Class Notes

Hello, Class of 1991. Looking forward to seeing you at our 25th reunion June 3-5! In the meantime, here are a few updates.

Mason “Bill” Donovan and husband Mark recently celebrated their two-year marriage anniversary in New Hampshire. Bill attended the 2015 Homecoming festivities in the fall and ran into several ’91 friends, including Cindy Dyche Rodway-Coray, who lives in NOVA. Douglas Rose owns and operates an independent IT support business and is happily married to his wife Natasha. Lyn “Viola” Cizek and her fiancé Tim are to be married in 2016. Chris Louden and Mark Gilliat continue their successful technology professional lives in NOVA. Sandra Richardson is a forensic investigator for Chesterfield County, Virginia. Charlie Gullo has returned from a decade long stint in Singapore with his wife and four-year-old son. Charlie is a Dean at Marshall University in West Virginia.

Kelli Miller Slunt also attended homecoming with her husband Jeff.  Kelli is nearing her 20-year tenure at UMW in a faculty position. Jeff Mauzy has been living in Boise, Idaho, for over 20 years. He has a 15-year-old daughter and a 12-year-old son. Jeff has worked for Peterson Auto Group as their buyer for over 10 years. He spends most of his time working, raising kids, and enjoying the outdoors.

Janet Nestlerode received the 2015 Coastal and Estuarine Research Federation’s Distinguished Service Award at the CERF biennial conference in Portland, Oregon, in November. This award was given in recognition of over a decade of service to the Federation and her exemplary level of volunteerism. Janet is a Research Ecologist for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency at the Gulf Ecology Division in Gulf Breeze, Florida. She earned her PhD from the College of William & Mary at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science in 2004.

Lori Klugman can be seen playing guitar and singing two of her original songs in her new YouTube videos, which were taken at an open mic night on a recent trip. She continues to improve the lives of senior residents as a fitness trainer in a retirement community, and is an animal rights activist.

Please keep sending news and updates. It’s always great to hear from you!

My last Class Notes submission was in November of 2014. A lot has happened since then.

My husband Tom works for Thompson Engineering, which is headquartered in Mobile, Alabama, and we traveled there several times in 2015. In February, we attended our fifth Mardi Gras and second Fifty Funny Fellows ball in Mobile. In July, ALDOT named Thompson the lead design firm for the Mobile River Bridge Project. Tom will be the Project Manager for the roadway design of the tallest suspension bridge in the U.S. We celebrated the news and Tom’s birthday at Perdido Key Beach Resort and enjoyed a multi-day drive along Florida’s Emerald Coast, stopping in Pensacola, Fort Walton, Destin, Seaside (where we’d gotten engaged in 1998), and Panama City before heading home to Atlanta. Tom’s company told him that they needed him in Mobile full time as soon as possible, so we finished renovating our home, including a to-the-studs re-do of our 14’ x 15’ master bathroom and whole house paint job. We celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary in October, and Thanksgiving weekend we put our house on the market. By Christmas we had a strong offer, and as I write this we’re in the due diligence period of our home sale and planning a house hunting trip to Mobile right away. So Tom and I, along with our 14-year old cats Leo and Luna, will soon call Mobile home. I hope to connect with alumni in the area and would love to hear from anyone and everyone interested in sharing their MWC/UMW memories and stories. Please email me at charjung@hotmail.com. I look forward to hearing from you.

Christine Harrison Casey and her husband Tom celebrated their second wedding anniversary in December of 2015 and are planning a trip to New York City in the spring of 2016 to celebrate. She accepted the position of Senior Major Gifts Officer with Transitions LifeCare in Raleigh, North Carolina. The organization provides hospice, bereavement, and palliative care services in five counties around the Triangle. Christine started her position in January.

Bonnie McPheeters Phillips and husband Scott celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary in September of 2015. They spent New Year’s in Charleston, South Carolina. Bonnie is very excited about her new position as sales manager with Chattanooga Magazine. She embarked on this new adventure the summer of 2015, after a 20-year career in marketing and public relations, most recently at a local non-profit. Bonnie says that when she was approached with this opportunity, her gut said go for it, even though she’d never been in sales or worked in the publishing industry. She says that it’s exciting, the people are nice, and she gets to do her most favorite thing, which is connecting people. If you ever need advertising help, she encourages you to let her know. To see her digital edition go to chattmag.com, which is also a part of the Apple News app.

Nellie L. King recently remarried, and together she and her husband have five children. She travels nationally for professional and speaking obligations and took a trip to Budapest this past summer for pleasure. Nellie continues to practice exclusively criminal defense work in state and federal courts and owns the Law Offices of Nellie L. King, P.A. in West Palm Beach, Florida. She is a Past President of the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and currently serves on the Board of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, which brings her to D.C. regularly, and on a number of charitable boards, including Boys Town South Florida. She occasionally sees the Happy Twins (Jeni Levering Galvin and Katie Levering Sears) and enjoys getting together with UMW President Rick Hurley and his wife, Rose, when they travel to South Florida.

Helen Heath Thompson Mosher is back in Fredericksburg and has been managing communications for St. George’s Episcopal Church since March of 2015. She says that it’s crazy being back in Fredericksburg and seeing how much has changed—and yet how much has stayed the same. She had a great time catching up with her Class of ’90 pals during the 2015 summer reunion weekend. Her older son, Kieran Shaw, graduated from Mary Washington. He’s a Class of 2015 theatre major and working at Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C.

Heather Martin Montgomery just published her 12th book, a children’s book about bugs who won’t mind their manners, with Scholastic. The book is dedicated to Mary Washington Professor of Biology Dr. Joella Killian, who got Heather hooked on entomology.  Heather, her husband Laddin, dog, and cat live near Huntsville, Alabama.

Donald Rands Fuller is still stationed at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington. He has been there since 2012. He is assigned to the 16th Combat Aviation Brigade, as a CW5 (chief warrant officer 5) in the position of Brigade Standardization Instructor Pilot (senior pilot/instructor). He is in a 4500 person-strong unit. He returned from his fourth deployment in the Middle East in October of 2014. He had a great deployment, and everyone came home mostly unscathed. He has been on temporary duty, off and on, for most of 2015 since he has been back, overseeing training and transitioning into a new attack aircraft, an AH-64E attack helicopter. His days of flying the Kiowa Warrior attack helicopter are over, as it has been retired from service.

He and his unit got notice of yet another deployment back to the Middle East, so they have begun the preparation/training cycle to get ready. Don has the option of not deploying and leaving Washington to go to another assignment, but he decided that as the senior guy, he will feel better if he goes with the unit. Don has been serving for 22 1/2 years and could have retired a couple of years ago, but he’s not ready to let go. He will probably stay in until his 25th year and then move on to his next career.

Don spends his free time at the gym or playing with Tommy, his favorite four-legged friend (rescue Pit/Boxer mix). He lives in downtown Tacoma, Washington, in a beautiful modern loft overlooking Mt Rainier and Commencement Bay. He can step right out onto the boardwalk/marina where his new boat will be parked. His family is all doing well, and they are all in Boise, Idaho. He’s looking forward to joining them soon.

Julie Lail Porter and her husband Steve moved to Northern Virginia (Fairfax County) in 2014 from Virginia Beach. They and their two children Jacob, 15, and Maura, 13, are settling into the faster-paced lifestyle, but they miss the beach. Julie lost her father in April after a long illness. Their family traveled to Norway over the summer with Steve’s parents to fulfill a “bucket-list” trip for Steve’s dad. Julie kept her old job from before the move and is working full-time from home as a Business Intelligence Architect for Sentara Healthcare. She meets Marie Ryan Cox regularly for lunches and fun stuff. Marie, her husband Allen, and their two girls live in Fairfax also. Julie sad it was great to catch up with Libby Johnston Ross in the fall of 2015 after they realized they live very close to each other!

Rebecca Gajdalo Gruber lives in West Friendship, Maryland, with her husband Dave and three children. She got together with some fellow MWC/UMW friends in December of 2015 for a girls’ weekend on Kiawah Island, South Carolina, at the vacation home of Erin Patrick Duncan, who resides in Gainesville, Virginia, with her husband Billy Duncan ’91 and two children. Also in attendance were Karen Richardson, who resides in Fredericksburg, Virginia; Sarah Perri Spalding, who resides in Apopka, Florida, with husband John and two children; and Sheri Whited Masich, who resides in Herndon, Virginia, with her husband Jack and two children. They all enjoyed catching up in the unseasonably warm weather over bike rides, crabbing, and time at the beach! Suzie Head Smartt, who resides in Austin, Texas, with her husband Chris and three children, was unable to join them, but Rebecca and Sarah spent a great weekend with Suzie at Disney World in February of 2015.

Rachael Schmeller Crout lives in Capon Bridge, West Virginia, with her husband Eric and their daughters Anna and Heather. Anna will be attending Shepherd University in 2016, and Heather is in high school. Rachael is a fifth grade English inclusion teacher at Daniel Morgan Middle School in Winchester, Virginia.

Mike “Gunner” Nelson and his family had a great experience in China over Christmas 2015 and New Year’s. They visited Beijing (his wife Ting’s hometown), Xi’an, and Chengdu. While in Xi’an they saw the Terra Cotta warriors and great deal of Chinese history as Xi’an is the “Ancient Capital” of China and one end of the famous “Silk Road.” After Xi’an, they visited the Panda Preserves to see these wonderful animals and the beauty of the Chinese countryside. Mike had a “Mary Washington Flashback” when he and his family went to Cancun for Spring Break in April of 2015. They stayed in a much nicer place than he remembered from 1989! Seeing Chichen Itza (missed in the 1989 trip) was incredible along with swimming in the cenotes!

Mike’s daughters are growing up so quickly. Kaitlyn is in her junior year at Dominion High School and college is right around the corner for her. Savannah is in seventh grade and plays softball and basketball. Savannah is a star pitcher on her travel softball team, the Great Falls Sharks. The team was 19-3-1 with two tournament championships in the fall 2015 season. Lastly, he and his family live in Lowes Island, which is a community in Potomac Falls on the Fairfax/Loudoun County border. They were in the feature article and on the cover of the local magazine, “Island Living,” in the summer of 2015. Savannah had her own article as the “Athlete of the Month” for her softball exploits. Time goes so fast —from college graduation, to careers, to watching our families grow and thrive. The best advice is to fully enjoy it while it’s happening!

Jarrod Anthony Epps, his wife, and twin three-year-old boys are now splitting their time between living in San Francisco and Prague, with the San Francisco side becoming more dominant. It’s interesting to be living back in the U.S. after almost 20 years away.

Melissa Oliver is an occupational therapist and Assistive Technology Program Coordinator at the McGuire VA Medical Center in Richmond, Virginia. She was recognized for her work by The Secretary of Veterans Affairs.

Michael Cerami has been working in the Tradeshow Industry since he graduated.  After a seven-year stint running his own sales consultant business in the tradeshow industry, he took a job as the International Sales Manager for the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) in Arlington. The motto of AUSA is “Voice for the Army—Support for the Soldier.”

In his day to day activity, Michael works with companies who have Security and Defense Solutions working globally with the military. He is now traveling all around the world to various military tradeshows, including stops in London; Amman, Jordan; Paris; Abu Dhabi; and recently Istanbul, Turkey. Next year they have added an event for the USA Security and Defense Pavilion in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia at an event titled Defence Service Asia, or DSA. More details on the association can be found at www.ausa.org.

Needless to say, Michael loves his job, the people he meets, and the places he gets to go.  The only downside to the job is that he travels a lot for events (both domestic and overseas) and needs to leave his beautiful wife Melissa (of 17 years in May) and their three wonderful children, Madelynn, 14, Maeson, 12, and Mikey, 10.  Maybe one of these days they can travel with him. They live in Lorton, Virginia.

Julie Kraus Bostick and her husband, Dave, welcomed their son, Jack William Bostick, on March 3, 2015. Jack is a happy baby and is bringing such joy to their lives! Julie continues to work in nonprofit fundraising and lives with her family in Clearwater, Florida.

Jennifer Boynton Lynch welcomed her third child, Reagan Idella, on August 6, 2015. She weighed 8 pounds, 8 ounces. She joins her big sister Riley, age five, and big brother James, age four. She lives in Midlothian, Virginia, with her husband Jamie. She taught for ten years before her first child was born.

Tom Johnson and Laura Indzeris Johnson ’01 welcomed their second daughter, Elizabeth Virginia, in September! They live outside Harrisonburg, Virginia, where Laura works in marketing and Tom teaches Astronomy and Earth Science.

Best wishes to Dianna Rowell! Dianna married Rich Boschulte on July 11 just outside Atlantic City, New Jersey. She was so happy that Stephanie Primmer traveled from Virginia for the wedding!

Leigh Brockman Horowitz and her husband, Jeremy, welcomed Oliver Samuel Horowitz on October 8. Leigh continues to work as a paralegal in New Orleans, teaches dance at Loyola University, and has her own dance company, the Storytellers Dance Project.

Liz Rodriguez Ortner and her husband, Mike, live in McLean, Virginia, and welcomed baby Mary Therese on September 29. She joins siblings Gabriel, Julia, Luke, Mikey, and William. Liz stays busy homeschooling the older three kids and is enjoying learning all over again with them.

Marcie Pierson Brandriff is back in Virginia after husband Kevin became the executive director of Headwaters Foundation in Sperryville. Marcie’s daughter, Lily, is now three, and they all enjoy living in farm country and having cows as close neighbors.

Julie Newell Leslie traveled extensively this fall. While in Mexico, she visited the Aztec ruins of Tetochititlan. Highlights from Julie’s trip to Guatemala included a hike up the smoldering Pacaya volcano, and an overnight jungle trip to watch the sun rise at the Mayan ruins in Tikal. Julie rang in her birthday in Cusco, Peru, kicking off a 10-day trip to the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu. I was excited to see Julie over a lavish brunch in July when life had me in the D.C. area for a weekend.

To celebrate our milestone birthdays, Kira Stchur Villarreal and I travelled to Vis and Split in Croatia, and Rome, Montalcino, and Florence, Italy with our husbands and some non-Mary Wash friends. We enjoyed fantastic weather, fine wine, great food, lots of laughs, and a lifetime of memories. I cannot recommend the island of Vis enough; I was completely enchanted by the beauty of both the vistas and the people. My husband and I stayed on in Europe for another week to attend Oktoberfest in Munich with my mother and sister. I made a major career move in January, returning to the IT industry after an 11-year run in healthcare. I am now in product management with Code42, a software company in Minneapolis specializing in cloud based data backup and disaster recovery solutions.

Caitlin Jenkins checked in from Los Angeles where she began working as a Conservator at the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences. Back across the country, Josh Bacigalupi was recently promoted to Principal of Dryden Elementary School in Dryden, New York.

Justin Mink reports from Dallas, where he’s been busy growing his business, Music Audience Exchange, while also planning his wedding in June. Sheila Elledge Courtney and Kyle Courtney have also been busy. Kyle works as the Copyright Advisor for Harvard University where he was also named a Harvard Hero for his pioneering work on copyright issues and, oh, also had a book published in the fall. Meanwhile, Sheila is the Director of Risk Management for the eastern half of the country for PURE insurance.

From the expanding family department, Jen Tsimpris and husband Basil welcomed their second child into their family when Anne Kathryn arrived on October 11.

Robert Courtnage and family recently purchased a little part of Mary Washington history when they purchased a home once owned by former MWC President Grellett Simpson of Simpson Library fame!  Robert, who recently welcomed second son Austin to Fredericksburg, is also Chair of the Fredericksburg Clean and Green Commission. Adrien Snedecker Dickerson and family also recently moved into a new house, albeit bereft of ties to MWC.

As always, please email us with any news or updates you’d like to share with your classmates!

It was so great to hear from many of you and catch up via email and Facebook.  Our son, John (currently 15 months), continues to grow and learn every day.  He is very excited about becoming a big brother in May of 2016.  He expects to teach his younger brother many fun things like climbing coffee tables and sliding down slides backwards. I continue to work as a fifth grade lead teacher at the Trinity School in Atlanta, Georgia, and enjoy the newness and challenges of the job every day.

Jimmy Rhodes ’99 and Meredith Camp Rhodes ’03 welcomed their twins, Peyton Olivia and Declan James, into the world on November 7 at 1:00 a.m.  All are healthy and at home and enjoying every minute.

Matthew Jondrow is working as the Special Projects Development Team Lead with a NASA contractor in Hampton, Virginia. They focus on programming systems that process satellite data for the international community along with the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS).  He also is involved with work related to Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), commonly known as drones, and iPhone application programming.

A few years back, Katherine “Kai” Lamb Owens changed careers from a Marketing and Sales Executive at a consumer food products company to be an art teacher at Washington Episcopal School in Bethesda, Maryland. She enjoys that her work vacations mirror that of her children, Sage, age 10 and, Elliott, age seven. She also co-runs a fine art photography business (www.amylamb.com) and is illustrating a children’s poetry book. Rachel Luehrs ’12, who recently earned her master’s in education from Mary Washington, joined Kai’s school this past fall. Jennifer Macomber Meidinger ’98 has two little children and lives in the D.C. area, and Jeanine Prother Williams (Kai’s old roommate) has children the exact same ages as hers and lives very close. Derek Bottcher ’96 works at Geico a mile from her office in Chevy Chase, Maryland. Susan Johnson is married and has a sweet little girl in Central Virginia. Kai is often in touch with Rob Solem and Ted Dangerfield via email and would love to hear from Chris Martin and Ritchie Coladarci. She reminisces warmly on her time at Mary Washington.

This summer, Kristin Ruhl Bergstrom, Shannon Blevins, and Susanna Fisher Parker ’97 linked arms and became business partners with Rodan+Field Dermatologists. They were excited to add Katy Buchanan Storer to their team this fall!

Ashley DeNegre finished a PhD in evolutionary biology in November of 2014 and is beyond grateful to be done and have her life back!

Cheryl Mayers Hinton and Ryan Hinton ’00 are very busy keeping up with the four kids and her new business. She is the proud owner of the Glen Allen Curves!

Susanne Mauer has three loud boys, Jake, age seven, Cody, age four, and Owen, age two. She has a private career counseling practice in D.C. near the National Zoo. She often sees Shannon Blevins and Rob Snowhite at the preschool where all of their children attend.  They love to travel to see her family in Colorado and California as often as they can.

Chris Hitzelberger and Joanna Bible Hitzelberger added baby number five (Augustine) to their happy family in October. Chris is in a new job as the Director of Catholic Campus at Virginia Tech.