Class Notes

Barbara “Bobbi” Bishop Mann and Jana Privette Usry drove to Fredericksburg in May for the UMW College of Education’s second annual Educator-in- Residence presentation on the Stafford Campus. They ate lunch at FOODĒ restaurant and stayed overnight at the Kalnen Inn at the Jepson Alumni Executive Center. Bobbi took a June photography class to increase her proficiency with her new camera. She also started taking yoga and saw Eleanor McJilton Thompson at a class. Bobbi attended a July mini-conference at UMW and got a private tour of the newly renovated Mason and Randolph dorms. A mural with scenes from the Rappahannock, York, and James rivers designed from a faculty member’s photos covers the walls of the connecting tunnel. The complex has seminar rooms, group study rooms, Wi-Fi everywhere, and hall lights on motion sensors. Bobbi was already planning the next MWC Lunch Bunch meeting and reading Geraldine Brooks’ March, about the absent father from Little Women during the Civil War.

Ginny Bateman Brinkley and husband Bill met Roger and Ryan Stewart Davis in April in Maui, where Ryan and Roger enjoyed an extended stay. Ryan was completely healed after last August’s auto accident and subsequent surgeries and rehabilitation. Ginny’s son, Scott, and his family joined them, and Ginny and Bill shared favorite holiday spots with several grandchildren. They visited Oahu, the North Shore, and the Volcom House and spent time with surfing legend Peter Cole, a former coworker of Ginny’s and one of the original Hawaii surfers. At 81, he still surfs! Ginny’s latest book, EarthQuest, a Story of Life, Love and the Pursuit of Red Meat, has received good reviews. Ginny’s mad scientist uncle began the story and put it aside. Ginny found it after he moved to a nursing home, and she and another writer finished it and had it published. Ginny thanks all who promoted it.

Cathe Cantwell Luria received a national award at the June convention of the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners in Orlando, Fla., and sent copies from the photo shoot for posters, articles, and magazine covers. Linda Mitchell Spiers of Collinsville, Conn., hoped to finish her doctor of ministry degree by summer. She was an adviser for a June ecumenical mission camp for high schoolers in Hartford and chaired the Connecticut deputation to the General Convention of the Episcopal Church in July. She vacationed with friends at Rehoboth Beach, Del., and visits her mother and stepfather in Alexandria, Va.

Linda Spangler Berkheimer spent her usual two weeks in North Carolina’s Outer Banks in June and visited Mary Parsons Black and Annette Maddra Horner, who both live in Elizabeth City. They, in turn, visited Spang’s timeshare, where Karen Berkheimer Morton ’95 and Betsy Bowen ’79 joined them. The five of them did a rousing rendition of the MWC fight song in the beach club parking lot. Last November Spang and husband Phil visited Egypt and Jordan between demonstrations, and toured the museum in Tahrir Square. In August, she and Phil entertained Charlie and Mary Kathryn Rowell Horner at home in Frederick, Md., for golf and Maryland cuisine. Mary K hoped to dine at one of Top Chef Bryan Voltaggio’s restaurants there.

Carolyn Eldred visited Canadian cousins she hadn’t met before in Toronto in July, planned to attend her 50th high school reunion in summer, and hangs out with the folks at WAMU, the NPR station of Washington, D.C. Lynn Smithey Campbell is retired and spends time with family and grandchildren. Kathleen Goddard Moss and husband Tom visited their daughter’s family in Spain last Easter. Kathy and sister Eileen Goddard Albrigo care for their parents, who are in an assisted living/nursing facility. Kathy took a June trip to California, where she and Tom cared for their 2.-year-old grandson. Yvonne March of Tampa visited her son in Westerville, Ohio, for his 43rd birthday and traveled in July to Italy, visiting the Amalfi Coast and Sicily. Yvonne and Chris attended an August Ferree family reunion in Pennsylvania, stopping along the East Coast to visit family and friends.

Joan Cuccias Patton spent an extended Memorial Day weekend with her siblings on Mobile Bay in Alabama, continuing the tradition their father initiated years ago of giving the “gift of themselves,” without any spouses or grandchildren. Joan attended her 50th high school reunion in June in Coronado, Calif., and visited friends in Tucson, Ariz. She spent a week in North Carolina’s Outer Banks with her children and grandchildren and attended an extended family reunion in California. Sally Souder and Gerry Sargent Habas met in St. Petersburg, Fla., in May to celebrate Gerry’s birthday, lunching at a Tampa Bay restaurant and laughing over reunion photos sent by Anne Clagett. Sally, Gerry, and Patti Bergin Bergman were enthusiastically dancing and waiting for an invitation from Dancing With the Stars! Sally monitors sea turtle nests and said a mild winter and early spring resulted in more nests and eggs. Susan Roth Nurin is in love with her home city, New York. Central Park blooms outside her window, the subway stops at her doorstep, and she finds affordable ways of attending activities and performances. She’s met ballet and opera stars, including Plácido Domingo and Mikhail Baryshnikov.

In March, several classmates convened at the Fredericksburg restaurant, FOODĒ, to discuss a project of the U.S. Women’s History Since 1870 class, taught by Jeffrey McClurken ’94, UMW associate professor and chair of the history and American studies department. The class was challenged to research college life as experienced by American women, decade by decade. Samantha Stepanov- VandenBerg ’14 focused on the ’60s and contacted Barbara Bishop Mann to solicit participation from our class. Some classmates answered questionnaires, and seven of them met with Sam, whom Anne Meade Clagett said is enthusiastic. Jana Privette Usry brought old photos and MWC memorabilia. The rest of the group added to the thoughts Lois Rucker Scott had put in writing. Dianne Twiggs Wentworth said they discussed changes that occurred during our four years at Mary Washington, including the end of sit-down dinners at Seacobeck and the beginning of men being allowed to visit dorms on Sunday afternoons. Sheila Denny Young, Kathy Goddard Moss, and Joan Cuccias Patton agreed it was an interesting project, and Sam referred everyone to Internet links and blogs created for it.