CLASS NOTES
STEVIE LAZO ’70, PRODUCTION ACCOUNTANT ON THE MOVIE LOVE THE COOPERS, SHARES A LAUGH WITH THE FILM’S STAR, DIANE KEATON.
PETER RILEY HOSTED THE 45TH REUNION FOR THE CLASS OF 1970 IN HIS LAW OFFICES AT THE TOP OF THE IDS BUILDING IN DOWNTOWN MINNEAPOLIS. PICTURED, L TO R: NAT ROBBINS, JIM DORSEY, JOHN KUECHLE, JOE DOUGHTY, PETER RILEY, DICK THOMSON, TOM OWENS, BOB NUFFORT, SCOTT RYERSE, MARK LUTHER AND ED CHUTE.
McGovern visiting from Phoenix and Jenny Monick coming from Brooklyn and a visit to the amazing Finch Farm in Afton, Minnesota, courtesy of David Finch.” REUNION
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Annie Sundberg (See In Print & Production)
Jon Ebel is an associate professor in the department of religion at the University of Illinois. He shares the sad news that his dad, David R. Ebel, died April 7, 2015, four months after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He was 74. (See also In Print & Production) This October, Libby Gray and her Adult 40 and Over 3.0 tennis team won the USTA National Championship in Tucson, Arizona. The team, based in Louisville, Kentucky, won the state championship in July and the sectional tournament in Asheville, North Carolina, in August to qualify. There are approximately 20,000 players nationally who competed in this tournament.
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Jon Kirsch is an assistant professor in the Department of
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Internal Medicine at the University of Minnesota, where he teaches students who care for hospitalized patients at the university hospital. He also designed a course to introduce medical residents to the health needs of immigrants in the residents’ own communities by bringing students out to migrant farmworker camps served by mobile clinics.
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Erik Hanson died August 16, after a long battle with mental illness. His sister, Jennifer Hanson ʼ93, writes, “Erik was a lifer at Blake, starting with Miss Neff ’s kindergarten class. Like everyone in the Blake community, he felt known and appreciated by his teachers, particularly Mr. Koenig, Mr. Larsen, Ms. Gibbon, Mr. Olsen, Mr. Teslow and Mr. Woolman. Erik loved science, but his creativity showed in music and the arts; he was the co-president of Blaker’s Dozen and editor of the Spectrum newspaper. Since his illness developed his freshman year at Harvard, Erik’s best times and memories were of his childhood and youth at Blake.” Scott Nelson is currently the head of North America for Viber, a
RIC SCHAFER ’70
mobile messaging app with over 600 million users. He also is founder of two other successful start-ups: the men’s lifestyle site hipdaddy.com and an on-demand personal storage concierge service, cuqiq.me. Scott and his three boys currently reside in Boston’s Back Bay.
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Nayana Jha is back in the Twin Cities after 20 years on the East Coast, where she attended Wellesley and worked on Wall Street. “I was working in banking in NYC during both September 11, 2001, and the Lehman Brothers crash and the following economic downturn. My beloved father’s passing around that time was a momentous wake-up call for me, and I chose to change directions in career and spend more time and energy on for-good initiatives and my creative pursuits. I started showcasing my paintings and began an incredible journey as an artist/entrepreneur with a line of greeting cards and calendars (www.nayanajha.com) carried in NYC Whole Foods and other regional retailers.” Contact Nayana, who has joined Blake’s Institutional Advancement team, at njha@blakeschool.org.
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Sovady Phe Huston welcomed son Nolan Arthur Phe Huston on September 22. His big sister, Olivia, likes to call him Duck. Sovady enjoyed a “relaxing” leave through the holiday season, while husband Jeff continued to work at the software development firm, the Nerdery. The coming year will bring lots of traveling for family and fun, including Olivia’s first time on a snowboard.
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Eric Dayton’s outdoor clothing company, Askov Finlayson, has expanded into a new flagship location in the North Loop neighborhood of Minneapolis. Over the past two years, Eric has been a leader of the North Movement, a campaign to claim a new identity for Minnesota and the surrounding region as America’s North. And most recently, he’s used the sale of Askov Finlayson’s North products to help fund climate change education through a partnership called Keep the North Cold. You can learn more about these efforts and watch Eric’s recent TED talk on the North Movement at www.askovfinlayson. com/north.
