Class Notes

Susan Pierce, a partner with Walker Jones PC in Warrenton and Washington, Virginia, has been named a Super Lawyer 2020 by her peers. After majoring in political science and English at Mary Washington, she graduated from George Mason University’s law school in 1987. She has more than 30 years’ experience representing the victims of major car, motorcycle and trucking accidents, those with brain and other traumatic injuries, and wrongful death litigants.

Since early March, Annmarie Cozzi has been Zooming on Sundays with Jenifer Blair, Nancy Kaiser,
Heather Archer Mackey, Debbie Snyder, and me, Tara Corrigall. Barbara Dixon joined one of our calls.

In July, Jenifer became president of the Alumni Association, a position I have also held. Way to stand forever true!

After being widowed for nine years, Erin Devine married Jon Kinney, a lawyer in Arlington, Virginia, where they live. Erin’s daughters, Kathleen and Caroline Keating, and sister, Kerry Devine ’84, attended the small ceremony. Erin’s son, Patrick Keating, Zoomed in from Oxford, England, where he is living while his fiancée completes a master’s degree. Erin works in major gift fundraising for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Erin and Jon were renovating the Ordinary at New Kent, a circa 1692 tavern and inn in New Kent County, to be a wedding and event venue.

Betsy Rohaly Smoot has turned in the manuscript of her biography of Colonel Parker Hitt, an early-20th-century cryptologist who had a long and diverse Army career. The book is to be published by the University Press of Kentucky in spring 2022, with title and preorder information available in fall 2021. Betsy is the only female editorial board member of the journal Cryptologia, for which she writes a regular column. She also joined the advisory board for the Springer book series History of Information Security. She and husband Andy have used their “safer at home” time to make home improvements.

In August, Erma Ames Baker retired after 30 years in higher education procurement, contracts, and auxiliary services – 26 of those years at UMW. More recently she was director of procurement services at William & Mary and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. With her family centered in Fredericksburg, she looked forward to gardening, campus walks, and keeping up with her 2-year-old grandson.

A lovely woman on Long Island was gardening and dug up a 1982 Mary Washington ring.  A web search led her to me, and using a picture and the engraved initials on the ring, I was able to contact the owner. He didn’t know the ring was missing! At deadline, I didn’t have details on the recovery meeting – so Michael Bennett, you owe us the rest of this fun story.

This is the year in which many of us turned 60, and we didn’t get to celebrate as we might have hoped. But there’s always our 40th reunion, in 2022, to look forward to.

Charles Kennedy left Amazon Prime and joined Apple, where he works on scheduling and strategy for the original TV+ shows that they stream. His daughter is a registered nurse in Chicago. His son is an actor in New York who recently landed a role in an independent film with Eric Roberts. Last September Charles did the Malibu Half Ironman – slowly, he reported, but he did finish! Also last year he took an off-road motorcycle adventure course and had a blast.

Elizabeth Stamoulis Via-Gossman of Manassas, Virginia, was named to the 2020 College of Fellows of the American Institute of Certified Planners. Her daughter recently graduated from nursing school, and her son was to return to Virginia Tech this fall for his second year. Liz plans to semi-retire in the next couple years and was looking at downtown loft condos in Columbus, Ohio. She didn’t get to reunite with her roommate Laura Dendtler at homecoming, but she can report that Laura has a new puppy named Watson.

Chuck Borek practices law in Maryland and is an adjunct professor of law at American University. Earlier this year he entered a master’s degree program in theology and literature at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C. One of Chuck’s sons was married in San Diego in the midst of the pandemic, and another is a chef in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Chuck was finishing work on the third edition of Contract Drafting and Review for the Maryland Lawyer.

In true Chuck Borek fashion he wrote, “I recently completed nearly four days of study in Portuguese before giving up, and this summer I aspire to learn the intricacies of Tibetan interpretive dance. (OK, this part is made up!)”

Chuck is frequently in touch with Chris Barnett, who lives in San Francisco and was doing well.

News from me, Joanne Bartholomew Lamm, is that daughter Rebecca Lamm Vail ’13 was accepted to the George Washington University MBA program. I hope to hear from more classmates soon!

The governor of North Carolina honored Catawba County Library director Suzanne Maddox White for 32 years of extraordinary service with the Order of the Long Leaf Pine. Suzanne retired in August.

Harriet Whitman Dunkerley is the new spiritual leader, cantor, and educator for Temple B’nai Chaim in Georgetown, Connecticut. After earning a bachelor of arts in musical theater with a concentration in vocal performance and acting at Mary Washington, she received a master’s degree in sacred music from Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion and was ordained in May 2019. She is married to John, a musician, and they have a daughter, Rosella, soon to be bat mitzvah.

From Jay:

I hope this publication finds everyone happy and healthy during this crazy pandemic. I have had some free time during this quarantine and have been working on digitizing my original MWC slide shows from 1986 and ’87. I plan to make this project available to everyone at some point. The original slide shows were stored in my old darkroom at my parents’ house and are in relatively good condition, still sitting in the slide carousels!

Social media has reduced the number of updates I have received over the years. Please share an update for publication in the next issue.

Arlene Fierstien Klapproth wrote that she had completed 16 months of treatments and was in remission for stage 4 breast cancer. She has volunteered for the local humane society for 10 years and recently began fostering kittens, a source of joy and purpose when times were tough. Last November, Sandy Bradecamp Sullivan, husband Marty, Jenn Menson Radich, and Lianne Wilkens Best surprised Arlene for her birthday by coming to take her to lunch. Arlene wrote, “MWC friends are the best!”

Meghan Baldwin Lau lives in Katy, Texas, near her extended family. She has a bookkeeping business, volunteers with her church, and enjoys scrapbooking. She and Jim have been married 32 years.

In 2018, Robin Carrier and hubby Stephen Ritchie moved to the Hague, Netherlands, and visited all 12 Netherlands provinces. They moved to San Francisco in 2019. Son Devin Lipscomb is a Mercedes master mechanic finalist. Son Wyatt Lipscomb ’20 graduated from Mary Washington summa cum laude with a degree in history and is working on a master’s degree.

Leah Wilson Munnis completed a master’s degree in systems engineering from Johns Hopkins in 2019. She lives in Colonial Beach, Virginia, and is married to Michael Munnis ’13.

Chris Miller actively advocates for Black Lives Matter in Sarasota, Florida.

Jamie Britto is in Seattle and is director of technology at the Lakeside School, according to mom Kay Martin Britto ’58.