Dear fellow class of 1983 folk,
I’ve had the opportunity to be in Gambier several times in the past year; most recently just a few weeks ago while students were in town. The gorgeous new library was open, and the fencing was removed from along Middle Path in the construction zone. It was beautiful. Not perhaps the Kenyon we all remember, but frankly, does ANYONE miss the Bexley apartments? Many of our class have new connections to Kenyon through children, or friends/relatives children who have matriculated on the Hill since our graduation. If you have not returned, start planning NOW to return in May, 2023 for our 40th, or next spring as plans are taking shape for Reunion 2022 on the Hill. (Mark your calendar for the weekend of May 27.
All alumni are invited to attend!)
Many of us seem to be having mini-reunions as we move back out into the world.
Pam Welsh-Huggins, Kristin Hay-Ives ’82, Jean Johansson, Nina Klein, Nancy Powers, and I were guests of
Linda and
John ’82 Mackessy at their lovely waterfront weekend home as we celebrated our joint 60th birthdays. It was so nice to see so many friends after the year we have all had.
Anne Allen Chamberlin writes “Had a great visit with
Art and
Amelia Bond in Camden Maine in August. We boated over to Kimball Island (the Olney family island) and had a hike and lunch with
Bob and
Catherine Richards Olney. Laughed, hiked and sipped wine!”
Brent Clark writes “All is well in Wilmette Illinois with the Clark family. My son James moved from professional soccer to marketing and sponsoring LPG and PGA events with a new company, Outlyr. My oldest daughter Annie is following the path of her mom and dad and is in law school at Washington University where she hopes to become a disability lawyer. My youngest daughter is teaching computer coding to children. With the onset of the Covid-19 Pandemic I became a “Covid” lawyer and have spent the last year helping Companies across the country develop their Covid-19 safety and health programs. In September, I got to reunite with several Kenyon friends from around the country for a wonderful night out in Baltimore: I was able to connect with the Honorable
Thomas Taylor ’80, Bill Cook ’82 and
Dave Holeman. In June, I was proud to see
Adam Reed ’15, and the Michigan Rattlers who played the Lincoln Hall in Chicago. It’s amazing what a classical music degree from Kenyon can lead to!”
That Kenyon degree has led our classmates along many varied paths — I can't tell you how many times I have headed into the local wine merchant with a copy of
Lettie Teague’s wine column, to say “I want this one.”
Fred Barends is back in central Ohio. He writes: “After leaving Ohio State for the University of Michigan in 2018, OSU has asked me to return as Director of Operations for Track/Field/Cross Country. While I will miss my 3 hour trip to Burt Lake from Ann Arbor, it is awesome to come home.” Welcome, back, Fred!
Suzanne Hershey writes from Austin, Texas “I've become deeply involved volunteering with a start-up food recovery nonprofit. We rescue more than 5,500 pounds of perishable unsold food a week from grocery stores and get it out to people who are otherwise food insecure. The Collective of Lady Arm Wrestlers of Austin (CLAWSTIN) chose us as their beneficiary for their extremely campy arm-wrestling fundraiser showdown with wrestlers including Twiggy Stardust, Cupcake Smash, Watermelon Warrior and, of course, Miss Information. It raised enough to buy us a new walk-in cooler, and I got to present Cherry Bomb with the top wrestler-fundraiser trophy I made from an old candlestick, a mannequin hand, a fake banana, and a lot of glitter paint.”
Betsy Grund writes from Charleston, SC, “Very grateful to be moving forward ... plenty of grist for my avocation of sharing and working with dreams. My day job as Client Services Manager at a family law firm is 'fascinating' too.
Guy (Vitetta '81) and I are officially empty nesters (again) and plan on visits to Atlanta and San Diego to keep an eye on Lisa and Maddie! We're in Charleston, SC. I miss my Kenyon buds :-) and wish everyone well!”
All four classes are studying together again in Gambier. (With a bonus first-year cohort finishing a semester in Copenhagen.) It’s pretty crowded! Students seem to be really happy to be back. I sat at a table outside the bookstore, with my dog, and lots of folks stopped to chat. They are a smart, fun, diverse group. I had hoped to be able to meet up with our Class of 1983 Scholarship student; but last year’s recipient did not return this year, and the new recipient has not yet been designated. You will recall that we fund one student with a partial scholarship through their four years at Kenyon. If you’d like to make a donation to the Class of ’83 Scholarship, please contact the development office; it is now considered “fully funded” but that means that it is able to benefit a student, NOT that it provides an entire full tuition scholarship. Perhaps that could be a goal to achieve by our 50th?
In exciting campus news, the College just shared the new strategic plan that will guide its planning and actions leading up to the bicentennial in 2024 and beyond. You will be pleased to see it includes core elements such as developing a computer science program informed by the liberal arts; enrolling, retaining and graduating a student body that is representative of the talent and diversity of our nation and the world; and expanding its commitment to environmental responsibility.
I hope that you have also heard the announcement of the Kenyon Access Initiative which will bring more high-achieving students to Kenyon thanks to a $25 million matching grant from the Schuler Education Foundation. Any amount we give through this Kenyon Access Initiative will be matched 1:1 and will go to a new scholarship for students from families with limited means and those ineligible for government aid — up to $25 million. For those Kenyon folk who have worked in non-profits, etc., this may be a way to continue your family tradition at Kenyon!
Scroll on to learn more about Kenyon’s strategic plan and the Kenyon Access Initiative (and how they fit into our 2024 bicentennial celebration).
As you read about what’s in store for Kenyon’s future, I hope you’ll consider supporting today’s students with a gift to the Kenyon Fund and (if you have the ability) making an additional gift to the Kenyon Access Initiative that has the potential to bring 50 additional talented students to Kenyon each year.
It’s great to read of folks who have reached family and career milestones. Let’s all rejoice with them. Good news is always welcome.
Bill Sondheim writes “This past few months have been busy for me with my daughter Elise getting married and I was the Executive Producer on two feature films with Tom Berenger and Eric Roberts. I have a third film going into production next week so on a little roll!”
George Carroll shares “Life in the Post-COVID (but certainly not Post-Apocalyptic) world continues to be interesting as Rebecca and I enjoy watching our 7 year-old (Warren MacPherson Carroll, K'36) navigate the uncharted waters of 1st grade, while we also have a brand-new grand-daughter, courtesy of eldest son
Mac Carroll '11 and daughter in law
Prita Kidder Carroll '11. Got a call recently from
Jebb Curelop, and I always enjoy hearing from classmates.” I ran into a ’92 classmate of my brother this summer at Blossom Music Center. I noticed his Kenyon sweatshirt and called out as they passed our seats. His wife rolled her eyes — yes, we are something of a cult of purple… This week in Cleveland, Ohio, news
Jeremy Johnson is being recognized for his firm’s work to help restore an iconic mural that honors Carl Stokes, the first black mayor of a large US city.
Tim Girian writes “Living in Manchester by the Sea, MA where my son Sam is at Tulane Medical School and daughter at Colorado College playing tennis for the college. I’m working on my golf game with new clubs and my new favorite golf courses in Lookout Mountain, TN and Augusta, GA!”
Gregg Courtad writes “June was a very eventful month, as my 1820 home was featured in the Wall Street Journal in an article about Underground Railroad buildings in Salem, Ohio, and I rescued a stray kitten, or rather, he rescued me! The tuxedo kitten, whom I have named Absinthe, is so fascinated with running water that he now "assists'' with the laundry and the dishes at every opportunity. While it's nice getting this extra help with my chores, there is no question that I'm going to need a "cat-nanny" once I can start traveling regularly again.” If you missed the article in the WSJ, you should look it up; your Class committee thinks that we should hold our next meeting at Gregg’s place.
Some lucky people have been TRAVELLING!
Taylor Johnson shared “I took a little tour of Europe this summer. I had hosted an exchange student from Germany ten years ago, and he was getting married at the end of August, so of course I had to be there for my "son's" wedding! I visited the Netherlands and Belgium before the wedding, visited a former housemate in Berlin for a few days after the wedding, then travelled to Milan to stay with the family of an exchange student from Italy whose parents I also grew close to. I am now hosting a boy from Chile. Francisco is warm and funny and we seem to connect on so many levels. My real estate business is going well. With the market as hot as it is, the challenge has been to get clients under contract in a competitive environment. While I am naturally not very competitive, I will say I have had great success. Looking forward to an upcoming Kenyon Alumni happy hour and seeing some familiar faces.”
Kelly Doyle shares the saga she went through with her darling Izzy. I followed on FB, and hope that this veterinary surgery is available here in the future. “This August I had the opportunity to go to Japan for almost 4 weeks. I stayed in Yokohama on a humanitarian special VISA so my Dog Izzy could get lifesaving Mitral valve repair surgery at the JASMIN clinic animal hospital in Tokyo. We were supposed to go in December 2020 but the pandemic closed Japan's borders and we spent a very difficult 7 months trying everything to get a VISA while Izzy's mitral valve disease progressed. We finally got permission to cross the border, and made it on time for a successful surgery. She now has a perfect EKG and no detectable murmur. Amazing. I spent the first 14 days in the small apartment under quarantine ordering Uber Eats delivery and answering random check in requests on my iPhone from the Japanese health department. Izzy was released from the hospital on the 23rd and my quarantine ended on the 20th so I was finally able to leave the apartment and go out to Sushi-ro! with my friend Atsuko. The food in the supermarket near Sushi--ro was so beautiful I literally wept tears of joy and spent most of the time taking pictures of the rows and rows of the most gorgeous colorful healthy fresh food I’ve ever seen.
Mark Horikawa gave me the best advice and we had fun chatting while I was on lockdown. He taught me a lot about Japan and how to survive a 14 day quarantine. If anyone is interested in learning more about the incredible mitral valve repair surgery Izzy was fortunate to receive, send me an email and I will point you in the right direction.”
We laud all medical miracles. Our own
Jack Emens is one. Jack writes “Wishing my Kenyon class the very best. I had a successful kidney transplant from OSU-Wexner in February of this year. Very blessed! Have a new book in the production phase by Westbow Press, a subsidiary of Thomas Nelson Publishing; it’s called
The Slippery Curse of the Blessed Life. Should be out in early November. So thankful to many of my Kenyon family for all their prayers and support. Been a challenging six years, but I am so grateful for many blessings and learned lessons from a remarkably difficult and arduous sojourn.”
OUR Kenyon was more than a place and buildings: it was friends, classmates and professors.
Louis Boxer writes “Very little at Kenyon (or elsewhere) has been written about Professor Eugen Kullmann’s tremendous influence on hundreds of students. Three dozen of his students have come together to contribute to the anthology
The Doctor Eugen Kullmann Memorial. This moving anthology, currently being edited by
Rabbi Steven Lebow ’77 and
Professor Robert Schine ’72, will be published in the spring of 2022. Now, exactly 20 years after Dr. Kullmann’s death in 2002, the time has come to acknowledge and to celebrate the life and influence of Eugen Kullmann. Send your contribution to
rabbilebow@gmail.com by October 25, 2021.” Lou, I’m not sure this letter will be out in time, I hope that folks can make slightly tardy contributions. Professor Kullmann was a treasure to the world.
Kenyon couldn’t be Kenyon without involved and supportive alumni like you and me. As the bicentennial draws closer, I challenge each of us to do a little more than we have in the past to help make Kenyon the special place it is. This could mean becoming an alumni volunteer, attending a College event, submitting a class note, or setting up a recurring monthly gift.
May we all be able to follow
John Cannon in saying “Life is good!”
