After living in the sunny south for 28 years, Celeste Keefe Wesner’s family is finally putting a swimming pool in their Roswell, Ga., backyard. The pool company’s slogan is “live life with no regrets.” Celeste wishes they could have afforded this when the kids were younger, but maybe someday it will be a way to lure grandchildren to come visit. Celeste has taught at Roswell High School for 23 years and is a Spanish teacher and department head. Her husband is a ministry consultant with Walk Thru the Bible, an international outreach for Biblical studies. Daughter Marian graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 2008 with a communications degree and works in post-production television editing in Atlanta. Son James will graduate next year as an audio engineering major from the Art Institute of Atlanta and is a certified bicycle mechanic with REI. * Marty Womer’s elder law practice at the Maine Center for Elder Law is busy and recently moved to a better office in Kennebunk. In July Marty attended his 40th high school reunion in Connecticut. * Another 40th high school reunion attendee was John Conant last June in Moorestown, N.J. He found it to actually be fun! He has stayed in touch with some Moorestown classmates, though not nearly as many as from Colby. * John and Ann Gage Conant joined Virginia (Day ’74) and Roy Hardin and David Peck last summer for a week of whitewater rafting on the Salmon River, Idaho, followed by a week of RVing in Yellowstone. This was their first experience on whitewater for longer than an hour! * Dave and Nan Weidmann Anderson are two thirds of the way through the 400-mile Colorado Trail. Their latest advice is to ditch those sweltering constrictive mummy bags and grab the cozy down comforter! Last June Nan ran the well-named “Slacker Half,” which was mostly downhill from 11,500 feet to 9,500 feet. Gravity does work! * Stephanie Maull is excited about the launch of her new online business, Tastefully Simple (http://simply-delicious-gifts.com), which has joined in supporting the Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry campaign. * Joe Johnson had a great time being part of the large turnout to honor Coach Dick Whitmore for his 40 years at Colby. Fellow classmates Brad Moore, Gene DeLorenzo, Bill Walthall, and Kevin Zorski joined him, in addition to good friends from the Class of 1976. “It was a fabulous 48 hours and a fitting tribute to a great man and leader.” * Richard (Dick) Norwood and his family moved back to New England after 25 years in South Carolina. They live in Bourne, Mass., and are trying to make his grandparents’ summer cottage a year-round home. A genealogy buff for many years, Dick manages a Y-DNA project and a local geographical MtDNA project at Family Tree DNA online. His paternal side is all of New England and Maritime Canada descent; after settling in Gloucester by 1663, his Norwood forefather and wife raised 10 children and became progenitors of all the New England Norwoods. Dick is also a descendant of Roger Conant, one of the founders of Lynn, Mass. Definitely an enthusiast, Dick explains how each generation is naturally connected to its own times, but how genealogical research allows us, through our own families, to feel more intimately connected to the times and generations that have gone before. Will Tuttle can trace his New England roots back to the Pilgrims arriving on the Mayflower in 1620 and the Puritans on the Planter in 1635. * And on a lighter note, Liz Richards Julian’s grandmother, who was raised in Maine, had 15 brothers and sisters, producing 96 first cousins for her father, so Liz figures that somehow pretty much everyone in Maine is related to her!
Fall 2011