FallMagazine2014_FB96_2

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class notes
st. lawrence university magazine | fall 2014
St. Lawrence. We have made a
noteworthy contribution to our
alma mater by passing the SLU
legacy on to our progeny.
With the help of the Alumni Of-
fice staff I have determined the
number of “Chips” we have sent
to the North Country. For the next
edition there will be a prize for the
classmate who not only shares
something for me to print but also
comes closest to guessing how
many of our kids have made St.
Lawrence their college choice.
Mike Ranger wrote that his
daughter Maggie graduated from
Denison last spring and that son
Alex ’17 completed his first year
at St. Lawrence. Mike is a St. Law-
rence trustee, and as of May,
Earl A. “Trip” Samson III is
also on the Board. Trip is excited
about this new connection with
St. Lawrence. It will make the
treks to Canton to see his son
Henry ’16 even more frequent.
Trip and Allyson have been mar-
ried nearly 30 years and have
worked together for over 15 years
in their investment management
business. Trip and I laughed at
how our perceptions change with
age…beach in Rhode Island or
To my KDS sisters: The Alum-
nae House Fund made possible
several exciting projects over
the summer: exterior painting,
replacing the letters over the
door, remodeling the third-floor
bathroom and downstairs powder
room, buying a rug for the front
date room, and having drapes
made for all the downstairs
rooms. Stop by next time you are
on campus.
I love writing this column, but I
think it might be time for another
member of our class to take over.
It might provide a new perspective
and reach a new group of people.
If you are interested, please con-
tact the University as explained at
the head of the column.
1980
Fran Russo-Cress
273 Converse Street
Longmeadow, MA 01106
413-565-2620
Next Reunion: 35th , 2016
(Cluster with '81, '82)
I am struck by the number of
people who mentioned sons
and/or daughters who have
attended or are now attending
beer by starting a craft brewery.
Obviously someone was paying
attention during English class; the
first line of Robert Frost’s poem
The Road Not Taken was the in-
spiration for the brewery’s name.
Since their start, demand for their
product has been growing and
with successive rounds of invest-
ment they have expanded from
40,000 barrels a year, and for
2014-2015 have plans to expand
capacity to 140,000 barrels.
1979
For information about becoming a
reporter for this class, please contact
Sharon Henry, 315-229-5585 or
, or Kim His-
song, 315-229-5837 or khissong@
stlawu.edu.
For her final column, Kim
Hoffmann Amoroso writes:
It was both a sad and happy day
on May 18 when my youngest
child, Megan ’14, graduated from
St. Lawrence. It was a gorgeous
day and the ceremony was great.
All the speakers were amazing,
and Grace Potter even sang for us.
It will be sad not having an excuse
to visit campus as much as I have
been. I will have to think of a new
one!
Several classmates were also on
hand to celebrate the graduations
of family members. Chris Koski's
nephew Hunter, Gard Holby and
Anne Funkhouser's son Jack,
Meg Friske Montgomery 's son
John (“Monty”) and Bill Kaiser's
daughter Carey are the ones I
knew about. If I’ve left anyone out,
I'm sorry. It was great to find out
that they had incredible experi-
ences and will continue to be ac-
tive alums for many years to come.
I wish them all the best of luck!
Christine Saroski Hand-
Gonzales says her new book, A
Book of Questions to Jumpstart
Your Career Search, is out. It's the
fifth book in her series for career
and college planning. See www.
college-path.com and Amazon.
com for more information. Chris’s
books are available in paperback
and eBook formats, at www.
pr.com/press-release/567269.
1978
Joel Collamer
29 Hassake Road
Old Greenwich, CT 06870
203-698-0677 (home)
203-820-4523 (cell)
Next Reunion: 40th, 2018
In early April, I received this career
change update from Tad Acker:
“The printing business has done
me in…say hello to the newest
commercial real estate licensee.
That's correct; after 35 years away
from school, I tackled the requisite
60 hours and aced the test!” Tad
searched for a medium-sized
full-service commercial real estate
company focused on Fairfield,
Conn., and Westchester, N.Y. He
found Pyramid Real Estate Group
and joined them. Pyramid special-
izes in retail, office, multi-family
and industrial/flex realty. We wish
Tad the very best of luck with his
new career venture!
Joel ’77 andDarcy Rieman
MacClaren celebrated Memorial
Day with a BBQ at their Madison,
Conn., home in late May, attended
by numerous alums: son David
MacClaren ’11, Michelle De Luca
andHenley Smith , along with
Bill “Prep” Weston ’75 and his wife
Hope and family, who were visiting
from their home in New Jersey,
and your reporter. The weather
was beautiful and the crowd
enjoyed a contest of yard game
skills between the millennials and
the boomers – which the boomers
won, of course! Two Roads Brew-
ery products were represented,
following a tasting and interesting
tour at their resurrected fac-
tory building in Stratford, Conn.,
enjoyed by your reporter and
Barney Stevenson.
Peter Doering is one of the
principal co-founders of the brew-
ery ).
He was approached by his future
partners about capitalizing on
the widespread demand for craft
his photography, go to vireo.ansp.
org/search.html .
Brian and Helen have a son, Chris-
topher, who graduated from RIT
in 2009. “I actually (gasp) encour-
aged him to go to Clarkson, but
he wanted a more urban area,”
Brian confessed. “He followed in
my footsteps and works for the
New York State Thruway Author-
ity/Canal Corp. in Albany.”
1977
Bonnie Steuart Taylor
9823 Fosbak Drive
Vienna, VA 22182
703-281-2281
Next Reunion: 40th, 2017
I am bequeathing the honor of
“Guest Reporter” for this issue
on Mark Wakefield, who is
celebrating his retirement from
his Cleveland law firm and kindly
wrote, “No encore career as of
yet, but I am actively looking.
Retirement is good so far, enjoy-
ing our two grandchildren, lots
of travel and catching up with
classmates. I was lucky enough
to get to Lyon, France, for a week
in early May, since my youngest,
Carly, was on the UVA semester
there. We followed it up with a
week in Florence, Italy (which
I last visited with Jill Scott
Jablonski in 1976!). Thanks to
Lynn Ruane Tuttle for some
wonderful culinary suggestions in
both locations; Lynn and Warren
Tuttle were traveling themselves,
recently, to Bermuda.
“I just missed Nancy Dayton
Houston, who was departing
Florence after a visit she won
from her local PBS station. Later, I
found she was still traveling - this
time to Japan! Nancy wrote, “We
spent 50+ hours in transit, flying
there and back, for Steve to give a
20-minute talk at a four-hour con-
ference session. Not complaining
though. It gave us an excuse to
get to Japan!"
I was happy to have some news
this cycle, but Joel Collamer '78
and I have agreed if class news
gets meager, we will move toward
rumor and innuendo!
in Cabo San Lucas, Baja Calif., in
November (250 people!), and the
40th reunion, in Vienna, Austria,
of her “semester abroad” group…
where she met her husband,
Garland Reiter!
Brian M. Henry wrote that he
went to two weddings involving
Laurentians: Tayt Brooks ’97 and
Nancy Driscoll on March 29, 2014,
at the Olympic Center in Lake
Placid, and Mackensie Rohrs ’10
and Jacob Greene on April 12,
2014, in Albany, N.Y. Brian retired
from full-time work in 2003, and
has been working part-time jobs
since. “I managed to get laid off
in early January from a part-time
job,” he said; “that is not an easy
thing to do.” Brian began another
part-time job as a grant writer for
the Towns of Benson and Hope in
Hamilton County, N.Y., on July 1. He
still gets to SLU hockey games.
“My bird photos have been
getting published much more
regularly than in previous years,
so somebody is looking out for
me,” he added. He sent a couple
of his favorites, shown here.
Twelve of his bird photos will be
included in the 2015 calendar of
the Adirondack Mountain Club
). “It’s a miracle that
I’m still getting published,” he
said, “because I refuse to alter/
crop any images after-the-fact
with a computer.” To see more of
the record, I don't feel a minute
older than the day I left SLU; the
calendar is just plain wrong,” she
wrote. “Happy big birthday year,
class of 1976!”
Jim Mayhew and his wife trav-
eled from Vancouver, Wash., to
Vail, Col., to see his daughter, who
teaches first grade. He met up
with Brett Heckman ’77 and Anne;
he said Brett had just rehabbed
from shoulder surgery and that
“My daughter and Brett’s daugh-
ter attended Colorado University
at the same time, so we have met
two or three times a year for the
last eight years.” When he wrote,
he was planning to meet Duran
Field ’75, Gepe Zurenda ’75 and
Peter Hunt ’75 in the Adirondacks
for what is affectionately termed
“water ski camp” at Duran’s
camp. Duran has become an
accomplished “air chair” skier,
Jim pointed out, noting, “He can
perform back-to-back flips on
the chair.”
Scott McClelland provided
family news: Their oldest, Scotty,
29, is in Bend, Ore., at architec-
tural school; Matty, age 27, works
for a firm in San Francisco that
represents the buyer or seller of
commodities like sugar and cof-
fee; and Sophie graduated from
Middlebury in 2012 and works for
the Nature Conservancy.
Aims Coney and Terry went
skiing at Killington, Vt. -- in June.
“Only four months now to wait
until ski season resumes,” he said
at the time. He completed his first
marathon, Boston’s, in April.
Jane Delmonico Cummings’s
husband, Bill, has accepted a
position as the chief operating
officer for the Mideast Region of
Dairy Farmers of America, based
in Medina, Ohio. So they will be
moving, if they haven’t already,
from Manlius, N.Y., to the Cleve-
land area, joining fellow Tri-Deltas
Josie Lowden Chapman, Pris
Menzies Keller and me.
I spoke with Brenda Hensler
Reiter recently. She was quite
busy planning two big events: the
wedding of her oldest son, Eric,
and has kept in touch with a few
classmates, including Lorna
Ness, St. Lawrence President
Bill Fox and Jim LoScalzo. At
the February alumni gathering at
the Princeton-St. Lawrence men’s
hockey game, Mark caught up
with Bill “Lefty” Petruska, who
is living near New Brunswick, N.J.
Mark is starting his term as a
member of the Alumni Executive
Council. He noted, “If anyone is
interested in being nominated for
the council, or wants to support
St. Lawrence more informally,
please contact me at marketay-
I look forward
to seeing many of you in May!”
1976
Mary Izant
20101 North Park Blvd., #1
Shaker Heights, OH 44118
216-363-6417
mizantslu1976classnews@
gmail.com
Next Reunion: 40th, 2016
It was so nice to hear from Tom
Marcinkowski, who noted it had
been a while. He wrote that he’s
been promoted to full professor
of environmental education at
Florida Institute of Technology.
Sue Eichman North has quit
her job and started a contract-
ing gig with a pharmaceutical
company in California, Nektar
Therapeutics (oncology drugs).
She said, “The study I’m working
on is metastatic breast cancer. I
will continue to do clinical study
management, but as a contrac-
tor rather than an employee.
Although this role is full-time, I'm
hoping when it ends to be able
to pick up several part-time con-
tracts to keep me fully employed.”
Sue is a member of the Alumni
Executive Council and says, “If
you’re interested in being nomi-
nated for the council, or want
to support St. Lawrence more
informally, please contact me at
.”
Great to hear from Betsy
Ammer Teitler, who wrote that
she and David live in Rye, N.Y.,
where they have raised three
sons: a senior at Union College, a
freshman at Elon University and
a junior at Rye High School. “For
Coming January 6-11, 2015:
SLU Connect—DC
[#SLUConnectDC]
This January, students will experience
all Washington, D.C., has to offer, and
we need your help! Career Services is
looking for area alumni to help host
events, teach seminars and offer their
expertise on panels.
For more information, visit .
edu/career-services/event/slu-connect-
dc or contact Carleen Pallante at
.
Calling All
Washington, D.C.
Alumni