ALUMNI PROFILES
Curtis Johnson '75
Knowing the Drill

Jean Minkel '80
Outside the Box

T.J. Tavares '99
Real Politik

Andrea Pomerance '02
Culture Crossing

After many years of exemplary service, Laura Senier has decided to hang up her hat as class correspondent. Through a chance phone call (and a couple of e-mails), I now have taken on the task of class correspondent and shall do my best to meet the standard she set. . . . I can add a few more reports of births. Tracy and Matt Hancock wrote that they are celebrating the birth of their third daughter, Shauna Nicole, born on May 1. . . . Also on May 1, Rob and Alison Glockler Schwartz welcomed their daughter, Lillian Beatrice, whose brother, Gabriel, turned 2 on May 3. Both parents report being very busy. . . . Colleen Bulger Proppé wrote to say that she and Brian Costello welcomed twin boys, Aidan and Blake Costello, in April 2002. Both are healthy and happy to ride behind mom and dad in the mountain bike trailer in and around San Anselmo, Calif. Colleen and Brian also enjoy hiking and camping, some of which was to take place this summer at Acadia National Park. While in Maine, Colleen plans to visit Jill Sinclair Smith, who recently gave birth to her third child, Trevor James. Colleen also is taking classes, at the College of Marin, toward an R.N. degree. . . . And your humble correspondent, Franc-Eric Wiedmer, and his wife, Debby, welcomed their first child, a daughter, Claire Madeleine, on April 3. . . . On the marriage front we have a couple of updates as well. Tom Whelan sent a brief note to mention that Joe Vecchi is engaged to be married in the fall. Tina Wright wrote that she got married at a winery in Southern California on October 26, 2002, to Andrew Shotts. In attendance were Betsy Morgan, Sara Hurvis Younkin, Bill and Kinda Remick Priestley, Gretchen Granger Hartley, Stacey Parker, Debbie Brown, Katie Erickson and Chris Taylor. Tina and Andrew have their own chocolate business, Garrison Confections (www.garrisonconfections.com), and will open a retail store at the Biltmore Hotel in Providence, R.I., in early fall. . . . After a six-month trip in Asia in the fall of 2001, Scott Myers decided to start his own business, Circa Asia (www.circaasia.com). From its San Francisco base, Circa Asia sells a number of home accessories and handmade paper products from Nepal, Thailand, Vietnam and India to retail stores as well as through the Web site. . . . Chris Hobart sent a note detailing many of his adventures over the years. After a short stint in East Asia, Chris moved to San Francisco in 1991. He considered a number of options, including law, which led to a six-year stint as a paralegal. He finally settled on medicine, and that meant going back to school for two years of pre-med classes plus one year of research in a lab before starting med school in earnest. He is happy to report that he finally graduated med school (UCSF) and will be starting a psychiatry residency program this summer at UCSF. . . . Keep sending news and thanks to all above for sending theirs.

--Laura Senier

top  |   next

Good stuff, people . . . keep it coming! It was great to hear from Brendan Scully, who is teaching and coaching football in North Berwick, Maine, right near the Maine/New Hampshire border, where he moved last year. . . . Wylie Dufresne is opening a new restaurant called WD50 in N.Y.C. This will be the second restaurant he has opened. . . . Katie Bredbeck finished her second year teaching kindergarten in the Bronx and was to get married in July. . . . Norm Stillman graduated from vet school in '98 and has been practicing small-animal medicine in Philadelphia, Pa., for the past five years. He married Diane Osgood '91, and they have two daughters, ages 4 and 2. He and Diane miss New England a lot and are contemplating a move back to Massachusetts within the next year or two. . . . Katie Martin has been back in the Boston area for the past year and a half after living in California's Bay Area. She says, "love being back east and seeing my Colby friends much more frequently! I'm still working for Sun Microsystems, managing partners that sell to higher education customers (including Colby!). The biggest addition is my black Lab puppy, Libby, who is a handful but lots of fun-especially now that it's warm out and she can swim all of the time." . . . Dave Dore wins the award for providing the most information in one e-mail. He wrote that he was to be best man when Kevin Smith got married on June 21 to Andrea Orquera. Todd Alexander, Eric Johnson, Jason Dorion '93, Dana McClintock '93 and Rob Carbone '93 also were to be in attendance. Kevin currently resides in Boston and works for Fidelity. As a side note, David Dore and Rob Carbone both live in Portland, Maine, and both work for J&W Seligman & Co. Eric Johnson lives and works in Salt Lake City, Utah. Todd Alexander was to be married on Labor Day to Catherine E. Decker. . . . Marah Silverberg Derzon is living in Columbus, Ohio, with her husband of three years and two kids (Sidney is 2 and Matthew is almost 1). Marah finished her M.S.W. at Ohio State and has been a full-time mom ever since. . . . Kimberly Kennedy White visited Jill Vollweiler '90 up in Purchase, N.Y., for a long girls' weekend. She plans on running in the N.Y.C. Marathon in November 2003 and also is registered to run the Boston Marathon in April 2004. Kimberly hoped to connect with Helen Suh Chloe and her husband, Norman, and their son, Daniel, in August while visiting her family in Belfast, Maine. . . . The largest law firm in New Hampshire-McLane, Graf, Raulerson and Middleton Professional Association-announced the election of Jennifer McLeod Finch as president of the Association of New Hampshire Law Librarians (ANHLL). She will organize informative sessions to help members keep abreast of the latest legal developments during her two-year term. Jennifer, who has published a number of articles on Web development, also was appointed director of library and research services at the McLane firm, where she provides research and reference assistance to McLane employees, maintains the firm's library collection and makes print and electronic acquisitions that enhance existing research materials. . . . After spending seven years with Alex. Brown & Sons/Bankers Trust/Deutsche Bank (many business cards, one seat) doing health care investment banking, Cal Wheaton decided to join ABS Capital Partners, a private equity/buyout firm in Baltimore, where he is focusing on principal investments in the health care arena. Cal's wife, Aimee Flores Wheaton '95, completed her residency and is an internal medicine physician/hospitalist at a community hospital in northern Baltimore, a daunting six-minute commute from their new house. After spending several years debating the merits of having their "babies" consist only of an opinionated beagle and a ditzy yellow Lab, Cal and Aimee have finally given into the cult that is parenthood and are expecting their first child (a girl) in October. . . . Jessica Maclachlan Hall chaired a fund raiser for the Jeannette Rankin Foundation, a nonprofit that awards educational scholarships to women in need who are 35 years old and older. Tracey McCormick helped. Their event was June 29th, and they hoped to raise $10,000 for JRF. Jessica is still running her decorative painting business, writing a book and loving living in Colorado with her husband, Sam. . . . Erika Christensen has relocated to St. Petersburg, Fla., with her partner, Terri. They have purchased their first home together and spent this summer unpacking, redecorating and exploring the new neighborhood. Erika says, "Vivid memories of recent northern winters should keep us cool enough for many days to come. I continue to keep in touch with Sandra Scarano Crombie, who lives in Massachusetts with her husband, Chuck." . . . In June, Alice Johnson Handwerk and her husband, Brian, moved to New Hampshire. They will be living in Hopkinton (outside of Concord), where Alice will be the director of development at The Derryfield School in Manchester. They are excited to be moving back to New England and look forward to reconnecting with Colby friends in the area. . . . Mary Dunning Beale was married to Laurence Goodyear Constable near Squam Lake in central New Hampshire.

Well, our 10-year reunion has come and gone, and it was great to see everyone for the 24 hours that I was there! It was amazing to see the likes of Will Berglund and Kristin Ellinger Berndt with their spouses and kids, who are their respective spitting images! After catching up with MJohn Cully and Mark Radcliffe outside of Drummond, aimlessly walking around campus with Tyler Lewis, recounting rugby tales with Michelle Kennedy Rainforth, Kristin Ellinger Berndt and Meghan Goughan, giggling at dinner with Carrie Smith and Jule Gourdeau Whelan, playing beer-die with Robbie Robbins, professing my love for Beth Fialko and Bruce Villineau, shooting the proverbial breeze with Chris Chamberlain and Chris Wilder outside of the Student Center, and dancing like an idiot at the Spa with Chris West, Diantha Neskey and Kat Creeden Skulte, I was heartened to find that as much as we all have changed, much really does stay the same! After stopping at Big G's on Sunday, where the sandwiches seemed to only have gotten bigger, Kat and I headed home with respective, requisite hangovers and nostalgic hearts. And it's with a bit of that nostalgia that I am handing the class correspondent torch over to Krista Stein. Yes, my friends and faithful readers, this is my swan song. Nay-don't shed a tear-you can say you knew me when! Please inundate Krista with updates and news, big and small, so that she can imbue her columns with the same zest and creativity towards which I have striven for the past seven years! It has been my pleasure.

--Beth Curran

top  |   next

After serving two years in the Peace Corps in Honduras, Paul White moved to Santiago, Chile, where he graduated in June with an M.B.A. from the Universidad Católica de Chile. He plans to stay in Chile and work in international development. . . . Jessica Matzkin is still at BC getting her master's in social work and still loves her program. She has been able to see Sarah and Matt Lapides, Jeff Carter and Donna Bacchiocchi. She had a fun spring break in the Bahamas with Michelle Tadros and friends. She plans to get together on the Cape this summer with Michelle, Elizabeth Labovitz Smith and Allison Guth Wells and her baby. Jessica planned on going to Honduras on a medical mission with her family in June and to do some AIDS work in Uganda in July. . . . Alice (Amstutz '95) and Greg McDonald and baby Molly are all doing fine. After graduating from Boston University with an M.B.A. and M.S. in information systems, Greg started a job with Evergreen Investments in Boston. . . . Carolyn Hart and husband Dave O'Shea '93 were to move from Michigan to southern Maine in June. Carolyn is looking forward to finishing up her Ph.D. thesis. . . . Jonathan Kaplan is writing for The Hill in Washington, D.C. . . . Tracy Karsch Palumbo recently joined the law firm of Twomey, Latham, Shea & Kelley of Riverhead, N.Y., as an associate. . . . Billy Bush is a correspondent on Access Hollywood and host of Let's Make a Deal, both on NBC. Billy joined Access Hollywood in December 2001. He is also a contributor on NBC's Today show. . . . Katherine Bordwell married Greg Flenniken on December 22, 2002, in Portland, Ore. . . . Jennifer Wolff married Neil DiFrancesca on July 12 in Southboro, Mass. Marinel Mateo and Kristin Owens Dorogi '93 were in the wedding party, and Bonnie Johnson Barry gave a reading. Jenn was recently promoted to director of the social studies department at Shrewsbury (Mass.) High School. . . . Caleb Winder is living on Beacon Hill and attending the M.B.A. program at Babson College. He was to marry Phoebe Gallagher in August. . . . Sara Barker recently got engaged to Elliott Swarthout, a colleague of hers at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. He surprised her while they were on a canoe trip on the Allegheny River. They both work at the ornithology lab at Cornell University as research biologists, Sara in conservation and Elliott in bird population studies (he's working with disease transmission). They plan to buy a house in Ithaca. Sara is still running the JIII alpine ski program at Holimont in western N.Y. during the weekends in the winter and races her road and mountain bike for a team out of Poughkeepsie, N.Y. . . . Joe and Julie Cyr Gibowicz had a daughter, Genevieve Suzanne, on December 6, 2002. Both mom and daughter are doing well. . . . Michael Koester and his wife, Andre Roberts Koester, had a son, William Roberts Koester, on December 19, 2002. . . . Ryan and Christine Messier Feeley welcomed their second son, Cormac Murphy Feeley, on March 27. Their older son, Nolan, turned 3 in May. They are living in Canaan, N.H., where Ryan teaches seventh and eighth grade English at Cardigan Mountain School. Christine tutors part time at Cardigan and mothers full time. . . . David and Lori Cohen Sherf and big brother, Adam, welcomed baby Jacob on April 17. . . . Marile Haylon Borden and her husband, Dave, expect their first child in October . . . as do Matt and Kamin McClelland Macomber. . . . Laura Keally Heywood had a daughter, Ella, in September 2002.

--Tracy K. Larsen

top  |   next