Class Notes

While always a true Virginia native, Forrest Clift has utilized his time in Michigan to further both his personal life and professional career. Working on his Ed.S. in 2009 at Grand Valley State University, Forrest transferred to pursuing his doctorate in Educational Leadership at Eastern Michigan University. Currently helming work on his dissertation, Hidden Rainbow: The Search for LGBT Issues in a Teacher Education Program, Forrest anticipates completing data collection in spring 2015 to finish his Ph.D. by summer 2015.

In addition to focusing on his individual educational pursuits, Forrest’s work at GVSU has led him to working on a development team with Grand Rapids Public Schools to create the United States’ first International Baccalaureate primary years program (PYP/elementary) school focused on the incorporation of the arts in the school instructional model. Projected start date for the school is September 2016. Forrest’s professional writing work finds his second textbook chapter being published in December 2014 in the SAGE Publication, Proud Heritage: People, Issues, and Documents of the LGBT Experience.  His chapter, Virginia, examines the state’s LGBT history and laws from the pre-colonial period to modern day.

In his free time, Forrest enjoys traveling the U.S., officiating wedding ceremonies of close friends, taking long walks with his border collie (Peasley), and reading everything from magazines to biographies to trashy novels.

Charles (Charlie) Gullo recently returned to the United States after he and his family spent eleven years in Singapore. His wife Yen and their three-year-old son recently moved to Huntington, West Virginia. They are currently looking for houses in the tri-state area. The move was a result of Charlie’s new job as the Associate Dean for Medical Education at the Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine at Marshall University. They are all very happy to be living in the U.S. Charlie recently saw Bill (Mason) Donovan, who currently lives in the Concord, New Hampshire, area. He also communicated recently with Mark Gilliat and Chris Louden, both of whom are residing in Northern Virginia. Charlie looks forward to making a trip to Fredericksburg to visit the campus soon with his wife and son.

Mark Mesterhazy and wife Kim welcomed their third child, Roman, last spring. Roman joins big sister Morgan and big brother Andrew in the Mesterhazy family.

Lori Klugman writes songs and sings locally with her guitar player. She also takes guitar lessons with a local professional singer/songwriter. She is a trainer and instructor in the fitness center of a continuing care retirement community, where she also sings with a resident who was a pianist for Radio City Music Hall for thirty years. Lori has studied dance in New York City for twenty years and recently walked in the Climate March there.

Please keep the news and updates coming! It is always great to hear from you.

In April my husband Tom and I had a great visit with my aunt and uncle in Sarasota, Florida. Trip highlights: making glass art and jewelry in their kiln, hunting for sharks’ teeth, eating lots of fresh seafood, and photographing tropical birds and alligators at Myakka State Park. Summer brought Braves games, Chattahoochee River floats, neighborhood Supper Club events, and our birthdays. In July we spent a week exploring St. Simons and Jekyll Islands. In August we spent a few days in Mobile, Alabama, and then traveled to a friend’s fish camp in Manchac, Louisiana, near Lake Pontchartrain. A water moccasin under our cabin was a scary “welcome to the bayou.” We then headed to New Orleans, our first time in the Big Easy. Bourbon Street, live jazz, hurricanes, jambalaya, etc.! In October Tom and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary and spent 13 days at Sandals Grande Riviera in Ocho Rios, Jamaica. This was our seventh visit to that property, and we liked scuba diving with old friends on the dive team.

I co-hosted a Mary Washington Alumni Network Atlanta Happy Hour with Dean Lynne Richardson (college of business) and was so pleased to reconnect with Meta Winston ’94. She doesn’t live too far away, and I hope we make the time to get together again soon.

Tom continues to enjoy working for Thompson Engineering and will start reporting to their corporate office in Mobile in early 2015. We’ll finish our home projects and put our house on the market as soon as possible. When our house sells, we’ll look for a place to live in Mobile. We’re looking forward to settling into a new place and having a fresh start. I’ll keep you posted on how things go for us!

Marci Morgan Taylor husband Okley Taylor celebrated their fifth wedding anniversary, her step-son’s high school graduation, and a new addition to their family – a third horse, MoonShine. Marci has been working as a mental health therapist at the RACSB Crisis Stabilization house for three years now and doesn’t miss her former commute to Woodbridge at all. She and her family continue to travel to the southwest, with a recent trip to Sedona, Arizona, and the Grand Canyon. She plans to return to competitive riding with her new horse, and her husband joins her every weekend for a leisurely trail ride.

After 16 years of living in Virginia Beach, Julie Lail Porter and her family relocated to Northern Virginia in June 2014 for her husbands job. She was lucky enough to be able to keep her job as a Business Intelligence Architect for Sentara Healthcare and now works full-time from home. She’s very happy that she doesn’t have to fight the traffic for a daily commute, and she’s home when her kids are not in school. She has a son, Jacob, in ninth grade and a daughter, Maura, in seventh grade. They stay busy with all the usual family stuff, including a lot of weekends on the soccer fields. For fun they like to travel, and have been to Italy, Mexico and several Caribbean islands in the past couple of years. They enjoy exploring the D.C. area and all the great things to do there. Julie feels that one of the best parts of moving to Fairfax County is being close to her best friend from college, Marie Ryan Cox. They visit regularly and have lunch together frequently. Marie is married and has two adorable daughters: Clare a fourth grader, and Kate a first grader.

Donald Rands Fuller returned from Afghanistan in October. He was on his fourth deployment, and deployed there with the 16th Combat Aviation Brigade, which is the largest aviation brigade in the U.S. army with a fleet of 150 aircraft and a couple thousand soldiers. They were there for seven months overseeing the retrograde of U.S. troops and handover to the Afghans. Donald is at the rank of Chief Warrant Officer 5 and is the Brigade Senior Instructor or Standardization Instructor Pilot. He is at 21 years of service, all of which have been flying as an attack helicopter instructor pilot. He is currently going through school to learn another aircraft, the AH-64E attack helicopter. He will be in school for about six months before he returns home to prepare for the next deployment. As of now, he plans on staying in for 25 years. Donald is currently single and living in Seattle. His family all resides in Idaho, where he still plans on hanging up his helmet.

Wendy Scott is in Newport News with her husband Ken Stuck ’90 and their two children. She teaches Spanish at Denbigh High School. Ken is an archaeologist for VDOT. They will celebrate their 20th anniversary with a trip to the Biltmore, Cherokee, and Dollywood. Their children are Ellie (15) and Joshua (12). They had to put down their beloved dog, Boots, in August of 2013, after loving her for 16 ½ years. They hope to have a new pooch in their house by the time this is published.

Nicole Davidson reports that the Davidson Clan finally made a trip back to the Old Dominion (it’s been five years!) and spent a week visiting Nicole’s parents in Fredericksburg, as well as a few side trips to Washington, D.C., the Shenandoah Mountains, and a ferry ride to Tangier Island, Virginia. Visits to Mary Washington and Carl’s Ice Cream were in order as well. Nicole says that like many alum, she cherishes her time spent at Mary Washington and enjoyed seeing all the campus changes in person. Labor Day week they camped in the Rocky Mountains in their new pop-up camper. Nicole felt that at 40 something, tent camping had started to lose its appeal! A week in a tent at Yellowstone National Park last summer just about did them in. Nicole and her family are keeping very busy in Littleton, Colorado. After 16 years as a paralegal for the United States Attorney’s Office in Denver, Nicole took advantage of a great opportunity and is now working as a Civil Investigator for the Drug Enforcement Administration. Her husband Steve continues to manage a hydraulics shop and was recently elected to the Deacon Board at their church. Their son Samuel (8) started the third grade, and his sister Rebecca (5) started kindergarten. Nicole recently discovered that a Mary Washington graduate is a teacher at their school. Small world!

Thanks to Marci, Julie, Donald, Wendy, and Nicole for sending me their news. I hope to see many more updates in the future. Some of us keep in touch through means like email and Facebook, but this magazine’s format is a wonderful way to stay connected with Mary Washington and one another. Please touch base and let me – and other alum – know what’s new with you!

Len Ornstein ’94 was one of about 80 teachers in the nation selected to participate in an NEH Summer Seminar for teachers on the Battle of Gettysburg at Gettysburg College.

Max Tuefferd is currently living in Lexington, Massachusetts. He is working in education technology and recently has welcomed their second son.

Cheryl Roberts Heuser, her husband and pack of pets relocated to Bradenton, Florida, to escape the harsh Ohio winters. Cheryl has joined Sherloq Solutions as their General Counsel.

Jane Hope Maples lives in Crozet, Virginia, with her husband Michael and two children, Carter (7) and Alice (6). After 13 years working in development and donor relations for the University of Virginia, she left higher education to open her own wedding planning business. Maples Events LLC is celebrating its first year in business this fall.

Janice Kirby Moler wrote a memoir entitled Love Children of the ’60s. She wrote about how life was in the ’60s and included some of the letters that she and her husband had written before they got married. He was drafted into the army and sent to Berlin. Janice says she is so glad that she went to college and got her degree from the University of Mary Washington in 1995.

Don Rowe is working on the final novel of his Tessera Trilogy, Kashan Kashmeeri. The first two novels, Golden Gate and Sooley Base, are available as eBooks under Don’s pen name, DP Tolan. While he is writing, Don also has research going for three other books!

Stephanie Howard Whittaker, her husband Rodney, and daughters, Sydney (10) and Scarlett (6) live in Caroline County. Stephanie works in Fredericksburg at USPA. Stephanie and her family recently went to Florida and stayed with San Tham Sandy. San, her husband Shiva, and three boys, Sean, Sebastian, and Sirus are living in Windermere, Florida. San is expecting her fourth boy in November.

On Sunday July 13 Kristen Dowdy married Matt Seibert. Kristen is working as an Executive Assistant with the Virginia United Methodist Conference in Richmond. While delighted to marry one of her closest high school friends and gain three talented teenage daughters, this will be a marriage of distance. Matt and his daughters will continue to live in Texas for the next three years until all three graduate high school. Matt will move to Richmond with Kristen at that time. Airline points and Skype are parts of everyday life right now.

Anndelynn Tapscott Martin and Tug Martin are still living in Littleton, Colorado. They have two children, Ty (10) and Addie (7). Tug works for Environmental Stonework as an Estimating Manager, and Andi works for the State of Colorado as the Victim Rights Act Specialist. They do a lot of camping and visit Virginia when they can.

Rob Edwards wrote two books every classmate should add to their reading list, An Image of Us and Purple Meadow. These dramatic love stories were both published by 1^st Ride Enterprise, and are available from Amazon or Barnes and Nobel. Cheryl Duckworth is also a published author. Her book 9/11 and Collective Memory in US Classrooms: Teaching About Terror is also available on Amazon. Cheryl lives in Florida, is working as a professor of Conflict Resolution at Nova Southeastern University, and is engaged to Eddie.

Marcie Pierson Brandriff and husband Kevin are the proud parents of two-year-old Lily. Marcie and her family had to quickly pack up their Massachusetts apartment and move to Princeton after Kevin became the Dean of Students at the American Boychoir School right before classes started.

Pam Massa, husband Justin, and son Lucas welcomed baby Emelia to the family in August. Pam continues to work as a sonographer with a large radiology group on Long Island. She and her family got to visit with former roomies Jessica Edmiston Forsythe and Sarah Burgess Hall in Richmond on a recent road trip. Michael Hurt married wife Caroline in May 2013, and they welcomed Elise Alexandra Hurt in May 2014! They moved to Leesburg, Virginia, before Thanksgiving and are looking forward to life in a new home with their new daughter. MJ Figel Day had a busy summer traveling for work, and hosted a fun get-together with Eagles Robin Kozic, Amy Lapasota Miles, Amy Mannion, Katie O’Leary Preston, and the 10 kids between them! MJ and husband, Brian, added an 11th eaglet to the group. MJ, Brian, and their son Parker welcomed Thayer James to the family in September.

Colleen Minion and husband Matthew had their wedding reception in August, and in September flew down to Cabo San Lucas for their honeymoon. They were there when Hurricane Odile slammed into Cabo, and they hunkered down in the bathroom until it passed. Amid all the destruction, they witnessed looting, hoarding, emotional breakdowns and, at the same time, really altruistic people. They were evacuated three days later by the Mexican government to Tijuana and flew back to Seattle the next day. The hurricane honeymoon will not be soon forgotten! Julie Newell Leslie also had a trip not to be forgotten. Julie spent two weeks travelling in Switzerland this fall, where she fulfilled a lifetime dream of hiking in the Alps. I was in Europe at the same time as Julie, but we were unable to get our paths to cross. I visited Prague with my husband Wade, and fell in love with the architecture, the food, the people, and the beer. I am looking forward to taking several 40th birthday related trips next year, my favorite way to celebrate milestone birthdays! Please drop me a note and let me know if you are up to anything special for your milestone birthdays.

The Class of 1998 Endowment for Student Activities had a value of $37,500 as of June 30, 2014. The endowment is used to support homecoming activities.

My husband and I welcomed our first son, John McCallie Thomas on September 18, 2014. We continue to learn from him each and every day. Please continue to send your updates in!

Kristin Ruhl Bergstrom and her family moved to Keller, Texas. They decided to make life interesting and sold their house in Denver, put in a contract for a new build, packed and moved into an apartment, and enrolled the kids in school, all within a month.

Preston Robinson is living in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, with his wife Emilie, his son William (born in April), and their dogs Dudley and Zeus McAllister. He has been with the Louisiana Department of the Treasury for the past five years, and recently completed his Masters of Public Administration at Villanova University. This fall he began work on his MBA with Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business.

Rebecca Greene and boyfriend Josh Derr welcomed their first child, Harper Alia Derr, into the world on October 14, 2014.