Alumni News
’51
CHARLES STAPLES and his wife, Joan, enjoyed a trip to Cuba last September, where they were steeped in Cuban culture and history. “We visited neighborhoods and art studios, heard music, saw museums and dancers, ate well, visited markets and stores with rationed goods, saw well-kept areas and crumbling infrastructure, a senior center, a preschool, a maternity center, Hemingway’s home…saw many old but well-maintained cars (and rode in a 1958 Edsel!) and observed how cigars are made. What we saw and heard were just the ‘tip of the iceberg’ that Cuba represents, and we hope that relationships between America and Cuba will continue to open up.”
Charles Staples ’51: Still Climbing
When pioneer Charles Staples visited Marlboro for alumni reunion last May, it was just the beginning of a summer of anniversaries for him. In June he and his wife, Joan, returned to Vermont to attend the 65th reunion of his graduating class from the Putney School. But perhaps the high point of the summer, at least literally, was their trip to New Hampshire’s Mount Washington Observatory a few days later, on the occasion of Chuck’s 75th membership anniversary.
“We were gifted with an overnight on the top, with the current staff and volunteers at the observatory,” said Chuck, who was a social worker in Chicago’s public schools for 27 years. Even at an early age, Chuck was fascinated by the weather. At Putney School he studied the weather maps in the New York Times and formulated his own forecasts, and in 1951 he was an assistant at Blue Hill Observatory in Massachusetts.
“I have developed over the years a fondness for the Mount Washington Observatory and an admiration for its work and research in the field of meteorology,” said Chuck. He is also an avid hiker and climbed Mount Washington almost annually until 2000, an estimated 60 times. “Mountains are a special thing in my life.”
’55
Kathy Waters, the college’s new alumni director, enjoyed speaking with JON GLASBY on the phone recently. “He talked about the poet’s cabin getting overrun by mice, his dorm room, and the time that several tour buses mistakenly followed his car onto campus thinking he was going to the ski resort. Precious stories!”
’60
JOHN TOHR YAMAGUCHI’s widow, Marianne, sent the following note: “It has been a privilege to support Marlboro College while remembering my husband’s sojourn to Vermont to study there shortly after coming to the United States. I will always remember his own fond memories in the 1950s of sharing his love of music with Marcel, Louis, and Blanche Moyse, and having them introduce him to Swiss fondue on cold winter evenings. And meeting Rudolf Serkin at breakfast when [John] was working in the kitchen to support his studies.”
’62
MALCOLM “ORV” and MARJORIE WRIGHT ’80 celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary this past winter by skiing at Okemo Mountain, followed by another ski trip in the Dolomites.
’64
“Flint, Michigan, is a case study on the impact of industrial disinvestment that has left a city in major distress,” writes JAMES RICHARDSON. “In my retirement, I am involved with finding a way to revive this city through planning.”
’68
STEPHENIE SMITH writes, “OMG, 70 years old this April. Where did all that time go? I am still in Colchester, just north of Burlington, Vermont. Still incredibly happy with my life, and still lonely after my divorce. I get down to Marlboro country every once in a while to visit friends. I had a wonderful time at a Blanche Moyse Chorale concert last fall. And, of course, at the reunion last spring—it was so hot! All are welcome here at any time. If you are in the area, please call—my phone number is 802-878-6066.”
New Alumni Books
“Writing fiction provides a context in which to explore passions, emotions, and social tensions that would otherwise remain—for me—only superficially understood,” said David Rhodes ’69, author of the recent novel Jewelweed (Milkweed Editions, ISBN 978-1-57131-100-9). “This process of imaginative discovery both enhances my own experience and provides a way to unite with other individuals in a shared human experience.”
Following the publication of his last novel, Driftless (see Potash Hill, Summer 2009), Dave was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship that supported the writing of Jewelweed. His newest novel is set in the same area as Driftless, about half a generation later, with both familiar and new characters struggling to find a sense of belonging in the present moment. Rich with Dave’s sense of empathy and wonder, Jewelweed’s central story concerns a young man returning home after ten years in prison and the ways in which his readjustment to his community affects the many people around him.
Publishers Weekly called Jewelweed “a benevolent sort of rural American magical realism…. profound.”
“The one thing that holds true with everything I write—and finish—is that I fall in love with what I am working on, whether it be the story, the place, or the characters. Ideally, all of the above hold sway,” said Hilary Sloin ’85, author of Art on Fire (Bywater Books, ISBN 978-1-61294- 031-1).
Art on Fire is the apparent biography of artist Francesca DeSilva, who effortlessly rises to cult figure status, a suit she wears with much discomfort. But in the tradition of Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire, it’s a fiction from start to finish. The book was mistakenly awarded the nonfiction prize in the Amherst Book and Plow Competition, a testament to the success of its artful deception. It also won the Bywater Prize for Fiction and was a finalist for the Heekin Foundation Award, the Dana Awards, and the Story Oaks Prize. “The book is at first glance a coming-of-age story,” said Hilary, “but also adds to the mix 13 essays quoting scholars, critics, and psychologists who deconstruct, analyze, and misconstrue Francesca’s paintings, often to the point of hilarity.”
“If I write to be near those I have lost, I also write to survive them. This last book wanted to be about that,” said Sophie Black ’80, who recently published her third book of poems, The Exchange (Graywolf Press, ISBN 978-1-55597-641-5). “Of course it turned into something else, maybe not entirely, but it didn’t go where I thought it would.”
In The Exchange, Sophie explores the surprising interplay between mortality and money, between the next world and this one, and between the language of disease and the language of finance.
“A friend was dying of cancer, the world of commerce and currency fell apart, and all the while I wanted to work in those metaphysical questions that have haunted me from the beginning,” said Sophie. “Hence another collection of poem-cycles, somehow related, puzzled in.”
Following Sophie’s beloved friend through long illness and eventual death, the poems in The Exchange confront loss with stark emotion, even as the outside world—the world of debts paid and collected, of power and dominion—intrudes. Sophie’s poems ask, what is gained and what is sacrificed, and how can those profits and losses be measured, when the currency involved is love?
’70
“Still involved in conservation work,” writes DAN DALY. “Finally finished a fish passage project for which I have been raising money for over five years.” Dan worked with Trout Unlimited and various private and public parties to replace culverts on a tributary of the St. George River.
’71
FRED GRAY is “enjoying retirement, enjoying Vermont, playing lots of music, squeaking by on ‘the eagle’s droppings’ (social security).”
’72
BRUCE BALMER writes, “Lisa and I took a short tour of the Big Bend area of southwest Texas, playing in La Jitas and Terlingua. Quite beautiful. Reconnected with Alison Moore, contemporary at Marlboro, at the Kerrville Folk Festival last June. I’m in the middle of recording a solo Bruce Balmer album—all tracks down, we are carefully mixing—that will be out later this year on Soonasongs.com, the little label that could from Jonesborough, Tennessee. Lisa’s working on a master’s in jazz vocals at UNT Denton. We are envious of snowy weather. ‘Hi’ to anyone who might give a $%!^.”
MICHELLE HOLZAPFEL writes, “As an alumna who lives in the greater Marlboro community, I deeply appreciate the continuing growth in the strong links between the college and the town—when we need each other more than ever. Thank you!”
’73
“Dear Friends,” writes BOB DAUGHTRY, “I remember you with a great deal of affection. I’m currently auditing Tim Segar’s sculpture class—wonderful.”
DAN HUDKINS writes, “While visiting in Chester, Vermont, this winter right before Christmas, took a fall in the bathroom (hell getting old), broke two ribs and punctured a lung. Bad news was, couldn’t fly home to San Jose on Christmas day as planned. Good news, earliest train ticket from Boston to San Jose wasn’t until December 29 so got to spend a few days with my daughter in Jamaica Plain (she’s working for Isis Parenting doing pre- and postnatal education if any of the younger alumni have the need). And I got to spend an evening and night with BARBARA HONTHUMB and RICK CLARE. Train trip was four days and three nights, with New Year’s celebrated somewhere on the Bonneville Salt Flats. Younger daughter graduates from Mount Holyoke in May and is under contract to do a teaching internship at the Chadwick International School in Incheon, South Korea. After having presented at many conferences about technology in education for the past 17 years, a post on a listserv ended up with my actually sitting down and writing something. My article on why everyone should study computer science will be published in the summer issue of Independent School magazine. If anyone, of any class, is passing through San Jose, come on by.”
JON SOUDER is “still living in Coos Bay, Oregon, running the Coos Watershed Association (now going on 13 years). As hard as it might be for some to imagine, I’ll be responsible this summer for 12 permanent employees, a 10-person conservation crew, five VISTA and AmeriCorps members, and a Coho Salmon Field Studies class. Back dabbling in academics: I’ll teach a class called Practical Ecology, and wrote a chapter for Stream and Watershed Restoration, published by Wiley in January. Still married to Norma Kline, and enjoying restoring a 1900 house on our Fawlty Farms estate. Have seen PAM CERSOSIMO frequently over the last couple of years as I’ve gone back to Santa Fe to take care of my parents.”
“I am truly honored and delighted that the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, has recently acquired my ceramic sculpture “Nargila Pod” to be part of its permanent contemporary art collection,” writes Ellen Schön ’75. “I am especially grateful since the new MFA Contemporary Art Department has been addressing the shifting boundary between art and craft, deliberately embracing both media within the Linde Family Wing galleries.“
’77
“So proud to be an alumna of Marlboro,” writes WENDY POMEROY. “Every year the value of my experience there increases. My husband, Deane, ran for state representative here in Maine. He won the election, and now our lives have changed and become even more busy, but certainly interesting. Olivia, our daughter, is 12 and plays a mean fiddle. I am a board member of our local land trust, working on a memorial for the town involving landscaping and sculpture, and spending more time in the studio. I make dinner and beds, too.”
’79
College bookstore manager REBECCA BARTLETT was featured in The College Store magazine in an article about cultivating relationships between college bookstores and alumni. In the article, Becky characterizes Marlboro alumni as “not very affluent and with a wide streak of anti-materialism.”
’80
LORI KIRSTEIN writes, “I’m finally using my acting chops for good, not evil (whatever evil acting chops would be…). I have started a new business called Visionary Video Production, and it supports entrepreneurs in having more focus, authenticity, fun, and money in their work, through all kinds of cool ways and means that I won’t outline here lest I start to sound like a sales-y person, but yes it includes videos, and audios, and being your badass ol’ self, and I’m just jazzed! I continue to sing and have even become a karaoke fan. Last night I put my vocal cords to the test by belting out Janis Joplin’s ‘Piece of My Heart.’ Very gratifying that these young guys across the room were standing there grinning at me, shaking their heads, like, ‘Look at that old lady KICK it!’ Love to all, and thank you from my heart— belatedly—for being a part of my life that continues to inspire and move me all of these years later. Peace and blessings.”
“Still teaching,” writes CARTER SIO. “Our son Dylan is at Temple studying psychology and daughter Emma is here at George School as a sophomore. She is enjoying the thought of being an artist and recently won an award for a found object lamp that she did. I’m off to Vietnam for my fourth time, leading students on a service trip for 20 days. Erin and I look forward to a full summer in Maine with my mother and everyone else who finds their way down our long driveway.”
ANNIE QUEST writes, “Starting in the fall, MATT SKEELE ’79 and I will be working at our jobs as teachers a bit less and will spend more time in our studios making art. Daughter Kora has one more year at Cornell. She spent last fall interning for Patrick Leahy and got to ring in Obama’s second term in D.C. Life in southern Vermont is good…come visit us, friends!”
Rice-Aron Library Reaches Alumni
Many alumni at last year’s reunion were impressed with the growing use of digital technologies and databases at Rice-Aron Library. Now alumni have full access to JSTOR, one of the library’s most popular database providers, from the comfort of their own homes.
“One of the most frequent questions that the library gets from soon-to-be and recent graduates is ‘How much longer will I have access to library databases?’” said Emily Alling, library director. “Up until now, the answer has been ‘shortly after graduation,’ because of our licensing agreement with publishers.”
JSTOR recently announced a new program whereby colleges and universities can add on to their existing subscriptions and provide access to alumni, wherever they may be, and Marlboro jumped at the opportunity. Now alumni can peruse over 100 years of scholarly literature in the humanities, social sciences, and life sciences in PDF full text from anyplace with a live internet connection. All you need to do is visit jstor.marlboro.edu and log in with your Marlboro College username and password. If you don’t have one, or forgot yours, just fill out our form and you’ll be set up before you know it.
’81
GWEN FELDMAN HAALAND writes, “The big news in our family is that our daughter, Shannon Juliana Haaland, is choosing, out of all the possible colleges in the world, to attend Marlboro in the fall of 2013 (if I had actually suggested that she go to my alma mater, she would have probably run the other way). Shannon’s favorite subject has always been writing. She won two writing awards last spring, one in the Sunken Garden Poetry Competition and the second in the Connecticut Young Writers Trust Competition. It was wonderful visiting Marlboro with Shannon this year, and especially nice to eat lunch in the dining hall with my old classmate JENNY RAMSTETTER, now a member of the biology faculty at the college. We were in botany and ecology classes together for four years in the old days, including climbing Mount Mansfield in 1977 to view alpine plants with our enthusiastic biology professor, Bob Engel. Best wishes to all past, present, and future Marlboro College students.”
’82
“Still living in Boulder,” writes LESLIE REESE BROWN. “My husband, Sandy, and I are starting a pick-your-own berry farm, trying to grow blueberries in Colorado—cross your fingers. Moving forward with the kitchen and bath business, learning to paint. Our son is in college at Lewis & Clark in Portland, Oregon. Our daughter is a freshman in high school. Oldest daughter has a 3-year-old—I’m a grandma!”
FEDERICO MUCHNIK writes, “Recently completed my first feature length narrative film, This Killing Business, which showed at the Boston International Film Festival on April 19 at the Loews AMC Boston Common. In other news, my daughter Layla is a sophomore at Skidmore and is going into art history and criticism. I have a significant other, Katherine, who has two great kids. She played Carnegie Hall in March. Keyboards. Bach. St. Matthew Passion. Orchestra of St. Luke’s. I run a production company called Mighty Visual Productions, based in Boston.”
’88
RENEE OUBRE is co-author with Gerald L. Halligan of the forthcoming book Knox Farm State Park. The book is in Arcadia Publishing’s Images of America series, and presents a historic tour of the 633-acre farm nestled in the heart of East Aurora, New York.
PETE “COLT” MADDEN is heading up the renewable energy group for Plum Creek Timber and living near Athens, Georgia. “This spring doing the college tour circuit with my eldest son, Daniel,” he writes.
’90
“Maple,” a story by BRETT STANCIU, appeared in the Winter 2012 issue of Taproot magazine.
’93
CHRIS DAVEY writes, “In the last 18 months, Letrisa and I sold our house and veterinary practice in Oklahoma, moved to Connecticut, and opened a new practice, Connecticut Feline Medicine and Surgery (ctFeline.com). If you have a cat in central Connecticut, look us up. We now live in the delightful small town of Bolton, where our daughter, Alex, started kindergarten last fall (after two years of Montessori preschool, her daily complaint about the new school has been ‘too easy’). My freelance editing business is keeping me busier than ever. Recent copyediting projects include exhibition catalogues for major retrospectives on Cristina Iglesias and Hans Haacke at Madrid’s Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía; a special issue of the journal Grey Room on the films of Guy Debord; a policy paper on science and engineering research by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; and articles on alternative reality games, U.S. scientists’ Cold War responses to Lysenkoism, and Ian Fleming’s connections to the CIA.”
’94
LARA BETH HENRICK is “currently working with big cats at Carolina Tiger Rescue, an accredited sanctuary in Pittsboro, North Carolina. I hope to continue sanctuary work, as I will graduate from a Vet Tech program and take the VTNE after externship this year.”
Marlboro Welcomes New Alumni Director
“I feel an immediate and deep connection to this college,” said Kathy Waters, who joined Marlboro as alumni director in April. “It is a community that resonates with who I am as a professional and as a human being.”
Kathy, who comes to Marlboro with more than 30 years of experience in human services and advocacy work, has often taken unconventional paths much like those followed by Marlboro alumni. Over the years she has worked in diverse programs with Girl Scouts, people with disabilities, people with drug and alcohol addictions, and youth living in difficult circumstances, from the South Bronx to the Navajo Nation. Most recently Kathy worked with teenage mothers in New York City before relocating to Brattleboro about four years ago to work at Youth Services, a local nonprofit supporting young people and their families.
Kathy has already been impressed with the “dedication and passion of past, present, and future people discerning enough to choose such a place as Marlboro College.” Kathy can be reached at 802-451-7145 or kwaters@marlboro.edu.
’96
ELI FISHMAN and his wife, Laura, welcomed their son, Collin Alexander, in October.
ROB HARDIN’s second child was about to be born in April when he wrote, “We are excited to see our family grow.”
“Finishing up on the Ricki Lake show,” writes ERIN PETERS. “Still in California. Went to Disneyland for the first time—got run over by strollers!”
’98
“Still working as a reporter and photographer at the Winsted Journal, a newspaper in Winsted, Connecticut,” writes SHAW ISRAEL IZIKSON. “I have a new website up with a portfolio of my work at shawisraelizikson.info. Still bumping into a lot of folks from back in the day at the Facebook alumni group I lead at facebook.com/groups/marlborocollegealumni/.”
DAVID and ALLISON ’06 WILLIAMSON “were happy to celebrate our son Porter’s second birthday in April with a gang of Marlboro folks. The house was filled with past, future, and present students and two professors.”
’99
CLAIRE RAPER is busy and happy in upstate New York. She is the proud mother of Lily, 7, and Oliver, 4, who are both tremendous people and doing wonderfully. She is married to Kevin Raper, who is also doing well in television and film as a graphics designer and is now a licensed pilot to boot. Claire is the owner of Kid Around, a children’s store in Saugerties, and the drama teacher at her children’s school. “The upcoming year promises to be full and exciting, but we’re hoping to have a few trips and breaks at the same time.” Anytime any of her fellow Marlboro-ites are in the area, Claire would love to treat them to a hot beverage of their choice and some time catching up.
Javed Chaudhri ’65 (right), shown here with classmate and retired history professor Tim Little ’65, joined campus this fall to teach a course about the history of conflicts between Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India.
’00
KATHLEEN PACKARD writes, “On October 16, 2012, we had our second baby girl, Farryn Gray Packard Vestal, born at our home in Keene, New Hampshire. Avery Elizabeth Packard Vestal, 3, loves being a big sister.” KERMIT WOODS is working on a film about chickens. Check it out at vimeo.com/41158112.
’02
TIM COLLINS writes, “My solo show, On The Outskirts Of Everything (which I debuted at Marlboro in 2011), won the Best Dramatic Script award in the 2012 United Solo Theater Festival, the ‘world’s largest solo theater festival.’ It also had a three-week run at Stage Left Studio in New York City in March of 2013. The play will be published on www.indietheaternow.com.”
MEGAN HAMILTON writes, “After a year teaching English in South Korea, I’m heading to Taipei, Taiwan, in August to teach and hopefully learn some Mandarin.”
ANDREW SANDLIN is doing web design at Malcolm Grear Designs in Rhode Island.
’03
LEE COLLYER is “managing a non-public school/day-treatment program for emotionally disturbed children in Oakland, California. My wife, Kelly, and I welcomed our second daughter, Georgia Bird Collyer, into the world in December 2012. It has been 10 years, and I still miss Vermont all the time, but the Bay Area continues to be a wonderful adopted home.”
GRAHAM FOX is in Cleveland working at Whitney Stained Glass. “I’m restoring amazing glasswork and improving my own,” he writes.
AVI ZOLLMAN is the director of communications at the Jewish Funders Network.
’04
“Still at Keene State College working as a recycling coordinator,” writes HEATHER GREENWOOD. “The work is challenging in many different ways, I have an incredible staff, and I get snow days off.”
’07
“Hi Marlboro,” writes WILLOW O’FERAL. “After working as set photographer on Jay Craven’s Movies at Marlboro feature film last winter, I moved to New York City, where there is a really vibrant Marlboro community. I see BRAD HECK ‘02, AMANDA WILDER, MICHELLE MONTALBANO, and DAVE GOLANN on a daily or weekly basis. Last week I attended a reading where MAGGIE JONES read her excellent fiction (attended as well by a charming though highly caffeinated JOHN THORSON), and MARC PILARO ’03 lives two blocks away from me. His baby boy is unbearably mischievous and adorable. When I moved to Brooklyn in May, I joined an all-women’s samba-reggae percussion band, Batala NYC, and we opened for the Rolling Stones on their 50th anniversary tour! Aside from playing for the Stones, I’ve been picking up photo/film jobs, bartending, interning with a fashion photographer, and generally mucking about in the urban jungle. You can see my work here: www.snippetproductions.com.”
TESSA WALKER defended her master’s thesis on skateboarding as transportation this spring, and she’s currently writing up the study data into something useful for policymakers and skating advocacy groups. She’s working at the Portland (Oregon) Bureau of Transportation as a Senator Hatfield Civic Leadership Fellow.
’08
ANUSHKA PERES, we learned in a note from her parents, is on her way to the University of Arizona to study rhetoric and teaching English.
In his second year as an AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer, RYAN REEVES is coordinator of the Harvest Kitchen youth and job-training program for Farm Fresh Rhode Island. Working in collaboration with chefs, volunteers, and returning graduates, Ryan trains youth who are under the care of the Rhode Island Department of Youth and Families in culinary, sales, and life skills. “My day to day is never the same, and that is why I love it. I spend time talking with farmers, ordering produce, buying kitchen equipment, writing recipes, coordinating our online and retail sales, managing farmers’ markets, keeping inventory, cooking, and teaching. I interact directly with trainees in the hectic atmosphere that is created when you put ten 16- to 18-year-olds in a kitchen with 200 pounds of apples, boiling vats, a beat-up clock radio, and a bunch of knives.” Ryan will be a fulltime employee of Farm Fresh Rhode Island in August.
’09
HEATHER COLLINS is teaching 9th- and 10th-grade English at the Ray Street School, a new alternative school in Hillsborough, North Carolina.
“I’m currently a PATH homeless outreach worker and functional support staff in Derry, New Hampshire,” writes SCOTT CROCKER. “I help house 58 severely mentally ill homeless individuals and have provided services to upwards of 200 homeless individuals over my year and a half in the field.”
SAM LOWENTHAL is in Wyoming, “working as a kayak instructor in the summers and a chairlift operator in the winters, as well as trying to start a permaculture design business. You know, using both what I studied for Plan and what I learned at the OP.”
Joshua “Petey” Petersen ’12: A Film Within a Film
The April premier of Northern Borders was only the end result of last year’s Movies from Marlboro program. The remarkable process of this semester-long collaboration was recorded by Petey Peterson, who produced the half-hour documentary Making Northern Borders.
“In order to complete the project, a major component of my Plan of Concentration, I shot over 80 hours of behind-the-scenes footage, and edited the film together over three months,” said Petey. He also worked diligently to raise funding for Northern Borders by crafting a Kickstarter campaign with the footage he acquired, which generated $13,000 in donations.
Since graduating in December, Petey has kept himself busy in the film and fashion industries in New York, working in narrative films, music videos, and fashion photography. He is also the creative director at Universal Models for Peace, an organization wielding the marketing power of the fashion industry to encourage global change on issues of women’s rights, poverty, nuclear disarmament, and public health.
“I can only hope that wading through a Vermont mud season last spring, with camera equipment and sleep-deprived cohorts, will have prepared me for what’s ahead,” said Petey.
’10
SARAH HOROWITZ is currently finishing up her master’s degree in art history at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She presented a paper at the American Association of Italian Studies Conference in Eugene, Oregon, in April entitled “Imagining the Real and the Ideal: Nicolas Poussin’s Rebekah Quenching the Thirst of Eliezer at the Well,” which examines the conflation of architectural and landscape space in one of the artist’s early landscape paintings, executed in Rome. After graduation, she hopes to find a job in the museum or academic world. She and BENJAMIN MARTIN ’09 recently got engaged and look forward to the next chapter of their life together. Ben currently works as a film and video post-production professional in Burlington, Vermont.
WILL JENKINS is “receiving my M.A. in May 2013. Hoping to move to Prague full time in fall 2014—hopefully with Ph.D. candidacy in hand!”
“I’m almost done with my first year in a mental health counseling program at the University of Vermont,” says OLIVIA SANDERS. “I’m also a teaching assistant for an undergrad class on theories of human development and starting my clinical internship with a DBT program next year. Life is busy, but it’s really exciting to be doing what I love and learning so much about social justice in counseling.”
EVAN TAYLOR writes, “I thought I would let you know that I just had two feature articles published in Z Magazine (March and April 2013), based partly on my Plan of Concentration. I remember starting the articles three years ago in Dalrymple tutorials with Jerry Levy and Lynette Rummel, and now they are on a magazine cover in Barnes and Noble. I wonder how much other publishable material is sitting in the Plan room right now.” Based on his experiences in graduate school, says Evan, “It has been confirmed that Marlboro kids are smarter. Otherwise, I am a master’s student at American University in D.C., studying history and hanging out with other Marlboro-ites DREW TANABE ’12 and JOHN BERRY ’07.”
’11
“I am currently serving as an AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer at the In-Sight Photography Project in Brattleboro, Vermont,” writes RYAN STRATTON. “In-Sight is a youth-focused arts education organization that teaches analog and digital photography to kids, from age 11 through 18. Because classes are offered on a sliding-scale basis, In-Sight is able to reach youth that might otherwise not be able to access after-school programming, especially arts education programs. My favorite thing about my service at In-Sight would certainly be the opportunity I have to work with students directly and see the impact that the program has on them. Interacting with the students is always a nice break from work that often requires a lot of time spent with a computer. Sometimes, I get to hear kids say really funny things.”
’12
KATHRYN TRAHAN is also an AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer, serving with the Franklin Grand Isle Bookmobile, a nonprofit mobile library serving rural communities in northern Vermont. “The Bookmobile fights poverty by making books fun and accessible,” states Katie. “In this part of rural Vermont it is not always easy for child care providers to go to a library and check out books for their kids.”
Former Faculty
GEOFFRY BROWN continues to “turn out scripts in my Quintessential Americans series. I performed one on Henry Flager this winter in Fort Lauderdale. Other recent scripts include Ethan Allen, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Joe Pappa. Anyone interested in performing one?”