ALUMNI PROFILES
Melvin Lyon '52
Curious Behavior

Marjeanne Banks Vacco '62
Challenge Match

Karen Craft '77
No Place Like Home

Alicia M. Rodriguez-Connolly '78

Mary Schwalm '99
Down to the Wire

Kyle Garry '00

Laura Tapia Aiken's husband, Hugh, will have his new piece, Songs and Caprices, performed on November 3 and 4 in New York Chamber symphony concerts at Alice Tully Hall. The entire program sounds great, and I hope to attend and to see the Aikens there. Widely traveled, they had "an extraordinary trip in Japan," Laura recently wrote to me. "It has awakened much interest in the Japanese part in WWII. It was this war that brought Hugh and me together. He was a cadet training at Colby when we met.". . . In June, Helen Strauss enjoyed the Class of '46 reunion--that being the class she started with. . . . Frannie Dow Wells was also there and reports that she was amazed to find so many young families there, with lots of activities provided for the children. Frannie also has written about her rather overwhelming late spring, hard work and a remarkable requirement of her recycling center: separating the leaves from the pine needles from the brush, all of them being thoroughly mixed in a small truck load. Now, I mean is that a unique challenge, or what? . . . Muriel Marker Gould and I went on a wonderful cruise to Norway in June. We arrived in arctic Spitsbergen (one of several ports of call) on a day when the sun just doesn't set, so it's like broad daylight all through the night. Then, with no sunset, there is, of course, no sunrise. A fascinating experience out on the ship's deck. One could have a swim in the pool at sunny 2 a.m. if only it were not quite so cold.

--Naomi Collett Paganelli

The campus was gorgeous in brilliant Maine weather when a hardy band of '46ers gathered for our 55th reunion at the clam bake on June 9. Those who didn't stay on for the dinner included Marie Jones Nye, Mary Young, who spends half the year in Florida and half in Maine (perfect arrangement), Audrey Dyer Houghton, Paul Adams (retired U.S. Navy lieutenant commander), who lives in Southport, Maine, but is moving to Arizona ("those Maine winters!") and Betty Scalise Kilham. The acoustical problems of the Field House made interviewing difficult (did I mention note taking while dripping butter and clam juice?), but it was good to see the group, and we hope to hear from them. . . . Dinner in Dana's remodeled dining room (huge improvement) included the lunch crowd of Emily Holbrook Pelissier and Bruce, Hannah Karp Laipson, Carol Robin Epstein, Helen Strauss '45, Constance Choate Trahan and Bob, Rowen Kusnitt Kessler and Bill (all the way from California), Jean O'Brien Perkins and Shirley Bessey '48. Howard Miller '40 told us Glenyce Miller Kaplan was at a grandson's graduation. . . . Jean brought photos and told us about her fascinating two years in Bulgaria with the Peace Corps. She is spending the third year doing programs around Maine on her experiences with the Peace Corps and is about to go to San Diego. . . . Shirley is back on the Maine farm in Thorndike, where she grew up, after a career in education. She got her M.A. at Wisconsin and her Ed.D. at Boston University and taught in Kansas, at SUNY-Cortland and the University of Southern Maine, specializing in community development and leadership. After retiring she went back to the farm to help her brother--the fourth generation to run it. No longer dairy farmers, they have 70 to 80 head of Hereford beef cattle. Shirley showed photos of her beautiful and, she says, affectionate bulls and said, "They say you can't go home again, but I did." . . . We missed faithful attendees Charlene Blance Ray, Norma Taraldsen Billings and Shirley Martin Dudley and hope to hear from them soon. . . . Ruth Lewin Emerson writes that they have bought a Roadtrek Motorhome and are planning to travel to Loveland, Colo., and then to Omro, Wis. Maybe Florida will figure in their winter plans. They hope to see some Colby friends along the way. . . . Please send news!

-Anne Lawrence Bondy

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Dana and Harriet Nourse Robinson spent eight days in Hong Kong with a tour group including 16 of their friends and neighbors. She promises us a note giving more details later. They recently had a four-day visit from son Tim's daughter, husband and son. That makes Dana and Harriet great-grandparents! . . . After 40 years at Stanford University, David Weber and his wife, Natalie, have moved to southern California to be close to their four children and nine grandchildren. David says Tom Burke's proximity also contributed to the move. . . . After retiring from the directorship of the Center for NATO Studies at Kent State University, Larry Kaplan returned to the Washington area, when his wife found a job there. He commuted to Kent State, teaching one course for a couple of years, and then, in 1993, began to teach a course in NATO history to students in the School of Foreign Services at Georgetown University. He serves as a consultant to the Secretary of Defense's Historical Office as a member of the CIA historical advisory panel and as a member of the editorial board of the British Journal of Cold War History. He is currently researching one book and has plans for more. In June he is usually in Europe, where he formerly sought funds in London or Brussels and recently participated in conferences. Eventually he hopes to join us all at a Colby reunion. Meantime, he says Marilyn Hubert has kept him abreast of activities that the magazine hasn't covered. . . . In April, at St. Matthew Orthodox Church in Green Bay, Wis., Richard Sampson was tonsured a reader in the Orthodox Church in America by His Grace, Bishop Job of the diocese of Chicago and the Midwest. A reader, he explained, is the lowest rung of the clerical ladder in orthodoxy. He also has been re-elected as secretary of the Eighth Congressional District Democratic Party for another two-year term. He says he and his wife are well, very busy and looking forward to the reunion next year. . . . Louise Boudrot Phillips visited her daughter in Florida last winter and keeps herself busy bonding with her 5-year-old grandson and playing bridge and golf. She much appreciates her "wonderful family, who have been most supportive" since the death of her husband, Wendell '44, nearly a year ago. . . . I wish I had room to share the complete letter from Shirley Lloyd Thorne about her trip to Malta. She describes Malta as a country of three islands: Malta itself, with a population of about 380,000; Gozo, which is the center of much of the country's agriculture, population about 22,000; and a small island, uninhabited except by vacationers in summer. It was deforested centuries ago by Phoenicians and Romans, who used the trees for shipbuilding and natives as galley slaves. Malta gained full independence from England in 1984. Remaining is evidence of settlements 7,000 years old and many caves with prehistoric animal bones and signs of human inhabitants. The water supply is almost entirely desalinated from the Mediterranean, and most of the coastline is golden sandstone rocks worn smooth by the sea. Shirley divides her summer between tending flowers and vegetable gardens in New Hampshire and working on the Committee to End Elder Homelessness in Boston. . . . I am sorry to report the death in March of Eileen McMahon Bills after a long illness.

-Mary "Liz" Hall Fitch

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Not long after we submitted our notes that were due on March 15, 2001, we received an e-mail from Frances Hyde Stephan titled "News of Aged People Who Are Colby Grads and Still Truckin." She writes that she still plays golf and tennis and rides bikes. She has been teaching English as a second language to a Russian student in Riviera Beach, Fla. . . . We received an informative note from Kay Weisman Jaffe. She wrote that she saw Fran Hyde Stephan and Carol Silverstein Baker in May. Kay recently saw Marie Machell Milliken, who was visiting Kay's neighbor. Marie was attending her 50th reunion at the Yale School of Nursing, and her husband was attending his 50th at Yale. Kay says that she is giving up some of her volunteer work as a librarian now that she is our class agent, and she's planning an annual pilgrimage to Colby to keep up with the progress since she has to write solicitation letters. She anticipated visiting Maine museums with Carol Baker in the spring or summer. She also is a fund raiser for the New Marlborough Meeting House and still a board member of Friends of the New Marlborough Library. . . . Six years ago Helen Knox Elliott and her husband moved to North Carolina to enjoy retirement village living. They are halfway between the mountains and the ocean, near the "triangle" cities of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill, an area with many top universities and medical centers. They report that their neighbors soon became an extended family, and they highly recommend giving retirement communities a try. . . . We attended the Colby commencement and briefly saw Harriet Sargent Wiswell and her husband, George '50. Their grandson Timothy Bennet Wiswell was in the graduating class. . . . We were in Vineyard Haven on our boat on June 9 and called Marvin Joslow. Both Marvin and Betty drove down from the far end of Martha's Vineyard to join us for dinner. Both of them are completely immersed in the island life. Betty is active as a librarian, and Marvin serves on about nine committees and, we believe, is still constable and a volunteer fireman. We could give you more specific details but we were distracted because we were having so much fun. We missed them last year because we never sailed the boat to Menemsha Harbor, which is quite near the house.

--Dorothy and David Marson

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Greetings from Maine! I moved to Topsham mid-May and am busy settling in. Not all the cartons are emptied yet, but I am closing in on it. My new address is 24 Sewall Lane, Topsham, Maine 04086 (telephone number 207-729-0395; e-mail address aeustis@suscom-maine.net). I am now a neighbor of my freshman roommate, Martha Loughman Shepard, which is fun. Also welcoming me to the area is Hope Harvey Graf, who lives not far away. We've already had one evening together and are looking forward to more. . . . My thanks to Don and Hilda Farnum Nicoll, who graciously accepted my appointment of them as "on the scene reporters" at the recent Reunion Weekend. Here is their report: "The weather was beautiful and the program full for the '49ers who made it back for the 50-Plus Club events on Mayflower Hill. We were housed (those who elected to stay on campus) and fed in Dana again this year. We had two opportunities to meet and hear from President William "Bro" Adams and his wife, Cathy Bruce: at the Alumni Association meeting on Saturday and at the 50-Plus Club reunion dinner that evening. There were 22 of us in the Class of '49 group: Gail and John Appleton, Kay and Walt Borucki, Miles and Ruth Endicott Freeman, Stuart and Jean Hillsen Grout, Dick and Mimi Dickinson Hammond, Lois and Olaf Kays, Sid McKeen and his friend Page Worth, Frankie and Bud Nannig, Don and Hilda Farnum Nicoll, Peg and Bob Rowell and Muriel and Bob Tonge. Conversations ranged from reminiscences to reports on families to observations on how Colby has changed to the state of the world to political differences, all in the mood of ripening friendships. Following the Boardman Service on Sunday morning, when we paused to remember Pauline Vitkauskas Kuzmeski, Robert B. Maxell, Ethan E. Newton and James H. Wing, who died within the last year, we said good-bye with promises to try to make it back next year and continue the conversations and the associations." Perhaps more of us should try to join them next year.

--Anne Hagar Eustis

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