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“This is a perfect essay,” he said. “You can all learn from it.” The essay’s author, Sue Chira, went on to become a celebrated writer, chronicling history in the making. Writing to us now, Sue says, “After nearly eight years as foreign editor of the New York Times, two years ago I moved into a job as assistant managing editor for news, in which I help oversee the news operations of all departments of the paper. Our daughter has been working as a journalist for the past year and a half (recently at Capital New York, where she writes about education in NYC), and our son is a freshman at Oberlin. My husband (who is a journalism professor at Columbia and is working on a startup called The Big Roundtable to offer new opportunities for long-form nonfiction narratives) and I had a lovely trip to PA this fall to speak on a panel organized by Joey Salvo ’14, the son of my classmate Joe Salvo. Joe and I were joined on the panel by Jon Alter ’75. It was great to catch up with them and to see Nina Kimball, who kindly drove up from Boston to grab some time together.” Al Cantor writes, “I was honored to be one of the ushers at Jack Richards’s memorial service at Andover. It was a beautiful service, worthy of the man. I saw many friends from our era at PA, though I hesitate to name them, because I will no doubt overlook several. That said, I was delighted to spend some excellent time at the reception with David Gilmour, who was in from California (also visiting his daughter, who lives in Massachusetts). Dave looks exactly the same. Exactly. I also saw Rob Middlebrook, Tim Dempsey, Jack Shoemaker, Phil Hueber ’75, Bill Cohan ’77, and Lisa MacFarlane’75. Otherwise, all is well. I continue to love running my own consulting company working with nonprofits as well as doing a lot of writing and speaking on the issues facing the nonprofit world.
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Andover | Spring 2014
And we hit 2014 being grateful for the good health of everyone in our family—no small consideration as we age.” Chris Bensley writes in to say, “Took a few years longer to have kids, but my wife, Christy, and I are about to send them off to college. Ian is 18, got in early decision to Union, and Alex is one year behind. Still just down the road from PA. Went back to a full-time job from startup to keep bills paid, but am hopeful startup Tripzon will take off this year. Any classmate who comes to Andover is welcome to stop by for a visit.” Louise Aitel Koutavas is also in the startup business. Wordstro, a game she invented with her husband, is now in the App Store. It runs on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. “The game is beautiful and intellectually challenging...so I think y’all will like it!” she says. Carina Kjellström Elgin reports from Middleburg, Va., that her husband, Dean, their three daughters, and “way too many animals are all doing well. Oldest daughter (and clone), Kaki ’09, graduated from Princeton in spring 2013 and is working in Washington for an NYU-based think tank, the Center on International Cooperation.” Carina recently traveled to the San Francisco area to get a new service dog for her middle daughter. “At SFO airport, we were thrilled to be greeted by Sarah Gates Fitzgerald ’75. We had reconnected through the wonders of Facebook.… Sarah’s three children are also starting to make their ways in the world, with son Chris recently graduated from the University of Oregon and working for a technology company in Silicon Valley. Son Matt graduated from West Point in May 2013 and is doing officer training in Fort Benning, Ga., before being posted to an infantry unit in Hawaii. Daughter Katie graduated from UC Berkeley and is in Ukraine with the Peace Corps for a two-year assignment teaching high school. Wow!” While at Canine Companions for Independence in Santa Rosa, Carina was also able to catch up with Ted Lemon. Ted and Carina went to elementary school together in Bedford, N.Y., so they go way back to the kindergarten playground. Carina writes, “Ted is now a highly acclaimed vintner in Sebastopol, Calif., owning and operating Littorai Wines with his wife, Heidi, while raising their three boys. Littorai Wines is a family-owned and -operated winery producing world-class vineyard-designated chardonnay and pinot noir. Ted credits his experience with Andover’s School Year Abroad for spiking his interest in wine and getting his French fluent.” Liza Parker Migliorelli and her husband, Frank Migliorelli, were my guests in Mexico for a week last spring. As always, laughs and riotous retellings of Andover antics prevailed, as did cervezas and tequila. Passing through Austin, Texas, before Thanksgiving, I reconnected with Robin Chotzinoff ’75. Robin, the author of two books, is running a landscape design company. Closer to home, I enjoyed running into Brian Rivers, Mike Cannell ’78, and other friends at Andover’s party honoring the Peabody Museum
and its forthcoming restoration. The site of the party, the American Museum of Natural History in New York, is also the site of my son Henry’s first job. Henry, who majored in geology at Oberlin, runs the museum’s imaging department. His sister, Caroline Towbin ’06, also at the party, works for an NYC Internet advertising company and loved reconnecting with her classmates. We all had so much fun that the museum repeatedly dimmed its lights as our cue to leave. PA knows how to party! Ruben Alvero and I send our best to you. May 2014 be healthy, happy, and prosperous for all. —Lisa
1977 Buck Burnaman 222 Nod Hill Road Wilton CT 06897 203-834-9776 bburnaman@msn.com
Not exactly a surplus of news from that great Class of ’77, but here goes. Harry “Bone Crusher” Jewett wrote to tell me that after 25 years in Colorado and California, he’s moving back to the Northeast. Left me wondering three things: Where in the Northeast? Does this mean he’s going to make it to our next reunion? And does he still have that wicked New England accent that, to my (at the time untrained) ear, made his speech sound vaguely similar to English while remaining incomprehensible? Brian Loughman wrote with regards and added this update: “I continue working for the Ecom Group in the coffee division and make frequent trips to Latin America. Please pass on to Jorge Virgili that, despite the wonderful art scenes in Madrid and Barcelona, Medellín and Bogotá in Colombia are giving Spain a run for its money as centers of creativity. And when Jorge is next in NYC, he should revisit the Hispanic Society of America to see the Sorrolla murals depicting Spain. They were a big hit at the Prado when they were on exhibit a couple years back.” Brian mentioned that he had visited both Jim Wang and Majed Tomeh in the past year and that “both Jim and Majed are thriving in Massachusetts, surrounded by their teenage daughters.” Finally, Tom French shared pictures of himself and his now very adult-looking offspring crosscountry skiing in what looked like Antarctica but was, I believe, Quebec. Tom looked happy, healthy, and fit while icicles formed on his eyebrows. Took me back to the blizzard of ’76. Do you remember? Let me know. P.S. After filing these notes, I learned that our classmate John Meehan passed away on Feb. 6, 2014, after a long illness. Several classmates shared memories of John, and I will include them, along with any others you send to me, in the next set of notes. Please keep John’s wife and two daughters in your thoughts and prayers. Please be well. —Buck