Class Notes

As the new class reporter for 1969, I have gathered much interesting information about your colleagues by threatening to print make believe things that would not be pretty…

Jean Polk Hanky wrote in to thank our Reunion Committee for our wonderful gathering of so many 1969 classmates. The campus KNEW we were there! Winning the best class tent decoration, the outstanding alumni service award (Patti Boise Kemp), the outstanding Alumni award (Iris Harrell) and the greatest number of participants in contributions to Mary Wash and its programs…could it have been any better, girls?

Jean mentioned how wonderful the new Hyatt Place Hotel was for gatherings, convenience of shuttle buses and walking to campus. When you come to the 50th reunion, you are definitely going to want to stay there!

Marianne DeBlois Zentz went to the reunion and LOVED it. She has since taken a birthday trip to Los Angeles to see her son, took a ferry to Santa Catalina Island and kayaked in the Pacific waters. She also plays a lot of tennis. As can be determined by her activities, this woman is in great physical shape!

Anne Hoskot Kreutzer and her husband Tom celebrated their 45th anniversary (got married right out of college) and retired from their plumbing business in 2006 and sold it. She has four sons and seven grandkids, none of which live locally so she travels to see them. All are healthy, employed and “life is good”. She visited with Lyn Holmes Gray, Marianne DeBois Zentz and Christy Wineholt.

Betty Wade Miles loves the Outer Banks in N.C. She finally did a tourist type trip there looking for wild horses (found 29), seeing all the light houses, the Wright Brothers Memorial, and took a free ferry that left them on Ocracoke for a couple of days. She has a renewed appreciation for the National Park Service and a more intense worry for the fragility of the barrier islands. She had a weekend in Chincoteague and loved the Nature Preserve there. She lives in Va. Beach and enjoys being with her grandkids every chance she gets.

Betty Olander Adams LOVED the reunion (there is a recurring theme here!) Her life consists of her law practice, her Dorsey Rock Farm, friends and family and dreading the winter!

Jane Jackson Woerner came to the reunion and LOVED it. She has moved her aging mother to Florida so that she is only eight miles away, instead of 800. Her mother’s memory is fading but she is quite feisty at times. Jane can now see her often, which is a mutual blessing. She had a brief visit with classmate Connie Hinson, who has moved back to Kilmarnock, Va., from Warsaw, Va.

Carole Phipps lives in Los Gatos, California, just down the road from me, Phyllis Newby Thompson and Suzanne McCarthy Van Ness. She is an adjunct professor at San Jose State University after leaving her corporate job three years ago. She now teaches organizational behavior in the Business School. Her life partner Paula Hundley is a consultant who helps teachers how best to use computers in their classrooms for instruction. Both of them love to golf and have great senses of humor.

Suzanne McCarthy Van Ness went on a 12 day Mediterranean cruise with her Mary Wash roommate from senior year, Barbara Macon Sacha. They spent time in Venice, Italy. Barbara and husband Tom live in Winter. Suzanne also visited Sue Farnham Piatt ’68, who is visiting her son, Jeff in Berkeley. Son Jeff and his wife Rajaa boht have PhDs and are teaching at Berkeley.

Bev Holt, my roommate, came to our 45th reunion. Then she and I drove down to visit her mother in a retirement home in Richmond, Va. Bev’s mother “Willie” just turned 90 and visited Bev and her partner Deb in their Raleigh-Durham home to celebrate. Bev is a docent at one of the local museums (she still loves history!) and her partner Deb is still working selling printing equipment to local businesses.

Anne Witham Kilpatrick had a visit with UMW roomie Jeanine Zavrell Fearns in a West Virginia mountain cabin owned by Jeanine’s son. Next year they will have a gathering with their two suite mates Susie Bender Winterble and Toni Turner Bruseth in Austin, Texas. Toni and archaeologist husband Jim co-authored a book called “From a Watery Grave” about the exhibit of an 18th Century ship LaBelle he discovered in the Gulf of Mexico several years ago, now available at amazon.com.

Jeanine Zavrel also went on a wonderful two week trip to Alaska in June and will be visiting her daughter Erin in early 2015 at Disney World.

Donna Cannon Julian went to a very moving Catholic pilgrimage to the Holy Land. She says the scriptures will never be the same, after walking in the actual Biblical places. She loved the 45th reunion as well.

Chibba Waters lives in Temple Terrace, Florida, with two rescue dogs. She is a merchandiser for American Greetings Cards. She also tutors elementary school student, goes to the beach too often, and “plays” in her art room. She actually makes greeting cards using different mediums…watercolor, acrylics, collage, photos, etc. She is an hour from Disney, 10 minutes from Busch Gardens and an hour from the beach. Her two daughters are quite accomplished. One is Director of Career Development at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore and the other is a producer for Anderson Cooper’s show, AC360.

Pam Hogan Baynard, Chibba’s old roommate, lives in Suffolk, Va. Her son Nathan and his partner Robert got married this month in Los Angeles, with their daughter as the maid of honor. She spent time in Texas this summer and visited Nancy Stevenson Leeper and her husband Bob; they ate together at the famous Salt Lick BBQ in Austin. Laura Tee Johnson Atherton and her family came to visit Pam and husband Chuck at their home in the Outer Banks, N.C. Laura Tee has a granddaughter. Chib, Nancy and Laura Tee have PROMISED to be at the 50th reunion, which is now only 4.5 years away, girls!

Barbara Black retired in 2012 from 29 years of teaching at a small Virginia liberal arts college named Bridgewater. She took students to France and the Caribbean while teaching them French. She is now rekindling her passion for duplicate bridge. She spent a baseball weekend in DC and NYC and loves cruising on the big ships. She has gone to Quebec, Puerto Rico and Guadeloupe. She is no longer married but remains good friends with her ex-husband.

As most of us know, Lyn Holmes Gray is in Liberia with her husband Jim, as they have been for many years. They were evacuated for a couple of months to DC during the Ebola outbreak. As soon as they were “cleared to go back” they returned to help with the serious epidemic that has thrown the country into chaos. Prayers for their safety and control of the virus would be welcomed. Lyn is very devoted to her life’s work there in Liberia.

I, Iris Harrell, am the new class reporter. My news is that President Hurley and his wife Rose came to my home on Nov. 1 for the first official meeting of the Mary Wash Alumni chapter of Northern California. We had almost 30 people here with ages from class of ’59 to class of 2013! I recently decided to recapture my childhood that was missed while growing up, since I was the oldest kid in charge of all my siblings. I recently retired as CEO and full-time employee of my remodeling firm that I founded 30 years ago. The company is now 100% employee owned by all 43 employees and the new leaders have been with the company for many years. My sense of play has been restored by playing golf. My spouse Ann and I have traveled a lot in the last 18 months: Italian Alps, south of France, Kenya and a Best of Europe tour by Rick Steves in September. I had forgotten how fun it was to be a kid! We are staying in the US of A in 2015 or we will lose our “homebody” status.

The Class of 1969 Laura V. Sumner Memorial Scholarship had a value of $70,693 as of June 30, 2014. Freshmen Megan Garvin, from King George, Virgnia, and Cheyenne Johnson, from Goodview, Virginia, received scholarships.

Let me hear from you for the next news…or I may get creative and make something up. If your life is boring, we still want to hear about it. Boring is what the goal was at this age…stability and repeated fun activities are the goals of a happy retirement! Send the info to irish@harrell-remodeling.com