stay connected...
Andover alums have a way of finding each other. Betsy Wiedenmayer Rogers ’89, Geoff Perry ’65, and Steve Yamamoto ’51 connected last summer at a small international community on Lake Nojiri in Japan.
Colo., Gail Harriss writes that one of her summer jobs was race director of the Kennebec Challenge Mountain Runs there. Gail is hoping folks will come to Durango to join in the fun. Eben Gay e-mailed that he was busy preparing his home and yard for the 2014 nuptials of his son. The National Science Foundation Small Business Innovation Research that Eben worked on last year was funded, and he writes, “I will be working on software for automated translation of ancient carvings, starting with cuneiform tablets, for the next few years. Life is staying interesting.” While happily in his second marriage and living in Saratoga, Calif., Ben Connors is the worldwide head of alliances at Jaspersoft in San Francisco. He writes, “We provide software to make it easy for businesses, government agencies, etc., to report information from their databases. I have been in high tech most of my career and rode the Internet boom up and down. No children. I have taken up painting recently; you can see some of my works at www.magicreef.com.” Ben has also been active in real estate investing, gardening, and sailboat racing on San Francisco Bay, and has become an avid weekend cyclist. Annually, he heads to the Laguna Beach Pageant of the Masters (http://www. foapom.com), described as a “unique type of art theater” that Ben highly recommends everyone put on their bucket list. Congratulations are in order for David Briggs, who is living and working as a freelance sound editor in NYC. He was nominated for a Golden Reel award for his sound editing work on Moonrise Kingdom. David writes, “Worked on many great films including Concussion, We Are What We Are, The Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete, and Bottled Up, which, after premiering at Sundance and Tribeca
88
Andover | Winter 2014
This old photo from the Andover Townsman shows three future members of the Class of ’65 preparing for a trip to Canada with their Pike School French class. In front on the right is Mac McCabe; in the back row, Bruce Ganem is seated at the left and Steve Seeche is seated at the right.
Film Fests, are all due for release starting fall ’13. I’m David Briggs (II) at imdb.com. Also proud of a film I sound designed called Elliot King is Third, written and directed by Rose Troche, which interested folks can find on the Futurestates website in Season 4. In addition, last year I acted in a film shot in India called Papilio Buddha, which, after being banned in its own country due to controversial politics (it’s about the struggles of the Dalits, the ‘untouchables,’ for land rights), was released in a slightly censored version in Kerala, India, to critical acclaim and went on to receive Kerala State Film Awards.” David is also teaching sound editing in the graduate film programs of City College of New York and Tisch Asia in Singapore. Jon Alter also sends news from New York. He writes, “Larry Coben threw me a nice book party in his spectacular loft to celebrate the publication of my new book (The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies). I’ve been branching out since the demise of Newsweek, still bloviating on MSNBC but now also an executive producer of Alpha House, a political comedy created by Garry Trudeau and starring John Goodman that will run on Amazon. It’s about four senators who live in a man cave on Capitol Hill. The Amazon studio head is Roy Price ’85. Shooting in Queens. Lot of fun.” Peter Cohan was in Santiago, Chile, for a talk at a university in August. He says, “After the talk, a member of the audience tried to ask me questions in English, but she was struggling. I know virtually no Spanish so we were at crossroads. Fortunately, she was fluent in French, and I had not forgotten everything I learned at Andover, so we were able to have a good conversation. Finis origine pendet.” Dennis Pratt and his wife are living in Westwood, Mass., with their 14-year-old daughter and two
Belgian Tervurens. Dennis writes, “After a turbulent telecom and information-services startup career, I now work on two charities: Parents Decide, urging parents to take greater leadership in their children’s education, and Personal Growth Network, which brings seekers and providers together. We’re thinking of retiring to New Hampshire as part of the Free State Project. The only problem is that my wife is demanding that I stop yelling ‘Boo!’ every time ‘Exeter’ is casually mentioned in a New Hampshire context. Old habits die hard.” None other than Rob Bramhall Architects (as in Rob Bramhall and wife Betsie Redman Bramhall) completed the spectacular renovation of PA’s Bishop Hall. They also designed a new dorm at Brooks School in North Andover. Their 20-yearold practice extends from the Canadian Maritimes to the American West. Their oldest daughter, Hannah, is thriving at the University of Vermont and their son, Charlie, is at Brooks School. Betsie writes that they are working to expand their business and exploring relocating to the West, dreaming of living half time in the Tetons and half on the New England coast. In closing, I share the sad news of the death of Jonathan Mudge. Jon died, after a prolonged illness, on July 15, 2013, in Alexandria, Va., of pharyngeal cancer. After graduating from UC Santa Barbara, Jon taught English in China and then earned an MBA from the Thunderbird School of Global Management. In 1990, he joined the U.S. Foreign Service, where he had a long, successful career that took him all over the world. Jon’s School Year Abroad friend Phill Fletcher e-mailed me about what a wonderful guy Jon was, and my husband, Dick King, who was Jon’s Will Hall roommate, seconded that. I spoke for our class and expressed my