Class Notes

Cathie O’Connor Woteki – Cathie retired from federal service Dec. 31 after serving 6 years in the Obama administration as USDA’s Chief Scientist & Under Secretary for Research, Education. & Economics. Then she joined the faculty at Iowa State University where she was the Dean of Agriculture. She is also a visiting scholar at Virginia Tech’s Biocomplexity Institute, where she will be developing course work on science policy and working on her next book. In short, the only thing she has failed at is retirement. Her husband Tom continues as Senior VP at Maximus, Inc, & they still live on Capitol Hill.

Dr. Sharon Dobie has had a very tough personal year. Her 31 year old son died from complications of Schleroderma. She has had plans for retirement, but she is currently on hold with any change of plans , as she is still recovering from grief and the loss of one of her two sons. Send her healing thoughts.

Pam Hogan Baynard is in shock that she has actually become 70 years old. When she returned from her last tour of Central Europe ( Warsaw, Krakow, Budapest, Vienna & Prague), she said it was fascinating but exhausting. Her question was why weren’t more naps on the itinerary?

She does volunteer work for her church, but her most enjoyable one is making quilts from remnants for the Lutheran World Relief. These quilts are shipped around the world after natural disasters or given to refugees. Her husband Chuck likes flying airplanes.

Lyn Holmes Gray attended husband Jim’s 50th college reunion at Randolph Macon while visiting their home in Blacksburg, Va. They returned back to their home in Africa in June.

Anne Witham Kilpatrick has been busy with her last year as President of the Daughters of the American Revolution. She says it keeps her off the streets at night and she sleeps well. Her husband Roger still enjoys his bagpipe activities.( I assume he practices during the day, since Anne is sleeping well at night!)  They have plans to drive to Nova Scotia while visiting friends and family along the Eastern seaboard.

Eleanor Woollard lives near Yorktown, Va., while continuing as Director Of Music at Christ Church in Mathews, Va. She also has a small private practice as Professional counselor in Gloucester, Va. for fun she does Isaiah Zagarish mosaics on large square cinderblocks, which hold up her house after Hurricane Isabel destroyed the place.

Carol Hewitt Guida (architect) spent a month at Christmas with her husband Hal (architect) studying the beautiful buildings & garden courtyards of Palladio around Vicenza in Italy. Carol also spent time with weavers in their Renaissance studios in Florence and Venice. They were also in Singapore recently. They continue to renovate their old house in a way they can remain there until they go out with their boots on. Carol broke her foot and has now been banned from climbing on the roof to clean out the gutters.

Lesley Fanning Atkinson reports she spent time at Hilton Head this past May with some MW classmates from Russell 3rd floor North. ( Nancy Raisor Schlossberg, Polly Elkins Rosenstein, Donna Bredahl Searle and Gabrielle Pagin ’70). Lesley is going on a Moselle and Rhine river cruise, having successfully done the Danube 2 years ago. She and her husband are retired and they fly to California and Colorado a lot their daughters and grandchildren. Her oldest daughter lives in Zanzibar with two grandchildren. They hope to visit there as well soon.

Bev Holt and wife Deb went with four friends on a Viking River Cruise called “Windmills and Tulips” this spring, touring the Netherlands and Belgium. They were there to celebrate Bev’s 70th birthday. Bev’s mom is now 93 and like the energizer bunny just keeps going!

Regina Sneed is moving to a retirement community in the city ( San Francisco). She continues to do volunteer work locally, especially with her background in law.

My Santa Rosa, California remodeled “forever home” is now complete  and we live here without carpenters. At one point we thought they came with the house ad infinitem. It won a first place design award locally and will be going for regional prize next. We created a walk out basement directly to the backyard with 8 raised garden beds set at 24 inches high so Ann could sit on them without bending over while planting and gleaning. There are no steps in the house, including into the shower or entering & exiting the house. We have an elevator to go downstairs to the basement floor, which is now a grand guest suite, with ADA bath,  kitchen, den, exercise space and laundry. Eventually someone will live down there to take care of us…after our 70th MW reunion.

I am playing gold, pickleball, doing yoga 3 times a week and have a personal strength trainer….all things to keep me feeling younger.

Ann and I are doing two folk music concerts a year with our 5 piece band called More Joy. Life is very good and I have aced retirement. (People said I would fail! )

Fyi- Chibba Watters Miller’s youngest daughter got married on Anna Maria Island on February 26th. Chibba is doing some art and craft projects at home that I hope to see in person sometime when I am visiting Florida.

Cynthia Lowdermilk has retired and gotten into her creative side. She likes drawing and painting with water colors. She claims her life is “boring” but it seems like she has carved out a nice zen like life for herself, which is only interrupted by setting out the trash cans every Friday.

from Anne Hoskot Kreuzer: Tom and I are enjoying  our retirement, and spend much of our free time traveling to see our 4 sons and their young families who live in Wilmington, NC, Carrboro, NC, Richmond, VA and Encinitas, CA. Last fall we took a fascinating trip to the WWII POW camp NW of Warsaw where my Dad was held following his D-Day capture after parachuting into Normandy. We thoroughly enjoyed Poland and would love to return should the opportunity arise.

Karen Ralston hosted her UMW roomies/ suitemates in February, 2016 in a spacious rental house in Satellite Beach, Florida. Linda Huff Alderson & husband Sandy were already close by at the Mets’ camp, since Sand is General Manager. (The Aldersons reside in New York City.)

Jane Jackson Woerner and husband were there as well. Jane lives in Florida but is moving to Urbana, Virginia soon.

Barbara Marks Poppleton lives in Florida, so she met the group as well.

Bonnie Page Hoopengardner ( living in Williamsburg) and Linda Marrett Disoway (living in Georgia) came south to join in the fun.

Karen rented the home to visit her nearby daughter, who is a research professor at Florida Tech and to have her son & his family come down from Colorado for the second week of their stay. The first week was all Mary Wash. They all pitched in for food and clean up and talked like they had just seen each last week. That is what 50 years of friendship and shared experiences has done for them. Sandy, Jim and Roger shared lots of stories about VietNam War. The girls toured Karen’s daughter’s Florida Laboratory, which researches “anti-fouling” (keeping barnacles, etc. off ship hulls- will save Navy lots of money!).

Mostly they hung out on the beach and by the pool, talked, ate and drank!

Karen has put their Memphis home up for sale and will move to a beach In Florida after the house sells. They will keep their house in Breckinridge, Colorado to visit with their son and ski!

She is looking forward to our 50th reunion back in Fredericksburg.

Dr. Ellen R. Brown ’69, lost her husband, Barry L. Bressler, this past February.

From Jennifer Higgins Clark: My husband Dane, a marine meteorologist, and I met at work 38 years ago.  I was an oceanographer and it was definitely love at first sight.  We worked for NOAA for 30 years each and then started our own business called Jenifer Clark’s Gulfstream and our webpage is jcgulfstream.com.  It has been a God given thriving business for 21 years.  We  were the ocean and weather support for Diana Nyad who swan from Cuba to Florida and were featured in her book “Find a Way”.  At age 64 she was successful after trying for 4 years!!   We also routed Erden Eruc in his around the world row and were featured in his book called “A Journey of a Life Time”. He was the first person in history to row around the world.  We routinely aid sailboat racers in winning races from Newport to Bermuda and other sailboat races.  We help the Coast Guard with search and rescue when a plane, boat, or person is lost at sea.   We love our “hobby” and will never retire even tho I am 70 now!

Signing off! If I hear from others before the deadline, I will send it on!