C L A S S associate principal at Hudson’s Bay High School in Vancouver. My wife is a school librarian at Franklin Elementary. The kids trickle down to 1 year old from 14. We live a quiet (well, not with all those kids) suburban life in Vancouver but still keep track of our Pilots; it’s great to see the Pilot men back in the rankings.”
’96 GONE MUCH TOO SOON Kenneth Wicher passed away on July 10, 2010, as a result of head injuries sustained in an accidental fall. Ken played baseball at U.P., becoming an all-conference player, team captain, and MVP while earning his degree in business. He moved back to Portland in 2007 to take a position with Adidas. Survivors include his former wife, Angela; children, Brock, Ashley, and Eva; parents, Gordon and Sandi; sister, Julie; and a large extended family. Our prayers and condolences to the family. Rev. Dan Parrish, C.S.C., was featured on the back cover of the October 2010 issue of the Knights of Columbus Magazine, according to the ever-vigilant Rev. Ed Obermiller, C.S.C.
’97 OOOOH...AHHHH... Bob Kessi has wonderful news to share: “Hi Everyone! Emily Lynn Kessi entered the world on Monday, August 9, at 8 lbs.
7 oz., 20 inches long and ready to go! Everyone’s doing great and she's busy training us.”
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food as well, featuring dishes my father made at our Swiss restaurant in Honolulu. Aloha!” Find out more at www.martinsswissdressing.co m/cafe.html. Prayers, please, for Erzsebet Eppley, whose father, Joseph Boczki, passed away on August 17, 2010. Survivors include his wife Erzsebet and son Joseph. Our prayers and condolences to the family.
’99 BABIES, BABIES, EVERYWHERE! Jennifer (Anthony) Vasicek writes: “Just wanted to let everyone know that Joe ’01 and I are proud parents of a new son! Desmond Anthony Vasicek (pictured below) was born at 5:51 p.m. on June 27,
2010. He weighed 9 lbs 15 oz and was the biggest baby born at St. Vincent that day. We are very proud of this little guy and think he's pretty darn cute. Here’s a photo; what do you think?” Thanks Jen, congratulations to you and Joe, and you definitely know a cute baby when you see one. And speaking of cute babies: Julia (Beckner) Covert and her husband, blubbering new firsttime Dad and class notes editor Marc Covert ’93, welcomed little Oliver James Covert (pictured below) to the world on Sunday, December 12, at 12:12 a.m. (12/12 at 12:12 for you numerologists). He weighed 9 lbs., 9 oz. and was
’98 SWISS DELIGHTS Jennie Wyss writes: “Hi, I have been meaning to write to the alumni office about a new restaurant we opened called Cafe Hibiscus. The name is a little misleading; it is a Swiss Cafe and restaurant off of NE Alberta. I was born and raised in Honolulu but my father is from Switzerland and was a chef in Honolulu. I never imagined having a cafe and cooking Swiss food but it all fell into place and now my nursing and massage careers are on hold for a while. It started because we were manufacturing my Dad’s Swiss salad dressing; the space we found on Alberta street allowed for more than just manufacturing so we decided to serve a little
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21 inches long. “Little Ollie is the sweetest boy ever, even if I may be a bit biased,” according to Julia. “Marcus and Oliver and I just love being a family.” At last check Oliver was up to 13 lbs., 8 oz. You can hear that kid grow. We heard recently from Rusty and Maria Williford: “After four-plus eventful years
Film Producer—that was the calling card for Melissa Marsland ’01 for twenty years. She helped create Blashfield Studios, made some of the first MTV music videos (featuring the Talking Heads, Joni Mitchell, and Paul Simon), won Emmys, produced shows for Sesame Street. But eventually money and power jostled aside art and passion for her, and “I looked around for what had been an ongoing passion in my life: Spanish had always been a passion…” She moved to Oaxaca for a year, teaching English, soaking up Spanish, and then earned her master’s in teaching on The Bluff. She started teaching in 2001, and this afternoon she is gently corralling her second-year Spanish class at Roosevelt High, Portland’s most diverse high school. Two-thirds of its 750 students get free or reduced meals; many are foster children, homeless, have gang connections, and are of Hispanic, Hmong, Tongan, Somali, Russian, and Asian descent, among many other ancestries. The last few years have been rocky for Roosevelt: after splitting into three small “academies” to comply with the No Child Left Behind Act, it is transitioning back to one school because it is the city’s only school in President Barack Obama’s education reform program, Race to the Top. Marsland’s classes are now much bigger (150 students a week), and she’s shifted away from grammar and more toward oral storytelling. “It’s more natural learning for language,” Marsland says, and her students were ready and willing. And how lucky that their teacher has been a nationally renowned professional storyteller for many years… —Amanda Waldroupe of working in the Pentagon, the Air Force is graciously sending me to Oregon State University to get my Ph.D. in nuclear engineering,” writes Rusty. “Our time in the nation's capital was wonderful, mainly because of the addition of our two kids, Brooke
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and Austin, who were both born at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. We are very excited to move back to Oregon to be closer to family and friends, not to mention beginning a new challenge.” Thanks for writing, Rusty, and welcome