Class Notes

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.