summer, complete with nuns and breathtaking sets of edelweiss-dotted mountains. Or is that dotted Swiss? Heide Kropp Riess and Sara Ingram visited Nancy Phillips Peoples in Maitland, Fla., and had a blast experiencing all the local fun. First on the agenda was admiring the newly painted red front door of Nancy’s gorgeous and welcoming home. After that it was on to a boat tour of the nearby lake, a walk through the local farmers’ market (kettle corn, anyone?), a movie at a dinner theatre, and having Nancy’s mother over for her birthday. It was agreed that another mini reunion should be scheduled as soon as possible. Judy Fletcher Woodbury and husband Doug “downsized” from a little house to a great condominium with more square footage and less outside work, still in Cumberland, Maine. She writes, “Doug and I are enjoying redecorating and looking forward to using this as a base where we can just lock the door and do extended travel. We are negotiating my time to retirement (he is already retired). I have become more active in civil legal-aid efforts, joining the board of the Maine Bar Foundation, continuing fundraising for the Campaign for Justice, and doing some pro bono work. We have a new program to provide limited legal services to homeless people through a local homeless resource center, which I will participate in. My first shifts are in September, so I may have some interesting experiences.” Judy welcomes visitors; she has two guest rooms! Alexandra Rollins Upton visited her husband, Gordon, who is currently working in Dar es Salaam in Tanzania under a contract to build up its infrastructure. She writes, “I went over this past summer to check up on his digs and his gigs. Holding off as long as possible, we finally set the date for when we could see the great migration in the Serengeti. I flew past Mount Kilimanjaro on the way to Dar and witnessed the full July moon rising through a lovely cloud cover. What a powerful, sublime sight. We landed in the Kilimanjaro Airport, and the crew opened the doors so that those of us who were going on could get some fresh air. Fresh, indeed. African air has a moist softness about it that is extraordinary and, paired with the smell of Africa —a mix of burning wood (acacia, I think), burning trash, dust, and life at its richest—evokes all sorts of memories and images, real and imagined. We witnessed the million and a half wildebeests and fewer but many, many other winged, four-legged, and other assorted combinations of critters in Tarangire National Park, the Ngorongoro Crater, the Rift Valley, and the Serengeti. At Lake Manyara, we saw hundreds of thousands of pink flamingos—a pink floating mass as far as you could see. Leaving the region, we saw Mount Kilimanjaro above the clouds, Zanzibar in all of its glory, and then back to dusty, dirty Dar.” Dory Streett has taken a new job as counselor at Ridley College, a K–12 school in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada. Quite a change from Shanghai, where she and husband
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Dave were last working. Before Dory’s northern migration, Lucy Pope and her husband, Mark Worgaftik, visited Dory in South Thomaston, Maine. Later in the summer, Lucy and Mark also visited Carol Kennedy McCarthy and her husband, Dave, at both their home in Binghamton, N.Y., and their new family cottage on a lake in nearby Pennsylvania. Beatriz McConnie Zapater traveled to Iceland this summer. She writes, “Yes, volcano eruptions were imminent, but the beauty and the language help take your mind off the threat. It is an awesome place to visit.” After 24 years, Abby Johnson finally made the trek east from Nevada to Asheville, N.C., to visit Linda Hynson. She writes, “Linda introduced me to the best of Asheville, including the Southern breakfast at Biscuit Head, Malaprop’s Bookstore, and of course the gardens of the Biltmore Estate.” The warm, humid weather in Asheville was a prelude to Abby’s week of vacation in super-humid and super-fun Bermuda. She says, “We snorkeled on a reef that had sea fans as flamboyant as Jimi Hendrix’s purple haze.” Shelby Salmon Hodgkins’s granddaughter arrived in August. “That makes five grandbabies— all age 3 or under. What fun family gatherings will be with that wonderful group. Our lone grandson will certainly learn how to act with the female sex, with that many little ladies in the family!”
PHILLIPS Frank duPont 8 Nichols Drive Hastings-on-Hudson NY 10706 914-478-7818 dupont@wdfilms.com
I’ve had the pleasure recently of returning to PA to make a video capturing the vision for the school under the guidance and leadership of John Palfrey. For those who have not had the chance to meet the 15th head of school, he’s extraordinary. A modest yet brilliant educator, writer, and law professor attuned to what Andover can be in the 21st century, he’s in touch with the shifting landscape of education today, and what’s more, he has a natural gift with students. The film was scheduled to debut in early November, with plans to share it with the public shortly after. Look for it on the PA website and at school events. Dave Winton told me a wonderful story, which in a sense captures this 21st century Andover. He was headed to JFK after a brief visit to NYC, in an Uber rideshare. The driver was a middle-aged African man. After a while, Dave engaged him in conversation. In short order, he learned that this man’s three children attended Dartmouth, Columbia, and Penn. Dave asked him about the high schools they attended. The driver’s daughter, Chioma Ngwudo ’11, graduated from PA and is now a senior at Columbia with a compelling
resume. She and Dave planned to talk by phone later that week! I see Greg Zorthian every few weeks over coffee or a game of squash. Greg has been serving on the Phillipian advisory committee and recently analyzed the cost structure, helping cut printing costs in half. Greg has had a rich career in media, as general manager of Time and Fortune, cofounder of Forbes.com, and global circulation director and president of U.S. operations for the Financial Times. Currently, he’s consulting in the media space. Greg and his wife, Robin, have been married for 27 years and live in Greenwich, Conn. His daughter, Julia Zorthian ’11, was editor of The Phillipian and is currently editor in chief of the Yale Daily News. His son, John, is a junior in high school. I had lunch with Phil Kann not long ago. Though we work only a few blocks apart in NYC, this was a first! He continues to practice the writer’s craft in advertising and B2B territory, is divorced, has two grown kids, and lives in Westport, Conn. He enjoys doing the work of class agent and stays in touch with longtime buddies Seth Walworth, Charlie Keefe, and David Cuthell. Commenting on the merits of PA reunions, Phil described one such occasion where he found himself next to Buzz Olson and Sandy McAdam, two classmates about whom he held opinions but frankly knew nothing. They hit it off. Phil and Buzz stayed in touch. And years later, they’re in a book club together! Walworth reports on his daughter Elizabeth, who is studying improv with the Groundlings in LA. He writes, “This is what can happen when someone with no performance DNA marries into a family with roots in vaudeville.” Seth’s wife, Susan, is a very popular teacher in San Marino, Calif., making him “Mr. Mrs. Walworth” to the kids in town. Son Chad, he writes, “makes black boxes for Uncle Sam that end up in places like Iraq. That is all I am allowed to know.” Rick Prelinger writes with delight about becoming an associate professor of film and digital media at UC Santa Cruz. He says, “University life has been replete with surprises, especially for a non-college graduate like me.…As you might expect, I’ve taught the Found Footage class, among many others.” He continues to make unconventional documentaries, including No More Road Trips, a featurelength “participatory” film made completely with home movies from his archives, and urban history films about San Francisco and Detroit. Rick writes that he and his spouse, Megan, “just completed a series of atlases for the Exploratorium on the history, natural history, and culture of San Francisco Bay. We continue to host all visitors at our library (prelingerlibrary.org) on Wednesdays for research, conversation, project development, and scheming.” Paco de Onis released a feature documentary this year titled Disruption, about women in Brazil, Peru, and Colombia moving from marginalized