www.andover.edu/intouch up with Grant Donovan, in from Salt Lake City. Pat Marasco greeted Robin Eason Panico. Rick Kern! Steve Johnson! Kevin Retelle! Next stop was the chapel for a Celebration of Reunion. Margaret Downs, looking as elegant as ever, was there with husband Henry Zachary. Scott McIsaac and Mike Meyer listened carefully. Rolf Bertsch, professional pianist and conductor, was impressed enough with Bryan McGuiggin ’15’s rendition of Brahms to seek out and engage the young man. A few minutes later, Peter Kroon and his daughter Jennifer ’13 beamed together at lunch at the Cage. Julian Hatton and wife Alison Berry, both artists, roamed, laughing and mingling. Dave Zelon organized a group photo of ’74 football players, including Steve Miller, Bill Lewis, Don McNicol, and Karl Harig. They made an interesting assembly. Steve is a university dean in Singapore. Bill works on Wall Street. Don is a doctor, Karl a banker, and Dave a movie producer in Hollywood. All these careers require extraordinary effort, like football. Unlike that photo, the picture of the cast of Harvey, who traveled to the UK on tour back in the day, included women: Ruth West, Wendy Matthews, and Cathy Chapman ’75, who has been advanced one grade by now. Steve Trott, now a surgeon but still a resident of Bermuda, and Bruce Bacon, now teaching math at PA, were there, too, as they all remembered our friend and their cast mate, Peter Kapetan. That afternoon there was a screening of a short documentary about Abbot Academy (soon to be posted on PA’s website), including Abbot’s acquisition by PA. Katy Gass Walker and Marsha Kazarosian spoke on a panel following the film about the experience of attending both schools in transition. The consensus was that any lingering tension felt in September had dissipated by June. After months of groggy breakfasts, collaborative/ competitive endeavors, stress, laughter, and sometimes even that thing called love, almost everyone involved realized that we were better together, an insight we were in the process of proving once again. Meanwhile, over at the Andover Inn, Lissy Abraham, along with Len Moher and his wife, Margaret, joined a full crew of bon vivants and were given a wine lesson by prominent Connecticut restaurateur and chef Charlie van Over, husband of Priscilla Martel, a serious foodie and cookbook author in her own right. Next up: We went to McKeen Hall for drinks and dinner. Peter Hawkes of Portland, Maine, laughed with Charlie Nadler. Tom Mitchell, Keith Kloza, and Greg Winn caught up. Howard Lee and his wife made an entrance, as did David Hilder and his. New York lawyer Bob Treuhold spoke with New York banker Tom Boyle. We assembled in the glorious soft light of the fading sunset at Abbot Circle as Tony Armour and Sara Grosvenor snapped our group photo. As we headed in to dinner, we found our way to tables where, as usual, the cliques of our youth
Football players from the Class of ’74 were in fine form at reunion. From left are Steve Miller, Bob Driscoll, Bill Lewis, Jeff McAnallen, Don McNicol, Karl Harig, Chris Doherty, Joe Malone, and Dave Zelon.
Cast members from the PA production of Harvey who traveled to England still have star quality. From left are Cathy Chapman ’75, Bruce Bacon ’74, Ruth West ’74, Steve Trott ’74, and Wendy Matthews ’74.
dissolved into friendships new and (at 40 years since graduation) not so new. After dinner, Trigger Cook, our class president (for life, as he noted), introduced Dana Delany, who read the names of those who did not live to attend this reunion. Among those with us in spirit for the first time in 40 years was, as Dana put it, “our dear friend” Nina Rutenburg Gray, as well as Wendy and Jack Richards, who touched all our lives in one way or another. This correspondent was once again not fired. Betsy Evans Hunt presented a custom skateboard to Peter Currie, a man who carries a lot of water at Andover and one who had repeatedly stood and delivered over that day to the full PA
community. Calm, logical, and generous even to hostile questions, Peter personified leadership. The Academy is in safe hands. Jonathan, the hardest-working man in the reunion business, whom many of us barely saw as he scrambled to work out this detail and that snafu, enjoined us to dance. After a crowdsourced piano improvisation played by Bill Cunliffe, we climbed the hill from Abbot Circle to the old gym, where we joined PA ’69 and their house band. En route, Ted Maynard was pleased to point out the glass box that had been his room at Flagg House. Inevitably, we found our way back to Bishop. Led by the indefatigable Elizabeth Yoakum and Sara Wedeman, we danced well into the early Andover | Fall 2014
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