www.andover.edu/intouch 1985 Pamela Paresky P.O. Box 8878 Aspen CO 81612 pamela@ayearofkindness.com
Alison Smith Lord and Dorothea Herrey did an incredible job organizing our 30th. In the months since June, several classmates have told me they are still basking in the glow of that reunion. Ben Schwall, who missed our 15th, 20th, and 25th, said he especially enjoyed this one. “Unlike the first two,” he writes, “I was not with my ‘usual crowd,’ and it gave me the chance to get to know a group of classmates I never really knew before. Such a wonderful time, I am seriously thinking of crashing the ’86 reunion!” He continues, “Strother Purdy was kind enough to host us at his house and furniture workshop. Fantastic day, and my daughter, who was required to write a report over the summer about a factory, scored! Photos of Strother now hang on the walls of a school in Taipei.” (Correction from our last class notes: Strother did not bring a daughter named Priscilla to reunion. He did bring Priscilla, but Priscilla is his Harley-Davidson.) After having so much fun at the pre-reunion dinner in New York, I attempted to convene another one—which resulted in Craig Kaufman, Sean Wood, and me having a great dinner together with my boyfriend, a writer friend, and Amy Morris ’92, Andover’s senior communications officer and sister of Mike Morris ’86. Kim Hekimian Arzoumanian and Alyson Yashar, who live near each other in New Jersey, came to the June dinner, but each had last-minute conflicts this time, and Ed Yim was busy with the New York Philharmonic. Our other New York–area classmates who saw the Facebook post inviting them had other commitments (but I’ll keep trying). Tajlei Levis, an accomplished playwright, made it to both the pre-reunion dinner in New York and reunion. She spent much of the summer in Vermont at the historic Wilburton Inn, which has been her family’s business for almost 30 years and which she and her siblings run. The inn partners with Earth Sky Time Farm, an organic farm and bakery, and is a beautiful place for events, retreats, and other gatherings. Gigi Cooper writes that Sarah Heard entertained her over dinner in Brooklyn with photos and tales of her 10-day camping trip in Tanzania, “from a cheetah catching and eating an impala a few feet away to changes since she lived there 15 years ago.” Chris McCarthy seems to have been traveling, too, these days. Let’s hope he makes it to our 35th. Chris Smith keeps missing reunions because of his daughter’s dance recitals, but now that she’s in college, he won’t have any excuse for missing our 30th. I’m not sure why Charles “Rahi” Chun
missed this one. Maybe he was filming. He’s been a successful actor for many years, recently playing General Jong in the controversial film The Interview alongside James Franco and Seth Rogen. Tony Optican was planning to come to reunion and was MIA, as was Amy Zegart, who is a fellow at the Hoover Institution, a professor of political science at Stanford, and codirector of Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation. She was even featured by the National Journal as one of the 10 most influential experts in intelligence reform. (Okay, maybe she’s been busy.) In July, through the magic of Facebook, Megan Carroll convened Rebecca Derderian Daniels, Liz DeLucia, Ted McEnroe, Peter Stark, and Hal Gillam at the Andover Inn for a mini reunion, and she continues to create opportunities for our classmates to reunite. (Check our Facebook page for the next one!) Also through Facebook, Liz Ozimek Crowley realized that her daughter and mine were at the same overnight camp this summer, and I learned that both Adam Burke and Katrina Smith Korfmacher spent time in my neck of the woods. Adam reminded me that we sang together, once upon a time. (If I recall, he was unbelievably cool and had a band I joined.) “I have been suddenly filled with a desire to reconnect with PA friends,” he says. So please find him on Facebook and connect. Also on Facebook, Alice Stubbs posted a video that her son Davis, 13, made in an attempt to win a spot on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. In it, he demonstrates the smart watch that he and his brother, Buzzy ’18, invented! Liz Somers Urdang, whose daughters, Ellie and Kitt, attend a ski-racing academy, visited Andover and had dinner with Liz DeLucia. “Liz is such a special person,” Liz Urdang writes, “and years of not seeing each other vanished within minutes. It feels like Liz is a sister—my husband and kids think of her as family, too!” Many of us feel that way about Liz DeLucia, who not only is an “aunt” to classmates’ children at PA and provides hospitality, support, and friendship to all of us whose children at Andover are far from us and near to her, but has also managed to stay connected with so many of us—including the elusive Chris Patrick, whom she saw in London. Liz reports that Buffy Katz is engaged to “a really nice guy named Tommy,” and she met Caroline Cannon ’87 and Whit Spaulding’s twin boys, Craig and Knox, at a four-hour lunch with Seth Brooks and his wife, Kelly Kieffer, at the Norwich Inn in Vermont. “We were sampling brews from the pub and passing the babies around for cuddles,” Liz writes. She also reports that Nancy Colbert Puff is the town manager for Kittery, Maine, and Lisa Johnson is working for Darigold and can bike to work. Whitney Stewart, who was lost to us for years until PA corrected her contact information, is a chef and food stylist. She writes that she saw
Bill Parsons at her Yale 25th reunion: “He married my squash teammate Carrie Clayton. It was awesome to sit and talk to him!” Many of us felt the same way about Bill at our own reunion. Bill, who is chief of staff for Maryland Congressman Chris Van Hollen, writes, “I’m up to my eyeballs in work right now. I loved seeing everyone at reunion. Made me remember in the most wonderful way how lucky I am to have been able to go to Andover, and how grateful I am all these years later to have Andover and all of my incredible classmates as part of my life.” Bill was always able to articulate what so many of us felt. It was great to have our class president back for reunion. Special thanks to those of you who responded to my request for updates. Please join our class Facebook page and send news!
1986 30th REUNION June 10 –12, 2016 Kathleen Campbell DiPaolo 2516 Vista Drive Newport Beach CA 92663 949-689-3314 (cell) 949-209-2043 (fax) Kathleen@kathleendipaolodesigns.com Caroline Langston Jarboe 3124 63rd Ave. Cheverly MD 20785 301-322-4241 (home) 301-379-6572 (cell) caroline_jarboe@yahoo.com
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word—at least sometimes—was with Ted Carleton. In the first bewildering weeks after our graduation in 1986, I sat in my mother’s house, feeling as though I were in exile, preparing a scrapbook of my four years at PA. One of the chief features in this scrapbook was Ted’s magnificent final summation, as sports editor of The Phillipian, of the year in cluster sports. It was one of the funniest things I have ever read in my life, and I was heartbroken when my mother’s house was sold and the scrapbook could not be found. We all know from these pages that Ted has been running a local journalism operation, The Sheet, in Mammoth Lakes, Calif., and I wanted to note that he has produced an incredible, long-form witness to his family’s survival of the Round Fire last winter. If you have seen only the reference on the Class of ’86 Facebook page, I charge you to go read this incredible testimony of their experience—losing their house but saving the animals (including a pregnant goat!) through Ted’s wife’s heroic efforts: http://bit.ly/1LJIZVm. Ted (writing under the pen name “Jack Lunch”) concludes his narrative with the following poignant words: “My takeaway from this event Andover | Winter 2016
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