Alumni Class Notes for Santa Fe & Annapolis | St. John's College-新澳门金沙网上赌场

Learn what’s happening with your classmates and other Johnnies by browsing the Alumni Notes below. They are organized by the timeframe in which they were received. To browse previous years’ notes, please visit The College magazine.

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2024

2023

1966

Constance (Bell) Lindgreen writes, “A year or so ago, my husband and I returned to Denmark, land of his birth. Our thatched-roof farmhouse dates from the late 1770s and needed enough work to keep our Danish/Lithuanian crew busy for nearly 8 months. While they worked on the interior, we rediscovered a circular flower bed and liberated a rose bed from oppression by aggressive weeds. We’re a short walk from Karen Blixen’s house, a short train ride to Copenhagen, and a quick stroll to two local castles. We read, garden, travel (mostly Europe), and host visiting family and friends. It’s been 34 years since I left the US; on each return, it seems increasingly baffling. I continue to write short stories, a few of which have been published. Revising my novel set in Denmark at the time of the second Schleswig-Holstein ‘conflict’ - which was, of course, a war by another name. Nowadays, we are often wakened by the roar of military aircraft on training flights. War seems all too close—and all too necessary. Perhaps it’s not pure coincidence that one of the books I’m currently reading is a new translation of The Iliad by Peter Green. Highly recommended. Playing Schubert helps. And Scarlatti. And reading. La vie continue.”

1968

Bruce R. Baldwin (SF) writes, “We recently returned from a short cruise out of Tampa. We took our children, Ian and Marisa, their spouses Ashlean and Andy, and kids (three each) for an early celebration of our upcoming 50th anniversary. We are still in Annapolis, where Ena helps our with ESL classes at St. Mary's, and Bruce has been singing for a number of years with choirs at St. Mary's and the Annapolis Chorale.”

Harold Morgan (SF) has completed the manuscript for his history of the first uranium boom in the Ambrosia Lake/Grants, New Mexico, area. As of April 2023, the manuscript was in the final editing stage with finding a publisher the next step. The tentative title is Ambrosia Lake: The 1950s Uranium Mining Boom at Grants, New Mexico. Ambrosia Lake will be the first comprehensive story of the 1950s boom that started in December 1950. Harold hopes the finished book will be available in a year. He continues to live in Albuquerque.

Rick Wicks (SF) writes, “Two years ago our daughter Linnéa – now a doctor – got married here in Sweden, gave birth to our granddaughter Elsa, and she and Gustav built a house. Recently she gave birth to Elsa’s little brother. We remain connected to Alaska, from where my sister and her husband were just here to visit. And I’m writing memoirs (Reflections on Fragments of a Confused Life)!”

1969

Meredith Anthony (A) writes reviews of mysteries and thrillers for the quarterly Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine. She lives in New York City.

Tom Pink (A) and his wife Ruth Argüello recently finished building their house in the Picacho foothills just outside of San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico. Now their former home in the historic center of San Miguel is available for vacation rental. Tom and Ruth look forward to welcoming Johnnies to this beautiful place.

Rachel Treiman (A) writes, “I have moved to Philadelphia! I am having a blast. In the eight months I have been here, I have heard more good music and seen more dance than in the past twenty years in Montana. I am making friends with interesting people. Do I miss Montana? I miss seeing my brother. I miss the night sky. I miss some of my favorite scenery. The advantages of moving more than compensate. If you want to visit, I have a sofa bed and there are lots of hotels here.”

1973

Bruce C. Wheeler (A) writes, “I have retired to Plattsburgh, New York, after two full careers: Army (Airborne Ranger Captain) and NYS teaching (Special Ed). Some of the locations where I served were Egypt (Sinai),Germany, Alaska, and Panama. I have been a recreational runner for 50+ years and still run every day.”

Donnel O’Flynn (A) and Janet Christhilf O’Flynn (A74) are coming up on their 48th wedding anniversary. They write, “We’re grateful! After a long absence from alumni affairs, it seems a good time to reconnect.We are living in Montana, where Donnel grew up. Donnel is serving as rector of St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church in Bigfork, which is converted from a one-room schoolhouse where his mother and her siblings went to school about 100 years ago. Janet is working as dean-at-a-distance for an academic department of rehab in Léogâne, Haiti, going to work every day by laptop. It would be great to visit with Johnnies out here in the wild West!”

1975

K.C. Victor (A) writes, “My husband, Irv Hepner, who many Johnnies know, and I moved to San Luis Obispo, California, in 2020. We have ensconced ourselves enough here that a few months ago I was elected to be the Political Action Committee Chair of the SLO County NAACP, and Irv was elected to be the Legal Redress Chair of the same organization. On a more Johnnie-related front, Irv and I did a six-month road trip from April through September of 2022, and on our travels spent a few days with Seth Ginsburg (A75) and his wife Suzanne, and had a lovely dinner in Annapolis with Mike Dink (A75) and his friend Barbara Flinn.”

1977

Carla Schick (A) was awarded a 2023 Literary Award for poetry from Nomadic Press/San Francisco Foundation. Carla’s works will be published in the Black Fox Literary Magazine, Journal X (Cabrillo College), City College of San Francisco’s Forum Literary Magazine, and a Colossus Press anthology on bodily autonomy. Carla was recently published in About Place Journal and Moonstone Arts Center’s annual Poetry Ink Anthology. In addition to spending time writing, Carla is involved in implementing Ethnic Studies in the public schools and is mentoring new teachers in the district where she worked.

1979

Kelly Bradford (SF) writes, “I have pulled back to half time work implementing utility-funded low-income energy efficiency programs at Frontier Energy out of Austin, Texas. Last year, I took a few months off to hike the Continental Divide Trail from the Mexican border to Elwood Pass/South Fork, Colorado, about 700 miles of hiking. I plan to find my northernmost footprint this June and continue north on the trail, with the goal to reach the Wyoming border. The hike gave me a chance to see quite a few old classmates in Santa Fe and Albuquerque before and after the trail. Best wishes to friends, classmates, and tutors floruit 1974-1980.&rdquo

1981

Elizabeth Affsprung/Buffy Bowser (A) is now living in central Oklahoma and invites you to visit if you are passing through. She pastors a store-front church in Shawnee.

BJ Roach (A) writes, “My big accomplishment during the pandemic was to publish a novel, a lifelong goal. I love mysteries and they say, “Write what you know,” so a story about a Johnnie who solves a mystery made sense. In A Lesson in Death, Emma and her husband, Tim, both Johnnies, use their reasoning skills to find out who killed a student at the boarding school where Tim teaches. A little philosophy plus an exciting climax! It’s available at the usual places, or you can order it from the bookstore if you’re on campus (it’s distributed by Ingram).”

1984

Mark Ernest Pothier (A) is thrilled to report his debut novel, Outer Sunset, was published by University of Iowa Press on May 15. The book was chosen by Poets & Writers to participate in its inaugural “Get the Word Out” debut author publicity incubator and has received a starred indie press review from Foreword.

1988

Karel Bauer (A) writes, “I’m a cameraman and director with over 30 years behind the lens. My interest in cultural, social, and environmental subjects has led to work across the spectrum of film and television production, and has spanned over 80 countries on all seven continents. A graduate of NYU film school, I’ve been based in Seattle since 1991. Fellow Johnnie Nancy Harriss (A85) and I have been married since 1994 and have two adult kids—and our recent experience includes the unexpected joy of living with a dog!”

Tobias Maxwell (A) has a new novel, Rafael Jerome, that came out in January of this year. This is his sixth novel. He’s presently at work on a new novel, Alcibiades, Mon Amour, which was greatly inspired by his time at the college. It’s tentatively scheduled for a late fall 2024 publication.

1989

Lee Mendelson (A) has been living on the North Fork of Long Island with his wife of (almost) 30 years, Shelia, while running his own law practice and serving as general counsel to a Hamptons-based custom builder. He has been appointed to the town of Riverhead, New York’s Industrial Development Agency for the purpose of fostering commercial development within the town. Additionally, Lee is one of the owners of Phyto-Farma Labs LLC, one of the only licensed cannabis testing laboratories within the state, and serves as general counsel to the New York State Cannabis Laboratories Association. If anyone should find themselves visiting wineries on the East End of Long Island, please reach out for recommendations and hopefully the opportunity to share a bottle at one of them.

1991

Shubber Ali (SF) writes, “After a long and winding journey since my days at the Santa Fe campus back in 1987-1988 (not quite an odyssey, but complete with a siren or two), I have found myself as the CEO of a brand new for-profit spinout from a national not-for-profit (the National Wildlife Federation). The company, Garden for Wildlife, is focused on bringing more native plants to gardeners across the country to help save pollinators and birds that have been in significant decline over the past 100+ years. In Johnnie fashion, I suppose, it all started with reading a book, in this case, Nature’s Best Hope by Douglas W. Tallamy, just before the pandemic began. The result was doing pro bono work with NWF to help them conceive of this new business and then launch it, which after a few twists and turns ended with the NWF Board asking me to come in as CEO, which I gladly accepted and started last October. My yard is slowly being transformed and is already a certified wildlife habitat.”

1992

Thomas Cogdell (SF) helps lead the Christ the Reconciler community in Elgin, Texas. He and his wife, Amy, have five children and five grandchildren (so far). Thomas published his first book last year,Unity Through Repentance: The Journey to Wittenberg 2017, with the audiobook following in 2023. In his spare time, Thomas works for Athens Group Services, writes code for Cielo Water (a social venture), and still enjoys reading and discussing good books.

1993

Trish Dougherty (A) writes, “I received a master’s in English from the Bread Loaf School of English last August. This past March, 35 people gathered at our local Town Hall Theater to perform my book, Forty Poems for Forty Pounds—an amazing testament to the Middlebury, Vermont, community when most people don’t even read poetry books. And I spent a glorious spring ;afternoon this April marching down Madison Avenue in Manhattan with my bestie, Jessica Trupin (A92).”

Amie Neff (SF) writes, “After living in Paris for three years, my husband and I returned to our home in the California South Bay where we’ve been living since 2010. The sojourn in Paris marked an end to my career in architecture and, for my retirement, I’m restoring a 22-acre property in Graton, California, located within the historic tribal territory of the Southern Pomo and Coast Miwok. I’m starting a two-acre regenerative agriculture market garden farm on the east parcel and supporting the west parcel’s return to the favored wetland-dominant habitat. In true Johnnie spirit, education is a major part of our mission. Anyone interested in learning or teaching can reach me at amie.neff(at)gmail.com.”

Erika Suski (A) completed a three-year master’s degree in map reading from George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, in 2008 and has been living with her family and marvelous terrier. Drop a note to erika.suski@&yahoo.com. Would love to hear from alumni.

1997

Jehanne Dubrow (A)’s 11th book, Taste: A Book of Small Bites, was published by Columbia University Press in August 2022 as part of No Limits, an interdisciplinary philosophical series. Structured as a series of “small bites,” the book considers the ways that we ingest the world, how we come to know ourselves and others through the daily act of tasting.

2005

Pam Watts (SF05, SFGI14)’s first novella, The Bonny Swans, was published in January 2023 by Cemetery Gates Media as part of Mother Horror’s My Dark Library series. It’s a queer, gothic tale based on the Irish murder ballad, “The Twa Sisters.”

2008

After years in Texas, Billi London-Gray (AGI08) and partner, Daniel Bernard Gray, moved to Laramie, Wyoming, where Billi is a visiting assistant professor of art at the University of Wyoming. Billi and Daniel will reawaken Zosima Gallery in a basement book crate closet on November 11, 2023 (Dostoevsky’s 202nd birthday).

2009

Sara Luell (A) joined the staff at St. John’s College Annapolis in 2022 as the director of Communications. Previously, she spent 13 years working for the state of Maryland serving in various public relations and crisis communications roles related to health, housing, and community development. She looks forward to entering the St. John’s Graduate Institute MALA program this fall.

2020

Tom Balding (A) writes, “For the past several years since graduating, I have been working as a professional croquet instructor at Grandfather Golf and Country Club, as well as Linville Golf Club, in Linville, North Carolina. In addition to that I have been continuing to compete in croquet tournaments, and this past November became the first Johnnie to play for the US team in the MacRobertson Shield, the croquet world team championships, which were held this time in Melbourne, Australia.”

Obituaries

Ellis W. Manning Jr. (Class of 1946)

Edward J. Roethel (Class of 1950)

Joseph S. Warhurst (Class of 1950)

Howard Bromberg (Class of 1954)

Joan G. Martin (Class of 1955)

Janet B. Jump (Class of 1956)

Alan P. Brockway (Class of 1958)

Michael D. Sanford (Class of 1958)

John D. Morris (Class of 1960)

Robert G. Neal (Class of 1960)

S. R. Freis (Class of 1961)

Stephen G. Frohlicher (Class of 1961)

John W. Poundstone (Class of 1962)

Stephen Sohmer (Class of 1963)

Claudia J. Fruit (Class of 1963)

Jessica S. Lennon (Class of 1967)

Maureen L. Hollander (A69)

James F. Villeré (A70)

Dennis Sheret (A72)

McKee G. Lee (A72)

Eric J. Geer (A72)

Robert L. Kinsky (A72)

Peter Fairbanks (A73)

Constantine M. Mantis (A73)

Terance L. Cantrell (SF73)

Roberta E. Fine (SFGI75)

James L. Gollin (SF77)

William Cormeny (AGI79)

Susan E. Heller (A80)

Donald A. Konyha (A82)

Michael Ossorgin (SF82)

Michael Oehmann (AGI83)

Albert B. Barger (SF85)

Lee B. Harley (SFGI86)

Marc D. Carnegie (SFGI90)

David C. Trimmer (A92)

Justin S. Cetas (SF93)

William M. Sothern (A98)

Ellen P. Stevens (EC99)

Joyce Olin (H00, AGI00)

Robert B. Williamson (H02), Annapolis Faculty

Michael E. Uremovich (SFGI05)

Ryan M. McArdle (SF07)

Erik Sageng (H14), Annapolis Faculty Emeritus

John P. McLoughlin, Former Board of Visitors and Governors

Susan B. Kaplan, Former Santa Fe Staff Member

Glen Lopez, Former Santa Fe Staff Member

Rachel McKay (A77) writes, “My mother Joan Gilbert Martin (Class of 1955) was part of the first class of women at St. John’s College. I am writing to report her death last September 13, 2022, just ten days shy of her 92nd birthday. She lived a rich and full life. She was a pioneer and loved her St. John’s education, books, art, her family, friends, her cats, and her garden. In retirement she put her considerable skills as an editor and writer to work on the local history of her hometown, Santa Cruz, California. She is deeply missed.”

Mary-Charlotte Domandi (SFGI91) writes, “It is with great sadness I write that our classmate Marc Carnegie (SFGI90) passed away on February 7, 2023. He would have been 60 this year. I’d been in close touch with him over the last five years or so, and saw him and his dachshund Duffy in Rhode Island several times. His acerbic wit, humor, and intelligence were there til the end. If you have memories to share about Marc, please write to mc(at)radiocafe.org and perhaps we can reconnect his circle of St. John’s friends.”

2022

2021

1971

Jay Gold (A) retired in April 2020 and began the Master of Arts in Eastern Classics graduate program at St. John’s in August 2020. Gold writes, “It has been such fun, I may continue for the MA in Liberal Arts.” Additionally, Gold and wife, Sabrina, will celebrate 25 years together and 18 years of marriage in fall 2021.

1976

Neal Allen (SF) is currently attending the college’s Eastern Classics graduate program (2020–21). In May 2021, he published his latest book, Shapes of Truth: Discover God Inside You. Allen writes, “It includes a brief sophomore year at St. John’s story that references Jon McCracken (SF76) and Hunter Hyde (SF76).” Allen has been married for two years and has one grandchild from four adult children.

Sheri (Rothstein) Brown (A) retired in May 2021 from a career in early childhood education and moved to California to be near two of her three grandchildren. Brown writes, “I stopped to see the Santa Fe campus on our drive west, as I had never been there.”

Mark Copper (SF) completed constructing and outfitting an astronomical observatory near Magdalena, New Mexico, in March 2021. Copper writes, “If you enjoyed plotting retrograde motions, come take a look!”

Leslie Graves (A) is the CEO of Ballotpedia.org and is approaching her 40th wedding anniversary. Graves has 10 grandchildren.

Jon Hustis and Marion Condon Hustis (A) recently celebrated the birth of their first granddaughter, Stella Marion McQuail, with a second grandchild expected in July 2021. They write, “We are splitting time between Dallas and Lucknow, Ontario, Canada, and are now farming in addition to working, caring for family, volunteering, reading, trying to stay fit, and hanging with dogs and kids.”

Judy Kistler-Robinson (SF) retired mid-2020, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Kistler-Robinson writes, “Instead of planned travel to new places and old friends, I gardened, read, sketched my surroundings, and started teaching Tai Chi Chih on Zoom.”

David Pex (SF) has been busy building a log cabin in the woods near Mount Hood, Oregon, over the past year. Pex writes, “My carpentry skills have vastly improved!”

1986

Kristen (Baumgardner) Caven (SF) authored The Reason She Left: and other stories in 2011, a philosophical comic book exploring cultural dualism through the character-driven narrative of a young woman trying to find her place in the world—a project born from her propensity for sketching and illustrating as a student at St. John’s.

She writes, “As a bored, unguided, and pensive high school student, I found that I listened best in class when I was doodling in the margins of my notebooks … In sophomore lab, my doodles became paper-doll booklets, and I discovered the cult of publication.”

In 2020, Caven returned to the creative process by making a full-length animated feature for her neighborhood beer festival, which was transformed into a worldwide virtual Oktoberfest due to COVID-19.

Today, she continues to explore the graphic narrative as a tool for philosophical communication and understanding across a variety of mediums.

1991

Joan (Ross) Crist (A) is happy to be serving as a Title I aide and Latin teacher at a school in her community.

Theresa Duncan’s (SF) role as an attorney in the fight to free Guantánamo Bay prisoner Mohamedou Ould Slahi was made into the feature film The Mauritanian. Released in spring 2021, the movie stars Jodie Foster, Shailene Woodley (as Duncan), and Tamar Rahim.

2001

David Weiskopf (SF) is living in Sacramento, California, working in climate policy and politics, and welcomed a baby in November 2020.

2016

Samantha Ardoin (SF) graduated in May 2021 from Naropa University with a master’s degree in clinical mental health counseling and a concentration in mindfulness-based transpersonal counseling. Ardoin is now working as a psycho-therapist at Queer Asterisk Therapeutic Services, offering affordable identity-affirming mental health counseling to queer and trans adults and youth.

Anne Horowitz (SF) recently completed her first year of medical school.

Rebekah McLellan (SF) recently began veterinary studies at Ross University School of Veterinary Medicine.

William Palm (SF) completed a master’s degree in special education in spring 2020 and married partner, Isaac, in 2019. Palm writes, “We are happily living together in Salt Lake City.”

James Spencer-Zavos (SF) is currently enrolled in an “Umschulung,” or training program, in Berlin to become a qualified carpenter, after which he is eligible to train to become a “Meister,” or master carpenter.

Obituaries

Stephen Benedict, Class of 1947

Stephen W. Bergen, Class of 1947

Mary S. Blomberg, Class of 1957

Katharine Boaz, Santa Fe Faculty Emerita

Ray C. Cave, Class of 1948, Trustee Emeritus

Stefano J. Coaloa, SFGI11

Gerald D. Cohen, SFGI90

Sharon S. Cooper, Santa Fe Staff

Richard T. Edelman, Class of 1951

David J. Freedman, SF76

Peter Gardiner, A73

Robert M. Hampton, SF73

Alan D. Hornstein, AGI86

H. Gerald Hoxby, Class of 1947

Susan H. Jones, SFGI71

Daniel “Bud” T. Kelly, Jr., H02

Gertrude Koch, AGI82

Charles E. Lynch, Class of 1951

Richard A. Malmgren, SFGI91

Jake Martinez, SFGI70

John W. May, SFGI94

Gerald “Simon” V. McNabb, A88

Jack S. Moorman, SFGI94

Robert S. Musgrave, SF90

Judith Penelope, Class of 1967

Mark A. Piekarski, Santa Fe Staff

Josephine J. Poe, Class of 1957

David T. Reiner, A02

Mara Robinson, SFGI83

William D. Shafer, Class of 1962

Thomas K. Simpson, Class of 1950

David L. Smith, A86

Leslie E. Starr, A72

E. Cary Stickney, A75, Santa Fe Faculty

Susan L. Swartzberg, SF70

George Usdansky, Class of 1950

Robert J. Wekselblatt, Class of 1963

John F. White, Class of 1964, Annapolis Faculty

Rebecca M. Wilson, H83

Michael C. Wood, SF80

Patrick F. Woods, SF80

2020

1945

Donald Kaplan (A45) taught the history of the western theater, beginning with the Greeks, since he retired six years ago. Classes in the Rossmoor retirement community—in the East Bay across from San Francisco—are part of an active drama association with classes in acting, directing, and playwrighting, plus producing works by its members.

1964

Jeremy Leven’s (A64) novel, The Savior and the Singing Machine, is out and available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, iBooks, your favorite bookstore (one hopes), and so on. It is the third and last of the Unholy Trilogy (God, Satan, and the Messiah) after Creator and Satan: His Psychotherapy and Cure by the Unfortunate Dr. Kassler, J.S.P.S. It certainly does not qualify for the reading list, but might be an amusing entertainment for some, he notes.

1966

William N. McKeachie (A66) retired as dean (Episcopal/Anglican) emeritus of South Carolina in 2018 after 48 years in full-time ordained ministry. Currently he is writing a theological autobiography, Mere Anglicanism—The Body Broken, based on more than seven decades of playing, reading, traveling, teaching, and preaching in Canada, England, Europe, and the U.S. He and his wife of 37 years, harpist Elisabeth Gray, have four children and one grandchild.

1968

Leslie Bornstein’s (SF68) feature documentary, Terra Pesada, on Mozambique’s heavy metal musicians, was an official selection of the 2019 Oakland International Film Festival.

Tom Keens (SF68) received the Pediatric Founders Award from the Pediatric Scientific Assembly of the American Thoracic Society at its Annual Meeting in Dallas, Tex., on May 19, 2019. Keens is only the tenth recipient of this award, which was established to recognize those individuals who were instrumental in founding the medical subspecialty of pediatric pulmonology. The inscription on the award says, “Honoring the pioneers of pediatric pulmonary medicine and research.” It is the most prestigious award given by the Pediatric Scientific Assembly.

He was also awarded a five-year NIH grant titled Revamping Exercise Assessment in Children’s Health to investigate novel ways of exercise testing in children to learn more about how lung diseases affect exercise performance. Exercise is studied in children because the body uses the same adaptations in exercise as in critical illness. It is increasingly difficult to obtain NIH funding, so this grant was an unexpected surprise at the age of 72.

Keens is a professor of pediatrics, physiology and biophysics at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California, and works in the Division of Pediatric Pulmonology and Sleep Medicine at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. He has been on the faculty there since 1977.

Rick Wicks (SF68) notes that his children’s godfather, John Hickenlooper—an old friend of his wife—is running for president, so they are very excited. Rick has been active for years (in Sweden) in Democrats Abroad, which counts as a state for party purposes, with votes in the DNC, at the national convention, etc.

1969

Joseph Baratta (AN69) came to St. John’s from California after a three-year tour of duty with the U.S. Marine Corps. He was still in the reserves for another three years (to 1968), but he took the risk that President Johnson would not call up the reserves for Vietnam while he got an education. He loved the college—the great books, the four years of math, science, and language, the community of learning—and he considers his classical education one of the greatest boons to his life. He married Gay Singer (A67) and, after graduation, they went to Israel perhaps to stay. He got he first job: technical writer for Elbit Machshevim (computers) in Haifa but the politics of Israeli wars against the Palestinians drove them out, and he could see that to make peace they had to start in America. After a year, they took a leisurely camping trip through Greece (five weeks, a wonderful trip for Johnnies, he says), Yugoslavia, Italy, and Holland. They settled in Boston for its universities and he got very involved in the anti-war movement (VVAW, tax resistance, street demonstrations). Eventually their marriage broke up and it has been hard to go through life without the company of a Johnnie. He entered graduate school in history, in order to understand why his country had bases all around the world and was waging one war after another and determined to make an intellectual contribution to peace. He had no power but the truth and discovered the world federalist movement of WWII and the early Cold War, to which Stringfellow Barr and Scott Buchanan, the founders of the New Program, contributed after they left St. John’s in 1946. A federal union of national states, preserving diversity, seemed to him as a vision that was sorely lacking in the era of anti-communism. Then in 1978 his sister Mary, a prominent educator, was murdered in San Francisco. They never had the evidence to start a trial for first-degree murder, so they had to bear it. He was given scant comfort by Plato’s dictum that it is better to suffer evil than to inflict it. His parents died broken-hearted seven years later, and he became confirmed in Unamuno’s tragic sense of life—his mother had been his best friend. Joseph worked at the United Nations in the 1980s, as Mikhail Gorbachev ended the Cold War. For 20 years he remained unmarried and could never have asked a woman to share his sacrifices (earnings, children) in order to make his original contribution to knowledge. He says, “love had to wait until one finds meaningful work.” But finally, he did remarry—Virginia Swain from Hartford, a counselor about his age. He published his history, The Politics of World Federation, in 2004. He took up a mighty theme, as Melville advised, but, judging by sales, he did not produce a mighty book. It was his creative response to challenge, as Toynbee said of civilizations at their height. He finally landed a real job in his chosen profession as a teacher, historian, and scholar of international relations at Worcester State University, where he had been for 20 and retired as full professor in 2019. Joseph taught good judgment and imagination to 3,377 students and considers his life a success. He has come a long way from his origins—If happiness is the perfect exercise of virtue, as Aristotle said, he is happy.

1971

Robert Fenton Gary (A71) was issued a patent called US 10176661 or Method to Authenticate Value Documents or Items. It provides a technical basis for Paper Bullion Bank Bill, which is a new form of currency with gold particles enmeshed in the paper of the bank bill and with fluorescent coding on the surface that allows very quick and totally reliable authentication of the bank bill.

If a major global bank buys his patent and issues such bank bills, the honesty of transactions and governments will rise to a much higher level than we enjoy at present he remarks. The Founders felt that gold and silver were what should be used as money, and they wrote that into the Constitution, but we have gotten away from that, first with fiat paper, and then with fiat electronic money that is created with a few keystrokes. Since 1971, we have experienced a slow descent into economic chaos, and bad faith in monetary matters. If the United States actually had to pay $23 trillion (our national debt) in gold bullion, we would never have been able to incur that debt. You can read his patent online.

You can read short notes on all his inventions on his website and read his latest and best book, Make Your Own Good Luck, edited by two Johnnies, available through Amazon.com

If you work for a big bank that wants to buy his patent, contact him at robert.gary(at)gmail.com The Photon-DSP Technology he originated also works on money orders, ID cards, container lock seals, auction tags, DNA tags, and evidence tags, among other things, many of which are listed in the patent.

Robert learned chemistry at Institut Le Rosey and photon physics at “The Beloved College” in Annapolis. Math by Newton, logic by Russell, English by Faulkner.

1977

Carla Schick’s (A77) poetry has been published in the Berkeley Times (August 16, 2018), Earth’s Daughters Journal, theme: She Persisted, and online for A Gathering of the Tribes.

Carla is in her second year of retirement from teaching public school mathematics, continues to volunteer to help calculus students and the high school’s Gender and Sexuality Alliance (GSA), and works with new teachers.

1978

Darcy Scholts (SF78) says hello to all! She has been living in the Pacific Northwest since 1979 and has been representing indigent clients in the area of criminal defense and juvenile law. She is beginning her 33rd year of representing juvenile offenders and her ninth year of being a children’s attorney helping kids in the foster care system. She has lots of ideas about what to do when she slows down on the work front, but that hasn't happened yet; writing poetry, which is a persistent habit, and art, which is (unfortunately) not, are at the top of the idea list. The radio silence since she graduated is workload related. “Waving hello from behind stacks of paper.”

1980

Jim Sorrentino (A80) married Mary Ragland (nee Capriotti) in October 2018, whom he met in 1997 at an aikido seminar at Oberlin College. It’s her second marriage, his third, and their last! Ken Hom (A80) was the best man and Honor Bulkley (A80) was in the wedding party as well. Also attending were their mothers, Jim’s children, Sophia and Vincent, and brother Paul and sister Gina (SF85), and Mary’s sisters Katrina and Samantha. Their good friend and aikido colleague, Michael Lasky, performed the ceremony in the courtyard of the Sandy Spring Museum in Olney, Md. A raucous shindig at Urban Barbecue followed.

In January 2019, Jim received the rank of sixth-degree black belt in aikido, a Japanese martial discipline, from the Hombu (headquarters) Dojo in Tokyo. He began his study of this art in 1984, and opened a dojo of his own in Arlington, Va., in 1999, at which he continues to practice and teach.

He is a senior policy advisor at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, in the Office of Single Family Housing. Jim welcomes questions from students and graduates who are curious about government service.

1982

Elizabeth Colmant Estes (A82 and tutor, 1984–86) was ordained as a Minister of Word and Sacrament on January 6, in the Reformed Church in America and then, on February 17, installed as the 23rd pastor of Readington Reformed Church in Readington, N.J., a congregation celebrating its 300th year. Liz received her MDiv in 2017 from Union Theological Seminary in New York City and then served as a resident staff chaplain at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital from 2017 to 2018. She was elected to the denomination’s Commission on Theology where she serves as the sole welcoming and affirming member.

Don Dennis (SF82) in the past 4 years has become an ice cream chef and his wife is a dairy farmer. When the bulk milk price collapsed four years ago, they we needed to do something or lose the farm. So, they now bottle milk (in glass bottles) and make ice cream, and supply it to shops and hotels around Scotland. They are the only commercial dairy in Scotland that pasteurizes milk using an old-fashioned protocol (145˚F for 30 minutes) which preserves the wonderful raw milk flavor and richness, yet kills off any pathogens. If you come to Scotland check them out: Wee Isle Dairy on Facebook.

1983

Jack Armstrong (SF83) was very sad to miss the Santa Fe Homecoming but had a great consolation prize: He and Joe Lennihan (SF) rafted down the Grand Canyon. The trip was a blast, but Jack says even better was spending five days in the outdoors with Joe.

1984

George McDowell (A84) says to those it may interest: “Although I bear the same name as the central building on campus, the person after whom the building is named was not a direct ancestor and I have no evidence or reason to suspect that he was related to any direct ancestor. His and my time frames don’t support an allegation of quid pro quo. Those questions were raised as to my intellectual abilities before admission—and perhaps [some would say] justified after admission and during some classes—should not lead to the inference that I was granted advantage during the admission process: I passed every class I took, and was described in several don rags as one who made every effort to “endeavor to persevere.” [Although no one was happier than I that Nancy Winter took pains to discourage us from asking about our grades.] John Christensen went out of his way to assist me in preparing my application. But over the course of years in attendance, I observed him volunteering like and similar assistance [far above his job requirement] to any applicant who needed it. Carolyn Taylor also exceeded her job-description duties by scratching out loans and grants and a scholarship and jobs to supplement the GI Bill® and my savings to meet the school’s financial requirements. Although I spent everything, I had to attend St. John’s, the college invested far more in me than I in it. Conversations over the years revealed that I was but one of very many who benefited from Carolyn’s dedication. All of this is just a ponderous way of explaining why neither my parents nor yours will ever be featured in perp walks of those accused of greasing the way for their precious little brats to attend prestigious institutions.”

Michael Strong’s (SF84) most recent project is The Academy of Thought and Industry, a network of high schools with campuses in San Francisco, Austin, New York, and St. Louis. The core program includes an hour of Socratic Humanities daily based on the SJC experience and the parent organization is a Montessori organization with several dozen schools. This is the high school model for the Montessori elementary schools in the network. They are developing the capacity to open many small schools per year.

1985

Terri (Luckett) Hamilton (SF85) and Harry Hamilton (A86) celebrated under an auspicious double rainbow on July 15, 2017, in the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia, with singing and dancing under a canopy of stars. “Love is the longing for the half of ourselves that we have lost.” –Kundera

David Kidd (A85) was made head conservator at Archival Arts, Inc. in Baltimore, MD. They do hands-on and digital restoration of art, art objects, and works on paper and canvas.

Maggie (Kinser) Hohle (A85) shares that after a dozen years in northern California, her youngest is finally in high school, and she is able to begin concentrating more on her career again. She has updated her website, and is looking for nonfiction writing work (profiles, website “about” pages, book projects...). You can contact her through her site.

She also works as half of a translation partnership (Japanese-English): takumitranslate.com

She looks forward to hearing from you!

Kevin Fitzgerald (A85) was named the 2019 National Administrator of the Year by the National Association of Educational Office Professionals (NAEOP) at their national conference held in Boise, Idaho, July 15–20,2019.

1986

Lucy Duncan (SF86) was arrested and participated as a core organizer in the American Friends Service Committee action “Love knows no borders: A moral call for migrant justice,” in which 400 faith leaders walked in a solemn walk through Border Field State Park to the border wall between San Diego and Tijuana to bless the migrants there and to protest the wall, the funding of ICE and Customs and Border Patrol, and the militarization of border communities. Thirty-two were arrested and detained for “failure to comply with lawful orders” or “non-complicity.” She had an op-ed published in Yes! magazine and a longer piece on the action published in Friends Journal. The day of action on December 10, International Human Rights Day, was followed by a week of action across the country in which communities organized echo actions in 76 cities.

Michael Silitch (SF86) writes to the SJC community that it feels great to reconnect! He has recently returned to the US after living in France and Switzerland for almost 20 years where he ran his own mountain and ski guiding business. His two boys were born in Aigle, Switzerland. Most recently, he has been the Executive Director and avalanche education nonprofit for the US Ski Team in Park City, Utah.

Michael’s wife, Nina, (Dartmouth '94) teaches at Cardigan Mountain School in Canaan, NH, where their boys, Birken (15) and Anders (13) are studying, ski racing and mountain biking. They all love it there.

Michael finished up his Executive MBA at the University of Utah

1988

Ellen Schwindt (A88) premiered her second piano sonata last year. It is a three-movement sonata structured by the Fibonacci series, which she first heard of during Freshman year sometime. It was taught to her by Casey Carter using one of the blackboards surrounding the balcony looking down on the waltz party going on at the time. Perhaps that’s why it turned into music somehow in the intervening 30 (30!?!?) years. Her husband likes to call it “Five Months in Western Massachusetts.” She will publish it on IMSLP.org where you can find some other compositions of hers. If any alumnae want to try it out, please email her and she will send you a score.

1990

Daniel Cohen (SF90) boot-strapped the “academic alliance” program at Information Builders where he and his father Gerald Cohen (SFGI90) have worked for (a cumulative total of) 71 years. Anyone interested in including WebFOCUS in their business and data analytics courses should contact him at daniel_cohen(at)ibi.com

Fritz Hinrichs (A90) finished his 25th year teaching the great books to homeschool students online through Escondido Tutorial Service. He still does not really understand Spinoza, but hopes that in another 25 years he will, or will have found grounds for justifying his continued ignorance. His eldest is now 6'2", an avid football player and, sadly, has little interest in croquet.

Peter Holland (AGI90) lives in Annapolis where he is a consumer rights lawyer. He enjoyed seeing his brother Steve (A79) get an Award of Merit in 2014, and he was proud to see his son attend the High School Summer Program in Santa Fe. Peter would love to hear from long lost classmates from the Annapolis GI.

Karl Meyer (A90) is working on his first solo album. The album will feature 10 new songs, written and performed by him and some friends.

1991

Joan (Ross) Crist (A91) announced that she is partnering with FAITH Farms, an urban farming organization in Gary, Indiana, to offer students from the small college where she teaches (Calumet College of St. Joseph) the opportunity for service, research, and interfaith bridge-building around agriculture. Joan delivered a presentation on local sustainable agriculture in Flores, Indonesia at the University of Notre Dame’s Catholic Social Teaching conference in March 2019.

1993

Kevin Thomas (A93) still lives in Williamstown with his wife Sonora and dog Banjo. For five years now he has been the Learning & Development Manager at Williams College. He recently started an online MFA program in Creative Non-fiction at Baypath University, so he can finally start writing that memoir.

1995

J. D. Maddox (A95) published Lessons from the Information War, offering a practitioner’s perspective of the origins of current technological efforts to limit propaganda and disinformation online and exploring the complications presented by new directive government-industry counter-disinformation efforts. The paper was published by George Washington University’s Program on Extremism in support of the Congressional Counterterrorism Caucus and can be read online.

1996

Douglas Lynam (SF96) shares that his first book, From Monk to Money Manager: A Former Monk’s Financial Guide to Becoming A Little Bit Wealthy—And Why That’s Okay, was released by a division of HarperCollins. In the book, Douglas unites the best money management practices and the highest ethical values together to make you wealthy, the world wealthier, and to help love flourish.

He has also launched a non-profit, the ESG Fiduciary Institute, which is dedicated to promoting environmentally and socially responsible investing, as well as fiduciary duty—the highest standard of care under the law. Because investing for the future while destroying the future makes no sense.

At LongView Asset Management, in Santa Fe, NM, he helped build the first environmentally responsible teacher retirement plan to default all employees into sustainable investments. They received excellent press coverage in geeky finance trade journals for their efforts.

Finally, he launched a cartoon series called “Money Is Funny.” One industry problem is that money management is a complex subject that can be boring—or terrifying. Putting difficult financial concepts into humorous images helps to lighten the learning process.

Johnnies can learn more about his adventures, or sign up to get free “Money is Funny” cartoons each week on his website.

Francesco Giuseffi (SF96), after a 22-year career in secondary education and earning his doctorate in education, is teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in the St. Louis, Missouri area and is thoroughly enjoying it. His current research interests have led to two edited books: Emerging Self-Directed Learning Strategies in the Digital Age and Self-Directed Learning Strategies in Adult Educational Contexts. He can be reached at fpaulg77(at)gmail.com.

He will always be grateful for the wonderful education he received at St. John’s College!

Lew Klatt (A96), professor of English at Calvin College, received the 2018 Presidential Award for Exemplary Teaching, the college’s highest honor given to a faculty member. Here’s a link to the story.

Joy Pope-Alandete (AGI96) has taken the helm as interim executive director of the Decatur Book Festival in Decatur, GA. Founded in 2006, the Decatur Book Festival is the largest independent book festival in the country and one of the five largest overall. Pope notes that the idea of “the festival” has been important across time and across cultures. “Book festivals celebrate the exchange of ideas. They embody the same kind of communal spirit and joy experienced by participants attending SXSW, the Paris Salon, or even the first annual Dionysia—an ancient celebration of theater. At the DBF, we’re proud to bring together a variety of public and private partnerships comprised of churches, booksellers, colleges, universities, the city, and local businesses in a purposeful way that allows our attendees to find themselves simultaneously pleased by something familiar and, hopefully, surprised by something new.”

1998

Leah Fisch (SF98) shares that it’s been a whirlwind—she got married, her husband moved to the United States, and they moved to New Jersey with their son to be close to family.

She also launched the Joumor Institute to help entrepreneurs get and stay organized and productive, and this year she is launching CEO Rise, her yearlong VIP program. Over the next three years, Leah hopes to grow her family, get a radio show, and bring her work into universities to help students feel more confident.

She would love to hear what other Johnnies up to!

Liz Trice (SF98) shares that she has a number of projects she has been working on—She is using her experience running a coworking space and building policy collaborations to help the town of Millinocket, Maine, to plan a coworking and retail space as an economic development tool. Millinocket, population 4,300, is at the entrance to the North Woods in Maine, Baxter State Park, the Woods & Waters National Monument, and is a popular outdoor recreation destination that lost its primary employer, a paper mill, a decade ago.

She has also been working with a group, currently dubbed PCAX, to create a “community accelerator” that would invest community members’ time to support the creation of new businesses.

She has also been consulting with the largest health care system in Maine to design systems to implement best practices in preventive medicine into primary care.

Liz would like to connect with other alumni who are in Maine or interested in these topics.

1999

Heather Richardson Wilde (A99) married fellow author and technologist Matthew Renze in their current home city of Las Vegas, Nev. Together, they have been working on multiple projects, including the AntarctiConf 2020 technology conference in Antarctica in January 2020. Heather’s book was released—Travel Hacking 101.

2001

Luke Mitcheson (A01) and his wife Daphne recently welcomed their son George Harvey Mitcheson into their lives. It was the Mitchesons’ most exciting holiday season yet, and the family is now happily finding their new footing as a four-member clan. George’s big brother Henry (3 years old) has been especially adventurous, learning all about the joys and challenges of siblinghood while practicing his gentlest hugs.

2002

Shelley (SFGI02, SFEC03) and Doug Saxen (SFEC03, SFGI04) celebrated 17 years of international adventures together this year, with over a decade of that in the U.S. diplomatic service. Shelley adores her career as a foreign service officer in the State Department, where she has shaped and implemented U.S. foreign policy on a range of issues including immigration and border security, counterterrorism, environmental issues and climate change, human rights, labor rights, energy security, and U.S.-EU trade. Doug remains dedicated to writing and producing digital illuminated manuscripts. Since SJC, they have lived and worked in South Korea, Montana, Washington DC, Mexico, Pakistan, Peru, and Romania. They moved to Belgium and Shelley is dedicated to her yoga practice, and they both take every opportunity to enjoy hiking in the mountains, prepare and share meals with friends, and appreciate the simple joys of life.

2004

Mary Duffy (A04) is in her fourth year as an editor of interactive fiction with Choice of Games LLC, alongside Jason Stevan Hill (AGI04), a partner in the firm and her boss. They’re both celebrating three of the company’s games (The Martian Job, Rent-a-Vice, and The Road to Canterbury) being finalists for the first Nebula Award for Game Writing, and attended the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America conference and Nebula Awards ceremony in May. Choice of Games has also published three games by Kyle Marquis (A03), Empyrean, Silverworld, and Tower Behind the Moon, with a fourth currently under contract, and one game by Katherine Nehring (A03), Grand Academy for Future Villains, with a sequel also under contract. They’re always on the lookout for Johnnie writers interested in text adventures.

Gideon Culman (SFGI04, SFEC05), K Street Coaching founder and Where Genius Grows podcast host, was invited to present at the International Coach Federation’s 2019 global conference in Prague.

2006

Norman Allen (AGI06) was ordained a minister of the Unitarian Universalist faith on March 3, 2019. He now serves the congregation at Davies Memorial Unitarian Universalist Church in Camp Springs, MD.

Aran Donovan (SF06) notes that she has a job with the American Institute of Architects New Orleans.

Christopher Strauss’ (AGI06, EC10) book, Four Overarching Patterns of Culture, was published, a work he co-authored with his father. They wrote it for people working in the global marketplace, anyone doing business, training, or communicating across cultures. The book claims cultures fall into four types—justice, honor, reciprocity, and harmony—and unpacks how each pattern of culture works: what its people will tend to value, how they tend to think, communicate, and act. The book blends theory (drawn from anthropology, sociology, linguistics, and related fields) with first person accounts of international travel and training situations. Available on Amazon.

2007

Lucas Smith (SF07) announces that a documentary film he edited, Harvest Season, had its Santa Fe premiere at the CCA Cinematheque in February 2019. The film, directed by Emmy-nominated Bernardo Ruiz, essays the lives of Mexican American winemakers and migrant labor in Napa Valley, culminating in the devastating forest fires of October 2017. The film had its broadcast premiere on PBS in May 2019.

Chelsea (Stiegman) Ihnacik (A07) writes that she is now the parent of three children, one of whom is school-aged. Being that she is an alumna of SJC, she has been reading ALL THE BOOKS on education and how children learn. Homeschooling has been the best fit for her family, and she saw a need for a print magazine for secular homeschoolers. So she started one! Rosemary Magazine is the secular homeschooling magazine that lifts up all lifelong learners. You can check it out (and subscribe, if this is your wavelength).

2008

Laura Duncombe (SF08) welcomed two new creations into her life in summer 2019—her second child, Lucas Perry Duncombe, and her second book, A Pirate’s Life for She, a historical account of the women pirates of the world for ages 12 and above. She, her husband, and the boys are all happily living in Tulsa, Okla., and would love to see other heartland alums!

2009

João (Fernandes) Santa-Rita (A09) and Brittany (McBride) Santa-Rita (A) are pleased to announce the birth of their daughter, Viveca Rae, on May 3, 2018. The Santa-Ritas are entering their third year living in New York City. João is practicing law at McKool Smith PC.

Mark McClay (A09) has finished his Ph.D. in Classics at the University of California, Berkeley, with a dissertation on Classical Greek mystery religion. Last year, he took a position as visiting assistant professor of Classics at the University of Miami.

2010

Brian Cronin (SF10) announces he had a daughter and her name is Natalia Maria Cronin.

Mark Jedrzejczyk (AGI10) was honored to receive Carthage College’s Adult Undergraduate Studies Teacher of the Year award for his work in Western Heritage I & II, two St. John’s-style great books seminars.

2011

Nareg Seferian (SF11) notes that after many adventures—mostly through Armenia and Turkey, mostly involving teaching and research—he began doctoral studies in politics at Virginia Tech’s campus in the Washington, DC-area in the spring of 2019—a JF once more!

2012

Julia Coursey (SF12) shares that she graduated with an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Alabama in May. Her thesis was a novel that draws on her time working at the Smithsonian, with a bit of Mrs. Dalloway and a few ghosts.

2013

Nick Hoang (A13), since graduating from St. John’s in 2013, has been fortunate to have lived and worked in different countries, from France, to Hong Kong, to Singapore, and now Vietnam. He has been working mostly in investment funds and tech companies. He launched his own startup Zen Flowchart which is an online tool to create flowcharts easily. Since launching in May 2019, the software has been used by thousands of users worldwide and voted #1 product of the day on Product Hunt. It gives him immense joy to see his product bringing value to people.

Nick is currently based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam so if there is anyone in town, they can send an email to nick(at)zenflowchart.com and he would be happy to give them a city tour and tips on exploring Vietnam.

2014

Hector Mendoza (SF14) married Teresa Coughlin in his hometown of Tucson, Ariz., on December 1, 2018. Fellow alumni that joined them on the wedding day were Adrian Angulo (SF15), Anya Cruz (SFGI12), Ernesto Cruz (SFGI13), Jackson Cusick (SF14), Noam Freshman (A14), Rory Hanlon (SF14), Hannah Herbst (SF16), Dohee Kang (SF14, SFEC15), and Hope Lang (SF16).

Johnathan Gooch (A14) writes that after graduating from St. John’s he started pursuing his Juris Doctorate at the University of Texas and landed a summer position clerking at the Supreme Court of Texas (SCOTX) in the chambers of Justice Boyd. Being a Johnnie to the core and a perpetual skeptic, after his time at SCOTX he set out to seek certainty as to whether a legal career was the right fit for him. Johnathan endeavored to write and pitch a sitcom and rose through the ranks of a property management company. After three years of soul-searching, he returned to law school with the wisdom of practical experience and a drive born out of purpose. Now halfway through his legal education, he is proud to report that he has received the Dean’s Achievement Award for Jurisprudence and Constitutional Law, and is the editor-in-chief of the Texas International Law Journal. By marrying the broad and rigorous education from St. John’s with the disciplined training from UT Law, he is launching his career as a public interest lawyer.

Casey Whitney (A14) has been in a master’s program at Hunter College in pure mathematics and graduated spring 2019. He was accepted to the CUNY Graduate Center for a PhD in pure mathematics and started fall 2019.

2015

April Cleveland (SF15) says hi there, St. John’s! She wanted to let you know that her thesis production for her MFA in directing at The Theatre School at DePaul University will be ORESTEIA, which is a contemporary adaptation of Aeschylus' trilogy. It’s a big mainstage production, and it’s wonderful because she wrote her first seminar paper on the Oresteia at St. John’s. April will get her MFA in the spring, and then her first gig is an off-broadway workshop of Two Noble Kinsmen in New York.

Samuel Collins (A15) received his Juris Doctor from Temple University, Beasley School of Law and was studying for the New Jersey Bar exam. After the exam, he will be beginning a judicial clerkship in New Jersey state court.

Amelia Perkins (A15) received an MA in philosophy from Tufts University in spring 2019 and in the fall she moved away from the East Coast for the first time to pursue a Ph.D. at Northwestern University.

2016

Cem Turkoz (A16) announced that, upon completion of his MA in Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Chicago in June, he would be moving on to Harvard University to pursue a PhD at the department of Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations. His research at Harvard will explore the intellectual history of the Ottoman Empire, with a particular focus on the history of philosophy and science in the 16th and 17th centuries. He would love to connect with Johnnies living in Cambridge or Boston!

2019

1949

Peter Davies (A) has written a memoir, A Peripatetic Life. Here is in excerpt from his chapter, “Impressions of India. 1946,” from after he had joined the US Merchant Marine Academy as a Midshipman in June 1945: “How to describe the village? The scene has long faded like the shirt and trousers. Nevertheless, the memory remains of meeting a young man, the only student in the entire village who was attending high school located in a larger town. The village did not have electricity—in fact virtually no Indian village had electricity in 1946. Therefore, the villagers, proud of their one secondary school student, were each contributing 1 paese, about ¼ of a cent to enable him to buy the kerosene needed to light a lamp and study at night.

I have never forgotten the impression that made on me, nor the stark reality of Indian village life. Whether I determined then and there to devote my career to working in developing countries I cannot say but it certainly influenced my later decision to study agricultural economics and devote years to international development work.”

1960

Mary Campbell Gallagher (A) notes that the anticipated publication of Paris Without Skyscrapers will now take place in March 2019 rather than in November 2018.

1964

Cecily Sharp-Whitehill (A), being of grandmotherly maturity, reports that she is witness to and proof that a sense of purpose linked with awareness of her usefulness can carry her beyond and above the expected “ills that flesh is [purportedly] heir to.” She knows now that it’s not luck or willpower that carries us forward; it is the power borne of healthy appreciation of our innate wisdom and using this wisdom in behalf of others who may need to know they have it, too.

Cecily has been a coach, officially for four years now, and continues to cherish the renewed sense of energy she wakes up with each morning.

1968

Carl Bostek (SF) finally retired after 41 years as a nurse anesthetist (CRNA) in August and is adjusting to retired life by traveling as much as possible while he can. He was happy to reconnect with classmates and the charms of Santa Fe during his 50th Homecoming. That trip lasted a month and his next one will be for two months to Chile and New Zealand starting in January, then to England in May for two weeks of hiking and a 10-day stint as volunteer crew aboard the tall ship Lord Nelson. After that, he looks forward to returning to Santa Fe next year for the 50th Homecoming of the class of 1969.

Steven Shore (SF) announces that he has recently moved to Santa Fe.

1969

Robert Wyckoff (A) and Maya Hasegawa (A) are enjoying life in Brattleboro, Vt., with their two kittens, Petrina (Pedey) and Jersey. Bob sings in the choir and occasionally plays trumpet at a Unitarian Universalist church in town. Maya is vice-chair of the town’s development review board (think zoning), on the design review committee (think historic districts and landmarks), and the neighborhood representative at Town Meeting. They are both active in book groups as well as taking advantage of the many concerts and lectures going on in town. This past spring, they went on a 12-day road trip to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to see the mining towns on Lake Superior, where two of Bob’s grandparents were born and raised, as well as to explore a beautiful and remote part of the country. Several years ago, they served as chairs for the class of 1969’s 45th reunion and enjoyed seeing classmates, sitting in Johnnie chairs in seminar, rekindling old friendships, and discovering new ones. They are getting ready to finalize plans for their 50th reunion in the fall. They are looking forward to seeing everyone.

1971

George Elias (A) is looking for Johnnie readers of any class for his novel. Leaving Earth? A Guide for Off-World Emigrants depicts an individual soul’s Dante-esque journey in a dream, from the ancient past in Africa, through global civilization, to the future settling planets orbiting distant stars. It includes a user guide for new emigrants and, as part of the narrative, tests that the reader may take to determine if qualified to leave Earth. It is neither an historical novel nor science fiction. It is a creation story for global civilization, written for the young of South America, Africa and Asia, as much as for the young of Europe and North America. He wanted to write a compulsive page-turner for a popular audience—Let him know if he succeeded! There is no obligation to read the entire manuscript, just tell him where you lose interest and stop reading! (Page 1? Page 10? Page 50?) The story arose largely through his encounter with the Program and is about 60,000 words. George expects to finish early next year. Email him at ghelias(at)aol.com.

1973

David Allison (A) is now in “phased retirement” at the National Museum of American History, working half time as the senior scholar. Previously, he was the associate director for Curatorial Affairs for nine years. In 2018, he opened two new exhibitions that are now on display, America’s Listening, on the history of recorded sound, and The American Revolution: A World War. David also co-edited a book related to the latter that was published by Smithsonian Books in November and is now on sale. It includes articles by European as well as American historians on the global dimensions of the Revolution and he notes you will find it an interesting read!

Deirdre Marlowe (SF), after four years in Los Angeles, is finally a “native,” having worked on an indie movie and earned a writing credit on a television show. Although a PC user, she published an iBook this year. These days she manages to combine her avocation for teaching with her love of writing. Deirdre teaches show writing in LAUSD high schools, writes and delivers history curriculum for grades 3-8, and is working on two children’s books (illustrators, she would love to hear from you) and a novel.

Frazier O’Leary (SFGI) was elected to the District of Columbia State Board of Education on December 4, 2018.

1974

Mike Panter’s (A) first granddaughter, Dalia, was recently born, and he wonders if anyone can advise the appropriate age to start reading her Lucretius. Also, he saw a letter from Eric Scigliano (SF75) in the Atlantic and promptly ordered his book, Love, War, and Circuses, which Mike is thoroughly enjoying.

1980

Lisa (Ginsberg) Rosenblum (A) left her job as chief librarian of the Brooklyn Public Library in January to become the executive director of the King County (Washington) Library System. She is delighted to be leading a dynamic organization which boasts the highest circulation of digital materials in the U.S. and is having fun exploring the beautiful Pacific Northwest. Classmates living in or visiting the Seattle area are welcome to get in touch.

1988

John Gibson (SF) is currently an associate professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of New Hampshire. Last year, he received the 2018 Award for Excellence in research from the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences at the University of New Hampshire for his work relating coherent structures in turbulence to invariant solutions of the Navier-Stokes equations.

He also received a 2018 Faculty Scholar Award from the University of New Hampshire, which grants him a semester’s teaching leave to focus exclusively on research in modern software approaches to classic algorithms in computational fluid dynamics. In 2016, John received a National Science Foundation CAREER Award for his work connecting turbulence and dynamical systems theory.

1990

Sandro Battaglia (A) practices law, focused on the construction field, in Manhattan.

Randall Birnberg (SF) had a few wonderful years at St. John’s—read about it in his new book, Awful-ly Happy, now available on Amazon.

Kilian Garvey (SF) recently left a tenure track job in Louisiana for a five-year visiting position at Miami University of Ohio. It was a bit of a financial sacrifice, but the opportunity to work with such a talented faculty and student body was too attractive to turn down. Alas, he will be back on the job market in the not-too-distant future.

1993

Jane McManus (A), after two years in London, is moving back to New York to take a role as the director of Marist College’s Center for Sports Communications. She writes, “So I’m finally an academic, which should delight everyone who knew me when. I’ll also be a sports columnist for the New York Daily News. Let me know if you want to argue about Kaepernick.”

1994

Phoebe (Merrin) Carter (SF) was promoted to assistant library director for the Weber County Library System in Ogden, Utah, after nearly 20 years as the manager of youth services. It has been a challenging transition, but she was ready to make this move into administration. Her eldest son, Dylan, is heading to college for computer science in the fall and her 13-year-old son, Owen, is two years into drum lessons. So far neither seems interested in being a Johnnie, but they are great readers, Phoebe notes.

1995

Cecily Craighill Davis (AGI) and Bill Davis and were married July 1, 2017, on Orcas Island, one of the San Juan Islands in Washington, where they own a house and eventually plan to move full time. For the past three years, Cecily has been the alumni director at Buckingham Browne & Nichols, an independent day school in Cambridge, Mass. She enjoys keeping up with fellow GIs Gil Roth (AGI), Douglas Beck (AGI96), Michael Villacrusis (AGI), and Jim Van Dyke, who recently became the president of Georgetown Prep in Washington, DC.

Gil Roth (AGI) is continuing to balance his professional life representing bio/pharma contract manufacturers in front of FDA and Congress (read: he is a lobbyist) with his off-time passion of making a weekly cultural conversation podcast, The Virtual Memories Show.

He also took up running this year, which has been both physically and mentally transformative for him. He notes, “I’ll be 48 soon, so I don’t expect the physical side to hold up that much longer, but hey.”

And, of course, he reads “all the darned time,” generally books by guests of the podcast, but occasionally for leisure. The only “extracurricular” books he read that come to mind for 2018 are Browne’s Urn Burial, Conrad’s Victory, and Sebald’s Rings of Saturn. Gil is thinking of re-tackling Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time in 2019, following his strategy from 2011: one book per month, no matter how soon in the month he finishes it.

1996

Soniah Kamal’s (A) novel Unmarriageable: Pride and Prejudice in Pakistan, a retelling of Austen’s classic set in Pakistan, was published January 15 by Penguin Random House USA (and in the UK). It has received starred reviews in Publishers Weekly and Library Journal and was written up in Forbes. It can be preordered from any bookstore as well as online.

1997

Heidi (Jacot) Hewett (A) is a published author! She writes an eclectic range of genres—as you might expect of Johnnie—usually centered around one big idea. If your taste is non-linear, philosophical and psychological, check out her experimental novella The Adulteries of Rachel. If you are interested in the ethics of Artificial Intelligence and want something that’s more fun adventure, she just published her newest book, Lexi.

You can find these and Heidi’s other books on Amazon.

Jill Nienhiser (AGI) and her husband, Dane Petersen, were digital nomads in 2018, living and working in Nicaragua, Guatemala, Mexico, Canada, and Chile for two to two-and-a-half months each. They are planning to spend 2019 near family in Kansas City.

2000

Aaron Parness (A) shares that his son, Bailey Parness, was born July 22 and is growing so fast. At four months old, Bailey already weighed 15 lbs 11 oz and was 26" tall.

Melanie Santiago-Mosier (A) was awarded the competitive Advocacy Award during the 7th annual U.S. Clean Energy Education and Empowerment (C3E) Women in Clean Energy Symposium, a distinct award that recognizes her for her impact advancing clean energy through policy leadership. C3E is a prestigious program of the Department of Energy, in collaboration with MIT, Texas A&M, and Stanford, that honors outstanding women in clean energy. The award ceremony was held December 4, 2018 at Stanford University.

Patrick Schaefer (A) was selected this year for two prestigious international fellowships. The first, in June, was an Eisenhower Fellowship to spend a month in China. There he met with principal, senior stakeholders in the maritime trade sector. This fellowship has grown into a collaboration with the Shanghai International Shipping Institute to research the impact of tariffs on U.S.-China trade. U.S.-China trade is vital to the New Mexico region because of the east-west trade that occurs on Interstates 10 and 40 and the BNSF and UP rail lines. He published a report prior to his fellowship.

Also, in October, Patrick spent a month in Europe as a Marshall Memorial Fellow, visiting Brussels, Munich, Naples, Kyiv, and Paris, to meet with senior private, public, and community leaders to discuss critical issues facing Europe and the Transatlantic relationship. He discussed issues of trade, immigration, nationalism, sovereignty, and occupation, and how they are affecting communities and countries on both sides of the Atlantic. At his orientation in Washington, DC, before the start of the fellowship, Patrick reunited with Andrew Kolb (A01), who is currently communications director at the German Marshall Fund, which sponsors the Marshall Memorial Fellowship.

Flame Schoeder (SF) was honored in 2018 as one of the first-ever Young Coach Leaders for her leadership in the field of personal (life) coaching. She was honored this past June at a conference in Pittsburgh, Pa., held by the International Coach Federation. Her vision for utilizing coaching to spark and stoke mindfulness in capitalism earned her the recognition after 14 years of practice as a coach. She’s confident that her St. John’s liberal arts education gave her the best possible foundation to become a masterful coach at such a young age. Visit her website to see her quotes in several media outlets including the Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, and Family Circle.

Flame lives in Omaha, Neb., with her daughter and son. When she’s not coaching, she’s listening to James Taylor or Jason Mraz and perfecting the designs for her (eventual) tiny house.

2001

Louis Gonzalez (SF, SFGI08) has been an educator for the last 14 years in Albuquerque, N.M. He never made it back to San Diego, but visits often. He is now the director of Curriculum and Assessment for Siembra Leadership High School, a project-based learning school centered in entrepreneurship that uses Positive Youth Development to empower challenged inner-city youth. He has had the opportunity to design, implement, and coach teachers in the school’s unique curriculum. He also spends his time as a member of the National Ski Patrol, Rocky Mountain Division—within the patrol he is an Outdoor Emergency Care/BLS Instructor—and is also a ski instructor at Sandia Peak Ski Area. Louis is doing well and staying busy.

2003

Erika Ginsberg-Klemmt (SF) lives in Sarasota, Fla., with her three children and husband, Achim. She is the owner of SRQUS LLC, a property acquisition, management, and development company. She represents herself pro-se in land use litigation. Erika still writes but has focused on building her nest egg for future comfort.

2005

Cynthia Grady (AGI) reports that the Japanese translation rights for her 2018 book, Write to Me: Letters from Japanese American Children to the Librarian They Left Behind, have sold. The book will be available in Japan in spring 2019.

Erica Naone (A) works as an alumni communications specialist at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Va. She has written freelance articles for publications including Astronomy magazine, Discover, and Atlas Obscura.

Jerry Salyer (AGI), after spending several years as an adjunct in the humanities departments of various Kentucky universities, now teaches full time for Immaculata Classical Academy in Louisville. In addition to being a frequent contributor to print and online journals such as Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture and Crisis Magazine, Jerry’s study of French counter-revolutionary philosopher Louis de Bonald recently appeared in Aristocratic Souls in Democratic Times, a publication of Lexington Books. Jerry’s special interest in the nature of patriotism has led to him being a guest on radio programs broadcasting out of Ohio as well as Kentucky, and to his delivery of an Immaculata Classical Academy public lecture entitled “Patriotism from Ancient Greece to Modern Poland” (available on YouTube).

Aron Wall (SF) recently won the New Horizons Prize “for fundamental insights about quantum information, quantum field theory, and gravity,” jointly with Daniel Harlow (MIT) and Daniel Jafferis (Harvard). You can read more about the award at Stanford News and the Mercury News. As part of the prize events, he also participated in a panel discussion on whether time travel is possible.

Aron and his wife, Nicole, and are expecting their first child, a son, in January. In the spring, they will be moving to Cambridge, UK where he will be starting a faculty position in the Department of Applied Math and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP).

2006

Jacqueline Kennedy-Dvorak (AGI) recently changed law firms from James-Bates-Brannan-Groover-LLP to Chambless, Higdon, Richardson, Katz & Griggs, LLP, a happy lateral move to another great Macon, GA, firm. She saw Camille Stallings (AGI07, SFEC16), Everett Reed (AGI07), and Melody Reed in July 2018—they get together as often as they can and would love to meet up with fellow Georgia-based alums.

2007

Jonathan Green’s (AGI) documentary, Social Animals, about three teenagers on Instagram, premiered at the SXSW film festival in Austin, Texas, in March and is now available on iTunes. It scored 86% on Rotten Tomatoes. For more information, visit the film’s website, iTunes, or Instagram.

2008

Adam Braus (SF) is the head of the program at Make School which just received accreditation and now is offering a two-year accelerated bachelor’s in applied computer science. He used reasoning from first principles he learned from Plato to help build a radically new college and is embarking on developing an entirely original liberal arts education for the 21st century for the college.

2010

Aaron Dukette (AGI) left his nine-year teaching career in charter schools this summer and moved to Richmond, Ky., where he is working as state director for U.S. Term Limits in Kentucky and West Virginia.

Kyle Long (AGI) and his wife and have relocated from New York City to Washington, DC. In October, he joined the higher education practice of a market research and analytics firm in Arlington, Va.

2011

Jeffrey Colgan (A) and Jeffrey Escoffier (A64) are Johnnies collaborating across decades. The pair is working together on a book exploring the social and philosophical significance of the economic crisis and cultural creativity of New York City during the 1970s and early 1980s. Some of their writing has been published by the CUNY Graduate Center’s Gotham Center for New York City History. They have contributed articles on architect and artist Gordon Matta-Clark, artist David Wojnarowicz, underground cultural venues, and photographer Peter Hujar. They have pieces forthcoming on Andy Warhol’s Factory model and the historical source material for HBO’s The Deuce.

2012

Andrew Donders (A) sadly reports that classmate Liam Wallace (A) passed away recently after a prolonged and heroic battle with cancer over the course of 29 months. He will be missed by all and will never be forgotten.

Rhianna (Toner) Partonen (A) married her true love, best friend, and former St. John’s roommate, Carol Partonen (A), in October.

2014

Alexandra (Fitzmorris) Danks (SF) married Andrew Danks on August 18 at St. Monica Catholic Church in Santa Monica, Calif. The maid of honor and attendants were all Johnnies—Joan Favretto (SF15), Josephine LaCosta (A15), and Madeline Irwin (SF16). Other Johnnies in attendance were Aidan Freeman (SF), Abby DeVries (SF), Christina Raines (A12), and Henry Fitzmorris (SF21). Alexandra and Andrew live in Topanga Canyon, Calif., with their one-year-old daughter, Johanna Danks, whom they welcomed on December 10, 2017.

2015

Kallista Pappas Kilgore (A) and Jacob Kilgore (A16), after being married in the Great Hall in 2016, moved to Milwaukee, Wis., for grad school. They are happy to announce now that they have both finished master’s degrees in 2018 at Marquette University. Kallista has her master of science in nursing with a specialty in clinical nurse leadership. She recently accepted a job to work as a registered nurse on an internal medicine unit at Milwaukee’s trauma 1 hospital. She hopes to move to the ER or ICU to hone her clinical judgment before pursuing a nurse practitioner certificate and exploring opportunities in public health policy. Jacob has his master of arts in Theology and wrote his thesis on Pascal’s treatment of faith and reason (and love!). His graduate career has enabled him to become proficient in German as well as excellent in Greek and French. After graduation, he worked for six months as an apprentice coffee roaster to fulfill a lifelong dream of learning the coffee trade. He now works as a private research assistant to a fellow Johnnie alumnus who recently retired from a career as a professor at Marquette. Jacob plans to submit applications next fall to pursue a PhD to explore the intersection of philosophy and theology in the 20th century.

Abigail (Olson) LaBadie (SFGI) married Ben LaBadie in Colorado Springs, Colo., at Shove Memorial Chapel on October 27, 2018. They both teach at a classical school in the Springs and met there in 2010 when they both were first-year teachers. Abby is a Johnnie and Ben is a Johnnie at heart.

Obituaries

Clark Lobenstine, A67
October 15, 2018

Jack de Raat, A58
August 13, 2018

Liam Wallace, A12
November 11, 2018

Fall 2018

1955

John M. Gordon (A) published his second Penny Summers mystery in May 2018. Malice at the Manor follows former Navy public affairs officer Penny Summers and her landscape design professor to the mountains of western North Carolina, where the Civil War is still romanticized and the discovery of a dead docent in a famous garden leads Penny to a Civil War battle flag scam, a deadly reenactment, and a search for a man in black. With the help of Kalea, a brilliant 11-year-old CSI wannabe, and Aaron, her handsome Navy friend working undercover, Penny discovers more than she bargained for.

The first Penny Summers mystery, Katelyn’s Killer, is set at St. John’s in Annapolis and was launched at the college bookstore during Homecoming 2017.

1959

Valerie Shuart’s (A59) book The Chess Queen is the true story of her husband Don Edwards’ famous Bostonian family from the 1800s. His great-great-grandfather, Samuel Grey Ward, was the best friend of Ralph Waldo Emerson and other well-known people of the time. From letters and diaries, Valerie found the women speaking stronger than the men. Thus, the name The Chess Queen, referring to the only female on the board, who has the most power, which she must use to protect the males on the board—similar to the lives of women at the time and many women today. The book can be found on Amazon.

1960

Mary Campbell Gallagher (A) is president of the International Coalition for the Preservation of Paris, ICPP. She is editor of ICPP’s book of essays Paris Without Skyscrapers: The Battle to Save the Beauty of the City of Light. Mary notes that international contributors, including leading architects, planners, lawyers, and writers, oppose skyscrapers inside Paris on economic, aesthetic, and other grounds. The book launch is expected in late November in Paris.

1966

Constance (Bell) Lindgreen (A66) shares that a few years ago, Leo Pickens suggested that she and Dimitar Indzhov (A11) might like to connect and they did, via Skype and Messenger, those now-ubiquitous technologies. Their lives and backgrounds are wildly different—not to mention their ages—but they have stayed in touch sporadically. And thanks to Dimitar’s interest in visiting Fontainebleau, they met at last. Perhaps they’ll build a deeper friendship—you never know!

1968

Bart Lee (A) treasures his grandson, Quinlan Silverio Lee, friendships—so many from St. John’s, now so many absent friends, and domestic tranquility. He practiced law for 40 years with rarely a glimpse of justice and taught law and economics for 20 years. He is still writing legal history, history of technology, and poetry, reading good books and an occasional Great Book, and writing lesser books. Bart saw the world and is now cultivating a garden.

1970

Edward Macierowski (A) has been teaching philosophy for the past 25 years at Benedictine College in Kansas. His foreign experiences include residence in Canada (1970-76; 1977-79) and Iran (1976-77), and professional visits to Jordan (American Institute of Oriental Research Jan 2004), Italy (summer course in Florence 2017), Uzbekistan (national election observer 2014, 2015), Eastern Europe (public lecture in Toruń 2014, graduate summer course at Catholic University of Lublin 2015). Edward’s most recent public lecture topic was “Christianity and Islam in Dialogue” (2018). He was one of the participants in the NEH summer institute on medieval political philosophy in 2014 and his major publications include translations of Henri de Lubac’s Medieval Exegesis: The Four Senses of Scripture, vol. 2 (2000) and vol. 3 (2009), St. Thomas Aquinas’ Commentary on Aristotle’s “On memory and recollection” (2005), Bernard Montagnes’s book on the analogy of being (2004), and Thomas Aquinas’ Earliest Treatment of the Divine Essence (1998). He accepted an invitation to lecture in Uzbekistan in October.

1972

Glenn (SF) and Dale (Graves) Gladfelder (SF) live in Montana, along with their daughter, son-in-law, and grandson. Glenn has launched a new website where he describes himself as “an unpublishable writer.” Despite that shortcoming, you can read his cab-driving tales, exposé of H&R Block, profiles of adults with intellectual disabilities, and his examination of the relationship between morality and distance.

1973

Frazier O’Leary (SFGI) is running for the Ward 4 Board of Education in Washington, DC, after 47 years of teaching at DC Public Schools. The special election is on December 4.

1978

Rita (Shea) Collins’ (A) traveling bookstore business continues to surprise her with places and people and yes, even books that come her way. Recently, Atlas Obscura did a great article about her business. In September, Rita and the traveling bookstore were at the Montana Book Festival in Missoula.

Winfield Ihlow (A) retired from State University of New York at Oswego in the summer of 2017 and now spends time reading (books and magazines, like The Atlantic and New York Review of Books), going to movies, playing tennis and squash, and gardening.

1979

Miyoko (Porter) Schinner (A) has been very busy over the last several years with the company she founded in 2014, Miyoko’s, that is revolutionizing dairy products by making them from plants instead of cows. Miyoko has been a serial entrepreneur since she graduated and has had many ups and downs, so it has been a lot of fun growing the company at breakneck speeds. The company’s products can be found nationwide at Trader Joe’s, Kroger, Target, Publix, Wegmans, Whole Foods, and most natural food stores. In Maryland, there’s a good stock of them at Roots Market and MOM’s Organic Market. Miyoko was able to meet up with a couple of classmates—Lisa Simeone (A) and Jim Sorrentino (A80)—last year in Baltimore and hopes to be able to make it to a reunion one of these years.

1982

Geoff Henebry (SF) reports that after 13 years in the bracing plains of eastern South Dakota, he has moved southeast to enjoy the milder climes of central Michigan. In August, he joined Michigan State University as a Hannah Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Department of Geography, Environment, and Spatial Sciences and the Center for Global Change and Earth Observations. Ana and Geoff are nearly empty-nesters—of their seven kids, thus far, five have graduated college (all are gainfully employed), two are married, one in college, and one will be off to college next fall. Ana teaches Latin part-time at an inner-city parish school in Lansing. If you are in the area, drop a line.

1983

Don Dennis (SF83) and his wife, a dairy farmer, continue to live on the small island of Gigha, just off the west side of Kintyre in Scotland, where they make ice cream and bottle milk from the farm using returnable glass bottles. Find Wee Isle Dairy on Facebook.

1984

Tuck Bowerfind (A84) is proud to say his daughter Dorothy (A19) has begun her senior year in Annapolis and he is hoping to be at commencement on May 12, 2019.

1985

Daniel Lieberman’s (A) book about the brain chemical dopamine, The Molecule of More: How a Single Chemical in Your Brain Drives Love, Sex, and Creativity—and Will Determine the Fate of the Human Race, was recently published and can be found on Amazon and at your local bookstore. It is a ripping tale of drugs, sex, politics, madness, and neuroscience! If you are inclined to give it a read, please consider leaving an Amazon review.

David Vermette (A) has just published his first book, A Distinct Alien Race: The Untold Story of Franco-Americans, a timely excursion into a criminally neglected episode in U.S. immigration history. Although the book discusses the 1840-1930 period, it also deals with issues still in the news: cross-border immigration, Nativism, and the challenge of counter-cultural religious groups. You can learn more about the book at the publisher’s website and from the review in Publishers Weekly.

1986

Kristen (Baumgardner) Caven (SF) had the pleasure of traveling in Italy this summer with Jennifer Flynn Israel (A). After filling their eyes, bellies, and souls with art and food and some deep culture dives, they did a presentation together at an arts colony in Florence. The topic was their 2015 trip to Italy, which only half materialized. Kristen read a few chapters from her forthcoming travel memoir, Ten Days, Ten Pounds, and Jenny did a slideshow and talk about having brain surgery and recovering her color vision as a painter. The talk was entitled, “Saturation,” regarding the neurological and emotional experience of color (and lack of it). Kristen opened the session with the story of how the two of them met at convocation as freshman at St. John’s: “Hey! We could be sisters!”

A highlight of the trip was visiting the Duomo in Siena, which celebrates philosophers and sybils alongside biblical characters—and the pulpit is held aloft by figures representing the seven liberal arts. You can read about the mystical doublings and infinities that seem to appear when twin bombshell philosopher artists travel together, at “Two infinity—and back again.” Kristen notes that for maximum saturation, make sure to click all the links on the site.

Douglas Gentile (A86), continuing the tradition of pairing Western with Eastern, was recently ordained as a Zen monk in the Five Mountain Zen Order. He continues to be a professor of psychology at Iowa State University, studying media’s influences on children.

1988

Jana Giles (A) sends this news: As part of the Regents Awards to Louisiana Artists and Scholars (ATLAS) Program, a panel of out-of-state experts evaluated a grant proposal written by Dr. Jana Giles, University of Louisiana Monroe associate professor of English, and deemed it “excellent.” Based on the panel’s recommendation, the Board of Regents funded Giles’s project, allowing her a year-long sabbatical (2018-19) to complete her project. Giles’s grant of $38,057 was one of only eight awarded in the state.

“I’m so very grateful to the state of Louisiana and ULM for this investment in my research,” Giles said. “The generous time and resources provided will allow me to dedicate myself full time to finish my book.”

Her project, “The Post/Colonial Sublime: Aesthetics, Politics, and Ethics in the Twentieth-Century Novel,” explores the “aesthetic turn” in postcolonial and colonial studies, addressing six British Anglophone authors: Joseph Conrad, E.M. Forster, Jean Rhys, Joan Lindsay, J.M. Coetzee, and Amitav Ghosh.

Giles is in her third year as Endowed Professor in English. Other scholarly achievements include a Cambridge Overseas Trust Research Scheme Equivalent Bursary and The J. Barbara Northend Scholarship from the British Federation of Graduate Students. Presently, she serves as the managing editor of Conradiana, the premiere journal in North America dedicated to Joseph Conrad, which received the Phoenix Award from the Council of Editors of Learned Journals in 2017.

Giles, who has worked at ULM since 2009, earned her Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts with a concentration in Philosophy at St. John’s College. She earned a Master of Arts in English and Creative Writing from the University of New Mexico, and her Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom.

ATLAS supports major scholarly and artistic productions with potential to have a broad impact on a regional and/or national level, thus strengthening the educational, artistic, and research bases of Louisiana institutions. ATLAS is a subprogram of the Board of Regents Support Fund’s Research and Development Program. The award will provide Giles with the time needed to complete her project.

1989

Anne Leonard’s (A) daughter, Emma Leonard-Hill (SF22), is a freshman in Santa Fe and is loving it.

1990

Kilian Garvey (SF) recently left the University of Louisiana to join the psychology faculty at Miami University of Ohio. He continues to carry out research on the two subjects he was always advised never to discuss in polite company: politics and religion.

Danilo Marrone (SF) sends aloha and greetings from Oahu, Hawaii, where he still teaches at a small community college, Hawaii Tokai International College. The campus moved to the west side of Oahu in 2015 and he and his wife, Gladys, decided that it would also be a good idea to relocate and moved from a small apartment in town to a new house in Ewa Beach, very close to the location of the college.

Last year they were very fortunate to become proud owners of a purebred Great Dane puppy, Sienna, who keeps their house safe from any intruders. Besides teaching, Danilo continues to forge ahead with his Bibliotheca Walleriana research and also writes poetry, plays music, surfs, and practices Tai Chi Chuan. To top it all off, he handles Sienna at dog shows around Oahu: “She’s a lot better than I am.” Danilo left Facebook several years ago but has her own website.

Karl Meyer (A) says to look out for his debut solo album in 2019.

1992

Lt. Cmdr. Michael A. Zampella USN (A) has been appointed by Queen Elizabeth II to the Order of St John. The Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem is a British royal order of chivalry tracing its origins back to the Knights Hospitalier, which was later known as the Order of Malta. It became associated with the founding in 1882 of the St John Ophthalmic Hospital near the old city of Jerusalem and the St John Ambulance Brigade in 1887. The American Priory of the Order raises funds for the hospital in Jerusalem and maintains a volunteer service corps that supports the US Department of Veterans Affairs.

1993

James Craig (AGI) presented at Havre de Grace Opera House in Maryland “The Moon Has Been Eaten,” the culmination of three years on Easter Island, the land of the giant stone statues, between 2006 and 2016. The program included slides, videos, talk, stories from the island, Rapanui music, and more, and ticket holders received a free signed copy of Jim’s book. All proceeds benefited the Havre de Grace Arts Collective to help expand the programming at the Cultural Center at the Opera House.

1994

Juditha Ohlmacher (SF) has been living in Bangladesh for the past 15 years, where she helped her husband, K. Anis Ahmed, found the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh and established both their communications/PR office as well as the first fully-fledged student affairs office to provide academic, psychological, medical, and legal assistance to the students.

They accept international research students for their postdoc work, especially in the field of Sustainable Development, and we seek international faculty who wish to come to Bangladesh for a term. Interested Johnnies can email Juditha.

While she is still a board member at the university, she stepped back from day-to-day work when she had her son and now has become a LEGO builder and is working on LEGO versions of Bangladesh’s architectural heritage.

Juditha has submitted a version of the Louis Kahn-designed Bangladesh Parliament building to LEGO ideas and is seeking 10,000 supporters to make it into a real set. She would love support from fellow Johnnies for this project!

1995

Jennifer Chenoweth (SFGI) is for grateful that her recent public art project, “XYZ Atlas,” was able to reach so many people and culminated in a TEDMED talk.

On October 13, she is producing a “Sacred Space Tour” of churches, mosques, and historic buildings, with arts programming at each location in Wilkinsburg, Penn. Jennifer says it has been very worthwhile to bring together all kinds of people working for the betterment of a community in need of positive change.

1995

Kurt Schmidt (AGI) is now in his 20th year in the Rio Rancho, N.M., public school system, and last spring was named executive director of fine arts for the school district. He wishes his classmates all the best.

1996

Erin Furby (A) is now working in the registrar’s office at the University of Alaska Anchorage after 12 years of teaching and administration at a small K-12 private school.

Lucille (Ward) (AGI) and Marty Walker (AGI) are the proud parents of two sons (18 and 15), with their eldest a Johnnie freshman in the Annapolis class of 2022! Lucille is the executive director of the Southern Maryland Heritage Area, an organization dedicated to preserving the unique cultural and natural resources of the region. Marty continues his work as clinical social worker providing psychotherapy to service members at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

1997

Peter Eichstaedt (SFGI) had a successful book reading and signing event Saturday, September 15, at the Tattered Cover bookstore in Denver, for his latest mystery/thriller, Napa Noir. The novel, published earlier this year by WildBlue Press, is the first of a planned series of mysteries set in wine regions around the world. His previous novel, Borderland, also published by WildBlue Press, received an honorable mention award in 2015 from the International Latino Book Awards.

Jill Nienhiser (A) and her husband, Dane Petersen, continue on their digital nomad adventure. This year, they have spent two months each in Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Mexico, three months in Canada, and headed to Chile at the end of September. Plans are in the works to spend 2019 in Europe. Jill works as a writer for Mind & Media in Alexandria, Va., and Dane teaches English as a second language.

Juan G. Villaseñor (A) was appointed as a district court judge to serve in the 8th Judicial District Court in Fort Collins, Colo., on September 13, by Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper.

Villaseñor currently serves as an assistant U.S. attorney in the civil division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, a position he has held since 2008. In this role, he represents federal agencies and employees in civil cases in federal court, prosecutes criminal cases, and handles other miscellaneous matters. Previously, he was an attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Pardon Attorney (2014-2016); an assistant attorney general with the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office (2003-2008); a First Amendment Fellowship Attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union (2002-2003); and a law clerk to the Honorable William J. Haynes in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee (2001-2002). He received his law degree from Vanderbilt Law School in 2001.

Juan’s appointment is effective October 6 and he started October 10.

1999

Greg Koehlert (SFGI) writes that all is well, and he has been living for five years with the family on a mountainside in Montclair, N.J. They moved out from NYC to start a school for students with learning differences, a new campus of Winston Prep School where he has been on the faculty since 2001. His wife, Merrie, is painting and teaching, the kids are in middle school, and life is both busy and quiet. He would love to keep up with Johnnie friends in the NYC area, and asks old friends to please stay in touch.

2001

Marshall Hevron (A) has been practicing law for nine years and was recently made a partner at Adams and Reese, LLP, a large regional law firm based in New Orleans. Please look him up if you ever make it down there.

Suzannah Simmons (SF) and her husband, Alexander Saify, are happy to share they are expecting their first child, a girl, at the end of February. She is still an operations and outreach consultant for small businesses and startups. Alex is a director of technology for a cybersecurity company. They love staying in touch and networking with Johnnies—feel free to message Suzannah.

2002

Justin Naylor (A) and wife, Dillon (A05), operate a small vegetable farm and on-farm restaurant, Old Tioga Farm, in rural northeastern Pennsylvania. Open only on Fridays and Saturdays, they serve 18 people in two small dining rooms and were recently featured in Eating Well magazine. Justin also offers week-long culinary tours in three Italian cities and interviews people of note in the food and wine worlds.

2005

Aron Wall (SF) has won prizes recently in the course of his professional career as a physicist. Read more about the 2018 IUPAP Young Scientist Prize in General Relativity and Gravitation and the Philippe Meyer Prize in Theoretical Physics.

2006

Caelan (MacTavish) Huntress (SF06) has moved with his young family to New Zealand and obtained residency in that faraway country. He continues his work as a freelance website designer, helping people sell things online through his digital marketing agency.

Constantino (Diaz-Duran) Khalaf (A) says hi to Johnnie friends and is so excited to share the news that he and his husband have a book coming out in January 2019 with Westminster John Knox Press. Modern Kinship: A Queer Guide to Christian Marriage is available for preorders now on Amazon and other online retailers. Part personal reflection, part commentary, their book explores the biblical concept of kinship from a 21st-century perspective. It tackles subjects such as overcoming church and family issues, gender roles in marriage, the relationship between sex and shame in church teachings, infidelity, and finding your mission as a couple.

2007

Renee Albrecht-Mallinger (SF) completed a master’s degree at IIT Institute of Design in May, where she studied design research and strategy. Her projects included work with University of Chicago hospitals, the Cook County sheriff’s department, and working with senior university officials to develop a long-term plan for the future of the school. Renee just started a new job as a senior design researcher at IA Collaborative, a design consultancy in Chicago, and in August was with some of her fellow graduates at the Design Management Institute’s academic conference in London, presenting work on how universities can contribute to the public sector through partnerships with government institutions.

2008

Sean Penny (A) graduated with an MA in counseling from the University of the District of Columbia in May. In October, Sean embarks upon a long-awaited career as a counselor at the McClendon Center, a nonprofit mental health clinic in Washington, DC.

2009

(Kyle) Keilah Lebell (SF), who now goes by her Hebrew name Keilah, was ordained in May as a rabbi at the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies. She recently began work as the Jewish Emergent Network Rabbinic Fellow at IKAR, a start-up Jewish community in Los Angeles. She and her husband, Sam, also a congregational rabbi, have been blessed with a son and a daughter.

2010

Gianna Englert (AGI) has accepted a position as assistant professor of political science at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

2011

Nick Urban (SFGI) is starting a Master of Divinity at the University of Chicago, where he plans to study Buddhism, ministry, and modern theology.

2012

Alex Leone (A) has taught computer programming to homeschool students in middle and high school for the last two years. He wrote his own curriculum, using the Scratch programming language, which he recently turned into an online course called Coding Foundations. He continues teaching both the online and in-person courses this fall.

Mike Simpson (SFEC) just started his first year as a PhD student at Brown University, studying early American history.

Dean Theophilos (SF), and his wife, Leigh-Ann Theophilos, welcomed their first child, Theodoros (Theo) Theophilos, on June 10.

Alexandra Walling (A), after leaving St. John’s in 2011, went on to earn a bachelor of science in biology at California State University, Monterey Bay. In September, she began as a PhD student in comparative biology at the American Museum of Natural History, where she will be studying the evolution of photosynthesis among bacteria. Being in New York has been a wonderful opportunity to connect with other Johnnies, both those she knew while a student at Annapolis, and those she has met since leaving St. John’s.

2015

David (A) and Joy Perry Lincer (A) married on July 14 in Corbett, Ore. David plans to attend Adelphi University’s general psychology MA program, and Joy plans to attend Pratt Institute’s MFA program this fall.

Emily Slagel (A) is currently working for the college in the Admissions Office and has started a food blog.

2016

Christopher Cullinane (SF) is very happy to say that he started law school for his JD at the University of San Francisco School of Law. He plans on studying intellectual property (IP) law and staying in San Francisco after his graduation with the class of 2021.

Obituaries

William (Bill) Mullen, Tutor
November 2, 2017

Steven Thomas, SF74
June 21, 2018

Myron Wolbarsht, Class of 1950
July 7, 2018

Frank B. Murray, Class of 1960
September 14, 2018

Donald Edwards, Class of 1959
August 15, 2018

Summer 2018

1962

James Broschart (A) notes that they say most wines, some cheeses, and a few collectibles get better with old age, and he is more than ready for that transformation as he confronts his 80th year. Having lived through 14 U.S. presidents, he is still trying to make sense of it all, and those of you who remember how confused he was as a Johnnie in the 1960s might like to view the outcome. His poetry collection, Old News, will be released by Finishing Line Press early in September. You can reserve a copy on the publisher’s website.

1968

Glenn Ballard (SF) and wife, Jeanne, now have two granddaughters and Glenn has been elected to the National Academy of Construction.

Bren Jacobson (A) is a senior disciple of Swami Vishnudevananda, with whom he co-piloted a plane during several peace missions including a trip from Ireland to India only three years after he graduated from St. John’s.

His travels did not stop there—Bren lived on his 34-foot sloop for 12 years, sailed across the Atlantic twice, and has traveled to and worked in 68 countries. He is currently an advanced rolfer, psychotherapist, and health consultant, working around the world, as well as an interfaith minister ordained by Rabbi Joseph Gelberman. He gave a talk about a peace mission on June 15 at Sivananda Yoga Ranch Ashram. You can view a video about the plane he copiloted as well as a video of him talking about the trip.

Bren notes he was applying for a job teaching abroad after graduating and a St. John’s tutor, in a recommendation letter to the school he was applying to, said that Bren was “too naive and inexperienced to do well working in a foreign country.” He did not get that job but did end up lecturing in universities throughout Europe.

Harold Morgan (SF) is still in Albuquerque and writing a syndicated column for community newspapers with a focus on the economy and broad policy challenges. The big project is to somehow stimulate the public dialogue through attention on systems issues facing the state. Feel free to share your thoughts at progress(at)swcp.com. He notes that his children became adults and live in Nevada, he has one grandchild, and has been married to Susan Bennett for almost 20 years.

Rick Wicks (SF) is working hard (volunteering) with Democrats Abroad to get out the vote among American expats in Sweden and has just returned from the global meeting of Democrats Abroad in Tokyo. For 35 years he has thought about taking trains from Europe across Russia as a way to get home to Alaska. He finally did the “across Russia” part—23 days with lots of interesting stops, most memorably the small historic town of Nerchinsk in Siberia, east of Baikal. He has survived oral and bladder cancer and heart failure thanks to Sweden’s universal medical care.

Charles Watson (A) is now semi-retired and doing clinical work a couple days a week in the New London area of Connecticut. He reports it is a lot less pressure than “herding cats” as the clinical department chairman.

He shares exciting news that daughter Anya (Watson) Hanson recently gave birth to Alexander (Sasha), who joins older brother Adrian (2.5-years-old). The family lives in Rhode Island where John Hanson teaches math and economics at the Wheeler School in Providence and Anya is director of scientific diving and a faculty member at University of Rhode Island in Kingston. Charles and his wife Masha enjoy grandparental baby and pet sitting.

His eldest son, Ivan, is often traveling as CNN’s senior international correspondent based in Hong Kong and his middle son, Misha, is on Cape Cod and engaged in various construction projects there and on Martha’s Vineyard.

Charles notes that Johnnies who are in NYC are near but far and perhaps it would be easier to connect with alumni in the New England area on Martha’s Vineyard in the summer. He has visited and has been visited by George Partlow (Class of 1968) who returns to Yale for Russian Choir and divinity school reunions from either Arizona or Juneau, Alaska.

1970

Benjamin Barney (SF) is now in Europe. He went to Germany at end of April to visit friends and has been visiting in Neihof, Frankfurt, Freiburg, and Stuttgart. He also spent five days in Paris. Toward end of May, he spent five days in Oslo, Norway. His visits with friends began the second week of January in San Francisco. In April he spent two days on the Vassar College campus, five days in New York City, two days in Washington, DC, one day in Philadelphia, and three days in Toronto, Canada. It became clear and important that he get back in touch with friends, and what a better way to do so by spending time with people? Mr. Barney writes: “As so normally happens one disconnects and begin to disappear to others across the world. It is a form of dealing with internal changes. It is also part of aging. Such disconnections are hard to know well. They just come about as if slowly falling into a soft sleep. Now I tell people the simple image; I fell into a hole for time.” He sends his note from Warmbronn, Germany.

John Dean (A) notes that some alumni in and around the Annapolis class of 1970 stay in contact via an email group and various Facebook sites. He suggests this method as a way to keep the old SJC new and be in touch in a more personal way.

He spent the first semester of 2017 professing in India at Christ University, Bangalore. He also notes it was very positive, very intense, physically demanding, and utterly exhilarating. India’s blend of wealth and poverty, the refined and the coarse, the down-to-earth and the transcendental, the astonishing polyculturalism—more than 800 different languages, each spoken by half a million people or more—is a lesson to keep learning.

Hudi (Schneider) Podolsky (SF) retired from education consulting in 2013. In January, she and her husband, Jay Bosley, moved to Hartwick, New York, not far from Cooperstown. Neither care much about baseball, but Cooperstown also has an excellent museum, an opera house, and a fine hospital. Their place, Sunnyhill, is 21 acres of cleared hilltop. They miss family and friends in the San Francisco Bay area and have to travel to see their children and grandchildren, but the trade-off is peace, quiet, and beauty—and they sure don’t miss the traffic.

Connie Shaw (A) will begin a 40-mile hike in Glacier National Park on July 29 with the organization Climate Ride to raise money for climate change solutions. Support this cause. Donations are tax-deductible and will go to 350.org, the nonprofit she is supporting with the hike. Connie, and our planet, thank you!

1972

Robin (Kowalchuk) Burk (A) gave her first TEDx talk in late April. The topic was “Countering Collapse of Our Complex Interconnected Systems” and drew on research she managed for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (center of U.S. counter-WMD expertise) and as one of the chief scientists at Battelle. The video should be available by midsummer.

Coming late this summer or early fall is her latest book, Will to Win, co-authored with business/career guru Brian Tracy and other experts.

1973

Jon R. Stroud (SF73) has lived in the Portland, Oregon, area since the early 1970s. Now retired, he is married and has one son.

1974

Jon Hunner (SF) retired from teaching history at New Mexico State University after 23 years. He directed the public history program and served as the department chair at NMSU. He now continues his “Driven by History” road trip where he visits historic sites around the country and writes a history of the U.S. from those places where history actually happened. You can follow his account of his travels.

David Huston (A) retired last year from Laurel School for Girls in Shaker Heights, Ohio, after 40 years as a high school teacher of philosophy, history, economics, and political science. During that time, he also directed a program for the Kenyon Academic Program (KAP) for Kenyon College where high school students took college classes in 15 different disciplines and earned college credit. KAP (like a college-based AP program) includes 20 Ohio high schools and more than 1,000 students each year. He had a great time working with the Kenyon faculty in many departments; teaching bright, eager high school girls was one of the great opportunities of his life and several of his students went on to St. John’s.

Since retirement, he has offered adult classes on World War II and American history. Next fall, he will be offering a course on Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. He is also in the early stages of producing a web course for AP U.S. history students and hopes to have more information to announce this year. His two sons have now finally launched on their own careers—one is an executive chef at a local restaurant in Cleveland and the other works for Marathon Oil in data and systems analysis. After leaving the classroom, David is seriously thinking of starting a St. John’s alumni seminar in northeast Ohio—anyone interested?

1975

Charles Hoffacker (A) “retired” last summer but continues on with several expressions of ministry. He now lives in Greenbelt, Maryland, and serves as priest associate at St. John”s Episcopal Church, Beltsville, Maryland, a multicultural congregation. An activist and writer, Charles is a board member of the Frances Perkins Center, named for “the woman behind the New Deal.” He has been married since 2013 to Helena Mirtova, a mathematics professor at Prince George’s Community College. Helena and Charles recently enjoyed reading aloud together Emily Wilson”s fine new translation of the Odyssey and highly recommend it.

1976

Michael MacDonald (SF) celebrated his first full year in business in Santa Fe and was named “Best Mastering Engineer 2018” at the New Mexico Music Awards ceremony in May.

1977

Larry Clendenin (SF), after retiring from a 45-year career in college admissions, living in Washington DC, Arizona, Colorado, Maine, and New Mexico, raising two children with one wife, and feeling darn satisfied, retired in 2016 as director of admissions emeritus from St. John’s College in Santa Fe. He is now a volunteer college counselor at Santa Fe High School and a grand jury bailiff at the district court in Santa Fe. Larry’s daughter is an ER doctor; his son is a fly fisherman, rock climber, and downhill skier in Bozeman, Mont.; his granddaughter, 8-years-old, is a good student, skier, and soccer player; and his mother, Ethel, is 95-years-old and lives in Virginia where Larry grew up, close to his brother, as one of you will remember from graduation.

1979

Lucy Seligman (SF) has been a clinical/medical hypnotherapist since 2011, after many years in nonprofit management. In the past year, she has added on Life Strategies Coaching, which she does online, and also started a Japanese food blog Thanks for the Meal, based on her many years of living in Japan. Her daughter was accepted and will be heading off to Parsons in New York City so Lucy suspects a lot more East Coast travel is coming her way.

1980

Bill Day (SF) was recently promoted to full professor at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York, where he has taught philosophy for 20 years. During his sabbatical in the fall of 2018, he and his wife, Kate (A76), will travel to Iceland for a week, then to London to visit David (A75) and Susan Tischler Ashmore (A76), who are trading their home in Princeton for the year for a London flat.

1982

Peter Griggs (A) has published a novel called No Pink Concept. It is based loosely on his own experiences with depression and family problems. He has written a second novel called Paisley Jubilee about his experiences as a diabetic living in the mental health system in New Jersey. He is still rewriting it but has an interested publisher.

Peter’s niece Dr. Cornelia Griggs Goldstone recently gave birth to a healthy baby boy named Jonah Henry Goldstone. She and her husband, Robert, already have a daughter named Eloise Dovie Goldstone, who was born October 2, 2016. His family is thrilled to have an addition to their small family.

1983

Amber Eden (SF83) left her 25-year career in journalism and headed back to campus. She just completed her first year of a master’s degree in social work at New York University’s Silver School of Social Work. Upon completion of that degree in 2019, she will enter CUNY Law, ultimately hoping to pursue a social justice/public justice career advocating for at-risk adolescent and elderly populations. Her experience at St. John’s College developed a lifelong love of learning, and ultimately prepared her to take the LSAT at age 55. Amber says, “Thank you!”

1984

James Hyder (A) and Leslie Smith Rosen (A82) are leaving Las Vegas after a five-year sojourn to move to Atlanta, Georgia, where Leslie will start a new job on July 1 as middle school principal at the Epstein School.

Michael Strong (SF) after many decades of founding small schools, private and charter, is now responsible for creating a chain of secondary schools based on the model he developed. Higher Ground Education, whose mission is to modernize and mainstream Montessori education, has hired him to create The Academy of Thought and Industry (ATI) with campuses opening in August in San Francisco, New York City, and Austin. He expects to open three to five more campuses for fall 2019 and accelerate growth after that.

One of the required courses at ATI is a Socratic humanities class which is based on his experience at SJC and his book The Habit of Thought: From Socratic Seminars to Socratic Practice. ATI has more faculty candidates for fall 2018 than they can possibly interview (hundreds of people have applied, including many Johnnies). But if they grow as desired, in future years they may have jobs for Johnnies, who have a solid foundation for leading Socratic humanities classes.

1986

John Lawton (SF86) was recently in touch with David Blankenbaker (SF88) who read and had a few questions about John’s senior essay. David has also met with long-lost friend Carl Buffalo (SF non-grad), who recently changed his name.

Michael Silitch (SF86), after living in the Alps for almost 20 years, is back in the United States. His wife, Nina Cook Silitch (Dartmouth ‘94), taught and raced World Cup ski mountaineering during their stay in Europe and their two sons were born in Aigle, Switzerland. They are now based in Park City, Utah, where Nina is teaching, and Michael is the executive director of the BRASS Foundation for snow and avalanche safety. They partner with the U.S. Ski Team and educate the team’s 35,000 members.

1987

John Sullivan (A) has been living in Alexandria, Virginia (again!) since November 2016 when he took a job at NIH in Bethesda, Maryland. He loves being closer to his alma mater—close enough to attend the occasional Friday night lecture. He says last year’s reunion was great and would love to reconnect with more Annapolis and Santa Fe friends from 30+ years ago.

1988

Tobias Maxwell (A) asks Johnnies to visit his new website at tobiasmaxwell.com.

1990

Alexandra Stockwell (A) practiced family medicine for seven years, has taken courses on spiritual, energy, sexuality, and mindset masters, and is now a relationship coach, teaching committed couples how to create the emotional and sensual intimacy they crave. She loves working with people where everything looks good from the outside while on the inside they are hungry for a nourishing relationship with the one they love. She recently wrote an article and make sure to visit her website.

Alexandra has been married for 22 years and has four amazing children, ages 6 to 21. She lives in the San Francisco Bay area, so look her up if you are in the area.

1992

Elyette Kirby (SF) is working in the suburbs of Paris at a bilingual international school teaching third grade math, science, geography, art, and English. She also teaches yoga. She has three children, ages 17, 15, and 13.

She would like to drive from Minneapolis to San Diego this summer, the second half of July, and if anyone is living along the route from Minneapolis–St. Paul–Santa Fe–San Diego, please let her know. She might make the return trip by going through northern California. If anyone comes through Paris and needs a room or wants to say “Hi,” she is usually there.

1995

David Brown (AGI) just completed his PhD in journalism at the University of Texas at Austin. He is loving life with family in the Texas capital city and hosts a daily statewide public radio newsmagazine called Texas Standard. He misses Annapolis.

Shana Hack (A) opened Moon Rabbit Toys in Santa Fe, NM, 10 years after she graduated (proving you never know where life will lead you.) Her focus is on American-made, fair trade, and fair labor toys. And toys she likes to play with.

She carries a wide selection of stuffies, puzzles, art supplies, things that make noise, things with wheels, things that fly, and so on. Over the years, as board games have become more popular, her gaming section has grown to where it is now half of her business. Johnnies are always welcome to swing by to visit, play, and discuss Herodotus.

Kira Zielinski (SF) says the gods have smiled on her little nest in Iowa City and answered her prayers for a little one to help her pour libations to them. She just celebrated her son Xerxes’ first birthday! And she is back to studying classics at long last and playing recorder in an early music ensemble.

1999

Heather Richardson-Wilde (A), while ostensibly living in Las Vegas, Nevada, she only managed 22 days home last year. One of the few female CTOs in the world, she frequently speaks at conferences and authors a column on technology trends in Inc. and Forbes magazine—in addition to running her business, which has expanded to 5 continents.

She also just published her fourth book, Growth Hacking 101, and is writing a fifth.

2000

Tim Carney (A) is expecting his third book, Alienated America: Why Some Places Thrive While Others Collapse in February 2019, from Harper Collins. He is the commentary editor at the Washington Examiner (where he has worked since 2009) and a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (since late 2012).

Tim and his wife Katie live in Silver Spring, Maryland with their six children. They are parishioners at St. Andrew Apostle parish, where Tim coaches youth baseball and basketball.

2001

Erik Stadnik (A01) sends a hello from Prague, the “city of a hundred spires!” After more than 15 years in Alexandria, Virginia, he decided to make a pretty significant change—in fall 2017, he moved to Prague and attended The Language House TEFL to get certified to teach English (meeting Johnnies past and future along the way). Now, he teaches English to Czech students and works at The Language House, helping to train new teachers. Come fall, he will join the external teaching staff of Czech Technical University and teach future engineers the joys of English.

He would love to hear from any other Johnnies living in or visiting Prague, as well as anyone who wants to know more about teaching English abroad.

2003

Wilson M. Dunlavey (A) was named “California Lawyer of the Year” for his role in the landmark Volkswagen “clean diesel” litigation. In 2015, Volkswagen admitted that 11 million of its vehicles were equipped with software that it used to cheat on federal emissions tests. These cases were combined into a single action in federal court in San Francisco and settled for more than $11 billion, the largest consumer class action settlement in history.

Erika Ginsberg-Klemmt (SFGI) crossed the Atlantic with two small children in her sailboat Pangaea. She moved to Sarasota, Florida, and began investing in properties. She notes, “So much for ‘Das Prinzip Cruising,’” a preceptorial paper she wrote on the application of Hans Jonas’ Imperative of Responsibility to the prolonged cruising lifestyle. Her first born just graduated from high school and she has been singing, dancing, and acting in various venues in Sarasota County. She is sure she will take to the high seas again once her children are up and gone.

2004

Martin Gaudinski (A) became Lieutenant Commander Gaudinski in spring 2018, when he was commissioned into the United States Public Health Service. As a commissioned corps officer, he is dedicated to promoting, protecting, and advancing the health and safety of the nation. He does this as the medical director of the clinical trials program within the Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health. His work involves helping to develop and test new vaccines and other treatments for infectious diseases. More importantly, he and Kimberly Gaudinski (A04) are living in Kensington, Md., and raising their three little ones, Benjamin (7), Mariah (5), and Magdalena (3).

Michael Looft (A) sends his hello to fellow Johnnies. He reports he just published a novel and you can check out a video about it. He wishes eudaimonia for all.

2006

Heather Cook (SF) has been traveling for more than a year on a personal and geographical journey throughout America and her deepest self. She spent the six months previous converting a Ford cargo van into a home on wheels to live as much as she can according to her values while traveling the country, visiting friends, connecting with nature, and engaging in deep personal explorations. She says that this is a time for her to reflect on what I want to do with her life from this point on, to construct a life that matches her values and passions. You can follow her journey on her website or email her to catch up and she might just come visit you.

Jonathan Freeman-Coppadge (A) with his husband, Darren, and their son, Langston, will be resettling in Maryland in August after five years in Massachusetts. Jonathan will be teaching English at Severn School and is looking forward to milder winters, Old Bay everything, and a little more free time than boarding school has afforded him.

2009

Terrill Legueri (SFGI) and Aaron Kane Turner (SFGI) joyfully (and belatedly) announce the birth of their first son, Benjamin Terrill Turner. At a year old, Benjamin is following in the shoes of his father—he’s huge! Luckily, he is also very sweet so they don’t mind carrying around the extra weight. They look forward to submitting his application to St. John’s in 2034.

2010

Marianna Brotherton Crabbs (A10) and Jake Crabbs (A09) are pleased to announce the birth of their first son, Isaac Lundy on Easter Sunday. After (an all too brief) paternity leave, Jake has started work as a law clerk for the Illinois Appellate Court.

2011

Derek Ayala (SFEC) shares that it is with deep gratitude and more than a little humility that he is now a full-time religious studies professor at Glendale Community College.

Michael Fausnaugh (SF) has been working on the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), a NASA mission that successfully launched on April 18. TESS is a space telescope that will survey most of the sky over two years, searching for small planets (about the size of Earth) around nearby bright stars. He is writing the mission’s target selection code and is responsible for diagnosing the performance of the data reduction/analysis.

Lee Nutini (AGI) began working in May as an associate attorney at King & Spalding LLP in Atlanta, Ga. He will practice in the government matters and healthcare group. She was previously an associate attorney with a healthcare litigation boutique in Nashville, Tenn. (He notes for context that she attended law school after graduating from the GI in Annapolis.)

2012

Rhett Forman (SF) graduated in December 2017 with a PhD in literature from the University of Dallas. He has become a full-time lecturer in English and liberal arts at Tarleton State University in Stephenville, Texas, where he will design a new liberal arts undergraduate major.

2013

John Neylan (AGI) and his wife live on the California central coast and have worked for The San Luis Obispo Community Foundation for the past several years, awarding more than $5 million in grants and scholarships each year to support charitable work throughout their region and beyond. He credits any success to St. John’s and still remains in touch with colleagues.

Dylan K. Rogers (A) premiered two original works in his 2017 recital series, representing an hour of new music. Dylan is currently completing his MA at the University of Chicago; his thesis explores the ethical dimension of aesthetic dissonance.

2015

Elizabeth Fedden (SF) graduated in June with her MLIS from the University of Washington. She will be moving to New York City to complete an internship with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in their library and archives.

Emma Goos (SF) has fulfilled a lifelong dream and has begun a tattoo apprenticeship at Heart in Hand Tattoo in Castle Rock, Colorado. She looks forward to dedicating herself to an art form which explores the dialectic of self and other. If Johnnies are in the Denver area and interested in getting philosophical with a tattoo, email her at emmaconstancesterling(at)gmail.com. Follow her progress on Instagram @emmaconstancesterling.

Charles Zug (A) published two major articles last winter: One for The Washington Post and the other for Perspectives on Political Science (peer reviewed). He has also written multiple articles for the Claremont Review of Books.

2017

Ken Baumann (SF) is publishing his second work of nonfiction—a collection of poems, aphorisms, and essays titled Eat the Flowers—this summer through Sator Press.

Caitlin Kelly-Carmichael (SF) finished a run as Isabella in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure at the Aux Dog Theater in Albuquerque. She will be playing Hester Prynne in their production of The Scarlet Letter, opening September 2018.

Garri Saganenko (A) and two other Johnnies collaborated to host a screening of the documentary Four Games in Fall on May 12. Directed by Julie Marron (SF92) and produced by Kurt Redfield (A89), the screening took place at the Martha’s Vineyard Film Center, where Garri works as the development director and helped facilitate the screening. Julie and Kurt were in attendance and hosted a question-and-answer period following the film.

Joshua Sturgill (SF), after two years in preparation, has his first collection of poetry As Far As I Can Tell published and on the shelves! Copies are available at the Santa Fe bookstore, or online.

Obituaries

Corinne Hutchinson, SF03
February 19, 2018

Franz Snyder, SFGI75
April 25, 2018

Marta Weigle, Class of 1965
June 14, 2018

Spring 2018

1965

John Hetland (A) since 1973, has directed the Renaissance Street Singers, performing polyphonic motets here and there in New York City. He also hosts alumni seminars in his home.

1970

Benjamin Barney (SF) finished his work in education as of 2005 and now lives in the house his parents built in the early 1900s, and in which he was born. He has remodeled the house in Lukachukai, Arizona, in the middle of the Navajo Nation. If you happen to visit the canyon country of the Navajo Nation and Arizona he hopes you will get in touch and visit.

Les Margulis (A) writes: “Hello, anyone who remembers me (after all it has been a few years). After some 40 years in the ad game (I was one of the stars of Madmen) I am sort of retired and live in the mountains on the outskirts to Sydney. I still have a few clients mostly in old media (love the smell of day old news print).

In the last 10 years I think I have lived in at least 10 countries running ad agencies, from the good old USA to the farthest reaches of the old Soviet Union. It was an interesting life, but it does get a little tiresome being tailed by members in good standing of the FCB (which is the old KGB). Remind me to tell you over vodka shooters what it is like when a colonel decides that I am more trouble than the couple thousand rubles I am paying him to keep his hands off my business and he decides to introduce me to his best friend, Comrade Makarov—for those who didn’t attend small arms practice at St. John’s, the Makarov is a deadly side arm similar to a Glock.

Things are calmer now. I just have to worry that crows are eating my fresh herbs. Anyway, all should look me up if you come to this side of the world.”

1971

David Gleicher’s (SF) fourth book, Beyond Marx and Other Entries, has been published (by Brill). The previous one, receiving a number of reviews and comments of all sorts, is The Rescue of the Third Class on the Titanic: A Revisionist History.

Since St. John’s he has lived in New York City. In 1984, he received a PhD in economics from Columbia, and has been a professor at Adelphi University since 1981. He has been happily married since 1989 and his child, Isabel Lepanto Gleicher, is a classical (modern) flutist who plays in a number of ensembles around the United States and beyond, including (yes) Annapolis, and is well-known in New York. He would love to hear from 1965 to 1973 Johnnies.

1974

Diana Echeverria (A) sends greetings after finally being back in the United States, not far from St. John’s in Lorton, Va., on the Potomac River. She is still sailing and has been working in public health as a research scientist at the University of Washington and Battelle Memorial Institute for the last 30 years. Since 2004, most of her time has been spent abroad living and working in Ukraine, designing health surveillance for the Chernobyl workers and doing HIV research in Zimbabwe. Since 2010, she has spent time strengthening infectious disease surveillance in Tbilisi Georgia, Armenia, Tanzania, Kazakhstan, Iraq, and Afghanistan. She is now commuting to teach in Vietnam. She notes the research has been great, but still holds that the underlying structure of her thinking and most of the arguments on paper that get her work is informed by what she learned at St. John’s. She is grateful for the opportunity to learn how to think. She thinks she would benefit from a refresher and almost wants to do it again. She is happy to mentor new and old students interested in science, so feel free to find her even just to say hi.

1978

Rita (Shea) Collins (A78) says that St. Rita’s Amazing Traveling Bookstore is geared up for the Grand 2018 North Carolina and Back Traveling Bookstore Tour. With numerous stops along the way, she hopes to connect with Johnnies and share conversations.

1979

Tony Waters (A) graduated from the University of California, Davis, after spending a year as a Febbie. He currently is in between California State University, Chico, where he is a professor of sociology, and Payap University in Thailand, where he is on the faculty of peace studies. He has a strong interest in classical sociology (go ahead and ask him anything about Max Weber!), which occasionally sends him back to his year at St. John’s.

1981

Rick Campbell (A) notes his daughter is attending Summer Academy this year in Annapolis.

1982

Don Dennis (SF) writes: “Over the past 18 years I have been making flower essences with tropical orchids here in the UK. Since 2003, I have lived on the small Scottish island of Gigha, where I married Emma, a local dairy farmer. Three years ago we began a new business, making ice cream and bottling milk. It was needs must, financially! The big surprise was to discover that our milk is wildly popular, now selling across Argyll and in Glasgow and Edinburgh. We’re the only dairy in Scotland that pasteurises with the old-fashioned settings of 63°C for 30 minutes. Everyone else heats the milk much higher, for much shorter periods. Most common is 73°C for 15 seconds. That 10°C extra ruins the flavour. And so our milk won a major UK food award last year. Oh, and we use only glass bottles.

We are also trying to change UK government policy on school milk, because whole milk is banned for students over 5 years old here, on the misguided notion that this somehow helps combat childhood obesity. Yet all the studies out there point to an ‘inverse link” between whole milk consumption in childhood and high BMI. In the UK traditionally, farmers would give pigs skimmed milk when they wanted to fatten them up, because the skimmed milk leaves them so hungry they gobble up the grains.”

Cindy Rutz (SF) is the director of faculty development at Valparaiso University in Indiana, near Chicago. She also teaches for VU and for the adult great books program at the University of Chicago, called the Basic Program. They are starting to offer online classes and she is teaching one now on King Lear, Pride & Prejudice, and Virginia Woolf. She regularly visits the children of Paul Frank (SF), who died of cancer four years ago. Willa and Ellis are doing well, as is Paul’s widow, Monica. If any classmates come through Chicago, Cindy would love to see you.

David Stein (A) and Laura Trent Stein (A81) recently retired. Laura is an art student at the Schuler School for Fine Arts in Baltimore, where she’s learning the techniques of the Old Masters. David is organizing public outreach events for his local astronomy club and doing a bit of cybersecurity consulting. They have two sons; one is an economist and the other is a semi-professional Magic: The Gathering player.

1987

Susan (King) McElrath (A) recently moved to the San Francisco Bay area to take a job at Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley.

1988

Erin Milnes (A) has been the creative director at Catchword, a brand naming agency, for the past few years and loves the linguistic play and search for new metaphors. She also spends a fair amount of energy on music education at her son’s elementary school. Erin teaches third-grade music and coordinates the K-3 program, which is all-volunteer (the district doesn’t provide any music education until fourth grade). She plans to attend Homecoming this September and is looking forward to seeing everyone.

1993

James Lank (A) was recently appointed president and chief operating officer of Henderson Drilling Products, a Houston-based company serving the oil and gas industry.

Laura Melbin (SF) for the last six years has been working as the first-year academic dean at Hampshire College (which is philosophically similar but structurally different from SJC) in Amherst, Mass., where she makes her home with her two delightful children (Solomon, 9, and Emmanuel, 7). Her arm-candy, Patrick Hunter, and she are getting married in Las Vegas in April after almost five years together. They visited Santa Fe in June of 2017 and had a joyous reunion with a number of SJC friends, including Ellen Dornan (SF), Jenny (Smith) Harris (SF92), Rita James (SF92), Kendall McCumber (SF), Maria Pumilla (SF), and Jennifer Rand-Silverman (SF). She would love to hear from any Johnnies coming to Amherst (on college visits with their own children?)!

1997

Jill Nienhiser (AGI) and her husband, Dane Petersen, have become digital nomads. After two months in Nicaragua, they recently moved to Guatemala. They plan to travel for at least a year, moving every month or two. Jill continues to work as a communication consultant for Mind & Media in Alexandria, Va., where she has been employed since 1999.

1998

Sarah Ochs (A) got married and entered a PhD program this past year—two notoriously difficult and yet massively rewarding experiences at once! Her program is in sociology at George Mason University and she commutes from Richmond, Va., where she lives.

2000

Patrick Schaefer (A) was just selected as a Fellow for the Zhi-Xing China Eisenhower Fellowship. Typically, 10 candidates are awarded a four-week fellowship focused exclusively on China. This program was launched in 2015 after many years of partnership between EF and the China Education Association for International Exchange (CEAIE). Starting in Beijing and ending in Shanghai, Fellows experience two-and-a-half weeks of individualized programming in cities and towns across China.

Christina Ruffino (A) and her husband, Tim, welcomed their son, Henry, in February 2017. She resides in Frederick, Md., and works for the federal judiciary. She enjoyed writing this note in the third-person and welcomes email at christinaruffino(at)gmail.com.

Jason Salinas (AGI) retired from the Navy after 20 years as a helicopter pilot and began teaching English and coaching golf at the Severn School in Severna Park, Md. He and Susie (Lorenzini) (AGI99) live in Arnold, Md., with their three children. Susie is the owner/operator of Systems by Susie, a business that helps busy moms in Annapolis organize their lives and homes and provides ways to preserve and protect their children’s keepsakes.

2001

Talley (Scroggs) Kovacs (A) after 6 1/2 years in private practice is joining the Maryland Office of the Attorney General to handle litigation and real estate matters for the Department of Natural Resources. She is thrilled to transition after many years navigating the world of commercial litigation. Dr. Louis Kovacs, MD (A02) and Talley still live in downtown Baltimore and are glad to host visitors to Charm City!

2002

Jonathan Cooper (A) sends greetings from Bennington, Vt. He moved to the town with his wife, Kate, and daughter, June, in September 2016 to take a position as an economic development planner for southwestern Vermont. Johnnies past and present with an interest in planning and economic development are always welcome to get in touch, as are those who find themselves tarrying in or passing through this remarkably beautiful part of the world.

2003

Deborah (Roberge) Fermo (AGI), former USNA faculty member, has joined the faculty of The Pennington School in Pennington, N.J.

2004

Nellie McKesson (SF) quit her job last summer at Macmillan Publishers to found a tech startup called Hederis. The company is building a platform for automated bookmaking, using artificial intelligence and web technology to help people make books faster and more easily. Wish her luck!

2007

Jonathan Green (A) is a partner at a creative content studio called Conscious Minds in Los Angeles and just finished his first feature documentary Social Animals which premiered March 9 at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin. The film is one of only ten documentaries in competition at the festival.

2008

Reid Pierce (SFEC) has recently joined the City of Canterbury-Bankstown of Greater Sydney’s economic development team as the Innovation and Strategic Partnerships Officer. He is leading a project on smart cities and blockchain tech. Outside of work, he also recently published an interview with David Godman on Ramana Maharshi in SUFI Journal.

2009

Laura Logan Johns (SF) was hired as a research associate at Montana State University in Bozeman, Mont., in 2017. She is a member of the Apple Lab, where they study influenza and bacterial superinfection. She received her MS in microbiology in 2016. Additionally, Laura got married May 27, 2017.

2010

Jesse Rundle (A) finished an EP of songs written from Wallace Stevens’s Harmonium and is working on a full album of a songs written from the book, hoping to finish it later this year. He says it has been a fun project—both as a way to write music and as a way to explore the depths of the poems. Listen for free at jesseblakerundle.com/.

2013

Thomas Bonn (A) is a first-year PhD student in philosophy at University of Colorado Boulder, very tentatively planning to dissert on something like the unity of virtue in Plato (or another equally clear, narrowly defined topic).

2014

Brennan Harris (A) graduated in December of 2017 with a master’s degree in choral conducting from The Ohio State University. He is now working as a professional singer, pianist, and conductor in Columbus, Ohio, and planning his next career move.

2016

Stan Lavery (A) had one of his poems, titled “Travelogue,” published in February in Maryland’s Best Emerging Poets–An Anthology by Z Publishing House. He writes: “Incidentally, first contact came about after an editor read my poem, ‘A Decrepit Tutor’ in Energia, so thank you to the college and to the Energia staff for the labor of love that is St. John’s student publishing!”

2017

Micah Harris (A) earlier this year, in collaboration with a retired SJC tutor, published Only Small Things Are Good, a literary novel that tells the story of a West Texas mechanic’s child who goes to work in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and speaks truth to the President. Small Things inverts the premise of Plato’s Republic. Plato models the human soul on a massive scale by describing the structure of a just city but Small Things models our too-large country on the scale of a person, a family, and a community. The book is available from Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble and can be found at micahharris.com.

Ken Baumann (SF) writes that the small, nonprofit publishing company he runs, Sator Press, has published a new title, On Hell, a novella by Johanna Hedva.

Natvara Hongsuwan (SFGI) is currently a professional actress and a writer in Thailand.

Obituaries

Henry B. Higman, Class of 1948
August 4, 2017

James W. Jobes, Jr., Class of 1956
January 27, 2018

Richard S. Cahall, Class of 1959
January 21, 2018

Frances A. Burns, A69
September 11, 2017

Steven Sedlis, A73
January 21, 2018

Mary M. Neidorf, SFGI78
December 19, 2017

Pamela B. Sklar, A81
November 20, 2017

Seamus P. McNerney, SFGI96
August 26, 2017

Keith A. Bemer, A98
November 27, 2017

Corinne L. H. Hutchinson, SF03
February 19, 2018

Christopher R. Mules, A06
August 14, 2017

Share Your News

Let your classmates and the college know what you’ve been up to this year by sending your notes to alumni(at)sjc.edu.

We frequently publish stories about our alumni and their achievements since graduating from St. John’s—check out the News section of our website to stay up to date on these stories. If you have a story you would like to share, we encourage you to submit a story idea.