Class Notes

Sandy Wise Conran’s mother-in-law, 94, who has dementia and heart problems, lives with Sandy and husband Tom. Sandy’s been on a leave of absence from work to care for her. What they thought would be a three- to six-month endeavor has turned into 19 months and counting. Son Chuck is a sophomore studying civil engineering at Virginia Tech. Daughter Laurie is a freshman studying occupational therapy at Pennsylvania’s Elizabethtown College. She’s in a program that combines bachelor’s and master’s degree programs in a five-year track.

A group of us who lived together in Willard freshman year – Katie Kulp Jones of Roanoke, Va.; Patty Churchill Shippee of King George, Va.; Elisa Devorshak Harvey of Sandy Spring, Md.; Bobbie Dwyer Leon of Ellicott City, Md.; Ellen Stanley Booth of Arlington, Va.; Nancy McEntyre Kenefick of Springfield, Va.; Colleen McCahill Turley of Fredericksburg; and me, Lori Foster Turley, of San Diego – spent a September weekend in Cape Cod. We stayed at Pam Clapp Hinkle’s Woods Hole, Mass., cottage and took the ferry to Martha’s Vineyard for a day. Karen Snyder Boff of Marietta, Ga.; Katrina Ray Landis of Annapolis, Md.; and Babette Thorpe of Swan Valley, Idaho, were unable to join us.

Although our reunion was almost two years ago, the conversations and reconnections still resonate with me. Please mark our next reunion – the first weekend of June 2017 – on your calendars.

I hear about many of you through Facebook. Jenifer Blair is vice president for enrollment services at Richard Bland College and lives in Richmond. During her first days in Petersburg, she ran into college roommate Andrea Jansen, who works at nearby Fort Lee.

My roommate all four years at Mary Washington, Debbie Snyder Barker, stayed with me over the summer while attending a conference. Debbie recently lost her father. Her mother still lives in a nearby assisted living community. Oldest son Sam works at a D.C. law firm. Middle child Chip is finishing an engineering degree at Virginia Tech. Daughter Leah attends East Carolina and is a Delta Zeta. Debbie is teaching high school (a big change from second grade), thanks to her Mary Wash psychology degree and work in early childhood development. Husband John works at a different D.C. law firm. They didn’t stay empty nesters long; they were hosting an Italian exchange student.

Debbie and I got together with Jennifer Goodwin Donegan of Norfolk, Va. Her husband retired from the Navy, and they were enjoying staying in one place for a change. Daughter Meredith still works at Operation Smile. Son Sean was scheduled to defend his dissertation at Carnegie Mellon University.

Vicki Haynes Morris was busy with her son’s August wedding; her other son is pursuing a CPA degree. I caught up with Annmarie Cozzi this summer at her weekend home on the Jersey Shore and saw firsthand the rebuilding after Hurricane Sandy.

Wilheimina Long and I caught up over lunch. Her children’s book, The Story of RAY the Buffalo, was illustrated by Ron Miller, whom she met while at Mary Washington. She also runs a consulting and graphic design firm and is founder of Youth Matter, based in Portsmouth, Va.

I had a busy year of work and travel. I took my niece Amanda, a college junior, to Italy for a week. This year I hope to take her sister, Jordan Filchock ’12, to Paris. I must spoil them while I can. I was honored to be named to UMW’s Board of Visitors in 2012, have completed my first year, and enjoy the challenge and commitment. Meetings bring me back to campus often. We have a great president and a talented cabinet, and, of course, faculty. I am fortunate that both my advisers, Professor and Chair of Economics Robert S. Rycroft and Distinguished Professor and Chair of Political Science and International Affairs John M. Kramer, are still teaching. I now realize how young they were when I was a student.

Best wishes, and stay in touch.

The Class of 1983 has some movers and shakers!

Mary Ann Mayer has been innkeeping for 15 years and recently became a great aunt times three. Regina Hilleary, owner of Joan of Art Custom Picture Framing in Marshall, Va., completed a huge framing project for Salamander Resort in Middleburg, Va., framing more than 1,500 pieces of art, including BET network co-founder Sheila Johnson’s personal photography pieces for each room.

Catherine Gilbert Aldrich and husband John live in Lakewood, Ohio, on Cleveland’s west side. Their eldest, Beatrice, graduated high school with honors, is a freshman majoring in communications at DePaul University, and reports news twice a week on Radio DePaul. Son Evan is a high school sophomore and JV soccer player. After leaving her post as an art teacher for a community school for gifted education, Catherine is on the board there. Jewelry making is her passion, and she’s still a consultant for BeautiControl cosmetics, along with Beth Padgett. John has worked for environmental engineering firm CDM Smith for 33 years.

Linda Goodwin Reviea and husband Bob have been married 27 years. Linda became Staunton, Va., superintendent of schools in summer 2012. Judith Sweetman Gwynn is on UMW’s Alumni Association Board of Directors. Contact her at judithgwynn61@gmail.com with concerns and suggestions.

Sharon Ingram Becker’s daughter, Maggie, is a UMW sophomore. Son Brandon and wife Sarah celebrated their first anniversary. Sharon trains horses and dogs and works for Duke University Health System. Norma Hopkins Griffin spent 25 years in the biotech industry and switched five years ago to regulatory project management in the FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research’s office of hematology and oncology products. They recently downsized, moving from Maryland back to Colonial Beach, Va., where they love the Potomac and being close enough to visit UMW.

I’m getting to know Philadelphia. I left Humana and am vice president of accountable care for Mercy Health System, helping them transform and adapt to the new healthcare environment.

Mary Lyn Bartlam Paolella lives in the Atlanta suburb Alpharetta, Ga. She and Chris, married 28 years, have daughters Katie, 25, a recently engaged Atlanta financial analyst, and Betsy, 20, a University of Georgia junior interning at Athens Church. Mary Lyn is a construction company office manager and owns a growing crafting business, making wreaths to sell locally and on Etsy.

Sigrid Skrivseth Houston and husband Scott’s 10th-grade son, Michael, became an Eagle Scout, like older son Tim, a Towson University freshman studying music. Daughter Erika plans to graduate from the University of Delaware in May and teach high school English. The family took a cruise to Bermuda last summer. Sigrid and Scott were adjusting to having only one child home most of the time.

Julie Clark biked 407 miles from the Missouri River to the Mississippi in the 41st Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa. Rebecca Rogers Nelson and husband Durrell moved to Lynchburg, Va., where Durell is a Liberty University cinematic arts professor. They have four children. Now that their youngest is in kindergarten, Rebecca was directing her first full-length feature film, Texas Rein, with filming planned for summer.

Alice Feely Wilson and husband Joe live in Milwaukee, Wis., with children Lily, 15, Cole, 13, and Gus, 11. She stays in touch with Susan Bancroft Leavitt ’83, who lives in the D.C. area, and Jennifer Davidson, who transferred from our class and was completing a landscape architecture master’s degree at the University of Cape Town.

I work with high school English language learners in Wisconsin and this spring will see my first cycle of freshman-to-senior students graduate. Our son works in Seattle, so we planned a spring trip. Our daughter plans to graduate in May and teach fourth grade. Please stay in touch!

Sarah Martin survived the September 2013 Colorado floods. Her home was a total loss, even though it was 1,000 vertical feet above the flood plain. Sarah evacuated with her dog and, while they were driving out, a watershed broke, sending them surfing down the street. Luckily the car was pinned by a tree trunk and a railroad tie. Sarah started an online donation site and was contracted to run the Relief Exchange, replacing what makes a house a home in their shattered community.

Please, please, please send information!

From Kim: In August, I was accepted to the Leadership Lawton-Fort Sill program, designed to develop leadership skills and show participants how different aspects of the community are run. We meet for nine months and each month visit a different aspect of the community, such as law enforcement. At about the same time, the opportunity arose to become co-owner of the yoga studio where I’ve practiced for eight years. My business partner and I took over in September, and I taught my first yoga class. It was a scary experience but has gotten better with each class. I went to Houston in October to complete my 200-hour yoga teacher training and am now certified to teach. Ken and I celebrated our 20th anniversary in June 2013. Contact me via Facebook under “Kim Jones Isaac” or email. I’d love to get lots of updates for each edition.

Julie Magness has a spouse who loves theater as much as she does and lets her pick the shows. She still pursues her love of photography and looked forward to vacationing this year in Oregon and Crater Lake. She has a huge yarn stash and specializes in blankets and scarves. So far, she has listened to Kathy saying “three cats are enough,” but she remains hopeful.

Michelle Evans of Kill Devil Hills, N.C., is a registered nurse in a Chesapeake Regional Medical Center ICU step-down unit and has sons Taylor, 20, a junior business major at Virginia Tech, and Justin, 23, a College of William and Mary graduate and an IT systems administrator. Michelle had her first stand-up comedy gig last summer at a Virginia Beach club.

Jane Ellen Brennan Herrin mostly runs her own business, getting hired under contract as a media coach. Clients consult her for personal brand imaging, and she determines if people, businesses, and products have their social media in order across platform. This can include everything from styling them for their professional headshots to coming up with contests and engaging with their audience/clients for them, as them. Jane Ellen specializes in Google+ business pages, runs some pages with millions of followers, trains people to do G+, and helps people get their G+ and YouTube accounts to play nice together. She produces and/or hosts Hangouts on Air, which streams in G+ and ends up on YouTube, and has worked with actors, producer/directors, and the monster brand Skinny Ms. Her newest clients are the celebrated Joe McNally, who’s shot lots of TIME and National Geographic covers, and Roger Hill, pioneering storm chaser and photographer. Jane Ellen and Jim, married 20 years, have Anna Grace in third grade and Jenna in second. Jane Ellen apologized to her mom for everything she ever did to make her hair turn white. Anna Grace has an after-school “job” at a friend’s pet store, making sure the rodentia are well handled and helping transfer fish from back tanks to show tanks. Jim is still at the Putnam County Election Commission and writes for himself and for Jane Ellen’s company. Dogs Gracie and Max were old but well. They also have dwarf Siberian hamster Carmen and guinea pigs Cleo, an American silkie, and Ruby, an Abyssinian.

From Rene: Jeanette Bergmann Engel, Anne Zemienieuski Fowler, and I had a reunion weekend at Lake Anna with 1984 MWC Blue Tide basketball teammates Helen Morrow Worst ’86, Mel Taylor Bounds ’84, Joanne Ciccone Alger ’85, and Ruth Bonner Grosskopf ’85! Twenty-nine years and 17 kids later, and everyone is doing great!

Annice Hirt van der Sluis hadn’t sent anything for Class Notes in 25 years! She worked, traveled, hung out, lived abroad, learned Spanish, and explored different careers, before pursuing a master’s degree in early childhood education. She worked the next several years in Alexandria, Va., developing a bilingual preschool special education program and using her experience and skills to support children growing up bilingually. She and violinist husband Howard met while she was working at public schools, married in 2006, and have two girls. Annice homeschools Fiona, 7, and Sophie, 5, and is a part-time early childhood education consultant. She reconnected with classmates at the 25th reunion and has been keeping up with old friends in the D.C. area.

Jay Bradshaw heard from Lianne Wilkens Best, an official empty nester. Daughter Amanda is in her final semester at Johns Hopkins, and son Nicholas goes to the College of William and Mary. After a decade spending evenings on school and sports activities, Lianne is finding herself … at the gym. She still recruits for Employment Enterprises. She and husband Buck, a Fairfax County Fire and Rescue captain, will celebrate 25 years of marriage this spring.

Amy Sullivan and Jim celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary last March. Son Jake married Stephanie in July; majors in political science and American studies and minors in history, homeland security, and math at Christopher Newport University; and planned to graduate in spring. Amy teaches math in the Fredericksburg area and now has a math teacher daughter-in-law. They are some of the youngest empty nesters they know, but they love it!

Don Appiarius planned to move to Indiana for a new job.