’51
BOB HICKEY says, “I was sorry I couldn’t make the reunion, but although I have been retired for over 20 years I’m nearly as busy as I was when I worked. My volunteer activities keep me about as tied down as I was with my fulltime job. I Skyped with my sister yesterday and she said that after visiting relatives in Vermont they decided to visit the Marlboro campus. She was very impressed with how great the campus looked and the progress that had been made since the last time she was there. I noticed that CHARLES STAPLES was able to make the reunion, and I remember him well.”
’52
“All well here—older and maybe wiser,” writes R. BOYD THOMPSON. “We keep in touch with BRUCE BOHRMANN ’53 and would love to hear from others. Maine is the place to be!” Bob also congratulates Annual Fund director Pat Cavanaugh “for a great request letter and ‘gimmick.’”
Bill Horridge ’51: Class of the Rings
In the process of organizing the alumni office recently, we came across this valuable artifact donated several years ago to President Ellen McCulloch-Lovell on behalf of the college. Apparently, Bill and some other pioneers had this handsome ring designed for their class, a dark stone set in gold decorated with a stag and a tree. The ring included a note:
Ellen, Nice get-together last week, and nicer meeting you. Here’s the ring us old-timers designed many years ago. We also did the logo.
—Bill Horridge
’53
From Maine, BRUCE BOHRMANN writes, “My knives are going pretty well. Not sure if you’ve heard of SCORE, a national organization of retired successful people who volunteer to mentor small businesses. When Yarmouth’s Herbie elm died (at 217 years) the town encouraged area craftsmen to buy the wood and make products. I got over 150 orders for knives with Herbie wood as handles. Yeah. I had the tiger by the tail. I submitted my ‘company’ (if you can call one man a company) in a national SCORE contest in the category of ‘people over 50 running small businesses.’ Anyway, I won the award. Had to go to New Orleans in August to get the award. And get this: it was a black tie event. A director and videographer came up from Washington and shot what will be a three-minute program with my two mentors and me at the shop. My PR woman said she is going to ‘swamp the area’ with my story. Wanna grind some steel?” Bruce adds that his knife-grinding business actually started at Marlboro. “I used a hand grinder in the basement of the dorm, and my buddies BOB THOMPSON, BILL TOOMEY, LARRY TOYE and some others would turn the handle for me.” Bruce’s website is at bohrmannknives.com.
’59
“A short sugaring season,” write BRUCE and BARBARA COLE. “Warm February, cold snap, then just a few good weeks. We enjoy having biology professor Jaime Tanner, her husband, Than, and their son, Henry, renting our cabin.”
’60
TSUYOSHI “SAM” AMEMIYA writes from Tokyo, Japan, “I retired from all my teaching back in 2003 and have since been spending most of my time doing research and writing. I have also been interested in activities for human rights and social justice, specifically helping refugees in this country.”
’63
“Currently working at University College at Rockland, Maine, as an adjunct instructor in English, mostly focused on writing and theater,” writes JONATHAN POTTER.
’71
ANN RHODES TROISE is “retired, but doing some English as a Second Language teaching, which is completely new to me.”
Robert Hullot-Kentor ’71 and Jake Davis ’03: Waxing Philosophical
In October, two Marlboro alumni presented public lectures on campus. Jake Davis ’03 presented a talk at Ragle Hall entitled “Attention and the Qualities of the Heart,” drawing from recent empirical research on attention, consciousness and emotion. A doctoral student in philosophy and cognitive science at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and a visiting scholar at Brown University, Jake made a case for a timely thesis that lies at the heart of Buddhist ethics.
Robert Hullot-Kentor ’71 (right) gave a talk in the Rice-Aron Library reading room called “The Origin of Space: Why are we unable to know what we know about the climate?” Robert discussed our knowledge of climate change in the context of what he calls the “space of equality,” where equal elements are indifferent to where they are. He is the chair of the master’s program in critical theory and the arts at the School of Visual Arts, translator of several works by T.W. Adorno and author of Things Beyond Resemblance.
Robert said, “It is a pleasure seeing my much admired former teacher T. Wilson— who long ago sent me off to Iowa City, and who is now my colleague—to meet new colleagues here, especially William Edelglass, my host, and to hear how this remarkable, important college is doing. I would wish this experience for each of the students here this evening.”
’75
ELLEN SCHÖN exhibited her ceramics in a show titled “Vessel Variations (x3)” at Vessels Gallery in Boston this past fall.
WENDY WILLIAMS has a new book, The Dialectic of Love, an examination of love and sexuality in the novels of D.H. Lawrence.
’78
REGGIE BLASZCZYK lives in the Bella Vista section of Philadelphia with her husband, Lee O’Neill, and a flock of 17 birds. She has published a new book, The Color Revolution, with The MIT Press. Starting in spring 2013, she will be professor of history and chair in the history of business and society at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom.
NAT SIMKINS had “new paintings in Art in the Barn and Gallery 55 in Natick, Massachusetts, and has a new website, natsimkins.com. Viewed Frank Stout’s website with some great art—nice site. My 14-year-old granddaughter graduated from eighth grade and is a member of the junior honor society.”
’79
“Blessed in the endless mountains of northeast Pennsylvania,” writes ED McMULLEN. “‘A loaf of bread, a jug of wine and book of verse. Ah, wilderness.’”
’80
“Hello, Marlboro,” writes LORI KIRSTEIN. “Well, after 30 years of sitting in cubicles, I have made a break for it. I am singing around the East Bay Area of California (jazz, blues, R&B, pop, classical), and I am going for my dream of a fulltime creative life that includes film (acting, directing, producing). I’m specifically working on films that have depth and meaning and that inspire and inform in various ways, so that consciousness and hope are lifted and new (or should I say better?) human choices are highlighted and made more available to actually put into play. Also, offering a very new combination of authenticity/empowerment speaking and performance to groups, plus coaching to individuals. Marlboro people don’t grow old—we just keep growing, yeah? Peace and love, y’all.”
’81
TRICIA LOWREY LIPPERT writes, “I still work at Mt. Bethel Animal Hospital in Mt. Bethel, Pennsylvania. I’ve been there 11 and a half years now. I had my first ever solo art show in New York City this past fall at the 1199SEIU. I continue to bake for the Ship Inn in Milford, New Jersey, and also make a weekly vegan special. We use as much locally grown organic produce as we can, use local farmers for our meats and brew our own beer. If you are ever driving down along the Delaware River you should check us out. I belong to a plein air painting group called “Come Paint with Me,” which paints together on location from June until October. I also take Zumba Gold classes twice a week and absolutely love it. Lonnie and I will be celebrating our 30th in April. We still have a dog and a collection of cats (eight).”
Elizabeth Glenshaw ’81: Rowing Wild
Although she is managing director of Clean Yield Asset Management during business hours, Marlboro trustee Elizabeth Glenshaw has been seriously into rowing the past few years. In 2012 she medaled at the Masters Nationals in a four-person boat for the age group 50–55, and this fall she got gold in masters races for eight-person boats both at the Lowell Textile Regatta and at the New Hampshire Championships.
“I am about to go down to the Head of the Charles next weekend,” said Elizabeth. “This is my sixth time competing in this event, with last year being the most special as my daughter Hannah (age 16 at the time) was the coxswain for my boat.”
BEN SARGENT and MARY LIN ’87 were married in January and have moved to Denver, where they have formed Luminous Thread, a new opera and theater company. They are producing the 2012–13 “Dreampunk” season of original shows and invite all to check out their work at luminousthread. com and inventingearth.org.
DAN PICKER submitted the following poem in memory of Edmund Brelsford:
Edmundo
It wasn’t planned
it was August
I was headed down
the mountain you were headed up;
now I must pause to make sure
I’m remembering it right.
Bright warm sun all around us,
you half hanging out your driver’s side
window rolled all the way down,
that thin left arm dangling loose
relaxed like a skier on a slope
taking it all in as if you couldn’t
get enough, or as if you’d
done it all seen it all reflecting on
a life well spent just there
one day I headed down Route 9
you headed up Route 9 slow carving
curving leisurely taking all that
August sun in an open window
passing beside mine.
’85
MEG SPICER is “living in South Newfane, Vermont, with my partner Lisa and our 11-year-old son, Max (avid Sox fan and aspiring Sox player, according to his plan). I work as a counselor at nearby Landmark College.”
’86
“I have finally finished my dissertation, ‘Paper Towns: Sense of Place in Industrial, Small-Town New England, 1869–1927’” writes DAVID DEACON. “I have been working on it since the last millennium with Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn at Syracuse. In the dissertation I look at the impact of the pulp and paper industry on Bellows Falls, Vermont, Franklin, New Hampshire, and Turners Falls, Massachusetts, drawing on landscape history, photography, history of technology and organized labor. Now all I need is a decent job.”
’89
GEORGE CASEY’s story “Thirty Thieves and Two Princesses” appears in serial format in the magazine Orion’s Child: Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine.
’90
DAVID BOZETARNIK writes, “Since last August I have been living in Dubai, UAE, where I teach foundations English for the Higher Colleges of Technology at the Sharjah women’s campus. If anyone is considering employment in either Saudi or the UAE, I can help out with Q&A support. I still use my yahoo email: wsp_wip@yahoo.com.”
Brian Mooney ’90: Better than Cats
John Updike said, “Most of American life consists of driving somewhere and then returning home, wondering why the hell you went.” Brian Mooney returned home to Marlboro this year, again, as a visiting professor of creative writing and literature.
“It’s very nice to be back,” said Brian, who was also a visiting professor between 2003 and 2007. “I love working with students who are willing to take risks with their work, and who so readily incorporate what they read and write into their daily lives in order to become ever better citizens of the class, the community and the world. I like it better than Cats,” he added, and when asked whether he meant the Broadway show or the mammal, he said, “Both.”
Brian received his M.F.A. in English from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in 1999, and has been senior faculty in creative writing for The Putney School Summer Programs since 1998. His publications include a wide range of poetry, fiction and nonfiction, and his current book, Everything Is Something: The Story of Jamestown in 20 Artifacts, is due to be published in 2013 by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Brian is also the inventor of the Storymatic, a writing prompt, teaching tool, parlor game and toy all in one box: thestorymatic.com.
’92
MICHAEL CRANE started a position with the Emirate of Abu Dhabi this fall as their environmental economist. “They have a national sustainability program called Estidama (www.estidama.org) and I will focus on designing and drafting new sustainable development policies to implement their sustainable vision and expand on current programs,” he writes.
“After 20 years in the entertainment industry I gave myself a three-month sabbatical this summer,” LAURA FRANK writes. “As a professional traveler, I got what I wanted most: an entire season at home, except for a vacation week in Spain with my husband, Dan. I plan to do it again, maybe in five years this time. Sending good wishes to all those 40-somethings I went to school with.”
CHRISTINA FUHRMANN’s critical edition of Henry Bishop’s 1819 adaptation of the Marriage of Figaro was recently published with A-R Editions.
’93
ALICIA (TATTIE) BRELSFORD competed in the 2012 London Summer Paralympics in the handcycling division.
Marlboro Launches Alumni Admissions Program
What separates loyal Marlboro alumni from the thousands of prospective future students across the country? Very little, now that the college has launched a Marlboro Alumni Admissions Program (MAAP) to facilitate alumni involvement in student recruitment. Through MAAP, dozens of alumni are helping admissions efforts, including interviews, high school visits and calls to accepted students.
“We strongly believe that graduates of Marlboro offer an essential perspective on the unique nature of a Marlboro education that is crucial to the search for future students,” said Nicole Curvin, dean of admissions. Find out more.
’95
MARK GENSZLER sends his “warmest regards to the Marlboro posse and suggests they come visit in New York, where I’m studying to be an Episcopal priest. Well, that’s what I do when I’m not riding my bike around the city, which is both vocation and education (and pleasure) in itself. Oh, and friends: I made my small annual gift to the rare and valuable place that is Marlboro, and I urge you to do the same, whatever your means. Really. I hope this finds you all happy and healthy.”
DEIRDRE PYLE is “busy raising our two little girls in Seattle. Still doing geopolitical research for Microsoft—it sounds top secret, and it is! Love to all.”
KRISTIN ANDERSON traveled to Nicaragua in March with two other nurses from Brattleboro Memorial Hospital to teach a course on breast-feeding initiation and management to nurses and doctors at a hospital in Leon. They held a fundraiser in November for a return trip in 2013 to expand on that work, including establishing a room dedicated to mothers and their babies, and to make connections with other hospitals in the country.
’97
“Got married in November 2011 to Dennis Byford,” writes SAMONIA MEREDITH BYFORD. “Am now mother to twin 17-year-old boys. Busy renovating our historic home in Oklahoma City.”
WENDY LEVY opened the Brattleboro Cheese shop on Main Street this fall. Specializing in cheeses from Vermont and around the world, the shop also offers up grilled cheese sandwiches and other cheesy delights.
’01
CARRIE STERR COELLO and her husband have a son, Armando John Coello, born August 2, 2012.
CHOYA ADKISON-STEVENS wrote in June, “Portland summer is sparkly, garden-filled, dreamy. Enjoying running into TESSA WALKER ’07 and LIENE VERZEMNIEKS ’06, and frequent visits to the northeast.”
Marta Willgoose ’01: Gallons of Honey
At this year’s convocation, Marta Willgoose shared some of her insights as a Marlboro graduate and rising star in the field of communications, including this excerpt. Marta is currently the vice president of communications for United Cerebral Palsy of New York City.
December of my senior year, I had permission to set up a temporary installation in the Drury Gallery. I wanted to test an idea I had for the core sculptural element for my exhibit. I knew it was going to take a lot of help to create the “beast” I had in mind for my senior show.
I faced two major challenges: First, the materials were going to be costly. I’d need two-by-fours, plywood, rope, tubing, hardware and the ubiquitous gallons of honey central to my piece. Secondly, I would need help with construction, sound, electrical wiring and putting the whole thing together, if I was going to have a prayer of graduating on time.
Fortunately, a town meeting sub committee helped me fund the materials for the project. In addition to having the incredible guidance and support of my Plan sponsors, a number of my peers, particularly a filmmaker and a cellist, came to my aid. Together we raised the figurative “barn”: my senior show.
By calling on my community and asking for help, I learned to be a student of life. Every situation offers a lesson. When you may not know how to do something, or what approach to take, look to your community. Even if there is no straightforward lesson plan, you will always find a teacher. You will always find a fresh perspective.
’02
MEGAN HAMILTON spent last year in Daejeon, South Korea, teaching English to fifth graders.
’03
EMILY HOOD and Timothy Ferrin were married on October 13 in Lake Forest, Illinois. Emily received a doctoral degree in biochemistry from Dartmouth last spring, and is a freelance writer and editor for online education providers in Chicago.
’05
This fall, NOAH LEVINSON celebrated 10 years of Calcutta Kids, the nonprofit organization he founded, which works to reduce malnutrition and infant and maternal mortality rates in the slums of India. Noah and his wife, Evangeline, visited Vermont in September and held an anniversary celebration and benefit for the organization in Brattleboro, and a wedding for themselves in Marlboro.
Mark Gerlach ’06: Starting Fires with Alumni
“It felt good to be able to give something back to Marlboro,” said Mark Gerlach, a career consultant and job search strategist who served as presenter and resource for an alumni “firestarter” retreat last September. The retreat, organized by Desha Peacock, director of career development, and former alumni director Katie Schendel, gave recent alumni the time, space and inspiration to move toward a satisfying career.
“The joke my friends sometimes make is that I couldn’t find a job, so I got hired telling other people how to find a job,” said Mark, who moved to Portland, Oregon, after graduating, just as the economy was heading south. He ended up working for a staffing service, then as an employment liaison for a local community college. “Oregon had the third highest unemployment rate in the country, so I learned a ton about what jobseekers face in a bad economy.”
When Mark returned back east in 2011, he started helping friends and family and doing a few speaking engagements, aand it snowballed into a consulting business. He’s also working on a book, tentatively titled The 13 Things You Should Do Before Graduating College That Will Help You Get a Job.
“Marlboro helped me figure out how something seemingly unrelated can be a window into understanding an important concept,” said Mark, who did his Plan of Concentration in political theory and economics. “What I didn’t have when I left college was a sense of how business worked, or how professional people made decisions. However, Marlboro did give me a skill set for learning the things I was missing.”
’08
In January, KELLY BAUR will be studying economics and preparing a documentary film at the Universidad de Concepcion in Chile, with support from a Rotary International’s Ambassadorial Scholarship. Kelly’s documentary will focus on the environmental and social costs of the Chilean paper pulp industry.
’10
“I’ve wanted to serve in the Peace Corps since I was in the eighth grade,” says CHRIS BOYLE, who is teaching English as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Berd, Armenia. “I like traveling, languages and culture, and as I learned more about those three things at Marlboro, I thought why not live somewhere else for two years? I don’t regret it, and I am happy to follow something I’ve always thought about doing.”
’12
“The best thing about my work, hands-down, is the rowdy kids,” writes EVA BAISAN, who is teaching English in Japan through the JET (Japan Exchange and Teaching) program. When not teaching, Eva spends time painting at a nearby temple, chatting up the ladies at the octopus dough ball stand, taking yoga and hula lessons, hiking on ancient pilgrimage trails or searching for fake mustaches at the 100¥ store.
Marlboro sadly bid farewell to Katie Schendel, alumni director, who resigned at the end of September to spend more time with her family and do consulting work. A search for a new alumni director is in progress.
Marlboro Memory Project
For last spring’s Alumni Reunion, we asked Marlboro’s 2,447 graduates to answer a few questions. Here are some responses to two of the questions:
If you were to create a Marlboro bumper sticker, what would it say?
• I miss Jon Maslow.
• Follow this vehicle to a high place of deep thought and dark nights.
• Always looking forward.
• 2,447 served worldwide.
• I survived mud season.
• Liberal artists at play.
• Fighting Dead Trees take state!
• Got a Plan?
• We have a cookie drawer.
• Marlboro College: 260 students, 1 printer.
Any words of advice to current students?
• Think for yourselves.
• Explore—let your curiosity guide you.
• Keep your hands on the plow.
• See the world. Learn a language well.
• Go for it—learn to learn, love and live.
• Pursue your interests now and do not worry about whether you want to be pursuing those interests for the rest of your life.
• Don’t listen to the advice of alumni. The mistakes you make should be your own.
• Understand how lucky you are and make the most of it.
• Graduate and do good deeds. n Memorize the smell of a Marlboro autumn morning.
• It’s OK to be fashionable. Just make sure you oil and wax your leather shoes.
• Have fun—it goes faster than you think!
