Class Notes

Greg Chambers finished his tour as adjunct researcher at the University of Virginia and was busy restoring the family farm in Orange County, Virginia. 

Greg keeps in touch with Rich Mason ’87, who lives in Florida. He runs into other alumni in Richmond and North Myrtle Beach South Carolina, having fun at beach music and shag dancing events. He looked forward to his granddaughter attending UMW in the future. 

Jena Efird Abernathy joined global organizational consulting firm Korn Ferry as a senior client partner and sector leader of healthcare board services in the firm’s healthcare practice. 

Anne Baber Wallis was saddened to hear of the January 2021 death of poet and author Richard McCann, who was an assistant professor of English at Mary Washington from 1983 to 1986. She posted a memory of being McCann’s student on her personal blog, Getting to Good: A Journey Through Love, Grief, Horses, and Music. 

She wrote, in part: 

“He called us his Blue Girls, quoting John Crowe Ransom, as we walked the brick pathways from the English department to the dining hall: ‘Twirling your blue skirts, travelling the sward/Under the towers of your seminary/Go listen to your teachers old and contrary/Without believing a word.’ For us, he was neither old nor contrary, and we believed every word. 

We knew he was mocking us, just a bit, but he also knew just who we were. We were, indeed, Blue Girls. We walked with him, proudly, as though he were a beautiful object we’d acquired. We took him to the dining hall, white linens and all, as our guest. We ate through mediocre food with laughter and cunning jokes. We were splendid blue girls, and he was our guide.”