Class Notes

The following update was submitted for Bob Barron (’75) by his husband, Fred Blanton. Bob retired from a distinguished 20-year career with the National Trust for Historic Preservation, including 10 years as their last internal publisher of Preservation Magazine. To prepare for the next exciting phase in their lives, Bob and Fred purchased an empty lot with an adjoining historic carriage house in one of the historic districts in Staunton VA, where they recently completed building a home that is sympathetic to both the carriage house and the historic neighborhood. Bob and Fred subsequently won the occasional “Best Infill Development” award from the local Historic Staunton Foundation, for which Bob is currently serving as the newest President. Bob also frequently promotes the Historic Preservation major at UMW. Bob offers his fellow graduates three “historic keys” to a fun and continuing educational retirement: Bob holds lifetime memberships in both the Historic Hotels of America and the US National Parks, and Fred maintains a membership in the Rail Passengers Association, so they travel extensively across America, enjoying historic hotels, lodges and sites, and travel by train whenever possible.

Allan Jenkins (“AJ”) (’75) wrote that his wife Lezle and he are still living near Lenoir City, TN, just west of Knoxville. They are empty nesters with 2 birds pursuing careers, with one in a PhD program at Emory University in Atlanta (the only one nearby). Allan works about half-time as a hydrogeologist performing mostly groundwater modeling for environmental remediation sites across the US, and Lezle is retired from the school system. We seem to never have enough hours in the day to keep up with part-time vocations, like yard work, home maintenance and DIY on our 100-yr old home, play music, ride our motorcycles, and use our camper. Allan still communicates and visits regularly with close friends and former MWC graduates Glen Markwith, Steve Jones, Richie Hasty and Chip Schwab, and regularly gets together with a great group of graduates, mostly from the classes of ‘75 and ’76. This past October, several of them met in Fredericksburg and visited with Dr. Marsh Bowen, our favorite professor and basketball guru/coach at MWC.

On my news home front, our daughter, Taylor, was married in Kansas City, MO on April 27th, to Dr. Rafael Torosyan, and Taylor expects to complete her 2-year Nursing Practitioner program in August 2020. Our son, Ian, and his wife, Vickie, gave birth to our third granddaughter, Finley, on June 16th. In the fall 2019, our oldest granddaughter, Presley, started Spanish-immersion 1st grade and our middle granddaughter, Lucy, who turned 4 this past June, began her last year of pre-school.

Reminder: The 2020 Class Reunion Weekend dates are set, so make sure to mark your calendars for attending our 45th Class Reunion on May 29th – 31st, 2020! We’d love to see you there!

Patricia Barnhardt writes: I retired 5 years ago and moved to Charlottesville, and I love it! I have time to spend with 2 of my grandchildren nearby and get to travel to Oregon to see my third—all girls! I serve on the board of trustees at the school where I worked for 38 years. I’ve gotten involved with a climate lobbying group and plan to help get out the vote in 2020. My husband of nearly 40 years and I have had the good fortune to take some wonderful trips in recent years from the Pacific NW, to Sicily, Cornwall and Brittany, and this past summer we were on a small boat that cruised the Baltic Sea touching down in Stockholm, St. Petersburg, Gdansk, Poland, Estonia and Latvia. All is well. I’d love to hear from others.