Class Notes

Iris Harrell and partner Ann went to Kenya in February for a safari, seeing elephants, zebras, giraffes, and Cape Horn buffaloes. Iris hopes to golf and see more of the world after she retires in June from her remodeling company, to be 100 percent employee-owned by then.

Phyllis Newby Thompson visited daughter Lauren, a VH1 producer, in Tribeca Manhattan in February and son Seth in Yountville, Calif., in Napa Valley, where he planned an August wedding. Phyllis and Suzanne McCarthy Van Ness meet for coffee, movies, and lectures. They lived within a mile of each other in northern California for more than 30 years before reconnecting.

Jeanine Zavrel Fearns spent time at her family’s mountain cabin near Berkeley Springs, W.Va., in winter. She planned a June trip to Alaska’s Denali National Park and a cruise down the coast to Vancouver. Jane Jackson Woerner took an Eastern Caribbean cruise with family members last March, then checked on her mother, 92, who’s in a Bristol, Va., assisted living facility.

Since husband Paul’s 96-year-old mother moved in with them, Nancy Yeager Allard doesn’t travel as much. She goes to the theater, is involved in church activities and literary advocacy, and is co-president of Friends of the George Mason Library.

When President Hurley couldn’t attend the March inauguration of the new Winthrop University president in Rock Hill, S.C., Linda Gattis Shull was delighted to be asked to fill in for him.

By now, our 45th reunion is over. I hope many of you reconnected with classmates. We’ll have a full report of the weekend in the next UMW Magazine.