiling Buddha,” as described by L.E. The China trip may not merit a year’s worth of copy in these class notes, but as this piece is being written in January for May publication, you can expect at least a picture and brief copy next fall. Bart Loomis died in Louisiana on Oct. 26, 2014, just four months after attending our 50th Reunion. In the words of Tony Bryant, “Last June I was lucky to spend some time chatting with