Class Notes

Happy New Year to all of you as we draw closer to our 50th reunion! I hope to see as many of you as possible in 2020 for our big celebration.

After our 45th reunion last spring, I had a mini reunion in Williamsburg in July with Deb White Orsi, Susan Johnson Gillette, Judy Cunningham Dotson, and Lee Howland Hogan. Bettie Brooks Reuter was our wonderful hostess at her home and we laughed and shared stories for hours! Lee wrote that she met Donna Accettullo DeNyse in New York City this summer. She also met Kathi O’Neill in Delaware and went to Longwood Gardens. Lee skied in Colorado, went to Ecuador and the Galapagos, drove the Pacific Coast Highway, and went to Normandy and Brittany in June. John and I went to Alaska in August and to the Italian and French Rivieras in October and November. With two trips to Phoenix to see grandchildren in the fall also, Christmas came too quickly for me. Thanks to Sharon Arthur Spencer, I finally was able to get in touch with Lucia Smithey Bushway. Lucia has been teaching Math at the University of West Florida for the past 18 years. Before that she worked for the local drug and alcohol council for eight years. She and Jeff have two daughters and two grandchildren.

Our previous class agent Carole Lamonica Clarke has undergone a significant change in her life. In the fall she and Ted visited Colorado Springs and loved it. She also found out that living in Georgia was horrible for her allergies so they listed their home there and it sold on November 3; their new home will be ready in January! She is very excited about the move. I also heard from Lynn Amole Horng. She worked this summer at a community garden growing produce for a local food pantry.  Also, she is a trainee in the Penn State Master Gardener class, and hopes to be able to pass the required test at the end of the course. She would like to share her love of gardening with people. She has also joined a wonderful quilt guild and is slowly increasing her skills. She and Albert have been married for 41 years!

I also heard from Faye Carrithers Roberts. Since retiring from the Florida Library Association, she has started a new career as a freelance editor. The adjustable hours and ability to work from home provides the flexibility to care for her husband and mother-in-law in Lake City and to visit their grandchildren who live in the Atlanta area.

I do have some sad news to report. In December, Elizabeth “Betsy” Newton Ellis was murdered in her home here in Fredericksburg. She had retired from Stafford County Schools and the Central Rappahannock Regional Library. She is survived by her three sons and her two grandchildren, Sophie and John, who were her greatest joys in life.

Please send more news! Just send a couple lines to let everyone know what is going on in your life. Your classmates would love to hear about you!

Janice Reynolds Cook writes that her husband of 20 years, John, died five years ago of a stroke. Although she has friends, she is still lonely and sad. She has been living alone in New Orleans for almost 25 years (plus dogs, thank goodness). She and John both taught English at the University of New Orleans, but now she is retired. Her son, Kent, and his wife Erika live in Charlottesville, where she is an oncologist/hematologist at Martha Jefferson Hospital and he is a contractor, mostly on their own house! Their sons are grown: One is at Marist College in New York and the other is doing computer things in San Francisco and Austin, Texas. Janice’s sister and her husband are in Seattle and plan to move back to the east coast at the end of January. Her niece, Alison, spent eight years in Africa studying rhinos, but is now in Gainesville, Florida.

Janice keeps busy with church, a Dickens reading group, and classes in Greek tragedy. I am not really eager to travel. She has become close friends with John’s first wife, Marcia, and her husband. They live one street away. Her stepson, Drew, and his wife live in New Orleans, and her stepdaughter Maggie lives in Dallas. It is good to have that second family.

Janice’s MWC roommate, Frannie Sydnor Cook, and her husband, Wes, are near Durham. They raise cattle and love their farm. Wes retired from Duke as a neurosurgeon, so now they are both farmers! Janice hears from Frannie, but she has not seen her for several years.

Kim Warren Noe and Bob are in South Carolina. Janice saw Kim about seven or eight years ago when she was in New Orleans for a conference. She looked just the same, and gave me some news about Susan Taylor Frank and Susie Sowers Hill.

Janice’s cousin, Ellen Hicks Mixon ʼ77, is still in Newport, Rhode Island, half the year and Florida in the winter. One of my former colleagues from University of New Orleans, Gary Richards, is now the chair of the English Department at MWC (or University of Mary Washington, a name which she doesn’t like).

Janice remembers Karen Laino Giannuzzi, Nancy Battaglia, Anne Jeffries, Lisa Lehman, Patti Santoro, Jane Parker, Pam Temple, and so many others.  She loves reading about everyone in the Class Notes. She will be looking for the next issue.

Happy 2016, one and all.  I hope that you all finished up with a good year. I had two wonderful conversations with my dear friends, Cheryl Prietz Childress and Norah Heckman ’73 in December. Close friends are the best Christmas presents we can all have and once again, a heartfelt thanks to Mary Washington for providing such a bountiful gift. Norah still resides in Arlington, Virginia, and every time we talk, the two of us get to laughing just like we did in the dorm all those years ago. Dennis and I had hoped to have another visit with Cheryl and Dave before the year finished out but everyone just got too busy. Cheryl and Dave traveled to Atlanta, Georgia, to spend Christmas with daughter Thea and son-in-law, Eric. Son Alex and future daughter-in-law, Belle, also spent time with them and everyone really had a lovely holiday. Wedding plans are in full swing for Alex’s and Belle’s wedding next fall. We look forward to that as well because Cheryl and the family have always referred to us as “honorary family.”

I heard some great news from Debra Stanley Leap. What a joy to see a family generation of graduates from our alma mater.  Debbie’s daughter, Amy Leap ʼ12, was married last August to Adam Miller in a beautiful celebration of love at Sunny Slope Farm near Harrisonburg, Virginia. On December 8, Debbie and Amy celebrated the 91st birthday of Ruth Smith Stanley ʼ45 with dinner and a Christmas sing-a-long at the Sunnyside retirement community. Debbie continues to work part time doing health screenings and wonders how in the world she ever worked full time.

My schedule remains busy and I am still working full-time with a law firm in Baltimore.  We remained busy through the season and there does not seem to be any sign of slowing down through the winter months. The work is still interesting and rewarding. My appearances with the other Baltimore Hons have also been hectic. We are being requested more and more for charity work and other gigs. It’s such a hoot to get dolled up in those crazy costumes and beehive hairdos. We also continue to travel back and forth to Roanoke to take care of my late mother’s home. The trips there are always busy but very peaceful and it is a beautiful part of the U.S.  Dennis and I spent the Christmas season there with other family but still found time this year for some other shorter trips after the family one in California last spring. We traveled up the road to Philadelphia, Harrisburg, and Atlantic City. I don’t know where we will be headed this winter, but Florida may be a possibility.

That’s about it for this edition but please drop a line when you get the chance. Hearing from former classmates always puts a spring in my step. Until next time, stay well and happy.

I begin with the sad news of the death of a classmate. Barbara Barnes Krug, an outstanding member of the Class of ʼ73, passed away on October 20th. Thank you to Caren Van Pelt for sharing this information.

As for myself, in September I accepted the call to serve as full time organist and choirmaster at my church. So much for retirement! It brings me great joy and is such a time commitment that I can’t imagine having a full time job and being a full time organist. In addition to the organ I continue to play the oboe in the Henrico Concert Band. December is crunch time for musicians. Today I’m writing this article after completing a multitude of concerts, and all of the regular and extra services for Advent and Christmas. We’re planning a vacation to Belize in January to relax, refresh, and recharge. Life is good!

Kaye Carrithers writes that she has a new grandson, Samuel Watkins Conley, who was born in July. He’s a cutie who eats all the time. He’s her fifth grandson and sixth grandchild, and she’s told that he’ll be the last of the grandchildren. Four-year-old Caleb had told his mother if she had a girl, he wanted to send her back. Kaye and her husband are looking forward to visits this month from some of their older grandchildren. Their nine-year-old granddaughter Riley will be visiting while taking a sewing course. Richard, 13, will be taking a biscuit-making class, and nine-year-old Tanner will be taking a cookie-making class. Trevor, 12, is too busy wrestling to be interested in cooking or sewing. Kaye finished her holiday shopping before Thanksgiving, and the wrapping the week after, but it seems to be more labor-intensive every year. Maybe it’s because her family has been expanding, or maybe it’s because she’s slowing down, but she’s starting to think about presents that don’t require wrapping–like family memberships to museums or the local botanical garden, or season tickets to the symphony, or things to do together as an extended family–Maybe next year. For now, she’s just happy to get her greeting cards written.

Marianne Reed is having a hard time letting in that this year is 42 years since graduation! Time is going by too fast! She graduated with a MSW in social work from VCU in 1980. After 35 years of work in the mental health field, she still loves having the opportunity to help someone with their journey. She doesn’t love the paperwork, but the computer records really help. Mastering computer record keeping has been a challenge, but she works with a team that has a few 30-year-olds, so they help a lot. Her current job is a crisis worker in a mental health clinic. Marianne had a bout with breast cancer five years ago. She is six years clear now! Nothing in her life prepared her for this, and she will forever be grateful for her wonderful husband Rexton “Smokey” Reed for all his tender care. Bless his heart, he is also helping her get around currently as she tripped on a cobblestone at the Richmond Folk Festival and broke a bone in her leg!

Marianne’s family had a tough time dealing with the deaths of her parents. Her beautiful mother had Alzheimer’s and went through 15 years of decline. Her father had a weak heart and went first, but asked the kids to keep Mom at home, which they did with lots of help. Marianne has four sisters and three brothers. Six of them were together for Thanksgiving with lots of other relatives! She has a step child from her first husband who died in 1999, and a stepdaughter with her second husband, Smokey. She is 24, married, and lives near them in Richmond.

Her passions besides her work and husband are traveling, gardening, live music, reading, fishing, and welsh corgis. She has been to Europe a few times, most recently to Ireland. She has also been to Mexico, explored the Caribbean, and a lot of the United States. She loves going to the Upper Peninsula in Michigan, where her cousin lives, to fish and read. She is in a neighborhood book club that helps keep her reading and laughing with her reading pals. She goes regularly to concerts at the Modlin Center and to opera at the Carpenter Center. Smokey gets a pass on the opera, but will sing “kill the rabbit” for her if she asks nicely. Her Welsh Corgi Roxie makes her laugh every day.

As she writes this, the world is shook up with so much tragedy. Did the older generation worry about us back in 1973 like we worry about young people now? She has to remind herself sometimes that as troubled as our world is today, in many ways things have improved a lot since her youth. Talking to young people helps and gives her hope for the future.

Pat Price writes that she took an early retirement in 2006 from her positions at Virginia Western Community College where she served as the English Department program head and the Assistant Dean of the Humanities Division. Since then, she has really enjoyed the extra leisure time to pursue her interests in reading, cooking, floral design, and antiquing. She also has traveled with friends to England on several occasions where they visited Devonshire, Cornwall, Yorkshire, and the Lake District in Cumbria (where she got to see all the places she studied in her English Romantic Poetry class at MWC!). And she finally made it to Hawaii twice in the past two years, to Kauai and Maui.

One of her favorite trips since retirement was as part of a Hollins University trip to the Umbrian area of Italy where her group lived for three weeks in the old section of the ancient hill city, Todi. They took classes in drawing and plein air painting while also taking side trips to Florence, Assisi, and Rome. As an additional bonus, her group also took Italian classes, studied art restoration techniques with a local expert, and accompanied a local archaeologist to Etruscan and Roman sites.

One of the hobbies she has had the additional time to indulge in since retiring is collecting vintage charms. She’s up to about 30 bracelets now, and if anyone has a lead on a 14k gold Mary Washington College charm from the ʼ70s, let her know. She’s been looking for that one for years!

She looks back on her years at MWC with great fondness, and she cherishes her memories of living in Westmoreland Hall. She learned a lot from great professors and made great friends–what more could one for ask from a college education?

Please continue to write and thanks to those who contributed to this article.

I am anticipating the birth of twin granddaughters in 2016. I enjoy doing embroidery and making lavender sachets for Blue Skye Lavender, a farm on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. I had lunch recently with Beverly Haynes Vaughn ’74–always a fun outing! Bev retired from government work and has resumed teaching preschool a couple of days a week.

Judy Sledge Joyce’s son Jack is a sophomore at UNC-Chapel Hill majoring in Public Relations in their School of Journalism and Media Communications. Her twins, Jeffery and Julianne, are sophomores at West Potomac High School in Fairfax County. They joined Judy on a church mission trip to the highlands of Guatemala in the summer of 2014. They helped build cement stoves for families using open fires in their homes. They also helped construct a school. Her husband Rick started a new job as Chief Cyber Counsel with the U.S. Coast Guard. Judy keeps busy fostering animals from the Alexandria Animal Shelter and recently began doing her part to help lessen the feral cat population by trapping them so they can be neutered and released.

Daphne Johnston Elliott wants to encourage all of us to come to our 40th reunion at Mary Wash on June 3-5, 2016! Please join our Facebook page: Mary Washington College Class of 1976, and make a donation to the Alumni Association. Ann Gorneva Krulevitz was promoted to the National Director of Field Compliance at the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation after 14 years at the Maryland Chapter of CFF. Her husband Steve is active coaching elite tennis players and the Gilman School tennis team. Their daughter Stephannie just passed the bar and clerks for a judge in Baltimore County. Heather Lamond Grieshaber retired five years ago. She and her husband moved to Tucson, Arizona. She has been working on the Tucson Festival of Books—the fourth largest book fair in the country. They went to Scotland for Christmas and have enjoyed doing a lot of travel. Her daughter, Jessica Suhowatsky, just got her RN from Vanderbilt University and is working on her Masters. Teresa Smith Houser retired in 2013 from Emerson Process Management in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She and her husband have relocated to Southport, North Carolina, where they are enjoying the beach and golf.

Melissa Mann is well and serving on a mission for her church in Ecuador. It is strange for her to live in a land where the days and nights are 12 hours long every day of the year. She said the temperature is stable throughout the seasons and it rarely rains. The birds and animals there are fantastic and she is trying to learn about them. Her lack of Spanish is a frustration for her, but she is trying to learn and the Ecuadorians are helpful.

Kim Stambaugh Jureckson is still active as a dancer, teacher, and choreographer in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She teaches at the Lancaster Country Day School in the middle and upper schools. She is also the artistic director of the Grant Street Dance Company, a modern dance company in Lancaster. She is married to Mitchell Jureckson and has three children. Her older daughter Britta is married and lives in Australia. Her other daughter Erica was married in July and lives in Annapolis. Her son Max lives and works in the Lancaster area. They were all together for Erica’s wedding this past summer. Her dear friend and former roommate during her sophomore year, Pat Tully Osborne, attended the wedding. They have remained close since first meeting in the dance department at MWC in 1972.

Wendy Francis reported that she has left her job as Program Director at a non-profit biodiversity conservation organization in Alberta. She is ready for the next phase of her life, whatever that is. She is calling it “semi-retirement.” She hopes to consult and do contract work while having more time for friends, family, and outdoor adventures. She is considering moving from Banff to a small village near Vancouver near her brother. She is blessed with good health, a rich and varied life and many friends. She enjoys the freedom of being single and sends her warm wishes to all her former MWC classmates.

Nancy Saunders Puckette hardly recognized Mary Washington after driving through Fredericksburg. She is happily married to Jim, and it will be 40 years in June. They have two beautiful daughters, Nicole, 27, a photographer, and Annalise, 25, an event planner. Neither is married. She and Jim continue to run their Tupperware Business as Business Leaders. If you are ever in Pleasant Valley, New York, stop by! She would love to hear from her friends.

Cathy Kroohs retired after almost 30 years as a medic with the City of Alexandria Fire Department. She has no plans for another career. She has a new right hip which should allow her to do some serious traveling. Her major concentration in retirement so far is trying to get her black lab mutt trained well enough to travel with her or leave behind with friends who will still speak to her when she returns. Yolande A. Long’s son Drew got his MS in Commerce from UVA and is working at Capital One. He is engaged to Allison Russell of Reston and will be married next August. Yolande regularly sees Betty Galt Kennedy who lives a few blocks away. Their kids were together in preschool and their two sons have been best friends since then.

Cathy Colbert is looking forward to the reunion and catching up with everyone. She has touched base with Candy Rossell Baunsgard, who is planning to come. Cathy is still working as a paralegal, but is counting down the years to retirement. She is looking for ideas to add to her retirement bucket list.

Veronica “Teeny” Burton has retired and traveled to Japan, Canada, and several U.S. cities. She has three daughters, one of whom is serving in the U.S. Navy in Qatar. Please pray for her safety.

Hope to see many of you in June at our 40th reunion!

I received an email from Krista Wentz Levy. She and her husband Andy live in Ashburn, Virginia. Krista is currently the Executive Director of the American College of Clinical Pharmacology, a non-profit membership association for clinical pharmacology professionals. Krista and Andy have one grandchild, Logan, with whom they spend as much time as possible. They enjoy traveling, and most recently made a trip to Greece and Turkey.

Another traveler from the class of ’78, Virginia Thompson retired from teaching art to grades K-5 in May 2014.  She and her husband cruised the Rhine and Moselle rivers last October with stops in the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg, France, and Switzerland.  In April 2015 they visited the 9/11 Memorial in New York, which they found to be very beautiful and moving. They traveled to the Canadian Rockies in June with stops in Vancouver, Victoria, Jasper, Lake Louise, Banff, and Calgary. Life just gets better and better for Virginia and her husband!

I recently had an opportunity to reconnect with classmates over Homecoming Weekend in October. I joined Allen Nichols Scott, Joni Joseph Owens, Robin Pierce Donlavage, Martha Weaver Campbell, MJ Ford Johnston, and Carol Mills. We had a great time touring the campus and catching up. We found our way to Ridderhof Martin Gallery in search of the Mr. Russell painting. Mr. Russell hung in the Russell dorm during our time on campus. We discovered Mr. Russell is in storage and we will have to make an appointment to view him.

During our visit we discovered Joni now works for Moses Cone Hospital in Greensboro, North Carolina, as an RN on the neuroscience unit. She and husband Frosty recently celebrated their 37th anniversary. Joni and Frosty very much enjoy spending time with their two-year-old grandson, Cole. Allen is currently teaching in Salisbury, Maryland. She loves spending time with her kids. Her daughter Jamie is a CPA for Health and Human Services and lives in Baltimore, and her son, Michael, graduated from North Carolina State and is a process engineer living in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Carol retired from teaching music in the Prince William County Virginia School System in June 2015. I can say appreciatively that Carol has not retired from music. I recently saw Carol in Alexandria, Virginia, where she was participating in The Living Christmas Tree production at First Baptist Church of Alexandria. It was one of seven performances given over an extended weekend in December. Cast, chorus, and orchestra for the 26th Living Christmas Tree presented traditional and contemporary Christmas music. The 25-foot Christmas tree had more than 50,000 synchronized lights. Quite inspiring as well was Carol’s direction of the Children’s Choir.

Martha is the owner of Trinity Title LLC in Lynchburg, Virginia, where she and her husband Dave enjoy daughter Regan’s family including her husband Chad and children Hampton, Hudson, and Henley. MJ is continuing her profession in Risk Management with WMATA. MJ is living in Annapolis with her daughter Emily who recently graduated from Penn State. Robin is living in Arlington, Virginia, and working with the government. Her daughter Leah attends Old Dominion University.

After a 35-year government career with Military Health Systems, Janet Place Fuller retired and currently owns and operates COR Consulting LLC. She lives in Great Falls, Virginia, with her husband of 37 years, Tom. Their son Billy lives close by and puts his Art Degree to use as a tattoo artist.

It was great to hear from a number of Class of ’79 folks. Leslie Freeman Belcher wrote to say that she retired from the U.S. Department of the Interior as an IT Specialist in August 2015 after over 34 years of service. She added that for now they will stay in northern Virginia, but she’ll be spending time downsizing and traveling to see family and kids.

One of my favorite people in Fairfax County government (she helps me when I have contract or other procurement questions), Mary Regan McMahon said that she will be celebrating her 18th year with Fairfax County in February 2016 and hopes to retire within the next two years. Her husband Brian just celebrated 25 years with the U.S. Postal Service as an electronic technician and in April 2015, they celebrated 30 years of marriage. Their oldest son, Sean, is working and living in Asheville where he is a probation/parole officer trainee for the state of North Carolina. Their youngest son, Zach, is in his fourth year of a five-year program for Forensic Science and Chemistry at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Mary Anne Kennedy Kane also had lots of news to report. She and her husband Brian made the big move back to Colorado and couldn’t be happier! They’ve settled into the Denver foothills and have adapted to the high altitude and the Rocky Mountain attitude. She found a position as PRN Speech Language Pathologist with Genesis Rehab services and finds the work/life balance just right. On a sad note, she lost her beloved mother, Charlotte Kennedy, in September but has a wonderful circle of family and friends that have supported her through these past months. In particular, she was comforted by her MWC friends, Kim Smith, Dorothy Clinton, Pam Frank, Ellen Littlefield, and Carolyn Ocel, who spent a difficult afternoon with her, for which she is eternally grateful.

Caroline Sutton Morris provided a wonderful synopsis of her last 37 years. Every time the UMW magazine arrives, she promises herself that she is going to tell me about her life. And then, life gets in the way! She has been happily married to her husband Fred Morris, a banker, since 1987, and she has had careers in banking, corrugated paper, private schools, hazardous chemicals, and Kraft foods. She likes variety and a challenge.

Since 1993, she and her husband have lived in York, Pennsylvania, where they raised their two daughters. Their first, Anne “Annie” Morris ʼ11, lives in Richmond and works at VCU in the President’s Office. Their younger daughter, Caroline, graduated from University of Alabama in 2014 and works for Frito Lay in Little Rock. Caroline has owned her own business, Kimman’s Co., a gift shop, for a little over 11 years. Her little town is in the midst of a renaissance and she loves working toward making her corner a little bit better. But, she is tired of snow so when retirement comes, which should be just a few years away, she and Fred are giving away the snowblower and moving south.

Caroline’s mom, also a Mary Washington alumna, and sister both live in Fredericksburg, and she gets to town fairly frequently. She was just there recently and thought about how nice it looks and how wonderful that the school has continued to make its mark on the community.

Laurie Dalhouse Saunders wrote that her mom died a couple of years ago and that has been hard, but she and her sister are as close as ever and continue to help each other through the rough patches. On the good news front, her daughter is a pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Atlanta; her eldest son and his wife live in Seattle where he is in seminary; and her youngest son is a freshman at Hampden-Sydney. So she and John are (finally!) empty nesters! John is still working for UBS, and Laurie stays busy volunteering. She’s fallen in love with a class of first graders with whom she enjoys helping with language arts twice a week.

Thanks to all who wrote and I hope to hear from more of you next time!