University of Mary Washington Spring/Summer 2018

BRIDGE TO BROADWAY THEATRE DEPARTMENT PREPARES STUDENTS FOR THE WORLD

Contents Features

10 Bridge to Broadway Theatre grads show students the ropes in the Big Apple

16 Ctrl + Alt + Create Alum’s retro computer drama gets a Peabody nod and critical acclaim 22 Historic Melodies Philharmonic breathes life into found manuscripts

Departments 2 9 24 27 28 30 56

On Campus Get the Picture Notable and Quotable Book Report Alumni Seen Class Notes Closing Column

ON THE COVER:

Five years ago, Anissa Felix ’13 visited New York with UMW’s Ideas in Performance class. Now she’s opening in Summer: The Donna Summer Musical on Broadway, and today’s students seek advice from her. Read more on page 10 about how UMW prepares theatre majors for a variety of careers, on Broadway and off.

Photo by Geoff Greene ’04 THIS SPREAD:

From left, Kaitlin Kean ’19, Caroline Callahan ’18, Danielle Newman ’20, and Daylah Sawyer ’21 cheer on their women’s softball teammates during UMW’s March 24 doubleheader sweep of visiting Lancaster Bible College.

Photo by Norm Shafer

ON CAMPUS

TOP JOB: EQUITY, ACCESS, AND DIVERSITY Building on a key priority of his administration, President Troy Paino has named Sabrina Johnson to the new Cabinet-level position of vice president for equity and access. She also is the university’s chief diversity officer.

SPRING/SUMMER 2018 • VOLUME 42 • NO. 1

Neva S. Trenis ’00 Editor-in-Chief

Laura Moyer

Associate Editor

Creating a more diverse and inclusive university community is one of the university’s top priorities. Others are promoting a culture of service and community, reimagining the liberal arts for the digital age, and immersing students in applied and impactful learning experiences.

Anna B. Billingsley

“Sabrina Johnson will provide leadership in advancing diversity and inclusion as essential components of the university’s mission,” Paino said in announcing the appointment. “We look forward to having her help define UMW’s commitment to developing and sustaining an equitable, inclusive, and supportive working and learning environment for all.”

Liz Clark Kuvinka ’96 Maria Schultz M.Ed. ’11

In her new role, Johnson provides strategic and visible leadership for these initiatives. She has been at Mary Washington for more than two decades, most recently serving as associate vice president for human resources.

Johnson earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in public administration from Virginia Commonwealth University. A graduate of the College of William & Mary’s Marshall-Wythe School of Law, she is a member of the Virginia State Bar.

MELLINGER IS DEAN OF ARTS AND SCIENCES Professor of Mathematics Keith Mellinger has been named dean of the College of Arts and Sciences after serving as interim dean since last June.

In 2013, Mellinger was appointed director of the university’s Quality Enhancement Plan, a critical component of the university’s reaccreditation efforts. He also was key to the development and success of the university’s First-Year Experience.

Mellinger was chair of the Department of Mathematics for six years. In 2008, he was recognized with the UMW Alumni Association Outstanding Young Faculty Member Award. He’s also an avid musician, active in the local music scene.

In announcing Mellinger’s appointment as dean, Provost Nina Mikhalevsky wrote that he “brings the necessary experience, skills, knowledge, and genuine commitment to our students and faculty, to provide the kind of leadership of the College of Arts and Sciences that will enable us to address our current challenges, strengthen and enhance our academic programs, and ensure the central and critical role of the College of Arts and Sciences in implementing our strategic vision and moving UMW forward.”

Mellinger received a B.S. from Millersville University of Pennsylvania and an M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Delaware. Before coming to UMW in 2003, he served a postdoctoral appointment at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

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UNIVERSITY OF MARY WASHINGTON MAGAZINE SPRING/SUMMER 2018

Associate Vice President for University Relations

AJ Newell Art Director

Graphic Designers

Karina Schumm ‘18 Editorial Intern

Es Hethcox ‘18 Lisa Chinn Marvashti ’92 Alex Sakes ’18 Ester Salguero ’18 Cynthia L. Snyder ’75 Mark Thaden ’02 Contributors

University of Mary Washington Magazine is published by the Office of University Relations for the alumni, friends, faculty, and staff of the University of Mary Washington.

The magazine staff welcomes your comments.

Email: magazine@umw.edu Mail: UMW Magazine 1301 College Ave. Fredericksburg, VA 22401-5300 Call: 540-654-1055.

Please help us find you: Email address changes to alumni@umw.edu; mail changes to University of Mary Washington Office of Alumni Relations, 1119 Hanover St., Fredericksburg, VA 22401-5412; call with changes to 540-654-1011.

University of Mary Washington Magazine is printed with nonstate funds and is made possible through private support.

Read and comment on University of Mary Washington Magazine online at magazine.umw.edu.

ON CAMPUS

GEOGRAPHER NAMED FELLOW FOR WORK IN CRITICAL CARTOGRAPHY Professor of Geography Stephen Hanna has been chosen as an inaugural fellow of the American Association of Geographers (AAG).

The lifetime fellowship honors geographers who have made significant contributions to the discipline and can serve as a body of advisers for the AAG and mentors for early and midcareer faculty.

Hanna is noted for his work in critical cartography, drawing attention to the ways a map’s meaning changes through use. His research on tourism has changed the way slavery is interpreted for tourists who visit Virginia’s plantation museums.

The AAG also has appointed Hanna to a four-year term as cartography editor for its three journals, Annals, Professional Geographer, and GeoHumanities.

WAPLE PROFESSORS HONORED Six UMW faculty members have been named Waple Professors, recognizing their contributions to the university and earning research funding for two years. The award is named for Shirley Van Epps Waple ’52 and honors excellence in teaching, research, and scholarship.

The recipients of the 2018-2020 Waple Professorships are:

Dianne Baker, biology

John Broome, education

Stephen Farnsworth, political science

PINEDA DEBUTS NOVEL AT UMW Assistant Professor of English Jon Pineda gave the Mary Washington community the first look at his new novel, Let’s No One Get Hurt, before embarking on a multistate book tour.

Pineda promoted the book at a UMW event March 20, the day it was released by MacMillan Publishing imprint Farar, Straus, and Giroux.

Let’s No One Get Hurt is Pineda’s sixth novel. A collection of his poems, Little Anodynes, won the 2016 Library of Virginia Literary Award for Poetry.

PROF EXPLORES TWITTER PRESIDENCY Stephen Farnsworth, professor of political science, will sign his newly released Presidential Communication and Character: White House News Management From Clinton and Cable to Twitter and Trump at UMW Reunion Weekend, June 1-3.

The book delves into the difficulty presidents have in controlling their messages despite a seemingly endless array of new media outlets and the advantages of the office.

Chris Foss, English

Leonard Koos, French

Margaret Ray, economics

The book also looks at the media strategies of candidates during the 2016 presidential campaign.

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ON CAMPUS

ALUM DIRECTS JAMES MONROE AND GARI MELCHERS MUSEUMS

Norm Shafer

Karen Pearlman

RVA MAYOR RECRUITS STUDENT TEACHERS

Scott Harris ’83 has been named executive director of university museums, overseeing the James Monroe Museum, the Gari Melchers Home and Studio, and the Papers of James Monroe.

In his new role, Harris provides strategic direction and oversight for all aspects of both museums. Day-to-day operations at the Melchers Home and Studio continue to be the purview of Joanna Catron, assistant director and curator. Jarod Kearney is assistant director and curator of the James Monroe Museum.

As executive director, Harris also oversees the ongoing work on the Papers of James Monroe, edited by Daniel Preston. That project recently received a three-year, $300,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to produce two volumes of Monroe’s selected correspondence and public documents, covering April 1814 to March 1821.

POPULAR ADJUNCT JOINS DOD TO COMBAT THREATS Guy Roberts, who was an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Political Science and International Affairs, has taken a top position with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD).

President Donald J. Trump made the nomination last August, and the Senate confirmed Roberts to the post of assistant secretary of the DoD’s nuclear, chemical, and biological defense programs.

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UNIVERSITY OF MARY WASHINGTON MAGAZINE SPRING/SUMMER 2018

Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney is determined to recruit excellent teachers for his city’s public schools, and he brought his quest to the College of Education during a daylong visit in December.

Stoney told the students his own life was shaped by exceptional teachers who went beyond their job descriptions to help him get the most from school as he grew up in a singleparent home in Hampton Roads.

An honor roll student, he became secretary of the commonwealth at age 32 and Richmond’s youngest mayor at age 35.

That wouldn’t have happened, he said, “if it weren’t for great teachers.”

Stoney told the students Richmond planned to hire 360 teachers for the next school year, and he said the main trait he looks for in a teacher is passion. He said Richmond is a great place to live, with half of its population ages 20 to 45.

Board of Visitors member Heather Mullins Crislip ’95, whose children attend Richmond schools, joined Stoney for the afternoon visit and also urged UMW student-teachers to apply.

Many UMW alums are already teaching in Richmond, she said.

“I hope you’ll come join us.”

ON CAMPUS

Generous alumni helped make Mary Wash Giving Day a ringing success, donating $449,631 in a 24-hour online campaign March 20.

Donors – more than 700 of whom were first-time givers to Mary Washington – blasted past the day’s goal of 1,908 gifts in honor of the university’s 1908 founding. By day’s end, they’d made 2,987 gifts.

The event allowed alumni, parents, and friends to contribute to all things Mary Wash. Donors dug deep to support UMW athletics; theatre; the colleges of Arts and Sciences, Education, and Business; UMW Galleries; the Gari Melchers Home and Studio; the James Monroe Museum; Campus Recreation; the Fund for Mary Washington; and more.

The University Center, serving as the on-campus Giving Day headquarters, bustled with activity. Social media lit up all day long, as UMW supporters created, shared, and liked posts about the event. President Troy Paino rallied support in Paino’s Day Out, a video on the theme “What can you do in a day?” The film drew 449 shares and more than 19,000 likes on social media. It broke the record for numbers of views of a UMW video in the university’s social media history.

(Search for it on YouTube!)

“What a day!” Director of Annual Giving Beth Waters Hunsinger ’01 wrote on the event website. “Thank you for … making a huge difference for UMW students and programs.”

➔ ➔ ➔

HERE’S TO MARY WASHINGTON! SMALL RISK, BIG REWARD Mary Washington is among the top in the U.S. in LendEDU’s College Risk Reward Index, which considers student debt in relation to average early-career pay for graduates. In Virginia, the only public institutions near the top of the list were the University of Virginia, the College of William & Mary, U.Va.’s College at Wise, and UMW. ENGLISH ACCOLADE UMW is a top destination for English majors in the eyes of Schools.com, which considers tuition, graduation rates, and program prominence. Ten schools nationwide made the 2018 list – and UMW took the No. 3 spot.

SMART CHOICE Guide service College Factual rates UMW’s liberal arts and general studies program among the top in the nation – 47th of 352 ranked institutions. Geography and cartography came in first in Virginia and 12th nationwide. English ranked in the top five programs in Virginia and 83rd of 625 programs nationwide.

APRIL RYAN TO UMW STUDENTS: “I’M TALKING ABOUT YOU”

Suzanne Carr Rossi ’00

GIVING DAY RINGS UP RECORD DONATIONS

April Ryan and Khalil Vest-Sims ’21 Veteran journalist April Ryan was the keynote speaker at UMW’s Martin Luther King Jr. celebration in January.

A White House reporter since 1997, Ryan now heads the Washington bureau of American Urban Radio Networks, provides political analysis on CNN, and has written two books. Her UMW address was sponsored by the Office of the President and hosted by the James Farmer Multicultural Center.

Ryan grew up in Baltimore and recalled listening to King’s speeches on vinyl.

She encouraged the Mary Washington audience to reflect King’s values in their personal actions.

“It takes all of us,” she said. “I’m not talking about a political party or a person. I’m talking about you.”

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ON CAMPUS

UMW’S TREES GET ANOTHER HUG For the third year in a row, the Arbor Day Foundation has named UMW a Tree Campus USA. The award recognizes colleges and universities that promote healthy trees and engage their communities in the spirit of conservation.

UMW has a campus tree-care plan, and it dedicates annual expenditures for campus trees.

Mary Washington is one of only six Virginia institutions to receive the honor.

2017 GRADS THRIVING; DEPARTED UMW WITH LOW DEBT

92%

25

$47K

16

of 2017 grads are either employed, engaged in career-related endeavors, or continuing their education.

number of states where alumni work

average starting salary

UMW’s ranking among the 100 small public colleges with the lowest average student debt

Sources: UMW’s First Destination Survey of 2017 alumni; LendEDU

UMW AGAIN TOPS PEACE CORPS LIST

Maura Slocum ’16 in Senegal, West Africa

Norm Shafer

Once again, UMW has placed among the most prolific Peace Corps producers in the country.

ATHLETICS GALA PLANNED Christy Copper ’91, a highly decorated tennis player and UMW athletics philanthropist, will give the keynote address at the fifth annual UMW Athletics Gala. The event is at 6 p.m.

May 17 in Chandler Ballroom at the University Center. For tickets, go to umweagles.com/gala or contact Philip Pierce at 540-654-1153 or ppierce@umw.edu.

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With 14 alumni currently serving around the world, UMW ranked fourth among small schools on the 2018 Top Volunteer-Producing Colleges and Universities list released in February.

“It’s just a culture we have here at UMW,” said Assistant Director for Career and Professional Development Kyle Danzey. “I always go back to the history. Look at the founding of UMW. We were a teachers college. We’ve always had a tradition of … providing some kind of service.”

In all, 261 Mary Washington alumni have served in the Peace Corps since its 1961 founding.

UMW recently became a Peace Corps Prep program partner, and the first 16 students were to be inducted this spring. The certificate program combines targeted coursework, service-oriented fieldwork, and professional development to prepare students for future volunteer positions.

UNIVERSITY OF MARY WASHINGTON MAGAZINE SPRING/SUMMER 2018

ON CAMPUS

The Heslep Amphitheatre – named for Donald B. and Josephine McPherson Heslep ’56 – is set to be dedicated June 2 during Reunion Weekend. The Hesleps have long been generous contributors to university initiatives, including a significant endowment for the UMW Philharmonic and $1.25 million for the amphitheatre renovation project.

The Board of Visitors also recently approved another alumni name in connection with the project. The amphitheatre’s stage is to be called the Morris Stage in honor of Marceline “Marcy” Weatherly Morris ’50 and Elmer “Juney” Morris Jr. ’50. The naming recognizes 100 years of family legacy connections and the couple’s significant campaign gift toward the restoration of the amphitheatre. The Morrises met on campus when Marcy was a student at the all-female college and Juney, a World War II veteran, was allowed to enroll under the GI Bill.

STUDENT ADVOCATE LENDS AN EAR

Alex Sakes ’18

A newly hired victim’s advocate at the University of Mary Washington will provide an additional confidential resource for students who may have experienced sex- or gender-based violence.

Erin Hopkins, who has worked in crisis management and teaching, sees her role as bridging the gap between UMW’s Office of Title IX and the students it protects against sex-based discrimination.

“There are students who need to talk with someone but who are too afraid to go to the Title IX office,” said Hopkins. “I serve as a confidential advocate to educate students about their options and point them in the right direction for help.”

Funding for the position has been provided as part of a $300,000 grant through the Justice Department’s Office on Violence Against Women. UMW was among 45 institutions of higher education – one of only two in Virginia – to receive the funding in the fall of 2016 to help victims of sexual assault, domestic violence, and stalking.

VARSITY DEBATERS GO NATIONAL

Alex Sakes ’18

HESLEP AMPHITHEATRE, MORRIS STAGE TO DEBUT AT REUNION 2018

University of Mary Washington’s varsity debate team of Gabe Lewis ’19, left, and Parker Coon ’19 competed in the 72nd National Debate Tournament, held in March at Wichita State University in Kansas.

The national tournament featured 78 qualifying teams. It was the third time Coon had qualified and the second time for Lewis. While they didn’t reach the elimination rounds, they competed strongly, said Debate Coach Adrienne Brovero.

To qualify for the National Debate Tournament, Coon and Lewis turned in an impressive performance at the District VII National Debate Tournament, hosted on the Fredericksburg campus.

Coon and Lewis also reached the Sweet 16 of the American Debate Association national championship.

ROGOL HONORED Head athletic trainer Ian Rogol has been named to the Virginia Athletic Trainers’ Association 2018 Hall of Fame for his dedication and service to the organization and to student athletes.

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SPORTS

BASKETBALL TEAMS END SUCCESSFUL SEASONS UMW men’s and women’s basketball each won first-round games in this year’s Capital Athletic Conference tournament.

UMW men had six players score in double figures to defeat Frostburg State University, 82-78. Eric Shaw ’18 scored 20 points, with seven rebounds and six assists. A.J. Robinson ’20, Khiorie Stewart ’19, Drew Johnson ’21, Jacob Williams ’19, and Johnnie Cronin ’19 also fueled the victory. They ended at 19-9, their best season since 2013-2014.

Eric Shaw

Photos by Sue Spencer

Shaw was named men’s first-team all-CAC for the second year. Johnson was named men’s rookie of the year for the CAC.

Kendall Parker

Against Salisbury in the CAC first round, the UMW women prevailed 50-42, with 11 of those points from Tory Martin ’21 and 10 from Megan Comer ’19. Jordan Pamlanye ’19 grabbed 10 rebounds, and Kendall Parker ’18, Claire Mocarski ’21, and Emily Thompson ’20 also contributed.

The Eagles ended their 14th consecutive winning season with a 14-13 record.

ATHLETIC HALL OF FAME GETS NEW MEMBERS Three athletes who earned All-American status in their sports were inducted into UMW’s Athletic Hall of Fame in February. Also inducted was the 20062007 women’s basketball team, which took its 31-3 record to the NCAA Division III Final Four.

Individual inductees were: Debbie Bruen Flores ’07, who led the UMW women’s basketball team to three NCAA tournament appearances, including the trip to the Final Four in 2007.

Kevin Foeman ’06, a pitcher who led UMW baseball to three NCAA Tournament appearances. He holds Mary Washington career records for wins, strikeouts, and complete games.

Dale Parker ’07, the first UMW swimmer to gain an automatic qualifying time for the NCAA Championships.

He was the CAC Swimmer of the Year in 2005 and 2007.

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UNIVERSITY OF MARY WASHINGTON MAGAZINE SPRING/SUMMER 2018

SWIM TEAMS DOMINATE CAC The UMW women’s swim team captured an unprecedented 28th consecutive Capital Athletic Conference championship on Feb. 25, while the men claimed their 18th straight conference title.

The women finished with 913 points at the four-day meet. UMW head coach Abby Brethauer was honored as the CAC coach of the year.

Claudia Keller ’21 was named the women’s rookie of the year after finishing first in the 1,650-yard and 500-yard freestyle and swimming in the winning 800-yard freestyle relay.

THE UMW WOMEN ARE THE ONLY TEAM IN ANY CAPITAL ATHLETIC CONFERENCE SPORT TO HAVE WON EVERY CHAMPIONSHIP SINCE THE ADVENT OF THE CAC IN 1991.

On the men’s side, the Eagles captured the 2018 title with 905.5 points. Brethauer was also named the men’s coach of the year in the league.

The Eagles gained five first-place finishes at the championships.

Jeffrey Leckrone ‘19 competed in the NCAA Division III Swimming and Diving Championships in breaststroke and individual medley.

– Clint Often Claudia Keller, rookie of the year

GET THE PICTURE?

Give It Your Best Shot

UMW Centennial Ima

ge Collec tion

Virginia Gov. John Battle visited campus for the dedication of the Fine Arts Center – duPont, Pollard, and Melchers halls – the weekend of May 9, 1953. There was an arts festival and much fanfare, including a procession by 120 academic delegates from the Gothic Room of Ann Carter Lee Hall to the south colonnade of Melchers, according to Edward Alvey Jr.’s History of Mary Washington College.

Pictured here on the terrace of Lee Hall, the governor is flanked by two flag bearers. We hope someone can tell us the flag bearers’ names and perhaps remember the events of the weekend.

Go online to magazine.umw.edu and click on “Get the Picture” to leave a comment. Or send an email with “Get the Picture” in the subject line to magazine@umw.edu.

You may also write to: UMW Magazine – Get the Picture 1301 College Ave. Fredericksburg Va. 22401-5300

You Got It! It took some sleuthing, but we now know the student pictured in a former chemistry lab in Combs Hall is Orita Whitehead Martin, who attended Mary Washington from 1967 through 1969 before earning a degree from a college in Colorado. Anita Whitehead Scott ’71 confirmed her sister’s identity for the magazine.

We’re grateful for help from Susan Brown Strong ’68 and retired Mary Washington employee Jane H. Marra, both of whom thought the photo was from the 1960s rather than the attributed 1980s date.

To be sure, we asked Professor Emerita of Chemistry Judith A. Crissman. She recognized the setting as the former analytical chemistry laboratory and noted that the student was wearing a dress, a formality rarely seen after the late 1960s. And she pointed out that by the 1980s, safety goggles would have been required for lab work.

With the 1960s date in mind, Head of Special Collections and University Archives Carolyn Sydnor Parsons ’83 pointed us toward the Whitehead sisters, and we soon had our answer.

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Theatre students went to New York City over spring break to interview pros in the business and see as many shows as possible. Shown here on Broadway are, from left, Jacob Savage ’18, Olivia Whicheloe ’19, Abe Shaikh ’19, and Neal ’19.

Lauren Frautschi is behind at2018 left.

1 0 Gallini-Burdick UNIVERSITY OF MARY WASHINGTON MAGAZINE’18 SPRING/SUMMER

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Clinton Brandhagen

BRID GE T O

T

hey had just watched Wayne Brady sing his heart out in a pair of blazing-red, thigh-high boots on Broadway. Now, somehow, they were unfurling themselves from the seats and the spell of the centuryold Al Hirschfeld Theatre and sidling onto a sidewalk where patrons and frosty breaths lingered.

But the night wasn’t over for 15 University of Mary Washington students who months ago had signed up for a one-of-a-kind class that culminated in a spring break trip to the theatre capital of the world.

While fans pressed themselves against a barricade, hoping one of the red-booted cast members might peek out and speak to them, the backstage door opened and the students were swept in.

Kinky Boots, five years running, had lived up its Tony Award-winning hype – especially with Brady in the role of Lola, the indomitable, show-stealing drag queen who helps save a family’s shoe business.

The students had watched the stage from the faraway darkness. But now they stood on it, in arm’s length of Brady, still dolled up in a sequined dress that scattered light. Here came Natalie Joy Johnson ’00, who since 2013 had played Pat in Kinky Boots, performing alongside Brady.

Two decades before, Johnson had been part of this very class, clutching a Playbill and dreaming that she would one day see her name in one.

“This,” she told them, “is an amazing trip that you have.” And it was – this marathon of interviews and voice lessons and shows at every curtain for 10 days straight – Johnson was proof of that.

The students gathered around her for a photo. Under the Broadway lights with one of their own, they had the sense that anything was possible.

BRO ADW AY UMW STUDENTS LEARN YOU CAN GET THERE FROM HERE STORY BY KRISTIN DAVIS UNIVERSITY MARY WASHINGTON MAGAZINE MAGAZINE SPRING/SUMMER UNIVERSITY OFOF MARY WASHINGTON SPRING/SUMMER 2018 2018

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THAT WAS BY DESIGN.

In 1994, when the internet was newfangled and travelers navigated New York City’s subway system with a folding map, Gregg Stull ’82 created a senior workshop called Ideas in Performance.

The professor, department chair, and producing director of UMW Theatre thought something was missing between students’ college careers and professional lives.

“They sit in the audience,” he said, “and they can’t imagine taking that leap.”

Stull would build them a bridge. In a class that met once a week for nearly four hours, the students would read – and discuss – all the theatre news they could get their hands on. They’d choose a vocational topic and ask themselves how they could get there from here.

They’d hear about the importance of connections. Then they’d go to New York and make them.

“My goal is to help them see that these are real people who wake up every day, they do a job, and they go home,” Stull said. “It’s transformational. They see themselves in a different way.”

It was costly, stressful, and full of logistical challenges. The students paid a hefty class fee, but a generous UMW undergraduate research grant made the trip possible. In the early days, students tracked down mailing addresses of actors, directors, stage managers, playwrights, and set designers. They wrote letters, asking for a meeting.

Sometimes the requests went unanswered. But sometimes the pros got back in touch, and students found themselves sitting in a New York coffee shop, face to face with proof that there were jobs to be had in theatre. And the pros shared tips on how to get them.

Two dozen years later, the world is a different place. Everything is at the students’ fingertips, on the smartphones they carry in purses and pockets. Could all this convenience actually make some things harder?

Stull and his class talked about that at length in a Wednesday night session before the spring break trip.

But his charge to them was the same as it had always been: Decide who you really want to meet in

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this business, then go find them. Time could change a lot of things. But it couldn’t change the value of human connection.

T HEY WERE READY TO CROSS THE BRIDGE.

There was Cindy Wang ’18, an aspiring actor from Texas who had never seen a Broadway show. There was Jessica Hagy ’18, who’d grown up in Warrenton, Virginia, going to dozens of community theatre performances. She’d danced as far back as she could remember, and she’d dabbled in acting, but recently she’d found her real passion: stage management.

There was Abe Shaikh ’19 of Stafford County, who’d tried out for his first play in high school because that’s where his friends were, then discovered it was what he’d been missing. Now he was a theatre major who’d recently been cast in his first lead role in a full UMW Theatre production. He’d planned to transfer out after a year at Mary Washington, but he soon realized it was where he belonged.

“Gregg,” Shaikh said, “got a hold of me.”

On the students’ evolving list of people to interview were a host of UMW alumni who’d made their livelihoods in New York, from working in a theatre call center to stage managing an off-Broadway show to performing alongside Wayne Brady at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre. Success, Stull taught his students, was finding your place in the world, even if it wasn’t under the lights of Times Square. But that was a good place to start looking.

UNIVERSITY OF MARY WASHINGTON MAGAZINE SPRING/SUMMER 2018

“My goal is to help [students] see that these are real people who wake up every day, they do a job, and they go home.”

- PROFESSOR GREGG STULL ’82, ON PROFESSIONAL THEATRE

Jon K. Reynolds ’07

UMW theatre students shadowed Arturo Porazzi, stage manager of Come From Away at the Schoenfeld Theatre, before seeing the show. Afterward, they had a Q&A with the cast, and Porazzi gave them a tour. Pictured above, the class poses on the Schoenfeld stage with Porazzi, front row, third from left. The intensive New York research trip is one aspect of Ideas in Theatre, a class funded in part by a UMW research grant.

ON THEIR SECOND AFTERNOON IN NEW YORK,

a dozen students gathered in Stull’s hotel room high up in the Marriott Marquis for a meeting with Anissa Felix ’13, who would soon open her third Broadway show. It was a Sunday, her only day off, and she was devoting it to her alma mater because she’d once been a student in this class.

Felix answered question after question – how she got her first break, how she stayed healthy, how she handled the disappointment of landing a part smaller than she’d hoped.

“If you can be OK with yourself,” she told them, “you’ll be able to handle all the craziness that New York is, that this industry is, that life is.”

When she stood up to leave, Wang walked up to her. Could Felix offer any advice for a woman of color in this business?

“You have to take risks. You have to stand up for yourself,” Felix said. “You have to find your sisterhood.”

A few hours later, the students slipped into the Davenport Theatre for the off-Broadway production of Afterglow, where Will Chaloner ’13 works as a stage manager. The following afternoon, Chaloner met Hagy in the nearly empty theatre. She asked about his path from UMW, the challenges he’d faced, and where he planned to go next.

He told how he’d moved to Washington, D.C., after graduation, and when that didn’t work out, he called Stull. Two weeks later, Chaloner was on a plane to New York. Calling on the connections he’d made – and

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It was intimate enough where the professors knew your name,” she said.

And she didn’t have to wait until her junior year to act in a theatre production. That wasn’t the case at other universities. “I wanted to do it now.”

Which also is why she moved to New York nearly as soon as commencement was over. She got a job to pay the bills – working as a personal assistant to an actor.

“She introduced me to a ton of directors when she found out I was an actor. I ended up booking my first jobs from working for them as baby sitters and assistants,” Felix said.

Then she got a job as a receptionist at an editing company. Her boss’s wife would call and talk theatre.

“Later on, I found out she was the associate director of Motown. They had lost a swing. They were looking for an immediate replacement to cover all the female parts. She called me in to audition.”

And just like that, Felix landed on a Broadway stage that had once seemed so remote. During a Washington, D.C., stop on the national tour, she stepped into the role of Diana Ross. In the audience was Gregg Stull ’82, the theatre professor who’d created the capstone course and who more than two decades later is still bringing students to New York as part of it.

As Felix shared her story with the latest class, she thought about how recently she’d been in their shoes. And how one day, they might be in hers.

UNIVERSITY OF MARY WASHINGTON MAGAZINE SPRING/SUMMER 2018

Geoff Greene ’04

A

nissa Felix ’13 knew New York.

Her parents had grown up there.

Her grandmother still lived there.

She was 9 the first time she watched a Broadway show.

A few years later, she was learning to navigate the city.

But it was not until she traveled there as a UMW student for a 10-day marathon of theatre and interviews with actors that she believed she’d someday end up on a Broadway stage. She did – as a swing in Motown: The Musical – less than two years later.

As a college student, Felix had traveled to the city as part of an extraordinary UMW course that has connected theatre students with New York theatre professionals since 1994. It was during that class’s 2012 spring break trip that Felix met Natalie Joy Johnson ’00, who’d climbed her way from Klein Theatre to Broadway.

“Some kids dream of being astronauts and the president. My dream was to be an actor,” said Felix, who grew up in Manassas, Virginia.

That ambition was as old as her memory; before she was performing in her kindergarten talent show, she was dancing on her family’s hearth.

Johnson was proof that it was possible.

“Somebody who went to my school, who walked on the same campus – that to me was amazing.”

Now Felix is among the UMW theatre alumni on Broadway. After Motown came Sunset Boulevard. She was deep in rehearsals for Summer: The Donna Summer Musical when she sat down with the latest Ideas in Performance class visiting New York in March. Summer opened in April.

Felix moved to the city two days after she collected her theatre degree from UMW. She’d gotten into every university she’d applied to, but she chose Mary Washington for its inclusive and comprehensive theatre program.

“I felt so welcome. I felt like the program was small enough so I’d be able to get a lot of individualized attention.

“Barbaric” – except that it doesn’t have to be.

“It’s just a human interaction.”

- TREY COMPTON, DIRECTOR, ON AUDITIONING

Jon K. Reynolds ’07

kept – from his own time in Ideas in Performance, he got a job as an assistant stage manager within 48 hours of his arrival.

“Keep up with people,” Chaloner advised. “Instead of finding a temp job, become friends with production managers. Offer to be their personal assistants.”

A few blocks away, in the vast lobby of the Marriott Marquis where the students were bunking four to a room, Shaikh and Patrick Regal ’18 sat across a table from married couple Lara Hayhurst, a performer, and Trey Compton, a director. Though neither was affiliated with UMW, they sat with the students for more than an hour.

Compton shared how he’d made the transition from acting to directing – “the best directors are listeners,” he said, “and the best way to do that is not be the one talking.” Hayhurst pulled a three-ring binder from her backpack and shared her audition repertoire – a list of songs she could sing at a moment’s notice.

Together, the couple demystified the auditioning process for Shaikh, which until now had always seemed so intimidating.

After seeing Hamilton, students chatted with actors onstage at Richard Rodgers Theatre. Actors are, from left, James Monroe Iglehart (Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson), Elizabeth Judd (understudy), Anthony Lee Medina (John Laurens and Phillip Hamilton), Bryan Terrell Clark (George Washington), and Daniel Breaker (Aaron Burr).

“Barbaric,” Compton said of auditioning, except that it doesn’t have to be. “It’s just a human interaction.”

Shaikh would think about that later in the evening, as he and his classmates stood backstage at Kinky Boots. He would think about it the following night when they watched Hamilton – a show in such demand the students hadn’t even bothered to put it on their wish list of shows to see with the class.

And he would think about it when, after the curtains closed, they met some of the Hamilton cast, thanks to Brandon Prendergast ’95. Prendergast is a stage manager at Ford’s, Shakespeare, and the Kennedy Center theatres, and he is also a consultant for UMW Theatre.

All of it – the interviews, the shows, the connections, the auditions that would come later – was nothing more than human interaction.

The future was wide open.

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James Minchin/AMC

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At left: Chris Rogers ’05 is co-creator of the critically acclaimed TV series Halt and Catch Fire. Above: Executive producers Rogers and Christopher Cantwell, left, mix an episode of the AMC series. In April, the show’s fourth season was nominated for a Peabody Award.

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Chris Rogers ’05 and his writing partner, Christopher Cantwell, had already pitched their TV show to HBO and Showtime. In each case, an executive had politely offered them bottled water and listened to their spiel before ushering them out with a handshake and a halfhearted pledge to keep in touch.

But the meeting at AMC felt decidedly different.

For starters, they weren’t perched on a couch in someone’s office, but rather ushered into a conference room. There, a team of executives gathered, each with a copy of the script Rogers and Cantwell had spent months fine-tuning. As the meeting ended, AMC asked the writers to return with a “bible,” an industry term for a document that establishes the characters, setting, and story arc for a fictional universe.

“We kind of exchanged a glance: ‘This is good, right?’ ” recalled Rogers of that meeting in 2013.

Quite good, in fact. The pair’s creation, Halt and Catch Fire, wrapped up a four-season run on AMC in October 2017 after earning a fiercely loyal following and rave reviews from the likes of Forbes, The New York Times, Rolling Stone, and The A.V. Club – all of which hailed the final season as some of the best television of 2017. It was nominated in April for a Peabody Award; the winner will be

announced on May 19. The period drama is now streaming on Netflix, much to the delight of bingewatchers everywhere.

The characters in the show are fictional, but the setting – the intensely competitive arena that gave rise to the personal computing industry – derives from “good old history research,” said Rogers, who studied history at Mary Washington.

“More than anything, that major teaches you to process a lot of information and separate the important stuff from the not-so-important,” Rogers said. He co-created the show after carefully researching the real-life efforts of tech-savvy mavericks in the 1980s to reverse engineer an IBM computer, thereby toppling the industry’s undisputed leader.

Halt and Catch Fire fans don’t need to be conversant in computers to enjoy the show, any more than viewers of AMC’s Mad Men had ____________

In success, I think there’s a lot of people who make me look good. − Chris Rogers

____________ Left: The Rogers family includes three UMW graduates – Chris, right; David ’08, who studied studio art; and Abbie ’13, who studied anthropology.

Their parents, Jan and Chuck Rogers, said that at a Los Angeles preview of Halt, they applauded every time their son’s name appeared on the screen. They did the same, they said, while watching it in their own home.

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Tina Rowden/AMC

Variety and Forbes named Halt and Catch Fire one of 2017’s best TV shows. The New York Times’ chief TV critic raved about its fourth season. Here Toby Huss, in cap, who plays John Bosworth, consults with Rogers during the filming of season 3.

Tina Rowden/AMC

Rogers discusses a scene in season 3 with Kerry Bishé, who plays Donna Clark. Though he and Cantwell are executive producers, Rogers said they prefer to refer to themselves as showrunners, the people who have creative authority and management responsibility for a television program.

to understand the advertising industry. At its heart, the series is a tale of scrappy underdogs taking on the establishment while clashing with one another over creative differences. But the accuracy of the show’s historical backdrop helps amplify the connection fans have to the characters and their fates.

“When you find the story people think they know, that’s when you hit dramatic pay dirt,” Rogers said.

Rogers grew up in Winchester, Virginia, and was always a fan of a good story, said his mother, Jan Rogers. He carried a book and a pocket dictionary everywhere he went. He wrote constantly, filling journals he stored beneath his bed. One summer, while he worked construction, he read only Russian novels.

“That’s not a normal 20-year-old activity,” said

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his mother, a middle school math teacher.

Jan Rogers said she was thrilled when her oldest child chose UMW, in part for its small professor-tostudent ratio. His younger siblings, David Rogers ’08 and Abbie Rogers ’13, followed suit.

At UMW Rogers declared himself a philosophy major, until enrolling in Professor William B. Crawley’s course on the American South. Rogers said he enjoyed interacting with his history professors as much as he did studying the subject matter.

“I fell in love with the personalities as well as the classes. I felt like I found my people,” Rogers said. The historical accounts he studied “were like the stories I loved from literature, but true, and so often about ordinary people who are placed in extraordinary situations.”

He lived in the apartments on Sunken Road; he joined crew and the debate team. Ten years later, he was back for reunion.

“It was one of those places where you really made your own experience,” Rogers said of Mary Washington. “Some days, I can’t stand the fact that it ended.”

a bad plan when I hit the ground, but going back would’ve required so much swallowing of pride that I stuck it out.”

He supported himself through temp jobs, then “hustled” his way into a post at LA Confidential magazine, which led to a position at Architectural Digest. When Condé Nast downsized the publication’s West Coast offices, Rogers went to work for Disney, organizing and managing social media content.

An early riser since his days as a cross country runner in high school, Rogers would get up at 5 a.m. and write each morning before heading to the

____________

After graduation, Rogers considered going to law school but realized his heart wasn’t in it. It was, instead, in writing – something he rediscovered at UMW in a class taught by the late poet Claudia Emerson. So he wrote a “love letter” to The Atlantic magazine in Washington, D.C., which hired him as a writing and research assistant. He lived in Adams Morgan with what he called an “inspiring community of people,” slightly older professionals who challenged him to pursue his passion for writing in earnest.

So Rogers packed a suitcase and, with $800 to his name, moved to Los Angeles. He crashed on the West Hollywood couch of a friend of a friend while attending night classes in screenwriting.

“It was the making of me,” Rogers recalled.

“God bless the naiveté of it. It was immediately

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Tina Rowden/AMC

Lee Pace, who plays Joe MacMillan, reacts with Rogers after filming his final scene.

office. “With screenwriting, like all writing, the only way to get better at it is to write a lot of sh--ty scripts. It would be years before anyone read me seriously,” Rogers said.

About a year into the job at Disney, he and boss Christopher Cantwell went out for a beer at a dive bar, where each revealed to the other his dream of becoming a screenwriter. Cantwell was primarily interested in movies, but Rogers, a huge fan of David Simon’s The Wire, said he felt TV had the best screenwriting he’d seen. He and Cantwell agreed to collaborate on a TV script, and though their first project wasn’t picked up, industry insiders encouraged them to try again.

Their second effort was Halt and Catch

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Fire, which gets its name from an old computer command that essentially forced all of the machine’s instructions to compete for superiority at once before causing a shutdown. After months of back and forth, AMC executives called to say they were picking up the show. Could Rogers and Cantwell be in Atlanta in a week to scout filming locations?

“It was really slow, and then it was really fast,” said Rogers, who celebrated the news with Cantwell and friends at the same dive bar where they’d forged their partnership. “You go through the looking glass quickly.”

At the time, Rogers knew little about all the logistics that go into filming a TV series, from building sets and securing locations to casting actors and choosing a soundtrack. He quickly learned that being a “showrunner” is about listening to good advice and letting others contribute to the vision.

The writers he and Cantwell worked with only strengthened the scripts, and the actors gave the characters more depth than they’d had on paper, he said. It didn’t hurt that AMC partnered with Gran Via Productions, founded by University of Virginia grad Mark Johnson, who had also worked on AMC’s Breaking Bad and its spinoff, Better Call Saul.

“It’s a collaborative medium,” said Rogers, who named his production company Sic Semper Tyrannis after his love for Virginia. “In success, I think there’s a lot of people who make me look good.”

The show aired on June 1, 2014, two weeks after first streaming on AMC’s Tumblr page, the first series to ever premiere on the social networking website. Before that, Rogers’ parents, Jan and Chuck Rogers, attended the big-screen sneak preview in Los Angeles.

“He turned to me and said, ‘I got my goal I set with those guys back in Adams Morgan.’ I’m choked up thinking about it now,” Jan Rogers said of her son. “It was surreal to be sitting in a movie theater. This is a mom thing – my husband and

____________

It was one of those places where you really made your own experience ... Some days, I can’t stand the fact that it ended. − Chris Rogers about his time at UMW

____________

I would count how many times his name would appear on the screen. We’d clap after every time, and we did that even in our own home when we watched the show.”

Rogers views the first season as the most technical of the bunch, and critics seemed to agree. When AMC renewed the show for a second season, Rogers and Cantwell agreed to swing for the fences.

“As much as the first season was about figuring out where we were going, we wrote the second season like it was our last – if we never get to do it again, this is the story we want to tell.”

Critics noticed, including The New Yorker’s Emily Nussbaum, who called the second season “a startling upgrade” of the first. Seasons 3 and 4 were similarly well received, with the final season scoring a 100 percent among critics on the online review site Rotten Tomatoes.

Filming wrapped up about three weeks after Rogers’ wife, Meghan, gave birth to their first child, Maureen. Rogers said he’s enjoying spending more time with his wife and daughter while working on new projects from their home in Los Angeles’ Silver Lake neighborhood. A movie about the history of ESPN, starring Steve Carell, is a solo project. And he and Cantwell are writing another show for AMC. “He likes good stories. He’s read good stories, and that’s what he wants to be known for: telling a good story,” his mother said. “He’s a very happy man. Chris got his thing. As a parent, that’s the part that makes me the happiest.”

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



As Arturo Sandoval blew new life into the Concerto for Kent Bugle with the UMW Philharmonic one March night, the Dodd Auditorium crowd knew they were experiencing something remarkable – an auditory treat almost no one had heard before.

The piece was one of four worthy but forgotten masterpieces publicly performed for just the first, second, or third time during the philharmonic’s March 17 Unearthing America’s Musical Treasures concert. They were rediscovered in the Library of Congress collection thanks to a project of UMW Philharmonic Conductor Kevin Bartram in collaboration with collegiate orchestra directors from around the country.

As president of the College Orchestra Directors Association (CODA) and with the group’s 2017 national conference set to be held in Washington, D.C., Bartram conceived the Library of Congress project as a way to promote intercollegiate scholarship and take advantage of the unique offerings of the nation’s capital.

Teams of scholars pored through the Library of Congress collections, looking for high-quality orchestral works written by American composers pre-1923. Many of the pieces they unearthed were the composers’ autograph originals, manuscripts that required considerable editing to be playable by modern orchestras.

The Kent bugle concerto Sandoval played is one example.

At left, the score of The Louisiana March and a photo of Bethel Mahoney playing cello make up this photo illustration.

Photo illustration by AJ Newell

Philharmonic reveals beauty in found manuscripts

Norm Shafer

Composed in 1834 by Anthony Philip Heinrich, it sat unappreciated in the Library of Congress for decades. Library staff knew it as the oldest symphonic score by an American composer in the library’s extensive collection, but musically it was almost indecipherable.

Even the instrument for which the concerto was written is now obscure. As Bartram explained to the Dodd audience in March, the Kent bugle was a keyed bugle, a complicated instrument that eventually lost out in popularity to valved instruments. At Dodd, Sandoval played the piece on a modern flugelhorn.

Besides the Heinrich concerto, the philharmonic performed three more of the eight works the project has so far rediscovered.

The 1862 Hail Columbia! Festival Overture

by Karl Hohnstock had been performed by the New York Philharmonic and then the Boston Symphony Orchestra – then lost to history. The Bedouins was composed sometime between 1908 and 1918 by Charles Hambitzer, a soloist with the orchestra at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel and a teacher of the young George Gershwin. And The Louisiana March was composed by Frank Van der Stucken to be played at the 1904 World’s Fair in commemoration of the 1803 Louisiana Purchase.

During the concert, Bartram asked three student members of the philharmonic – cellist Bethel Mahoney ’18 and violinists Juliette Guilloux ’18 and Elyse Ridder ’19 – to stand and

UMW Conductor Kevin Bartram rehearses with, from left, Elyse Ridder, Bethel Mahoney, and Juliette Guilloux. The student musicians contributed to the Library of Congress project.

Famed musician Arturo Sandoval wowed the Dodd Auditorium audience with two pieces, one performed on a trumpet and the other on a flugelhorn.

be recognized for their contribution to the project.

“I made a point of having them not simply serve as assistants but as real researchers,” Bartram said. “They’re clearly more self-confident as a result of this project.”

The work has been tedious. Original manuscripts have been transferred to a computer program, composers studied, and scores analyzed.

Hundreds of hours have gone into filling the gaps, adding missing musical notes, and changing phrases to achieve full orchestral sound.

Bartram has also promoted the project in public talks and radio broadcasts. And earlier this year, he took the entire philharmonic to Los Angeles to perform some of the works at the most recent CODA conference.

Besides the pieces played at the March concert in Dodd, the project has rediscovered works written early in the careers of famous composers Leonard Bernstein and Aaron Copland. But the Dodd concert stuck to the brilliant works of lesser-known composers.

“I believe these composers would be thrilled that their work lives on with this project,” Bartram said.

Bartram also thinks his student researchers and musicians have had a career-shaping experience: “I hope they’ve come away with an understanding that through determined effort, they can make a difference.”

– Lisa Chinn Marvashti ’92 and Laura Moyer

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NOTABLE & QUOTABLE

Rob Davis and Abbas Haider

As the last issue of UMW Magazine rolled off the presses, Forbes magazine named the men on its cover, Aspetto founders Abbas Haider ’12 and Rob Davis ’12, to its 30 Under 30 list in the “manufacturing and industry” category – “creating the products, methods and materials of tomorrow.”

Forbes noted that Haider and Davis were at the University of Mary Washington when they founded the company, which makes bullet-resistant clothing as a comfortable and fashionable answer to body armor. “Aspetto has raised $300,000 in seed funding and expects 2017 revenue to exceed $2.5 million,” Forbes wrote. Davis and Haider will speak at the UMW 2018 undergraduate commencement, Saturday, May 12.

Alumna Guides Creation of Army Museum Kerri Curran Kline ’08 is playing a key role in the creation of the National Museum of the United States Army, expected to open in late 2019 at Fort Belvoir in Northern Virginia.

Kerri Curran Kline

Kline is chief operating officer of the Army Historical Foundation, the funding side of a public-private partnership with the Army to build the museum.

After earning a bachelor’s degree in history at UMW, Kline began working for the foundation as a marketing assistant.

As she took on more responsibility with the foundation, she earned a master’s degree in museum studies from Johns Hopkins University. She’s now pursuing a nonprofit management certificate from George Mason University.

The Army is the last of the major service branches to get an official museum. When it opens, it will share stories of individual soldiers and of the Army as an entity from 1775 to the present.

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Mary Washington Grads Helped Make Code Girls Historian Elizabeth “Betsy” Rohaly Smoot ’82 played a key role in author Liza Mundy’s research for the bestselling book Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II. Speaking on campus Jan. 25 as part of the William B. Crawley Great Lives Lecture Series, Mundy described working with Smoot, a now-retired Betsy Rohaly Smoot historian with the National Security Agency (NSA). Mundy said Smoot not only directed her to important parts of the NSA archive, she helped by contacting families of the code breakers.

Among the code breakers was Virginia Urbin Melvin ’43, one of many Southern women recruited to do the important work in support of American and allied efforts in World War II. Melvin passed away in 2003.

Day after day the code breakers deciphered messages that pinpointed the locations of Japanese supply ships. After the Virginia Urbin’s senior portrait in war, the women were sworn to the 1943 Battlefield secrecy about their contributions.

But the oath of secrecy was eventually lifted and records declassified, so their story could be told at last.

Bruner-Yang: Divine Dining Chef Erik Bruner-Yang ’07 has a new venture, Brothers and Sisters restaurant and bar at the oh-so-hip The LINE DC. The new hotel in Northwest Washington repurposes a century-old church, which inspired the restaurant’s name Erik Bruner-Yang and pipe organ décor.

Unlike Bruner-Yang’s eatery Maketto, Brothers and Sisters features a variety of American and international dishes. The chef also has a second restaurant at The LINE, a “standing-room-only” speakeasy-style eatery called Spoken English.

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Gary Williams

Forbes 30 Under 30 Taps Aspetto Founders

NOTABLE & QUOTABLE

Illustrator Brings Newly Discovered Dinosaur Species to Life Thanks to scientific illustrator Andrew McAfee ’05, the world now knows how a recently discovered dinosaur species looked when it wandered North Africa in the late Cretaceous period.

Paleontologists from Egypt’s Mansoura University unearthed the fossilized remains of the plant-eating dinosaur, a member of the titanosaur group, in what’s now the eastern part of the Sahara Desert. In January 2018, the creature was given the name Mansourasaurus shahinae to honor the university and Mona Shahin, a supporter of its vertebrate paleontology program.

The Egyptian scientists collaborated with paleontologist Matthew Lamanna, McAfee’s boss at Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh. As the paleontologists realized the significance of their discovery, they needed a compelling image of the approximately 80-million-year-old dinosaur to share with the public, Lamanna said. They entrusted the job to McAfee.

Andrew McAfee

A biology major at Mary Washington, McAfee joined the Peace Corps after graduation and served in Guatemala. In his free time there, he drew the animals he saw and people he met. Back in the United States he found a way to combine his love of science and art, joining the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators and eventually earning a master’s certificate in scientific illustration from California State University, Monterey Bay. McAfee said his Mary Washington background helped shape his career, especially classes with Professor of Art History Joseph Dreiss and Professor of Biology Andrew Dolby.

After an internship at Carnegie Museum, McAfee was hired as the scientific illustrator for the museum’s vertebrate paleontology section. Creating the first illustrations of a dinosaur species was “a rare privilege,” he said.

Because Mansourasaurus has more in common with European and Asian titanosaurs than African or South American examples, McAfee illustrated it gazing over an ocean toward Europe, where its ancestors had once lived. The plants pictured are educated assumptions based on fossil pollens found in the same rock formation as the dinosaur.

The conifer Araucaria is at top right, the tree fern Dicksonia is at top left, and an unidentified palm species is at bottom left.

Courtesy of Carnegie Museum of Natural History

“The flocked birds wheeling over the waves were inspired by Ichthyornis, a bird from the same time period that may have had a lifestyle similar to modern seagulls,” McAfee said. “While perhaps no one is able to see it, I did paint in the tiny teeth that Ichthyornis and its close relatives had in life.”

Mansourasaurus shahinae, illustrated by Andrew McAfee

Lamanna, the Carnegie Museum paleontologist, said McAfee’s beautiful and scientifically sound illustration has helped make the find interesting not just to experts but to the public.

It “really brought this dinosaur and its ancient habitat to life,” Lamanna said, “in a way that our written description could not.”

- Laura Moyer

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NOTABLE & QUOTABLE

Top Virginia Housing Post Goes to UMW Alum Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam has named Erik Johnston ’03 director of the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD), which aims to create affordable and prosperous communities in which to live, work, and do business.

Johnston’s previous post was chief deputy of DHCD. Erik Johnston

Johnston studied political science and international affairs at Mary Washington, earning the Colgate Darden Award for achieving the highest grade-point average in his class. Johnston earned a master’s degree in public administration from Virginia Tech.

His expertise includes transportation, economic development, housing, and community development.

Grad Advances Health Care for All

Shawn Gremminger

Shawn Gremminger ’04 will continue to advocate for a U.S. health care system that serves everyone – especially the most vulnerable families – in his new position as senior director of federal relations at Families USA. The consumer health care organization is dedicated to improving health and health care for all in the Unites States.

Gremminger has more than a decade of experience working in the nonprofit sector on federal health policy with a primary focus on Medicaid, Medicare, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and the Affordable Care Act. Most recently, he served as director of legislative affairs for America’s Essential Hospitals (AEH), an organization that represents more than 325 large public and safetynet hospitals and health systems across the country. He studied political science and earned a master of public policy degree from the George Washington University.

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Iowa Calls Former USDA Scientist Catherine O’Connor Woteki ’69 has rejoined the faculty of Iowa State University, this time in the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition. She previously served as dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. She recently was inducted into Kappa of Virginia, the UMW chapter of Phi Beta Kappa.

Catherine Woteki

Before her return to Iowa State University last summer, Woteki served from 2010 to 2016 as chief scientist and undersecretary for research, education, and economics at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Woteki served as the first undersecretary for food safety at USDA from 1997 to 2001. In 1999, she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine, now known as the National Academy of Medicine.

Award Highlights Blakey’s Leadership The U.S. Chamber of Commerce honored Marion Blakey ’70 with its Carol B. Hallett award, which recognizes excellence in the aviation industry, at its annual Aviation Summit in March in Washington, D.C. The timing coincided with Blakey’s announcement that she will retire as CEO of Marion Blakey Rolls-Royce North America, a position she has held for three years. The Rolls-Royce executive role capped Blakey’s long career in public service and private-sector aerospace and defense roles.

Under President George W. Bush, Blakey served first as chair of the National Transportation Safety Board and then as administrator of the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA), with responsibility for the entire national air space system.

After leaving the FAA in 2007, Blakey, who studied international relations, served as president and CEO of the Aerospace Industries Association before assuming the Rolls-Royce leadership.

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NOTABLE & QUOTABLE

VRA Director Honored for Lifetime Achievement in Public Finance In January, Gov. Ralph Northam reappointed Stephanie Hamlett ’81 executive director of the Virginia Resources Authority (VRA). She served previously as executive director of VRA from 2010 to 2012 and from 2014 to 2017.

Hamlett was chosen last year for the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Virginia Chapter of Women in Public Finance. The organization annually honors a woman who has long served in public finance and who has made a mark on that field in Virginia.

Hamlett has held a number of positions at the Virginia Office of the Attorney General, including counsel to a variety of state agencies, the Virginia Retirement System and the Virginia College Savings Plan among them. She also has served as opinions counsel and was staff counsel to the Virginia House of Delegates Finance and Appropriations committees.

Stephanie Hamlett

Hamlett earned a bachelor’s degree in history at Mary Washington and a law degree from the University of Richmond.

She holds a master’s degree in tax law from the College of William & Mary. Govs. Bob McDonnell and Terry McAuliffe appointed her to the Virginia Freedom of Information Council, with a term ending June 2019.

BOOK REPORT

Books by alumni

Book by faculty

Reign of the Fallen

Let’s No One Get Hurt

Sarah Glenn Peters Marsh ’10, M.Ed. ’11 Penguin Razorbill, January 2018 As a master necromancer in the kingdom of Karthia, teenage Odessa retrieves the souls of dead nobles from a dangerous shadow world. But a disturbing conspiracy reveals itself, and Odessa must untangle the plot that threatens the kingdom. The young adult novel is enlivened with an LGBT romance.

Jon Pineda, Assistant Professor of English Farar, Straus, and Giroux, March 2018 Pearl, 15 and free-spirited, squats in an abandoned boathouse with her father and two other men who look after her and teach her what they know of the world. The coming-of-age story combines a magical sense of community and exploration with issues of race and socioeconomics.

Book by retired faculty

Lock & Load: Armed Fiction Edited by Deirdra McAfee and BettyJoyce Nash ’73 University of New Mexico Press, September 2017 Annie Proulx, Bonnie Jo Campbell, John Edgar Wideman, Noley Reid ‘95, and other talented authors explore the American fascination with guns in these varied short stories.

This thought-provoking collection moves beyond the polarized rhetoric surrounding firearms to spark genuine discussion. Editor BettyJoyce Nash will sign copies of the book during Reunion Weekend, June 1-3.

The Digital Child: The Evolution of Inwardness in the Histories of Childhood Daniel Dervin, Professor Emeritus of English Routledge, 2018 This work traces how we have perceived childhood in the West from prehistory to today. Author Daniel Dervin identifies six transformational changes leading to today’s stage, the digital child, a creation of our pervasive technological culture. The book revisits who we once were as a species to help us grasp who we are becoming.

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ALUMNI SEEN

>>

Business Recognizes Its Best The College of Business honored 11 alumni at its first-ever annual Business Alumni Awards event held last October in conjunction with Homecoming 2017. The college inducted three members into the Business Hall of Fame, named three Distinguished Business Alumni, and recognized five people with the Young Business Alumni Award.

Hall of Fame inductees: • Dave Carey ’96, president and founder of ROI Training • Sue Meisinger ’74, former CEO of the Society of Human Resource Management • Dan Wolfe ’84, media executive Distinguished Business Alumni Award recipients: • Lou Marmo ’94, CEO of Liqui-Box • Robert Strassheim ’96, vice president of business operations for Dickinson + Associates • Sarah Gildersleeve Strassheim ’01 vice president of finance and operations, Americas region, for Merkle

Jessica Reingold ’15 and Gibran Parvez ’14 show their UMW colors at Homecoming 2017 in October.

More than 500 alumni joined UMW students to celebrate Homecoming 2017.

June 1-3, 2018 Register online at alumni.umw.edu/reunionweekend

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Young Business Alumni Award recipients: • Andrew Blate ’04, president of Beautiful Home Services • Bryan Campbell ’06, vice president of strategy and operations for ABS Technology • Dan Clendenin ’07, managing director of Cary Street Partners • Fitz Maro ’11, senior innovation lead for 360i • Charles Reed ’11, advisory associate for KPMG More than 100 alumni, faculty, students, staff, and friends attended the gala event held in the University Center. Acting Dean of the College of Business Ken Machande was master of ceremonies. ASK Childhood Cancer Foundation and Beautiful Home Services sponsored the event.

ALUMNI SEEN

>>

2018 Volunteer Leadership Summit More than 80 alumni, parents, and student volunteer leaders representing 12 UMW boards, councils, and organizations attended a two-day leadership summit on campus in January.

The summit focused on leadership development, networking, and best practices.

>>

Italy on the Road Alumni and friends traveled through Italy as part of the Mary Washington Alumni on the Road program.

Marjorie Och, professor of art and art history, accompanied the group and offered lectures and insights.

>>

December Graduates Reception

The Alumni Association hosted a reception for students completing their coursework in December. Pictured from left are Professor of Economics Steve Greenlaw, Jennifer Price, Pablo Castillo Vasquez ’18, and Felipe Oyarzun Moltedo.

Network >Charlottesville > The Charlottesville Network enjoyed an interactive presentation, The Science of Positive Psychology, with Miriam Liss and Holly Hollomon Schiffrin ’94, professors of psychological science.

UNIVERSITY OF MARY WASHINGTON MAGAZINE SPRING/SUMMER 2018

29

No class agent? No problem. Send your news to classnotes@umw.edu.

If you prefer to submit Class Notes by mail, send to: UMW Magazine – Class Notes 1301 College Ave., Fredericksburg, VA 22401

Read It

ONLINE

Find the original, unedited text of Class Notes online at magazine.umw.edu.

1930s

No Class Agent classnotes@umw.edu There is no news from the 1930s, but the classes’ scholarships continue to support students. The following scholarships from the 1930s were awarded this year:

1936 – The recipient of the Edward

Alvey Jr. Scholarship by the Class of 1936 is Brandon Roby ’18.

1937 – The recipients of the Nina G.

Bushnell Scholarship are Neal GalliniBurdick ’19, Juliette Guilloux ’18, and Martha Keegan ’18.

1939 – The recipient of the Eileen

Kramer Dodd Alumni Scholarship by the Class of 1939 is Sarah Hedgecock ’19.

1940

No Class Agent classnotes@umw.edu Recipients of the Class of 1940 Oscar H. Darter Scholarship in History are Madeline McCullough ’19, Khayla McGowan ’18, and Heidi Schmidt ’18.

1941

Dorothy Shaw dorothyshaw1919@gmail.com In the past year I have tried to contact each of my classmates and have published information each time I was successful. I would deeply appreciate it if each person would send me a little update about where you are and what you are doing. I still enjoy my champion Cardigan Welsh corgi and a couple of Nigerian dwarf dairy goats at the stone house I built many years ago in rural New York state.

The recipient of the Mildred McMurtry Bolling Memorial Scholarship is Jasmine Courts ’18.

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1942

No Class Agent classnotes@umw.edu The Recipient of the Class of 1942 Scholarship in Business Administration in Memory of James Harvey Dodd is Ethan Carter ’18.

1943

No Class Agent classnotes@umw.edu The recipient of the Class of 1943 Scholarship in Memory of Levin J. Houston III is Sean Perts ’18.

1944

Phyllis Quimby Anderson pqhndson@comcast.net Recipients of the Class of 1944 Memorial Scholarship are Tea Barndt ’20, Mackenzie Marien ’20, Kimberly McFarland ’18, and Ashley Parkhurst ’19.

I was sorry to read that Mary Ellen Starkey passed away. I had not heard from Elizabeth Cumby Murray in some time and was sorry to learn that she, too, passed away.

came to live with me. My three daughters live in nearby towns and do a lot for me. I don’t drive anymore but still play bridge and love all kinds of puzzles. I do some volunteering. My son is always saying to me, “Mom, go sit down. You have already done your duties.” So I sit!

1945

No Class Agent classnotes@umw.edu The recipient of the Class of 1945 Memorial Scholarship is Conrad Donahue ’19.

1946

Patricia Mathewson Spring classnotes@umw.edu The recipient of the Class of 1946 Scholarship is Liam Caudill ’19.

1947

Betty Moore Drewry Bamman classnotes@umw.edu

1948

No Class Agent classnotes@umw.edu Recipients of the Ellen Alvey Montllor ’48 Scholarship are Meghan Fens ’18, Justin Ford ’18, and Amani Redic ’19.

1949

June Davis McCormick jaymccee@yahoo.com The recipient of the Class of 1949 Scholarship is Elizabeth Hardy ’19.

As another new year begins, four more classmates were reported to have died in the past six months; they shall be missed and remembered.

You can read more complete obituaries After nearly 40 years as faithful class for all in the online, unedited agent, June Davis McCormick ’49 has Class Notes. announced that she’s stepping down. We

all wish her the very best and thank her for her service.

I received a photo of Isabel Hilldrup Klein and her daughter, with whom she is living. I have help from my son, who

UNIVERSITY OF MARY WASHINGTON MAGAZINE SPRING/SUMMER 2018

Sarah Elizabeth “Libby” Phelps Beard passed away peacefully in Sugar Land, Texas, on June 23, just after her 90th birthday. After growing up in Birmingham, Michigan, she graduated

Let us hear from you!

Deadlines for submissions to class agents: • For fall 2018 issue: June 15, 2018 • For spring 2019 issue: Dec. 1, 2018

from MWC with a degree in psychology.

In Fredericksburg, she met Donald Chamberlain Beard, “Mr. Don,” and they married in 1951. Don’s 35-year employment with Shell Oil Company meant transfers to new states every two or three years, ending in Houston, Texas.

Libby enjoyed a full life managing each Shell transfer, and volunteering in each new community, school, and church.

Her favorite was teaching Sunday school. Don preceded her in death, but three daughters and sons-in-law, four grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, and nieces and nephews survive her.

Patsy Anne Jones Chewning of Rockford, Illinois, died at 88 on July 22. A Fredericksburg native, Patsy earned a bachelor’s degree in commerce from MWC. Patsy married Stanley B. Chewning in 1951 and worked as a librarian for the College of DuPage in Illinois for several years. Stanley preceded her in death, but two sons, four grandchildren, three greatgrandchildren, and a brother survive her.

Dorothi Matheney Blake passed away Aug. 28, a week after her 91st birthday. A native of Bath County, Dottie earned a degree in history and taught for several years in Rockbridge County. She married R. Turner Blake in 1954. Dottie was an avid gardener, a wonderful cook, and active in her church and Sunday school. Turner preceded Dot in death, but a son, two daughters, and five grandchildren survive her.

And Cornelia “Nell” Avery Stone, 88, passed away in November at her Spotsylvania County, Virginia, home.

She taught physical education before her marriage to John W. Stone. The couple traveled the world with the Navy, raising their family in Puerto Rico, Japan, and Hawaii, before John retired as a master chief. With their return to Fredericksburg, she was a dedicated member of her church and community groups. John, Nell’s husband of 67 years, survives her. Other survivors are three sons and a daughter, their spouses, seven grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren, a sister, a brother, and nieces and nephews.

Happier news comes from Betty Bond Heller Nichols, who reported that BFF Jane Yeatman Spangler and daughter Jan planned to drive from their home in North Carolina to Pennsylvania in August, with a stop on the way home to visit B.B. in Lexington. Jan, a registered nurse, lives with her mother and was about to retire from her official nursing duties. Speaking of the four BFFs, Betty Bond had also checked on the other two, Dorothy Booker Pinkham and Charlotte Baylis Rexon, saying that both Dottie and Chot were about the same.

and his wife. In November, Donna and Jan traveled to Fairfax, Virginia, to take Betty Gore for a 90th birthday luncheon and to honor her ongoing friendship, service, and support to our alma mater.

Marion Selfe Kelly said 53 people attended a grand party Nov. 11 at Westminster Canterbury in Lynchburg, Virginia, celebrating husband George’s 100th birthday. Marion said George continues to be hale and hearty, and she wryly asked if she might be the only one of our classmates who nightly sleeps with a 100-year-old man.

Barbara Trimm Wright in South Marion Selfe Kelly ’49 asked if she might Hill, Virginia, enjoyed attending be the only one from our class who nightly a big, beautiful sleeps with a 100-year-old man. birthday party last fall, though its honoree, at Hurricanes Harvey and Irma caused 75, is “a mere child.” Barbara said much concern for classmates in Texas stamina is a problem, and when she and Florida, and it took several days does something for three days in a row, to learn that they were not in harm’s she needs to take it easy for the next way. Katherine “Kate” Mayo Schmidt, two days. No big surprise there, Barb! a longtime resident of Houston before Kathryn “K.D.” Wright Drake wrote moving north to Palestine, Texas, of having the first snow in Tennessee was grateful to learn that her friends in ages. She lives in Chattanooga, but in Houston also were safe. Kate was recalled living in Michigan for four overjoyed when the Houston Astros years when their children were young. survived a seesaw set of six games to They didn’t care for the cold weather win the World Series in October. Just but enjoyed the white winters when the before Thanksgiving, Kate learned of children could sled over snow-covered the passing of her best friend with whom streets and yards. Earlier, K.D. wrote she grew up in Radford, Virginia. She’s of a Veterans Day celebration at their sad that of her BFFs from Radford and Creekside Independent Retirement MWC she’s the “last one standing.” But home, including a dance where she is grateful for family, with whom participants wore red, white, and blue. she enjoyed a lovely Thanksgiving.

Son Bill Jr. stayed for an extra week.

After enjoying a trip to New York with a group from her Woodlands Retirement Community in Fairfax, Virginia, Elizabeth “Betty” Fischer Gore took a Royal Caribbean cruise in September up the New England coast into Canada. Betty went ashore in Maine and the Bay of Fundy.

Last year marked 90th birthdays for several classmates. June Davis McCormick hit the milestone in February and enjoyed the thoughtful and loving wishes of family and friends, especially a great MWC tribute originated by special friends in the alumni office, Donna Harter and Jan Clarke. In October, Joyce Hamilton Eisler and husband Joe enjoyed a beautiful birthday party in the West Chester, Pennsylvania, home of her son

From her longtime residence in Bethesda, Maryland, Margaret “Peggy” Walton Mason sent Thanksgiving greetings and best wishes to all our classmates. Still in her 1950s (or “mid-century”) home, she said very little has changed there.

She has a new great-granddaughter named Margaret Ann in her honor.

Perhaps some of you had the opportunity to see the annual rerunning of the TV movie Eloise at Christmastime (the 2003 sequel to Eloise at the Plaza), in which Corinne “Conni” Conley Stuart played Mrs. Thornton. At age 88, Connie recently had five interviews for roles and thinks the preparation of learning lines keeps her mind alert.

She lives in Toronto, Canada.

Conni passed along news of her ol’ roomies and BFFs, Norah Pitts Byrnes

UNIVERSITY OF MARY WASHINGTON MAGAZINE SPRING/SUMMER 2018

31

CLASS NOTES some kind! B.B. knew that Conni planned to spend Christmas in St. Louis to visit son Curtis and his family, and she knew that Conni and I planned to get together but that we had been unable to properly download the program. Ever generous with her time and music, B.B. graciously sent me a DVD of the concert so Conni and I could both enjoy it.

Conni Conley Stuart ’49 still auditions for roles and thinks the preparation of learning lines keeps her mind alert. and Betsy Thorne Bultman ’50. Norah has moved south from East Point, Georgia, to Summerville, where one of her sons lives and is a school principal.

Betsy also made a recent move, to a lovely condo in Columbia, South Carolina.

Betsy has visited Norah in her new home, and they spent the Christmas holidays together in Columbia.

The executor of the estate of Dolores “Dee” May Ross reported the sale of her house to friends who are caring for Dee’s adored little dog, Joe. Two portraits of Dee and sister Anne Ross Parks ’46, which their father had commissioned, were donated to UMW’s collection and eventually will be hung near the bedroom suite Dee donated to the Kalnen Inn of the Jepson Alumni Executive Center.

Dee and Anne both had established scholarships in honor of their parents, and Dee contributed a second scholarship for education students in Anne’s memory. Dee also chaired a committee to form our own Class of 1949 scholarship several years ago, which continues to benefit students. To keep our awards going, please consider stipulating all or part of your annual contribution to our class scholarship.

Harriet Scott Brockenbrough recently has brightened our column with happy reports of returning to her original Eastern Shore home, Chatham, now part of a vineyard and winery. At Christmas, Harriet rented the house for four nights, and two of her sons and a cousin stayed there and entertained friends and neighbors. Son Tom even decorated the house inside and out for the holiday. You can read more about their cozy Christmas online, in the unedited Class Notes.

Son Allen’s daughter was home for the holidays, and son Scott and wife Jenny were settling into their new home in Arizona, having moved from Kirkland, Washington.

Betty Bond Heller Nichols continues her weekly visits to play piano for a singalong group at a retirement facility. A piano program she recorded last year was made available on YouTube, and she was surprised to hear that it had gone “viral,” which sounded to her like an illness of

32

Now for a rare personal note: In the days of preparation between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I experienced a sudden health problem. Thinking I somehow had broken a rib, I consulted my primary doctor of many years. He quickly ordered an X-ray, followed by a CT scan, followed by a PET scan (with no puppies or kittens in view) and, finally with the diagnosis in hand, set up the necessary biopsy. The result sent me to an oncologist, and the prognosis was not good. But a further test gave a more encouraging report – not a cure, but a possible slowing down of the end result. As this is written, I’m three weeks into a six-week IV therapy and awaiting the rest. At the end of the six weeks we’ll learn whether therapy is helpful and can continue.

As the days fly by, I would wish every dear classmate who has shared our mutual moment on earth health, hope, faith, and peace.

I bid you all a fond farewell.

With my love always, June.

1950

Marcy Weatherly Morris classnotes@umw.edu Carol Miller is near full recovery from her health problems and attended the Virginia Horse Shows Association annual meeting at the Homestead Resort in early December. She received a silver tray honoring her many years as historian.

It is with great sadness that I report that Patricia Head Ferguson died Aug. 17, 2017, of congestive heart failure. Patti was a friend to all, and her beautiful smile would light up any room she entered.

Nan Riley Pointer reports that she and husband Joe are both well. They cruised last year from Venice, with stops in Rome, Athens, and Corinth. In January of this year they cruised to Antarctica and enjoyed seeing the penguins! They’re proud of grandson Chris, who graduated from Virginia Tech in December.

Billie Mitchell Hanes’ 2017 included two trips Nan Riley Pointer ’50 cruised to Antarctica to New York. and enjoyed seeing the penguins.

She and daughter Leslie visited the Metropolitan If you wish to have God smile, tell him Museum of Art, saw Hello, Dolly! your plans! This was the start of my and Anastasia, and attended a 39th year as class agent for the Fabulous performance of the Rockettes.

Forty-Niners, and I had planned to make The Class of 1950 Arrington Scholarship it an even 40 years of service. And God was established in 2000 to recognize the smiled. With a deep bow to those who outstanding support of our class during preceded me – Anne McCaskill Libis, the our 50th Reunion Gift Campaign. It is late Irvin “Kitten” Whitlow Westbrook, awarded annually to a qualified student and the late Anna “Andi” Dulany Lyons who is the child of a UMW faculty or – we now need a new class agent to keep staff member. Our current recipient, our classmates informed, involved, and Benjamin Whipkey ’18, is a computer supportive of our beloved alma mater. science major due to graduate this spring.

The obvious nominee to take over is EmpowerHouse, a nonprofit agency Harriet Scott Brockenbrough, who has in the Fredericksburg area, celebrated been devoted to her group of high school 40 years of service in October. Our BFFs, a caring friend to her MWC best own Florence Overley Ridderhof was friends, an active traveler, and a prolific honored among the founders, along and highly observant writer. I hope to with Becky Butler Guy ’61 M.A. ’90 and persuade her to take the task, a labor of two late Mary Washington professors, love, but still a labor. If she accepts, she Sue Hanna and Alice Rabson. will need the support and cooperation of all caring classmates and the ready help of good friends in the alumni office.

UNIVERSITY OF MARY WASHINGTON MAGAZINE SPRING/SUMMER 2018

Juney and I are true stay-at-home senior citizens now, but we continue to

enjoy events at UMW. My new motto is “Enjoy what you can do, and don’t worry about what you can’t do!”

year (still 82 total) due to a knee injury in January at the Ocala Marathon.

He has done half marathons and 5Ks but still feels he needs to do more.

1951

Anne Rohrbach Culwell has two new great-great-grandboys.

No Class Agent classnotes@umw.edu

1952

Corley Gibson Freisen corleyfriesen@comcast.net Susan Hutcheson Jurgens is a great-grandmother.

1953

Betsy Dickinson Surles Surles@infionline.net

1954

No Class Agent classnotes@umw.edu

No Class Agent?

Your classmates still want to hear from you!

Send news directly to classnotes@umw.edu.

1955

Christine Harper Hovis chrishovis@aol.com 2017 wasn’t a great year in California.

Many wildfires burned, mainly in the southern part of the state. We had heavy fire fogs here for a few days but by Christmas they had cleared.

Sally Hanger Moravitz and her husband planned a southern cruise after the holidays.

Polly Stoddard Heim has four greatgrandchildren. She traveled east in September for the wedding of granddaughter Kelsey Heim.

Dorothy Booth Sanders and husband Dewey traveled this past year to Florida, northern Michigan, the Poconos, Tennessee, and New England. They enjoy theater, concerts, and seeking out places to eat featured on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. Dewey was unable to do any full marathons this

Mary Beth Otway Crawford mentioned that when she was waiting at a bus stop, a mother and her little son got off an incoming bus. The two women talked, and Beth discovered she also had attended Mary Washington.

I moved to The Virginian in Fairfax, Virginia, last August and have new friends, many activities, and great food that I do not have to shop for or cook! Marge Uhler Adcock was one of the first residents that I ran into. She is active with grandchildren and goes bowling every week. Other MWC alumnae here are Martha Blake Cooper ’59 and Margaret Hines Sickels ’49.

Meg White Fary and Frank have moved to Bermuda Run, North Carolina, from their mountaintop home of many years in Blowing Rock, While traveling the country, Dorothy North Carolina.

Booth Sanders ’55 sought out restaurants Frieda Headley Byrd made her featured on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. annual trip to Hilton Head for her family reunion, Joan Darden still bowls and plays golf which now includes five children and and bridge. She shared the sad news their spouses; five grandchildren and two of Marian Minor’s death on Nov. 26, spouses; and three great-grandchildren.

2017. Marian taught in Richmond public Ever-faithful Hermie Gross Fox wrote schools for 35 years, had served in our that she spent a week at Glacier National alumni association, and was an active Park last year with her daughter, sonvolunteer in many organizations. in-law, and three grandchildren. The group planned to visit New York at Joan Kleinknecht plays bingo and finds Christmas. Hermie walks daily and takes doing six cards easy for the brain. She cardio and yoga classes at the YMCA. also learned how to play Texas Hold ’em.

Phyllis Melillo Shanahan has a greatgrandbaby. Alice is her first!

Patricia Seibert Siegel is doing well but was surprised, as I was, to learn of the death of former theater professor Mark Sumner. We remembered going to the theater every night when we had a play going on.

We visited with Ann Strickler Doumas last May when our family went to Fredericksburg for graduation. We had a pleasant luncheon and shared memories of Mary Washington.

Ann Dunaway Criswell and husband Floyd divide the year between California and Virginia. He appreciates the water in the Bay Area but not the traffic and exorbitant prices. She enjoys the summer in Virginia.

1956

Ann Chilton Power anncpower1@gmail.com Mickey Foley McDaniel was sorting and packing possessions as she and Tim planned a move to an independent living retirement village. She still plays tennis in a senior league.

1957

Joyce Bristow Wrestler joycewrestler@yahoo.com Our 2017 fall/winter notes were omitted from the print magazine, but were posted online with apologies from the magazine staff. You can read the fall/winter notes at the bottom of this edition’s entry.* First the sad news. Joan Callahan Frankhauser’s husband, Mahlon, passed away July 10, 2017. Our love and sympathy go out to her.

Our class is cheering on the younger generation and volunteering in many areas within their communities. Libby Fordham recently attended her greatnephew’s middle school band concert in Fredericksburg. I, Joyce Bristow Wrestler, enjoyed watching my granddaughter and grandson march in the Christmas parade in Apex, North Carolina. Ellen Hertz Hewitt and her husband have become known as Granny and Grumps to a little boy next door to their new apartment.

Ellen recommends downsizing, as she is enjoying her neighbors, even having 14 of them for a Christmas gathering. Jean Durham Busboso tutors at a school and

UNIVERSITY OF MARY WASHINGTON MAGAZINE SPRING/SUMMER 2018

33

Classroom Experience Inspires a Career of Advocacy

B

etsy Pfromm ’71 says serendipity took her from sociology student to CEO of the Los Angeles Child Guidance Clinic, an organization that promotes the mental health of children and families in high-poverty areas of Central and South Los Angeles.

But the twists and turns of her career can be tied to the first time she stepped into a classroom of crying 6-year-olds.

Pfromm wasn’t sure what career she wanted when she graduated from what was then Mary Washington College of the University of Virginia. But she felt the liberal arts background gained at MWC had given her a strong foundation. “More than anything, my critical-thinking skills were well-honed,” she said.

With jobs scarce for sociology majors, she took a position as a first-grade teacher in a rural Virginia school. Many of her students came from impoverished households.

Most had never been away from home in this era before universal kindergarten and Head Start.

Pfromm saw enormous emotional needs, and she wanted to help the children develop a sense of social well-being. Reading groups, she found, let students share their feelings about situations a book’s characters faced.

“Over time, hit and miss, it kind of worked out,” Pfromm said. “It opened my mind to how early childhood experiences can really affect a child’s learning.”

That epiphany stayed with Pfromm as she earned a master’s degree from James Madison University, spent more than 15 years as a public health administrator in Virginia, and earned a Master of Public Administration degree from Harvard University.

When she graduated from Harvard, a friend suggested that she work for the Los Angeles Child Guidance Clinic. Pfromm had

Betsy Pfromm remains engaged in promoting the importance of young children’s mental well-being.

intended to stay on the East Coast, but a board member persuaded her to come out for a visit.

She saw that most of the children served by Child Guidance Clinic were 14 or older. Pfromm argued for services for children 5 and younger, with the aim of reducing the number who would need help down the line.

She hit the ground running with a $10 million capital campaign to build a new home for the clinic, which was losing the space it had occupied on the University of Southern California campus.

She worked with community groups to promote neighborhood safety and to increase funding for mental health services.

A program she launched called Building Blocks sends the clinic’s resources into preschools and offers weekend training sessions for

’71 34

UNIVERSITY OF MARY WASHINGTON MAGAZINE SPRING/SUMMER 2018

preschool teachers. In 2003, it won the Norbert and Charlotte Rieger Service Program Award for Excellence from the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

Pfromm retired in 2016 as CEO of the Child Guidance Clinic but ran the organization’s policy and training institute until she fully retired at the end of 2017. She remains engaged in promoting the importance of young children’s mental well-being, a need she calls critical to the country’s economic and social health.

She’s never forgotten where she first saw that principle in action – in a Virginia first-grade classroom.

“That experience has so much informed the work I have done since then,” she said.

– Emily Battle

is a hostess in her local historical center.

I continue singing with the community production of Handel’s Messiah.

Dorothy Rice Clark was just back from Italy last summer when our reunion was taking place; she planned to visit the Adriatic side of Italy in February. In the fall she visited Northern California and saw several national parks, though some later burned in the big fires. She has a new cochlear implant, her third.

Mary-Montague Hudson Sikes enjoyed signing her latest book, An Artful Animal Alphabet, at the UMW bookstore. She hopes to have another book out this year.

Last year, she had a show of her Mayan ruins paintings in Gloucester, Virginia, and showed some of her watercolors in a show in nearby Kilmarnock. Her painting Journey of the Dragonfly won an award of excellence in a members show at Williamsburg Contemporary Arts Center.

She has a gallery space in Crossroads Art Center in Richmond. Mary and Olen traveled to Costa Rica; Key West, Florida; and Acadia National Park in Maine, a trip planned by daughter Allison.

Audrey Neff Knapp also sent her greetings. *The following are the Class of 1957 fall/ winter 2017 Class Notes, which were omitted from the last edition of UMW Magazine. The editor regrets the error.

Sixteen 1957 grads attended our 60th reunion, June 2017. Barbara Craft Grantz’s husband, Walter, photographed events and showed that campus is even more beautiful than ever. Walter’s sister Helen Grantz Fortner was unable to attend, but she was treated to his pictures. Libby Fordham did a wonderful job of shepherding fellow classmates and guests through the evening. Mary-Montague Hudson Sikes autographed books at the bookstore.

Helen Grantz Fortner was enjoying life at Westminster in Lake Ridge, where she paints and is on an arts committee.

She attended a wonderful family reunion at her granddaughter’s home.

Audrey Neff Knapp lives in Boca Grande, Florida, for seven months of the year and for five months in Marion, Massachusetts, where she can frequently see her grandchild.

Harriett Henderson Hazen divides her time between Vermont and Naples, Florida. She taught art at an elementary school in her early years after graduation, and she is recommending her alma mater to two granddaughters who are approaching college age.

In May 2017, Jean Durham Busboso took a river-boat cruise from Berlin to Prague, stopping in Wittenberg, Meissen, and Dresden. She was very moved by the Stalingrad Madonna at the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church.

Marlene Bost Braun wrote of her husband’s surgery, stroke, and rehab, and of her hope for his complete return to good health. We wish him well also.

My husband and I took a brief cruise to the eastern Caribbean islands in March 2017, a nice time to enjoy the warmth. I enjoyed seeing the numerous donkeys on Grand Turk Island, and apparently one of them wanted to see the state of Virginia, as it followed me to the tour bus and tried to board.

Thanks for sending any news you have.

1958

Susannah Godlove sgodlove5465@gmail.com

I was interested to see the article Organ Aficionada in the last issue of the UMW Magazine, tracing the career of Peggy Kelley Ellen Hertz Hewitt ’57 and her husband Reinburg. Peggy is have become known as Granny and a pipe organ expert and consults on Grumps to a little boy next door to their restoring historic new apartment. organs and building new ones.

Downsizing and grandchildren are the prominent themes at this time. Ellen Hertz Hewitt was in the midst of moving during Christmas of 2016. She wrote that she was enjoying the ducks, geese, herons, turtles, and other creatures around the pond at her new home.

Eileen Brillinger Harrer has moved to Cheney, Washington, to be near her son. Meredith Busby Frank shared the sad news that Patricia Simmer Bishop had passed away in August 2017. We send our sympathy to her family and friends.

Sherrill Massie Judd has settled down on her farm with husband Ray and daughter Marian. She’s been busy traveling, visiting the Massie homestead in Nelson County, and recovering from total knee replacement. She sees our suitemate Dorothy Newland Heishman, who plans to move somewhere warm.

I, Susannah Godlove, fell in September and fractured my hip in two places.

The only treatment is rest and medication for pain. I had a reaction to one of the prescription medicines and switched to Aleve. I had to stay home from September to December before I was allowed to drive.

When you have a minute drop me a note. Take care!

Let us hear from you!

Deadlines for submissions to class agents: • For fall 2018 issue: June 15, 2018 • For spring 2019 issue: Dec. 1, 2018

1959

Edna Gooch Trudeau ednanewkent@verizon.net After our mini-reunion Irene Piscopo Rodgers and her English cousin, Kathy, continued on to Connecticut to visit other cousins. Irene is retired and travels constantly. She went to St. Louis and Kansas City this summer.

It’s been a year since Mary Massey lost husband Jack, and she writes that she’s doing fine. She broke her left ankle when she slipped on some mud while hiking with her dog, Gigi, but she expected to heal in about eight weeks. She has signed up for a Road Scholar hiking and naturalist program in Ohio’s Cuyahoga Valley National Park in October.

Nancy Gwaltney Gillette and Bill were busy in June and July with weddings, graduations, and more.

Jane Tucker Broadbooks and John really like Chatham, Illinois. They do a lot of antiquing and enjoy being with their grandchildren.

Molly Bradshaw Clark went to India the year before last and planned a trip to Spain this year. She unfortunately missed a step and broke her hand. She has sold her home in Georgia and is in a retirement home in North Carolina. Her

UNIVERSITY OF MARY WASHINGTON MAGAZINE SPRING/SUMMER 2018

35

CLASS NOTES daughter is in Colorado and her son in Greenville, so she is constantly on the go.

Ann Brooks Coutsoubinas recently returned from a super cruise to Greece.

Celeste “Pug” Shipman Kaufman passed away in August. Her love for family, friends, and golf was outstanding.

She volunteered for 20 years in a palliative care unit at the University of Alabama-Birmingham Hospital. She had five grandchildren and a greatgrandson. Pug was an active contributor to our column over the years.

chair to buzz around her apartment building. She has frequent outings with friends by van transportation.

Please send news to the designated class agent according to the first letter of your maiden name.

Jean Eubanks Holland attends continuing education classes at Johns Hopkins and enjoys her grandchildren. Betty Ditmars Prosser has a serious medical issue but is convinced she will get better.

Her son is a medic and helped set up a triage center in Las Vegas after the mass shooting. Gretchen Squires Best is involved in a great church. She has 13 grandchildren and three greats.

From Connie: Kelly Cherry’s 27th book, Temporium: Before the Beginning to After the End, is available from Press 53 in North Carolina. She writes, “Burke and I plug along, both of us in love with our little dog.”

Jerri Barden Perkins saw CSPAN’s presentation of a speech at UMW by Harvard historian Annette GordonMy dear son-in-law, Matt, died of a Reed, who spoke as heart attack June 27. He was 42. He Jerri Barden Perkins is amazed at the part of the William and Virginia had just celebrated their B. Crawley Great 10th anniversary two days before and knowledge, ambition, and enthusiasm of the Lives Lecture Series. were leaving that weekend for their student correspondents in the UMW 1908 Jerri was inspired favorite place, Chincoteague, for a Letters Program. family vacation. Virginia and Lucas to join Gordonare grief-stricken. Matt was a good Reed’s seminar man, a loving husband, and a fantastic about the topic dad. He donated three organs.

– Thomas Jefferson in Paris – to be held Karen Larsen Nelson visited with her this May in Paris. Jerri is delighted to daughter and other family members – five correspond with another bright student of them under age 6 – in early December in UMW’s 1908 Letters Program. She to celebrate Darrell’s 80th birthday. Their writes, “Although I am uncertain how Karen Larsen Nelson son from Florida also attended the party much students learn from me, I am karenlarsennelson60@gmail.com weekend. At home in Mesa, Arizona, she amazed at their knowledge, ambition, and Darrell are busy with their church, Jody Campbell Close and enthusiasm.” She looked forward to which is embedded in an assisted living jclose2@cfl.rr.com returning to UMW in September to meet facility. They have been asked by another the newest recipient of the John C. and senior apartment Jerri Barden Perkins ’61 Study Abroad community nearby Scholarship, established in memory of her to start a church Pat Voelker Donnell ’60 has been husband, Cal. She also planned to take program there. interviewing hurricane victims in Houston three grandchildren to Europe this year.

Joanne “Jody” who are seeking financial assistance.

Dee Doran Cairns and Doug moved Campbell Close back to Montgomery, Alabama, from is president of a San Antonio, Texas, to be closer to kids local genealogical and grandkids in the Southeast. She society and has been wrapped up Pat Voelker Donnell’s home wasn’t shares their new contact information in educational programs and other damaged in Houston’s hurricane, but she online, in the unedited class notes. activities. She dispatched the first volume felt frustrated not to be able to help in the Patty Cairns Hourin and Jim still of her family history to her children rescue efforts. When her church asked live in Mississippi and have a new and grandchildren.

She writes: “I am for volunteers to interview hurricane granddaughter, their sixth grandchild. fascinated but getting mixed reviews from victims seeking financial assistance, Pat the recipients – much polite evasion and Carole Grant LeMay also lives in stepped up. She was qualified, having eye rolling. Oh well, someday they’ll be Mississippi, in Natchez. She spent time spent more than 16 years conducting glad I did the groundwork, and it satisfies in October caring for daughter Jill, who interviews for Baylor College of Medicine my yearning for learning.” The library had surgery for a serious cut on her foot. and the Texas Workforce Commission. research reminded her of Trinkle Library.

Carole and Bee Stone Bowers planned Thanks to Pat and other volunteers,

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more than $300,000 had been disbursed by the end of the year, and Pat was still interviewing people for additional grants.

Sherry Farrington Green reflected that moving to the Pacific Northwest 24 years ago as a widow created a whole new life for her. She still fences and is still birthing babies as a midwife, including two stints in Kenya. Gaye Roberts Olsen uses a motorized

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1961

Connie Booth Logothetis (A – G) connielogothetis@gmail.com Renee Levinson Laurents (H – Q) arjle@aol.com Lynne Williams Neave (R – Z) lyneave@aol.com

UNIVERSITY OF MARY WASHINGTON MAGAZINE SPRING/SUMMER 2018

a trip to Richmond in April for Garden Week along the James River. While there, she hoped to visit with freshman roomie Tommy Hulcher Thompson.

Carole and Ralph planned a cruise to Cuba in September, politics allowing.

Clara Sue Durden Ashley was optimistic about her recently completed chemo, treating cancer for the third time. In October, she and Clarence attended the

funeral of John Lowe at their church in Great Falls, Virginia. John was the lawyer who won a lawsuit in federal court in Richmond allowing women to enroll in and receive degrees from the University of Virginia. Clara’s son Andrew could be seen on TV when the House Judiciary Committee was questioning Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Andrew is the military legislative assistant to a congresswoman from Alabama.

Matte McCeney Campbell wrote that her dear husband of 54 years, Gil, died in February. He had been living in a Nashville nursing home, where he was the staff’s favorite patient.

Betty Alrich Latta reported that she was in near-remission after treatment for a chronic form of lymphoma. In April, she and friends went to see the cherry blossoms in Washington; the Marine Corps Museum in Quantico; and the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

Betty left the group to visit relatives in Richmond. She also visited her time-share in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, with oldest son Dan and his family. In November, her youngest son adopted his wife’s two daughters. Betty now has eight grandchildren, six of whom live near her in California. Betty planned to visit friends in Memphis over Christmas, staying at the new Graceland hotel.

I went with husband Andy in July to a wedding in Toronto. In August we drove to Columbia, South Carolina, to view the total solar eclipse. In September we visited Fredericksburg for the UMW Legacy Breakfast with my sister, Linkey Booth Green ’63, and her UMW granddaughter, Emily Rossi ’21. Andy and I spent our 54th anniversary in the western North Carolina mountains. Just after Thanksgiving we had a wonderful visit with Dee and Doug Cairns at their son’s home on Emerald Isle, near Camp Lejeune. We’re planning a Mississippi riverboat cruise from New Orleans to Memphis this spring and look forward to a guided tour of Natchez sites from Carole Grant LeMay. From Lynne: Polly Updegraff Champ works part time as a dresser for Broadway touring shows in Hartford, Connecticut. She dressed the children’s ensembles of The King and I and Finding Neverland and caught their colds. Polly looked forward to visiting their condo in Florida for the Palm Beach Opera season, daily walks, early bird dinners, biking, and visits

with friends and family. She has four Polly Updegraff Champ ’61 Scholarship students this academic year. Since 2001 she’s been able to help 17 students.

to make blanket chests with dovetail joinery, then to build ornate birdhouses, and then embraced steampunk art. She sent me photos of two of her steampunk metal sculptures.

Deborah Phinney Wylie has been busy with grandchildren graduating from high school and heading to college.

Five of the eight are in college now.

Debbie has taken trips to Georgia and Missouri and made her yearly visit to the family cabin on a lake in Maine. She is involved with her town library and food pantry, and she plays bridge and tennis.

Polly Updegraff Champ ’61 dressed children’s ensembles for the Broadway touring shows The King and I and Finding Neverland.

Eleanore Saunders Sunderland spent Thanksgiving at her son’s home in Cincinnati with a large contingent of Sunderlands, then spent a week in the Algarve region of Portugal before returning for Christmas with daughter Jane. She and her 22-year-old grandson made a January trip to Milan, Italy, to visit her other daughter, Jude. Eleanore planned to curl up with her cat and her fireplace for the rest of the winter.

Nancy Wright Wright moved two miles from her former home to Greenspring, a retirement community with medical care available on site and dining every night. She’s in good health, and her three sons and their families live in the area. You can find her new contact information online, in the unedited class notes. Nancy’s sister, Katherine Thomas Wright Pratt Waters ’69, is a retired nurse and lives with her second husband, Wes Waters, on a horse farm near Damascus, Virginia. Wes was her high school boyfriend! Katherine has two daughters – one a doctor and the other a physical therapist, both in North Carolina. Nancy also owns a home in Damascus, and she loves visiting at the Fourth of July and in October, for the fall scenery. I planned to spend Christmas and New Year’s Eve in New York City.

From Renee: Mary Hatcher has made frequent trips to Colonial Williamsburg for meetings. She planned trips to Ireland and to Phoenix, Arizona.

Sandy Phillips Conklyn published a book online, Dr. Martin’s Healing Garden.

The title refers to an heirloom lima bean grown by the Heirloom Seed Project.

The book was inspired by a medicinal herb garden that she and other volunteers planned, researched, and brought to life at Landis Valley Museum in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Sandy majored in chemistry, but in retirement she’s had time to develop her art skills. She taught herself

Marcia Minton Keech and hubby were in Virginia in late October while their daughter had an operation; while there they looked around for a retirement community. They fell in love with Shenandoah Valley WestminsterCanterbury, put their name on a cottage, and returned to Savannah to sell their home. It sold in three days!

They planned to move in January. You can find their new contact information online, in the unedited class notes.

Peggy Howard Hodgkins has hosted two fall weddings in her yard.

Granddaughter Breana was one of the beautiful brides. And now for the not good news: Peggy fell four times over 16 months, resulting in four concussions and two broken bones. She is now happily wearing an emergency alert button and trying to protect her brain.

Sylvia McJilton Woodcock said Stuart is on the mend and back on solid foods after six weeks of treatment for pancreatitis.

I still am enjoying classes at UCLA Extension. I lost my beloved cat, Dickens, Aug. 1. He was almost 19, a big, beautiful, part-Persian boy. Losing him broke my heart. I have had a miserable bout with benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, but I’m doing better thanks to physical therapy at the Balance Disorder Institute. Who knew there was such a thing? Because of it, I’ve put on hold my search for a house in Palm Desert while preparing to sell this place. My garage is full of books, “well, you never know,” and other “lifebilia.” I’ve decided on Sun City Palm Desert, an over-50 community that’s like year-round adult camp. I had cataract surgery on my right eye, and it is simply miraculous.

I haven’t had vision this clear in 30

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CLASS NOTES years. I planned to have surgery on my left eye in February, and I looked forward to no glasses except readers.

1962

Kathleen Sprenkle Lisagor Klisagor@yahoo.com Jane Walshe McCracken janemcc@cox.net The recipient of the Class of 1962 Scholarship is Georgianna Silva ’19.

From Kathleen: A wonderful group of 20 chattered and hugged during our 55th reunion in June. We had an elegant private dinner, and a highlight of the evening was the surprise entrance of President Troy Paino. He presented an award to Nancy Powell Sykes for her generous donation to the college. She also was president of the alumni association from 1985 through 1988.

We decided to try for mini gatherings before our 60th reunion, and our first was an early Christmas lunch at Keswick in Central Virginia. Mary Sue Miller McDonald and Emily Lewis made the reservation, and Joan Akers Rothgeb, Bettie Stewart Kienast, Georgianne Maloy Hull, Maggie Walker MacAllister, and I attended.

We extend our deep sympathy to Maggie, who recently lost her husband and is recuperating from knee surgery.

Our concerns are also with those who have very ill husbands, Myrtle Dean France, Ann Tench Huml, and Carolyn Powell Piotrowski.

Louis Lacy, the devoted husband of Joyce Wilborn Lacy, says Joyce has recuperated well from her hip surgery but has other health issues. Donna Floyd Parker has been back in Roanoke helping her sister after surgery.

On a happy note, the oldest of my eight grandchildren received her master’s degree in music in December. I am again playing the piano for church after months of therapy, pain pills, and a neck collar to relieve a pinched nerve in my neck.

Good news also includes Diana Copple Smith’s move to be near her daughter in Wilmington, North Carolina. Betsy Carper Cole has a new great-grandson in California, and she attended her son’s 50th birthday in Pawleys Island, South Carolina. Sue Grandy Farrar continues

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to arrange outstanding museum exhibits and was planning a trip to Greece.

Faye Greear Metzl and husband Jim enjoy kayaking and traveling between Camden, South Carolina, and the Virginia mountains. They’re renovating her mother’s home, which Faye recently inherited. After teaching 32 years in Fairfax, Rebecca Cross Salzinger has retired. She enjoys her first grandchild and visiting her son in Denver. Gale Taylor Hickerson Drew and husband Lewis are active and travel with the Richmond Symphony. Sally Rambo retired after 36 years as a microbiologist.

Her travels include seven continents and 80 countries. She reads 150 books a year.

Another of Pat Mackey Taylor’s sons has married. Mary Lott uses her boat for charitable events. Liz Goldblatt Shapiro still loves to fish. We named her husband an honorary member of ’62 as he faithfully attends every reunion.

Pat Barrack Gibson’s husband is also an honorary member, as he drives her from South Carolina for each reunion.

Our dear Joan Rothgeb would like to thank classmates who were so supportive during husband Eddie’s illness and after his death. She recently underwent eye surgery, and at this difficult time she finds it necessary to resign as a class agent. Nancy Powell Sykes, who has just returned from visiting with her daughter in California, has graciously agreed to help with this job.

church. Husband Bill is handling the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease well and has even preached and conducted services while their senior minister was on sabbatical. They welcomed their sixth grandchild last fall.

My freshman roomie, Mary A. Settle Johnson, has had a cancer diagnosis and asks for prayers. She lives in Florida and has her sons nearby. My sophomore roomie, Jeanne Chabot Wallis, had back surgery, which has curtailed her golfing somewhat. She and Wally spend several months in Florida each winter. My junior roomie, Rosalie “Ding” Moyer Schwarz, has done a bit of traveling this past year with husband Gene. They enjoy time with their grandchildren. My senior roomie, Barbara Scherberger Offerman, posted a picture on Facebook of her two white dogs after a walk during the awful Ventura County fires this fall.

Both dogs were covered with gray ash.

Last April, Arlene Drescher Wilson had a solo art show as a fundraiser for the Nashville Tree Foundation and raised $3,400. The show featured a barefoot cello player, whom she paid with one of her paintings. “It was a blast worthy of Music City,” Arlene said.

Betsy Lydle Smith sent video of Nancy Slonim Aronie in an interview with Deanne Barrett of Whole Hearted Parenting. Nancy talks about creativity and writing. She also speaks of relationships, including her journey with son Dan, who had multiple sclerosis.

Her stories show humor, wisdom, Faye Greear Metzl ’62 enjoys kayaking and and life experience.

traveling between Camden, South Carolina, and the Virginia mountains.

1963

Linkey Booth Green linkeyg@embarqmail.com Betsy Lydle Smith betsy@virtuestraining.com It’s hard to believe that it is 2018 and we have our 55th reunion coming up in June. I hope many of you are planning to attend.

Linda Gulnac Steelman is still serving as senior interpreter at the Nantucket Whaling Museum in addition to being de facto choir adviser at

UNIVERSITY OF MARY WASHINGTON MAGAZINE SPRING/SUMMER 2018

Barbara Grant Fox and Dave have lived in southwestern Michigan for 28 years. Son Derek is a professor of small animal orthopedic surgery at the University of Missouri, Columbia.

Daughter Susan Fox-Roush ’89 lives in Lake Havasu City, Arizona, and has a daughter, Alexandra.

My sister Connie Booth Logothetis ’61 and her husband had a wonderful weekend with my husband, David Green, and me at UMW last September. We attended the Legacy Breakfast with my granddaughter, Emily Rossi ’21. David and I were lucky enough to stay in the alumni guesthouse, which is old Trench Hill. It is now called Kalnen Inn, and it is beautiful.

1964

Susan Rowe Bunting Susan.bunting@gmail.com The Class of 1964 once again has a class agent as Susan Rowe Bunting has volunteered. She writes that she’s always enjoyed catching up with her former classmates through class notes. She lives in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, “a bit out of the way of UMW happenings,” but looks forward to hearing from classmates and sharing their news.

Barbara Burton Carlson sent in a lovely reminiscence about living at Trench Hill in 1960 and ’61, her freshman year. She roomed with Barbara Kellam Lathan and Carole Carrera Davis, and she remembers suitemate Barbara Corcoran ’61 and other friends. You can read her full note online, in the unedited class notes.

1965

Phyllis Cavedo Weisser pcweisser@yahoo.com I spent five weeks in October and November on a cruise that circled Australia. It’s an amazing country, but the trip was too long for me, and the ship was too big! This summer I’m planning a more manageable cruise around the British Isles – just two weeks, and on a smaller ship.

Suzanne Mason Haff writes that she received a new knee in September and has a new lease on life. She and Martha Hanks Cooper ’64 went on a Road Scholar excursion in Key West in late January. Suzanne and Pete live in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Their daughter and her husband live in Canberra, Australia, and her son and his girlfriend of 14 years live in Brooklyn, New York. Suzanne keeps up with Connie Marsh Pollard ’64, her freshman year roommate in Willard.

Lee Smith Musgrave writes that everyone is welcome to stay at her home if they are ever in Blacksburg.

Rebecca Tebbs Nunn became state director of the Virginia Senior America Pageant after serving as Ms. Virginia Senior America. She and husband Spike, a retired American Airlines captain, travel extensively. Becky also is vice mayor of Kilmarnock, Virginia.

Louise Stevens Robbins stayed with Dianne Copty Fadely in Maryland while Louise assisted younger sister Joyce in rehab after back surgery. Sadly, Joyce passed away June 8, 2017.

Louise’s niece Denise Elena Boyd ’94 passed away Dec. 1, 2017, during liver transplant surgery. Denise was the daughter of Louise’s late sister Donna Stevens Boyd ’62. Louise herself had hip replacement surgery followed by surgery to repair a broken femur, keeping her homebound for several months. On a happier note, she was inducted into the Wisconsin Library Heritage Hall of Fame in October.

grandchildren live in North Carolina and Maryland. She sees Gail Waechter Owen and Martha Wangler Ryan periodically. Kathryn “Kitty” Burruss Stapleton and husband Dan love living in their log house on Bull Run Mountain, only eight miles from their younger son and his family. Their older son and his family live in Florida. They spent five weeks traveling from France to Lithuania and visiting friends along the way.

Judith Strawbridge Dickinson was Louise Stevens Robbins ’65 was inducted widowed in 2014 after 46 into the Wisconsin Library Heritage Hall wonderful married of Fame. years. She lives in Morehead City, North Carolina, near her daughter, also a widow, Martha Jo Dillard Walters is in several and grandchildren ages 16 and 11. book clubs, does volunteer work, Her younger son lives in Kinston, participates in choral groups, and North Carolina. Her older son, his travels. Her son and his family live in wife, and their 5-year-old son live Hickory, North Carolina, a short trip in Benton, Arkansas. Judith enjoys from her in Charlotte, and she enjoys cooking for her friends, playing an her four grandchildren. In March she occasional round of golf, attending went on a mission trip to Haiti. In book seminars, and reading.

July she celebrated the 50th wedding anniversary of her roommate, Katharine Dodd Hardin, and husband Ennis at their home in Southport. In October she traveled to Italy with UMW alumni.

Katharine Rogers Lavery hlavery1@cox.net Joanne Lott Byrne retired from Northrop Grumman in 2010, and she and Dick Barbara Bishop Mann organized travel often to visit grandchildren. This a MWC Lunch Bunch meeting in fall, she went on a Royal Caribbean cruise September at La Petite Auberge in Old to New England, New Brunswick, and Town Fredericksburg. Anne Meade Nova Scotia. She traveled to northern Clagett, Sheila Denny Young, Carolyn Italy to do some landscape painting Eldred, Katharine Rogers Lavery, Lois in the picturesque towns. She keeps in Rucker Scott, Eileen Goddard Albrigo, touch with her roommate from senior Anne Kales Lindblom, Joan Cuccias year, Marcia Pexton Peura ’66, who Patton, Caroline Hogeland Ruppar, lives in California with husband Ed. and Jana Privette Usry attended. Face

1966

Janice Helvey Robinson and husband Rob enjoy their retirement in suburban Atlanta. Both their children live nearby.

Their oldest grandchild, Katie, studies at the University of Georgia in Athens. Their other grandkids are 5, 8, and 10. Janice and Rob recently vacationed in Salt Lake City, Utah; Deadwood, South Dakota; and Hilton Head, South Carolina.

Evie King Cox and husband Herb continue to live in the beautiful Northern Neck of Virginia on the Coan River. They grow oysters and catch crabs off their dock.

Alice Funkhouser Flowers’ husband, George, died in 2017. She does archives, publications, and special projects at St. Christopher’s School. Her children and

Time provided a connection with Kathleen Goddard Moss in California.

Mary Kathryn Rowell Horner, Susan Hanes Chaney, and Sandra Hutchison Schanné reluctantly missed the lunch.

Carolyn Eldred corresponds with a UMW student in the 1908 program and attends UMW’s live theatre productions, which display an outstanding level of professionalism. Carolyn has renewed her interest in historic preservation by volunteering for the Historic Fredericksburg Foundation.

Susan Hanes Chaney and Bill celebrated their July anniversary in the coolness of Snowshoe, West Virginia, with a ride on the Cass Railroad. In November they were in Pensacola Beach for Bill’s

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Scholar Examines South African Activism

R

aised in the tiny town of Kilmarnock on Virginia’s Northern Neck, Dawne Y. Curry ’90 was a shy teenager in search of a smallcollege experience when she arrived at Mary Washington as a freshman.

It’s fair to say she’s come out of her shell.

These days, Curry feels most at home in Johannesburg, South Africa, a bustling urban center of more than 9 million people – a fair number of whom she’s interviewed over the last 20 years while gathering stories of female empowerment and anti-apartheid activism.

“I love talking to people and getting intimate stories of history and seeing how people shape or preserve their memories,” said Curry, a University of NebraskaLincoln history and ethnic studies professor spending the 2017-18 school year in South Africa as a Fulbright recipient. “It’s very important to me that the voices of Africans are heard in my work.

How am I going to teach African history if I haven’t been here?”

At Mary Washington, Curry majored in international affairs and Spanish, thinking at first that she might like to pursue a job as a Spanish interpreter for the United Nations. She also was keenly interested in the American civil rights movement, “but college exposed me to the anti-apartheid struggle going on” in South Africa, she said.

Her interest piqued, Curry earned a master’s degree in international affairs and African studies from Ohio University and a doctorate in African history at Michigan State.

“If it wasn’t for that beginning at Mary Washington, I might not have had the courage to go to Michigan State. Having that foundation really helped a lot,” she said.

Curry took her first trip to South Africa as a graduate student in 1997, supported by a

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Social Science Research Council pre-dissertation fellowship.

Since then she’s received grants and fellowships for several return trips to South Africa, where her research primarily focuses on resistance and the struggle for human rights. In her 2012 book, Apartheid on a Black Isle: Removal and Resistance in Alexandra, South Africa, Curry examined the key role played by residents of a black and mixed-race township outside Johannesburg in reversing the scourge of apartheid.

The focus of her Fulbright research – and her next book – is the many ways women contributed to political thought and activism in the five decades between the creation of the Union of South Africa

Dawne Curry’s research primarily focuses on resistance and the struggle for human rights.

UNIVERSITY OF MARY WASHINGTON MAGAZINE SPRING/SUMMER 2018

in 1910 and the rise of apartheid and so-called “pass laws,” which required black residents to carry identity papers at all times when traveling through white neighborhoods, under penalty of arrest. She spends her days examining archived letters, diaries, and newspaper articles, interviewing residents and historians, and soaking up the culture at jazz clubs and theaters.

“To me, Johannesburg is home.

It has the pulse of the people. It’s edgy. I just like the humanity of the place,” Curry said. “Being here serves my creativity as a scholar and a person. It’s like the water in Virginia … it just stirs something in you.”

– Edie Gross

Navy reunion, where he was the only World War II veteran. Susan and Bill mourned the loss of their beloved dog but welcomed puppy Casey into their home, and now they are really busy.

selected by the International Thespian Society to show this summer on the main stage in Lincoln, Nebraska.

They’re glad to be back home after living in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and North Carolina.

Anne Powell Young and her husband are I was also a math major but missed relocating from Knoxville, Tennessee, the internship opportunity because of to Stafford, Virginia, building on three student teaching in acres about five miles from the Potomac Fairfax, Virginia.

River. Anne is excited to be back in the That turned Gerry Sargent Habas ’66 substitute Fredericksburg area, just five minutes out to be a very from their daughter and 45 minutes successful summer. teaches in underserved schools in Orlando, from their son in Springfield. Anne will My supervising which saw an influx of students from Puerto sorely miss Tennessee resident Betty teacher said, Rico after Hurricane Maria.

Birckhead Vickers, a close friend and “Katharine, I think neighbor for nearly 50 years. Anne you know more mentioned that Betty and Vick traveled about this than to Pasadena, California, to visit their I do, so if there’s daughter’s family for Christmas and anything I can do to help you, just Barbara Bishop Mann and Robert took a stayed to attend the Rose Parade let me know.”

From then on, he was Rhine River cruise to celebrate their 50th and parties on New Year’s Day. essentially my assistant, and I taught anniversary. In July Bobbi went to Myrtle the algebra classes on my own.

Cathe Cantwell Luria and Eric have Beach, South Carolina, for a Delta Kappa purchased their rental home in Ajijic, Gamma Society International conference.

Gerry Sargent Habas and Sally Souder Mexico, and are making upgrades.

Bobbi was honored to attend a discussion continue their tradition of meeting in They still travel back to Gig Harbor, on public education featuring Virginia St. Petersburg, Florida, for lunch. Sally Washington. They went to France last first lady Pam Northam and several takes advantage of the wonderful arts May for English country dancing in a former Virginia first ladies. Bobbi learned in Sarasota and was in the throes of French chateau. In December, the whole that one of her retired teacher friends kitchen remodeling. Gerry substitute family celebrated daughter Sacha’s 40th was on an August cruise with Roger and teaches in underserved schools in birthday in Playa del Carmen, Mexico.

Ryan Stewart Davis and met them on Orlando, which saw an influx of the steps of the Hotel Savoy in Rome.

Pat Lewars Pace and Linda Glynn students from Puerto Rico after the Hutchinson traveled in September to disastrous Hurricane Maria.

Judy Wells Clark is an organist at South Macedonia, Bulgaria, and Greece, Roanoke United Methodist Church and with day trips to freelances as a pianist. She and friends Kosovo and Serbia. played a return tour in Japan last year, Visiting medieval Cathe Cantwell Luria ’66 went to France for produced CDs of the concerts, and monasteries English country dancing in a French chateau. have two programs planned this year. and temple sites Winnie Woodson Stribling directs two handbell choirs. She works with Catholic Charities to help resettle Afghan refugees living in Oakland, California. Winnie tutored one mother in English and helped ease the family – including five boys under 10 – into the community.

Winnie and Brad toured national and state parks in the American Southwest.

After having such a good time last reunion, Winnie and Eleanor McJilton Thompson have already resolved to attend our next reunion in 2021.

Mary Kathryn Rowell Horner and Charlie spent the winter in Naples, Florida, escaping the cold, playing golf, and enjoying the sunshine and happy hours. Mary Kathryn applauded our NASA-interning math majors’ feature in the fall issue of the UMW Magazine, thanked Marty Spigel Sedoff for spearheading the input, and enjoyed reliving those moments. Marty sent a last-minute bulletin that son John Riedlinger directed the play The Visit at Edina High School, and it has been

Yvonne March reported that the eye of Hurricane Irma passed over her home, causing widespread power failures and fallen trees. Last summer Yvonne traveled out West, nursed husband Chris through surgery, then went to Massachusetts for a family reunion.

They spent Thanksgiving with family in Florida and Christmas at home.

Hurricane Harvey reached close, but not quite to, Katie Green’s Houstonarea home. The airport reopened just in time for her to fly to London to visit her son, his wife, and their baby girl. They all visited Brussels and Amsterdam.

Katie then headed to Cardiff, Wales, to visit her other son and his family.

Annette Maddra Horner and husband John renovated a home in Richmond, Virginia, and moved there in November. They appreciate being closer to family, including their daughter and grandchildren, and they enjoy Richmond’s expanding cultural life.

required basic rock-climbing skills, often in 95-degree heat. Despite Linda’s lost luggage and Pat’s lost ATM card, the two ladies enjoyed beautiful, interesting sights and had a grand time with the friendly local people.

Jana Privette Usry spent 17 days in Italy on a UMW-sponsored tour. The travelers were 24 alumni from classes of ’65 to ’17. Director of Alumni Relations Mark Thaden ’02 hosted a cocktail party for the group beforehand. One member, Karen Wells Scott ’68, was Jana’s sister’s high school classmate, and they became fast friends and shopping companions. You can read more about the trip in the unedited class notes online.

Sandra Hutchison Schanné traveled to Denver, Colorado, in August to care for three grandchildren while their parents were away. In September Sandra had cataract surgery, and now her vision is better than ever.

Sandra shared sad news that her dear friend and suitemate Katie Hales

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CLASS NOTES Fleming ’65 passed away in December.

Katie’s son remarked that although Katie earned a master’s degree and a Ph.D., she “proudly and continuously wore her MWC class ring until the day she died.”

Susanne Landerghini Boehm thought about all of us while watching Warren Beatty’s film Rules Don’t Apply.

Beatty, who was born and raised in Virginia, mentioned more than once that a main character had received a scholarship from Mary Washington!

Pam Kearney Patrick and husband TaB spent Thanksgiving in Cape May, enjoying the final stages of remodeling.

Their son flew in from Sacramento to join them. Pam displayed three miniature watercolors in an art show and won an honorable mention. Pam’s best painting buddy, Carol Bingley Wiley, has also displayed a variety of fantastic watercolors. Pam has cultivated a new pastime, being a political junkie.

She joined the Women’s March and has brushed up on the workings of government, a fascinating subject.

Pam keeps in touch with Ambler Carter in Philadelphia and has plans to visit. She also attended her 55th high school reunion and had a blast.

Terry Caruthers’ 2017 included a trip to the New Orleans Jazz Festival in April for her sister’s 66th birthday, an Alaskan cruise in June with recentgraduate grandsons, and a 50th wedding anniversary trip with Don to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. They attended a solar eclipse lake party with more than 50 friends, traveled to Orlando in November, and celebrated holidays at home with their whole family.

Kathy Goddard Moss and Tom have settled nicely in their Oakland, California, apartment in a small retirement community. They’re close to their son’s family and enjoy many family gatherings. Kathy and Tom have many opportunities for travel, and they spent Christmas in Spain.

Let us hear from you!

Deadlines for submissions to class agents:

For fall 2018 issue: June 15, 2018

For spring 2019 issue: Dec. 1, 2018

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1967

Nancy McDonald Legat dlegat1@sc.rr.com Nancy McDonald Legat and husband Dan live in Lexington, South Carolina, and enjoy time with their three daughters, their husbands, seven grandchildren, and three greatgrandchildren. Nancy also enjoys a little writing, a smidgen of gardening, and trying her hand at making cards.

After 12 years as a class agent, Nancy is ready to turn over duties to someone new. If you’d like to volunteer, please email classnotes@umw.edu.

1968

Meg Livingston Asensio meglala46@gmail.com I have had a busy spring preparing to sell my home in California and move near relatives in Denver. I plan to attend reunion, and I hope you will, too. Your 1968 Reunion Committee is busy planning a spectacular 50th class reunion weekend. I am looking forward to seeing each of you in June as we return to MWC to reconnect and celebrate!

if our house was still standing, but at last we got word that ours was spared. Our community lost only two of 3,000 homes.

I’m volunteering with rebuilding, including being on the rebuild committee of my golf club’s three-story clubhouse.

Almost everyone was underinsured. If you have a home insurance policy, whatever you signed up for, it is not enough. Raise the policy as high as they will let you.

Bev Holt and wife Deb went to the Bahamas for Christmas to get out of the cold North Carolina winter. They have deer hanging out in their yard in Cary, as they know they are safer in the suburbs than in the open woods during hunting season. Bev volunteers at the local museum. Her town has a huge American Indian festival each November.

Bev’s mom lives in Richmond in a retirement home and is aging gracefully.

Jean Kelley Horne let us know of the recent passing of her mother, Grace Pannill Kelley Chapman ’41. She was 97, active, strong, and spirited. She loved Mary Washington, her professors, the campus, and her lifelong college friends.

Sharon Dobie spent a month in Oaxaca, Mexico, working on her Spanish while enjoying the rich politics, art, music, and dance culture. After the loss of her son to scleroderma, she Our class is happy that Pat Gwaltney has joined the board McGinnis ’69 is on the UMW Board of Visitors. of the Scleroderma Research Foundation. As she gets closer to full retirement, she said she is politically active in her desire to see the national direction move toward the 21st century instead of away from it.

Iris Harrell irish@harrell-remodeling.com Linda Eadie Hood is very excited that Pat Gwaltney McGinnis is one of two new Ann and I lived through the lifemembers of the UMW Board of Visitors. threatening Santa Rosa wildfires. On And our very own Suzanne McCarthy Oct. 9, 2017, I woke smelling smoke, Van Ness is serving on the Alumni and though our house was not on fire we Association Board of Directors. Linda went out on the deck and saw roaring red and husband Rick went to the Women’s and huge billows of unending smoke.

March in Seattle and joined the ACLU’s A dear friend called to say, “Get your People Power movement. They spent cat, get your meds, and get out!” We Christmas in Victoria, British Columbia, took Ann’s guitar, which she has had where it snowed on Christmas Eve. since she was 12; our cat, his litter Betty Wade Miles Perry and husband box, and his food; my golf clubs, Boyd celebrated their 43rd anniversary which were in the car; our pickleball in September with a trip to Hawaii. paddles; and our cash and checkbook.

Boyd golfed while Betty went to the We drove two hours south in our Tesla spa, shopped, and read. They have SUV and used the biohazard button in the three grandkids. Betty loves cooking, car to keep from choking on the smoke. knitting, reading, weekly canasta, and For the next eight days we did not know watching downloaded movies in the

1969

UNIVERSITY OF MARY WASHINGTON MAGAZINE SPRING/SUMMER 2018

comfort of home. She volunteers with a foundation that provides hope and support for children with cancer.

The recipient of the Class of 1969 50th Anniversary Reunion Scholarship is Morgan Bates ’21. Recipients of the Class of 1969 Laura V. Sumner Memorial Scholarship are Cedric Ansah ’21 and Megan Garvin ’18.

1970

Anne Sommervold LeDoux ledouxanne@yahoo.com Our 50th reunion is in 2020, and we’d love to see as many of you as possible. If you can’t make the trip, please consider contributing to our class gift to benefit the mental health center on campus.

We have a Facebook page, Mary Washington College Class of ’70.

Barbara Forgione Tansey of Chesapeake, Virginia, is very involved with daughter Lisa and grandson Bodie. She and Lisa stayed in a lovely resort on the Albemarle Sound in Edenton, North Carolina, and then went sightseeing in Asheville.

Lee Howland Hogan recently returned from a river cruise from Basel, Switzerland, to Amsterdam, Netherlands. She hopes some of us including Donna Accettullo DeNyse and Bettie Brooks Reuter can get together in New York City soon.

Gabby Pagin’s second year of retirement was full of travels, house projects, and entertaining. She enjoyed a 10-day tour of the Galapagos, hiking the islands and swimming with sea turtles, sea lions, and fish. She joined UMW’s 17-day Portrait of Italy tour, traveling with many alumni and enjoying lectures by UMW Professor of Art History Marjorie Och. Gabby also met with classmates including Tina Kormanski Krause, Kathi O’Neill, Kathy Thiel, Susan Duffey DiMaina, Suzanne Ferguson Buchanan, Jean Botts, and Karen Muszynski.

Susan Duffey DiMaina serves on her neighborhood civic association board, a senior center board, and the UMW Alumni Board of Directors. She also plays pickleball. She traveled to Iceland in August and fell in love with the spectacular waterfalls, geysers, glaciers, and lava fields and the warm, charming people. Husband John retired after 25 years at the International Monetary Fund. Daughter Caitlin planned to finish nursing school at Johns Hopkins in May.

I was relieved to get great medical news in November, so life is good!

In October, John and I traveled to the United Kingdom for 18 days.

London is one of my favorite cities, so we visited many sites for a second or third time. We loved Wales, and I was brave and ate haggis twice in Scotland. In December, I went to the Christmas markets on the Rhine River cruise. I planned to visit Antarctica in February, my most exciting trip yet.

Mary “Fred” Bradley MacPherson and I will have given up co-chairing the College of Arts and Sciences Alumni Advisory Board by the time this is published. It was a great honor for both of us, but it’s time to let someone else step up.

1972

Sherry Rutherford Myers sherryhon2011@gmail.com

It is with deep sorrow that I report the passing of Robin Des Jardin Eckman’s husband, John. They were married for 35 years. On the brighter side, Robin Karen Laino Giannuzzi has become reacquainted with classmate Kapitankl11@yahoo.com Liz Pully because of the friendship of their daughters.

Karen Laino Giannuzzi ’71 stopped in a Robin’s daughter, Sarah Eckman ’07, lovely gift shop and discovered that the married Shaun owner was Caroline Sutton Morris ’79.

Sargent ’03 in September. The maid of honor was Liz’s daughter, Amy Weiss, and We start on a sad note. Our classmate bridesmaids were Emma Interlandi ’07 Mary Anne Burns passed away and Meghan Coyle ’08. John was suddenly in late 2017. Mary Anne did deeply missed at this happy event so much for our class over the years, but was probably there in spirit. especially for the 40th reunion, while In November I left the law firm I was still overseas. Rest in peace. after nearly eight years. I plan to do Penny Falkowitz Goodstein had a temporary work as a legal assistant, great time at our 45th and plans to but the task at hand is to downsize our attend our 50th. Penny is president of home in Baltimore and finally make two nonprofit groups in Anchorage, the move to my parents’ homestead Alaska, the Interfaith Council and in the Roanoke area. Dennis and the Turnagain Community Arts I are looking forward to it.

Alliance. Penny and Dan’s daughter We got together at Smith Mountain and grandsons also live in Anchorage.

Lake over Christmas with Cheryl Prietz And their son, a newly ordained Reform Childress and Dave, their daughter, Thea, rabbi, has come back to their home and her husband, Eric. We all enjoyed synagogue with his wife and son.

Cheryl and Dave’s new grandchild, Ellie.

One day wandering the streets of York, [Editor’s note: See the 2007 entry for a Pennsylvania, I stopped in a lovely gift story about a chance meeting between Patti shop and discovered that the owner is Barrow Rios and Kati Singel Engel ’07.]

Caroline Sutton Morris ’79. We had a wonderful chat and I learned that she teaches a business and organization course at York College of Joyce Hines Molina Pennsylvania. She plans eventually to Joyce.molina@verizon.net move back home to Fredericksburg.

1971

1973

I hear from others in our class like Liz Keith, Barbara Exline Staller (who lived in Betty Lewis but left to graduate from Ursinus in Pennsylvania), Terry Tucker Young (we have promised to get back in touch this year), and Diana “Diney” Rupert Livingston. I publish their names to encourage all of us to keep up with one another and send news!

Martha Moyse Pullen is social services director for Amelia County, Virginia, and enjoys bicycle touring with husband Barry. Last year they toured rural Ohio, Yellowstone National Park, and the Brittany and Normandy coasts of France. Martha is parliamentarian for the Virginia League of Social Services Executives and teaches yoga.

UNIVERSITY OF MARY WASHINGTON MAGAZINE SPRING/SUMMER 2018

43

CLASS NOTES weeks last summer in England and Scotland. They met up with son Sam in Edinburgh, where he was involved with programming lighting for the Pleasance Theater during Fringe Festival. Son Tom Updike ’17 earned a UMW degree in economics and a GIS certificate, and he played four years of rugby with no stitches! He plans to attend Navy Officer Candidate School. Jim has retired and signed all the papers in time to go with the UMW rugby team to Ireland over spring break.

After teaching in 11 states over 34 years, Vivian Wilson Watts ’73 has retired.

Vivian Wilson Watts has retired after 34 years of teaching in 11 states. She moved 25 times with husband Harry, a retired U.S. Air Force captain, finally settling in Virginia. Vivian has three children and eight grandchildren, with one more on the way.

Janet Hedrick recently became director of development for the American Society for Radiation Oncology.

Facebook postings by Winnie Stalnaker Feldhaus shared what looked like an incredible trip to Alaska.

Our 45th reunion happens soon, June 1-3. Reunion committee members are Deborah Biggers Garrison, Nancy Smith Raines, and Terry Rodgers Woodworth.

1974

Sidnia Baker Etherington sidleexx@yahoo.com Suzy Passarello Quenzer suzyquenzer@gmail.com Peg Hubbard and Karen Sunnarborg joined Mary Wash alumni on the Portrait of Italy trip last fall. They spent 17 magnificent days visiting Rome, Orvieto, Siena, Florence, and Venice.

Professor of Art History Marjorie Och accompanied the group. Peg also thanks Executive Director of Alumni Relations Mark Thaden ’02 for his efforts.

1975

Armecia Spivey Medlock vagirl805@msn.com The Fauquier County School Board recently chose Donna R. Grove as chair. She is part owner of White Ridge Farm and manages the Somerville Contract Postal Unit. She is a former teacher in Prince William County.

She has two adult daughters.

1976

Madelin Jones Barratt madbarratt@aol.com Lundy Baker Updike and husband Jim went to Europe in November to enjoy the Christmas markets. They spent three

44

still enjoys her “paid hobby” doing custom needlework for a friend who owns a needlepoint shop in Texas.

Debbie Allan King recently moved to Mukilteo, Washington, with husband Bob. She is semiretired, does freelance science writing, and presents slide shows to raise awareness of the climate change threat to the local community.

She leads an action group to transition Mukilteo to 100 percent clean energy.

Judy Sledge Joyce looked forward to graduations this spring – son Jack from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill with a degree in public relations and advertising, and her twins from high school. Son Jeffrey plans to attend Mary Washington Debbie Allan King ’76 does science writing in the fall.

and works to raise awareness of the dangers of climate change to the community.

2017 was a banner year for Janice Gernhart Bogy’s art career. She was juried into the prestigious Society of Animal Artists and several top shows including Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and Sedona, Arizona. She was preparing for the Charlie Russell art week in Great Falls, Montana, in March. She majored in music at Mary Washington, and her harp student was to perform with the Helena Symphony in February.

Hannah Patterson Crew’s younger daughter, Emily, was married in May 2017 and lives in St. Petersburg, Florida.

She works in the finance office of the University of South Florida, and her husband is an attorney. Hannah and Todd have been married for 39 years and hope to retire this year.

Margo Clifford plans to retire from teaching in July after 41 years. Lucy Dee Kinsey and husband Carrol moved to Palmyra, Virginia, near Charlottesville. Daphne Johnston Elliott and husband John were building a new home in Keswick, Virginia, also near Charlottesville.

Alison Haworth Regan enjoyed celebrating her mother’s 90th birthday, not long before her mother passed away in her sleep. Alison and husband Don hiked in Yellowstone National Park, attended a needlepoint retreat in Texas, and visited friends in Colorado. They plan a five-week RV trip to Alaska, returning via Calgary, Canada. Alison

UNIVERSITY OF MARY WASHINGTON MAGAZINE SPRING/SUMMER 2018

Mary Ann Kalafat Wray and husband Tim have relocated to Washington state. I traveled to Paris last spring to visit my daughter Anna, who was working there. What a thrill to see so much art and old architecture!

Four grandchildren live nearby.

1977

Anne Robinson Hallerman arhmwc77@yahoo.com Robin Dewey received the A.G. Brinley Award, given by the city of Davis, California, to recognize outstanding service in a particular area that benefits the city. Robin founded Team Davis, a nonprofit that enriches the lives of children and adults with developmental, intellectual, or physical disabilities.

Robin is a program coordinator for the Labor Occupational Health Program at the University of California at Berkeley’s School of Public Health. She also conducts training programs on how to teach basic occupational safety and health skills to workers with developmental and intellectual disabilities.

1978

Janet Place Fuller janetpfuller@aol.com Our 40th reunion is June 1 through 3. What a great time to reconnect.

At last year’s reunion, Beth Doggett Atkinson’s daughter, Virginia Atkinson ’03, was honored with the 2017 Outstanding

Young Alumnus award for her work in disability rights and civic engagement.

Beth and Virginia were guests of Mary Washington that weekend and stayed in a lovely room at the Kalnen Inn. Before attending the ceremony with family and friends, they showed Beth’s 14-year-old niece around campus, planting a seed. Beth is a volunteer docent for school groups at Gunston Hall in Fairfax County, Virginia.

She and her husband celebrated their 39th anniversary by viewing the solar eclipse from South Carolina.

Malinda Willis has taught painting with acrylics for about five years and now is certified to teach watercolors at Michaels Stores, where she has been employed since 1999. Malinda has two adult, married sons and two beautiful granddaughters, whom she adores.

Beverly Wood-Holt has retired from Hollywood and now lives at her farm in Southern Virginia, where she grew up.

She and her husband are building their organic farm, complete with chickens, ducks, potbellied pigs, and lots of veggies and fruits. They are building a new home there and still do a bit of consulting, so “retired” is a bit of a misnomer.

Roseanne Galzerano Wyatt and husband Jeff have retired and live in Ashland, Oregon. They both are planning to come to reunion.

1979

Barbara Goliash Emerson emers3@msn.com Carol Middlebrook, Betsy Larson Kyker, Lisa Jenkins, Jackie Del Gallo, Linda McCarthy Milone, and I, Barbara Goliash Emerson, had brunch in Washington, D.C. Carol and husband John Feldman had a fabulous trip to Antarctica aboard a National Geographic ship and took amazing photos of penguins, killer whales, and lots of snow and ice. Lisa’s sister, Marie Jenkins Schwartz, acknowledged Lisa’s assistance with her book The Ties That Bound: Founding First Ladies and Slaves.

My friend and Fairfax County government colleague Fatima Allibhai Khaja ’80 was promoted to manager of economic, demographic, and statistical research.

Gayle Weinberger Petro is always a great source of information on our classmates.

She reported that Sue Moore Davis

celebrated her 30th wedding anniversary and 60th birthday in September, shortly after she and her husband moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Sue is an instructional resource teacher, literacy coach, and test coordinator.

Gayle was the guest of honor in September at a “Sassy and Sixty” party in Vienna, Virginia. In lieu of birthday gifts, Gayle asked that we donate to the UMW Alumni Association, or that we make any UMW contributions unrestricted so the Alumni Association gets a portion.

home in Wilmington, Delaware, and enjoyed lunch and shopping in Glen Mills, Pennsylvania. Nancy’s father, Barton Quaintance, passed away in April 2017, and the group reminisced about Bart and his generous hospitality.

He was a true Southern gentleman.

Donna and Nancy planned a summer tour of national parks with Nancy’s brother, Richard. Nancy expects her second grandchild this summer.

Nancy, Donna, Vickie Nichols Sherertz ’78, and Lisa attended the Mount Vernon Wine Festival in October and enjoyed a tour Bonnie Berry ’79, former assistant to the of Mount Vernon and a beautiful director of the Smithsonian, is now a special sunset on the assistant at American University.

Potomac River while sipping fine wines.

Also from Gayle: Judy Kemp Allard is over the moon with the birth of her first grandchild, Camden. Lisa Carle Shields works for Sun Trust Mortgage and lives at Smith Mountain Lake.

Donna Anaya works for the National Cable Television Association and spent Christmas in Montana. Bonnie Berry left her position as assistant to the director of the Smithsonian and is now a special assistant at American University. She also works on television specials for the Fourth of July and Memorial Day, as well as the Kennedy Center Honors.

Nena Lee Kobayashi, one of the guests at Gayle’s birthday party, worked the USO tent at the Military Bowl in Annapolis in December. Pam Crowley teaches in Williamsburg and was looking forward to retirement.

Lisa Bratton Soltis of Roanoke works for that city’s Department of Economic Development. She also spends time chasing her three grandsons, blessings from her daughters, Annie and Jennifer.

She volunteers as a member of the UMW Foundation Board and looks forward to our 40th reunion next year.

Lisa sent the following news: Sally Hart Morgan and brother Evan Hart ’91 lost their mother, Carolyn Hart, in January. Carolyn and husband Joe had always welcomed the Mary Washington gals to their home in Ferrum, Virginia, where Joe was president of Ferrum College. Joe Hart passed away in 2016. Sally is director of community development in Bristol, Virginia.

Nancy Quaintance Nelles, Donna Anaya, and Karin Hedberg met at Nancy’s

Donna and Lisa also traveled with a group for a week in New Mexico and had an amazing visit. Following the Mount Vernon fun, Vickie, Joan Castner Niederlehner ’77 and Lisa headed to Pawleys Island, South Carolina, for a few days of Low Country living and cuisine.

Gayle Weinberger Petro visited Roanoke over the Thanksgiving weekend, and she and Lisa shopped at the historic Roanoke City Market and caught up over turkey and dressing.

Lorenza Amico works at the University of Virginia. In September she traveled to Turkey for two weeks of sightseeing.

She also toured some national parks last year after a fun gathering at Lake Seneca in New York with Donna; Nancy; Beth Innis Landin of Corning, New York; Lesley Abrams Serenyi of Edison, New Jersey; and Lisa. Beth is a retired wealth adviser and is now pursuing her dream as an artist. Beth’s son, Kyle, is at the University of Pittsburgh, and daughter Lien is in high school.

1980

No Class Agent classnotes@umw.edu

1981

Lori Foster Turley LoriFTurley@gmail.com In early October, Pam Clapp Hinkle, Bobbie Dwyer Leon, Colleen McCahill Turley, Katie Kulp Jones, Elisa Devorshak Harvey, Ellen Stanley Booth, Katrina

UNIVERSITY OF MARY WASHINGTON MAGAZINE SPRING/SUMMER 2018

45

Class Agent Is a Class Act – and Game Show Champ

S

46

In the opening minutes of The Wall, Shana Muhammad (left) and cousin Jakia Muhammad won $90,000. They left with more than half a million.

Justin Lubin/NBC

hana Muhammad ’06 wasn’t a crier or a gambler, but she found herself doing both.

In front of her sat a contract, and in front of that, a TV camera recording each agonizing moment for an NBC game show called The Wall.

It was a game of ability and chance, and Muhammad had plenty of the former. Before the episode ended Jan. 15, host Chris Hardwick called her the smartest contestant the show had ever had.

If she signed the contract, she and her teammate would go home with at least $90,000. If she tore it up, she might lose it all – or win a whole lot more.

It seemed improbable that Muhammad had ended up on a game show at all. She is, by her own account, conservative, the manager of a local grocery store in Washington, D.C. She works hard, pays her bills, and takes care of her family.

Muhammad grew up in Northern Virginia, the daughter of a single mother who insisted she get a college degree.

During her senior year of high school, Muhammad applied to six state colleges and got into all of them. But the moment she stepped foot on the UMW campus, she knew there was no other place for her. The other schools offered bigger scholarships – but she didn’t want to go to another school.

“I didn’t want to be a number. I wanted to be able to participate actively and be a part of the community,” she said.

UMW offered everything Muhammad had hoped for. She joined too many clubs to count and spent all four years as a tour guide.

After earning a degree in business administration, the first-generation college graduate stayed at UMW for a year as an admissions counselor.

She is still a class agent, compiling 2006 news for Class Notes.

Later, she settled in D.C., where she and her cousin had a dream: Find a way to fix up their grandmother’s home in South Carolina.

Built by the women’s greatgrandfather decades ago, the house had never been updated. It had no HVAC system and needed a new roof.

When the cousins learned about a casting call in D.C. for a new game show, they decided it might be their chance. They went to Hollywood, where in the opening minutes of the episode they won $90,000.

In the final minutes, Muhammad had to decide whether to gamble it. The woman who didn’t so much

UNIVERSITY OF MARY WASHINGTON MAGAZINE SPRING/SUMMER 2018

as play the lottery ultimately risked everything. After all, what was life if not a series of gambles?

“We may have come out here with nothing. Even if we may leave here with nothing, it never will be nothing.

Our love for each other and our family is worth more than any amount of money,” Muhammad told her cousin.

The bet paid off. They were going home with more than a half-million dollars – $565,423, to be exact.

The woman who didn’t cry nearly collapsed to her knees in tears.

– Kristin Davis

Ray Landis, and I gathered for a fun and relaxing weekend at Katrina’s beautiful home on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. It was our 40th anniversary of meeting as freshmen on Willard second back.

Immediately after that weekend I went to Copenhagen, Denmark, where my daughter was spending the semester through Elon University. We traveled to Prague, Czech Republic, for five days.

Still hanging out together after 35-plus years, Donna Bly Hely, Joe Hely ’80, Joy Johnston Johnson, and Greg Johnson enjoyed a 12-day cruise to the Mediterranean last summer with some extra time in Barcelona.

The two couples look forward to a trip to the British Isles in 2019.

1982

Tara Corrigall corrigallt@gmail.com I caught up with many classmates at our 35th reunion in June 2017. We paid homage to Seacobeck Hall, with authentic china and furniture from our classmate Gregg Stull, UMW chair and professor of theatre and dance.

Through the generosity of many and the challenge leadership of Anna Geisler Hogan, the Class of 1982 was the top reunion class fundraiser.

Faithful reunion attendees Nancy Kaiser and spouse Mary McElhone stay busy with their home renovation business, a national Scottie dog rescue group, and lots of fabulous travel. They toured the Baltics in June. Jenifer Blair is director of college counseling and advising for the South Carolina Governors School for Science and Mathematics in Hartsville. She is vice president of alumni awards for the UMW Alumni Association Board and is always up for a road trip to Fredericksburg or her beach house in Delaware.

Carla Richardson Barrell retired from teaching but plans to substitute teach.

John Hoffman retired as a school principal. Wife Mary Torri Hoffman works for the Federal Reserve, and they divide their time between Northern Virginia and Harrisonburg, Virginia.

Mia McCall retired after a long career working for the CIA. She is considering moving closer to her parents in California. Betsy Rohaly Smoot retired after 34 years at the National Security Agency. Annmarie Cozzi planned to retire this year from the Bergen County, New

Jersey, prosecutor’s office. She planned to move “down the shore” full time.

My roomie Debbie Snyder Barker took on mother-of-the-groom duties twice for sons Chip and Sam’s weddings.

Daughter Leah works and lives with friends in Arlington, Virginia.

as a licensed educator for the House Rabbit Society, a similar organization to benefit rabbits. She hoped to take up golf again and write more books. She published Trouble in the Attic, her sequel to Hershey: A Tale of a Curious House Rabbit, under the pen name G.G. Hall.

Jennifer Goodwin Donegan lives in Norfolk. Daughter Meredith graduated from Darden’s Executive MBA program, works for Operation Smile, and plans to marry in October. Jennifer and I enjoy attending museum lectures together and lamenting the fact that we never took art history at Mary Washington.

Caroline Borden Betsy Rohaly Smoot ’82 retired after 34 Kirchner lives in years at the National Security Agency.

California and recently spent time with her daughter Dan Hudson sold the family home in on a Mercy Ships mission. Michael Warrenton and moved to Richmond.

Bennett recently spent time in Italy and He is always up for a foodie adventure.

Mallorca. He promises to make our next reunion. Jackie Tanous Jacobson Erin Devine celebrated her fifth continues to live and work in Colorado. anniversary as a senior philanthropic adviser for St. Jude Children’s Research Tim Horn went to SUNY-Binghamton for a master’s degree in theatre arts Hospital. Erin’s kids have successfully and also did postgraduate work at the flown the coop. Kathleen is a licensed University of Georgia and Yale – but clinical social worker at the McLean he said Mary Washington was the best.

Hospital in Boston; Patrick is doing He and wife Janet live in Nokesville, economic development and social Virginia, with horses, dogs, cats, enterprise work in Mumbai, India; and an unwelcome groundhog. After and Caroline graduated from Virginia teaching in public and private schools Tech in May 2016 with plans to go to for 24 years, Tim retired to focus on his nursing school. Erin lost her beloved hypnosis business helping people become husband, Phil Keating, in January nonsmokers, relieve stress, improve 2011 and is delighted to share that she study skills, and more. His former has a wonderful new man in her life. roommate Tim Erickson ’81 organized They are renovating a 1692 tavern and a theatre reunion, and they caught inn in New Kent, Virginia, that they up with Gregg Stull, Seth Schrager, may open as a B&B and brewery.

Ruth DeArmitt ’80, Rob Powell ’79, Sandy Young proudly shared that Bobby Kerns ’81, and many others. daughter Amanda had graduated As for me, I celebrated my 30th from Hollins College. Becky Batten anniversary at UBS Financial Services Rosenberger married in September, and stay busy with local nonprofits and and the couple bought a house in the volunteer work at Mary Washington.

Fan District of Richmond. Her son I enjoy living at the beach in Virginia and daughter both live in Florida.

Beach and welcome visitors.

Catherine Miller Canty not only retired from teaching but also celebrated her daughter Meghan Canty’s December college graduation and wedding.

Marcia Anne Guida Vicki Haynes Morris lives and works Marcia.G.James@gmail.com in Wisconsin and made trips to Cuba, Heather Archer Mackey and husband Mike downsized their home in Richmond after their youngest headed to James Madison University. Heather is a UMW network leader in Richmond and loves catching up with classmates at events.

1983

Australia, and New Zealand. She loves spoiling grandson Maddox. Georgiana Hall left sunny Miami and spent her first winter in Colorado Springs, Colorado. She planned to volunteer for the Humane Society and to continue

Kathy Walters Along’s daughter, Gina, completed her licensing as a pediatric nurse and landed her dream job at Golisano Children’s Hospital of Southwest Florida, in Fort Myers.

Son Joe spent his second summer in

UNIVERSITY OF MARY WASHINGTON MAGAZINE SPRING/SUMMER 2018

47

CLASS NOTES Seoul staying with a host family and attending Korean language class at Yonsei University. He completed his junior and senior years at the University of Chicago.

1985

1987

Scott Hampton Harris was named UMW’s executive director of University Museums. He will continue to provide strategic direction and oversee all the aspects of the James Monroe Museum, of which he had been director, along with the Gari Melchers Home and Studio. He also will oversee the ongoing work of the Papers of James Monroe project, which recently was awarded a three-year, $300,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to produce volumes seven and eight of Monroe’s selected correspondence and public documents covering April 1814 to March 1821.

My husband, Christopher Lamm, and I visited with Susie Ferrett Stough and husband Mike Stough ’86 at the Family Weekend Legacy Breakfast in September. Their daughter Carolyn Stough ’22 and our son Stephen Lamm ’21 are UMW students.

We’ve attended breakfasts since 2009, when our daughter, Rebecca E. Lamm ’13, was a freshman.

Rene Thomas-Rizzo Rene.Thomas-Rizzo@navy.mil

Joanne Bartholomew Lamm jlamm88@verizon.net

Carolyn Sydnor Parsons ’83 and I were interns at the James Monroe Museum in the ’80s, and we see each other at the annual Society for American Archivists Conference and the semiannual Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Scott Hampton Harris ’83 was named Conference.

UMW’s executive director of University Museums.

Elden J. LeGaux and Perry Roberts LeGaux have lived in the Miami area for six years. Elden is COO and a founding partner of a boutique multifamily office in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Perry is director of operational support and hospitality at Camillus Health Concern in Miami. Daughter Amanda is a global campaign manager for IBM in Raleigh, North Carolina; she and husband Joel are expecting their first child in June. Daughter Jordan works in Chicago as a proposal manager for dunnhumby, a global marketing firm.

Daughter Kelsey is a baking and pastry specialist in Raleigh and is back in school to advance her culinary training.

Lisa R. Wright recently retired as a captain in the Spotsylvania Sheriff’s Office after 30 years in law enforcement.

She previously worked for the Drug Enforcement Agency at Quantico, and she has traveled around the United States teaching law enforcement agents about asset forfeiture. She owns a teaching consulting business and a photography business, and she works with a hurricane relief subcontractor for FEMA. Her father passed away in 1983, but her mother still lives in Spotsylvania.

1984

No Class Agent classnotes@umw.edu

48

Jonathan Leib lives in Norfolk with his wife, daughter, and miniature goldendoodle.

He is a professor of geography and chair of the Department of Political Science and Geography at Old Dominion University. Jonathan took up running several years ago and is on a quest to run a half-marathon in all 50 states. He’s completed California, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia, and has just 46 to go!

1986

Lisa A. Harvey lisharvey@msn.com

Kim Jones Isaac mwc87@infinityok.com

From Kim: Toni Moore Milbourne has settled in as library director at Bolivar-Harpers Ferry Public Library and is pursuing an online master of library science and information and technology degree at Syracuse University. Daughter Maggie graduated from Army boot camp in Missouri and from advanced individual training in Arizona. Toni and son Allen traveled to Arizona for Maggie’s January graduation, then went to Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon, Los Angeles, and San Diego before arriving at Fort Huachuca. Toni plans a June trip to Peru with daughter Samantha, who has applied to Mary Wash.

In addition to the computer company and yoga studio, I have started Zen Sunrise Creations and am designing jewelry. I have had a few shows locally and am trying my hand at Etsy. It’s a lot of fun and a great creative outlet.

1988

Jay Bradshaw jaybradshaw747@aol.com Nee-Cee “Ringo” Baker rstarr66@msn.com Beverly J. Newman bevnewmn@yahoo.com

Kenneth R. Morefield was awarded tenure as a professor of English at Campbell University in North Henry Talavera ’86 has been appointed Carolina. He and to the American Bar Association Cindy Bowers Morefield recently Commission on Hispanic Legal Rights celebrated their and Responsibilities.

29th anniversary.

Dallas-based Polsinelli shareholder Henry Talavera has been appointed to the American Bar Association Commission on Hispanic Legal Rights and Responsibilities. The commission is dedicated to addressing the challenges and responsibilities Hispanics face within the legal system.

UNIVERSITY OF MARY WASHINGTON MAGAZINE SPRING/SUMMER 2018

1989

No Class Agent classnotes@umw.edu Leah Wilson Munnis writes that she is busy with grad school and can no longer serve as class agent. If you’re a 1989

grad and would like to serve, please drop us a line at classnotes@umw.edu.

1990

Susan Crytzer Marchant march66358@verizon.net Lynne O’Saben Stewart toured UMW with her oldest son during spring break last year; Lynne said it felt like Goolrick Hall is now the center of campus instead of being in the hinterland. She saw many Mary Washington alumni this past summer when Michelle Ward Conrad was in town from California with her family. They met at the home of Marty Stewart Carpenter and Sean Carpenter in Leesburg, Virginia, along with Andrea Cooper Coron, Greg Coron, Jeff Coron ’89, and Kristen Livingston Coron ’88.

spent Thanksgiving week with my aunt and uncle in Sarasota, Florida; and had a quiet Christmas at home in Mobile, Alabama. Tom’s company planned to move us back to Atlanta this spring, and once there I hope to get involved with the UMW Atlanta Network again.

an economic development agency of the commonwealth.

1993

Phil Stoneman started Leaping Frog Productions in 2016 to provide wedding and private party DJ and master of ceremonies services to Northern Virginia and Washington, D.C.

Cheryl Roberts Heuser chatatcha@yahoo.com

Nancy Columbia Hilbert joined the Morley Agency as commercial lines account executive. Husband James Hilbert earned tenure as an assistant principal and also is an assistant Scoutmaster. Their son crossed over from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts, is an active member of their local Scrabble club, and has a passion for history like his father and sister.

Their daughter, Emily Hilbert ’21, Charlie Gullo ’91 lives in a mini city lived in Virginia Hall her freshman within Hanoi, Vietnam, with its own malls, year and plans to apartments, restaurants, hospital, and spas. major in historic preservation.

1991

Shannon Eadie Niemeyer sfniemeyer@comcast.net Charlie Gullo, his wife, and their 6-yearold son moved from Huntington, West Virginia, to Hanoi, Vietnam. Charlie is designing the medical curriculum for the Vinmec University Medical School, which he says should be up and running in 2020. The family lives in Times City, a mini city within Hanoi, with its own malls, apartments, restaurants, hospital, spas, and more. His wife enjoys being closer to family in Malaysia.

1992

Courtney Hall Harjung charjung@hotmail.com Rachael Schmeller Crout, husband Eric, and their two daughters live in Capon Bridge, West Virginia. Anna is in college and hopes to become a physician’s assistant or nurse. Heather is a high school junior who was planning for soccer and track seasons.

Rachael is in her 12th year teaching middle school English inclusion.

Tom and I celebrated our 18th anniversary in Navarre Beach, Florida;

Danielle Leach Goldstein is a nurse in the interventional radiology department at Mary Washington Hospital. She and husband Dan have daughter Elayne, 11, and son Jacob, 14.

Becky Miller Duff lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, with her husband and children ages 4 and 8. She works for the Batten Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the U.Va. Darden School of Business. She enjoys hiking and visiting vineyards.

Pamela Jensen Roszell lives in Denver and writes environmental planning documents for federal agencies while dealing with the shenanigans of her children in 11th, ninth, and fifth grade.

She is a craft beer aficionado and runs local trails or the stairs at Red Rocks Amphitheater so she can still fit into her clothes after drinking said beer.

Pam shared the next five notes about classmates she’s in touch with:

1994

Jennifer Dockeray Muniz dockeray@apple.com Big shoutout to my friend Nate Wade, who was our class agent forever. Now he’s back to focusing on his public defender career in Arizona, so I’ve stepped in.

James Noll ’97, M.Ed. ’06 and Angie Montieth Noll live in Fredericksburg, surrounded by college kids who, thankfully, don’t know how to party as hard as they did in the ’90s. James is an English teacher, and Angie is an infant intake case manager. Daughter Haley goes to school and raises her 1-year-old son, Shaun, in Maryland; daughter Taylor studies theatre at Lees-McRae College in North Carolina; and daughter Elena hoped to graduate from high school early. James self-publishes horror, sci-fi, and post-apocalyptic fiction, founded the Fredericksburg Independent Book Festival, and works on the Fredericksburg Indie Authors Conference. Angie has been involved in bringing the Fredericksburg Food Co-op to the area.

Sarah King Capps lives in Franklin County and manages the Southern Virginia office of the Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission,

Missy Caldwell McGeehan is an office manager for a specialized medical facility in Northern Virginia. Her older daughter is a freshman at U.Va., and her younger one is a skilled swimmer in seventh grade. When she can, Missy joins her husband on family visits to Ireland and elsewhere in Europe. She, Jeff Hood, and Angie Montieth Noll occasionally get together to run long races in Virginia.

After five years in Nairobi, Kenya, where her husband worked, Emily Erlandson Henning had a reverse culture shock when they moved back to Atlanta, Georgia. In December they moved again, to Jackson, Mississippi.

Vicky Fellows Sullivan is a family nurse practitioner in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Her daughter graduated with a psychology degree from Christopher

No Class Agent?

Your classmates still want to hear from you!

Send news directly to classnotes@umw.edu.

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Senior Thesis Leads to Civil War Book

Norm Shafer

Ryan Quint has parlayed his fascination with the Civil War to a job as a historian and a burgeoning career as an author.

His first book, about the Battle of Monocacy, was recently published by Savas Beatie.

I

t was a book that got Ryan Quint ’15 hooked on Civil War history as a child growing up in Maine.

“When I was 8 or 9 years old, I read a book about a Civil War drummer boy,” Quint said. Quint was fascinated by the fact that kids his own age had played a role in the Civil War. Now Quint has a book of his own that he hopes will get others interested in learning about the war.

Determined to Stand and Fight: The Battle of Monocacy, July 9, 1864 was published in 2017 by Savas Beatie as part of the Emerging Civil War Series. These books are meant to be engaging and accessible reads for newcomers to Civil War history.

Quint started writing appendices to other books in the series while he was still a student at UMW. This is the first book on which he has been the lead author. Its focus is the 1864 Battle of Monocacy, in which Confederates under Lt. Gen. Jubal Early defeated Union forces under Maj. Gen. Lew

Wallace near Frederick, Maryland.

Quint was able to write the book in a year, largely because he had completed his senior thesis at UMW on the Battle of Monocacy.

Associate Professor of History Porter Blakemore was Quint’s thesis adviser. Quint also studied with Professor Claudine Ferrell, chair of the Department of History and American Studies. His paper was awarded the UMW Joseph Carroll Vance Award for Excellence in Historical Research.

For Quint, the opportunity to study Civil War history in a town where so much of it occurred felt like a perfect match. As a child, he’d read enough about Civil War events in Fredericksburg that the city’s name drew him to the University of Mary Washington’s table at a college fair.

“I walked over and said, ‘Tell me about your school,’ ” Quint said. “I thought, ‘I can study the Civil War at a site where it occurred.’ ” Quint remembers being starry-eyed

’15 50

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when his freshman orientation week ended with an ice cream party at Brompton, which had withstood the fighting of the 1862 and 1863 battles of Fredericksburg and served as a hospital after the Battle of the Wilderness.

He was an intern at the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park in the summer of 2013. That’s where he met Chris Mackowski, a historian who founded the Emerging Civil War series.

The connection got Quint started on his professional writing career.

That career continues as Quint, who lives in Fredericksburg with wife Joanna Jourdan Quint ’15, travels the state to research a book about Fairfax County during the Civil War. Quint also works as a seasonal historian for the National Park Service and a tour guide for the George Washington Foundation at Historic Kenmore Plantation in downtown Fredericksburg.

– Emily Battle

Newport University, and Vicky also has three rambunctious boys. She visited family in England last summer.

Sami Van Vliet is a cybersecurity expert in Atlanta and enjoys yoga.

Jenny White Formon is a Montessori teacher in Charlotte, North Carolina, and is active in her daughters’ softball careers.

Her son is in college. She, husband Kory Formon ’95, and their family got away to Costa Rica over the holidays.

And as for me, Jennifer Dockeray Muniz, I’m still living in Austin, Texas, with my husband, Glenn, and our sons, Waylon and Wyatt. I just celebrated a big milestone at Apple – I’ve been with the company 20 years.

We enjoy spending time with our ranch animals in Poteet, Texas.

1995

Jane Archer jane@janearcherillustration.com Jennifer Reichert Linney and husband Jim live in Northern Virginia with 12-yearold son Connor, 9-year-old daughter Natalie, and golden retriever Liza.

Jennifer is a freelance editor, writer, and book designer, and she’s also a part-time deputy clerk at Prince William County’s Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court.

She launched her editing career as copy editor for the alumni magazine during her junior and senior years at Mary Washington, then worked for nearly 10 years as an editor for a nonprofit association in Washington, D.C. Mike Charnoff and Katie Valentine Charnoff ’04 moved to Vienna in early September and now live just down the street from Steve Charnoff ’99 and Katie Fry Charnoff ’00. Mike and Katie’s delightful son, Austin Levi Charnoff, was born in late October. Mike’s law firm, Perry Charnoff PLLC, opened an office in the Ballston neighborhood of Arlington.

1996

Jennifer Rudalf Gates jeni17@me.com

1997

Michelle Trombetta michelletrombetta@gmail.com Kari Kulow Obist visited Argentina and finished a successful summit climb of Aconcagua, the highest peak

in South America. Not only was she lucky enough to successfully do the climb, she coincidentally ran into Chris Wright ’96 on her first day on the mountain, and they summited together. Even though the Andes are some of the most immense mountains on earth, it really still is a small world!

a few miles of it! While in China, my husband and I also saw the Terracotta Warriors in Xi’an, laughed at the cute pandas in Chengdu, admired the beauty of the Li River in Yangshuo, visited Mickey Mouse at Shanghai Disney, and ate our weight in dumplings and noodles.

Stephanie O’Connor Shockley is priestin-charge of the Episcopal Church of the Holy Cross in North Plainfield, New Jersey. She and husband Dan Shockley relocated there after almost 12 years in New York City. This is Stephanie’s first full-time parish position. She previously was a hospital chaplain and a nonprofit director in New York.

1998

Leigh Brockman Horowitz and family love their adopted city, St. Louis, where they moved in June 2016 for husband Jeremy’s job. Leigh teaches at an early childhood center and also teaches for two nonprofit dance studios. Son Oliver is a bright and active 2-year-old. They visit family in California, Minnesota, Louisiana, and Colorado, and they’ve realized that being smack dab in the middle of the country has its perks. They’ve had plenty of visitors and welcome more.

Trent Richardson joined the revelry of Scott Estelle’s annual Svenska Julfest.

Trent and Steve Smith commiserate on the state of the Washington Nationals and believe the World Series is a sure thing this year. Trent is a deputy associate director in the U.S. Geological Survey and oversees the nation’s earthquake, volcano, landslide, and coastal and marine geology interests. He and wife Tamara celebrated the first birthday of their third child, Nash Steele, on Christmas Eve. They live in Vienna, Virginia.

Erika Giaimo Chapin erikagchapin@gmail.com Andy Brown wrote this advice to students sweating finals on UMW’s Facebook page: “Don’t stress. I got a D on my stagecraft final, and I just left my job as a production manager at the Kennedy Center for a job at Walt Disney Imagineering.”

1999

Amanda Goebel Thomas goebel_amanda@hotmail.com

2000

Jennifer Burger Thomas jenntec14@gmail.com Shawna Shepherd is a talent producer on The Daily Show With Trevor Noah on Comedy Central. She enjoys her two girls in New York City.

Larry Hinkle, an adjunct instructor in UMW’s Department of Art and Art History, makes and plays ukuleles.

He’s also faculty adviser for the women’s Ultimate Frisbee club.

Jill Ellis Frank, Kristine Reid Milne, Alison Martin Simpson, and Annette Hibbert Nelson got together last summer for their annual weekend away. Annette is starting a cooperative, In Argentina, Kari Kulow Obist ’97 ran nonprofit into Chris Wright ’96 on her first day on elementary Aconcagua, South America’s highest peak, school and expected her which they successfully summited together. second child in January of this year. Jill Kathleen Gillikin MacCubbin is assistant works part time with Best Buddies, branch manager of the Pikesville Library Kristine manages a fertility clinic in in Maryland. Stephanie Neatrour Watson Maryland, and Alison preserves history welcomed her second son, Robert James for the Florida National Guard.

Watson, June 8, 2017, which was a Julie Houts Frame couldn’t join the good excuse to miss our 20th reunion. group because she and husband Todd I made a childhood dream come true and now live in Sedona, Arizona, where hiked the Great Wall of China – well, Julie is the head pharmacist for a CVS.

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CLASS NOTES

2001

Annie Johnston anniebatesjohnston@gmail.com Kim Kelley Winslow, Chris Winslow, and daughter Kate welcomed baby Joseph Christopher Winslow in December.

Caroline Jarvis married Alex Gee in London, England. They traveled to California wine country for their honeymoon.

2002

Travis Jones tljones8@gmail.com Carolyn Murray Spencer turtlecjm@yahoo.com

2003

Jessica Brandes jessbrandes@yahoo.com Garett Seeba is certified by the American Board of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery and practices in Webster, Texas.

Jennifer Moore, president of the Mosby Heritage Area Association, participated in a panel discussion in Loudoun County, Virginia, titled “Young Historians Debate Turning Points in the Civil War.” Also on the panel were Bill Backus ’10, historic sites manager for Prince William County’s Historic Preservation Division, and Ryan Quint ’15, a historian with Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park. [Read more about Ryan Quint on page 50.]

2004

Sameer Vaswani sameervaswani@msn.com Katie Valentine Charnoff and Mike Charnoff ’95 moved to Vienna in early September and became the parents of Austin Levi Charnoff in late October.

2005

Ally Lee Marzan allyvlee@gmail.com Kacy Zuchowski Hagan graduated with an MBA last June. Nell Barnes Nutaitis, Matt Nutaitis, and daughter Tess, 3, welcomed baby June last summer. Ashley Davitt Simpkins and Derek Simpkins welcomed their second daughter, Emery

52

Belle, last May. Christy Shutt Cooper, husband Matt, and daughter Tierney welcomed son Kellan Patrick last July.

Anneke Hancock Mikulski and husband Matthew welcomed Caden Malcolm Mikulski in November. Laura Rawlett Taylor, husband Brandon, and daughter Eleanor, 2, welcomed baby Hollis Graham in August.

C. David Thornton left his job in sustainability efforts at Clemson University to pursue two personal ventures, Carolina Bauernhaus Ales and SouthYeast Labs in Anderson, South Carolina. He does consulting work in biofuels, bioprocessing, organic waste management, and brewing science.

welcomed baby Calvin Michael last July.

The family lives in Stafford County, Virginia, where Mike works in the commissioner of revenue’s office.

Lisa Lawler plans to marry Peter Armon in Montauk, N.Y., in August.

They recently bought a house on the eastern end of Long Island. Lisa is an elementary special education teacher.

Rachel Hundley Howdyshell and husband Tyson welcomed daughter CaraLee James Howdyshell last July.

Elizabeth Smith DiStanislao and husband Thomas welcomed their first child, Phillip Thomas DiStanislao, last May. They also bought a house – their first – in Richmond, Virginia.

Kiera Evans ’06 is director of engagement for a disability human services cooperative in Minnesota.

2006

Shana A. Muhammad email.shana@gmail.com Read about class agent Shana Muhammad on page 46.

Dave Dalton and wife Katherine welcomed a baby girl April 2017.

He is an economic regulator for the commonwealth of Virginia.

Since our Mary Washington days, Kiera Evans has lived in more than six states for graduate school and for work. She’s earned a master’s degree in social justice and intercultural communications and worked raising funds for cancer research.

Now she’s director of engagement for a disability human services cooperative in Minnesota. She enjoys pursuing faster times in CrossFit’s “Fran” workouts and being Auntie Kiera to friends’ children.

Emily Walsh and husband Jonathan welcomed daughter Kenley Ilana last July.

They live in New York City, where Emily is a matrimonial attorney for a law firm.

Julia Rickey is director of student wellness and support at Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology in Boston. She planned to marry Phillip Lachman in Boston this spring.

Kelly Wolff Applegate and Morgan Applegate ’05 expected their second child this spring.

Mike Sienkowski, Kelly Mann Sienkowski ’07, and daughter Scarlett

UNIVERSITY OF MARY WASHINGTON MAGAZINE SPRING/SUMMER 2018

Lauren RoanParks was recently elected an officer at Geico. She is the assistant vice president of underwriting for the Southeast.

2007

Sarah Eckman sarahje@gmail.com Daniel Clendenin daniel.clendenin@gmail.com Jay Sinha Jay.Sinha@alumni.umw.edu Marianne Shapiro Weiner, husband Jason, and daughter Julie welcomed baby Hayli Morgan in late September.

Megan Martinez Thoen, husband Eric, and son Parker welcomed baby Sophie in September.

Kati Singel Engel shared a story of Mary Washington serendipity that took place at a military-related social gathering in Rota, Spain, at Thanksgiving. Kati, whose husband is in the Navy, chatted with the woman sitting next to her.

Turns out it was retired naval officer Patti Barrow Rios ’72, who shared her experiences of raising her children in Spain and the United States. Patti now lives in El Puerto de Santa Maria, Spain. Kati and her husband have small children and plan to travel with them in Europe while they’re stationed in Spain over the next two years. “It is a big world, but meeting a fellow Mary Washington alumna in a foreign country made it seem smaller,” Kati wrote.

2008

Alyssa Lee alyssa.linda.lee@gmail.com

Krista Robbins, and Renee Lasnier were in the wedding party. Bethany works in development at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

Sarah Isaac and David Flores married last year. Patrick Whelan officiated, and Eric Wolven and Craig Whitesell were groomsmen.

Joni Briganti ’08 qualified for the Long Jonathan “Jojo” Course Triathlon World Championships in Flores ’05 was best man. Sarah Denmark as a member of Team USA. and David live in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Joni “Iron Pinkie” Briganti qualified for the Long Course Triathlon World Championships as a member of Team USA. The event will Kelly Caldwell be held in Denmark in July. kellyecaldwell@gmail.com Trish Lauck Cerulli trish.lauck@gmail.com

2010

Heather Decot earned a doctorate in neuroscience from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and is a preclinical research scientist and coordinator at UNC’s Biomedical Research Imaging Center.

Aaron M. Richardson was named editor of the Daily Progress in Charlottesville, Virginia. He joined the newspaper in 2010 as a reporter and covered beats including government, education, and the environment.

Laura Gumkowski Arseneau is a historic preservation planner in Fairfax County. She enjoys watching her 1-yearold, Brayden, discover the world.

2011

2009

Kira Lanewala klanewala@gmail.com

Alexandra Meier alexandra.m.meier@gmail.com

Emily Antos DiSalvo and Gregg DiSalvo married in upstate New York last summer, 10 years after they met in Mason Hall during their first week of freshman year.

Elizabeth Jennings elizabethsjennings@gmail.com

Charlotte Rowell Sellier, husband Joel, and their three daughters welcomed son Blaise in November. The family lives in Herndon, Virginia.

Elizabeth Jennings and Michael Haden plan to marry in Charlottesville, Virginia, in April 2019. Elizabeth works at Hilton Worldwide in McLean, Virginia, and Michael is a second-year student at the University of Virginia School of Law. Jessica Van Brocklin Smith and husband Caleb expected a daughter this spring. Jessica is senior NICU speech-language pathologist at Shady Grove Hospital, and the couple lives in Washington, D.C. Chrissie Woolsey Lincoln and Cary Lincoln ’08 live in Fredericksburg with sons Elliott, 3, and Cooper, 1.

Bethany Bodengraven Perkins married Tim Perkins last July. Sabah Bhatnagar,

Hannah Hopkins hhopkins89@gmail.com

Rosana Marzullo-Dove earned a doctorate in psychology in 2016 and did postdoctoral work in Maryland.

She recently moved to Florida, where she owns a private practice in the Hyde Park area of Tampa. She looked forward to the arrival of her first granddaughter earlier this year.

Rachael Wonderlin was working on a second book for Johns Hopkins University Press about dementia care activities and engagement. She lives with her boyfriend and two cats and performs improv comedy.

Megan Kent Jordan was honored as one of Arlington County’s 40 Under 40 emerging leaders in 2017. Megan also helped lead one of the largest public relations undertakings in the history of Oceana, an international ocean-advocacy organization. The global communications campaign and product rollout were recognized with international and national industry awards. She is an active member of Toastmasters International, where she serves as her club’s public relations officer and earned her competent-leadership certification.

2012

Mandi Solomon msolomon211@gmail.com

2013

Amanda Buckner McVicker amandabuckner1@gmail.com Andrew Hogan andrew.hogan819@gmail.com Jackie Veccia and Josh Craig ’15 married in Fredericksburg last June.

Michele McNeill ’12 was a bridesmaid.

Jackie is an environmental health engineer at Northrop Grumman and is pursuing a master’s degree in public health. Josh is a sales representative for Herc equipment rentals. They live in Florida, near Cocoa Beach.

2014

Stephanie Preston sepreston91@gmail.com Elizabeth Storey estorey@mail.usf.edu Conan Smeeth is an English as a Second Language teacher in Moscow, Russia, working with children and adults. He enjoys teaching but not the Russian winter.

Clare Stechschulte was one of 12 American economists named Kakehashi Scholars, selected and supported by the Japanese government to travel to Japan and learn about its economy.

Megan Kent Jordan ’11 was honored as one of Arlington County’s 40 Under 40 emerging leaders in 2017.

Ellen White began studying at Princeton Theological Seminary in fall 2017.

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CLASS NOTES

2015

Evan Smallwood esmallwood15@gmail.com Moira McAvoy moira.jo.mcavoy@gmail.com

2016

Quinn Doyle quinnmdoyle@gmail.com Megan Payne joined the Peace Corps a few months after graduation and lives in a remote village in Zambia, helping residents with several projects. She lives in a thatched hut, hauls water from a communal well, and cooks over an open fire.

2017

No class agent classnotes@umw.edu Kathi Walker and daughter Leah Walker were excited to graduate together last May.

IN MEMORIAM Mary Strange Jones ’35 Virginia Dickenson Morgan ’39 Virginia Lewis Dalton ’40 Aileen Louise Farmer Bennett ’41 Grace Christian Pannill Kelley Chapman ’41 Mildred Donaldson Rolander ’41 A. Isabel Gordon Swift ’42 Jewel Spencer Martin ’43 Barbara Smith Miles ’43 Marjorie Anderson Wagstaff ’43 Merle Updike Davis ’44 Anne Benner Gee ’44 Elizabeth Cumby Murray ’44 Elinor McClellan Cox DeCamp ’45 Marie LaBonte Presco ’45 Carolyn Ford Duncan ’46 Ada Newton Green ’46 Sue Hickerson Jett ’46 Elaine Winston Martin ’46 Lois Anderson ’47 Carolyn Jones August ’47 Kenneth R. Pullen ’47 Helen Lowe Eliason ’48 Gwendolyn Simmons Meredith ’48 Virginia Elizabeth Roberson ’48 Betty Meade Thornton ’48 Sarah Elizabeth Phelps Beard ’49 Dorothi Matheney Blake ’49

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Patsy Jones Chewning ’49 Anne Byrd Pilcher ’49 Cornelia Avery Stone ’49 Patricia Head Ferguson ’50 Nancy Herring Stuart ’50 Alford R. Taylor ’50 Margaret Shropshire Small ’51 Priscilla Roberts LeFurgy Dement ’52 Margaret Taylor Hohman ’52 Millicent J. Brown ’53 Dorothy Goldenson Gibson ’53 Peggy Ellis Gill ’53 Mary Anne Moore Twite ’53 Elizabeth Mason Martin ’54 Geraldine Dawn Holsten Rodriguez ’54 Marian T. Minor ’55 Carolyn Ball Baldwin ’57 Barbara Shaeffer Gallagher ’57 Janet Stuart Hilton ’57 Dixie Cooper Robbins ’57 Charlotte Burford Senneff ’57 Patricia Simmer Bishop ’58 Jean Anderson Chapman ’58 Carol Ageson Dunigan ’59 Celeste Shipman Kaufman ’59 Ann Rodabaugh Wright ’59 Grace Hutchinson Chapman ’60 Joan Spence Gordon ’60 Joyce Wilson Quann ’60 Mona Allen Spilo ’60 Dana Dunn Walker ’60 Mary Oliver Lambert ’62 Deanne Lohrman McNeil ’62 Judith DuVal Davis ’63 Jane Gholson Lanham ’63 Susan Effron ’64 Linda Benner Ellis ’64 Florence Tolson ’64 Kathryn “Katie” Marie Hales Fleming ’65 Marie Macklin Schrier ’65 Pamela Gerhold Watson ’67 Elizabeth Bowden Miller ’68 Judy O’Donoghue Batterson ’71 Mary Anne Burns ’71 Barbara Frances Morrone Conner ’71 Susan Hunn ’73 Patricia Denton Rounds ’74 Karen Hummel Hassinger ’75 Patricia Gail Pullan ’76 Gail Madden Shedlick ’78 Carol Stevens ’79 Suzanne Williams McDaniel ’80 Nancy E. Quynn ’80 Margaret Rock ’84 Dale E. Williams ’85 Barbara Rice Giese ’86 Janet Nicodemus Hughes ’87

UNIVERSITY OF MARY WASHINGTON MAGAZINE SPRING/SUMMER 2018

Robert Kevin Phillips ’90 Dana Carson Ray ’92 Denise Elena Boyd ’94 Melissa Ann Stallings Mansfield ’94 Amy Leachtenauer Miller ’01 Lara M. Isdell ’02 Kerri M. Spaulding ’08 Debrah A. Farnell ’12

CONDOLENCES Joan Callahan Frankhauser ’57, who lost her husband Marcia Spence Harrison-Thornton ’59, who lost her sister Mattoinette “Matte” McCeney Campbell ’61, who lost her husband Helen Alexion James ’62, who lost her husband Maggie Walker MacAllister ’62, who lost her husband Louise Stevens Robbins ’65, who lost her sister Jean Kelley Horne ’69, who lost her mother Doralece Lipoli Dullaghan ’70, who lost her mother Mary Hunn VanDerlaske ’72, who lost her sister Robin Des Jardin Eckman ’72, who lost her husband Kristan Overstreet Helms ’73, who lost her father Martha Jones ’73, Molly Jones ’74, and Madelin Jones Barratt ’76, who lost their mother Alison Haworth Regan ’76, who lost her mother Sally Hart Morgan ’79 and Evan Hart ’91 who lost their mother Nancy Quaintance Nelles ’79, who lost her father Nancy Woodhouse Skinner ’81, who lost her mother Colleen McCahill Turley ’81, who lost her mother Auby J. Curtis ’84, who lost his father Michelle Eiker ’89, who lost her mother Lee Walker Shepherd ’84, who lost her mother LaToya D. Chappelle ’99, who lost her mother Sarah Eckman ’07, who lost her father Katherine Preseren ’13, who lost her father Justin B. Rice ’17, who lost his mother

OBITUARIES Gano Evans, who chaired what was the Mary Washington College Department of Business Administration in the 1990s, died Aug. 18, 2017, in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Born in Denver, Dr. Evans earned a bachelor’s degree in music from the University of Northern Colorado, a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Denver, and a Ph.D. in management and marketing from the University of Washington.

He taught undergraduate and graduate students at Mary Washington and many other institutions over his 45-year career.

A talented jazz musician, Dr. Evans played saxophone and clarinet. Known in Fredericksburg as “Dr. Daddy-O,” he played and sang with the Fredericksburg Big Band and served as its master of ceremonies. He also was “widely recognizable around town in his flashy red convertible,” according to Dr. William B. Crawley’s University of Mary Washington: A Centennial History.

Wife Beverly, two sisters, five children, eight grandchildren, and a great-granddaughter survive him.

Mary Jo Parrish, professor emerita of biology, died Feb. 28 in Fredericksburg after an extended illness. Born in 1928, the Nashville native was a member of the Mary Washington College faculty from 1954 to 1987. Dr. Parrish specialized in botany and received a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia in 1957. She was a devoted member of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Fredericksburg, where she had many friends. She also had friends in the Baha’i community. A member of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, she had a special love of cats and cared for many in her lifetime. She is survived by a sister and a nephew, both in Florida.

Retired Lt. Col. Fred Thomas “Tom” Whitman passed away Feb. 15 at his home in Hartwood, Virginia. He served as an officer in the Marine Corps for 26 years, including service in Vietnam during the Tet Offensive. After his retirement, he joined the faculty of Mary Washington College, where he taught business for 32 years. Lt. Col. Whitman was well-liked by his students, many of whom remember him as an outstanding professor of marketing. Countless friends and neighbors relied on him over the years for financial and yearly tax assistance. He was preceded in death by his wife of 60 years, Pauline Anne Whitman, and their firstborn son. He is survived by five daughters, three sons, 16 grandchildren, and 14 great-grandchildren. He was buried at Quantico National Cemetery.

Corrine Nelson Woodard, whose husband was president of Mary Washington College from 1974 through 1982, passed away Nov. 5, 2017, in Easton, Maryland.

Her late husband, Prince Woodard, was Mary Washington’s fifth president. After his death in 1982, she continued to live in Fredericksburg until moving to Easton in 1999.

A native of Smolan, Kansas, Mrs. Woodard was a graduate of Kansas State University. She worked as a buyer in the clothing industry before marrying Prince Woodard in 1950. When the couple moved to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Mrs. Woodard earned a master’s degree at the University of Alabama.

They lived in Danville and Richmond, Virginia; Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania; and Charleston, West Virginia, before coming to Mary Washington and Fredericksburg. In later years, Mrs. Woodard enjoyed volunteering and playing bridge.

The Woodards’ three children survive them, as do three granddaughters and a great-granddaughter.

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CLOSING COLUMN The following is an excerpt by Simpson Library Cataloging and Processing Assistant Sarah Appleby ’06.

She wrote the original for The Spinning Wheel, the blog of UMW Special Collections and University Archives, to commemorate Black History Month.

In 1968, Venus R. Jones became Mary Washington’s first African-American graduate. This year, on the 50th anniversary of her commencement, we have the opportunity to recognize an ambitious student who helped break down barriers at the University of Mary Washington.

Venus Jones did not originally set her sights on attending Mary Washington College. Growing up in Petersburg, Virginia, she planned from an early age to attend the University of Virginia and become a doctor.

However, when the time came for her to apply, U.Va. informed her that it would not accept a woman into its pre-med program. Instead, administrators directed her toward Mary Washington, which at the time was consolidated with U.Va as its liberal arts school for women. Jones had never heard of the college, but she applied and was accepted.

Mary Washington didn’t formally desegregate until spring of 1964. Prior to integration, there had been only two African-American day students. After the school’s official decision to open enrollment to AfricanAmerican students, Kay Estelle Savage became the first residential student of color. Kay was Venus’ freshmanyear roommate, although she would transfer to Howard University after two years.

During her time at Mary Washington, Jones was one of five black residential students. She joined Chris Hall, Claudith “Dottie” Holmes, and twins Anita and Orita Whitehead. (See Orita Whitehead in “Get the Picture” on page 9.) A 1968 Bullet student newspaper article profiled the five students and their experiences on campus, touching on such topics as segregated housing and prejudice from classmates. Overall, the five reported few hostilities from white students on campus, but also noted that many “don’t even know there are [black students] on campus” and likely had never had a conversation with a person of color before. Jones called this “an absurd situation in an institution of higher learning.”

Jones earned her degree in chemistry in just three years. After graduation, she got her chance to attend U.Va.; she entered medical school there as the only black woman in her class. She graduated from medical school in 1972, after which she relocated to Phoenix for an internship to provide health care to the indigenous population. Next, she did a residency in San Francisco, returned to U.Va. for a neurology residency, and completed an epilepsy fellowship. Jones then joined the U.S. Air Force, where she rose to chief of neurology over three military hospitals.

Venus Jones excelled as a doctor, continuing to display the same intelligence and drive she showed as a young

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Venus R. Jones in 1968 Mary Washington student. While in the Air Force, she was a neurology consultant to the surgeon general. She also served on medical missions to Haiti and worked with the Prince George’s County Search and Rescue Team.

After retiring from the Air Force as a lieutenant colonel, Venus Jones moved to Mississippi, where she opened a neurology clinic in 1998. Sadly, she died in a car accident in May 2001.

Want to learn more about UMW’s history? UMW Libraries’ Special Collections and University Archives posts new Spinning Wheel content biweekly. Sign up to have regular blog updates delivered to your inbox at spinningwheel.umwblogs.org.

UNIVERSITY OF MARY WASHINGTON MAGAZINE SPRING/SUMMER 2018

A breath of fresh air Thanks to research conducted by Dr. Marilyn Shull Black ’69, the breath you just took may be cleaner and healthier. Marilyn’s interest in air quality research was sparked by a Mary Washington chemistry professor more than 50 years ago. Now, UMW students can benefit from a new research fellowship she created to honor that inspirational professor.

Marilyn Shull Black ’69, Professor Emeritus Bernard L. Mahoney Jr., and biochemistry major Eric Hurwitz ’18

To learn more about Marilyn’s story or for information about making a gift to support UMW students and programs, visit giving.umw.edu or contact the Office of University Advancement at 540-654-1024.

Non-Profit Organization U.S. Postage

PAID

Alex Sakes ’18

1301 College Avenue Fredericksburg, Virginia 22401-5300

University of Mary Washington

Camels on Campus

Spring doesn’t always bring camels to campus, but it does bring UMW’s much-anticipated Arab Culture Night, a festive evening of food, music, traditions, and fun. In late March, two dromedaries lazed on Ball Circle to welcome students, faculty, families, and community guests to the celebration of all things Arab. Will Flynn ’18, above, facing camera, was surprised at how large camels are in real life – and how docile they can be. His father was stationed in Turkey during Operation Northern Watch, he said. “His experience with camels, as he told me, was a decidedly less positive one.”