Class Notes

From outgoing class agent Iris Harrell:
You missed a rocking good time at our 50th class reunion at Mary Washington at the end of May this year.

We had 100 from our class attend. Rick and Rose Hurley came as honorary ‘69ers. We raised the most money of all the reunion classes attending ($1.8 million dollars-the total for all 13 classes was $3.6 million.)and almost $300k of our money raised was dedicated to the class of ‘69 scholarship initiated awhile back by my wife, Ann Benson. Real acceleration occurred when classmate, Cathy Woteki added a challenge of matching $100k if our class raised the first $100k. We did it gals! Big time! Our goal is to help future new students needing financial assistance  and to know that the class of ‘69 is paying forward in perpetuity.

Jane Jackson Woerner and husband have returned to eastern VA after 38 years in Florida.

They will spend 3 to 4 months each winter in Florida and the rest of the year in Urbana, Va.

Jane as our senior class president led the reunion Friday night 50th anniversary dinner comments, Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda as former Va. poet laureate read one of her poems at the dinner and classmate, Patti Boise was ever behind the scenes from the beginning of this grand reunion planning. It truly was the best reunion we have ever had.

Betty Olander Adams wrote that the 50th reunion was almost magical….heartwarming stories and great camaraderie. She was thrilled to reunite with her roommate Chris Ann Phillips Farhood, a psychoanalyst and artist in Manhattan. Chris landed there to go to grad school with her late husband, Bill. She never left.  Chris’s family now claim to be permanent New Yorkers.

Betty is in the middle of building two houses on a farm in Hume, Va. while maintsining their current farm and home in Howard county. She and her husband are into horses.

My suitemate, Carol Hewitt Guida (an architect) attended the reunion from her distant home in Australia and suitemate, Lyn Howell Gray attended from Liberia, Africa. No one can accuse our class of not reaching out to the boundaries of the outside world! Carol’s youngest son is a writer and is currently editing transcripts of court cases in Australia. Her oldest son is in his father’s architectural firm, also in Australia.

Lyn and Jim Gray celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in Washington, DC on the Saturday after the reunion. They have a home in Blacksburg they are working on, which will become their future retirement home. Lyn is now preparing for her 10th Liberia Reads! training in 6 new schools, bringing the total to 35 schools obtaining better teaching and better materials for reading skills in Liberia, where they have spent most of their adult life.

Bev Holt, attended the reunion from Raleigh, NC. Her wonderful mother just passed away the week before the reunion at the age of 93. I was able to attend the graveside memorial in Richmond with Bev the day before the reunion started. She and her wife, Deb spend as much time as possible in their beach house in Wrightsville, NC.

Bev Holt and I were in Willard together when I was a junior counselor. Margie Garmey (‘71)and and Jane Touzalin (‘71) came up just before the reunion and met us at Allman’s BBQ, our old  BBQ gathering place from decades ago. It is still there, girls! It was great to see them!

Anne Witham Kilpatrick, my high school compadre was at the reunion with her suitemate, Jeanine Zavrell Fearns.Anne spends a lot of time with her DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) and is now the South Carolina state committee chair. Anne’s granddaughter after graduating from college this summer will work as analyst with the military.

Anne, Jeannine and Susi Bender Winterble and Toni Turner Breuseth have an annual reunion of their own yearly….this time in Greenville, SC. Anne celebrates her 50th anniversary with her husband, Roger Kilpatrick this year.

Marianne deBlois Zentz (she still looks like she did in college, a feat in itself) is enjoying life in Sarasota, Florida. She was a big help to me along with Christie Wineholt at decorating our Saturday picnic   Reunion tent. Christie and I brought out tools in our suitcases to manage proper mounting of our gathered  mementos from the sixties. Needless to say, our tent was the best and only one decorated this year.

Marianne and Christie are seeing which one of them can be the oldest to have a first grandchild….(my money is on Christie).

Karen Ralston was at  the reunion along with Bonnie Page Hoopengardner, Linda Marret Disoway and Linda Huff Alderson. Karen is moving to Melbourne Beach, Fla. on a canal for winters and will spend summers in Breckenridge, Colorado. She has planned trips to Iceland and Africa.

Karen, Bonnie, and Betty Ferguson Foster were visiting Linda Huff in her New York apartment when the 9/11 planes hit the towers in 2001. They were in the audience of the Today show when it happened. They were already bonded from Mary Wash life together, but this created an even deeper bond between them.

Karen Ralston reminisces about what we all have lived through together through these last 50 years- Viet Nam, the moon landing, the first tvs, computers, cell phones, the internet, passenger jets, Woodstock, the Stonewall riots in NYC leading to the first gay pride march, race riots, Presidential assassinations, and 9/11, 2001. We have gone through so much, but we have survived and flourished through it all.

Bonnie Page Hoopengardner just checked off their 7th continent with an African safari last year. She and her husband Roger also celebrated their 50th anniversary. She and her grandkids will be rafting down the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon this year. She has 6 grandkids. (Marianne and Christy-you must catch up!)

Donna Julian, Carolyn Day O’Leary and Jean Polk Hanky were also at the reunion, along with Nancy Stevenson Leeper. Donna’s husband has had serious health issues, but is doing ok now. She went on a trip to Cuba with several friends this year. She also made a short pilgrimage to Guadalupe this past year.

One of the highlights of this class reunion for me was the luncheon of 6 of the 7 American Studies majors from our class. The current head of the department, Krystyn Moon hosted us and it was the first time the 6 of us had ever been together. Karen Rogers, Liz Wilbur, Virginia Wheaton, Nancy Allard, Sharon Dobie and myself. The stories of the careers and travels of these 6 women was book worthy. The other highlight was playing pickleball with President Troy Paino and his wife. They are good athletes and are doing wonderful things for Mary Wash.

As luck would have it, my 5 years as your class scribe is finished. Linda Eadie Hood will be the scribe for the next few years. She can be reached at linda.hood@me.com.

Our classmates have decided we should have another Mary Wash reunion two years from now. We have already lost 18 of our classmates and there will be more losses to come. Some of our classmates attended their very first reunion this time…and it was worth it for them and us.

Keep in touch, girls. We have a common bond through our history together. And we still make a difference in this world. Long live the works, lives and legacy of the class of ‘69!

Iris F. Harrell
We are all in this together…2019