Class Notes

I enjoy winters in town but retreat to the family farm, 14 miles away, April through December. I’m best known now for my Out of the Attic column in the local paper, and I volunteer at the Fauquier Community Food Bank and at the county’s historical society. I would love to hear from more of you. Note my new email address.

I received word of the death of Mary Gale Buchanan. MG had an effervescent personality. One of many Navy Juniors to attend Mary Washington, she was a devoted fan of alumni reunions. Mary Gale lived in Annapolis, Md., served as a Naval Academy tour guide, and worked at the Robert Crown Sailing Center.

Anne DePadro Bloom, who joined our class senior year, remembers attending Mass each Sunday with MG and stopping for cinnamon buns on the way back to campus at what was once a Civil War munitions factory. Lee Richmond sent sympathy from Baltimore, and I heard from Beth Poteet Pollard and sister Navy Juniors Susie Heap and Mickey Foley McDaniel.

Mary Ann Bing Strayer lives in Hilton Head, S.C. Her husband, an orthopedic surgeon, was a longtime rowing coach and Hilton Head ferry service captain. Their daughter is an attorney in San Francisco; she was on the 1988 U.S. Olympics rowing team. Mary’s son has a doctorate and is at Cal State. Dorcas Ann “D.A.” Hickox Channell of Daytona Beach, Fla., left Mary Washington after three years and married Ensign Channell, USNA class of ’55. Before retirement, they lived all over the world, most memorably in Moscow, most favorably in Hawaii. Afterward, they lived for 16 years in the San Francisco Bay area, where D.A. owned a catering business, In Good Taste. They have two sons and two grandchildren. She keeps in touch with Helen Wilkins Obenshain, Anne McCann Collier, and Marian Minor ’55.

Nancy Hanna Stone and Perry volunteer, travel, golf, and enjoy their maintenance-free Williamsburg home. Between them, they have five artificial joints! Meg White Fary and Frank travel to Florida to escape the Blowing Rock, N.C., winters and to Quantico, Va., thanks to Frank’s Marine Corps days.