Class Notes

Summer in Atlanta was hot as usual! I escaped the heat in July to take a two-week river cruise around the British Isles. Although I won’t see any of our classmates, I’m traveling with a bunch of VMI ’64 grads, so if any have stories to tell about our classmates, I’ll share them in the next Alumni magazine!

Tennis is still my number one hobby, playing on three teams keeps me out of trouble and sort of in shape. My daughter’s family (she has two boys 5 and 7) lives 20 minutes away, so I get to see them regularly. My son is currently stationed in Pensacola, but is building a home in Clayton, Georgia which is less than 1 1/2 hours away, so I’m looking forward to plenty of day trips to visit them when he retires from the Navy.

If you have news, please send it to me so I can share it with our classmates on my mailing list. If you’re not on my list and want to be, send me an email and I’ll add you!

Pat Hartman Brownlee writes that she has been married to John for 51 years and they live in Southern California. They have 4 daughters and 7 grandchildren – 5 boys and 2 girls- from ages 15 to 2. They all live nearby so they get together a lot. They love to travel especially to Mexico and Hawaii and their health is pretty good for their age. Pat still does Mary Kay Cosmetics. She would love to see any classmates who get out her way.

Mary Montenecourt Goodfellow is a retired teacher who is happily married  [ 53 years]  to her childhood sweetheart/Colgate U. Graduate [ Chuck].  They live in her family’s 1890 home of four generations with an acre on a meandering river in New Jersey. They love their location – that the ocean/beaches is 45 min. to east, horse country 45 min. to west, NYC same amt. to NE. She and her husband treated their family of 17 (including their nine Grands) to a week on St Thomas for their 50th anniversary  and Turks & Caicos in February of this year. They enjoy volunteering with various organizations in the community. They’re being honored by the United Way of Union County at an event in June. However, she writes that family will always come first with her…with tennis and winter outdoor paddle/platform tennis a close second. She gave up skiing in VT a few years ago.

Felicity Hallanan writes that she and her friend Evelyn spend the long winters in northern New York saving up for their travels.Their 3 Road Scholar trips have included a Dutch barge up the Mosel River and a journey across Romania; this year it was the USA, from Charleston to St. Augustine. In July, they attended their 3d General Convention of the Episcopal Church, in Austin, TX.  And, she and her five siblings have created a trust to retain the 170-year-old family home of Windy Hill Acres for the next generations. Life is busy!  

Cheryl Gonzales Yancey enjoysreading everyone’s news! She is still working part-time at the Richmond Symphony and has been involved there in one capacity or another since 1969.  Cheryl and Sandra Clay Copler, her roommate during their sophomore year at MWC,  meet a couple of times a year for lunch to catch-up on news – she and her family are doing well. Henry’s and Cheryl’s wonderful blended family is a source of great joy to her; the children and grandchildren are living coast-to-coast with two family members in California, one in Florida, and most of the rest of them in Virginia, DC and Maryland. Her grandson graduated from Johns Hopkins on May 24 and has a job in the Baltimore area as a mechanical engineer. She is planning a trip to Charleston, SC in June followed by an August trip to “Royal London” with private tours of Clarence House, Frogmore and Windsor Castle among other sites.

Carolyn Davis Lakin Davis (Cookie) writes that she has enjoyed being president of Historic Port Royal, Inc. since 2016 and stays really busy. They have 2 museums (The Museum of American History on Rt. 301 and the Medical Museum on King St.), a Portrait Gallery containing 25 portraits of famous Americans with ties to Port Royal, a newly restored Colonial Meat House and a 1929 School for African American children now used for tours and school field trips. They also have ownership of two historic buildings that she is currently writing grants to restore. It seems almost like a full time job but it is a volunteer only organization and she does meet some wonderful people. One of the Board members is an archaeologist and a UMW grad. You can see them on their website or Facebook. Last November she did take off for a few weeks and traveled to Iceland and England with her two sisters. It was a very special time together and her brother-in-law’s family gave them the best tour ever in Liverpool. On a sad note, she wrote that Madeline Sue Rouzie’s husband, Frank Townsend, died recently. Virginia Hughes Jett and she recall how they dated all four years while they were at MWC and she was always talking about “Frankie”!

Rebecca Tebbs Nunn shared that she opened in a nine-performance run at Lancaster Players in White Stone, VA, after not having played a role on stage in 32 years. She has done a lot of stand -up comedy, monologues, etc., but has been directing all those years after acting with Helen Hayes Repertory Theatre on Broadway and numerous dinner and community theaters in the Washington DC area and radio and television commercials for over 20 years. She is acting with a friend of hers and together they bring over a hundred years of acting experience to the stage in a show entitled “An Evening With Two Fabulous Old Broads in Three Acts.” She is doing her alter ego Modine Gunch in the first act and then her co-star is doing a monologue, then a one-act entitled “Footprints” and last “Save Me a Place at Forest Lawn” which she directed senior year at MWC starring Meade Andrews  and Lang Scruggs  -they won a state award for the show when they took it “on the road” to Charlottesville in 1965. She is still serving as Vice Mayor of Kilmarnock and is now the State Director of the Ms Virginia Senior America Pageant. She was crowned Ms Virginia Senior America in 2016 and said it was a great honor and thrill and so much fun and travel.

Lynn Bard Jones lives about three miles from Becky and is a big golfer. She’s really enjoying her retirement years after setting up PX’s all over the world for the USMC.She says that HT Ritchey Donnelly ’64 lives in Pepperell, MA, and just recently lost her husband Russ. Margaret Cobourn Robinson  and husband Kenny went to Raleigh, NC area and had lunch with her sophomore roommate, Trudy Kitchin Kohl, in February. Trudy and Bill plan to move back to Virginia Beach by this fall once renovations to their home are complete. Kenny’s bucket list of touring every state capitol is almost complete. In April they flew to Oklahoma City, rented a car & toured 9 capitols in 10 days. She reports that the April landscape is 50 shades of brown and suggests never flying out of Reno. They have only ND, SD, MN & Wisc and they’ll have seen all 50!! Margaret learned to knit and found a cute pattern for a turban type hat and has knit several for women undergoing cancer treatment. That and Bunco and reading keep her out of trouble.

Barbara Hagemann Hester’s husband has had a foot operation. He’ll be home following rehab 5/15. She speaks with Donna Lingo Rauchon occasion and she’s keeping busy with friends. 2017 was a long year for Louise Stevens Robbins. It started well with a good January visit with Diane Copty Fadely while she visited her younger sister, Joyce, in rehab following back surgery. She had a hip replacement in April, but suffered a break of the operated leg for some mysterious reason and had a second surgery May 5. Meanwhile her sister declined and died in June. Louise was unable to go to the funeral, but was able to travel to Virginia in December for the funeral of Denise Elena Boyd, daughter of Donna Stevens Boyd ’62 and Harold Boyd, who died during liver transplant surgery.