The Department of State recently announced the selection of Patrick D. Duddy '72 as the U.S. consul general in São Paulo, Brazil, the world's third-largest city. A career member of the Foreign Service, Duddy will be the senior U.S. government official at the largest consulate in South America, one of the largest in the world * "A new leader emerges," declared the Norfolk, Va., Virginian-Pilot headline. Even though Kenneth R. Melvin '74, now in his 17th year as a delegate to the Virginia General Assembly, is pleased with laws he's helped enact, he said he also serves "to make certain that bad bills do not become legislation. In a session with over 2,500 bills, there are a lot of them" * Composer Arthur C. Levering II '75 recently was awarded a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship. Levering was one of 184 people selected from among more than 2,800 applicants on the basis of unusually impressive achievement in the past and exceptional promise for future accomplishment * For weeks their story was front page in major newspapers as Wachovia Corp. and First Union Corp. closed in on a merger, making the Charlotte, Va.-based company the fourth-largest banking institution in the U.S. "We think we have very effectively blended the two teams and cultures," Stephen E. Cummings '77, co-head of the new corporate and investment banking unit, told the Charlotte Observer.

Deaths: Amelia Rosenfeld '71, July 17, 1999, in Chapel Hill, N.C., at 49 * Ellen Muzzy Farnham '72, June 14, 2002, in Brunswick, Maine, at 51 * Paul Allerton '77, June 6, 2001, in New York, N.Y., at 47.