JOHN SHINKLE, POLITICO
and psychology at the universities of Kentucky, new Mexico, and South Carolina. She spent several weeks last summer in Grand Goâve, Haiti, serving on a work team with Lifeline Christian Missions. it was a truly rewarding experience. She is serving as a lay counselor at her church and is working on a master’s degree—her second one—in counseling psychology. She volunteers weekly with UK freshmen at Christian Student Fellowship. Last February, Susan joined Ur alumni at Xavier University in Cincinnati, including Terry Heilman Sylvester, B’76, to see the Spiders play basketball. Susan and her son, John, her brother, and her nephew attended the Final Four to see her beloved UK wildcats win the nCAA national Championship in new Orleans in April! in her “spare” time, she attends other UK sporting events and concerts and reads everything she can get her hands on. She wishes us all a happy 60th birthday but wonders how in the world it could be possible. through her job as executive director of Historic richmond Foundation, Mary Jane Massad Hogue saw my husband, Ted Chandler, L’77, on a richmond Chamber of Commerce trip to Boston, and she has seen classmates Hope Armstrong Erb, W and G’80, and Grace Robinson den Hartog. while on vacation she saw Wendy Church Sydnor. they had a great time ringing in the new year together. Nancy Heilman Cale, W’75 and G’77, invited Mary Jane to volunteer for the Ur Chapel Guild. Mary Jane and Janet Ferrell have reconnected there and at other richmond nonprofit endeavors. Mary Jane has interacted with the University’s president, Dr. ed Ayers, pertaining to the discussions surrounding the 150th anniversary of the Civil war. She says he is an amazing speaker on the topic and that he brings a wonderful perspective to the conversation. Mary Jane now has both granddaughters and grandsons and says there really is gender difference, even at a young age. Shirley Meadows Trible enjoyed time off last summer after tutoring world history and American history students to prepare them for the Virginia Standards of Learning tests. She and her brother and sister-in-law took her mother to Fort Myers, Fla., in late May and enjoyed day trips to Sanibel and Captiva islands. in
Copy-editing Washington Judy Shapleigh, W’72 Edward or Ted Kennedy? Sen. Nelson of Nebraska or Sen. Nelson of Florida? Was Specter or Franken the 60th vote for the Affordable Health Care Act? Those are just some of the calls Judy Shapleigh has to make with speed and accuracy as the chief of Politico’s copy desk. At a time when most newspapers are cutting staff, D.C.-based Politico is booming, thanks in part to a growing national obsession with an insider’s view of politics. Shapleigh signed on at Politico nearly four years ago after three decades at U.S. News & World Report. Going from a weekly magazine to one that publishes five days a week when Congress is in session has been a “shocking change,” she says. Daily blog posts and online stories also add more copy to proof. Conventions. Elections. Inaugurations. Policy speeches. The 2012 election was her first presidential campaign at Politico and continued the frantic pace. “To just go into politics, I had a lot to learn,” Shapleigh says. “It’s either gonna kill me or it’s gonna keep me young. It’s a really stimulating place to work.” Shapleigh manages the paper’s style guide and fact-checks candidate and lawmaker names, home states, committee appointments, party affiliations, and esoteric nuances about Capitol Hill scandals. She memorized hundreds of names and facts so she can easily spot errors in copy. To help reporters, Shapleigh writes a blog on style and usage and wrote a grammar guide called Perilous Pairs, detailing words that confuse writers. Being correct and consistent in style is important for a news organization, she says, because “you want people to trust you.” “The work is never done,” she says. “You become addicted to politics. I guess most of the people here are obsessed. You put out the paper, come home and watch the debates and coverage, and read copy online for another hour as people are blogging. It’s a long day.” —Catherine Amos
June, she enjoyed a family vacation to Corolla, n.C. Donna Higginbotham Rosser is enjoying retirement after 32 years teaching math. She looks forward to frequent trips to new York City to visit with her son, Jay, daughter-inlaw, nicole, and new granddaughter. Her daughter, Allison Rosser, ’09, lives in Seattle and works for world Vision. Donna traveled to Seattle in September to visit. Donna continues as organist/choir director at First Baptist Church in Altavista, Va., and is excited that retirement from teaching will allow her time to learn some new music! Janet Ferrell stays busy with club activities and scorekeeping for nCAA volleyball. She and her husband, Mark Bearden, have traveled to Vermont, Hilton Head, S.C., and to Kansas City, Mo., to see daughter Meredith’s U.Va. club volleyball team play in the national club volleyball championships. while Meredith, a U.Va. junior, studied at Oxford last summer, the family visited her and toured the area. their daughter Melissa graduated from Dartmouth in June and is working in washington, D.C. Janet visited Carolyn Ridgway Cook and saw Betsy Ray Cobb, Sarah Hopkins Finley, W and L’82, and Susan Lindler Stephenson last spring. During the 2012 Lenten season, Janet and Princess Daniel, the wife of John M. Daniel III, R, joined the team organized by Betty Ann Allen Dillon, W and G’49, to serve lunches at St. Paul’s in downtown richmond. what a blessing! in April, thanks to a recommendation from Nancy Heilman Cale, Janet served as day chairman at the tuckahoe woman’s Club and introduced astronaut Leland Melvin, R’86. He was a wonderful guest speaker. that same month, the Ur Chapel Guild members were guests at the annual trustees dinner in celebration of 25 years of the endowment of the chaplaincy. i attended the event along with Diana Blackburn Whitaker, W’75, Michael Mahoney, B’75, and Suzanne Heffner Brown, W’75. Pam Floyd Pulley and Glenn Pulley, R’73 and L’76, spent two weeks last summer in Kauai, Hawaii, hiking, kayaking, and snorkeling. they also visited Bald Head island, n.C., with their former exchange student from Berlin. they hosted a family reunion at wintergreen, Va., to
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