grandparents short my grandmother essay in english

My Grandmother Essay in 100, 150, 250, 300, 400 Words for Students

Here we are sharing some beautiful essays on my grandmother in 100, 150, 250, 300, 400 words. These essays are very easy to learn for any students.

In This Blog We Will Discuss

My Grandmother: Short Essay (100 Words)

We are a big family living together. My grandma is the head of the family. She is the oldest person here. We love her. My grandmother name is Rabeya Khatun and she is 78 years old. In this age, she is still strong enough and can do so many own works. My grandma is a really good woman.

She wakes up early in the morning and starts her day with prayer. She encourages us to pray more and more. She is the busiest person in our family because she takes care of all of us. She loves to spend time in the kitchen. I love my grandmother a lot.

My Grandmother: Short Essay (150 Words)

My grandmother is the eldest member of our family. She has sacrificed a lot for this family. Now she deserves respect and love from us. We all grandchildren are a fan of her. She used to spend most of her time with us. The most interesting thing about my grandma is she shares lots of amazing stories.

Especially in the night, the stories of ghosts are really scary to us. But we love to hear these stories. She is almost 80 years old, but it’s not appropriate, because she doesn’t know her birth date. She has never celebrated her birthday. But at this age, she still can move properly like other young peoples.

She is such a strong and good mentality woman. She is a caring woman and takes care of the whole family. She is like a driver who operates a big bus. We love our grandma a lot.

My Grandmother: Essay (250 Words)

Introduction:

Grandparents really love, they love their grandchild’s a lot. Today I am going to sharing my experience with my own grandma. She is an amazing woman, I have ever seen in my entire life. We, whole family and cousins, love and respect her a lot. I think elderly people like her should be respected and loved by us. This will make the families better for them.

My Grandmother:

My grandmother’s name is Sunita Mehta; she is about 75 years old. She was a school teacher at a young age. My father and uncles used to share lots of stories about her. They share how she has sacrificed a lot in her life for this family. She was an absolutely hardworking woman, who was really committed to make this family a better place. When my grandfather was struggling with his job, she came out and helped him working as a teacher. Besides this, she has done so many things for the family.

What She Does:

She is a religious woman. Most of her time, she spend doing prayer and Puja . In her leisure time, she sat with us and share lots of stories. Her stories are really addictive and that’s made us a fan of her. At this age, she still goes to the kitchen and takes care of the cooking. She was an amazing cook.

Conclusion:

My mother and aunties love my grandma a lot. They respect her and help her in all of her works. We all cousins also try loving her. She is the most amazing woman in my life.

My Grandmother: Essay (300 Words)

Most of the family, there is the eldest member. In our family, we have gone our grandma as the eldest member. She is the leader and the guide for the whole family. Before doing anything, we ask her for permission. It’s all about love and respect for her. In her time, she has done so much sacrifice for the family. Today I am going to share my experience with grandma.

The name of my grandma is Nazma Ahmed. She is about 70 years old and she is still can walk, and move properly. She is an interesting character. She is very talkative and loves to share stories with us. I and my cousins are really curious about spending time with her.

Her Daily Routine:

She wakes up early in the morning and starts her day with Morning Prayer. She is a very religious person. She encourages the whole family to pray more and more. In her this age, she still goes to the kitchen just to take care of the cooking situation. She was an amazing cook in her time. She takes her bath at 1 PM, before the noon prayer. In the afternoon, she sat with all of us and teaches us some time. She doesn’t have any major health issues yet.

How Much I Love Her:

I love her a lot. She is like my best friend. From childhood , I am spending most of my time with her. Not only, there a couple of cousins are we raising together and spending time together with her. She always loves us a lot. Even the whole family loves her.

She is the most senior person in our family and we respect her for this. She has done so many things to make this family better for us.

My Grandmother: Essay (400 Words)

Grandparents are the eldest member in every family. My grandfather is no more, but there is my grandma who is fulfilling the blank space of grandpa. Today I am going to share my love and feeling about my grandma. She is such an amazing woman I have ever seen in my entire life.

My grandma:

Her name is Ruksana Ahmed, and she is 74 years old. In this age, she is still strong enough. She can walk, and do a few little works too. At this stage of life, she still takes care of the whole family. As usual, she is the most important person in the family. Everyone values her decision and ask her before doing anything major. She is a religious woman. Most of her time, she used to spend praying. She teaches us the holy book Quran. In the time, when I was a kid, she used to teach me and a few of my cousins together. Now she doesn’t have good eyesight, but she still can read with her glasses.

Her life in a few words:

My grandma had a colorful life. My father and uncles have shared lots of stories of her. Her marriage with my grandpa has arranged so big and awesome celebration. She was the most beautiful girl in the area. Grandpa falls in love and asks her father to marry her.

Both families agreed and they got married. The most touching part of her life is, they faced some financial problems as a family. She started working as a part-time school teacher. She was really hardworking. That was really tough to maintain the whole family, lots of household works after doing teaching in the school.

But she did these successfully. Her hard work pays off and she was able to create a better place for the next generation. We love her a lot. She was a true fighter.

I and my cousins best friend:

She is my best friend. Not only I, but there also are lots of my cousins who used to spend most of the times with her. She loves us too. She never refuses us in anything. She always loves to tell us stories and teach us small lessons. She is very friendly.

After all, the whole family loves her. She has lots of contributions to this family. That’s why they never let her be down. Everyone respects her as like deities. I love my grandmother a lot too.

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Essay On ‘My Grandparents’ For Kids – 10 Lines, Short & Long Essay

Key Points To Note: Essay On Grandparents For Lower Primary Classes

10 lines on grandparents for kids, a paragraph on grandparents, short essay on grandparents for kids, long essay on grandparents for children.

No one loves kids more than their grandparents! Grandparents pamper and shower affection all the time. And, they are the ones who teach good values to their grandkids, guiding them to become good people. Therefore, it is no wonder that every kid their grandparents are special. Whether maternal or paternal, grandparents symbolise kids’ love, fun, guidance, and happiness. For kids and the whole family, grandparents are the guiding lights that steer them in the right direction. So, writing an essay on grandparents is exciting for kids.

Though my grandparents’ essay is an exciting essay topic for kids, young kids may still find it a bit difficult to write. To help them write a perfect my grandparents’ essay, we have here a few pointers. Here are some key points to remember when writing an essay on grandparents for lower primary classes kids:

Write points related to the essay topic.
Add a personal touch to the essay by writing about personal feelings.
Write about the importance of grandparents in your life.
You can add brief information about grandparents’ day.
Remember to structure your essay coherently with an introduction, middle and conclusion.

Writing about a subject in sentences is easier than writing an essay for class 1 and 2 students. Therefore, to make them interested in writing, ask them to write sentences and proceed with the essay. Breaking down a topic in sentences also helps them express their views; later, they can convert the sentences into paragraphs.

Here are ten lines on grandparents for kids for them to take inspiration from:

Grandparents are the best blessing every kid can have.
My grandparents are always there and love me a lot.
They play with me, teach me and also help me learn other creative things.
Sometimes, my grandparents cook for me and take me out to the park when my parents are busy.
At night, my grandparents help me brush and read bedtime stories.
Not only me but my grandparents also love to play with my friends and read stories with us.
On weekends, with my parents and grandparents, I go to picnics and have a lot of fun.
My grandparents are the ones who get most worried when I am hurt or sick.
They inspire me to become a good person and teach me to help others.
I am lucky to have such loving and caring grandparents.

Writing a short paragraph suits young kids. A short paragraph with fewer sentences doesn’t overwhelm them; they can quickly note it. Once they can write short paragraphs on various subjects, they can comfortably write longer essays.

Here is a paragraph on grandparents for young kids:

The Grand in grandparents mean more. So, everything is more to grandparents, including more love, care, guidance and fun. My love and affection for my grandparents is different. Grandparents are frequently saviours and protectors for their grandkids. In today’s world of nuclear families, grandparents are not part of the daily lives of grandkids. Still, for grandkids like me, grandparents are precious. I wait to be with them and look forward to their visits. My grandparents, too, are an important part of my life. I enjoy visiting them and treasure the times spent with them.

My Grandparents Essay For Kids - 10 Lines, Short and Long Essay

Grandparents are idols for every kid. Therefore, kids of all ages enjoy expressing themselves. However, young kids may find it hard to write essays on grandparents. Here is a short essay on Grandparents in English for kids for reference:

My grandparents are the most precious people in my life. They assist me in everything from studies to drawing to solving arguments with my friends. They always look after me and care for me. My grandparents are the ones who are the most worried about my well-being and safety. Whenever I am upset or sad, my grandma is the one who cares for me and cheers me up. Her loving hug is enough to ward off all my troubles. She softly strokes my hair while she reads me goodnight stories. My grandma bakes delicious cakes, which are my favourite delicacy. My granddad assists me in doing my school assignments. Every weekend, he takes me to the park. I enjoy seeing him feed the local cats and dogs on the street. They’re my grandfather’s closest companions. Every evening, my grandfather also teaches me how to play chess. I love spending time with my grandparents. They are the ones who always help me and guide me to do the right thing.

As kids progress in their academics, they must write longer essays. Students of higher classes are capable of expressing their views in words better. Hence, they can write long essays on grandparents.

Here is a long essay for class 3 students on grandparents:

Grandparents are the best gifts of life. They are always keeping an eye on their children and grandchildren. But in modern days, most people are losing touch with their traditions as the times change. Nuclear families have changed the dynamics of family values. However, this has also made people realise the importance of grandparents. Grandparents are the pillar that supports the whole family and takes care of their kids and kids of their kids. They bind the entire family with their love and care.

Ask any kid who loves and spoils them the most. And the answer will be the same- grandparents. The love of grandparents is reciprocated equally by grandkids. Their grandparents are the most precious, and they love them the most. Grandparents adore and lavish their grandkids with love, attention, and gifts. But they are also the first people to correct the kids when they make a mistake. With love, they guide grandkids in their lives and teach them the correct values and morals to make them better humans.

In all our lives, grandparents are indeed a blessing. They are the ones who have shaped our parents’ personalities. Our parents love and care for us the way our grandparents did when they were children because of their upbringing. Grandparents are also a source of support. Even though our parents may not support us in a few things, they are often the only people who do everything. Most significantly, grandparents have complete faith in our abilities. They are the ones that encourage us to follow our aspirations in the face of adversity. Even though some of our dreams seem incomprehensible to them, they continue to believe in us. They increase our self-esteem and enable us to perform better. Grandparents are also one of the key reasons we feel secure and protected. We know that our grandparents constantly pray for us, even if we don’t live with them.

They’re on the lookout for us. The house of their grandparents is almost everyone’s heaven. We feel at ease knowing we can always go to our grandparents’ house if needed. They assist us in various ways. Therefore, it’s no surprise that we cannot imagine our lives without our grandparents. We know our grandparents are wonderful gifts that not everyone is fortunate enough to get.

Why Grandparents Are Important In Our Life

Grandparents are important in our lives as they are always there to help us, teach us, care for us, and love us to make us grow into good people.

How You Can Establish a Healthy Relationship With Grandparents?

To establish a healthy relationship with your grandparents, give them respect, love them unconditionally as they love you, and care for them as they do for you.

What Will Your Child Learn From The Essay?

By writing the grandparents essay, your child will learn the importance of grandparents in their life. They will understand their grandparents’ efforts, care, and love towards them.

The essay will teach kids the importance of their grandparents, and they will realise how special their grandparents are to them. And they will also improve their creative writing and language skills.

Essay On My Grandfather for Class 1, 2 and 3 Kids Essay On My Grandmother for Classes 1, 2 and 3 Children How to Write An Essay On ‘My Parents’ for Class 1, 2 and 3 Kids

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Grand Parents Essay

Essay on Grand Parents

Grandparents are like an angel in disguise who is irreplaceable. They always pamper us endlessly. Their love nurtures us to grow into a beautiful human being. There is even a ‘The National Grandparents Day’ which is founded by Jacob Reingold and Marian McQuade. The first Grandparents Day was followed on September 13, 1961. Grandparents are like the heritage and very important family members as they stand on the top of the family tree.

If you want to write an essay on grandparents, we at Vedantu are here to help you out. The essay given in the following can be considered as an amazing sample. You can refer to it and write an essay about your grandparents on your own. All our study materials are of high quality. These will help you to score well in the exam.

Grandparents not only help their kids and grandkids in their learning and growth but also foster good habits and moral values amongst them. They are the vitamins for the child’s development. Many are not aware of the fact that Jacob Reingold and Marian McQuade are the founders of ‘The National Grandparents Day’. During a conference in the white house, Jacob was focusing on the importance of grandparents in society and he subsequently held the first Grandparents Day on 13th September- Sunday in 1961.

The Latin word ‘Pater’ and ‘Mater’ meaning ‘father’ and ‘mother’ respectively help us conclude the definition of the terms ‘Paternal grandparents’ as father’s parents while ‘Maternal grandparents’ as mother’s parents. At the moment, Grandparents are the oldest ones in our families. They held irreplaceable places in our hearts. Grandparents have inner as well as outer beauty. Being well in physical and mental health is a must-learn lesson from them. Grandparents are heritage and essential members in our families as they stand on the top of the family tree. They bridge the generation gap by narrating the interesting stories of the old generations. They are frequently known as caretakers of the family. Purest forms of culture and tradition are worth learning from them as they play the best role in history sharer. Grandparents are the god of the justice of the family. They believe equality amongst all similar to the way the statue of justice symbolized everyone is equal. They extraordinarily handle the judging part in solving the disputes in the family. Their conclusions don't hear both the parties. Moreover, aren’t they counselors, because they have a way of escape in every Labyrinth. They made the exact scenario of the country before independence stand in front of our eyes while evoking the truth. The importance of the grandparents in lives is significant as they play the teacher to doctor’s role in the growth of individuals.

The words of Richard Garnett touch the heart, he said, “Love is the great gift that one generation can leave for the other.” Love and grandchild from grandparents will never cease as they are the apple of not only a parent's eye but also grandparent’s eyes. They are not usually caught with loads of work resulting in having sufficient time for listening, observing and correcting small things of the child than that of busy parents. No one will disagree with the emotions that they are the heart of the family. Support and care are the two duties of us in the concluding phase of their life. The importance of grandparents is vanishing as the global world is developing with time. If you are lucky enough that you have grandparents still alive, cherish them as many times as you can and give them all they deserve. Life is so much easier when their love is around us. Each word spoken by them touches the heart through ears. There are countless research studies which focus on the benefits extracted from the strong bond between grandparents and the child.

Facts to Remember for Writing Essays on Grandparents

The National Grandparents’ Day was founded by Jacob Reingold and Marian McQuade.

Grandparents’ Day gives out an opportunity to celebrate the bond between children and grandparents.

The day reminds people all over the world to uphold communication between different generations.

A 9-year-old boy, Russell Capper sent a letter to President Richard Nixon in 1969.

The letter asked the president to set aside a day to celebrate the presence of grandparents.

Later In 1977, the senators in the US passed a joint resolution to the senate and requested the president to set a National Grandparents' Day.

Congress passed the resolution. In 1978.

President Jimmy Carter signed the proclamation.

The first ever National Grandparents' Day was celebrated on September 10, 1978.

In several families, both the parents are engaged with jobs, grandparents take the roles to look after a child's growth.

Grandparents not only look after a child's physical well-being but also nurture their mental and spiritual growth.

Grandparents are responsible for integrating morales as well as traditions in the children.

But several children forget to thank their grandparents for their contribution to their growth and development.

It is the day to thank them and appreciate their presence in children’s lives.

Grandparents’ Day is also a day to enhance intergenerational communication.

Personal Touch to Add in the Essay

Grandparents are blessings in every child’s life.

They are the reason a child’s parents are the way they are.

Grandparents are supportive even when at times, parents fail to support their children.

Grandparents are the epitome of morales, teachings and love. They are living inspiration of strength and wisdom.

Grandparents thrive on love and that is all they ever expect out of their grandchildren and needless to say, loving them is just as easy.

Grandparents have the best upbringing because it reflects on the parents who bring their children.

They are the backbone and support system of a family.

They always pray for their grandchildren and their whole family. They always protect their children and grandchildren.

They provide safe space and a child can always count on them for anything.

They have great stories that surely inspire children to grow to be like them.

How to Write this Essay like a Pro

Do the Research

It is essential to write the valid points and present them in this essay as it is based on Grandparents. An essay on Grandparents must be comprehensive and should ideally contain the context related to this topic hence, it is very important for a student to know about this topic thoroughly in order to write the essay brilliantly. It consists of personal touch in order to make it a better essay. A student should pay closer attention to covering all the points that are needed to be present while writing about Grandparents.

Analyze the Question

A student must understand the intention of the essay and know the points that are needed to be used. Points such as the significance of grandparents in today’s world or the history of Grandparents’ Day. It will clearly form an essay that consists of all the valid points related to Grandparents.

Remembering the Information on Grandparent’s Day

Grandparents as a topic is easy because there are so many points to remember about grandparents and it is also a personal essay in which writing about all of them is not possible in a condensed essay so it is important to understand and remember the points which are more essential than the others to be mentioned in the essay.

Defining the Terms and Theories

It is essential for a student to explain the points being used in the essay. For example, writing the role of grandparents in a child’s life or the reason for appreciating grandparents in life is not enough, it also has to be explained by the student how it has been deteriorating in today’s life.

Organize a Structured Essay

Students must write the essay in a coherent manner which must begin with the introduction to Grandparents’ Day, followed by the body of the essay that must contain the role and significance of grandparents and other information regarding the topic of Grandparents. It must be well concluded later to tie everything up neatly.

FAQs on Grand Parents Essay

1. How Grandparents are Important in Our Life?

Grandparents are the loveliest members of a family and also a valuable resource because they have so many stories and experiences to share with us. They are adored by their grandchildren most of the time even when they don’t obey their own parents or other adults in the household. Grandparents are the eldest in the family. Hence children who grow up with them gain a lot of moral values which are helpful in real life.

2. Why Do Children Love their Grandparents?

There is a unique bond of love between the grandparents and their grandchildren. It's typically more fun along with a lot of patience and less criticism than that which children receive from their parents. It's a beautiful relationship that imparts a feeling of safety, security, and comfort.

3. How Can I Write an Essay on Grandparents?

Essay writing is easy yet a bit tricky. The few basic steps to be followed to write an essay are - do research well about the topic and write the essay in a stepwise manner. Write a small intro in the beginning, then move into the body paragraphs talking about the main topic, and then conclusion at the end. Always try to maintain a flow throughout the essay. The same format should be followed while writing an essay on grandparents. Check Vedantu website for further guidance.

4. Does Vedantu Provide Assistance in Essay Writing?

Yes, Vedantu provides sample essays on various topics. You can visit our official website or download our app from the play store to get access to those. These are really helpful to understand the basic structure of an essay.

Essay About Grandmothers

500 words essay on grandmothers.

Most of us have been blessed with grandmothers. But, some of us are lucky enough to have spent more time with them compared to others. Grandmothers are a blessing in disguise as they shower our love on us and guide us through the right path. Through essay about grandmothers, we will take a look at how strong they are.

Angels in Disguise

Grandmothers are sweet little in disguise for all grandchildren. They go through all the pain and put in the effort to get all the work done for their grandchildren. Their hearts are made of gold as they treat all her grandchildren equally.

Even when we face restrictions, they are always there to support us. A lot of times, our parents give us the no signal but it is our grandmothers who try to turn that no into yes. This is their greatness and love for us.

Whether it is our father’s mother or mother’s mother, both grandmothers give equal love. It is because of them that we get to eat such delicious meals. Nothing can compare the taste of grandmother’s food .

Often, they do not tell us about their struggles but keep a happy face to make us happy. Even though our grandmothers have endured a lot, they never let that come to the surface. They always protect us no matter what.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

A Shining Example

My grandmother is a shining example of the person I wish to be. She is over five feet tall and very kind. Her sweet demeanour helps us win over anyone’s heart she comes across. As a child, I always used to hold her delicate and soft hands.

She has stories, a lot of them. She has been through different times, worlds and hardships, but still remains strong as ever. Even though she has grown up time apart from me, she always makes sure to keep up with me to not miss out on anything.

I simply love watching her savour her food and cherish it. She is often the first one to the dinner table but always the last one to leave. She makes sure no one eats alone so she sits till the very end. The patient lady that my grandmother is.

I enjoy spending my afternoons with her, sitting by the window and resting. She sips on tea slowly while I listen to the stories she tells me. All the fascinating stories about her childhood and her siblings.

My grandmother is a wonderful woman who has taught me compassion and sincerity. I owe all my gentleness and empathy to her. I hope she gets to live a long and healthy life full of love and warmth.

Conclusion of the Essay about Grandmothers

Thus, the great women to impact our lives don’t have to be celebrities. They are our grandmothers who with their personal stories and struggles create a legacy which fosters wonderfully passionate children. I see my grandmother and am reminded of myself, how she lives inside me and makes me stronger each day.

FAQ of Essay about Grandmothers

Question 1: Why grandmothers are so special?

Answer 1: Grandmothers are special because they love their grandchildren to the moon and back. Sometimes, they love them even more than they love their own children. She does everything to see her grandchildren happy. A grandmother’s love is strong, pure and unconditional.

Question 2: What are the responsibilities of grandmothers?

Answer 2: The role of grandmothers in family life is ever-changing. They don many hats, from mentor to historian, to a loving companion and to child-care provider. They are the ones who give their grandchildren a sense of security of belonging to the extended family .

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Essay on My Grandmother

Short essay for kids my grandmother.

My grandmother is an old woman. She is a religious lady. She wears very simple dress. She has silvery hair. She is particular about her eating and living habits. She is the first to get up and last go to bed. She is loving and affectionate. She has a big heart. She loves me very much. Her gentle eyes and loving hands are always around me. She takes care of my needs. My parents respect her very much. She does not look to her own comforts.

She is always ready to sacrifices for the whole family. She is good adviser. In difficulties we rush to her to seek her advice and help. Even the neighbors a are all praise for her. May she live long! essay on my mother for class 1 essay on my grandmother in english my mother daily routine essay my grandfather essay in english english essay my mother scholarship essay examples sample scholarship essays essay about your grandmother essay on grandparents factual description of my grandmother my grandfather essay essay of my mother an essay on my mother my inspiration essay my mother essay i love my grandmother tribute to my grandma tribute for grandmother

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EssayBanyan.com – Collections of Essay for Students of all Class in English

Essay on My Grandmother

A family makes a person complete. Each member of a family plays different role in making the family happy and connected. Out of all the most lovable member of family is grandmother. The love and care a child receives from grandmother is priceless and incomparable. She is the elder member of the family. People who have grandmother with them are the most fortunate people in the world. Therefore, to highlight the love of grandmother in our life today we will discuss My Grandmother in detail.

Short and Long My Grandmother Essay in English

Here, we are presenting long and short essays on My Grandmother in English for students under word limits of 100 – 150 Words, 200 – 250 words, and 500 – 600 words. This topic is useful for students of classes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 in English. These provided essays on My Grandmother will help you to write effective essays, paragraphs, and speeches on this topic.

My Grandmother Essay 10 Lines (100 – 150 Words)

1) My grandmother is my favorite person of the family.

2) She always takes care of me and my siblings.

3) Whenever I feel bore, she finds something for us to do together.

4) She always has plenty of stories, and sweets to share with me.

5) She listens to me everytime and save me from mother’s scolding.

6) She always has a sparkle in her eye and a smile on her face.

7) She cooks my favorite food everyday for me.

8) She also inspires me with her life experiences.

9) I’m so blessed to have my grandma in my life.

10) My grandma is an amazing person, I love her so much.

Short Essay on My Grandmother (250 – 300 Words)

Introduction

My grandma is one of the most important person of my life. Although she is getting old but she still plays an active role in our family, and I absolutely love her. She is the backbone who keeps our family connected. She is the one by seeing whom every family member feels joyful. She is really a pillar of our family. At this age she is very active and does most of her stuffs on her own.

Personality of My Grandmother

My grandmother has achieved much throughout her life, and I have the utmost respect for her. My grandmother loves to talk and is a great conversationalist. She loves to tell stories about her childhood and her travels around the world. She can talk for hours and never become bored. She has helped countless other people in her lifetime.

Unconditional Love of My Grandmother

Ultimately, what I love most about my grandmother is her unconditional love. She’s always been there to support me no matter what I do. She is always proud of the things I do, even if I don’t always succeed. The best part is whenever I do wrong she still take my side and saves me from shouts of my mom and dad. Her unconditional love is something I will always cherish.

My grandmother is an amazing woman who touched the lives of many. She is kind, generous, and always put others before herself. She is a role model to many, and her legacy will live on in the hearts of those who knew her.

Long Essay on My Grandmother (500 Words)

My grandmother is an amazing and inspiring woman. She is the glue that holds our family together and is always there for us no matter what. She is wise and caring, and her unconditional love and support has been a constant source of strength for me throughout my life. Having a great sense of humor, she makes us laugh always. Her stories of the past bring joy, hope and insight into our lives, and she has a special way of making everyone feel loved.

Influence of My Grandmother

My grandmother’s influence on me has been powerful and lasting. She is an old-fashioned yet kind and caring person and has always encouraged me to strive for my goals. She is always available to me to listen and give me advice on right and wrong. She taught me many life-lessons and values. I remember her lessons about to be strong and independent in life. She also encouraged me to be kind and compassionate to others.

My Favorite Person: My Grandmother

My grandmother is the one person who I admire the most. She has always been supportive and helped me reach my goals. She is wise and caring and takes nothing for granted. She believes in the power of education and knows that no matter what I will achieve my dreams. She is a strong and courageous woman who has inspired me to never give up.

Importance of Grandmother

Grandmothers play a very important role in a family. They provide comfort, security and unconditional love. Grandmothers are also a great source of knowledge and support. They sometimes give us advice or just lend an ear when we need it. Grandmothers are always there to listen and offer a warm hug when we are feeling down.

Love of Grandmother

Grandmothers share a special kind of love and wisdom with all of their grandchildren. Their love is unconditional and they are always eager to share their experiences with the younger generation. Whether it’s baking cookies, playing a game, or simply providing a listening ear, grandmothers show that they care in as many ways as possible. Grandmothers will always hold a special place in the hearts of their grandchildren.

My grandmother has been a strong influence in my life. She has been there for me in the good times and the bad. She is wise, kind and loving and I feel so lucky to have her by my side through all the ups and downs. My grandmother is someone whom I love and admire and I will always cherish all the moments spent with her. She is a true blessing and I am so thankful to have her in my life.

I hope the above-provided essay on My Grandmother will be helpful to you in understanding the role and importance of grandmother in our life.

FAQs: Frequently Asked Questions on My Grandmother

Ans. Grandparents can provide love, stability and guidance, as well as pass down cultural values and traditions to the younger generations. They can also offer valuable life advice and be a source of emotional support.

Ans. Mothers of the dad or moms are called as grandmothers.

Ans. Granny, Grandma, Dadi, Nani, Aaji, etc. are some other names for grandmother.

Ans. It all depends on your grandparents’ interests and abilities. Some activities you could do together include gardening, baking, cooking, reading, going for walks, or watching movies.

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My Grandparents Essay In 150 – 200 Words

Read this example 150 to 200 words essay on topic my grandparents for class 2 kids students. These paragraphs are written in simple and easy English.

My Grandparents Essay In 150 words

1. Introduction Paragraph

Grandparents play an essential role in the lives of many people, including mine. As a student, I have had the pleasure of spending a lot of time with my grandparents and have come to cherish their presence in my life.

2. Body Paragraphs

My grandparents are both kind heart and loving individuals who always put family first. They have taught me many valuable lessons about life, including the importance of hard work, kindness, and honesty.

Whenever I visit my grandparents, I feel a sense of comfort and warmth. They always have a listening ear and are ready to offer advice whenever I need it. I love hearing their stories of their past and the experiences they had.

I also admire my grandparents’ wisdom and ability to adapt to changing times. They have lived through so much and have many valuable insights to offer. Their love for me is unwavering, and I know that they will always be there for me no matter what.

In conclusion, my grandparents are an essential part of my life, and I am grateful for their presence. They have provided me with guidance, love, and support, and I will always cherish the memories I have with them.

Hello! Welcome to my Blog StudyParagraphs.co. My name is Angelina. I am a college professor. I love reading writing for kids students. This blog is full with valuable knowledge for all class students. Thank you for reading my articles.

My Personal Culture Essays & Paragraphs for Students

The Key to Writing a Great Essay About a Grandparent

When you finally turn off your throwback binge of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and begin the brainstorming stage of the process, make sure to do these things to write an effective essay about your grandmama or papa:

Your essay should first and foremost be about you.

Make sure your grandma doesn’t take over your college essay. An anecdote about an experience or conversation you had with a grandparent can be a great way to illustrate something about your background or values, but your essay should always feature you as the main character. If you need help coming up with a specific story, go mining for mementos like photos and birthday cards. Or better yet, have a conversation if you can! Whether it’s a phone call, an afterschool visit, or a letter of everything you would want to say to a grandparent who has passed away, speaking directly to that person will help you uncover cherished memories that you both participated in. The more specific and detailed your story, the easier it will be to tell it from your perspective. After all, your granny doesn’t need to get accepted to college – and she is probably too old for ramen dinners night after night anyway.

Write about their impact on you…

Once you have homed in on a memory or experience, think about what you learned from it. What does it say about you? Does/did knowing your grandparent make you more understanding? Kind? Curious? Empathetic? What kind of attributes does grandma bring out in you and how does she do that? Maybe your grandmother is known for her elaborate Thanksgiving dinners, and over time, you have become her sous chef. What did this experience teach you about discipline and organization? About secret ingredients and family tradition? About what it really means to be a homemaker? Or perhaps you have been the teacher: showing your Meemaw and Pawpaw how to play Words With Friends so you can feel connected from afar. Whatever the story, remember that it should lead to a bigger lesson about who you are or who you have become as a result of knowing your amazing grandparents.

…and then prove it

Finally, you have to show, not tell. Remember that conversation we mentioned earlier? Here’s where your notes, photos, and scrapbooks will come in handy. Concrete details and bits of dialogue are the final key ingredient to any college essay — but especially the kind built around a relationship. Don’t just say that your grandparent makes you more adventurous – tell admissions about the time you risked all of your team’s points in Jeopardy because you were confident in your answer and remembered your grandpa telling you that you have to take great risks to see great rewards. Show admissions how you’ve applied what your grandparent taught you to your everyday life.

If your essay reads as a eulogy to your grandparent, think about how you can turn the essay around. One way to do this would be to try to only include your grandparent in the first and last paragraph of your essay: introduce your relationship and its’ impact, tell your own story, and bring that story full circle back to your grandparent. This, of course, isn’t the only way to structure your essay .

Any way you write it, we wish you luck, and if you’re looking for the best prompt to match your essay to – check out our guide !

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Essay on Grandparents for Students in English [Easy Words*]

January 19, 2021 by Sandeep

Essay on Grandparents: The most loving, caring and benevolent human beings are our grandparents. They teach good behaviour to their grandchildren and beautiful ways to lead a successful and respectable life. They share their life experiences and inspire us with their struggles and positivity. They hold our hands throughout without much expectation from us. We should always offer love, care and shower them with kindness. They motivate us to maintain good health and physical fitness.

Essay on Grandparents 500 Words in English

Below we have provided My Grandparents Essay in English, suitable for class 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 & 10 school students.

Our grandparents are the greatest gift to us by God. Their care and affection serve to be the root that holds our family together. Our childhood days, spent with our grandparents, feel blissful. The grandparent and grandchildren bond is truly fascinating. It keeps both of our innocence alive. Thus, we must treasure it.

My Grandparents

They say people who have their grandparents are the luckiest. I agree with this statement. My grandparents are my best friends, and I love them. They are both fun-loving creatures. Their knowledge has no bounds. Whenever I fall, they are present to pick me up. Sadly, we live in different places. However, I make sure I meet them every weekend.

My Grandfather

Though my grandfather is 70 years old, he is still young at heart. He retired as an army officer. He has a great personality, and he has an even greater sense of humour. He has an excellent fitness routine. Whenever we go out for a picnic, he makes sure we get to spend quality time in sports activities.

We both love to prank everyone else. Often I find him solving Sudoku puzzles in the weekly magazines. Apart from that, he loves to read. And he makes sure to hand me a book whenever we meet. I wonder how he always stays cheerful. His actions inspire me to have bigger dreams.

My Grandmother

Out of all, the lovely ladies in our family, my grandmother is the best. She is 65 years old, yet she looks so young. She has always been a remarkable teacher-both, personally and professionally. To her, life neither started nor ended in books. It feels amazing to spend time with her.

My grandmother is such a great cook. We always sneak into the kitchen and experiment with new recipes. Her tricks and tips never fail. Besides that, we love watching movies together. She is always kind to everyone. Her thoughtfulness moves me. She always guides me towards making the right decision.

Importance of Grandparents in Our Life

The role of grandparents in each individual’s life is nothing short of vital. The growing stage of a child is critical. It is when he/she learns about the essence of life. Often in this hectic world, parents cannot spend quality time with their children. However, children begin to learn the morals and core values of life in their grandparents’ presence.

Interaction with your grandparents allows you to explore the world. You get to peek through their lives from a closer perspective. You inculcate sharing and caring habits when you are close to your grandparents. Your parents might scold you, but your grandparents will never do that. They are your biggest supporters throughout life.

10 Lines on Grandparents Essay in English

Grandparents are the basic roots who keep us together as a family .
They are knowledgeable, affectionate, and full of experiences.
They share a special bond with their grandchildren.
I am lucky to have both of my grandparents.
My grandfather used to be an army officer at his working age.
He loves sharing his war stories with me.
My grandmother is a very charming lady.
She loves to spend time with me.
I always visit them during my holidays.
I respect my grandparents and wish they continue to stay healthy as usual.

An Essay on Time Spent with Grandparents [PDF]

Grandparents are so awesome, are not they? today we are going to see an essay on time spent grandparents, and how I feel while I spend my time with them, so let’s dive into the essay.

Essay on Time Spent with Grandparents feature image

While all my friends were getting excited about the weekend that they would see their grandparents, I never understood them. To me, there was nothing to talk about when they were talking about their grandparents.

Not that I had no grandparent, but we just never visited them. All our weekend would be spent on outdoor activities like children’s sports as we wait for holiday camping.

We never had any story to tell about our grandparents. Well, my elder siblings used to tell me that they used to visit granny when they were young. Nobody told me why they stopped.

However, the stories my classmates would tell about their experience with their grannies made me curious, wanting to have a story to tell too. So I asked mum that she take me to see them. Unexpectedly, she promised to take me over the next weekend. What a fun moment did I have!

I guess mum had told my grandparents about the visit, so they were eager to see us. Everything was wonderful. The first thing that took my attention is the type of traditional food that granny made for us.

I won’t say that mammy does not make us delicious food, but then the food I took that day was friendlier to my mouth. I loved the fact that she entertained by being in the kitchen.

I now understand why all that my friend talks about when it comes to their grandparents is food. Well, they have other stories, but when it comes to food, everyone wants to talk.

The weekend gave me a break from the baked food that we are used to at home. My grandmother noticed that I was so entertained about the food and so she packed the rest for me. What generous granny!

Another thing that made my day was how my grannies were able to give me stories, some fiction, while other real-life stories. For the first time, I spent a whole day without thinking about where my tab was for games.

The stories were so fascinating with lots of lessons. Even for the ones that seemed factious, they would talk about is as though they were present when the scene was taking place.

I loved the zeal that they had. I realized that most of the stories that my grandfather had been more of war-related, while those that my grandmother had been more of family and religious related.

In of the significant thing that I learned was that at times things happens in life that at times can make you doubt whether you will come out of it and smile.

I also enjoyed playing around with my grandparent’s pets. Wow! I am still thinking about Petra, my grannies’ doggy. This dog would run from one end of the compound to another as we play around with my cousin’s ball.

I realized he used loved playing around with the ball as though chasing me but on a jockey ground. This took the better part of my day since the compound was fascinating. I am not a cat lover, so I didn’t mind about the pet cat whom some people would call pretty.

I loved the whole day at my grandparents’ place. If mommy makes a joke about going back, I think I will spend the entire night doing my homework to make the proposed day free.

I have not been able to stop talking about the day. Every time we are storing as a family, I tend to get attracted to the memories I brought home. I am hoping that I will get such a change soon.

Let me know in the comment section what you think about the Essay on Time Spent with Grandparents if you have some of your point views do share in the comment section. Thank you!

English Essay on “My Grandparents” English Essay-Paragraph-Speech for Class 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 CBSE Students and competitive Examination.

My Grandparents

Essay No. 01

Children adore their parents so what do they feel for their grandparents who are nothing but parents with a whole lot of icing! Forever patient, forever kind and forever spoiling, grandparents make children feel important and secure. My grandparents were all that and more.

As a child I was closest to my maternal grandfather. He would spoil me rotten, tell me stories, buy me candy, take me for walks, listen patiently to all that I had to say and most importantly, save me from Mom! I lost my paternal grandmother, unfortunately, when I was very young. She was the epitome of kindness, I was told. My paternal grandfather lived with my aunt in Canada and we saw him but once a year, gathered all his magnanimous gifts, said a solemn thank you and stayed away. He was a man of few words who had spent his life time toiling for a very large family (siblings and their families included). My maternal grandmother was strict and we always got into trouble with her. I lost my maternal grandfather when I was fourteen after which I got closer to both my maternal grandmother and paternal grandfather. The former died a few years later but only after our lovely relationship blossomed. The latter remained my dearest friend, philosopher and guide and stayed with me till he was a hundred, two years ago. I really have been fortunate to be blessed, thus.

“What children need most are the essentials that grandparents provide in abundance. They give unconditional love, kindness, patience. humor, comfort, lessons in life and, most importantly, cookies.”

Essay No. 02

If you have grandparents, you are indeed lucky! I have two sets of them—my father’s parents, and my mother’s parents. My grandparents on my father’s side live with us.

My grandfather goes for a long walk in the morning and on the way back he picks up the milk bottles. My grandmother is busy in the kitchen since my mother goes out to work.

In the evening, we all sit down together and fell each other about the day’s happenings. Granny tells us interesting stories about her youth while Grandpa talks seriously with my father. I can’t imagine my family without my grandparents.

Once in a while, my mother’s parents visit us. You should see my mother then! She is all smiles, bustling about in the kitchen, making tasty dishes. She even forgets to tell me to study!

We all have a wonderful time, for granny always brings fantastic gifts and is full of life and laughter. She really loves us. Grandpa too, although quiet, is very affectionate. He is a wizard in Math’s and whenever he comes I ask him to teach me.

When both the grandfathers get together it is great fun listening to them. The grandmothers’ conversation deals with how good their son and daughter are, and the grandfathers talk of the freedom struggle and how the country’s standards are going down.

As I said before—you are indeed lucky if you have grandparents!

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Essay on A Visit to My Grandparents House

Students are often asked to write an essay on A Visit to My Grandparents House in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on A Visit to My Grandparents House

Arrival at grandparents’ house.

The journey to my grandparents’ house is always filled with anticipation. As we pull up to the familiar old house, my heart leaps with joy.

Warm Welcome

Upon entering, the smell of my grandmother’s cooking fills the air. Their warm smiles and tight hugs make me feel loved and cherished.

Enjoying the Visit

Time flies as we share stories, play games, and enjoy delicious meals. I especially love my grandfather’s tales about his childhood.

Leaving is always the hardest part. As we wave goodbye, I look back, already eager for my next visit.

Also check:

Paragraph on A Visit to My Grandparents House

250 Words Essay on A Visit to My Grandparents House

The journey.

The trip to my grandparents’ house always begins with a sense of nostalgia, a journey back in time. The city’s concrete jungle slowly gives way to open fields, the air becomes cleaner, and the noise of the city is replaced by the chirping of birds. It’s a transition from the fast-paced, technology-driven life to a simpler, more peaceful existence.

The Arrival

On arrival, the old wooden gate creaks open, revealing the familiar rustic charm of the house. The structure, though old, stands tall, representing years of love and memories. The garden, my grandfather’s pride, is a riot of colors, with flowers blooming in every corner.

The Warm Embrace

My grandparents, despite their age, always greet us with an energetic welcome. Their faces light up with a warmth that fills the room. Their stories, filled with wisdom and humor, are the highlight of our visit. The tales of their youth, the struggles and triumphs, are lessons in resilience and perseverance.

The Farewell

Leaving is always the hardest part. The house, once buzzing with activity, seems to sigh in the quiet. As we pack our bags, we carry with us not just souvenirs but also the wisdom and values imparted. The visit to my grandparents’ house is not just a break from routine, but a journey of self-discovery and connection with my roots.

In conclusion, the trip to my grandparents’ house is a cherished experience. It’s a reminder of the importance of family, tradition, and the simple joys of life. It’s a journey that, no matter how often undertaken, always feels new.

500 Words Essay on A Visit to My Grandparents House

Introduction.

Visiting my grandparents’ house is always an enriching experience, filled with warmth, wisdom, and a sense of timeless tranquility. Nestled in the countryside, their abode is a haven away from the hustle and bustle of city life, a place where the clock seems to slow down and life takes on a different rhythm.

Stepping Back in Time

Arriving at my grandparents’ house is like stepping into a time capsule. The house, a charming old cottage, is adorned with relics from the past, each telling its own story. Antique furniture, black and white photographs, and vintage decor pieces transport me to a bygone era, offering a glimpse into the life and times of my ancestors.

The Garden of Eden

Their backyard is a sprawling garden, a veritable Eden, teeming with fruit trees, blooming flowers, and buzzing bees. The garden is a testament to my grandparents’ love for nature and their dedication to nurturing life. It’s here that I’ve learned some of my most invaluable lessons about patience and the rewards of hard work.

The Kitchen of Memories

The kitchen, the heart of the house, is where my grandmother weaves magic with her culinary skills. The aroma of home-cooked meals, the clatter of utensils, and the warmth of the old wood-fired stove, all contribute to a sense of comfort and nostalgia. It’s here that I’ve learned that food is not just about sustenance, but also about love, tradition, and community.

Wisdom in Stories

Evenings are reserved for storytelling sessions with my grandfather. His tales, filled with wisdom and humor, are a window to the world beyond textbooks. They’ve taught me about the resilience of the human spirit, the importance of kindness, and the value of humility. These stories, told in the soft glow of the setting sun, have shaped my worldview and left an indelible mark on my character.

A visit to my grandparents’ house is more than just a break from routine. It’s a journey into the past, a communion with nature, a culinary adventure, and a treasure trove of wisdom. The memories I’ve made and the lessons I’ve learned there are invaluable. They’ve enriched my life and broadened my perspective, reminding me of the simple joys of life and the timeless wisdom of the older generation.

In the end, my grandparents’ house is not just a physical structure; it’s a living, breathing entity, filled with stories, wisdom, and love. It’s a place where I’ve grown, learned, and evolved. It’s a place I call home.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

Essay on My Grandparents
Essay on My Country My Pride
Essay on My Country India

Apart from these, you can look at all the essays by clicking here .

Happy studying!

Essay on A Visit to My Grandmother’s House

Every summer vacation, my parents and I go to visit my grandmother. This time too we went to stay with her for a week.

My grandmother stays in a small town near Berlin.

Her house is very beautiful and it is located in the middle of the town. The house has four bedrooms and a huge kitchen. This time when we went to meet her, I found her lovely garden full of beautiful flowers.

She was very happy to see us. We stayed with her for a week, and each day she cooked something special for us. She also baked my favorite chocolate cookies.

The weather there was very pleasant. So one day we all went for a picnic to the lakeside.

At night I slept in my grandmother’s room, and she told me lovely stories. She not only showed me my father’s pictures when he was young but also narrated many funny incidents about my father and his friends.

She gifted me two pullovers which she had knitted herself.

I always feel happy to be with her. I wish I could stay with her for a little longer. I left her house with a heavy heart. She too felt sad about us going back. We promised to visit her soon.

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My Grandmother Essay In English For Class 2 Students

My Grandmother Essay in English for Class 2 Kids

Writing “My Grandmother Essay In English for Class 2” is a topic of interest for every child. Children enjoy conveying their emotions about their role model, who inspires and encourages them to achieve their goals. When given an opportunity to write “My Grandmother Essay”, they love to express their feelings in an artistic manner.

Grandmothers have a caring and loving nature and love their grandchildren very dearly. Kids love spending time with their grandmas and eagerly wait for them to cook delicious dishes of their choice. Grandmas shower loads of love and blessings and have a special corner in their hearts for their grandchildren.

Given below is a short my grandmother essay for Class 2 kids. We hope the “My Grandmother” essay given below will give a better idea to kids to compose a few lines on this interesting topic. You can download the “My Grandmother Essay In English” in colourful PDF format, from the link provided below.

Download “My Grandmother Essay In English” PDF for Free

My Grandmother Essay In English For Class 2 Kids

My grandmother’s name is Mrs. Sharon Rodriguez.
She is about seventy years old.
She wears simple clothes.
She is a very loving person.
She cooks tasty food.
I love the cookies she makes.
She loves knitting.
She knows a lot of songs and stories.
She tells us stories at bedtime.
I love my grandmother.

A Short Essay on My Grandmother for Class 2

My grandmother is a loving person. She cooks well and makes sure we all eat on time. She helps me finish my homework and tells me a lot of stories from her childhood. She is a good chess player and helps me understand the game. My grandmother also tells us stories. She motivates us to be kind and helpful. I love my grandmother, and we spend a lot of time together.

Did you like “My Grandmother Essay for Class 2” given above and want to explore more such essay topics for Class 2 kids? By referring to the above “My Grandmother” essay, kids can try drafting some lines on their respective grandmas. Get access to a huge variety of resources like NCERT Solutions, GK Questions, essays, poems, stories, easy trivia questions for kids in our Kids Learning section and explore more.

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Arrests at UCLA, Columbia as campus demonstrations intensify

My kids don't have any grandparents, and it's left a void.

My kids are growing up without grandparents. They still have intergenerational relationships.

I'm grateful for the people we've met in the community who have made connections with my kids.

Though no one can replace their grandparents, I'm grateful for these intergenerational friendships.

Each day in my community, I witness grandparents joining their grandchildren at library storytime, school pick-ups, assemblies, sports games, and musical performances. A pang of envy and heartache overtakes me when I consider what my children are missing.

More than I mourn the loss of my own parents, I mourn what my kids will never have again. Though I'm aware that it's not unusual for kids to grow up without all their grandparents , our family stands alone in our peer group without any at all.

Every family is different, and we miss having grandparents in ours

While I appreciate the uniqueness of every family dynamic , navigating the upbringing of young children without any grandparental presence, even the occasional long-distance video chat or someone to share photos and milestones with, leaves a pronounced sense of emptiness and longing. What other person could unconditionally love and care for your children the way a grandparent could?

My three children have never known the joy of having a grandfather. My mother died eight years ago, before our third child was born, depriving her of the chance to meet her youngest grandchild. We are still grieving the recent loss of their Nana, my husband's mother, whose unwavering dedication to her family was unparalleled.

We maintain these connections to them by sharing stories and looking through old scrapbooks and photo albums. Despite these losses, I've come to understand that we can cherish the memories of the grandparents they've lost while also nurturing alternative, non-traditional grandparent-like bonds within our community.

Intergenerational relationships are important

The significance of intergenerational relationships is immeasurable. Research shows how they strengthen communities, preserve stories and local history, and contribute to the healthy aging of older adults. Additionally, older adults benefit from the enthusiasm and awe of young children, while teens who spend time with them often develop greater compassion and reduced ageism.

Additional research highlights how grandparents contribute to their grandchildren's well-being, offering acceptance, love, wisdom, and support. These interactions have been shown to impact a child's emotional health positively. One study discovered that children who have a strong emotional bond with their grandparents are less likely to experience depression later in life. Though my kids won't know their own grandparents, I've intentionally looked for other ways to bring intergenerational relationships into their lives.

My kids' grandparents can never be replaced, but I'm grateful for my community

A local grandmother recently invited me for tea. I was delighted to discover that an essay I'd written resonated with her, prompting her to reach out to connect. Her own grandchildren are of a similar age to my kids and participate in many of the same extracurricular activities. I often see her accompanying them around town, heavily involved in their lives.

Since my parents' deaths, I am increasingly drawn to connections with older generations , and often make them while serving on boards, volunteering on committees, and engaging in conversations at the coffee shop or playground. And it's not just me who benefits from these connections — my kids do, as well. They yearn for more than just historical facts; they hunger for the stories of the past, the nostalgic tales that transcend academic study. They're captivated by the unique life perspectives of those who've weathered various phases and decades, surmounted challenges, and now exude a calmness borne from wisdom and from not being entangled in the whirlwind of raising young ones.

A mentor of mine, whose children have grown and moved away, spends time playing with my toddler during our committee meetings. The older women in my circle who uplift and support me graciously welcome my little one at events and gatherings, showering her with affection and treating her as one of their own. They take an interest in my older children, asking them about their passions, hobbies, and interests. Grandfathers of teammates bestow encouragement and positive feedback following hard-earned victories and challenging defeats.

While I understand that I can never truly fill the void left by my own parents, I am grateful for the opportunities to connect and gain so many insights into a phase of life I will someday, if I'm lucky, get to experience. A grandparental bond is special and not easily replicated. Still, within the village I've dedicated myself to nurturing, I will persist in cultivating connections with older adults, recognizing each as an invaluable contribution to not only my life, but more importantly, my children's.

Read the original article on Business Insider

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Class Notes

The Latest News from Your Classmates

May / June 2024

CHECK OUT OUR NEW SECTION: GROUP NOTES!

Scroll down for the debut of Group Notes, which comprises alumni news about members of Cornell groups—including campus activities, alumni organizations, and more—across generations. Want to see your group represented in future sections? Email us for information!

Welcome back, classmates! Read on for another excerpt from the essay I wrote about my time at Cornell, originally written for and published by my fraternity, Alpha Delta Phi, and featured in the last two Class Notes sections:

We had regular parties in the basement at Alpha Delta Phi, but there was little or no hard liquor. We drank beer from a keg, the tapping of which was a skill we all learned. I think it was mostly the local Stegmaier’s, which was not a particularly good beer, but it was cheaper. Singing was a big pastime, and knowing the words to all the songs was important to your standing with your brothers and your date.

One event I will never forget occurred during the spring of 1946, when we were sharing the house with Kappa Alpha. At a Saturday night party downstairs, the president of KA was sitting on a stool at the bar, surrounded by co-eds who were listening, I suppose, to his war stories. Suddenly, he grabbed an ice pick from behind the bar and drove it into his lower leg! There were shrieks and shocked looks from the co-eds. Then he pulled out the ice pick, pulled up his pant leg, and showed a wooden leg that he had acquired as a result of war injuries!

Thomas Wells ’43 , BArch ’50, proposed to the fraternity that he decorate the walls of the two rooms in the basement, which were our bar and party area. We said OK, and he arrived with two co-eds from architecture or fine arts. Over weeks, they covered the walls with the “figures” of Abner Dean, a very popular cartoonist/artist at that time. For a time, it became the talk of the campus, and we got a big kick out of it. You can even see pictures of it in the background of a 1948 Cornellian yearbook: a picture of a group singing at the usual table in the Alpha Delt bar (on page 364) and then one of me between two women (at right on page 385), both with the paintings in the background.

Late one night, [ Peg Wilharm Tuttle ’48 and I] drove out the east bank of Cayuga Lake to watch the sunrise—and when it came up behind us, I proposed, and she accepted. Ray Tuttle ’48

I married a Cornellian, Margaret (Wilharm) , Class of 1948. She was an Alpha Phi, and I never dated her at Cornell. That we ended up married was a real series of incidents. One day in my fifth and final year, I got on the bus outside Olin Hall to go downtown. I recognized and sat down beside a girl I remembered from a course I was taking in industrial and labor relations (ChemEs were required to take a liberal arts course in year five, and my choice was career-oriented, not culture-oriented, as the ChemE school might have intended). Peg always sat near the front of the classroom next to the same boy, whom I assumed was her boyfriend but later learned was a Chi Psi brother of her boyfriend keeping an eye on her. We talked on the way downtown on the bus and learned an odd coincidence: my family and I lived in Cleveland, and I had just taken a job in Pittsburgh after graduation, while she had lived all her life in Pittsburgh, but her dad’s company had just moved to Cleveland, where she would go after graduation. So we parted with no plans to ever meet again.

Working in Pittsburgh, I used to go back to see my folks in Cleveland occasionally. On one trip, I joined my parents in grocery shopping, because next door was a sporting-goods shop and I wanted to buy a new squash racquet. After shopping, I joined my parents in the grocery store, and there was a somewhat familiar face at the cheese counter: Peg Wilharm! She later told me she was with her parents only because they were going to shop for a new car, and she went along hoping to persuade them not to buy another black Buick.

I asked her out for a beer and supper and soon learned that the boyfriend was no longer—and we dated in Cleveland and Pittsburgh, where she visited an uncle there to see me. I asked her back to an Alpha Delt house-party weekend and, late one night, drove out the east bank of Cayuga Lake to watch the sunrise—and when it came up behind us, I proposed, and she accepted. So Cornell and Alpha Delt had important roles to play. ❖ Ray Tuttle ( email Ray ) | Alumni Directory .

I hope you all took the time to fill out and return the Share Your News form that was recently mailed to you. If you haven’t yet, it’s not too late! Please do send us your news—via the hard-copy form or the online news form —so our future class columns can be full of news from all of you. Whether your news is ordinary or extraordinary, we want to hear it! ❖ Class of 1949 ( email c/o Alexandra Bond ’12 ) | Alumni Directory .

In my previous two columns, I highlighted short bios of some of the accomplished women of our Class of the Century. In this issue I highlight classmate Marion Steinmann , author of the book Women at Work: Demolishing a Myth of the 1950s (2005, Xlibris). Marion modestly included as co-authors “The Women of the Cornell Class of 1950.” Also, her book’s dedication, “To the men we married who encouraged us to follow our dream,” is gracious because, unlike those about whom she wrote, Marion didn’t marry until age 50, had no children, and did not earn an advanced degree.

The women that Marion interviewed demolished the myth that, in the 1950s, women had little choice but to be housewives and not be employed outside the home. These courageous women earned a total of 134 advanced degrees including 22 PhDs and five MDs. Among the 134 were 13 college professors, 11 attorneys, one judge, and five engineers, as well as others.

An education in the Cornell College of Home Economics, while including studies in science and the liberal arts, was not designed for advanced degrees. It’s therefore remarkable that our intelligent, energetic, and forward-looking colleagues were able, with good humor and perseverance, to overcome family responsibilities, academic obstacles, and gender prejudices to move into advanced degree programs in law, medicine, education, business, and other professional fields.

Marion attended West High in Rochester, NY, where she excelled academically and was editor of the school newspaper. She came to Cornell with national and state scholarships to major in microbiology in the College of Agriculture. On campus she was a member of Octagon and Kappa Alpha Theta sorority, was vice president of the Women’s Self-Governing Association, and with her intense interest in journalism served as news editor of the Cornell Daily Sun .

Remarkably, upon graduation, she (an Aggie, not a journalism major) was hired by the prestigious Life magazine. That speaks highly of a Cornell BS in agriculture and Marion’s high intellect and writing competence. At Life she was a reporter in the science department, writing on an amazing variety of subjects such as archeology, astronomy, genetics, moon exploration, lasers, holography, the first open-heart surgery, and bone transplants. Over her 22 years with Life , she was promoted from writer to assistant editor, and when the weekly Life ceased publication in 1972, she was the associate editor.

Henry Erle ’50 , MD ’54, lives in a high rise with views of the Robert F. Kennedy and George Washington bridges and the Weill Cornell college campus.

Thereafter she was a freelance author of books primarily in the field of medicine and healthcare, as well as articles for the New York Times Magazine , the Saturday Evening Post , Smithsonian Magazine , Cornell Alumni Magazine , and others. Her books included Island Life , Life and Health , The American Medical Association Book of Back Care , The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Parent’s Guide to Allergies and Asthma , and The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Guide to Childhood Infections . In 1971 Marion received the American Medical Association’s award for an article, “Fighting the Genetic Odds.”

In 2000, accessing surplus class funds, our class approved publication of the history of our class with the title Curfews, Chaos and Champions , co-edited by Marion and classmate John Marcham . Because it was also a history of the tumultuous post-WWII times , it was subsequently republished under the title Postwar Cornell: How the Greatest Generation Transformed a University, 1944–1952 . The original book was also converted into an engaging film. At the 1965 class Reunion, copies of the film and original book were given to all attendees and later to those unable to attend.

For 10 years, Marion served with me as class co-correspondent, responsible for writing news of class members for the Class Notes section of each issue of the former Cornell Alumni Magazine . Our relationship was cordial and professional, but I learned little about her personal, non-work life. Her obituary was the lead in the obituary section of the April 20, 2020 issue of the Philadelphia Inquirer , which mentioned that she had climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro. And after a late-in-life marriage to Charles Joiner, Temple University Chair of Political Science, they lived in Chestnut Hill in Philadelphia, where she enjoyed cooking, gardening, and entertaining.

I received a nice note from Henry Erle , MD ’54 (New York, NY), Weill Cornell Medicine Roberts Family Professor Emeritus of Internal Medicine. With his parents and younger brother, he escaped from Nuremberg, Germany, in 1939, where in 1938 his grandfather had been murdered during Kristallnacht. He attended Stuyvesant High School and came to Cornell on a Regents Scholarship. The highlight of his campus life was meeting Joan (Greenblatt) at Hillel House, whom he married in 1952 and, as he says, “made up for my lost childhood.” After Cornell med school, until retirement in 2007 at age 78, he practiced internal medicine at Cornell/New York Medical Center, now Weill Cornell Medicine.

Wife Joan earned an MD at New York University in 1954, did post-doc studies in psychiatry, and taught and did research at New York Psychoanalytic Institute. Joan died 10 years ago after a struggle with Parkinson’s disease. Henry has two physician sons, David and Steven , MD ’86 , and five grandkids. At the time of this writing, Henry was living on the 46th floor of a high rise with views of the Robert F. Kennedy (formerly Triborough) and George Washington bridges and the Weill Cornell college campus, studying a variety of contemporary topics, and planning a visit to his younger brother in Florida. ❖ Paul Joslin ( email Paul ) | 13731 Hickman Rd., #4207, Urbandale, IA 50323 | tel., (515) 278-0960 | Alumni Directory .

Frances Goldberg Myers writes, “The big event of the year was my 94th birthday. Living in an over-50 community, I am acknowledged mostly as a ‘role model’ by the newer, younger residents, since I speak up at meetings, participate in many community activities, and make new, younger friends as they buy into the community. With the death of Shelley Epstein Akabas in 2023, I have only one friend left who knew me when I was 17.

“My children, Ken ’77 (Yale PhD), Pam ’78 , and Nathaniel III ’82 , DVM ’87, are all active in their chosen careers and contributing to making the world a better place. Ken is the Gerson Curator of American Art at the Detroit Institute of Arts; Pam is executive director of the prize-winning, nationally recognized Asheville Art Museum (NC); and Nathaniel, known as ‘Chip,’ is a doctor of internal medicine in his own veterinary practice. The following generation of Cornellians is Sarah ’13 , daughter of Ken, a silviculturist for the National Forest Service in Nebraska with a Penn State MA (yes there is a forest in Nebraska, the only planted forest in the U.S.; planted by the CCC in the 1930s). We are waiting to see if Benjamin, son of Chip, will join the Cornellian family.

Living in an over-50 community, I am acknowledged mostly as a ‘role model’ by the newer, younger residents. Frances Goldberg Myers ’51

“I’ve been a widow since 2004 but keep busy making new friends and participating in a variety of activities and wondering what has happened to America. Social media has certainly changed society. I was in Home Ec but took advantage of all the wonderful Cornell professors in government, labor relations, Asian policy, architecture, and literature to get an introduction to the wide world. But Home Ec provided me with entry into various jobs, from publishing to mental health rehabilitation, community organizing for people with disabilities at the county level and volunteer work in several areas.

“I now find new areas to learn about, so life is exciting. I am happy participating in the community around me. My neighbors feel that I provide historical context to people who think of the ’50s as ancient times. I never felt that we were the Silent Generation—we were active in our communities, active politically and socially, raising solid families, and trying to build a better society. Looking back, those years were hopeful and optimistic, in which we believed the world would be a better place for all after surviving the Depression, a world war, the Holocaust, and an atom bomb.

“I am grateful for my Cornell education—I learned much, but mostly I learned to love learning. But clearly my favorite memory is meeting Nat Myers ’49 , BA ’51, on the first day of classes in September 1949 at the Ivy Room in the Straight. Thank heavens my 10 o’clock class in the History of Labor Unions was dismissed because the professor had been delayed in returning to campus. I had never been to the Straight at 10 o’clock before, but when I went in, I saw a table with people I knew. As I sat down, I was introduced to Nat, who had returned from his Navy enlistment. At 11, he joined me on my walk across campus to Balch. We talked for more than an hour and listened to the noon Chimes. And that was the beginning of the rest of my life. We celebrated 55 years of being together until his death in 2004.”

Thank you for writing, Frances! We hope any classmates reading this will send us a letter. ❖ Class of 1951 ( email c/o Alexandra Bond ’12 ) | Alumni Directory .

Joanne Holloway McPherson writes from Findlay, OH: “I recently moved to a new apartment, the second one since I sold the house I lived in for 29 years in 2019. With each move I downsized, but I still have too many possessions. I try to adjust to the new technology, which is supposed to make our lives easier but, at least in my case, makes it more difficult. The devices constantly need recharging. My solution is to take a nap and recharge myself.”

James Strub writes from Colorado Springs: “I gradually became a mountain hiking machine, and I reached all 54 of the Colorado 14ers and Mount Whitney in California by 1961, all by the grace of God—sometimes with more grace required than other times (e.g., little things like lightning). I’m regularly using a USFS-provided ponderosa pine pole for balance, everywhere I go.” James enjoys teaching the Bible to the Judeo-Christian residents at MacKenzie Place, a nearby retirement community—something he’s been doing for 12 years now.

I gradually became a mountain hiking machine, and I reached all 54 of the Colorado 14ers and Mount Whitney in California by 1961. James Strub ’52

James adds, “I’m also keeping in regular touch by phone or email with daughter Heidi and her husband, Charley, in St. Augustine, FL. They are planning to come out here in April for my 95th birthday. And I’m keeping in close touch with son Jordan ’81 and his very gifted and delightful wife, Michele, who made a very successful career as a principal manager for Progressive Insurance.” Some of his favorite memories of Cornell were “playing the carillon and playing the four-manual pipe organ we used to have on the Bailey Hall stage. I also enjoyed the architecture professors, especially John Tilton 1913 , MArch 1914, whose favorite teaching was: ‘Remember—there is a difference between a Venetian blind and a blind Venetian.’”

Bernard Patten writes: “I am a systems ecologist, long retired from University of Georgia but not retiring. I’m continuing my research on an environmental system theory, ‘Network Environ Analysis,’ and the proverbial magnum opus, ‘Holoecology.’” ❖ Thomas Cashel, LLB ’56 ( email Tom ) | Alumni Directory .

Alan Perlmutter writes from California that his son, Ben ’12 , is taking over the family business: Big Sur River Inn. “After many years as a consultant in organizational development and 36 years as the general partner of the Big Sur River Inn, I am happy to pass the reins to our son Ben, who is taking over as managing partner of the family business. Ben will continue to welcome Cornell alumni from all over the world as they visit the inn, which is Big Sur’s first restaurant and resort,” says Alan. He adds that Ben is still singing with the Hangovers and is well prepared for being the host of the popular and historic inn.

Have you ever had a broken leg? Bob Neff , JD ’56, can sympathize. He spent much of the first half of last year hopping around on one leg while healing broken bones in the other one. He then made up for that confinement—while escaping the chilly weather in North Carolina—as he enjoyed sailing in the South Pacific.

Hospitalization and healing similarly took up half of last year for Caroline Mulford Owens , former Class of ’53 president. She reports that she’s now back to normal with a daily visit to the gym and participation in several community organizations. “I’m fortunate to be living on a beautiful lake with a view of the sunset across the water,” she reports.

I’m fortunate to be living on a beautiful lake with a view of the sunset across the water. Caroline Mulford Owens ’53

Jack Brophy has documented his time in the U.S. Navy with photos and lots of stories. He found his Cornell experience useful when assigned to develop recreational activities for the crew of the USS White Marsh . “The captain authorized the crew to empty a large storage room in the bow and create a lounge and recreation room for the sailors off-duty. They were motivated to make something nice, and they did, with fresh paint and new furniture. For the opening, I decided to organize a talent show. We had a pedal pump organ used for religious services, and I found a fiddler from the South who was fantastic. As the ship rolled, he wrapped his bow arm around a Lally column and played on undaunted. The other acts were entertaining but not as memorable. I guess this qualified me as ‘Recreation Officer.’”

John Nixon sends special thanks to the 148 members of the Class of ’53 who donated nearly $5 million last year, setting a new donor record for any 70th Reunion in Cornell history. Our class also recently donated $10,000 to the Class of 1953 Tradition Fellowship, which provides an annual scholarship for an incoming student. Your generous donations serve many worthwhile causes.

Please share your current news. We’d love to hear from you! ❖ Caroline Mulford Owens ( email Caroline ) | Jack Brophy ( email Jack ) | John Nixon ( email John ) | Bob Neff , JD ’56 ( email Bob ) | Alumni Directory .

As you read this column, Dave , PhD ’60, and Mary Gentry Call report that more than 20 classmates have signed on to celebrate our 70th Reunion on campus. Hopefully a few latecomers will join them with a month to go and put us over 26 attendees. This would be a record for a 70th Reunion. Dave and Mary have planned a fun and informative program with easy transportation to and from all the events from our class headquarters at the Statler Hotel.

This has been a slow month for classmate news, but we did hear from two of you and we thank you. Barbara Jones Jenkins of Northfield, MN, writes that she spends much of her time reading and keeping her email inbox below the 300s. She also served as the financial director of the Cannon Valley Elder Collegium and took several of their courses. On a negative note, Barbara says that she has been trying to improve her tennis serve after 50 years but recently ruptured her right bicep reaching for a volley. Let’s hope Barbara will soon make a complete recovery and get back to working on her serve.

Allan Griff ’54 , who was in the Sage Chapel Choir and the a cappella Chorus, has written a song about Cornell.

Allan Griff of El Cerrito, CA, who did a lot of formal singing in his undergraduate days, including in the Sage Chapel Choir and the a cappella Chorus, has written a song about Cornell, the melody of which is an Irish traditional folk song, “Roddy McCorley.” It brings back memories of our days on the Hill. Called “Leaders of Us All,” here are the lyrics:

“All around the world Cornellians go to do what we do best. / We teach, we build, we serve, we fix, we earn our keep and rest. / We’ve caught the pass of knowledge, and we’re running with the ball. / And it can’t be denied, we’re our people’s pride, the leaders of us all. / Wherever we Cornellians meet, it brings a smile and tear. / We’ve got a bond of friendship that cannot disappear. / We tell of days and nights we shared when we were growing still, / And we feel a little warmer when we think of our days on the Hill. / We remember the Straight, the statues on the Quad, the gorges, and the lake. / Teagle, the Taylors, Sage and the Libe, all these our memories wake. / Engineers, Hotelies, Aggies, and Arts, HumEcs, ILRs, stand tall / ’cause it can’t be denied, we’re our people’s pride, / the leaders of us all.” ❖ Bill Waters , MBA ’55 ( email Bill ) | Ruth Carpenter Bailey ( email Ruth ) | Class website | Alumni Directory .

Frank Baldwin (Ithaca, NY) is planting trees and doing trail management in Pine Tree Wildlife Preserve on East Hill. He also attends a local folk song club on Sunday evenings. He recalls that “our group in Ithaca and Cornell induced the National Episcopal Church to support the treaty to abolish nuclear weapons.” ❖ Class of 1955 ( email c/o Alexandra Bond ’12 ) | Alumni Directory .

I hope you all took the time to fill out and return the Share Your News form that was recently mailed to you. If you haven’t yet, it’s not too late! Please do send us your news—via the hard-copy form or the online news form —so our future class columns can be full of news from all of you. Whether your news is ordinary or extraordinary, we want to hear it! ❖ Class of 1956 ( email c/o Alexandra Bond ’12 ) | Alumni Directory .

With our undergrad status of in loco parentis , one restriction denied freshmen the right to have an automobile on campus. Do you recall how one classmate protested that rule? In spring 1954, Edward Jay Epstein brought a horse and buggy to campus. Whether it was because of that infraction or something else, Ed was asked to leave Cornell. He later returned to earn his BA in 1965 and MA in 1966, both in government. His master’s thesis on the official government investigation into the Kennedy assassination became his first book, Inquest: The Warren Commission and the Establishment of Truth (1966).

Ed continued his graduate studies at Harvard, earning a PhD in 1973. His doctoral dissertation became the book News from Nowhere: Television and the News (1973). Ed taught at Harvard, MIT, and UCLA, and then decided to return to New York City and to focus on researching and writing books. Known for his keen, independent mind, Ed later investigated U.S. intelligence and counterintelligence, the international diamond trade, the business of Hollywood, and the data leak by NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Ed himself was the subject of the 2017 documentary Hall of Mirrors , which premiered at the 55th New York Film Festival. Of his many books and articles, his last book, Assume Nothing: Encounters with Assassins, Spies, Presidents, and Would-Be Masters of the Universe (2023), is considered this investigative journalist’s memoir. His recent passing in January 2024 was attributed to COVID. While he had no immediate survivors, he will be missed by all those friends who attended his many storied social gatherings at his Manhattan penthouse.

On the distaff side, we also note the passing of Ruby Tomberg Senie in September 2023. After earning her Cornell BS in 1957 and becoming mother to two sons, Ruby added a Cornell BSN in nursing (1975), an MA in teaching from Columbia University (1978), and a PhD from the Yale University Department of Epidemiology and Public Health (1984). She was an epidemiologist with the women’s health and fertility branch of the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta when she was asked by then-Cornell President Frank H.T. Rhodes to be a panelist on the 1992 Reunion forum in Bailey Hall. The topic was “Ethical Issues in Healthcare: The Lessons of Tuskegee.” This coincided with our 35th Reunion, so likely some of us attended this discussion. (Special thank you to Cornell Archivist Evan Earle ’02 , MS ’14, for finding this information in an old Reunion booklet.)

In spring 1954, Edward Jay Epstein ’57 , BA ’65, MA ’66, brought a horse and buggy to campus.

Ruby also was on a 1996 panel at the Cornell Club in NYC. This forum, sponsored by the women of the Class of 1958, focused on lifelines submitted by hundreds of Cornell alumnae. Ruby was then a leading breast cancer researcher at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in NYC. Ruby’s career continued and culminated as an associate professor at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University.

On a personal note, Ruby and I met about a decade ago. Her dear friend, classmate Beth Ames Swartz , had come to NYC for the opening of her new art series at a gallery in Manhattan. At a restaurant meal that followed for our classmates, Ruby and I sat next to one another. Our paths had never crossed on campus, but we soon were deep in conversation. She told me of her book Epidemiology of Women’s Health (2013), a more-than-500-page tome that explored the major health challenges and conditions specifically affecting women. Ruby included contributions from leading authorities in the field.

She and I saw each other only a few times over the years when she rented a summer cottage in the Berkshires in Massachusetts, where she enjoyed the Tanglewood musical venue offerings. Through emails, we became fast friends. We last saw each other at our 65th Reunion. Ironically, it wasn’t breast cancer, but an undiagnosed tumor that, once discovered, gave her only a few more weeks of life. Ruby, a perpetual student, teacher, and author, had thoroughly enjoyed the rich culture of opera, museums, theater, and classical music so present in NYC. Earlier this month, Beth told me her new art series, Quantum Light, was inspired by Ruby. You can view her artwork here . Both Beth and I agree that it was our privilege to be close friends of such a remarkable woman.

On a lighter note, we saw Ron Dunbar and his spouse, Pru Dalrymple, at our 65th Reunion. Both having been widowed in the early 2000s, they found each other through Match.com and have been happily living together in Philadelphia for nearly six years. They are taking advantage of their good health to travel. Over a year ago, a Road Scholar trip had them island-hopping to see many ancient ruins in Greece. Last March they enjoyed a week in the Galápagos and then spent several days in a remote lodge in the upper Amazon watershed rain forest.

A more recent road trip included a visit with Bob and JoAnne Eastburn Cyprus , who have owned and lived for 30 years on a 60-acre farm near Nashville, TN. Ron and JoAnne had been high school classmates in Wellesley, MA. Ron and Pru fly to Seattle and Portland, OR, several times a year to visit Pru’s two sons and families. Ron’s Korean-born daughter and family live only 12 miles from Ron. After a long academic career, mostly in library science, Pru occasionally teaches online for Kent State University. Ron’s Cornell BEE degree remains in the background to the spreadsheet work he now does to help small nonprofits. ❖ Connie Santagato Hosterman ( email Connie ) | Alumni Directory .

Warren Wildes is living in St. Paul, MN, with his wife, Mary, spending three months of the year in California. He finds great satisfaction in working in the woodlands next door, raising wood ducks, and developing oak “nurseries” at the University of Northwestern, St. Paul, where they have lived since 1977. This passion continues as he and Mary fund Northwestern’s environmental science program, which places emphasis on the woods and the two lakes with campus shorelines. He is also a dedicated supporter of the Cornell Sapsucker Woods Ornithology Lab and participates in the FeederWatch programs while in California each winter. Warren has continued to express his interest in music by leading the Centennial Stompers Dixieland Band with Mary as vocalist, which plays at senior homes, churches, and centers in the Twin Cities metropolitan area. The band is in its 10th year with 18 performances in 2023, and excerpts can be found on YouTube .

Stefan Belman , DVM ’61, shares his favorite Cornell memory: “In Mann Library in 1959 I was seated in the informal reading room, and seated across from me was a most attractive blonde woman smoking. I walked over and bummed a smoke. A few minutes later I walked over to her again and invited her to walk with me to the pomology department and let me buy her an apple. Anita (Lesgold) ’60 , MS ’61, later returned to Sigma Delta Tau and told her roommate, Carrie Warnow Makover ’60 , about meeting this ‘interesting guy.’ Sixty-four years later, we have two children and four grandchildren.” Anita received her BS at Cornell, earned an MD from New York University’s medical school, then taught pediatric neurology there. Their son, Matt , DVM ’89 , practices in Salt Lake City and enjoys back country adventures. Grandchildren Ben ’19 , BA ’18, and Elisabeth ’18 graduated from Cornell with Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude recognition. Ben currently works for Amazon and attends Georgetown Law School. Elisabeth just graduated from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and is training for surgery at Beth Israel Hospital and Harvard. Stefan and Anita move between Columbia Falls, MT, Huntington, NY, and New York City.

Arthur Shostak and his wife, Lynn Seng, moved nine years ago from Philadelphia to Alameda, CA, to escape winter and be closer to their grandchildren. Before retiring, Arthur was a sociology professor at Drexel University. Arthur published 34 books; his latest, published in 2017, is titled Stealth Altruism: Forbidden Care as Jewish Resistance in the Holocaust. After researching survivors’ memoirs and interviewing those living, he developed a strong “help” narrative, to be learned in the future alongside the “horror” narrative that now dominates. The book’s cover photograph illustrates his thesis: men in striped pajamas stand in rows, with two men in the front row surreptitiously supporting a collapsing man between them. Arthur indicates that altruism arises out of innate impulses in people, is supported by the tenets of Judaism, and was encouraged by rabbis who took on leadership roles. He is preparing two more books: a study of ways societies have of memorializing and a lengthy memoir. His favorite Cornell memory: earning the highest GPA in the ILR school, which leveraged a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship for a PhD at Princeton.

Philip Getter ’58 is still producing shows, most recently Hadestown, winner of the 2019 Tony Award for Best Musical.

Philip Getter is still producing shows, most recently Hadestown, winner of the 2019 Tony Award for Best Musical, which has been on Broadway since April 2019. A touring company first presented Hadestown at the John F. Kennedy theater in Washington in October 2021 and is still touring the U.S. and Canada . A new company held a successful opening of Hadestown at the Lyric Theatre in London’s West End in February 2024. The CD of the original cast production won a Grammy. Philip also produced Once Upon A One More Time , featuring Britney Spears’s music, and was co-producer of A Christmas Carol starring Jefferson Mays, and Terrence McNally’s Frankie & Johnny in the Clair de Lune starring Audra McDonald. Philip sits on several boards of corporations and foundations.

Philip’s wife, Elaine Sheinmel, passed two years ago. Elaine was his partner in Getter Entertainment, involved in producing Broadway shows. He is now a partner in Archer Entertainment Group with his stepdaughter, Courtney Sheinmel, who was a practicing attorney and wrote and published many young adult and children’s books. The partners are working on several future productions.

In February, Philip flew to London to see Hadestown, which was sold out and with such good prospects that the run was already extended. Courtney and her 4-year-old son, Archer, who loves musicals, accompanied him. Archer enjoyed his first airplane ride, double-decker bus rides, and packed performances of Hadestown . While in England, Philip spent a great deal of time with his oldest son, Douglas Getter, a London attorney, and his two granddaughters, Tesa, 17, and Sara, 20, both “brilliant, beautiful, and with great personalities.” He has two other children: Laura, who has three children, and Michael. ❖ Barbara Avery, MA ’59 ( email Barbara ) | Dick Haggard ( email Dick ) | Alumni Directory .

Linda Rogers Cohen sold her house in Great Neck—home for 56 years—and moved to the Upper West Side of NYC. “It’s an exciting change that eliminates worry about the roof when it rains and brings me practically next door to my daughter Carrie Cohen ’89 , her husband, Rick Lipsey ’89 , and their four children; brings me closer to the museums I love; and finds me surrounded by too many, too-tempting restaurants.”

Mary Gail Drake Korsmeyer also sold her house of 50+ years. She moved last November to Sherwood Oaks, a continuing care community in Cranberry Township, PA. “This community of some 300 residents is about 35 miles north of my old house and a short drive from my daughter’s residence. It has many active groups and services, including delicious meals, and is providing me with interesting new friends.” Mary Gail is retired from her partnership in the law firm of Peacock Keller in Washington, PA. Daughter Carol is a founding partner of Dupee Strengths-Based Consulting; son David is deputy director of the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, CA; and son Keith is a professor of marine science at Hawaii Pacific University in Honolulu. In addition to grandchildren, she has three great-granddaughters and one great-grandson. About once a month, Mary Gail participates in a Zoom gathering with a baker’s dozen of ’59, ’60, and ’61 grads, all friends since Cornell and members of Delta Delta Delta, including Susan Kunkle Bogar , Sallie Whitesell Phillips , Linda Johnson Kacser , and Erna Fritsch Johnson ’61 .

Linda Rogers Cohen ’59 moved to the Upper West Side, where she is ‘surrounded by too many, too-tempting restaurants.’

Another move after 50+ years: Hardy Eshbaugh and his wife, Barb. They have moved to the Knolls, a retirement community in Oxford, OH. “Our children helped us with the move, which was accomplished with a minimum of difficulty,” writes Hardy. “We had an advantage in that our old house did not have an attic, basement, or garage, which meant we had not accumulated a lifetime of stuff. But there was still lots to part with, especially boxes of books! We have more or less settled in and have made many new friends. Even Roxy, our dog, is adjusting. Now it’s on to the next phase of our lives.” Hardy is professor emeritus of botany at Miami University in Oxford, known primarily for his research on chili peppers and on the flora and biogeography of the Bahamas.

About five years ago, Kate Sickles Connolly moved to River Woods, a continuing care retirement community in Exeter, NH. Prior to that, the retired clinical electron microscopist “lived a wonderful familial, professional, and municipal inclusion life associated with Dartmouth Medical School in Hanover, NH. I am enjoying an active life in both mind and body and hope to continue my Cornell connection virtually for years to come.”

A nominations committee is working on a slate of officers to serve our class for the five years following our Reunion on June 6–9. The final slate is expected to be completed in early May. Any classmate interested in serving as an officer is encouraged to contact our Reunion chair, Jerry Schultz ( email Jerry ). The list of nominees will be displayed at our Reunion headquarters in the Statler Hotel and presented at the class gathering on the morning of June 9.

Closing factoid: At the beginning of February, living ’59ers included 1,108 degreed and 460 non-degreed members—a total of 1,568 alumni. ❖ Jenny Tesar ( email Jenny ) | Alumni Directory .

Still living in North Falmouth on Cape Cod with his spouse, Patty, Leonard Johnson writes, “I was sorry to hear that Neil MacDougal had died. I first met Neil in seventh grade in Boynton Junior High in Ithaca. He was one of the good guys. Last fall I went back to Ithaca for the first time in 10 years. We had a great reunion with Carol Treman des Cognets and several of my other childhood pals. A highlight was lunch at the Inn at Aurora, a must-visit. My favorite memory is walking down through the Baker dorms and watching the sun set over West Hill. What brings him the most satisfaction? Says Leonard, “Patty and I are still cycling a lot—2,000 miles last year! I am still involved in the effort to preserve open spaces here on Cape Cod. I also really like negotiating complicated land deals.”

Edith Rogovin Frankel , who lives in Freehold, NJ, sadly shares, “I lost my husband over 15 years ago and my partner some three years ago, so life has taken a change. However, I’m fortunate to be in good health, I also have two daughters and seven delightful grandchildren ranging in age from 14 to 27. I’m also still doing research and teaching and will leave my New Jersey home to spend a month in Florida, where I’ll be giving courses at Florida Atlantic University and in both Boca Raton and Jupiter in February. This is an annual practice and preparing the lecture series (two different ones this year) is great fun.”

David Ahl , who lives with his wife, Betsy, in Morristown, NJ, reports, “With the pandemic behind us, my wife and I are spending more and more time on mission trips to Guatemala, Haiti, and Peru, helping to build small schools and homes. We have also been on cruises to the Philippines, Vietnam, Australia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Iceland, Greenland, and Hammerfest, Norway, the northernmost town on the planet. We like the smaller ships of Regent, and Betsy especially enjoys Silversea’s expeditions, which we’ve recently taken to Antarctica, Zanzibar, South Africa, the Seychelles, and some smaller ports in the Mediterranean. Unfortunately, excursions and construction work don’t agree with my advanced arthritis, so I’m looking at new hips and knees in 2024. My grandson Wyatt just started in the ECE College, so I’ll be visiting Ithaca more than in the past.”

Send your news to: ❖ Judy Bryant Wittenberg ( email Judy ) | Alumni Directory .

Guess what? Some of our classmates are going back to Cornell. It’s true. Read on to find out more!

First, we hear from classmate Gerold Yonas , who was interviewed for the Write on Four Corners podcast last August. A physicist and engineer, Gerold served as chief scientist for Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, or “Star Wars,” project, and worked as a vice president at the Los Alamos National Laboratory counterpart, Sandia Labs. You can listen to the episode here .

Ruth Schimel in Washington, DC, is writing her eighth book, Small Steps to Your Continuous Thriving, the Best is Yet to Be . “I have published monthly on YourTango about personal and professional development. Dipping into the arts, I’m showing collages at a neighborhood exhibit, and creating ways to include them in my career and life management consulting practice. I’m active and presenting for TTNWomen on finding meaning and purpose with one’s storytelling, for example. Happy to share my newsletter, launched last year, curated for recipients. I’d love to hear from you.”

From Cindy Johnson Pratt about going back to Cornell: “It was a great thrill to attend the Cornell graduation of my eldest granddaughter, Susie Foster ’23 (whose grandfather is the late Bert Foster ’60 ), in environmental engineering. I had graduated in February 1961 (in three and a half years), so I never had graduation pomp and circumstance. I borrowed my granddaughter’s cap and gown and had my picture taken in front of DG on Triphammer Rd. Now I’ve graduated properly! We just downsized and moved to a retirement community in independent living only a few miles from where I’ve lived for the last 50 years on Lake Minnetonka.”

Steven Stein sent a photo of his Cornell family, nine of whom are Cornell graduates. The impetus of the family gathering was to attend the graduation of his granddaughter, Mimi Stein ’23 , and to celebrate the family’s gift of a bench in memory of his late wife, Susan (Volpert) ’62 , and himself. “Three Generations of Stein Cornellians, 1961 to 2023.” Wow!

From Pat Laux Richards : “ Jack ’60 and I were thrilled to attend our granddaughter’s Cornell graduation last May. Anderson ‘Annie’ Rogers ’23 graduated from Bowers CIS.”

And, lastly, Marco Minasso writes, “I have great memories of Cornell. So it’s with great pleasure that my granddaughter, Sofia ’27 , is now attending Cornell. That makes five of us alumni in our Cornell extended family: my daughter, her husband, me, and two grandchildren! I’m still in Yonkers and after 60 years in the wine business I still drink wine!” Good for you and Sofia! ❖ Susan Williams Stevens ( email Susan ) | Doug Fuss ( email Doug ) | Alumni Directory .

The College of Veterinary Medicine has established the Stephen J. Ettinger 1962 , DVM 1964, Scholarship in honor of this outstanding veterinarian whose broad-reaching influence has impacted the college and the veterinary profession.

Stephen is considered a founder of specialization in veterinary medicine, having helped establish the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine and serving as president of cardiology in that group—from which he received the inaugural lifetime specialty achievement award . He has authored hundreds of journal papers and key foundational textbooks, including Canine Cardiology (1970) and the Textbook of Veterinary Internal Medicine , the ninth edition of which published in January 2024. He has served on the Cornell University Board of Trustees, the Dean’s Leadership Council, and the Advisory Council and received a Daniel Elmer Salmon Award for Distinguished Alumni Service in 2010.

From San Antonio, TX, John Graybill , MD ’66, sends word that he has retired as emeritus professor of medicine. “I was chief of my division of infectious diseases for six years at University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio and had about 250 peer-reviewed publications, mostly in medical mycology and with AIDS patients, and a lot of non-reviewed publications. I left all of that in 2008. My wife, Sue, and I continue to enjoy retirement. For 30 years we have done medical volunteer work in Mexico, Bogotá, Costa Rica, and Guatemala. We have aged out of the volunteer work but have bought a home in Guatemala and spend 3–5 months a year there. With the hot summers here in Texas, it is great to be in Guatemala at 5,300 feet in the mountains, with a climate like Denver. We love Latino culture. My addictive hobby in Guatemala is growing orchid species, and Guatemala is a great place for it. I tie them to tree branches and have a few on tables, a thousand in all. Up in Texas (not healthy for orchids), I have gotten into HO and N gauge model railroading. My N gauge is coffee-table sized and can go with us when we move sometime, if ever, to a retirement home. I am finally reaching the point of knowing how outdated I am in my profession of clinical academic medicine and am stopping medical journals, medical societies, and ultimately my medical license. Age will claim us all, but orchids and model railroading are good hobbies to have.”

John Abel retired from the Cornell civil engineering faculty in 2004 but continues to live in Ithaca on the west shore of Cayuga Lake. His wife, Lynne (Snyder) , died in 2006, and since 2010 his son Bill has lived with him. “Together we enjoy movies, TV series, travel, and Cornell sports events, as well as lakeside living. We spend holiday seasons with daughter Britt Abel ’91 and her family in the Twin Cities. After 12 years on the board of the Cayuga Lake Watershed Network (mission: to advocate for the health of Cayuga Lake and its watershed in a changing world), I have decided to step aside this coming August. I served as treasurer during eight years of growth, but my proudest accomplishment was through working with three talented interns from Cornell, one each in three of the last four summers. I guided their creation, revision, and updating of two handbooks advising watershed residents how to help alleviate climate change while preserving the quality of the lake.

I am excited to have completed the conversion of our home to fully electric. John Abel ’62

“While writing about the effects of extreme weather on our lake and watershed, I decided to ‘walk the talk’ on climate change. I am excited to have completed the conversion of our home to fully electric using community-subscription solar power from a photovoltaic farm in nearby Newfield, NY. I installed deep geothermal heat pumps, discarded our gas furnace and water heater, upgraded our heating and electric infrastructure, and replaced our gas dryer with a ventless hybrid electric version and our stove with an induction stovetop. We were able to turn off our natural gas connection! I also drive a plug-in hybrid car since 2017.

“I remain active as former president and advisor for the International Association for Shell and Spatial Structures (IASS), my professional association involving engineers, architects, and researchers. This coming year, after a pandemic hiatus of four years, I will resume international travel to annual IASS symposia, this year in Zurich and next year in Mexico City.

“Daughter Britt, on the faculty of Macalester College, will be teaching in Vienna again this spring semester (fourth time since 2009), and her husband, Scott Burglechner ’91 , is able to join her thanks to his remote work possibility for U.S. Bank. Grandson Will graduated from Colorado College in May and is starting his second social-service job in the Twin Cities while deciding about long-term plans. Granddaughter Natasha Burglechner ’25 will spend her junior spring semester at Cornell’s program in Seville, Spain.”

I’d be in denial if I didn’t admit that we are all beginning to wind down. Still, it is lovely to read the bits and pieces you send along detailing your lives and activities. Please keep them coming—until we can’t.

There’s a snowstorm raging outside my NYC window as I write this late spring column. To bridge this gap, I urge you to check out our class website , where you will find entries posted in a timely fashion in their entirety in our “Classmate News” section. We love to post your photos, so send them along too. ❖ Judy Prenske Rich ( email Judy ) | Alumni Directory .

I think my first sentence for the Class Notes column should be: Please send me news via email at this link ! I am running low on news. The news in this column comes from Christmas cards that I received from Cornell classmates.

Barbara Hartung Wade , MEd ’64, writes, “I was called out of retirement again, to teach two seventh-grade Spanish classes until the end of June 2023.” Even though she was employed, she and her daughter, Kimberly, went to Cancún in February, followed by a trip to Florida with Kimberly and her husband, Bernard. In September, Barbara and a friend had a good trip to Falcon’s Resort in Punta Cana for a week of sun, fun, and golf. In November the family went to their timeshare at the Westin Lagunamar in Cancún for a two-week getaway. “On the third evening there, it was dark and I tripped on an elevated round light in the cement that wasn’t lit and fell. With second-degree friction burns on arms, knees, and shoulder, I was hospitalized for 12 hours with painful surgery to close and clean the wounds.” Barbara had more to say about paying the hospital bill and then the scam involved when she had to change her flight home on Delta. “I’m recovering slowly but grateful it wasn’t worse. These bad experiences are what can happen at our age! We all learn lessons from them.”

Bill and Frankie Campbell Tutt live in Colorado Springs. Frankie writes: “We celebrated our 60th anniversary at our Ohio farm with the entire Campbell clan. We sold our home of 48 years and downsized to a gated community that we love. Going from 5,000 square feet to 3,400 square feet took some dumpsters, but we are in and can accommodate six guests.”

George Ehemann , ME ’66, and Diane Siegenthaler live in Lancaster, PA. “We enjoy visits from grandchildren including our engineering student enrolled at Cornell. We are active in church activities and German Club chorus. Our 60th wedding anniversary is coming up in the fall of 2024. My favorite memory of Cornell was the climb up the frozen gorge at Buttermilk.”

On the Parisian front, I’m teaching at Sorbonne University in the master’s program in orchestra management. Mary Falvey ’63

Mary Falvey splits her time between San Francisco and Paris, France. “On the Parisian front, I’m teaching at Sorbonne University in the master’s program in orchestra management. I gave a seminar there in 2019 and this year the professor asked if I would teach part of the course while he is on sabbatical. I’m giving six seminars together with colleagues of the San Francisco Symphony. I’m continuing as an entrepreneur-in-residence at INSEAD, a global business school in Fontainebleau. I also helped a French startup in the quantum dot space raise Series A financing. This fall I plan to rent a house in Brittany as a successor to my country home in Calistoga, which I sold in 2022, and to add to my three months a year in France. My oldest grandson, Colin, who holds a master’s in environmental engineering from Stanford, was married last year.”

We had dinner before Christmas with Jim , MD ’69, and Christine Newton Dauber . They are now living in a nice senior living facility. Jim writes: “After a 20-year hiatus, Chris and I returned in April to see Monument Valley, Lake Powell, Zion, and Bryce Canyon along with my older sister and her husband. We still spend part of the summer in our condo in Hillsboro, OR. Our Thanksgiving celebration was quiet but appreciated since Nancy Deeds Meister produced a traditional feast for us and her husband. We spent Christmas here in Tucson but traveled to Hillsboro for New Year’s Eve.”

Thanks to finding our home phone number through Mr. Google, we had a wonderful phone conversation with Tom Stirling , JD ’69, a week ago. Tom lives in Honolulu with his wife, Anita. Two recent milestones for Tom: “Upon my February 28 retirement as a Honolulu lawyer, Anita and I were off on a tour of Vietnam and Cambodia at considerably greater expense than my first tour (all paid for by the Army 57 years ago). Also, I just made my 200th blood donation (first time was at Cornell when I was told donors could get out of ROTC drill that day). Since each donation can be used for up to three recipients, I may have more than 500 blood relatives out there somewhere.” ❖ Nancy Bierds Icke ( email Nancy ) | 12350 E. Roger Rd., Tucson, AZ 85749 | Alumni Directory .

Welcome to my last column before our 60th Reunion—so I’m hoping if you have news for your classmates that you will see them at Reunion and regale them in person. Meantime, here’s the news I do have.

Wayne Mezitt , MBA ’66, who lives with wife Elizabeth (Pickering) ’65 in Hopkinton, MA, catches us up on a lot! He writes, “In July 2023, Beth and I published a book, For the Love of Gardening , which describes our family experiences as we commemorate the 100th anniversary of our family business, Weston Nurseries. I retired from full-time management of the nursery in 2007, and since then, our son Peter and his wife, Karen, have managed all operations of the business started by my grandfather and grandmother in 1923, where I still serve as board chairman. I also enjoy ‘playing’ at Hort-Sense, the tiny business I started in 2010 as a personalized horticultural production and advisory service.

“We’re justifiably proud that we’ve been successful in shepherding Weston Nurseries into our fourth generation of family ownership. Passing the business along to our fourth generation enables Beth and me to continue exploring our passions for horticulture, travel, and family/friend relationships.

“I am editor-in-chief for the Leaflet , Massachusetts Horticultural Society’s monthly member electronic newsletter. I also serve as chair of the Massachusetts Invasive Plant Advisory Group, a voluntary collaborative representing organizations and professionals concerned with the conservation of the Massachusetts landscape. Beth manages all our family and social relationships and serves as chair of our Hopkinton Public Library friends organization.

“Our youngest son’s family lives near our ski house in Vermont, and our other three children live near us, enabling us to spend time with our nine grandchildren. In November Beth and I visited New Zealand, where Beth’s dad was born, reconnecting with relatives and enjoying their springtime, just as our Hopkinton winter was setting in. We’re now discussing the possibility for traveling to Latvia, the Mezitt family’s origin, in July, avoiding Hopkinton’s oppressive humidity and heat.

I’ve begun composing a new book about Rhododendron ‘PJM,’ a now well-known plant that my dad, Edmund Mezitt ’37 , BLA ’39, developed decades ago. Wayne Mezitt ’64, MBA ’66

“I’ve also begun composing a new book about Rhododendron ‘PJM,’ a now well-known plant that my dad, Edmund Mezitt ’37 , BLA ’39, developed decades ago at Weston Nurseries. Peter and Karen have just added another garden center operation to our Weston Nurseries ‘family,’ all in Massachusetts, to now include Lincoln, along with Chelmsford, Hingham, and Middleborough, complementing our main base in Hopkinton. We applaud their commitment and enthusiasm!

“We still maintain contact with a number of Wayne’s Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity brothers and Beth’s Kappa Alpha Theta sorority sisters, although several have recently passed away. With all that keeping us busy, we’ve not paid much attention to most aspects of our Cornell experience, but we’ll welcome updates with any of our friends who have been out of touch.”

Next is David Evans , who with wife Sherry lives on St. Simons Island, GA. He writes, “I retired in 2019 after a career in project management services for large corporations providing governmental services to the U.S. government, while also spending 31 years in the Air Force and Air National Guard as a fighter pilot. Currently, Sherry and I are enjoying our retirement in the wonderful beach community, which is 80 miles south of Savannah, where my Welsh ancestors arrived in the 1650s. A shout-out to my freshman roommate Bill Lacy .”

In other news, Phyllis Rivkin Goldman , MS ’67, and Michael Troner are enjoying their retirements in Boston and Miami, respectively. They are co-chairs of the Class of ’64 Annual Fund and are busy planning to reach out to all of our classmates to support the Annual Fund and in particular our Class Legacy: the Class of 1964 JFK Award for Cornell seniors entering public service. They hope for a big turnout for our 60th Reunion and an even bigger response to their requests for support. Each of them has grandchildren at Cornell and the Troners especially look forward to the graduation in May of granddaughter Rachael Ricisak ’24 before our Reunion.

Lastly, a message from our class president, Ken Kupchak , JD ’71: “Sixty years ago this June we shed our obligatory bonds to Cornell. Celebrate we shall at Reunion. Our ‘modest’ footprint, however, continues and remains indelibly printed in Cornell’s story. This is especially true with respect to the then- and now-timely JFK Award. We have just transitioned this charge to a self-perpetuating board composed of our great awardees. This ensures that the Cornell Class of 1964’s influence will survive our playing time on Cornell’s fields. Hope to see you this June. If you ask nicely, I may save some healthy milk punch for you!”

That’s it for now. On behalf of our class officers, we hope to see you at our 60th Reunion on Cornell’s campus on June 6–9, 2024. As for your news, please keep it coming! Update me by email, regular mail, our class website , or our class Facebook page . ❖ Bev Johns Lamont ( email Bev ) | 720 Chestnut St., Deerfield, IL 60015 | Alumni Directory .

From Joan Hens Johnson : “There were 21 people attending the Cornell annual Florida luncheon arranged by Judy Kellner Rushmore in January. We all enjoyed sharing stories and congratulating the class gift committee on the success of the fall 2023 pilot project of our well-being coaching at the Skorton Health Center. This initiative, funded by the Class of 1965 student mental health fund, will continue because the program is so impactful. Jeff Kass , the leader of our gift committee, provided me with an excellent summary that I shared at the luncheon. He wrote, ‘All results thus far indicate our class gift is funding a program with real and positive impact on the lives of current and next-generation Cornellians.’ Students overwhelmingly supported these statements: ‘I am making progress toward my well-being goals’; ‘I am noticing positive changes in myself that are keeping me encouraged’; ‘I am substituting more healthy/helpful thoughts and behaviors for less healthy/helpful thoughts and behaviors.’ The news of the successful pilot program created a positive buzz among all those at the luncheon.”

Commenting on the highlights of the past year, Myron Jacobson spoke of the river cruise he and Michele took from Amsterdam to Budapest “even though the Danube dried up as we finished with a bus!”

Jim Bennett writes, “Failing any meaningful hobby, I’m looking for my fifth consecutive full-time role to give back to Northeast Ohio. It looks like it will be a major initiative funded by the City of Cleveland and private monies to assemble and remediate 1,000 acres of abandoned inner city properties, market individual sites to companies, and provide jobs for a number of economically disadvantaged residents along a five-mile inner city corridor.”

George , MD ’69, and Judy Arangio spent last October in the Italian regions of Piemonte and Tuscano, especially appreciating the Lucca symphony playing Mozart and Puccini operettas and the international truffle festival in Alba, as well as Barolo, Barbaresco, Moscato wine tasting, and visiting sites on Lake Como.

Dave Bridgeman relates, “Karen and I just celebrated our sixth wedding anniversary. The last six years have been the best of our entire lives! The cruises and vacations are nice, but the best part is getting to be with each other in perfect love, peace, and harmony.”

After four years’ absence, Stephen Appell ’65 traveled to Ithaca via the Campus-to-Campus bus for a weekend of Cornell basketball.

Judy Rushmore and Dave Koval and Linda and Walt Gadkowski are moving to Vi at Bentley Village in Naples, FL, where Ashok , ME ’65 , and Fay Thomas Bakhru , MAT ’66 , are already in residence. Before moving, Judy and her family are touring South Africa.

After four years’ absence, Stephen Appell traveled to Ithaca via the Campus-to-Campus bus for a weekend of Cornell basketball—and this time, to root only for the women’s team. Having apprised the Statler staff of the purpose of his visit, they welcomed him with a goodie bag of Cornell souvenirs, including a basketball cap, and made him feel like a VIP. Steve watched the women players defeat Dartmouth the first night and give a good battle to a formidable Harvard team the next. He was gratified that the coaches and players expressed appreciation for his show of support. Steve also saw the women’s team play at Columbia earlier in the season, and on February 10 he traveled to New Haven to see the outstanding men’s team give Yale all it could handle before succumbing in the last four seconds, 80–78, in an epic battle of undefeated Ivy teams.

Steve Hand is another avid Cornell sports fan. He notes that he is a fixture in Ithaca at all Cornell women’s and men’s hockey games. “Steve Appell joined me last weekend for women’s basketball, hockey, Glenwood Pines, and Purity ice cream.” In January, Steve Hand went on a trip to Disney World with his wife, son, and two grandchildren and everyone had a fun time. Thanks to Steve for managing the Cornell Class of ’65 webpage, which has information about classmates and past Reunions and photos, and also the link to find the Cornell Class of 1965 Freshman Register.

The subject of health is important all through our lives, and Bud Suiter , MBA ’67, has just finished reading two books of interest: Young Forever by Dr. Mark Hyman ’82 and Drop Acid by Dr. David Perlmutter. He states: “The books summarize amazing research results, particularly recent stuff over the last five years.”

Applause to Alan Lockwood , MD ’69, who received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Physicians for Social Responsibility in 2023. Alan is a CAAAN volunteer and frequent contributor to the Lifelong Learning series at Kendal at Oberlin.

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to the column and please continue to forward your news to: ❖ Joan Hens Johnson ( email Joan ) | Stephen Appell ( email Stephen ) | Alumni Directory .

As we near two years to our 60th Reunion, our classmates continue to report on the various jobs, activities, and travels that make up their lives. Susan Porter Bass never imagined working in farming but reports working in a vineyard and winery. Dick Lockwood , MNS ’68, spent 20 years as a part-time faculty member at Brandeis University’s Heller School. He was a union organizer with classmate Larry Bailis at Brandeis for adjunct and non-tenured faculty.

Currently Dick is a member of the board of directors of the Bullough’s Pond Association, a neighborhood environmental defense organization to keep the pond from becoming a swamp. His current hobbies are ice skating and swimming. Dick visited Vietnam last year with his oldest son, Dan ’94 , to show him the village in the Mekong Delta on the Cambodian border where he lived from 1968–70 with the International Volunteer Organization. He reports that 58 years have changed the country for the better. The family travels to Brazil every year to visit his wife’s family in Salvador, Bahia.

John Cobey has been practicing law for 55 years. He is also chairperson of Neighborhood Health, a charity that provides medical services for the homeless. He also chairs the Hamilton County (OH) Law Library, is on the Art Academy board, is an officer of the Literary Club (the oldest one in America), and is on the Rockdale Temple board. In ’66 he never imagined that he would someday have a lawsuit about an outer space problem—the world has certainly changed. John and his wife have two successful and happy sons.

Ira Sadoff retired as Arthur Jeremiah Roberts Professor of Literature at Colby College in 2015. He remains an active and publishing poet. In 2020, his ninth collection of poems, Country, Living , was published by Alice James Books. This past December the Academy of American Poets published a new poem, “ Thank You .” Ira is passionate about classical music and jazz. He lives near Woodstock, NY, where there’s “good music galore.” He never imagined he would be spending his life as a professor teaching literature and poetry, and writing poetry and criticism, for 50 years. At Cornell, he describes himself as a “poor student” taking all the wrong courses with the wrong professors. At the end of his junior year, he finally had the courage to try writing poetry. He feels blessed to have this lifetime passion.

Dick Lockwood ’66 , MNS ’68, visited Vietnam last year with his oldest son, Dan ’94 , to show him the village where he lived from 1968–70.

After 36 years, Marty Skelly Remis retired from the CDC as a Public Health Advisor, Quarantine Division. She spent 33 years at the Chicago Quarantine Station and three years as Deputy Bureau Chief, Quarantine Branch, Atlanta, GA, retiring in 2008. Although she never imagined living in Florida, she is active in many activities in Sarasota. They include NAMI Sarasota and Manatee Counties, Meals on Wheels, All Faiths Food Bank, Habitat for Humanity, and Key Chorale. She now enjoys playing tennis and mahjong. She and her husband have time to travel. Trips included an Alaska cruise, a vegan Caribbean cruise, and driving 192,000 miles in their Class B RV after she retired. In the summer, they spend time on Tuscarora Lake in Erieville, NY, with the whole family. The family visits them in Florida in winter.

Nancy Decker Stephenson is a retired registered dietician and office manager for a veterinary practice. Her activities include volunteering with meals for the homeless and the DAR. Hobbies now include gardening, reading, classical piano, and travel. She never imagined going to Japan and China. Other countries visited include family visits in the Netherlands, plus trips to Norway, Switzerland, France, Italy, Greece, Hungary, Austria, Germany, Scotland, Israel, and Colombia. Family activities include annual reunions, vacations, and holiday/birthday get-togethers.

Donna Swarts Piver is a retired educator. She volunteers at a nursing home and critical care facility. She continues to recover from a massive stroke and is making great progress with bi-weekly physical therapy sessions. In mid-December, she traveled to New Jersey to visit Anne Evans Estabrook ’65 , MBA ’66, and other friends. Donna recently moved to the Glenridge, a continuing care complex in Sarasota, FL. She reports that she loves it and the people.

Debby Kirschner Wolf sadly informed us of the passing of her husband, Marty ’63 , DVM ’66. They met at Cornell and were married for 57 years. They were blessed with two children and six grandchildren. Leith Mullings passed away in December 2020. She was an authority on the foundations of racial and class oppression and the intersectionality of race, class, and gender.

Paul Mlotok passed away in March 2021. He was an oil industry analyst who worked for various companies and was an advisor to the Department of State, the CIA, and various OPEC oil ministers. Anthony Rerecich passed away in June 2023. He was a computer programming professional who worked for various banks and computer companies. He was a veteran and accomplished runner, and he enjoyed sailing and genealogy. ❖ Susan Rockford Bittker ( email Susan ) | Pete Salinger , MBA ’68 ( email Pete ) | Alumni Directory .

Larry Dominessy , ME ’68 (Louisville, TN) reports: “I have been retired since my early 50s. I have remained active but have removed working for money from the equation. I have happened on some broad experiences in the military, Peace Corps, and Foreign Service, which built my confidence beyond the impression of a business teacher at Cornell.

“When I studied engineering at Cornell, as a fluke I took an elective in the business school. The teacher was a retired business executive. He had us write a paper and gave personal interviews to critique what we had written. I was in my fifth year at Cornell but basically, he called me an ignoramus with no ability to express myself. It shocked me but it was hard to argue with.

“I enjoy my informal study of recent history and wish I would have known what I am learning now earlier in life. All of the people whom I would like to ask questions of are dead. I guess I can’t blame myself because most of us are too busy with life to appreciate what is going on (good and bad) until it is too late.

“At Cornell, I got the distinct feeling I was in over my head, at least the first couple of years. Struggling with money certainly did not help. I took ROTC, which seemed to be a refuge from tough engineering courses. I did well the first year until I realized I just did not have the time to put in it, and ROTC did not count toward graduation anyhow. I finished second from the bottom of my ROTC class (the other person had a problem keeping in step!), but I still got a commission and a ticket to Vietnam. However, in the end I would not trade my experience of four years in the Army for anything.”

Peter Buchsbaum (Stockton, NJ) writes: “My wife, Elaine, and I, now married 56 years, are joining Dick and Eileen Barkas Hoffman ’69 for a cross-country rail trip in mid-May. Meanwhile, I’ve continued work with Jewish organizations, having been elected to the executive board of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, and I also joined the Commission on Social Action of the Union for Reform Judaism in the U.S.

We spend summers and parts of autumn at our island home near Acadia National Park in Maine. Peter Buchsbaum ’67

“We spend summers and parts of autumn at our island home near Acadia National Park in Maine and are completing 50 years of living in still semirural Hunterdon County, NJ. Our first grandchild is now a 1-year-old living in Rockville, MD. I’m somewhat creakier but still okay, which means I had to do some snow shoveling recently.”

Roger Abrams (University Park, FL), who was professor and dean emeritus of Northeastern University School of Law, previously dean at Rutgers University and Nova University law schools, and on the faculty at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, passed away last November 12. A graduate of Harvard Law School, Roger was an expert on sports and labor law and legal education. He served as a salary arbitrator for Major League Baseball and was a permanent arbitrator for the television, communications, electronics, and coal industries.

Roger practiced labor law, was a civil rights litigation attorney with Boston firm Foley, Hoag & Eliot, and wrote books on alternative dispute resolution, labor arbitration practice, and the business and history of sports, among other subjects. His Sports and the Law has been cited as the leading sports law casebook. A colleague, Libby Navarrete, recalled that Roger was the epitome of a great lawyer, dean, and arbitrator. “He was a very good listener, and always extremely careful and sound with his decisions. He handed out justice with precision.”

Lawrence McGuinn (Westfield, NY) died last November 20. “After graduation,” the Jamestown, NY, Post-Journal reported, “he took over the management of the Wilson Hill Farm and later expanded to establish Lin-Ary Vineyards. Larry enjoyed his lifetime career as a viticulturist. He served for a number of years as secretary and as president of the Westfield Maid Cooperative. Larry was a life member of the Sigma Pi fraternity. He was also a member of the Chautauqua County Cornell Cooperative Extension. Larry enjoyed his family, grape farming, sunsets over Lake Erie, photography, wildlife, the Buffalo Bills, and dogs.” ❖ Richard Hoffman ( email Richard ) | 2925 28th St. NW, Washington, DC 20008 | Alumni Directory .

With spring upon us and summer close by, I have more news from our classmates to share—but we’d like even more news, so please let us know where you are and what you are doing!

Corinne Dopslaff Smith has brought us up to date. She writes, “So very many decades have flown by since graduation that I don’t think I have submitted an update since serving as class correspondent way back in the ’70s.” Corinne remains active in our class and currently serves as our website community manager, a job that did not exist in the ’70s! She will be using this position to help connect classmates who want to reconnect with those they have lost contact with. Expect to hear from Corinne soon as she prepares to embark on this new initiative.

Corrine writes, “The first three decades of my working career—starting immediately after graduation—were spent at IBM, working both with clients internationally (favorite activity) and in internal marketing (not so favorite). About a month after full retirement in 1998, I was bored and initiated a new career, winding up at Milliman, an international actuarial firm. On the personal side, in 1971, I married Bob Smith, the most interesting private pilot/sailor/raconteur/fierce friend you would ever want to meet. No kids, but many, many wonderful doggies. Bob and I attended every Reunion but one, and he grew to love Cornell and all our dear Cornell friends and their spouses as much as I did. We loved living both down the shore in New Jersey and in our apartment near Lincoln Center in NYC. Bob sadly died last April. He is missed by all who knew him—most of all me. I continue to live down the shore (in Spring Lake) and in Manhattan.” Seven DG sisters from our class connect each month with Bernice “Neecy” Bradin as Zoom leader. The group includes Corinne, Neecy, Mary Sander Alden , Mary Jo Bastion Ashley , Beth Deabler Corwin , Susan Clark Norwood , and Janie Wallace Vanneman .

Jay Waks ’68 , JD ’71, his wife, Harriet, and classmate Joan Gottesman Wexler ’68 took to the sidewalks, logging nearly 2,300 miles through year-end 2023.

Susan Norwood writes that after a few years at Tulane University, where she received an MEd in counseling (1972) and served as the program director in the University Center, in 1973 she became the director of guidance and college counseling at an independent school in New Orleans. She was also active as a traveling ERB test consultant, a role she continued in for several years after leaving the independent school in 1995. “Even as I developed a practice as a family mediator, restorative practitioner, and trainer, working in juvenile and family courts, eventually I circled back into schools to apply mediation skills to practice restorative discipline—an alternative to suspension and expulsion. Now pretty much retired since 2016, my time is taken up volunteering for the New Orleans affiliate of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, serving on that board as well as conducting family education and support groups and Mental Health First Aid trainings.” Susan also serves on the board of the Center for Restorative Approaches, which provides training and tools for restorative approaches in schools, workplaces, and the criminal justice system. With all that she continues to do, Susan writes that she has the most fun on any given day playing pickleball!

Jay Waks , JD ’71, his wife, Harriet, and classmate Joan Gottesman Wexler turned pandemic isolation into outdoor social occasions by taking to the sidewalks and paths on a wide variety of routes in and around their Larchmont-Mamaroneck, NY, communities, logging, so they say, nearly 2,300 miles through year-end 2023. And Jay reports they are still at it!

Happy to report that Sharon Lawner Weinberg , PhD ’71, and I, Steve , MBA ’70, JD ’71, attended our fourth annual South Florida TEP reunion this past winter, with two other members of our class present, Jane Frommer Gertler (and husband David ’67 , ME ’68) and Gordon Silver . The event was hosted by Richard Marks ’67 , MBA ’68, and wife Carol. Also attending were Rick Bailyn ’67 , MD ’71, and his significant other, Margo Printz-Brandt, Ted Feldmeier ’67 , BS ’71, and wife Joan, Norm Stern ’66 and wife Jo, Norm Stokes ’66 , Lloyd Richard Dropkin ’66 , MD ’70, and wife Joan, Ralph Janis ’66 and wife Rhoda, Norm Meyer ’66 , Mike Caplan ’66 , and Myron Jacobson ’65 . A great time was had by all.

I look forward to receiving more news and updates from all of you! Please email me with news about you and your family that you want to share with our classmates. ❖ Steve Weinberg, MBA ’70, JD ’71 ( email Steve ) | Alumni Directory .

Our 55th Reunion: June 6–9, 2024! Our Reunion chairs, Cindy Nixon Dubose and Sally Knowlton , have been hard at work planning a great Reunion. Cindy writes: “We’ll celebrate our 55th Reunion on June 6–9, and we hope you’ll join us! It will be a great opportunity to enjoy our class events and gatherings, attend University lectures and forums, explore the beautiful campus, and, of course, reconnect with friends and make new ones! We hope you’ll stay in touch, encourage other classmates to attend, and plan to celebrate with us! The registration materials and schedule of events will be sent in April and will have all the details of our weekend. (By the time you read this, you may have already received the materials.) There is early-bird pricing for registration until May 15, so we hope you’ll register early.

“Our class headquarters will be in the brand new, fully air-conditioned Toni Morrison Hall. It has spacious common rooms for socializing and gathering, an incredible dining hall, and a very convenient location in the new North Campus area. For on-campus housing, the single and double rooms are arranged in suites, also with plenty of space and amenities. Our wonderful registration chairs, Larry and Nancy Jenkins Krablin , will be handling the room reservations and the accommodations.

“For those arriving Thursday, we’ll have a casual welcome dinner buffet in the HQ and a traditional ice cream social in the evening. We’ll join together for breakfast in the Morrison Dining Hall on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday mornings. Everyone can attend and participate in our Friday morning class forum with Cornell historian Corey Earle ’07 . We’ll enjoy dinners (catered by the Heights Restaurant) on Friday and Saturday evenings, and a barbeque lunch with entertainment by the Sherwoods. In between our planned events during the weekend, there will be lots of time to explore campus, revisit familiar places, see new sights, and attend other engaging University events and programs. We hope to see you in June to celebrate our 55th together.”

Doug Mock ’69 is very talented with the guitar, harmonica, and kazoo, and if we’re lucky, we’ll get to see and hear him at our Reunion this June.

What a wonderful schedule that’s been planned by Cindy and Sally. If you’ve never been to a Class of 1969 Reunion, it’s never too late! We’re a welcoming group. It’s also worth coming to see all the new buildings and other changes on the Cornell campus.

Our presidents, Greg Baum and Robert Tallo , are asking everyone to consider being an officer for our next Reunion cycle—leading up to our 60th! We are looking for most positions, so feel free to nominate a classmate; we also accept self-nominations! We are definitely looking for a class correspondent.

We heard from our classmate Richard Hagelberg . He has been the CEO of Kidstuff Playsystems for the past 41 years. His wife thinks he should retire! Richard and his wife love to travel, especially on river cruises. His favorite Cornell memory: the camaraderie of the Big Red Band!

At our Zoom meeting this past January, we were entertained by classmate Doug Mock , who played folk songs from the ’60s and ’70s. He’s very talented with the guitar, harmonica, and kazoo, and if we’re lucky, we’ll get to see and hear him at our Reunion this June.

Lastly, fill in those forms and come to Reunion 2024! ❖ Ingrid Dieterle Tyler ( email Ingrid ) | Class website | Alumni Directory .

As I sit at my computer and assemble this column, the most amazing thing currently is that it is the beginning of February and the outdoor temperature here north of Chicago is above 50 °F, with absolutely no piles of dirty snow. It’s more like early spring than mid-winter here.

February is always time for the Cornell Alumni Leadership Conference (CALC), a gathering of class officers and other alumni, this year in Baltimore. Although I won’t be attending, CALC also indicates some milestones for class events. It will be preceded this year by an online meeting of our class officers with one of the most significant items on the agenda being preparations for our 55th Reunion, June 5–8, 2025. Even though, as I write this, Reunion is more than a year away, preliminary planning has already begun. If you have any thoughts or ideas, and wish to be involved or to volunteer, contact Sally Anne Levine , our class president. Find her contact info (and others) through the Alumni Directory .

Ellen Celli Eichleay (Pittsburgh, PA) writes, “I still live in Pittsburgh, where I have always lived, and have a large contingent of friends and family. Since the age of 37, I have walked two miles a day so I am in a lot better shape than many of them—so I spend a lot of time cooking, driving, and helping where I can. With the sudden realization that my twin grandsons were now the age of my father and his brother when they came to the U.S. in 1913, last year I wrote a book for them about the brave journey my grandparents took to come to the U.S. At the age of 30, with two little boys and speaking no English, they started by oxcart, then train, and then to the sister ship of the Titanic , the Olympic . They left the beautiful Casentino valley in Tuscany behind and came to the dirty, gritty town of Monessen, PA, where the steel mills provided work and there was real education for their sons. My uncle and father both went to Carnegie Mellon and graduated first and second in their respective classes and lived the American Dream. So my twin grandsons now have the place, names, and dates correct for future reference.

“I volunteer as a narrator of books with some Western Pennsylvania connection for the Library of Accessible Media, a division of the Carnegie Library. My husband, John ’68 , and I like to travel and we have done a lot in 2023. I only have one child in Pittsburgh, so I also travel to see these twins in North Carolina and my much younger granddaughter in New Mexico. I am very grateful for the charmed life I have led, and I think it all goes back to that decision my grandparents made to leave Italy in 1913.”

I celebrated happily with Bridget Murphy ’70 our 75th birthdays in New York City last summer. Ellen Celli Eichleay ’70

Ellen adds, “I celebrated happily with Bridget Murphy our 75th birthdays in New York City last summer. Bill , ME ’71, and Gail Post Wallis we see with some regularity, and it is always a great time when it happens. We met them for a weekend in Montreal in late September. We were wandering through the museum there and at the end of a corridor was a very modern painting. I asked them if it looked like a hockey mask and when we got up close, its title was ‘Dryden’!”

Continuing the creative energy that seems to envelop our classmates, Larry Kraft (North Springfield, VT) has had his first stage play, a tragicomedy titled Waiting for a Eulogy , both published and performed. This full-length play, which includes references to campus life at Alpha Sigma Phi, is inspired by Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett. Larry’s play was scheduled to have its “world premiere” by the Springfield (VT) Community Players in April. It has also been accepted for publication by OPEN: Journal of Arts and Letters , which “offers a range of contemporary aesthetic experiences made available through its several media platforms.”

More creative energy is evidenced by Ellen Saltonstall (New York, NY) in the publishing of her fifth book, Empowered Aging: Everyday Yoga Practices for Bone Health, Strength, and Balance. From the press release: “Embrace the journey of remaining active while aging. This comprehensive guide by seasoned yoga therapist Ellen Saltonstall offers a fresh perspective on living with courage, vitality, and grace. Drawing from the wisdom of yoga, this book provides professional guidance, gentle adaptations, and compassionate support to improve your bone health, strength, and balance while enhancing your overall well-being so you can enjoy the fullness of life at any age.”

Yet another creative classmate many of us know is artist Andrea Strongwater (New York, NY). You may remember her as the creator of the Cornell puzzle that was a Reunion memento. Her creativity is now a part of an exhibit at Cornell’s Mann Library called “From Nabokov’s Net.” A noted writer and professor of Russian literature at Cornell from 1948–59, Vladimir Nabokov was also impassioned by butterflies. While in Ithaca, he collected hundreds of specimens from across the U.S., which he donated to the Cornell University Insect Collection. The exhibit, part of which is a selection from his collection, also includes artwork by Andrea, including a butterfly describing in Latin the classification of the butterfly named after Nabokov. This butterfly is also being made into a sticker to be given away and used as a part of the publicity. The exhibit runs through August, so attendees to this year’s Reunion will have the opportunity to see it.

As always, you may contact me directly (see below) or you may use the University’s online news form . ❖ John Cecilia, MBA ’79 ( email John ) | Alumni Directory .

For those of you not on Facebook, you missed splendid images taken by Gilda Klein Linden and her husband, Jeff Krawitz, from their long winter trip to Southeast Asia. I’m glad I don’t have to select a favorite among those from Hong Kong (Victoria Peak, variously shaped double-decker buses, and more neon lights than discos in the ’60s), Cát Bà Island (seafood and cruising), Ha Long Bay, Hue, Mekong River sites, and a Vespa tour of Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon, per localspeak), and still more pix from Bangkok, Phnom Penh, and Singapore. Actually, I would choose a favorite from Angkor Wat, the newly restored Hindu Buddhist temple near Siem Reap—if my top picks weren’t all of Gilda herself, a smile beaming in every shot she’s in.

During the pandemic, they traversed the U.S. and along the East Coast in their tow-behind camper trailer. They have now been to all 50 states. As soon as possible after COVID, the two were in the air to Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana, and Namibia. That’s not all. In toto, they’ve cruised the Caribbean, a thousand miles up the Amazon, and from Seville to Lisbon. Some jaunts include family (Tanzania/Zanzibar and London/Cotswolds). More is scheduled this year. She’s been to all seven continents and swum in all seven seas. Considering all the time away, it’s notable that Gilda’s been an EMT with the local ambulance corps near home in Fair Lawn, NJ, for 32 years and also volunteered to give COVID vaccinations in the first 18 months that these were available to the Bergen County Medical Reserve Corps. She can easily see two of her boys: her middle son lives six miles away with his wife and family while the older one and partner have moved to eastern Pennsylvania. Seeing her youngest son and his husband requires flying to London … and we can imagine what a joy that is for this traveling classmate!

Robert Bloch tells us that over last November’s 20–22 weekend, 23 Psi U fraternity brothers, with some of their wives and girlfriends and “wannabe Psi Us from SAE” enjoyed an informal reunion. The death, earlier in 2023, of Barry Cermak prompted them to get together. Attendees from the Class of ’70 were Steve Hirst and Art Walsh . From our class, attendees were Tom and Amy Brereton , Warren and Donna Baker , Leo , ME ’72, and Laurie Bettan Reinsmith ’72 , Eddie Kosteva , MBA ’73, Gary Cokins , and Robert and Nancy Bloch. From the Class of ’72 were Ed and Tracy Marinaro , Mike Jones , Chris Hart , PhD ’83, Chuck Parr , Mike Kozel , David Commito , John Gollon (and his girlfriend, Jen), and Fred Hoefer . Brothers from ’73 were Ed Mace , Kellen Smith , Stu Millheiser , Pete Durkalski , Dick Bell , and Mike Dempster . Joining from SAE were John Morehouse ’72 and Steve Kramer ’72 . Happy stragglers streamed through the State Diner Sunday morning.

Gilda Klein Linden ’71 has been to all seven continents and swum in all seven seas.

A highlight of cocktails and dinner along Cayuga Inlet at the Boatyard Grill included a sampling of fine wine from brother Mike “Vittler” Jones ’72’s Lagunita Vineyard (Amador County, CA). They tailgated the next afternoon and had barbecue at the Antlers after a tour of the old Psi Upsilon house (now repurposed as a grad student residence and activity center). Brothers took side trips to Taughannock and other parks and wandered the campus. They saw much that had changed, yet a demonstration in front of the Straight suggested much had not!

Howard Rodman is still screenwriting (an adaptation of a novel for Amazon Studios), television writing (staffed on “The Idol” from HBO-MAX), novel writing (latest, The Great Eastern, “a sprawling, lavish, literary, 19-century, anti-colonial adventure novel from Melville House”), teaching (professor at USC), and cultural “bureaucrating” (VP of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences). He had been named a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the Republic of France and this year was promoted from Chevalier (Knight) to Officier.

Some have asked me to report on a Cornell’s Adult University’s January expedition to Antarctica. Ordinarily your correspondent has easy access to words … and words and words. But, in the case of the planet’s southernmost, least-populated, fifth-largest, and most arid continent, I still struggle to articulate the awe of what our merry band experienced aboard the SH Vega . The quiet. A wider range of blues and grays than you can imagine. Vast emptiness. More kinds of ice than you’ve heard of. Nearly no falling snow. Proximity to creatures of land, sea, and air—who were unconcerned as we walked nearby on ice or snow and cruised close on small Zodiacs or our 150-passenger ship. Superb Cornell teaching, exquisitely appointed ship, fine food and drink, and as companionable a group of Cornell alumni and friends as one might like. Because of the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators, ships operate within the Antarctic treaty system and aim to have minimal impact on the fragile environment. Thus, once we’d left Ushuaia, Argentina, we saw only one other boat as we plied the Beagle Channel and Drake Passage and meandered meaningfully among the icebergs, sea ice, and islands of the Antarctica Peninsula that’s closest to South America. Put this wondrous place on your list and until you get there, explore online. Ask me for the short film of our excursion if you wish. ❖ Elisabeth Kaplan Boas ( email Elisabeth ) | Cara Nash Iason ( email Cara ) | Alumni Directory .

I just returned from the Cornell Alumni Leadership Council (CALC) meeting in Baltimore—something new for me, but, as it turns out, an event that hundreds of alumni from all graduations have been attending repeatedly for years. It was great meeting up with classmates and meeting new friends. Cornellians came from all over the country and even abroad. Among the events I attended was an impressive lecture on leadership during challenging times by four-star general, former Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, and distinguished senior lecturer of leadership at the Johnson School, George W. Casey Jr., and an informative discussion of antisemitism and racism on the Cornell campus. A dinner in a nearby restaurant organized by our enthusiastic and energetic class president, Nancy Roistacher , was delicious, but more importantly lots of fun. For those of you in the Class of ’72 who may be interested in attending a future meeting, there is no need to be a class officer or in a leadership position to attend CALC—all Class of ’72 alumni are welcome.

News from our classmates continues to come in. Richard Joslyn , PhD ’77, writes in from Jenkintown, PA, that he retired in 2020 after a 44-year career at Temple University as a professor of political science, associate dean, vice provost, and dean of Temple’s campus in Japan. He recently published a book with Temple Press, called The History of Temple University Japan . Currently he and his wife, Kathleen, get the most satisfaction from taking care of their granddaughter, Anabel, age 13. His summers are spent at a cottage on Keuka Lake, one hour west of Ithaca, where he and Kathleen kayak, drink wine, and have a boat that goes 8 mph! Among his memories of Cornell are singing with the Glee Club and going to hockey games at Lynah Rink, becoming politically active, and standing outside Willard Straight when the students who had occupied it in protest of racism on campus came out bearing guns, thus witnessing, in real life and real time, the famous Newsweek magazine cover photo.

Richard Joslyn ’72 , PhD ’77, spends summers at a cottage on Keuka Lake, one hour west of Ithaca, where he and Kathleen kayak, drink wine, and have a boat that goes 8 mph!

Nancy Kollisch (Rancho Santa Fe, CA) is grateful that everyone in her family is doing well, and that she continues to walk and travel in her retirement. She fondly remembers having a great time at Cornell, despite, she claims, being a “nerd!”—which actually may have been a good thing, she says, for it kept her out of trouble. Clearly, she worked hard and accomplished great things.

Mark Schimelman writes that he retired 12 years ago and is enjoying the freedom and time with his family. He sadly recalls the passing 12 years ago of Joel Shapiro ’73 , his best friend in college (besides his wife, Shelley (Grumet) ’73 ).

Elias Savada , another attendee of CALC, writes in from Bethesda, MD, that after graduation he moved to the Washington, DC, area and settled into a career in film history and archiving, starting with the American Film Institute (then based at the Kennedy Center) and ultimately founding and (still) running the Motion Picture Information Service, which provides about 400 customized copyright research reports annually. He and his wife, Andrea, are still waiting for grandkids as his son, Daniel, and daughter, Shira, have other ideas. Back in 1995 Elias co-wrote Dark Carnival , a biography of film director Tod Browning ( Dracula , Freaks ) that was recently revised into a larger, limited-edition volume (with a paperback due later this year). He writes film reviews and also writes about craft beer.

Keep the news coming. We’re all interested! ❖ Susan Farber Straus ( email Susan ) | Frank Dawson ( email Frank ) | Alex Barna ( email Alex ) | Wes Schulz , ME ’73 ( email Wes ) | Alumni Directory .

By the time you read this, the election will have ended, but I’m hoping our long-serving class president, Paul Cashman , has been elected to the Board of Trustees. He is dedicated to Cornell and would serve everyone well. Go Paul!

Rich Saltz , MBA ’74, our current class co-president, and his spouse, Lynn (Rosenbluth) ’75 , attended the wedding of their daughter Marcy ’06 on Rich’s birthday in a restaurant in Greenwich Village. Marcy married Andrew Ogulnik. Adding to Rich and Lynn’s joy, their son Ted ’12 became engaged to Alyson Stein ’13 .

Vicki Simons writes that COVID helped her feel more attached to Cornell, following the wonderful online offerings. She especially enjoyed Corey Earle ’07 ’s class on “all things Cornell.” Attending the 50th Reunion was the icing on the cake. As an architect, she marveled at the new and exciting buildings on campus, “a literal Who’s Who in architecture.” Vicki has also been traveling since retirement. Her favorite trip was to South Africa, Botswana, and Zimbabwe for a safari. She’s also enjoyed a Cornell trip with alumni to Northern Italy.

Steven Fruchtman , too, has recently returned from a trip to Tanzania, Kenya, and Rwanda. “Wonderful people and fabulous sights.” His three children still bring the most satisfaction these days, as he still works running a biotech company focused on drug discovery. His best memory of Cornell remains meeting his buddy Chuck Keibler .

Mary Gilliland , MAT ’80, has just published a new book of poetry, Ember Days . She is a senior lecturer emeritus at the Knight Institute for Writing. An award-winning poet, she has previously published The Devil’s Fools and The Ruined Walled Castle Garden . She has also received a Council of the Arts Faculty Grant from Cornell, where she created and taught seminars, such as “Ecosystems & Ego Systems” and “America Dreaming.”

It was great to hear Jody Gandolfi ’73 and Bill Cowdery ’73 play piano again after 50 years!

Bill Chamberlain echoed the fun had at the 50th Reunion. He was delighted to connect with friends from his time at Cornell. He heard the cool story of how Greg Kishel and his wife, Karin, met in the Peace Corps. He also caught up with Nancy Roistacher ’72 and Wayne Merkelson , JD ’75, Dave and Patty Miller Ross ’72 , Ed Cobb , Pam Meyers , Bill Welker , MBA ’75, Bill Cowdery , PhD ’89, and Bill Cagney . A special thanks to Nancy and Wayne for putting together a wonderful Risley reunion. It was great to hear Jody Gandolfi and Bill Cowdery play piano again after 50 years! Bill is currently acting in Tracy Letts’s The Minutes . Otherwise, he’s mostly retired and working remotely very part time as a pre-law advisor at Reed College in Oregon.

Laura Davis had the pleasure of screening her latest documentary, Virulent: The Vaccine War , at a recent Cornell Intercampus Vaccine Symposium. It was co-presented by Weill Cornell and the Veterinary College’s Department of Immunology. Virulent examines the consequences of vaccine hesitancy and denial. After it was first screened, the COVID pandemic hit and it “became a very different film, one about the national conversation about vaccine safety and mandates.” We hope to be able to see it soon.

Denise Meridith has been reappointed to the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Advisory Council. She’s also continuing her participation with the Cornell Technology Business Network and her long tenure with CAAAN in Arizona. Since retiring from the Bureau of Land Management, she has started two consulting companies.

Ann Prezyna and her spouse, Gordon Lewis, have been adapting their ranch in southeast Arizona as the climate becomes hotter and drier. They purchased a heat pump to replace their propane heat and AC unit and now have an electric bill below $25 a month. They power their EVs with solar panels. Their other home is a houseboat in Seattle. Ann is actively engaged in preserving our natural world. Her law firm, Animal and Earth Advocates, continues to pursue lawsuits to protect the land she loves. She misses the Vietnam War protests, when the community was actively engaged. Ann sees such activism as much needed now.

So be sure to keep us up to date on your life. ❖ Phyllis Haight Grummon ( email Phyllis ) | Dave Ross ( email Dave ) | Pam Meyers ( email Pam ) | Alumni Directory .

In case you’ve missed the emails, our 50th Reunion is this June. (What!) If you haven’t signed up yet and want to go, please do so now. I still remember when my mother, Ethel Potteiger Myers ’35 (who, BTW, knew Martha Van Rensselaer and was there when that hall opened), attended her own 50th in 1985. She was still talking about that when I accompanied her to her 75th in 2010, just a couple of months before our eldest daughter, Annalise ’14 , began her freshman year. So it’s a big deal, and if you haven’t attended Reunion in a while, or ever, please consider joining us. Hey, you don’t want to miss Larry Kleinman and me reliving our DJ days at WVBR when we go back on the air live from our class headquarters at RBG Hall Friday night! Make sure “your” song is included in the 50th Reunion playlist—send your favorite to John Foote ( email John here ).

If you are going, don’t forget to check out what your “Affinity Groups” (sports teams, Greek houses, residential halls, choral/instrumental groups, clubs, etc.) will be doing there. Go to this website and scroll down to “50th Reunion Affinity Outreach” for the complete list. (There are email links in the heading to Mary “Mi” O’Connell and Diane “Kope” Kopelman VerSchure .)

And, whether or not you can attend, don’t forget that this is a wonderful time to consider giving back. Our 50th Reunion campaign co-chairs, Jim Irish and Andrea Glanz , and participation chair David Miller are leading the effort to once again make our class truly notable.

Speaking of getting back together, a number of us “represented” at the Cornell Alumni Leadership Conference (CALC) at the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront the last weekend in February, including Beth Allen , former class president Dale Lazar , JD ’77, Ellen Perlmutter , Bill Quain , and me. Dale said afterward, “I enjoyed visiting with our classmates and all of my Cornell friends. It was a great turnout.” Steve Piekarec came up from Northern Virginia Friday night to host the Cornell classes of the ’70s reception at the Pratt Street Ale House (as he did previously), so ’74s were prominent there as well. Although I had attended parts of CALC in the past, when it was in D.C. or Baltimore, this was the first time that I had signed up for the full event (including staying at the Marriott Friday night). As an officer of the Cornell Club of Washington (DC) as well as our class itself, I found it very valuable. The schedule was pretty tight (15 minutes between sessions—like classes!) beginning Friday afternoon at 2 p.m. and all day Saturday, ending with a gathering with Alumni Affairs regional representatives at the hotel bar after CALC officially ended at 5:30 p.m. I recommend it and would go again.

You don’t want to miss Larry Kleinman ’74 and me reliving our DJ days at WVBR when we go back on the air live Friday night [of Reunion]! Jim Schoonmaker ’74

From the mailbox: David Hirschland writes, “I laughed when I saw that Nancy Dworkin Miller ’73 ’s favorite Cornell memory was hearing James Taylor. One of my favorites was Nancy, a percussionist, leading the way to the Big Red Pep Band in ‘Sweet Georgia Brown.’”

Esteban Rosas writes from Mexico, “I remember and miss the infamous ‘Baja Chemical Company’— Blaine Rhodes (‘Cisco’), Robert Hoff (‘the Fat One’), and me (‘Speedy’). We wrote a project for a course in chemical engineering 50 years ago, along with slides and cassettes (no iPhone then). We got a D, but we had so much fun—even the profs wanted a copy to show the new students. Hope we can meet again this coming summer.” Esteban adds, “Cornell has been part of my life, and when I have visited (last in 2017) it feels like taking a refreshing boost for the times to follow. I still work, and I think I will do it till the end. I had some years in recess but got bored and started again. I have a little consulting regional office, and I also participate as an advisor to the company in Washington, DC, of my former roommate from North Campus, Don Gross .”

As for his family, Esteban has one son, two daughters, and three fantastic grandsons; “my pride and joy—they play with me in a jazz band, the Stray Cats. My wife, Rosa, and I will complete 49 years of happy marriage just before our class’s 50th Reunion. Rosa and I are excited to attend Reunion. I will play my sax and acoustic guitar as part of a band on Saturday, June 8, in Klarman Hall. We will play ’70s music for your entertainment. All the class is invited.”

Perry Jacobs has forwarded several links he thought we might like to know about. “To receive the ‘Big Red Thread,’ the recently created newsletter from the Athletics Department covering all of Cornell’s teams, email scl-add@cornell.edu . The intro by Nicki Moore, the new Director of Athletics (and Cornell’s first female AD), is always a fun read.” (Editor’s note: She did a terrific job hosting a panel of Cornell alumni athletes at CALC.) Perry also recommends “Cornell Hockey 401: The History, Art, and Science of Ice Hockey at Cornell” (which you can livestream here ) and the recent Cornellians story about Mike Schafer ’86 , the longest tenured coach in Cornell men’s hockey history.

We thank all for their contributions and invite you to continue to send in your news. ❖ Jim Schoonmaker ( email Jim ) | Molly Miller Ettenger ( email Molly ) | Alumni Directory .

It is mid-February as I write, and I can’t wait until the clocks change so it will be light in the morning and early evening! I am also looking forward to June to go up to Ithaca for Reunion to scout out places and activities that we can use/copy for our 50th Reunion, June 5–8, 2025! Put the dates on your calendar, and get ready to see old friends and definitely new buildings on campus. If you want to get involved with the planning, have an idea for an event, or would like to volunteer for the next five years, please contact me ( Deb Gellman , email me here ) or our Reunion chair, Susan Fulton ( email Susan ).

Last fall, I went to a conference honoring former Cornell history professor Walter LaFeber at Cornell Tech on Roosevelt Island. A group of former students discussed many of his works and gave personal anecdotes about his impact on their lives, personally and professionally. One of the presenters was Andrew Rotter . Andy retired from the Colgate University Department of History, where, he says, for nearly 35 years he taught courses in U.S. foreign relations, in the spirit (but without the skill) of his Cornell mentor. He and his wife, Padma Kaimal (Swarthmore ’79), live in Hamilton, NY, where he spends his time writing, jogging, cross-country skiing, sitting on the village planning committee, and teaching in a medium-security prison. He has two adult daughters, a son-in-law and one daughter’s significant other, and two grandsons, ages 6 and 2, all living two hours away in Albany.

In the fall, I also traveled to Washington, DC, for a girls’ weekend with Steffi Feit Gould , Karen Lauterbach , and Ting Magill Kamon . Steffi and husband Perry ’74 had a busy 2023. Son Keith and his wife, Sophie, added daughter Violet to join big brother Miles in April; son Jason married Maddie in May; and they all (including son Andrew ’05 and wife SiChang) went to Portugal in September to help celebrate Steffi’s 70th! Karen and Mark Powers spent his 70th tucked away on a Nat Geo ship off the coast of Iceland. They saw a live volcano spewing lava, breaching whales, and puffins. Mark just published a short story, “Rabbits,” in the literary journal Does It Have Pockets . Ting and Mark Kamon spend lots of time visiting their sons Jake (and spouse Megan) and Mike (and spouse Lindsay), daughter Emily (and spouse Jason), all of their grandchildren, and Kappa and DU friends. Ting is an active member of the Chester River Chorale, which has numerous concerts during the year.

Mark Powers ’75 spent his 70th tucked away on a Nat Geo ship off the coast of Iceland.

I spent Christmas and New Year’s with Lynn Arrison Harrison , which coincided with her birthday. Her son Willie, daughter Katie, and grandson Dean came from Burlington, VT, and Naples, FL, respectively to help us celebrate her 71st! Her son Ridgley was at Disney World with his family but was with Lynn for her 70th. Lynn spends time gardening, kayaking, hiking, and doing various other outdoor activities in Saranac Lake, NY. Pam Hanna writes from Ithaca, NY: “I turned 70 last July. Surprisingly, it was a bit of an existential moment for me. Knowing that (for real!) most of my life is now in the past gave me great pause, more than I ever expected! Certainly more than turning all the other ‘milestones’—i.e., 21, 30, 40, 50, 60. BUT, I got celebrated in style, with a large family gathering including two of our three sons, their partners, and two of our grandkids. We enjoyed Stewart Park, Myers Park in Lansing, a lake cruise, dinner at the Boatyard, and so much more, with a whole crew. I loved every minute! Ithaca cooperated with fine summer weather. Here’s to more birthdays!” Elyse Byron had a party at her favorite bar in Illinois with a great dance band and about 50 friends and family for her 70th. In addition, she spoiled herself with a trip to Antarctica!

Bob Brennan , ME ’76, and wife Claire took the whole family on a vacation to Costa Rica. They took their four kids, the kids’ spouses, and their three grandchildren. They rented a villa for everyone in Tamarindo, on the west coast. They then all went to a resort in Monteverde in the Central Valley area. Sun and sand, then mountains and nature.

Rich Marin , MBA ’76, lives in San Diego, CA, with wife Kim. Even though the kids are in the East, and Kim and he get back east regularly and see lots of Cornell pals, they consider themselves Californians now. Rich spends his time doing lots of investment expert witness work, especially since ending his teaching career (Cornell for 10 years and University of San Diego for three years). “I’ve written several books and write a 1,500-word story for my blog every day.” He does heavy-duty hillside gardening, something he learned working at the Cornell Plantations, when it was called that. His other pastime is riding the hills and deserts on one of his BMW motorcycles. Kim is still singing cabaret both in California and in New York. Last year they traveled to Egypt and Jordan.

I know that many of you celebrated your 70th in grand style and we all would love to live vicariously through those adventures (I know I love to hear the stories). Please share them with your classmates and plan on joining us in Ithaca next year! If your email contact information is “dated,” please send me a note and I will have you updated in the University records, or send updates here . Most of our Reunion updates will be via email so we would love for your contact info to be up to date! ❖ Deb Gellman , MBA ’82 ( email Deb ) | Karen DeMarco Boroff ( email Karen ) | Mitch Frank ( email Mitch ) | Joan Pease ( email Joan ) | Alumni Directory .

Rich Gallagher was one of my first friends on campus, thanks to a pre-freshman-year Wilderness Reflections bike trip on Cape Cod, so it was a treat to hear from him recently. Rich wrote, “It’s been a good while since I sent any class news, so here’s what’s new with me. I discovered that retirement was overrated and am now back in practice part time as a psychotherapist, serving all of New York State via telehealth. Since going back into practice I’ve published a new self-help book ( The Anxiety Journal , Rockridge Press) and presented a new treatment protocol for obsessive-compulsive disorder at a major clinical conference.”

Rich has written many great books of practical psychology, on topics from customer service to improving your small talk to dealing with fears and phobias. You can learn more about him on his website !

Bruce Behounek and his spouse, Diane, live in Yardley, PA. Bruce continues to keep up with medicine, but his greatest satisfaction comes from family time, including with two grandchildren, Mason and Harper. His best memories of Cornell include football, hockey, and lacrosse games. In more news from Pennsylvania, Nancy Arnosti writes that she enjoys “spending time outdoors with people whom I love. I am preparing to retire from my executive compensation consulting practice serving life sciences companies in mid-2024. My children are thriving—both in the Bay Area. I only have to take one trip to visit both. My partner and I are enjoying our 12th year together while living 135 miles apart.” Nancy’s favorite Cornell memories are “ Uri Bronfenbrenner ’38 , Walter LaFeber, David Levitsky, and other inspiring professors—and having friends from all over the U.S.” Happy retirement to you, Nancy!

Martha Frucht Rives and husband Darden are enjoying small-town living in Exeter, NH. Martha writes, “I am making art in my studio, serving on the New Hampshire Art Educators’ Association board, and serving on the Scholastic Art Awards of New Hampshire board. I recently had a show of my artwork at the Levy Gallery in Portsmouth, NH. I am working on promoting my art and having more exhibitions.” (Editor’s note: You can view some of Martha’s stunning artwork here .) Other things that bring Martha satisfaction include her son, Greg, who “is happily living and working in New York City, and bowling, ice skating (yes, I still ice skate at almost 70—great exercise!), playing bridge, and traveling.” Her fond memories of Cornell include “working on the yearbook, taking photos of campus life, being outside on a beautiful day, and having breakfast with friends at the Green Dragon (glazed chocolate donuts—yummy!).” Can confirm—those donuts were great.

Jim Sollecito ’76 procured and donated 280 unique varieties of hydrangea to Cornell, totaling more than 810 plants on the campus.

Amy Lubow reports, “I’m a landlady in Brooklyn, NY. One of my sons also attended Cornell and is now an endocrinologist married to an emergency room doctor.” From Northport, MI, Philip Loud writes that he’s enjoying “projects and building things, from furniture to fences to outbuildings to Adirondack chairs. In retirement, I’m volunteering with our local schooner school-ship organization.” (Must break in again: see schoolship.org for more on this amazing Great Lakes program.) Philip adds, “I had a new titanium knee installed last February and probably will do the second next winter.” His favorite Cornell memories are “my time as a member of Phi Gamma Delta, walking around our beautiful campus … oh, and some classes. Ha.”

Barbara Saunders-Adams is taking satisfaction from writing, reading, tennis, hiking, and friends. She reports that she’s “writing a monthly magazine for the Pelham (NY) Jewish Center and editing, plus leading a monthly Jewish book discussion for the PJC. My son Aaron recently signed a recording contract and is going on tour around the country. My daughter Shira opened a gardening business in the Hudson Valley called Honeybee Horticulture. My husband, Sam, hikes daily on the New Paltz trails with our puppy, Finley.” Barbara’s best memory of Cornell is “hanging out with friends in the Straight, discussing everything.”

Congratulations to John Banner , who writes, “In March 2023, I ran the Tokyo Marathon, thus completing the ‘World Marathon Majors,’ starting with Boston, New York, Chicago, Berlin, London, and, lastly, Tokyo.” John is “project-developing a state-of-the-art energy plaza in Palm Springs, CA, offering green hydrogen for FCEVs (fuel cell electric vehicles) and H2ICEs (hydrogen internal combustion engines), DC fast charging for BEVs (battery electric vehicles), CNG (compressed natural gas), and conventional fuels, for commissioning in late 2025.” And, John adds, “Two movies written by my screenwriter daughter, Rebecca Banner, released in 2023: True Spirit (Netflix) and Space Oddity (Hulu).” Congrats to her, too!

And thank you to Jim Sollecito , who was an ornamental horticulture major at Cornell. He procured and donated 280 unique varieties of hydrangea to Cornell, totaling more than 810 plants on the campus. This is the largest singular planting of a species in the history of Cornell. Professor emerita Nina Bassuk ’74 and members of the Cornell wrestling team also helped to plant the campus hydrangea collection over the last eight years. (If you’d like to view the hydrangeas on campus, you can find maps and walks here .)

Learning a lot of science and living vicariously through your news this time, friends! Please let us know what you have been up to. ❖ Pat Relf Hanavan ( email Pat ) | Lisa Diamant ( email Lisa ) | Alumni Directory .

A few more of our classmates have joined the ranks of retirees and, as expected, continue to engage in a wide range of fun, purpose-filled, and exciting activities. Here’s what’s happening in their lives.

Bill Grant lives in Ponte Vedra, FL, with Cindy, his wife of 37 years. After a successful and varied professional career, Bill retired and in 2022 founded a company called Homes for Hometown Heroes , a real estate firm that “gives back to those who serve.” Bill and Cindy also created Grant Realty, a real estate investment and management company, to manage the goal of passing on their legacy to their four children and 11 grandchildren.

In addition to his real estate work, Bill is very active in Cornell and community volunteer activities. He enjoys meeting prospective Hotelies through his work with CAAAN and he serves on the board of the Cornell Club of Northern Florida. He also spends a lot of time coaching his granddaughters’ YMCA basketball team and enjoys mentoring teenagers to achieve their goals.

With all of that, Bill and Cindy somehow found time last year to take an “epic” 51-day cruise to the South Pacific and French Polynesia. Next up for them is a tour to Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam.

Bill’s favorite memories of Cornell include his graduation day, running into Statler Hall with his fellow graduates and trading his graduation cap for a chef’s hat. Thirty-three years later he proudly watched his son Daniel ’10 graduate from Cornell and receive his commission as the lone Marine Corps Second Lieutenant. Bill is most grateful for his Cornell education and all the amazing Hotelies and Cornellians he’s met along his journey.

Amy Birnbaum writes, “I retired from a long career at CBS News in February 2022. I am reconnecting with old friends and volunteering for political and academic projects. Life is sweet! My husband, Bernard Furnival, and I are traveling more. My daughter is on the West Coast and my son and his fiancée are on Manhattan’s West Side.”

After retiring from a career in biotechnology as a molecular biologist turned medical writer, Linda Gritz started writing Yiddish songs. (You can listen to her songs on YouTube !) This was doubly surprising since she is not fluent in Yiddish and has just a basic knowledge of music. So Linda was extra surprised when she won the People’s Choice Award for Best New Jewish Song at the international Bubbe Awards! This annual award is based on the Grammy awards, and “Grammy” was playfully translated into Yiddish as “Bubbe” (grandma). Linda also came in third in the juried award for Best New Jewish Song. Congratulations, Linda!

Linda Gritz ’77 won the People’s Choice Award for Best New Jewish Song at the international Bubbe Awards!

John Molinda has a lot going on in retirement. He primarily does volunteer work for the energy policy committees for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and American Nuclear Society. Otherwise, John stays involved in activities for Cornell and Carnegie Mellon. He is also active in sports including tennis, golf, skiing, mountain and road biking, and windsurfing and still likes to check out local rock bands.

Catching up with old friends and classmates brings John the most satisfaction these days, and he’s enjoyed a lot of it lately. He writes, “This year has been a 50th high school reunion year for most of us in the Cornell Class of ’77. Four of us from Mount Lebanon High School (Pittsburgh area) Class of ’73 went on to Cornell and three of us made it back for the 50th reunion—including Patty Cox Yeates , MBA ’78, who I had not seen since Cornell days, and Mark Halper , who traveled from his home in England, where he is a freelance journalist and a part-time leader of a band called Ghostweed.”

John also attended the 50th reunion for South Hills Catholic High School Class of ’73, where he spent two years, and caught up with Cornell ’77 classmate Don Lee , BS ’83. John adds, “I consider this 50th high school reunion year a kickoff for the countdown to our own 50th Reunion at Cornell.” I agree, John, and encourage all our classmates to start planning to come back to Ithaca, June 10–13, 2027, for our 50th Reunion!

Jone Sampson writes that she and her husband, Sam Weirich, finally retired in 2021 and built a small home in Bedford, WY. They are enjoying hiking and fishing in the summer and skiing and snowshoeing in the winter. Jone and Sam also love visiting their three daughters, who are scattered across the country in San Francisco, CA, Boulder, CO, and Portland, OR.

In February, Cara Lebowitz Kagan , Karen Wellin , and I attended this year’s Cornell Alumni Leadership Conference, held in Baltimore, MD. It’s always great to connect with some of my fellow class officers, meet fellow alums, learn about what’s happening on campus, and explore a variety of leadership topics. Add to all that a large dose of Big Red spirit and it was a fun, educational, and inspirational weekend.

We enjoy hearing from you and having the opportunity to share your stories with our fellow classmates. Please keep all of your news and views coming in! ❖ Mary Flynn ( email Mary ) | Howie Eisen ( email Howie ) | Alumni Directory .

Greetings, classmates! Thanks to my partner-in-posting, Ilene Shub Lefland , for handling the last two columns. The ’78 inbox wasn’t very full for this column. I tried turning over the laptop and shaking vigorously—no luck. I don’t recommend trying this strategy to find specific emails.

Mike Bernard (Albuquerque, NM) writes: “I took a U.S. Tennis Association seniors class over the summer and started playing tennis for the first time since college. I now walk two rounds of golf a week and play tennis for two hours twice a week and am still gaining weight!” Bruce Clements is also a tennis and golf buff. He’s lived in Saratoga Springs all but nine years of his life. He is inching closer to selling his independent insurance agency. His daughter and son both attended graduate school after Cornell. He has served in the Lions Club for over 40 years, and he continues to compete in golf and tennis.

On the legal front, Mark Green is the Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Appeals Court, the statewide intermediate appellate court in Massachusetts. Mark writes: “On December 5, 2023 (and again on December 12), I was joined on panel by two of my colleagues who are also Cornell alumni: Justice Eric Neyman ’90 and Justice John Englander ’80 . Though the three of us have served together on the Court since Justice Englander’s appointment in December 2017, this was the first occasion on which the three of us sat together on panel, for an ‘all Big Red’ sitting.”

I took a U.S. Tennis Association seniors class over the summer and started playing tennis for the first time since college. Mike Bernard ’78

On the travel front, Scott ’77 and Elaine Zajac Jackson started off 2024 with a Cornell Alumni Travel trip to Antarctica. They started in Buenos Aires and then embarked on the Antarctica cruise with two Cornell professors. They hoped for smooth sailing and lots of penguins and adventures. This is their second Cornell Alumni Travel trip. Their first was “Untamed Alaska” about five years ago. In August 2023, Julian Vrieslander , PhD ’81, and I went to the Netherlands for a reunion with some of his cousins, then went to Italy—and promptly caught COVID. This put a damper on the last leg of the trip in Venice. Fortunately, both of us recovered without any long-term issues.

On March 12, the classes of ’77 and ’78 cosponsored a webinar titled “Seasons of Perfection: Big Red Championship Lacrosse and Richie Moran.” The panel was moderated by our own David Bilmes , who was sports editor of the Cornell Daily Sun . Panelists were Dan Mackesey ’77 and fellow ’78ers Chris Kane and Tom Marino . The fourth panelist was Christian Swezey, author of We Showed Baltimore: The Lacrosse Revolution of the 1970s and Richie Moran’s Big Red (Cornell University Press). Many thanks to Kent Sheng , BA ’82, for helping pull this together.

Not only is Joe Holland , MA ’79, a best-selling author (his latest book is Make Your Own History ) and attorney, but he co-founded Beth-Hark Christian Counseling Center . It is still going strong after nearly 40 years and provides free mental health services, a soup kitchen, and a food pantry. February 23 marked the premiere of Harlem Grace , a short docudrama of his early years serving the neighborhood.

All for now. Stay well and see you in June! ❖ Cindy Fuller , PhD ’92 ( email Cindy ) | Ilene Shub Lefland ( email Ilene ) | Alumni Directory .

Brad Spencer writes, “I am living in D.C. Although I retired from law firm practice a few years back, I have recently become chairman of the board of Melwood Inc.—one of the nation’s largest AbilityOne Contractors with the federal government. Melwood secures employment of disabled individuals through federal contracts, as well as through employment in the private sector. In addition, I have been pleased to work with many dedicated individuals who seek to make affordable housing/independent living for disabled individuals a reality in the nation’s capital and beyond. In all, it is the culmination of this ILRie’s dream of working to create a more fully integrated and inclusive workforce.”

Brad adds, “As my primary hobby, I have been singing with other Washington Cornellians and former CU Glee Club director Scott Tucker in the Washington Men’s Camerata. My new grandson, Easton Yip, was born in Honolulu.” Of his time on the Hill, Brad fondly recalls singing with Jon Wardner , Steve Whitney , Steve Bronfenbrenner , MBA ’81, and Barry Jacobson ’70 , BA ’74, in the Glee Club!

Sharon Flank shares, “Though it’s not where I thought linguistics would take me, I am happily leading research efforts for two projects in personalized medicine using 3D printing—and just notched my 11th patent, this one joint with my younger daughter, Becky Maksimovic ’19 , ME ’20.”

Bill Gallagher writes, “I’m in my fifth year teaching, now at CEVRO Institute in Prague. The weather is very much like Ithaca. I have students from five different countries, so the school has a real international flavor. My American metaphors don’t have quite the same impact as they did back in the U.S., so we’re ‘growing into appreciating each other’ as the semester progresses. Very much a ‘beef and beer’ kind of town—like a big medieval village with a Chapter House every few blocks. I got to visit my first Prague Christmas markets. After the school year, I’m looking forward to seeing everyone at Reunion!”

D. Dina “Debbie” Friedman , BA ’78’s new short-story collection, Immigrants , was published by Creators Press in November 2023. She also has a new poetry collection, Here in Sanctuary—Whirling , out in February 2024. (More info can be found at her website ). Happily retired after many years of teaching business communication at UMass, Amherst, Dina divides her time between writing, social activism, gardening, and caring for her toddler grandchild, Manu. Dina recently completed a memoir, Imperfect Pitch , about her complicated relationship with her musical family legacy, though her years as a Cornell chimesmaster remain a highlight of her time at the Big Red and in her musical life. (See her recent “Chime In” essay !). She also continues to explore how to live a creative life in a creatively challenged universe in her blog, “ Music and Musings .”

As always, everywhere I go I run into Cornell alums! This summer, I met a few on my travels! Leslie Lewit ’79

Leslie Lewit writes, “As always, everywhere I go I run into Cornell alums! This summer (a very busy one), I met a few on my travels! In October, my older sister and I took the Uniworld ‘Enchanted Danube’ River Cruise and the first new friends we met were Roland ’76 and Dona Young . We enjoyed their company and Roland had a lot of fun Cornell stories to share. My husband and I were away for two weeks in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Helsinki, and of course the small group we traveled with from our Temple Sinai of Roslyn (NY) had connections to Cornell too.

“During the year, I enjoy connecting with all the opportunities afforded to us alums via Zoom and in person, including lectures in politics, art, and travel. However, I especially enjoy Big Red Reads —the books and discussions online offer a lot of amazing info and stimulation. I also manage the Temple Sinai Reads program, and I’m a member of a Roslyn/Lloyd’s Neck Harbor women’s book group. I really enjoy walking miles for exercise while listening to books!

“This year, in a period of six months, we had three weddings! My stepdaughter Lindsay Milner (University of Michigan ’14), married Jesse Katz of Tenafly, NJ, on April 8 in Cancun. On July 22, my son, Jacob Lewit (University of Pittsburgh ’15), married Jenna Strauss of Westfield, NJ, at the Park Loft in Oceanport, NJ. Jenna and Jesse went to University of Maryland together and graduated in 2014! And on October 14, my middle stepdaughter, Mariel Milner (Wisconsin ’13), married Joe Spina of Levittown, PA (Penn State ’12) in Livingston Manor, NY. Guess what good and welfare news I may be sharing next year?!

“I am still dabbling in my interior design and space planning business, currently working with a client who’s building in the Hamptons, as well as a few clients in NYC and Roslyn. I have a consulting business reviewing architectural plans for clients who are in the process of renovating or building. My DEA and space planning experience ensure that the new spaces will have adequate traffic flow and space for the clients’ needs and furniture placement, as well as better aesthetics. I am also a LMSW (Adelphi ’02) and have renamed my business Absolute Heads & Homes—because if your head isn’t in the right place, how can you enjoy your home? If you ever want to connect or say hi, I’d love to hear from you. See you all soon!” ❖ Cynthia Ahlgren Shea ( email Cynthia ) | Danna Levy ( email Danna ) | Linda Moses ( email Linda ) | Alumni Directory .

Hail to thee, classmates. Paul Bechly ’s fondest memory of his years at Cornell is “graduating with a BS in chemical engineering. It was a lot of hard work that led to a lot of good outcomes.” One of those outcomes is that he was just elected as a fellow of the American Institute of Chemists. Congratulations!

Paul just completed 30 years working at Morgan Stanley and has no plans on retiring. When his nose is not on the grindstone, he and his wife, Beth Wells, “have been making an effort to travel the world. We have experienced 130 countries and visited all seven continents.” Unlike your indolent correspondent, he “wakes up every morning with a goal to make the day count for something good.”

Beth Rubin reports that it has been a big year for her family: “In May, our younger daughter married her beloved in the redwoods of California. Then I retired from my position as dean of adult and online education at Campbell University, after developing an associate’s and bachelor’s degree program for incarcerated men and women at two prisons in North Carolina. Our success rate was amazing (approximately 60% of those who started completed an associate’s degree, and 80% of those completed a bachelor’s degree); we had graduation for 17 people in the fall. And the State of North Carolina voted to provide $1,000,000 every year to help the program grow in new prisons, ensuring long-term viability and necessary student support.

“My hoped-for relaxing retirement was interrupted by family needs—a sister needing care after major surgery, a father-in-law who passed away suddenly from a heart attack, and a mother who was diagnosed with stage four cancer and died two months later, on Christmas Eve. So, a long year of joy and sadness ended for us. My mother’s funeral gave me the opportunity to reconnect with cousins who we’d long been out of touch with. My husband, Dane McGregor, is, thank heavens, healthy, and our two kids are working their way through graduate programs. I went on Medicare (like so many others) and hope to travel the world for the next 10 years!”

Paul Bechly ’80 was just elected as a fellow of the American Institute of Chemists.

Beth’s favorite memory from her time at Cornell was “being on the women’s ice hockey and rugby teams. Walking home after games, with my hair freezing (in winter); it was so still and beautiful.” Nowadays, she enjoys her body combat lessons at the local Y.

Steve Benjamin , ME ’81, MBA ’82, reports, “In May 2023, our daughter Megan ’10 had her fourth child. Sheri and I love being grandparents to all four of our grandkids. I’ve got the three older ones skiing. And every February for the past seven years, quite a few Fijis from my era meet up at Alta, UT, for some excellent skiing and camaraderie. The group typically includes Dave Ayers , Tom Croskey , Doug Henderson , MBA ’88, and Dave Phelps ’81 . Others have joined us over the years, and we plan to continue this annual tradition until we can’t. We hope the group will continue to grow.”

Brian Fristensky relates, “Love can be found any time in life. In December 2022, I was so happy to marry Teresa Mayer, also a U.S. expat living in Winnipeg. In attendance were both her and my grown children, and her mother in person, and friends and relatives from all over North America by teleconference. 2023 has been a year-long honeymoon of sorts, in France, Monaco, Hawaii, and elsewhere in the continental U.S.” Brian is a professor of genetics at the University of Manitoba, specializing in bioinformatics. His favorite memory from Cornell was “singing with the Glee Club in Sage Chapel … and at Johnny’s Big Red!” These days, he is making memories singing tenor with the Winnipeg Philharmonic Choir.

Please write to any of us with any news you’d like to share with the Class of ’80. ❖ David Durfee ( email David ) | Leona Barsky, MS ’81 ( email Leona ) | Dik Saalfeld ( email Dik ) | Chas Horvath, ME ’81 ( email Chas ) | Alumni Directory .

I just had my six-year work anniversary with Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America. I’m very proud of the work that I do! Construction of the new Gandel Rehabilitation Center at Hadassah Hospital was rapidly accelerated in the wake of October 7. Originally it was going to be finished in the second or third quarter of 2024, but when the war broke out, it had to be finished yesterday. The first patients began receiving care in January, with plans to double capacity in the coming weeks. Since October 7, Hadassah has raised more than $16 million, with $5.5 million going specifically to expedite the work on the Gandel Center.

Near me in Fort Lauderdale is Steve Greenapple , JD ’84, an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) attorney at SES ESOP Strategies, Stevens & Lee. Steve loved the Chimes concerts on the Hill, the waterfalls (all of them, but most especially Taughannock), and mud-sliding down Libe Slope. He has four great kids, a beautiful marriage, and a career more satisfying than he ever imagined possible. He’s been traveling again—both personal and for business. If you find yourself here in paradise, he hopes you will give him a ring!

This year’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemorative Lecture on campus focused on the importance of understanding and addressing systems of oppression and their impact on multiple identities, including race and gender. Kimberlé Crenshaw , professor of law at the UCLA School of Law and at Columbia Law School, spoke at the event, “The Urgency of Intersectional Justice,” on February 19 in Sage Chapel. Kimberlé is a pioneering scholar and writer on civil rights, critical race theory, Black feminist legal theory, race, racism, and the law. Her work has been foundational in critical race theory and in intersectionality, both terms she coined. She is also known for raising awareness about police violence against Black women through her work with the #SayHerName campaign.

Theresa Kronik Wrobel started an e-bike store with all proceeds going to support the Boys & Girls Clubs of Mercer and Warren counties in New Jersey. She found her passion for biking among the steep hills of her hometown, Ithaca, NY, during her teenage years. She continues now with rides in hilly northwest Mercer and western Hunterdon counties with the Princeton FreeWheelers, and she does mountain bike riding in Utah. In recent years she combined her love of biking with community involvement by volunteering with the Bike Exchange and the Boys & Girls Clubs of Mercer County. She is excited to continue these efforts at Princeton eBikes.

Bob Zeidman (Las Vegas, NV) recently published his firsthand account of the story of his debunking the 2020 election fraud “proof” presented by Mike Lindell and the subsequent arbitration that awarded Bob $5 million. The book is titled Election Hacks . Bob writes, “Lindell, the founder and CEO of MyPillow, publicly declared he had proof of voting machine tampering that threw the 2020 election. Having invented the field of software forensics, I was invited by Lindell in 2021 to examine and verify the alleged proof. What I found was bogus data, manipulated results, and dangerous conspiracy theories.”

Terry Steinberg recently earned her purple sash in kung fu and her green sash in kung fu sword. Kung fu is a great exercise, she says. Terry started out as a beginner, and the practice has improved her strength, flexibility, and balance. She lives in Silver Spring, MD.

Theresa Kronik Wrobel ’81 found her passion for biking among the steep hills of her hometown, Ithaca, NY, during her teenage years.

Peter Zenneck is happy in retirement, spending time in London and on the island of Mustique. Elise Kuebelbeck Johnson and her husband, Roderick, also live in London. Elise’s areas of expertise are healthcare, acupuncture, and shiatsu. To their delight, their five children are also in London.

Lisa Dietrich Zimmerman , DVM ’85, is still working as a part-time veterinarian in Nassau, NY, where she grew up. She does mostly ultrasound and surgery. She and her husband, Bill , DVM ’85 , ski all over the U.S. and participate in masters ski racing for fun. They live on a 300-acre farm and walk on it every day. President Rhodes was an inspiration to her, and she loved his speeches. Her favorite memories are of polo houses and roommates Celeste Starr Frohm ’80 , Julie Hansen ’80 , PhD ’89, Hal Schott ’80 , and Sue Seaman Knight . She also has many fond memories of OTS parties, dancing, partying, and surviving the rigors of vet school.

In New England, Sarah Garlan Johansen is an emergency physician at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, NH, and faculty at Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. Living in Etna, NH, she shares that she’s blessed to have had three healthy children, an amazing husband, and a fulfilling emergency medicine career. She adds that she’s grateful for many things, including that she was able to perform for nine years in professional theater, live in a beautiful vacationland, spend a year in NYC with her son while on Broadway, have wonderful adventures like climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa, cook many yummy things, and care for many medical students and residents.

Arjun Yodh (Merion Station, PA) tells us that after Cornell, he did his PhD at Harvard and a post-doc at AT&T Bell Labs. Then he joined the physics faculty at University of Pennsylvania, where he has been since 1988. He married Lai Yee Hom in 1986. They are still married and have three kids (grown-up now), Elliott, Jeremy, and Zach. Collectively, they like sports (especially baseball), music (piano), and traveling.

Clay Pittman (Bellbrook, OH) tells us he had two great roommates, Glenn Russo and Carlos Guevara , and really enjoyed their company. His ROTC classmates were great as well, and he really appreciated their friendship and support. After graduation he had a long career in the Air Force as an engineer and pilot. He met his wife at a squadron Christmas party, and he says they have been blessed with six children and a wonderful life together. He retired in 2015 and started a second career in academia. He is still working hard and enjoying the college faculty experience.

Lana Carlsson-Irwin (Wayland, MA) is the co-business owner at Irwin Engineers Inc. Of her time at Cornell, she says she loved summertime going to the reservoir; endless games of mau-mau in those Collegetown digs; the party she threw herself at 106 South Quarry— Mike Pliss ’80 brought his friend, Andy Irwin , ME ’82, who became her husband; playing frisbee on campus with Ellen Wolaner , Mark Amos , and others; and going to the waterfalls with the same gang. Andy and Lana got married graduation weekend. They moved to the Boston area, had three kids, and started their own business, which is now 25 years old. They recently had their first grandchild. They love to travel and continue to explore new places. Lana went to law school too, but she didn’t really like the practice at the major Boston firm and quit to have those kids.

Let us know what’s doing with you—we want to know what’s going on with you, your life, and your daily thoughts! ❖ Betsy Silverfine ( email Betsy ) | Alumni Directory .

Our online memory book has now closed to new entries. If you haven’t yet, or want to again, give it a look to read about old friends and learn more about the fascinating and diverse lives and memories of your classmates.

Manuel Choy of Saratoga Springs, NY, checks in to tell us that he owns a financial planning and investment firm and that his two adult children are now married and engaged, respectively. He enjoys his family, traveling, helping his clients, gardening, and playing basketball. As to his favorite memory from Cornell, his only comment was a big smiley face drawing. That tells it all for a lot of us!

From Corte Madera, CA, Nir Margalit writes to tell us that he is the chief legal officer of a family office investment business. He is one of our classmates who is in the “I still have young children” club, and his biggest satisfaction is his family of wife Jennifer and daughters aged 5 and 8. He enjoyed a “wonderful month in summer 2023 in Israel before the horrible attack.” His favorite memory of Cornell times is “my friendships”; again, heck yeah!

Jennifer Gardiner reports, “On a Christmas trip to visit my three grandchildren (ages 2, 1, and newborn), two of whom live in Virginia, I met up with Steve and Lisa Mummery Crump . They were visiting their daughter and grandson in D.C. We caught up on my life in Charlotte, NC, where I am in my 13th year as the full-time director of the Low Income Taxpayer Clinic at Legal Aid of Arkansas, and the Crumps’ exciting life in Switzerland. I also still play tennis or platform tennis daily, and Lisa still rides horses regularly. I would love to connect with Cornellians closer to home, like in Charlotte!”

The Memphis-based Blues Foundation has named Mark Stenzler ’82 as a recipient of the 2024 Keeping the Blues Alive Award.

Continuing the thread of classmates as authors from Doug Skalka ’s last column, we heard from Mary Ellen Plubell Miller , who lives in Johnson City, TN, with spouse Dan: “I wrote, published, and launched a book in 2023. Fill the Dam Thing Up! Building Connections: Communicating Throughout the Lifecycle of Infrastructure Projects is the story of my seven-year journey as lead communicator on a major ($400 million) infrastructure (dam) project in northeast Tennessee. It’s a communications playbook for project managers and communicators. Cornell gets several mentions! It is available on Amazon in paperback, e-book, and Audible formats.”

The Crumps are not the only classmates living in Switzerland. Mark Stenzler has been recognized for the 35+ years that he has dedicated to putting the blues out there on the airwaves from his base in Bern, Switzerland. The Memphis-based Blues Foundation has named him as a recipient of the 2024 Keeping the Blues Alive Award. This lifetime achievement award was presented to him in January during the 2024 International Blues Challenge in Memphis, TN.

I can’t improve on the foundation’s announcement: “Mark Stenzler, a native New Yorker and former radio pirate with Radio Free Ithaca, has been a passionate radio broadcaster on both sides of the Atlantic since 1978. In the 1980s, he relocated to Switzerland, where he continued his career in radio. A true blues enthusiast and a staunch supporter of public radio, Stenzler is widely recognized as the host of ‘Blues Zeppelin,’ a program he initiated in 1989. Guided by the motto ‘Working hard to make reality a lot less painful,’ he has dedicated his time and talent to create a blues program that offers a blend of the finest blues music, news, and engaging interviews. The show can be heard on several radio stations, including Radio Bern (RaBe) in Berne, Switzerland; Radio LoRa in Zurich, Switzerland; Diis Radio in Canton Valais, Switzerland; WRFI Community Radio in Ithaca; and CJRO Community Radio in Carlsbad Springs, Ottawa, ON, Canada. Stenzler’s contributions extend beyond the airwaves, as he actively collaborates with numerous festival organizers, music promoters, venues, and blues artists at various stages of their careers. From providing first-time airplay to working with award recipients, including Blues Foundation BMA and KBA winners, Stenzler has played a pivotal role in supporting and nurturing the growth of blues musicians and bringing them to the attention of the global blues community.” ❖ Mark Fernau ( email Mark ) | Nina Kondo ( email Nina ) | Doug Skalka ( email Doug ) | Alumni Directory .

Sylvia Han , CFA, CFP, and CSRIC, our classmate and class council member, led a timely Zoom discussion for our class, “Top 10 Retirement Considerations,” on March 19. Sylvia, who works as a wealth management advisor at Merrill Lynch, notes that “a shift has occurred in retirement planning compared to previous generations.” She discussed important issues like defining a vision, financial planning, investment risks, income source planning, sustainable spending rates, Social Security maximization, healthcare costs, and more. For more information feel free to email your class correspondents below.

Anna Esaki-Smith writes, “I’m a very proud Class of ’83 graduate of the College of Arts & Sciences. I went to the 40th Reunion this past summer and had a great time, reconnecting with both the campus and old friends.” Kudos to Anna, who has written a terrific young adult nonfiction book, Make College Your Superpower: It’s Not Where You Go, It’s What You Know, that was published by Rowman & Littlefield in April 2024. Anna adds, “Most books for teenagers about college are full of tips on writing killer college essays or nailing those SATs. Mine gives students a bird’s-eye view on how a university education connects to a tech-disrupted workplace that values skills and creativity.” A wonderful addition to students’ college prep toolkits! Anna also recently penned a “Chime In” essay for Cornellians , which you can read here .

Congratulations to Helen Schulman ’83 , whose latest book, Lucky Dogs , was selected as one of Oprah’s ten Best Novels of 2023!

Congratulations to Helen Schulman , whose latest book, Lucky Dogs , was selected as one of Oprah’s ten Best Novels of 2023 ! Helen is presently the fiction chair of the Creative Writing Program at the New School in New York City, where she is a tenured professor. Helen is a New York Times best-selling author of seven novels, including Come with Me and This Beautiful Life . She has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts, Sundance, Aspen Words, and Columbia University.

Neal Moran writes from New Brunswick, NJ. “I retired earlier this year after 36+ years in banking regulation. I’m keeping busy, including starting a blog called ‘ Upon Further Analysis .’ The blog focuses largely on banking, financial markets, and regulation, but also covers sports, culture, and current events.”

Dan Carlucci and wife Ellen write that they are keeping quite busy in medicine and more. Dan is chair of medical specialties at Reliant Medical Group, a division of OptumCare, and a clinical cardiologist. Reliant serves over 300,000 patients in eastern and central Massachusetts; Dan leads more than 100 specialty clinicians. Ellen is vice president, development, marketing, and communications at UMass Memorial Health–Marlborough Hospital. Dan and Ellen love their time in Northborough and Marion, where they can’t wait to re-start summer sailing adventures with their three adult children on the aptly named boat, No Agenda . Speaking of which, Dan is planning a September 2024 sequel to the original No Agenda weekend—look out for invites! ❖ Stewart Glickman ( email Stewart ) | Nancy Korn Freeman ( email Nancy ) | Alyssa Bickler ( email Alyssa ) | Jon Felice ( email Jon ) | Alumni Directory .

We have some great news to share! Deborah Dawson was recently surprised by Nancy Pistole , who flew from California to New York to join her along with Maurya Kilroy and Karen Kwik Kernan for a reunion. They all met freshman year in High Rise 5 and have been dear friends ever since.

Brad Will sends greetings from New York’s beautiful Mid-Hudson Valley! Over the past four years, his spouse, Sari, and he have been “transitioning” to the Finger Lakes region, his “home away from home” for five years in the early 1980s. They love spending time there, so much so that they have purchased land on which to one day build a “deep green” house and a small commercial property in the Village of Dryden, right up the street from Cornell. More recently, they bought a property that will eventually have several homes constructed. “My transition from architect to developer has begun!” he writes. It’s been an exciting phase, says Brad, and they have a two-bedroom apartment available for travelers to their old school at their “Little House on the Lot” in Dryden. At the time of this writing, Brad was looking forward to their annual BArch dinner in NYC and their trek to RPI to watch the amazing Cornell men’s hockey team take on the Engineers in early February 2024. Big Red almost always prevails! This year has been active and interesting, with projects advancing in both regions—houses, hotels, restaurants, and subdivisions. Seeing good friends is always a great treat, as they did in New Hampshire last summer and in Texas last fall. They look forward to an even more exciting year ahead, with many milestones pending. Is Brad retiring? “No, not yet—much to do!”

Timothy Brown ’84 , MBA ’92, set his first-ever novel at Cornell.

Timothy Brown , MBA ’92, has a very Big Red family! He is a dual-degree Cornellian himself (Arts ’84, MBA ’92), married to another, Nancy (Grambow) ’85 , PhD ’94. In fact, between his wife’s parents and sisters, his brothers, and their daughter, his family has a combined total of 13 degrees from Cornell! Further, his father-in-law, Richard Grambow ’55 , DVM ’57, received the Frank H.T. Rhodes Exemplary Alumni Service Award and the Salmon Award for Distinguished Alumni Service. Thus, it was only fitting that Timothy set his first-ever novel at Cornell. He initially self-published it as A Bolt from the Blue , but recently had it professionally edited and republished under a more distinct title, Cloning the King . It is a scientific/history thriller that explores the nexus of breakthrough cloning technology and medieval history.

Hope to see you at Reunion 2024 next month, June 6–9! And, don’t hesitate to write to your class correspondent: ❖ José Nieves ( email José ) | Alumni Directory .

Hello, fellow 1985ers! Hope all are doing well. I do have a bunch of news from fellow alums, so here you go!

Amy Smith Linton wrote in that she has been busy promoting her first book , She Taught Me Everything . The most enjoyable part for her has been showing up as a guest at book clubs, either via phone or in person, to talk about her novel.

Richard Tuchman reports that he and his wife, Cynthia, retired last year in celebration of their 30th wedding anniversary. They are currently raising puppies in Connecticut. Rick retired from a career in philanthropy, which he describes as “doing well while doing good.”

Susan Stevens Gebo has recently married. She has written, under the pen name S.M. Stevens, a novelette called The Wallace House of Pain , which received a 2023 American Fiction Award. The same story was adapted into a stage script, published by Choeofpleirn Press in their autumn 2023 issue. The characters in the novelette are also featured in her forthcoming novel, Beautiful and Terrible Things (Black Rose Writing, July 2024).

Maria Gallo Ashbrook writes, “The Class of 2023 Commencement weekend was sublime … a string of rare sunny days when Cornell truly is the most beautiful campus on earth. My son, John ’23 , graduated as a government and China and Asia-Pacific studies major (yes, that Mandarin in seventh grade paid off!) and joins big brother Keenan ’20 in D.C. to begin his career. This, of course, warms my little Cornell-in-Washington (’84) heart. I’ve attended nine Cornell Commencements of family and friends, beginning in 1974. This graduation weekend was extra special because we returned to my hometown of Auburn, with festivities across Cayuga, Owasco, and Skaneateles lakes. I guess you can take the girl out of the Finger Lakes, but you can’t take the Finger Lakes out of the girl!”

Virginia Scarola , Maryellen Magee , and Joyce Zelkowitz Cornett had an impromptu reunion in Atlanta when the Cornell Big Red baseball team took on the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. Apparently, back in 1991, Cornell defeated second-ranked Georgia Tech, shocking the collegiate baseball world at the time. It took Tech 33 years to overcome the pain and invite the Big Red to Atlanta. Unfortunately, the Big Red lost the first game, though they had been dominating Tech for most of the game. They lost the second game, which we saw after a great pre-game tailgate catered by SmoQ’n Hot Grill owned by Hotelie David Smith ’81 . Nick Salpekar ’96 of Highland Fine Wine and Alan LeBlanc ’84 , who owns Bold Monk Brewing Company, provided wine and beer. Robert Mandelbam ’81 and Mike Fleury ’78 were great hosts for the event! Cornell did take the third game!

The Class of 2023 Commencement weekend was sublime … a string of rare sunny days when Cornell truly is the most beautiful campus on earth. Maria Gallo Ashbrook ’85

Erin O’Connor writes, “ Gail Fink is the CEMS Program Director at Cornell’s Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, and she travels every December to participate in the graduation ceremonies of her students. CEMS is a global alliance of leading business schools, multinational companies, and NGOs that together offer the CEMS Master’s in International Management. Gail’s friends look forward to attaching their adventures to her travels. This year graduation was in London, so several of us made a trip to enjoy the Cotswolds together. Linda Kao , Susan Herlands Holland and husband Ron Preville, Jim , DVM ’90, and Cheryl Senecal Smith , and me and my partner, Brian Garrett , rented a fabulous Airbnb called the Scotland End Barn in the town of Banbury-Hook Norton for a few days of fun, togetherness, and exploration. Driving was a challenge: thanks to Jim and Ron especially for avoiding oncoming traffic in the wrong lane and near misses with wildlife.

“We visited several towns (and yes, tried to find where the Beckhams lived) with lovely names like Cheltenham, Bourton-on-the-Water, Moreton-in-Marsh, and Chipping Norton. When in England, one must have Sunday roast, and we booked at the Horse and Groom in Bourton-on-the-Hill. Even though we first landed at two different places in the Cotswolds with the same name, we eventually all made it to the same pub and delighted in a very tasty, traditional meal.

“We took full advantage of leaving the car at the BnB and walking to the local venues in our base hometown, but the best had to be our trivia night at the Pear Tree Inn. Naming our team ‘The Yanks,’ we competed with four local teams. When we arrived, the very young bartender texted his mom to hurry and get there because ‘a lot of Americans just showed up.’ A wild time was spent trying to outguess our competitors and the game was tight. We were victorious and became the ‘Damn Yankees’!

“It was such a fabulous time—so wonderful to continue to connect with friends we made when we were so young and have continued to connect with over the years. We mean something to each other, all beginning with our landing in each other’s spheres at our beloved university. Turning 60 in 2023 turned out to be a fantastic celebration that lasted the whole year as we crossed this milestone together.”

Please be sure to send me your news and make a plan to come to Reunion next year! ❖ Joyce Zelkowitz Cornett ( email Joyce ) | Alumni Directory .

My mailbox brings but a few notes from classmates, but lucky for you I have had many Cornell interactions since the start of the New Year.

Our two classmates who wrote in likely had time because they both joined the ranks of the retirees! Elsa Waymer Dempsey retired from technology sales last year and continues to enjoy the good life in Florida. She has been in her husband’s hometown of Venice, FL, for the last 30 years. She and her husband enjoy tennis, gardening, and traveling with their twin daughters, Laura and Erica. Elsa has fond memories of her many friends from field hockey, lacrosse, Pi Phi, and even engineering classes.

Chris Arbogast wanted us to know that, since retiring from software engineering last summer, he has been spending his time sprucing up his home in Nevada.

For many of us, 2024 will bring the opportunity to celebrate an important birthday (if we have not celebrated it already). I wrote this column on February 29, having turned the big SIX-O yesterday. The celebration of Toby-Fest began last month when my husband, Robert Mandelbaum ’81 , and I celebrated our quasiquicentennial (125th) birthday together by hosting a dinner for our friends. We were joined by Steve Kirson from our class, as well as Lynn Mandelbaum ’77 , David Smith ’81 , Jack Chen ’84 , MD ’88, Kathryn Whitbourne ’85 , Frank Goldman ’87 , JD ’94, and Tim , MPS ’88 , and Karen Burkhart Dick , MBA ’13 . Two weeks later, we joined Lori Goldwasser Leiman and her husband, Jose, and Barry Greenblatt ’85 and his bride, Karen, on a brief but celebratory voyage to the Bahamas. Lori, Karen, and I have known each other for over 50 years and have birthdays within six weeks of one another. The winner of the year’s best Facebook birthday greeting was Mark Katz , who likes to remind me of the great fire in Low Rise 9 in December 1982. Mark wrote: “Happy milestone birthday, Toby! Whatever you do, don’t put the appropriate number of candles on a cake and leave the room unattended.” Don’t worry, Mark—there was but one candle on my ice cream scoop last night.

I was thrilled to meet former Big Red pitcher Rob Nelson ’71 , the creator of Big League Chew. Toby Goldsmith ’86

This past weekend, the Cornell Alumni Association of Atlanta hosted the Cornell baseball team when they played a three-game series against Georgia Tech. Families and alumni were treated to tasty tailgating events hosted by David Smith ’81 and Nick Salpekar ’96 . Our team ended on a high note, likely buoyed by the wonderful dinner hosted by Alan LeBlanc ’84 on Saturday night at his restaurant, Bold Monk Brewing Company. The dinner was attended by several members of the 1991 ball team who were the last to play against Georgia Tech. I was thrilled to meet former Big Red pitcher Rob Nelson ’71 , the creator of Big League Chew.

I am very lucky to live in a community with a very active Cornell Club with a variety of events being held throughout the year that offer the opportunity to build friendships with Cornellians from a variety of classes. I hope this column inspires you to write your class correspondents with tales of your 60th birthday bashes and Cornell events. ❖ Toby Goldsmith ( email Toby ) | Lori Spydell Wagner ( email Lori ) | Michael Wagner ( email Michael ) | Alumni Directory .

Welcome to another edition of “What are my classmates up to and why haven’t I sent an update to Whitney and Liz?” Just a reminder that our classmates want to know what you are doing—and a reminder that it doesn’t need to be a major life event! Here’s the latest from my inbox.

Jill Feasley wrote that she and Diane Hirschhorn recently completed RAGBRAI, a 500-plus-mile bike ride across the entire State of Iowa. “After graduation, we promised to visit each other in person at least once a year. For a long time, she would visit me in D.C., or I would visit her on the West Coast. When we turned 40, she suggested we could ‘go somewhere else.’ So, I came up with a 50-year plan to visit all 50 states alphabetically and this year we are up to Iowa. We hope to visit Wyoming when we are 90!”

Jeff Cohen just returned from his annual skip trip out west (Park City this year) with a whole bunch of Kappa Sigs. Those joining Jeff this year included Barry Silverman , Brian Kraff , Dave Alexander , Dave Price , David Andrade , Gabe Boyar , Greg Kennedy , Gregg Rockower , Joe Gottlieb , Randy Wolpert ’86 , Jay Goldstein ’86 , and Rick Bullotta ’84 , BS ’85. In Jeff’s own words, “It’s good to know that even while all of us have grown up, and life has steered us in different directions, we can all interact with each other as if we were all sophomores living in the house together. We just go to bed much earlier.”

Lisa Rathmann Stewart and husband Mike enjoyed catching up in person with several Tri Delta classmates during their 52-day national parks road trip in June/July 2023 from San Diego, CA, to Minneapolis, MN, in their Toyota Sienna “converted” minivan. Unbeknownst to them, Taylor Swift was in concert in Minneapolis the same weekend as Lisa’s Kiwanis Convention, which made walking the streets of Minneapolis a bit more colorful seeing the “Swifties” in costume. While in Minneapolis they enjoyed visiting with Kate St. Vincent Vogl and Debbie Brown ’88 and their spouses. Heading west, they stopped in Moscow, ID, for a visit with Lisa’s parents, Dan ’56 , BChemE ’57, and Pat Lasky Rathmann ’59 . Lisa and Mike ended their road trip with a visit with Tri Delta classmates Chris Neimeth Heijenga and Heidi Heasley Ford and their spouses in Mt. Hood, OR. In July 2024, the Stewarts are looking forward to their next road trip destination in Denver, CO, where they plan to connect with Karen McBride Cleary and Dianne DeMallie in Colorado Springs while exploring the national parks in Colorado. Lisa says, “It’s been so much fun to connect with Tri Deltas while on the road. I highly recommend this as a retirement activity!”

Jill Feasley ’87 and Diane Hirschhorn ’87 recently completed a 500-plus-mile bike ride across the entire State of Iowa.

Alexa Coin Florence shared that she continues to enjoy her staging and design work, including overseeing the design of their new brewery (Great River Brewery) in downtown Davenport, IA. This is a reboot after flooding forced them to close in 2019. “I did manage to perform in one show last February, Barefoot in the Park ; it was a blast and I hope to find (and get cast in) some other production this year. We spend a lot of time with and caring for our elderly parents. While difficult, we cherish this remaining time we have with them. We took two great family trips last year: spring break in New Orleans and in August, Munich, Salzburg, and Vienna. Scott ’88 and I also have tried to go on quarterly long-weekend getaways that have really helped us take a break from our daily responsibilities/concerns.” Their oldest child, Ben, lives in NYC and works for Broadbeam Media. He’s also founded a startup and his own marketing group. Alexa’s youngest, Gabe, is a sophomore at Iowa State University, studying culinary food science. Scott continues to work on growing their business—pizza and specialty baking lines—while they work on reopening their brewery.

Joanne Cappucci Penne , MBA ’93, has been enjoying her work as an independent strategy and innovation consultant for the last 10 years for the Innovation Umbrella . Her oldest, Matt, is a sophomore (engineer) at Vanderbilt, and her youngest, Grace, is a sophomore in high school (with a driver’s license, so out the door every day …). Their 2023 highlight is that they are now a TWO-dog family. Luna is a beautiful 3-year-old Lab, and Toaster is a scrappy, cute rescue. They are inseparable and adorable and provide ongoing entertainment!

Our class council continues to sponsor online webinars to keep us informed, connected, and involved. I hope you will join one in the future and spread the word to your classmates. Keep in touch and continue to share your news by emailing either of us: ❖ Whitney Weinstein Goodman ( email Whitney ) | Liz Brown, JD ’90 ( email Liz ) | Alumni Directory .

Greetings, Class of ’88! I want to start out this column by inviting you to join our Class of ’88 Facebook group . It is a great way to stay in touch with our class, reconnect with old friends, and be the first to hear about upcoming events.

Now, onto the latest news from both near and far. Cindy Bishop Christian and her husband, Joe, moved to Tucson, AZ, in November 2020 from Minneapolis, MN. They recently finished a kitchen renovation and are working on landscaping their surroundings, filled with beautiful cactus plants. They love biking, the Sonoran Desert, and beautiful sunsets. Cindy still works at her family business, Brick Meets Click. Her son, Sean, is an avid competitive cyclist, and he attends Arizona State University online so he can race in Europe with Aevolo and USA Cycling U23 teams. Her daughter, Anna, attends Savannah College of Art and Design in Atlanta, GA, and also races on her university cycling team. Cindy joined the Cornell Club of Southern Arizona and invites any classmates living in the area to join.

Back on Cornell’s Ithaca campus, Beth Milles , associate professor of Performing and Media Arts, directed the production of Desdemona in the fall to celebrate the 30th anniversary of famed Cornellian Toni Morrison , MA ’55 ’s Nobel Prize. Beth is the founder of Banter Company, which adapts classical theater shows for the modern audience. She joined the Cornell faculty in 2001. During the span of her theatrical career, Beth has guest lectured at Harvard University, Brown University, the University of Texas, Austin, Southern Connecticut State University, and Loyola Marymount University. We look forward to hearing about more upcoming theatrical productions.

Harlan Protass writes in from New York City, where he is a criminal defense lawyer and runs his own firm. He is also an adjunct professor at Cardozo School of Law, where he teaches a seminar on federal sentencing guidelines. He has two kids, a daughter, 8, and a son, 10, with his wife who is a literature professor at the CUNY Graduate Center. Every January for the past dozen years, Harlan returns to Ithaca to attend a hockey game with his Alpha Sigma Phi (Rockledge) brothers. “We spend the weekend laughing.” Harlan also noted that “the level of development in Collegetown is a bit shocking. It’s virtually unrecognizable from the 1980s. And, sadly, none of our watering holes still exist.”

Andrew Turner ’88 , MPS ’93, has been appointed the director of Cornell Cooperative Extension.

Speaking of Cornell’s hockey team: Save the date for the next Frozen Apple hockey game on November 30, 2024 at Madison Square Garden in New York City. It’s a wonderful event to get together with fellow Cornellians and cheer on our men’s hockey team. This year’s game was well attended by ’88s and Cornellians from other graduating years.

News flash from Ithaca: Andrew Turner , MPS ’93, has been appointed the director of Cornell Cooperative Extension and associate dean for the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the College of Human Ecology. He began his five-year term on December 1, 2023. In his new role, Andrew will oversee the development and setup of several programs including food systems, nutrition, and sustainable energy for Cornell Cooperative Extension, which has a presence in every county in the State of New York. For the past few years, he has worked with and led the New York State 4-H youth development programs. Good luck, Andrew, in your new position on Cornell’s Ithaca campus.

Traci Nagle earned her PhD in linguistics at Indiana University in Bloomington, IN. After teaching for a couple of years, she realized “teaching was not my passion,” so she shifted to administration and now works in the research development office at Indiana University, where she works with faculty to get funding for their research. Recently, Traci was at a conference in Denver and she hung out with Larry Goldman at the beautiful botanical gardens. During Reunion weekend, she was thrilled to reconnect with her freshman roommate Sue Henry Muldoon . They laughed and danced the night away with Jake White and his wife, Sharon Rose. Last fall, Traci spent a weekend in New York City with Lori May and Gail Frieden Le Coz . Lori lives in Columbus, OH, and works as a business analyst for a corporate credit union. Meanwhile, Gail was visiting from her home in London. Together they enjoyed two Broadway shows and dined on New York style-bagels.

That’s all for now from Toronto, Canada, where the spring flowers are blooming. Please keep sending your news to me. I love hearing from our classmates both near and far. ❖ Pamela Darer Anderson ( email Pam ) | Alumni Directory .

As this issue of Cornellians is released, we are about one month away from Reunion 2024! Our indefatigable Reunion chairs— Shannon Gallivan Bol , Carol Borack Copenhaver , Debbie Schaffel , and Dave Scher —have been working for months already. Menus are planned, entertainment is scheduled, housing is being finalized. And the dust is about to be blown gently off the ancient tome containing the magic sunshine spell that is always cast immediately before the planes land and the cars pull into Ithaca. So check your calendar now. There’s just enough time. Come back and visit the Straight—the true home of facetime. “Test” the Suspension Bridge. Listen to the Chimes. (“Groovy Kind of Love” anyone? Maybe not …) Join the rest of us for what is sure to be an all-too-brief weekend of fun, relaxation, great memories, and old friends (plus plenty of new ones too because everyone has at least one very Big Red thing in common).

Now for a wee bit of news from our classmates. (At Reunion you get and share lots and lots of news, by the way.)

One of our illustrious Reunion chairs, Shannon Gallivan Bol (a woman with the heart of an explorer), writes, “I love when road trips take you to places where you have friends! I saw Carol Borack Copenhaver last fall and I also got to visit with Denise Host , who lives in Suwannee, GA. I recently relocated to New Jersey as the result of a new job. I’m excited to be living near many Cornell friends, including Karen Leshowitz Colonna and Michele Dowling Johnson . I started working for Prime Healthcare as regional vice president, managed care. I’m responsible for region two, which is basically the Northeast with hospitals in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island.”

Another faithful attendee of Reunions past, Doug Merrill , ME ’90, MBA ’91, recently joined the University of Vermont as its regional innovation officer. In this role, Doug leads the GaN Semiconductor Tech Hub that was designated by the U.S. Department of Commerce in October 2023. Doug is looking forward to helping UVM integrate more fully with the technology and manufacturing firms in the region. Doug and Lisa (Peskin) ’90 have lived in Shelburne, VT, for 18 years. Older son Alex ’21 , ME ’21, just moved to Seattle to start a new job with SpaceX. Younger son Jack ’24 is in his senior year at Cornell, studying computer science. Doug and Lisa are fortunate to have Chris Ford and Emily and Bill Kallock ’90 living nearby and see them often in the Green Mountains or on Lake Champlain.

Lisa Spellman Porter ’89 has received numerous awards, including the National Science Foundation Career Award.

Lisa Spellman Porter has also shared that she has a new professional position—associate dean for faculty and graduate affairs for the College of Engineering at Carnegie Mellon, where she has been on faculty since 1997. In this new role, Lisa provides strategic direction and manages matters related to graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and faculty in the college. Upon hearing this news, I let my fingers wander around the old Internet a bit and learned some things that the ever-modest and unassuming Lisa did not go out of her way to share. For instance, she has received numerous awards during her career, including the National Science Foundation Career Award, Visiting Professor for Women in the Engineering Sciences awarded by the Swedish Research Council, and the Carnegie Mellon Order of the May. According to Dean Bill Sanders, “Lisa is an exceptionally thoughtful and effective leader who has built strong working relationships across campus and has demonstrated exceptional commitment to Carnegie Mellon and the broader academic community.”

And lastly, Melinda Fellner took advantage of the online news form to share the following: “I am thrilled to announce my youngest son Simon’s acceptance to the College of Arts and Sciences for the Class of 2028! Simon follows his brother Miles ’25 and his brother Harry ’22 ! I am the chair of the tax department at Carter Ledyard and Milburn in New York City. Best to all in 2024!”

Thanks for the good wishes and for using the online news form , Melinda! We hope you all will spend a minute or two filling out the form to let us know what you’ve been up to (work, hobbies, day-to-day life, etc.), what’s giving you the most satisfaction lately, what some of your favorite Cornell memories are, and any other bits and pieces that fill us in on you. We’re eager to hear! ❖ Kris Borovicka Gerig ( email Kris ) | Anne Czaplinski Treadwell ( email Anne ) | Lauren Kidder McGarry ( email Lauren ) | Stephanie Bloom Avidon ( email Stephanie ) | Alumni Directory .

We start this column with a message from class president Caroline Misciagna Sussman : “Calling all classmates! Dust off your devices—it is time to start planning for our 35th Reunion—and we need you! Reunion 2025 will be a doubly significant one since we were unable to hold an in-person gathering in 2020. We are anticipating a huge turnout, and we want the event to be like no other!

“It will be 10 years since we have had the opportunity to come together as a class. With all that has changed in the world since 2015, we feel a heightened sense of urgency to make this Reunion truly exceptional from every angle, and we would greatly appreciate your help in doing so. The spectacular plan we had in place for 2020 will serve as a launching point for Reunion 2025. Mark your calendars, save the date: June 5–8, 2025, and help us create an unforgettable weekend of memory making!”

Our class council and Reunion chairs are gearing up for the Reunion planning kickoff meeting on October 5. We’ve got a lot to do before then, namely fundraising and building social media connections. If you would like to help with Reunion planning, please contact one of our Reunion chairs, Dave Coyne or Elinor Langfelder Schwind . If you have stayed well-connected and can help build our affinity group and class connections on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and other social media platforms, contact class correspondent Rose Tanasugarn or web community manager Kristyn Benzinger Whitney . If you can serve on the fundraising committee and contact classmates to encourage contributions to our class, please contact Cornell Annual Fund co-chair Karen Mitchell . They can all be reached at cornellclass90@gmail.com .

Last fall, Karen became chief human resources officer at Newmark, a NYC commercial real estate advisory firm. She and husband Rob Chodock ’89 plan to celebrate both their 25th anniversary and son Hudson’s bar mitzvah in southern Spain, where Rob spent a semester abroad. Karen regularly catches up with our Chi Omega sisters Maria Scaltro , MBA ’02, Kristen Alloway Sokol , Alisa “Gil” Gilhooley Brown , Marla Spindel , Jennifer Radner Elgin , and Tracy Dillmann Kulikowski at her house in Rhode Island or during their annual trip to Mexico.

In February, I caught up with Cornell Asian Alumni Association secretary Ivan Sim ’95 and vice president of community engagement Charles Wu ’91 at a rain-postponed Cornell Cares beach clean-up. About 20 Cornellians, family, and friends from the Cornell Club of Los Angeles gathered at Cabrillo Beach to help Heal the Bay, an environmental nonprofit organization that has been dedicated to making the coastal waters and watersheds in Greater Los Angeles safe, healthy, and clean since 1985.

Representing the U.S. at the 2013 and 2017 World Maccabiah Games in Israel, Monte Frank ’90 , JD ’93, won four silver medals and two bronze medals.

Angel Orengo and I belatedly celebrated our February birthdays over breakfast at Plateia on the UCLA campus. I met Angel’s lovely wife, Rocio Aquino, and although it was the first time I had met them, I felt an instant connection. It turns out that Angel and his family lived in Hong Kong for six years during his time with Sony Pictures. They occasionally visited Osaka and Kyoto, as Angel supervised a distribution sales team in Japan. They are the proud parents of incoming freshman Mia Orengo. Angel and Rocio co-authored a book called The Orchid: The Secret Code of Modern Goddesses , a unique work about emotional resilience, female solidarity, and the power of self-reflection, in that it also allows readers to become active participants in their own personal journeys in growth, home, and self-love. They look forward to meeting Cornellians across the country as they start their book tour to spread their message of positivity—“this or something better, for the highest good of all concerned,” she says, which closely echoes Ezra’s words and the theme of Cornell’s current fundraising campaign, “to do the greatest good.”

Jane Hyun has been on TV, on podcasts, and in print media, addressing the impact of anti-Asian violence and hate crimes affecting Asian Americans in the workplace and in their communities. In April, she launched Leadership Toolkit for Asians , a follow-up to her book Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling . In-person events will be taking place at the Cornell Club of New York and other Cornell clubs, so keep your eyes and ears open. Jane looks forward to helping Asian leaders build their capability to lead and influence by embracing their cultural strengths and mapping achievable career paths. Last year, she launched the “Culturally Fluent Leader Academy,” a virtual and in-person learning experience. Jane has also been an advisor to the diversity council for the American Heart Association.

Monte Frank , JD ’93, received the John Eldred Shields Professional Service Award from the Connecticut Bar Association in recognition of his many years of outstanding service for the benefit of the legal community and the community at large. Monte serves on the American Bar Association’s Advisory Commission to the Task Force for American Democracy and serves as a special advisor to the ABA’s committee on gun violence. An avid cyclist, Monte competes on the road and in mountain bike and cyclocross races throughout the Northeast and Canada. Representing the U.S. at the 2013 and 2017 World Maccabiah Games in Israel, he won four silver medals and two bronze medals. He founded and led Team 26 on the Sandy Hook Ride on Washington (2013–19).

In closing this column, a heartfelt congratulations to David Cohen for his successful re-election to District 4 of the San Jose City Council! You can learn about all the great things David is doing for his community here .

Please let us know how you’re doing the greatest good in your neighborhood! ❖ Rose Tanasugarn ( email Rose ) | Nancy Solomon Weiss ( email Nancy ) | Allan Rousselle ( email Allan ) | Class Facebook page | Alumni Directory .

Family and friends, turkey and football, and … Cornell Big Red hockey at NYC’s Madison Square Garden have become an annual tradition for many during Thanksgiving break. About 100 classmates, friends, and family members joined our class block of seats to re-live the Lynah Faithful traditions and see Cornell play the latest “Safe-ty school! Safe-ty school!”: Boston University.

I ( Joe Marraccino ) found myself there among the spirited sea of red, including friends Michael Clifford ’90 , BS ’91, Chris and Joyce Martir Dugan ’90 , Thomas Greenberg , Sanjeev Dhawan , Jeff Weintraub , MD ’95, Alix Mellis-Brown , John Martin , Andrew Stein ’90 , and Glenn Haber ’92 . I caught up with some of our other hockey enthusiast classmates too.

Eapen Chandy , MBA ’97, graduated with an electrical engineering degree followed by an MBA in ’97, and lives in South Glastonbury, CT, with his wife and four children, ages 20, 18, and 15-year-old twins. Eapen shared a picture taken more than 10 years ago of his uniformly smiling family in the stands. “I am passionate about sports, including Cornell hockey, and it has been an annual family tradition to see a game either in New Haven, CT, or at MSG!” Eapen also loves his music, mostly classic rock, and his career “has been spent largely in financial services. Currently I serve as the treasurer of Coalition Inc., a cyber insurance startup, which is exciting at this stage of my life.” Glad to see Eapen doing well; his life is anything but “Bor-ing! Bor-ing!”

Kulravee Puttharuksa Keegan is a self-proclaimed “suburban hockey mom.” She graduated from the College of Human Ecology with a major in human development and family studies, and currently lives in Eastchester, NY, where she is a practicing physician. Kulravee has been to a number of games throughout the years. “My son and his friends play youth hockey, so they enjoy going, and get a kick out of the cheers, taunts, and Big Red traditions!” The family’s favorite taunt? “It’s all your fault! It’s all your fault!” Of course it is.

I am passionate about sports, including Cornell hockey, and it has been an annual family tradition to see a game either in New Haven, CT, or at MSG! Eapen Chandy ’91 , MBA ’97

Loretta Dougherty Gallo just attended her first Cornell hockey game at MSG, perhaps the start of an annual tradition! Loretta, an animal science major back on the Hill, shared, “I am originally from the Bronx and now live in Pelham, NY, with my husband, Fred ’90 , and our 10-year-old twins, Josh and Hannah. I am a veterinarian and in my (ha ha) free time I enjoy reading and attending my son’s hockey games and my daughter’s horseback riding lessons.” Loretta and family followed the game intently. “It was especially great to be able to share it with our kids, since our son is a goalie playing for Pelham Youth Hockey and Ian Shane ’25 played an amazing game in goal for the Big Red!”

I agree, Ian is no “Sieve! Sieve!” We may see him more regularly at MSG and other professional hockey arenas soon. Loretta and Fred are hoping to continue other Cornell traditions. “The joke in our house is that we won’t force Josh and Hannah to choose Cornell, but with seven undergraduate schools to choose from, why wouldn’t they!?”

The good news is that we all went home happy. “Warm up the bus! Warm up the bus!” Cornell won a thriller against BU. Whether you have attended this annual game in the past or are looking to start a new Thanksgiving tradition, hope to see you with the “Rocket’s ‘RED!’ Glare” next time around!

Got news to share? Use the online news form or feel free to contact one of us directly: ❖ Joe Marraccino ( email Joe ) | Evelyn Achuck Yue ( email Evelyn ) | Susie Curtis Schneider ( email Susie ) | Ruby Wang Pizzini ( email Ruby ) | Wendy Milks Coburn ( email Wendy ) | Alumni Directory .

Paul Sung Bang Yang , ME ’95, enjoys spending time with his family and close friends, as well as visiting and reconnecting with places where he has spent time over his lifetime. He is working in virtual reality, augmented reality, metaverse, and education. He started a global leadership program and is working with real estate developers and making films. His favorite memories of Cornell are spending time with friends, enjoying a good meal, collaborating on projects, watching movies, enjoying the campus, and getting to know some of the professors.

Melissa Ditmore ’90 , BA ’92, writes that the paperback edition of her book, Unbroken Chains: The Hidden Role of Human Trafficking in the American Economy , was released April 30.

Matt Hutcheson , MS ’95, invites you to join him, Jason Markel ’93 , and Doug McGhee online to play the multiplayer game Galactic Trader for free. Enjoy early ’90s Cornell nostalgia flying around the galactic universe, trading luxuries, and battling Thargoids!

John and Janine Blanchard Huber have relocated to Indianapolis, IN. John serves as head of school at Sycamore School, a PS-8 independent coed day school, serving the needs of academically gifted students. The family is planning a visit to Ithaca as the youngest considers college choices!

Brad Minnich has enjoyed a successful career in Hollywood. He specializes in visual effects (CGI), which has allowed him to work on recent films like Batman , Aquaman , Justice League , and many others. His career has taken him around the world to shoot many movies through Europe, Africa, and India. He and his wife, Kiesha, have celebrated 24 years together. They have two inspirational daughters, Laila, 17, and MiaSol, 15, who are leaders in their school and captains of the high school volleyball teams. He enjoys staying in contact with many Cornell alumni and remembers his days on the Hill often—especially being introduced to filmmaking, which help shaped his entire life!

Finally, Amy Frome Saperstein shares that the Cornell Class of ’92 officers organized a cocktail hour in NYC at Effy’s Café on the Upper East Side. About 30 alums gathered and reminisced about their days at Cornell. Most of the group lives in Manhattan but some came from Westchester, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Everyone agreed that more cocktail hours should be planned in the future! ❖ Sarah Ballow Clauss ( email Sarah ) | Wilma Ann Thomas Anderson ( email Wilma Ann ) | Jean Kintisch ( email Jean ) | Alumni Directory .

Classmates, how are you? No, really. I am writing this in February, hoping with every ounce of my being that when you are reading this in May, there is genuine peace in the world and on our campus, with open, constructive communication and support for outlets and oases of healthy socialization.

Our ’93 magician extraordinaire Steve Cohen is still bringing it in NYC at the Lotte New York Palace: you never know who you might sit next to at his show, “Chamber Magic”! Recent guests include actors Cate Blanchett and New York Yankees first baseman Anthony Rizzo. Steve’s new book, Confronting Magic , is now available. It has a sensational foreword by Academy Award-winning film director Guillermo del Toro, and according to the website, “If you’ve been to the show there’s a good chance your photo is included!” Explore his website for info on the book, tickets, and more.

Our class president, Mike McMahon , just returned from an epic trip to New Zealand: “Great trip, highly recommended!” He and our former ’93 president Earl Pinto organized social events for our class officers who reunited in Baltimore, MD, in February for the annual Cornell Alumni Leadership Conference. Please consider joining our class council; we would love to welcome more of you to the party and the planning!

Thank you to our council member Pamela Fabrizio Barry , who shared that she recently reunited with Yvette Politis to celebrate the anniversary of fellow Cornellian Amy Zura Neary ’95 . Tamar Dolgen connects with classmates Jackie Finkel Kauff and Tracy Newman Porosoff as they serve together on Cornell Hillel’s board.

Grateful to Tamar for sharing her recent life update: “After decades of working with startups, global brands, and nonprofits, I transitioned my marketing and communication expertise into college and career advising. I run my own firm, Go Future Advising, and work with the nonprofit Step Ahead Idaho.” Congratulations, Tamar!

Classmates, please connect to share your updates, reunions, or milestones, or for any reason at all (Big Red or not). Take care, and please share. ❖ Melissa Hart Moss, JD ’97 ( email Melissa ) | Mia Blackler ( email Mia ) | Theresa Flores ( email Theresa ) | Alumni Directory .

Happy spring/summer, everyone! I hope all of you plan on going to our Reunion, June 6–9! Thirty years is no joke!

One of our fellow classmates was planning on working in one of the tents on the Arts Quad for Reunion. Derek Edinger , ME ’95, writes, “My wife, Stacey (Girard) ’95 , and I quit our regular day jobs (aerospace and hotel, respectively) back in 2020 and opened Brewery Ardennes in Geneva, NY, in 2021. It’s never too late to make a crazy career change and pursue your passion.”

Paul Bamundo also has a new job update; he recently became CEO of the National Pickleball League (NPL). In this role, Paul will lead this premier league of Champions Division (age 50+) professional pickleball players in its second year in 2024. Paul notes: “It is nice to be the young person in the organization now that I am 50 years old myself! I look forward to seeing many of you as the NPL tours the country this year.” I am sure that many 1994 alums have tried pickleball already at some point!

Lastly, Jarrid Whitney shared some career news of his own. “This past fall, I started a new job at Dartmouth College as the inaugural assistant vice president of enrollment for access strategy. This is a ‘full-circle’ moment for me and my family as I started my admissions career there nearly 29 years ago being on the frontlines of diversity recruitment, met my future wife in that same office, and now have the privilege to be a thought-partner with the college’s leadership on issues of which I’m most passionate. But don’t worry, CU peeps—although I may now have more Green in my wardrobe, it’s all Red whenever CU competes against Dartmouth!”

Keep sending in those updates!  You can send news to me or the other correspondents via email, Facebook, or the online news form . Best wishes for a great summer! ❖ Jennifer Rabin Marchant ( email Jennifer ) | Dika Lam ( email Dika ) | Dineen Pashoukos Wasylik ( email Dineen ) | Alumni Directory .

More 50th birthday stories kick off this month’s column! Elizabeth Leff writes that in March 2023, she and Lauren Blick Rotko , Stephanie Cosner , Jennifer Damashek Strassler , Alyse Kramarow , Stacy Lalin Poritzky , MBA ’00, and Jennifer Stevens Dickson carried on their once-every-five-years girls’ weekend tradition, celebrating the big 50th birthdays in Palm Springs together, including amazing hikes in Joshua Tree National Park. She also had a big birthday bash in Brooklyn, NY, co-hosted by Holly White , with help from her sister, Bonnie Leff ’91 .

The year also saw some work-related changes for Elizabeth—including a new role in the U.N., where she has worked since 2005 (first at UNDP and then at the U.N. Secretariat), leading the team in the Under Secretary General’s office that helps improve how operational support is provided across the organization. In the fall, she also saw off her husband, whom she met at the U.N., on an assignment to Kyiv, Ukraine. Though his assignment in a country at war causes stress, at least it also provides opportunities to meet up in Europe during his R&R, which they already took advantage of—visiting 10 countries in Central and Eastern Europe in a whirlwind trip over the holidays, bringing the number of countries she has visited to 109.

Stephanie Cosner sent in some exciting news of her own as well—she was recently appointed provost at Simmons University, following her role as dean for six years and, prior to that, her work as a tenured professor at Boston College.

Anne Catlin Johnson reports some big-time 50th birthday celebrations, starting in July of last year (her actual birthday was in December!). Writes Anne, “In thinking about how I wanted to celebrate, I realized that the people were more important than the activities or venues, and then went big on plans with great friends! I planned and executed a European adventure with five of my friends from grade school, starting with a glorious cava-soaked spin through Barcelona before proceeding to Geneva and finally Paris. Everyone had a blast, and the trip went off with nary a hitch, so now I am thinking about becoming a boutique travel guide as my next act—message me if you’re looking for an excellent tour leader! In August, we moved daughter Natalie to Colby College (Maine) via a Springsteen concert in Boston—after 40 years of fandom, I finally got to see the Boss! Somehow, I had never seen Billy Joel either, so I went to his show in Baltimore with Matt , ME ’96, and Alison Torrillo French in October, right after taking my dad out to the ballpark for the first game of the ALDS (O’s lost; still a good game).

“Just before Thanksgiving, we headed south to Margaritaville at Sea with another grade-school friend and her family—a short but very fun cruise! The almost-finale week started on December 6 with the musical SIX in Denver, a cooking class on December 7, and Las Vegas on December 8–9 to see U2 at the Sphere with Edie Marshall ’96 . On Sunday, I hiked the 50 Year Trail in Oro Valley, AZ, with my best friend from seventh grade, who is one day older than I am, before we headed to Miraval on my actual birthday for some spa/healing time. A crazy day trip to NYC to see Some Like it Hot before it closed happened on the 20th before we headed to Steamboat for skiing. The last hurrah was a Disney World weekend in mid-January with two more friends from way back. I’m still teaching engineering at the Air Force Academy as a reservist but am planning my winter home in Tucson since retirement and the empty nest are right around the corner!”

In August, we moved daughter Natalie to Colby College (Maine) via a Springsteen concert in Boston—after 40 years of fandom, I finally got to see the Boss! Anne Catlin Johnson ’95

Also stretching out the big 5-0 was Mindy Goodman Sickle , whose celebration started 50 days before her birthday in June. Writes Mindy, “My husband and kids gave me a small gift every day leading up to my birthday. My friends and family, including Sara Ende Masri ’96 , pitched in on certain days. I then had a few small celebrations with family and friends. The celebrations culminated in a trip to Curaçao with my husband and no kids. It was exactly what I wanted.” Mindy and her husband currently live on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and have three kids: Preston, 19, a first-year student at Syracuse; Jordyn, 18, a senior in high school heading to Tufts next year; and Spencer, 15, a sophomore. “Raising kids here is challenging and rewarding,” she says. “My kids went to three different high schools in three different boroughs; they’ve been traveling around the city via public transportation since they were in sixth grade, and my two oldest got their driver’s licenses at 17 so they can be our ‘Uber’ driver home after a night out!”

Now for some non-birthday related arts and culture news! Brett Schwartz shared that on November 11, he was awarded an Emmy at the 65th Annual Chicago/Midwest Emmy Awards presented by the Chicago/Midwest Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. He won the award for his film, Raised Up West Side, in the category of Outstanding Achievement for Documentary–Cultural.

Best-selling children’s author Michelle Knudsen released her new picture book, Luigi, the Spider Who Wanted to Be a Kitten , on March 5, 2024. It’s illustrated by Kevin Hawkes, who illustrated her book Library Lion , and she is very excited to share it with readers.

And, of course, we cannot let a column go by without a shout-out to another Cornell legacy! Melissa Biren Singer shared that she and husband Scott ’94 ’s younger daughter, Jordana, was accepted to the Cornell Class of ’28 (human development major in CHE). She will be joining her older sister, Kayla ’25 , who has been loving her Cornell experience. Writes Melissa, “We are looking forward to the girls having a year together on campus and will be visiting as much as they will let us!”

Stay connected and safe, classmates. ❖ Alison Torrillo French ( email Alison ) | Class website | Class Facebook page | Class Instagram page | Alumni Directory .

Registered dietitian nutritionist Frances Largeman-Roth has recently published a cookbook called Everyday Snack Tray , which, in the words of the subtitle, offers Easy Ideas and Recipes for Boards That Nourish for Moments Big and Small . There are tips for snack trays to suit a wide variety of occasions—including playdates, tailgates, romantic get-togethers, and various holidays—as well as guidelines on how to make them more nutritionally sound.

Frances is a contributor to several publications, including Today.com , Parents, Parade , and Shape , and has appeared on the “Today” show, the “Dr. Oz Show,” the “Rachael Ray Show,” “Good Morning America,” “Access Hollywood Live,” QVC, CNN, and more. She is a member of the James Beard Foundation and the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Frances, her husband, and their three kids live north of Manhattan, in Dobbs Ferry, NY. To learn more, visit her website or follow her on Instagram . ❖ Janine Abrams Rethy ( email Janine ) | Marjorie Polycarpe Jean-Paul ( email Marjorie ) | Catherine Oh Bonita ( email Catherine ) | Alumni Directory .

Couples’ therapist Alison Bulman recently offered sage advice to Big Red alums in a Cornellians story about mindful communication. “The key is getting to a place of compassion toward your partner. And you do that by getting curious about what it’s like to be them, putting yourself in their shoes—in other words, empathy,” she says. “The idea is to approach each other with acceptance and talk about what it’s like between us right now . In our society, we talk way too much about things—work, the weather, surface stuff. We talk very little about our feelings. If we talk about what’s happening between us right now, we’re going to feel much closer to the other person, much more intimate.” Based in the New York metro area, Alison holds a master’s in social work from NYU and practices online therapy. She also hosts couples’ workshops and offers an online course designed to promote intimacy, among other offerings.

I hope you all took the time to fill out and return the Share Your News form that was recently mailed to you. If you haven’t yet, it’s not too late! Please do send us your news—via the hard-copy form or the online news form —so our future class columns can be full of news from all of you. Whether your news is ordinary or extraordinary, we want to hear it! ❖ Sarah Deardorff Carter ( email Sarah ) | Erica Broennle Nelson ( email Erica ) | Alumni Directory .

Having celebrated our 25th Reunion on campus last June, many of us are celebrating our 30th high school reunion this year! Reunions, official or not, are always great opportunities to reconnect with friends, reflect on the lessons we have learned, and recommit to continued growth. The Class of 1998 has much to celebrate with family and friends, and this column is the place to share all the great and fun things we have accomplished.

U.S. Army Lt. Col. Brett Walker recently wrote an article featuring our classmate Jamie Critelli and his work as a U.S. Army Major of the 353rd Civil Affairs Command (CACOM). Here is a snippet: “Food supply chains and the associated effects on future military operations is one of the many nuanced civil-military fields in which the soldiers of the 353rd CACOM provide expertise to the U.S. military. Maj. Gustavo Ferreira and Maj. Jamie Critelli of the 353rd CACOM have published nine scholarly papers on the agriculture-related limits to proposed military actions across the globe. Critelli worked his way through the ranks, having joined the Army in 1998 through Cornell University’s ROTC program.”

Jamie learned of the Army’s 38G Civil Affairs program—which provides military leadership with subject-matter experts in 18 specific fields—from a civil affairs officer while they were deployed together in Iraq. “I was the first person in the unit to put together a 38G packet,” he said. “A few months later I came across Maj. Ferreira and helped him submit a packet. Since then, I’ve put together about 40 packets for 38G. I do about two per month.” Articles that these two co-authors have published include “Does China Have Enough Food to Go to War?” and “Taiwan’s Food Resiliency—or Not—in a Conflict with China.”

Starting a new adventure? Connected with an old friend? Share your latest news with us by filling out the online news form or you can always email me. ❖ Uthica Jinvit Utano ( email Uthica ) | Alumni Directory .

Adam Ross joined law firm Keane & Beane PC on January 1, in their Long Island office in Melville, NY. Adam represents public employers in a broad range of employment-related matters. For school districts and BOCES, he provides guidance on probationary periods, tenure, recall, and performance reviews. He previously served as general counsel to the United Federation of Teachers. Congrats, Adam!

Reunion 2024 in June will feature our very own Andrew Ross Sorkin as the esteemed Olin Lecturer! Andrew is an award-winning journalist and author, CNBC “Squawk Box” co-anchor, DealBook founder/editor, and co-creator of the Showtime series “Billions.”

What is something you’re doing now that you never thought you’d be doing? What is your fondest memory of your time at Cornell? What brings you the most satisfaction these days? No matter if your news is big or small, please take a moment to write to us and stay connected with our class. ❖ Class of 1999 ( email c/o Alexandra Bond ’12 ) | Alumni Directory .

Hello out there! I hope this little note finds you in good health and spirits. I am enjoying the warmth of the season in a new home, and, as you can imagine, it’s a busy time. It was nice to receive news from fellow alumna Katie Dealy .

In her own words: “Since June 2022, I have served as the director of engagement in the Office of U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy. Despite lots of travel, it has been a profound honor to serve in this role, with these colleagues and during this time, particularly as we have raised awareness around the youth mental health crisis and the epidemic of loneliness. For the last 12 years, my husband, Alan Polansky, and I have lived in Evanston, IL, with our three boys (ages 15, 12, and 8). When I am not at work, and not on the sidelines of a youth sporting event or theatrical production, I’m chairing the Cornell Class of ’64 JFK Award alumni board, and playing phone tag with dear friends from Cornell days.”

That sounds incredible; thanks for sharing, Katie. What are you up to in this great, big, wide world? I’d like to read about it, and I’m sure I’m not alone. So share your story with us through the Share Your News link below, or drop me a note! ❖ Denise Williams ( email Denise ) | Alumni Directory .

As I write this update, the Cornell Daily Sun (hope you all still read this from time to time!) just published a story about the Faculty Senate voting to discontinue median grade visibility on transcripts, a practice started 15 years ago. We can add this to the list of “glad we didn’t have to deal with that back in our day” (see also: Snapchat, doxxing), which feels like a good way to appreciate entering our midlife phase.

Speaking of now-defunct initiatives that started after our time on the Hill: would you like Cornell to bring back the New Student Summer Reading Project ? (I am still meaning to read Guns, Germs, and Steel , which had kicked things off after our graduation in Summer 2001 … maybe this time?) If so, here’s a contender: Hidden Hate: The Resilience of Xenophobia by Mathew Creighton . Once merely one of our classmates, Mathew is now an associate professor in the School of Sociology at University College Dublin, a national coordinator of the European Social Survey in Ireland, and the principal investigator of a Horizon Europe project, EqualStrength , which assesses prejudice in work, childcare, and housing throughout Europe.

Fun fact: Our class has 3,593 living alumni, plus 65 “non-degreed” classmates. If you’re one of them and you’ve read this far, go to our class Facebook group or Instagram page (or find me on Linkedin: I’m the only Nicole Neroulias Gupte ) and send a message that says “tower pumpkin.”

Spotted in person: my husband, Salil Gupte , and I ran into Erin Colling Cleofe at Seattle’s University Village Apple Store over winter break, and we also met up with neighbors Chisaki Muraki and Schaun Valdovinos . Everyone’s doing a pretty good job keeping up with their outdoorsy kids, PNW style. I hope to see them again—and any other classmates around?—next month when we’re back in town again from Delhi. (P.S., for more on me and Salil, check out the Cornell Daily Sun ’s column in the new Group Notes below!)

My husband, Salil Gupte ’01 , and I ran into Erin Colling Cleofe ’01 at Seattle’s University Village Apple Store over winter break. Nicole Neroulias Gupte ’01

Spotted on social media: Eddie Perez-Cortes caught up with Michael and Susan Mueller Hanson while in D.C. over New Year’s. “The kids had a great time visiting the monuments,” he writes. Nageeb and Fatema Gunja Sumar took their kids to the Harvard-Cornell game at “Lynah East” soon afterwards. Mike Kalogiannis started a new position as “field medical, vaccines” at Pfizer. Ali Solomon Mainhart was part of an exhibit, “From Lines to Laughs: Women+ on Men” at the Society of Illustrators, in New York City—then got to celebrate her wedding anniversary with a mid-February snow day. (The best gift for a coupla teachers, amirite?)

Speaking of gifts for teachers, did you ever take a class with Prof. Juris Hartmanis? He passed away in 2022, but I’ve just come across the tribute to him penned by Ryan Williams , ME ’02, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT. An excerpt: “I don’t know why Professor Hartmanis believed in me. During that period in my life, I felt like nobody else did, and it felt odd that the Turing Award winner was the one who believed the most.” I only took one engineering school class—CS 99, convinced by Jackie Sobota that we should try to get some entry-level knowledge while working the CIT Help Desk and supervising the Mann Library computer labs!—but I’m reminded of a few of my busy teachers in Ag and Arts who also found ways to encourage students at pivotal moments. We salute you, good teachers everywhere.

And lastly, Marisa Laks , one of our class officers and a Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) Equity Fellow, will be speaking at the group’s annual conference in Las Vegas in July. Check out the article she wrote for the CSTA Voice on “ Creating a Sense of Belonging in the CS Classroom .”

Don’t forget to get in touch with your local Cornell alumni group to see if they’re planning a student send-off this summer! Those are great opportunities to answer questions from anxious parents (if not the kids themselves) and network with fellow alums.

Want to share an update or a memory, or get back in touch with classmates? Interested in proposing an event or helping out with our 25th Reunion planning? Please let us know by posting to our Cornell Class of 2001 Classmates Facebook group or sending an email to your friendly class correspondents. And, as always, visit our class website for more information and volunteer opportunities. ❖ Nicole Neroulias Gupte ( email Nicole ) | James Gutow ( email James ) | Alumni Directory .

What is something you’re doing now that you never thought you’d be doing? What is your fondest memory of your time at Cornell? What brings you the most satisfaction these days? No matter if your news is big or small, please take a moment to write to us and stay connected with our class. ❖ Class of 2002 ( email c/o Alexandra Bond ’12 ) | Alumni Directory .

Adam Crouch recently became CEO of Redbubble, the largest marketplace for independent artists, whose designs get printed on graphic tees, stickers, and other items. Redbubble is based in San Francisco and Melbourne, and in the past year had 5 million customers buying 4.8 million different designs. Congratulations, Adam! ❖ Jon Schoenberg , ME ’03 , PhD ’11 ( email Jon ) | Candace Lee Chow , PhD ’14 ( email Candace ) | Alumni Directory .

There’s still time for you to make plans to join us on the Hill for our 20th Reunion, June 6–9! Reunion can be as short or as long as you want it to be—you can make it an all-inclusive weekend or a quick overnight trip, attend all the sponsored events or choose your own adventure. Come alone, bring a guest, or bring the whole family! There is something on the schedule for everyone, with dozens of events planned for the weekend, including performances, athletic events, Greek receptions, tent parties, lectures, tours, and meals.

Our class headquarters is Mary Donlon Hall on North Campus. Refreshments and activities will be available all weekend. Most of the meals are taken care of, but there is plenty of opportunity to hit your favorite spot. There will also be plenty of family-friendly activities available at HQ and throughout campus.

Class-specific events include: a wine tour, a tour of the Cornell Veterinary Biobank (where you can explore the world of scientific preservation), a cocktail hour and dinner at the Nevin Center welcome tent, and breakfast in the new Toni Morrison Hall on North Campus. And, of course, the Olin Lecture (featuring Andrew Ross Sorkin ’99 , award-winning journalist and author), a Chorus and Glee Club concert, the Reunion 5K through the Botanic Gardens, Redstock (where Cornell musicians and bands unite for an epic alumni concert), Cornelliana Night, tent parties, and more can be enjoyed throughout the weekend.

It’s hard to believe 20 years have come and gone. Don’t miss this chance to come back to the Hill for a fun-filled and memorable weekend! ❖ Jessi Petrosino ( email Jessi ) | Alumni Directory .

Believe it or not, our 20th Reunion is only one year away—June 5–8, 2025—so be sure to mark your calendars! We have extra celebrating to do this time around, after our 15th Reunion was made virtual, so let’s make this one a weekend to remember. And if you don’t yet pay dues, now’s a great time to start! Help us support our class and our next reunion by signing up here —and submit an online news form so our future class columns can be full of news from all of you! ❖ Hilary Johnson King ( email Hilary ) | Jessica Rosenthal Chod ( email Jessica ) | Alumni Directory .

We don’t have any news to share from these classes this round. We hope you took the time to fill out and return the Share Your News form that was recently mailed to you! If you haven’t yet, it’s not too late! Please do send us your news—via the hard-copy form or the online news form —so our future class columns can be full of news from all of you. Whether your news is ordinary or extraordinary, we want to hear it! ❖ Classes of 2006–2008 ( email c/o Alexandra Bond ’12 ) | Alumni Directory .

There’s still time for you to make plans to join us on the Hill for our 15th Reunion, June 6–9! Can you believe it’s been 15 years since we graduated from Cornell? So much has changed for us and for Cornell, but the sense of belonging to the Cornell family remains constant. Whether you’ve frequented campus since graduation or haven’t made the trip back yet, now is the perfect opportunity to explore all the changes, revisit your favorite spots, reconnect with old friends, and rediscover your love for Cornell. Start making plans to join your friends and classmates for an amazing weekend filled with class festivities and university events.

You can indulge in athletic activities, attend lectures, take tours, join Greek receptions, participate in college events, enjoy musical performances, attend tent parties, and more! Reunion can be as brief or as extended as you desire—an all-inclusive weekend vacation or a quick overnight trip. Our class has organized several special events for families and individual travelers alike. Attend an ice cream social on Saturday afternoon or choose to visit some beloved wineries along Cayuga Lake. Socialize with old friends at our class receptions and savor dinners by Cornell Catering. Family-friendly events, such as “Fun in the Sun,” are abundant, ensuring there’s something for everyone, whether you’re bringing the kids or attending solo.

Desiree Nattell writes, “I was named first on the 2023 Social Intelligence Insider 50 list. It’s an international who’s who in social media listening/insights/analytics and I was thrilled to be included!” Desiree is a senior analyst, strategy and insights, for Universal Parks & Resorts. “I studied sociocultural anthropology as an undergrad: how people and cultures grow and develop. Anyone in social intelligence can tell you that’s what we’re watching every day; social media just allows growth and development faster than we would have thought possible 20 years ago. My studies didn’t teach me what to think, but how .”

Matthew Gizzo shares, “I was just promoted to shareholder at Ogletree Deakins Nash Smoak & Stewart PC, a labor and employment law firm with more than 55 offices internationally and nearly 1,000 attorneys. I work out of the New York City and Dallas, TX, offices. In September 2023, my wife, Alycia, and I welcomed our first child, Brayden Paul.”

I was named first on the 2023 Social Intelligence Insider 50 list. Desiree Nattell ’09

Political consultant Iris Delgado writes, “I was just appointed to serve as a trustee to Middlesex College by the County Board of County Commissioners.” Iris fondly recalls the “Valentine’s Snowmageddon in 2007” on the Hill.

In 2024, Eva Kestner ’s original music was used by Cambridge International Curriculum in over 160 countries and 10,000 schools—and she was in the cover image of Harper Collins Publisher’s music textbook. From the blurb on her website : “Born in Tokyo, Japan, Eva was raised by a family of scholars and artists with mixed German and Japanese heritage. From a young age she learned how to play piano after her father introduced her to classical music, while she simultaneously learned Taiko (a broad range of Japanese percussion instruments) after her mother introduced her to the Japanese arts. After graduating from the International School of the Sacred Heart in Tokyo, Japan, she attended Cornell, where she earned a BA in philosophy. While there, she joined the Cornell Percussion Ensemble. The following year, she co-founded the Taiko drumming student organization called Yamatai Taiko and she was the lead drummer and musical director. After graduating, she returned to Japan and started performing professionally. She started her solo career a year later.

“Today, she brings Japanese Taiko drumming and song to a brand new context of pop music and also performs with many distinguished artists, musicians, dancers, and Taiko drummers across multiple genres. Eva does not only perform using Taiko—she also uses a number of other instruments that have a distinct flavor of the Japanese environment including koto (Japanese harp), voice, and piano. Eva also works in the field of education and teaches Taiko drumming workshops to both children and adults, and is also involved in humanitarian efforts such as raising awareness for the disabled.” ❖ Jason Georges ( email Jason ) | Alumni Directory .

Hi, Class of 2010! We have a couple of updates to share.

Ingrid Su has started a new multi-language greeting card business, YS Notes . She shares that the idea was first spawned 13 years ago when she sent herself an email to her Cornell inbox with website links on how to enter the greeting industry. Though it’s coming up on our 15th Reunion, it’s never too late to make a dream a reality!

James Hunsberger has been promoted to partner of Axinn, Veltrop & Harkrider, effective the first of this year. He is based in Washington, DC, and focuses on antitrust matters. He has had extensive experience representing U.S. and foreign companies across various industries in high-stakes antitrust matters.

Congratulations to both of our classmates! Share your news at the link below. ❖ Michelle Sun ( email Michelle ) | Alumni Directory .

“I just won a Primetime Emmy for my work on FX/Hulu’s ‘Welcome to Wrexham,’” writes Miloš Balać ! “Having spent three years of my life working on the project in Wrexham, Wales, as the co-executive producer, it has been incredibly fun and satisfying to be recognized with the award for Best Unstructured Reality Program.”

“I first went to Wrexham in October 2020 as the supervising producer on season one, and officially wrapped on the project after three years in July 2023—I was promoted to co-executive producer for season two. As the main point of contact with the world of Wrexham, I cast and fostered relationships with the series’ primary subjects, including members of the Wrexham soccer team, the wider Wrexham community, and team owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney. I developed season-long story arcs on the ground, produced and directed the majority of field shoots, wrote and conducted interviews, operated B cam, and set the series look in collaboration with the showrunner and director of photography. In post-production, I produced and oversaw story edits across multiple episodes and reviewed cuts for both seasons of the series.

“Living in Wrexham for the majority of the past three years was truly an incredible and fulfilling experience—Wrexham will be part of my life forever. However, after so long away from home, I decided to amicably step away from the project and return to New York in summer 2023. I’m currently working on a new project that has not yet been announced, so I unfortunately can’t say more!” ❖ Class of 2011 ( email c/o Alexandra Bond ’12 ) | Alumni Directory .

Colleen Brill and Jake Rosen welcomed their son, Leo Michael, on December 16 at 5:22 a.m. Congratulations to you both, and welcome, baby Leo! ❖ Peggy Ramin ( email Peggy ) | Alumni Directory .

Andrew Boryga has released his debut novel, Victim , which, according to the publisher, is “about a hustler from the Bronx who sees through the veneer of diversity initiatives and decides to cash in on the odd currency of identity. This propulsive satire asks what real diversity looks like—and how far one man is willing to go to make his story exceptional.”

Erica Barnell writes, “I hold an MD/PhD from Washington University, and during my medical training I founded a healthcare company called Geneoscopy. Our company has recently successfully concluded an extensive prospective clinical trial involving 8,920 patients to evaluate the effectiveness of our leading diagnostic tool, ColoSense, in detecting colorectal cancer and advanced adenomas in average-risk individuals over the age of 45. In January 2023, we submitted these crucial findings to the FDA as part of our pre-market approval process. I am delighted to share that we have since completed all our FDA audits, including our 100-day meeting with the FDA. Furthermore, we’re thrilled to announce that our research and the associated data have been accepted for publication in the Journal of the American Medical Association .”

JC Tretter was recently inducted into the Cornell Athletics Hall of Fame! Though his time as an athlete on the Hill was spent mostly as a backup tight end on the football team, JC went on to have a 9-year career as an NFL offensive lineman, playing for the Green Bay Packers and the Cleveland Browns. You can read more about him in this recent story . ❖ Rachael Schuman ( email Rachael ) | Alumni Directory .

Hello, Class of 2014! Two of our classmates, Dana Lerner and Katia Lin , were recently honored with the Robert S. Harrison ’76 Recent Alumni Volunteer Award. Dana has served as a Class of 2014 Annual Fund representative and Reunion campaign co-chair since graduation and has also volunteered as part of the Cornell Alumni Advisory Board and the Cornell University Council. Katia has volunteered as part of the Cornell Alumni Admissions Ambassador Network since graduation and served as the VP of social programming for the Cornell Club UK since 2019. Congratulations, Dana and Katia!

With our 10th Reunion coming up in a few short weeks, I would love to hear about your Reunion experiences or any exciting life updates from the last five years to include in a future column. Please send me your stories! ❖ Samantha Lapehn Young ( email Samantha ) | Alumni Directory .

We have a lot of people starting new jobs—even careers—in this issue of Class Notes! We are so proud of our classmates for all their accomplishments.

Kwabena Nimo started Intelligenia, which he describes as a company that “focuses on creating sustainable, synergistic management solutions aimed at leveraging state-of-the-art business methodologies that interface AI and machine learning with consumer-driven data. At Intelligenia, we provide robust industrial and manufacturing techniques to keep pace with the ever-changing economic landscape, while focusing on delivering clinically proven products and results derived from Six Sigma best practices.”

Alana Harris left the world of law to become a teacher. You can learn more about her experience in this 2020 profile posted by the College of Human Ecology.

Carolyn Creneti got a new job as the neuromuscular lab lead at Children’s Wisconsin, and Elisa Raffa has started at CNN as a weather anchor and as a correspondent on all domestic and international platforms. Congratulations, everyone!

Do you have a new job, too? Some other milestone hit? Any other news you’d like to share? Email your class correspondents. ❖ Caroline Flax ( email Caroline ) | Mateo Acebedo ( email Mateo ) | Alumni Directory .

Misha Inniss-Thompson and her mom, Michelle Brown-Grant ’88 , were recently featured in a Cornellians story about their shared vocation: helping kids succeed, with a focus on the needs of Black girls and their communities.

Both mother and daughter majored in human development and minored in Africana studies on the Hill, and both pursued careers that have delved into education, childhood and adolescent development, and the building and sustaining of Black community. “Our work feeds off each other,” Misha observed. “In so many ways, the educator that I am today is largely informed by the ways that my mom interacts with her students, the ways that she prominently displays positive representations of Black people and folks of color more broadly.”

Siddhant Gokhale recently co-wrote a book, Scaling Up Development Impact . “While solutions to tackle some big development challenges (e.g., access to electricity, health, and literacy) already exist, few attain a scale that matches the magnitude of the problem, even though this is critical in meeting the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. This book offers concepts, questions, and tools to accompany the scaling process. Weaving together real organizational experiences, the book offers a unique perspective on development—one that puts people experiencing the problem at the center of co-creating solutions, one that emphasizes adaption and frequent iterative experimentation, and one that looks at scaling from the purview of navigating complex systems.” ❖ Class of 2016 ( email c/o Alexandra Bond ’12 ) | Alumni Directory .

We don’t have any news to share from these classes this round. We hope you took the time to fill out and return the Share Your News form that was recently mailed to you! If you haven’t yet, it’s not too late! Please do send us your news—via the hard-copy form or the online news form —so our future class columns can be full of news from all of you. Whether your news is ordinary or extraordinary, we want to hear it! ❖ Classes of 2017 & 2018 ( email c/o Alexandra Bond ’12 ) | Alumni Directory .

There’s still time for you to make plans to join us on the Hill for our 5th Reunion, June 6–9! We can’t wait to celebrate with you! The entire university opens its doors and rolls out the Big Red carpet with dozens of activities, lectures, tours, and meals. If you sign up by May 15, you can lock in the early bird rate.

Registration includes continental breakfast every day, our class dinner on Saturday night, late-night and daytime food, unlimited alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, a souvenir, and numerous 2019-exclusive and university-wide events.

Clara Dickson Hall will be our home base for the weekend. Breakfasts, late-night gatherings, and other activities will take place in and around Dickson. Saturday’s class dinner will be held under a tent on the new Ruth Bader Ginsburg Hall plaza on North Campus. Housing is available to everyone who would like to stay on campus, as the dorms are transformed into hotels for the weekend. We’ll have rooms in Dickson (mostly singles) and Jameson Hall (mostly suite-style). You may request housing in quieter dorms, share a room with a friend or significant other, or reserve blocks of rooms near friends.

Class-specific events include: a Dairy Bar ice cream social, a wine tour, a lawn game tournament, and a tour of what’s new on campus. And, of course, the Olin Lecture (featuring Andrew Ross Sorkin ’99 , award-winning journalist and author), a Chorus and Glee Club concert, the Reunion 5K through the Botanic Gardens, Redstock (where Cornell musicians and bands unite for an epic alumni concert), Cornelliana Night, tent parties, and more can be enjoyed throughout the weekend.

To keep up to date with class-specific details, follow us on Instagram ( @cornell2019reunion ). We’re so excited to CU in June! ❖ Class of 2019 ( email c/o Alexandra Bond ’12 ) | Alumni Directory .

“I recently joined a cohort of hundreds of other artists whose artwork landed on the moon as part of the first official art collection there,” writes Sam Price . “This payload, aboard a nickel disk designed to last for a billion years, was part of the first landing from the U.S. in over half a century and the first landing ever by a private company. My artwork is part of a digital series raising money for wildlife conservation in Africa. You can read more here !”

Elisabeth Crotty was recently selected as a 2024 Design and Technology Fellow of Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics (FASPE). “Now in its 14th year of operation, FASPE annually grants 80–90 fellowships to graduate students and early-career professionals in the fields of business, design and technology, journalism, law, medicine, and seminary. Fellows participate in a two-week program in Germany and Poland, which uses the conduct of professionals in Nazi-occupied Europe as an initial framework for approaching ethical responsibility in the professions today. The FASPE curriculum takes advantage of the power of place with daily seminars and dialogue at sites of historic importance, often specific to their profession. By educating students about the causes of the Holocaust and the power of their chosen professions, FASPE seeks to instill a sense of professional responsibility for the ethical and moral choices that the fellows will make in their careers and in their professional relationships.”

I recently joined a cohort of hundreds of other artists whose artwork landed on the moon. Sam Price ’20

Elisabeth is a security technical program manager at Microsoft, working to protect the world with rapid and thorough response to security vulnerabilities. She studied information science, systems, and technology at Cornell, where she developed a passion for building technology in a way that is not only responsible but creates positive social impact. She says, “I was drawn to the FASPE program because I would love to be surrounded by others in design and technology who share a passion for understanding how the products we’re creating, and the way in which we create them, may impact our users and non-users alike. I want to be a part of this program to have a dedicated space to focus on ethical issues and develop strategies to initiate and approach these conversations across disciplines. I think this program will better prepare me to be a leader in this industry that is constantly changing and doesn’t always create space to reflect.” ❖ Class of 2020 ( email c/o Alexandra Bond ’12 ) | Alumni Directory .

Brian Forness is a global banking and markets analyst at Goldman Sachs, where he recently teamed up with a group of fellow analysts, including Valentina Xu ’22 , to take part in the global Goldman Sachs Gives 2023 Analyst Impact Fund Award competition. Teams who enter must identify, study, and ultimately pitch the work of a chosen nonprofit organization to Goldman Sachs leadership; the grand prize is $250,000 donated to that organization.

Though more than 300 teams entered this year, Brian’s team made it to the final round and earned both second place and the “Fan Favorite” prize, which in total secured a grant of $125,000 for their chosen nonprofit, Trickle Up—which seeks to partner with women in extreme poverty and provide them with financial support, training, and mentoring to ensure they build sustainable livelihoods for themselves.

Brian’s volunteerism included co-founding and serving as president of Cayuga Capital, a Cornell student-run educational nonprofit focused on personal finance, taxes, and investing, and serving on the e-board for Cayuga’s Watchers, among many other activities related to his passion for finance and entrepreneurship.

Amanda Hernandez is the volunteer coach for the Cornell University Dance Team. The team placed eighth in the Universal Dance Association’s National College Dance Team National Championship in Orlando, FL—the most competitive collegiate dance competition in the U.S. Amanda writes, “We were one of 11 teams who advanced to the finals, and this was an astonishing achievement, given that our team has only attended the championship twice before and we were founded in 2017.” ❖ Class of 2021 ( email c/o Alexandra Bond ’12 ) | Alumni Directory .

Andrew Lorenzen is among the 51 new Marshall Scholars announced today by the Marshall Aid Commemoration Commission. Andrew majored in government and performing and media arts and minored in English. A published author, he is currently completing a master’s degree in creative writing at NYU. With the scholarship, Andrew will pursue a master’s in politics and communication at the London School of Economics, followed by a master’s in narrative futures at the University of Edinburgh.

In December 2023, our very own Emma Cameron , BS ’21, fulfilled a lifelong dream by winning the title of Miss Rodeo America! She’ll be spending 2024 representing the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, logging some 50,000 miles as she travels to a variety of events and appearances around the country—including performing at nearly 100 rodeos. You can read more about her in this recent Cornellians story .

Emma Cameron ’22 , BS ’21, fulfilled a lifelong dream by winning the title of Miss Rodeo America!

As Emma explains in the story, rodeo pageants resemble conventional ones, like Miss America, in a number of ways. For example, contestants have to demonstrate poise and stage presence, excel in interviews, perform in group numbers, and model stylish outfits. (Hers included a striking copper-colored metallic dress—which she helped design—for the competition’s “Western trendy” fashion show.)

“The big difference for us is that instead of singing or dancing, our talent is horsemanship,” she says. “We have a whole day dedicated to evaluating how well we can ride a horse, and we have interviews and a written test on equine science, veterinary knowledge, and the overall industry, to make sure we can represent it well.”

At the Miss Rodeo America competition—which has been held since 1956—Emma beat out 30 other young women for the crown and won several awards, including the one for horsemanship. Her prizes include scholarships as well as a large wardrobe of Western-style clothing, jewelry, and accessories, which she sports at her many appearances. The highlight, of course, is the elegant Miss Rodeo America crown. No ordinary tiara, it’s specially designed to slip onto the variously colored cowboy hats that coordinate with her outfits. ❖ Class of 2022 ( email c/o Alexandra Bond ’12 ) | Alumni Directory .

Lorlei Boyd develops AI tools for Gray Decision Intelligence , a software company that provides platform evaluation software to colleges and universities. She first started at Gray DI as an analyst but quickly transitioned into a developer (she led the integration of generative AI into Gray’s interface). While grounded in critical thinking, she draws from her humanities background at Cornell to approach her work in shaping technology with a human element. ❖ Class of 2023 ( email c/o Alexandra Bond ’12 ) | Alumni Directory .

Agriculture and Life Sciences

Samson Hagos , MS ’04 , PhD ’07 , is an earth scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in southeast Washington State, where he models the lifecycles and variability of precipitation and extreme weather events across various regional and global scales. During his time on the Hill, Samson studied the causes of the decade of catastrophic droughts across the Sahel region in Africa. He co-authored a breakthrough paper about these causes and Sahel’s rebound to normal precipitation levels with his advisor and mentor at Cornell, climate scientist Kerry Cook. Samson grew up in drought-stricken East Africa in the 1980s. Despite this and the often-scarce availability of water throughout the world, Samson is optimistic: “We need to work together, wherever we happen to be geographically. We need to look out for the less fortunate. Collectively, we have the tools to solve our water problems. Humankind is a very resourceful and cooperative species.”

Architecture, Art, and Planning

Christine Song , MArch ’09 , is a senior associate at the architecture firm Elkus Manfredi in Boston. Christine currently has a leading role in major projects in Boston and Cambridge, including the redevelopment of the National Transportation Center facility in Kendall Square. In 2023 she was named to NEREJ ’s Rising Star List for her complex designs on high-rise buildings and her influence on the cityscapes of Boston and Cambridge.

Arts and Sciences

Photographer Julia Cumes , MFA ’98 , has been named the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod’s 2024 Artist of the Year. The award recognizes a Cape-based artist whose work shapes thought, inspires change, and creates a deeper sense of connection in the community. Her photography has taken her to India, Rwanda, Thailand, Lebanon, Tanzania, Cuba, Kenya, and more. She has photographed the aftermath of several of the world’s recent natural disasters, including Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the 2004 earthquake and tsunami in the Indian Ocean, and the floods in Eastern Kentucky in 2022. Last year she launched Photo Artfolio , an online organization that serves as a resource center and gallery to support emerging and established photographers. “As a young photographer, I experienced firsthand the profound impact of having mentors in my photographic journey,” Julia says. “Their guidance, support, and insights were instrumental in shaping my skills and artistic vision. It is with this understanding of the value of mentorship and a strong photography community that the idea of Photo Artfolio was born.”

Nick Roth , MA ’11 , PhD ’14 , has a new project—a movie titled Hanky Panky that is written, co-directed, and co-starred in by Nick himself. The movie is about a man and his talking napkin best friend who must save the world from a killer, evil top hat in a cabin deep in the Utah mountains—all while also learning to love. It came out on April 19 and is available on Amazon, Apple, Google, and more.

Amarildo Gjondrekaj , MBA ’19 , is founder and CEO of Adro, a financial technology company that provides financial services for people who are moving to the U.S. from another country for school or work. Adro is launching this summer. Several classmates have joined his team, including Sara Schmitt , MBA ’19 , as COO, and Lalo Gonzalez , MBA ’19 , as a user experience/user interface designer.

Engineering

Eric Betzig , MS ’85 , PhD ’88 , has been announced as a 2024 inductee into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for his co-invention of a super-resolution imaging technology called photoactivated localization microscopy. This allows scientists to distinguish individual molecules and study biological structures and processes with unprecedented resolution. Eric will be inducted on May 9, 2024 in Washington, DC, at the annual ceremony. This honor is also being awarded posthumously to another Cornellian, Alice Stoll , MS ’48 , for her invention of fire-resistant fibers and fabrics.

Alexander Boys , MS ’16 , PhD ’19 , recently started a position as an assistant professor in the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College. He is researching the development of bioelectronic implants for applications in regenerative medicine and rehabilitation engineering. Alexander previously worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Cambridge for five years.

Industrial and Labor Relations

Cindy Vogel Ryan , MILR ’99 , was recently appointed as MassMutual’s head of human resources, where she’ll oversee the company’s HR organization and advance its people strategy. At MassMutual, a life insurance and financial services company, she will manage a range of areas including talent acquisition, employee relations, and diversity, equity, and inclusion. Cindy has over two decades of HR leadership experience, including 25 years at Cigna, where she most recently served as chief human resources officer.

Veterinary Medicine

Charles Hjerpe , DVM ’58 , lives in Davis, CA, with his wife, Sue Davis Hjerpe ’58 , and enjoys following the trials, tribulations, and triumphs of their three children and six grandchildren who live throughout the country. Their grandson Cooper Austin Hjerpe was drafted with the 22nd pick in the first round of the 2022 MLB Draft by the St. Louis Cardinals and is now with the Peoria Chiefs on injured reserve following elbow surgery. Charles fondly remembers his days at Lambda Chi Alpha and “all the camaraderie that went with fraternity living. Studying with my wife-to-be in the evenings at Tri Delt on Beebe Lake during 1957–58 was also memorable.”

Welcome to our newest offering: Group Notes! Like Class Notes, these columns are written by alumni, but they comprise news about members of Cornell groups—including campus activities, alumni organizations, and more—across generations. If you would like to see your group represented here, email us for more information!

Cornell Daily Sun

Hello fellow Sunnies, and welcome to Group Notes! I’m excited to introduce this new column, which will highlight the achievements and celebrate the lives of Sun alumni. As one of Cornell’s oldest, most storied student organizations, the Cornell Daily Sun boasts a vast and accomplished alumni network. Sunnies make a significant impact in journalism, philanthropy, business, medicine, and many other fields. We create thought and inspire change. I’m proud to introduce you all and share your stories, both personal and professional.

If we haven’t met, I’m Vee Cipperman ’23 . Like many of you, the Sun formed the backbone of my college experience. I served consecutively as news editor, editor-in-chief, and senior editor (the paper’s best position!). Since my graduation in December, I’ve worked as a graduate fellow in Sun operations and alumni outreach. I enjoy cooking, running, and exploring Ithaca’s many natural gems, and I hope to pursue a long career in journalism and communications.

But enough about me. I’ve gathered plenty of exciting news about you and your fellow alumni. In the past few months, you’ve launched exciting projects, embarked on new careers, and expanded your families. 2024 is shaping up to be a busy year for Sun alums!

Following five years at the Wall Street Journal , Haley Velasco ’15 ( Sun editor-in-chief) started working at McClatchy in 2022. As an editor, she leads growth strategies for 30 papers including the Kansas City Star , the Miami Herald , and the Sacramento Bee . Haley writes, “This is also my second semester teaching a ‘Social Media in Journalism and PR’ undergraduate class at Seton Hall University, where I teach audience strategy, social media platforms, and work through brand analysis.”

Sun alumni continue to make waves as professional reporters. Jessica DiNapoli ’08 , BA ’07, (senior editor) writes that she recently returned to work at Reuters, “covering consumer products companies.” Justin Peters ’03 (columnist) will cover the 2024 Summer Olympics for Slate . He also co-owns Tampa-based comedy club the Commodore, “thus bringing me closer to achieving my lifelong dream of becoming ‘Florida Man.’” Carl Leubsdorf ’59 (associate editor) celebrated 44 years as a reporter at the Dallas Morning News and Tribune Content Agency last March. He writes, “My wife, fellow journalist Susan Page, will be releasing a biography on Barbara Walters in the spring.”

Sun alums have also launched exciting projects outside the journalism world. Phil Mazo ’03 (cartoonist) released a short comedy film called “I’m Phil,” which won the 2022 Coney Island Film Festival for Best Comedy Short. Ed Zuckerman ’70 (editor-in-chief) published Wealth Management , a thriller novel, in 2022. He writes, “One character in the book is a Cornell graduate, but she didn’t work on the Sun . Her loss.” This book is yet another twinkle in Ed’s star-studded career as a journalist, nonfiction author, and writer-producer on TV shows including “Law & Order.”

Many Sun alums have found their calling outside the media industry. Zachary Silver ’19 (sports editor) covered Major League Baseball for four years before pivoting to communications. He writes, “I have learned that even if I’m out of the field, it’s easy to stay connected.” He keeps up with the friends that he made in the press box, and he reports that he’s still cheering from the sidelines.

Phil Mazo ’03 won the 2022 Coney Island Film Festival for Best Comedy Short.

Chloe Gatta ’12 (business manager) lives in Manhattan and works in strategic communications at Hiltzik Strategies. Maryam Zafar ’21 (editor-in-chief) pursues research in environmental health epidemiology and writes for the Harvard Public Health Magazine . She reports that she will begin medical school in fall ’24.

Andy Guess ’05 (editor-in-chief) lives in New York City and works as an assistant professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton University. He writes, “Remember, New Jersey and you, perfect together.” Rochelle Li ’21 (HR manager) works in healthcare management for global consulting firm ZS. She writes, “I currently live in New York City and spend my free time engaging in various cozy hobbies, including baking, embroidery, and houseplant growing.”

Several Sun alums stick close to home, pursuing careers here in Ithaca. Amanda Soule Shaw ’00 , MBA ’05 (business manager) serves as the associate dean for administration and finance for the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy. She writes, “I live in Ithaca with my husband and two teenage sons, who regularly fight over wearing my Cornell Daily Sun sweatshirt to school and around town.” Kirkpatrick Sale ’58 (editor-in-chief) lives in the Ithaca area with his wife. He reads the Sun online each morning.

Other alumni, including Salil Gupte ’01 (managing editor) and Nicole Neroulias Gupte ’01 (features editor) make a big impact abroad. Salil serves as president of Boeing India, “opening a new 43-acre campus with India’s Prime Minister and launching a new training program for women pilots.” Nicole serves on the board of governors of Delhi’s American Embassy School. She is pursuing a master’s degree in library and information science from San Jose State University.

They write, “Our two kids, R.J. and Katia, are also busy with school, Scouting, taekwondo, music programs, and being dragged around the world.” Nicole and Salil invite any Sunnies visiting Delhi (during the school year) or Seattle (over summer breaks) to reach out on LinkedIn.

To close our first Group Notes column, I’ll share some exciting news about Sun families. In 2023, Carl Leubsdorf celebrated the wedding of his son, Will. Jessica DiNapoli and her husband, Sachin Shah, welcomed their son, Michael, in August 2023.

That same month, Haley Velasco got engaged—she reports that she’s currently planning her wedding. Chloe Gatta got engaged in November 2023; she and her fiancé, Aayush Srivastava, plan to get married in Philadelphia.

It’s been great to hear all your fun stories. To my contributors, thank you for your time! If you’re interested in submitting an update for a future Cornellians column or the Sun alumni blog, please reach out to me . It’s always exciting to see where Sunnies end up in the world, and how you’re all working to change it for the better. Shine bright! ❖ Vee Cipperman ’23 ( email Vee ) | Alumni Directory .

University Chorus & Glee Club

Willkommen! Bienvenue! Welcome! To the brand spankin’ new Cornell Chorus and Glee Club (a.k.a. “Glorus,” according to the current students) Group Notes column! I am excited to be your correspondent and to share all of your updates.

A little bit about myself: I, Alison Torrillo French ’95 , graduated from Cornell in 1995, sang Alto 2 (woot!) in the Chorus all four years, and was a part of After Eight. Outside of singing, I majored in communications in CALS, wrote for the arts and entertainment section of the Daily Sun , and was president of Women in Communications. I now am a solopreneur, running my own consulting company, aptly named Alto Solutions ! I live outside Washington, DC—where I recently got to see many of you when the Glorus came down for winter break tour—with my husband (and classmate, but he was a Big Red Band geek), Matt French ’95 , ME ’96, and our two kids, Ray, 13, and Ben, 11 (who both adore visiting Cornell—in particular, the Dairy Bar!). I have sung with several a cappella groups and bands in the area and can often be found belting it out at karaoke night with friends.

Now let’s dive right into your updates, shall we? Also in the Washington, DC, area, where the spirit of Cornell music-making lives on, is Brad Spencer ’79 , who sings in the Washington Men’s Camerata along with fellow Glee Clubbers Robert Harris ’80 , Kenyon Erickson , MPS ’81 , Jason Rylander ’93 , Eugene Stromecki ’82 , Michael Schrier ’90 , and Shea Murphy ’20 —all under the direction of former CUGC director Scott Tucker and the first woman to serve as the Camerata’s associate director, Chorus alum Julie Huang Tucker ’05 . Writes Brad, “We have sung more than a half dozen times with the National Symphony Orchestra and recently made NFL history by singing on a state-of-the-art recording of the Washington Commanders’ new fight song.”

Yet another D.C.-area Glee Clubber who is continuing to sing is Bill Welker ’73 , MBA ’75. He has been a member of the Choral Arts Society, whose season started with the singing of Rachmaninov’s “Symphony of the Bells” (prepared by Scott Tucker) and then William Walton’s “Belshazzar’s Feast,” conducted by Marin Alsop, both performances at the Kennedy Center. Bill is looking forward to singing Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana in the spring.

We recently made NFL history by singing on a state-of-the-art recording of the Washington Commanders’ new fight song. Brad Spencer ’79

Living in Cincinnati, OH, Jessica Graus Woo ’93 —my co-president of the After Eight Alumni Council—writes that she recently got to catch up with Steve Merz ’91 at a grad school event. Steve lives in Maine and is running a behavioral healthcare organization. “It had probably been 25 years since we’d seen each other, but it was like no time had passed,” says Jess. As I write this in February, I am excited myself to catch up with Jess and others at the Cornell Alumni Leadership Conference in Baltimore—I’m sure I’ll have some news to report afterward.

Jeanne Arnold ’78 is also keeping the music alive and is busy doing local theater on the East End of Long Island. She has done The Producers (ensemble), Cry-Baby (stage manager), Taming of The Shrew (Tranio), and Macbeth (Seyton and First Murderer). She is active in Corchaug Repertory Theatre, North Fork Community Theatre, and Northeast Stage. She also recently got together with friends to perform a Broadway tap dance number and has sung lead with some bands. Her favorite Chorus memories are Carnegie Hall with Michael Tilson Thomas in 1977 and our centennial Reunion in 2022.

Finally, TP Enders ’90 , ME ’96, shared an update from Robert Pierce ’61 , who, after having been widowed, reported re-finding joy through singing by joining the Encore East Side NYC Chorale. The group is run by Encore Creativity, a national choral organization for age 55+ adults. He invites NYC-area singing alumni to join him. The group does not hold auditions, rehearses weekly at Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church (E. 73 rd Street), and is in particular need of male voices. There’s more information on Encore’s website and Facebook page .

That’s it for the inaugural column. All of your updates are certainly music to my ears. Please keep them coming. Until we meet again … ❖ Alison Torrillo French ’95 ( email Alison ) | Alumni Directory .

Top image: Photo by Ryan Young / Cornell University

Published May 1, 2024

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The Latest News from Your Classmates
1950s 1950. In my previous two columns, I highlighted short bios of some of the accomplished women of our Class of the Century. In this issue I highlight classmate Marion Steinmann, author of the book Women at Work: Demolishing a Myth of the 1950s (2005, Xlibris). Marion modestly included as co-authors "The Women of the Cornell Class of 1950."

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