Tom Allen: After forty years as a professor, researcher, dean, and National Science Foundation Research Center director, I will be retiring from Gallaudet University as of December 31, 2020. Retiring from the university, yes, but not from my work and love of research.
Lee Alward: In June 2020, I retired after thirty-three years on the ophthalmology faculty of the University of Iowa, becoming professor emeritus. I continue to staff residents at the Veteran’s Administration Hospital one day a week and work on my online teaching projects — and I’m putting a lot more effort into my tragic golf game. My three children and five grandchildren all live in Iowa City, so Kazi and I are not going too far in retirement.
Jayne Holmes Arnold: Sitting here overlooking a beautiful lake surrounded by trees with fantastic colors, it is hard to believe how our lives have changed this year. We have adjusted to wearing masks when out in public and to limiting our travels to the grocery or medical appointments. Fortunately, our daughters and their families (including four grandkids) have been able to visit us this summer. They all enjoy lake life with boating, fishing, and swimming as much as we do. We remember our friend, classmate, and volunteer extraordinaire, Carol Eyler.
Jeff Bennett: Sue and I are coping as best we can with the current pandemic. We've canceled all travel plans and are taking every precaution when out and about. I also had to cancel my plans to work part-time as a substitute teacher in the local public high school, but I hope to do so next school year. I do miss the classroom, students, course research, and preparation from my years as a college professor.
An intense storm in mid-May caused the breech of two dams — Edenville and Sanford Lake — in mid-Michigan. The resulting flood caused extensive damage to the city of Midland and its surrounding area. While the flooding did not affect our home, it forced approximately 10,000 local residents to evacuate. Much of the damage has been repaired, but much remains to be done.
We are both hoping for a Biden victory in November and a peaceful transfer of power. Best wishes to all of my Kenyon classmates!
Andy Brilliant: I recently had my second short story ’Stromboli Not A Cannoli’ published in the Stardustreview (www.thestardustreview.com/post/stromboli-not-a-cannoli). Also, I contributed the studio photos for the recently published Humanual: A Manual for Being Human, by Betsy Politan. This book may just save your life or at least make it a little easier to get on with it. I have been connecting on line with Steve Pavlovic, Chris Fahlman ’72, and Kathy Halbower ’74 and really enjoying the Facebook posts of David Jaffe ’72, Shelley Hainer, Bonnie Levinson, and Scott Powell ’70.
Aspirational travel on Google Earth is getting old. I look forward to the time when the only virus we need to worry about is on our computers. And that is an easy fix: Pull the f'ing plug.
Jean Dunbar: My husband, Peter, and I have been steering clear of COVID at our cottage in the wilds of southwest England, working from home as we have for the past couple of decades. Sadly, COVID canceled planned visits from friends, including Flora Katz ’72, but we're making good use of our usual six months here. We take Pilates classes three days a week — one private, one distanced, and one via Zoom — and take a lot of vertical walks up the Exmoor National Park's famously steep hills.
Cathy Carter Godshall: I am happy to say that after practicing law for forty-four years I am finally calling it quits. I will now have more time to play with and spoil my grandkids — who fortunately live close by.
Pegi Goodman: My husband, Greg, and I been hunkering down at home, same as everyone else. Our Brooklyn-residing daughter Maia Leeds ’18 lived with us during the New York peak from March to July. Now, she's back with her roommates and their pod, which basically consists of 2018 Kenyon grads. In June, our son, Samuel Leeds ’09, was able to escape Florida by getting a ride out on a private jet. It was a relief to have our kids with us during these stressful times.
Now that things have become a bit calmer COVID-wise, I’ve enjoyed a few outdoor dining experiences with Jan Guifarro. Zooming with friends, family, and classmates has helped relieve the isolation. Here’s wishing everyone good health and sanity! Wear a mask! VOTE!
Kay Koeninger: I am riding out the pandemic in my small village of Yellow Springs, Ohio. All the art-history classes that I teach at Sinclair College in Dayton are either totally online or taught in real time on Zoom. Our students are hanging in there during this challenging time, and give me great technical support as I attempt to navigate the "Zoom Room!" I was a reader for the National Endowment for the Humanities CARES grants to support humanities jobs endangered by the pandemic in community colleges across the United States. Stay well, everyone!
Rick Lesaar: Last November I ran (and finished!) my first marathon. It was the New York City Marathon, which traced through all five boroughs, starting across the two-mile Verrazzano Narrows Bridge and ending in Central Park. Important note: I wore a Kenyon cap the whole way.
Bonnie Levinson: Due to COVID, I had a virtual open studio in October. It was great to catch-up with friends, family, and even some collectors to share my new work. The positive thing about the virtual experience was that I could reach people all over the country, in New York, Delaware, California, and Colorado. A friend in France said it was too early in the morning for her, so I am doing private virtual open studios for those interested via Zoom. Contact me at bonnielevinson@gmail.com or checkout the website bonnielevinson.com. Also, I am about to become a great grandmother — not bad for a girl who didn't have kids.
Michael Linde: I left Kenyon after sophomore year to pursue a course of study not offered by The College. My career in the insurance industry provided me with opportunities to work and live in Washington, D.C., New York City, Chicago, London, Zurich, and ultimately Munich, where I currently reside.
During my sophomore year, Marc Blatte, Alex Cadoux ’71, Peter Moffitt ’72, and I played in a band. I’ve continued to play the guitar with a group (before COVID) on a weekly basis. If anyone is traveling to Munich (once travel is possible again) and wants to get together, email me at mjlinde729@gmail.com.
Jim Loomis: I’m glad to report that I have not come down with COVID-19. I hated working from home; I found it unproductive and frustrating. The only thing that would be worse is staying at home and not working. For education, distance learning is better than nothing — but not much. Our district made plans to have a modified in-person return to school. I rewrote my will and decided to take the risks. Now, a return to in-person learning has been postponed twice. We still haven't had a student in the building, but we adults have been able to work from school. They've set another date for the return of students. COVID-19 has been good for my credit-card account; I've gotten big refunds for the Kentucky Derby and Indianapolis 500, which went on without spectators. And COVID-19 has been good for my health, too: after two and a half months, they opened the pools again. With little else to do, I've been swimming about six days a week instead of my more recent three days a week. Still, I look forward to a vaccine, since I think those of us from the Class of 1973 are treading on thin ice. May we survive this pandemic.
Jim Lucas: I retired from Abernathy MacGregor after twenty years in Los Angeles with the New York City-based specialty corporate-PR firm. I’m still living in Santa Monica, a few miles from Jensu and Brian Mark ’72.
Will Morrisey: My ninth book, Herman Melville's Ship of State, an interpretation of Moby-Dick, was published this summer by St. Augustine's Press.
Caroline Nesbitt: I am running for office again. By the time this sees print, we'll know whether I am the new New Hampshire State Representative for Carroll County District 4, or whether I am merely another pandemically unemployed actor.
Mel Otten: I survived the first onslaught of COVID, and I expect more in the future, but we now know better how to handle pandemics. I expect that influenza season will be better if we continue to wear masks and wash hands. My emergency department at the University of Cincinnati is back to normal, and we continue to fight the good fight to make the world a safe and happy place to live in. Stay safe, classmates.
Pete Pappas: After forty years with Morgan Stanley as a financial advisor, I’ve taken a consultant’s role with the firm. In other words, I’m working for my son. I’m hoping there’s no retaliation for those high-school groundings. I’m looking forward to getting more involved with the non-profits I’ve worked with and having more free time to take courses and reflect. Kate and I are surviving this COVID era and praying we can all get together to celebrate our fiftieth reunion.
Dennis Parker: After almost forty years of pulmonary/critical-care practice in Oklahoma City, the COVID-19 epidemic has convinced me to start thinking about retirement. My wife, Donna, and I have two children and four grandsons who keep us busy. We look forward to traveling again once the epidemic has resolved.
Ann Wiester Starr: My second grandchild was born on September 30, 2020, to Maggie Starr and her wife, Sarah Hardin, in Portland, Oregon. I’ve been enjoying the COVID freedom to return to the eighteenth century I began at Kenyon. I’m keeping sane and laughing with Tom Jones and Tristram Shandy, who are excellent company in brutal times.
Julie Miller Vick: I continue to live in Haddonfield, New Jersey, outside Philadelphia and across the Delaware River, with my husband, Jim Vick ’74. We’re both retired, and we’ve been self-isolating since mid-March with walks every day and virtual Pilates classes. Zooming with Kenyon friends, participating virtually in my book groups, watching some good TV shows, and frequent phone banking and postcard writing for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have helped to maintain my sanity during these strange times. Our younger son, David Vick ’12, drove from Los Angeles, where he works in television production management, to our place in the Pocono Mountains, quarantined there, and then spent three weeks with us and with our older son, John, and his wife and daughter, who live in Philadelphia and were part of our COVID bubble until our granddaughter went back to school. We have not been able to see our daughter, Emily, who lives in Toronto, Canada, with her husband and their two children. My mother turned ninety-eight in July, and I was able to be with her and my siblings in Boston to celebrate. We recently had a quick trip to Gambier, helping a friend who’s on the Kenyon faculty move, and we got to visit there with Tom Stamp, Jackie Robbins and her husband, Professor Emeritus of Political Science John Elliott H’17, and Professor Emeritus of Classics Bill McCulloh and his wife, Pat, all socially distanced. Sending love to all my classmates.
Jim Wright: Two things: 1) Philander Chase built Kenyon to train young men for ministry in the westward expansion. Unknowingly, I caught that call and wound up out west, in Oregon. Having run out of "west," we began posting on YouTube as "The Chapel Downtown"; and 2) Hannah More had a significant role in abolishing slavery. See her character in the excellent movie Amazing Grace.
As many of you know, our classmate Carol Eyler passed away on September 23, 2020. Here’s an obituary.
Carol Elaine Eyler, Class of 1973
February 18, 1951-September 23, 2020
On Saturday, September 26, 2020, our classmate and, to many of us, dear friend Carol Eyler was laid to rest in a place she loved, by people she loved. Carol’s grave is in the Kokosing Nature Preserve just outside Gambier, where those who gathered for the interment included classmates Liz Forman, Kay Koeninger, and Jackie Elliott Robbins (fellow “History Girls,” as Kay noted) and honorary classmates John Elliott and Peter Rutkoff. The informal service, which included poetry readings and remembrances from family members and friends, was led by Tom Stamp.
“It was a remarkably beautiful fall day,” said Tom. “The sun shone brightly on fields covered with goldenrod, one of Carol’s favorite wildflowers. We celebrated a life that was too short but well lived and then helped to bury her body in a peaceful corner of the green cemetery.”
Carol died on Wednesday, September 23, following a severe stroke. She was sixty-nine years old and a resident of Northfield, Minnesota, her hometown since 1999 when she accepted the position of head of technical services in the library at Carleton College.
A native of Lima, Ohio, and graduate of Shawnee High School there, Carol entered Kenyon in the inaugural class of the Coordinate College for Women. She majored in history and graduated cum laude, with distinction on her senior exercise.
Carol went on to graduate school at the University of Pittsburgh, earning a master’s degree in library science in 1976. Shortly thereafter, she became the head librarian at Chatham College (now University) in Pittsburgh. Her career later took her to high-level positions in the libraries at James Madison and Mercer universities, the South St. Paul (Minnesota) Public Library, and ultimately Carleton, from which she retired in 2017.
Throughout her career, Carol volunteered for Kenyon whenever she could. She served Kenyon as a class agent, as a member of both Alumni Council and the Kenyon Fund Executive Committee, and in that most challenging role for a member of the Class of 1973, as a reunion committee member.
Carol received the Alumni Council’s Distinguished Service Award in 1984. Thirty-four years later, at the Class of 1973’s forty-fifth reunion, she received the D. Morgan Smith Award as Kenyon’s top class agent. It’s been asserted that she would have been a shoe-in for the Gregg Cup, the College’s highest form of alumni volunteer recognition, at the class’s fiftieth reunion in 2023.
“No one loved this college more than Carol,” said Tom, “but she wasn’t blind to its faults, and she didn’t hesitate to remark on them. She was both an idea person and an activist when it came to addressing the history of women at Kenyon or the College’s financial needs. She was a key figure not only in the planning of Kenyon’s recent celebration of fifty years of coeducation but also in the founding of both the Hannah More Scholarship Fund for first-generation students and the Class of 1973 Scholarship Fund for students who have overcome some obstacle in order to study here.”
Carol is survived by her wife, Jane Stedman; her sister and brother-in-law, Jeanne Eyler Borden and Michael D. Borden; a nephew, Stephen Borden; a niece, Katie Borden; and several close cousins. Jane can be contacted at 715 Highland Avenue West, Northfield, Minnesota 55057, while Jeanne is at 259 West Kenworth Road, Columbus, Ohio 43214.
Memorial contributions may be made to the Carol Eyler Memorial Fund of the Class of 1973 Scholarship Fund, or to the Kenyon Fund that Carol so strongly supported, in care of the College’s Office of Development, 105 Chase Avenue, Gambier, Ohio 43022-9623, or online at gift.kenyon.edu.
