| Class of 1962 Spring Class Letter
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| Dear classmates,
It appears that we will finally be able to celebrate reunion year in May. This for us will be our 60th and an opportunity to reunite on campus again after two years of virtual gatherings. We already have a number of our classmates planning to attend as well as graduates from adjacent years. I am so impressed on how we all have stayed connected for these 60 years either directly or through others. To continue the effort, we have conducted two (or maybe three?) class Zoom sessions, we will do another in April and plan for one during the reunion for those classmates unable to attend in person. If you have changed your location, email, or phone number I encourage you to let me, Steve Chaplin, and/or the alumni office know so we can keep you connected.
Here are some highlights since our last class letter:
Last fall, I hope you heard about (and perhaps supported!) the new Kenyon Access Initiative. The college is eight months a five-year partnership with the Schuler Education Foundation to increase access to Kenyon for exceptional students with limited resources. The extended Kenyon community has enthusiastically responded by making more than 1,113 gifts to support this unique initiative, helping to create new scholarships that will be awarded to students we are enrolling now. In further great news, applications this year hit another record, up 14% over last year.
This spring, the College continued its commitment to integrating environmental stewardship into its curriculum, campus operations and campus culture. Lisa Schott ’80, who since 2010 has served as managing director of the College’s land trust, the Philander Chase Conservancy (PCC), will step down from that position at the end of June after a nearly 40-year career with Kenyon. And her son, Lee Schott, is Dean for Career Development. I recently checked out the posted senior class resumes ( https://www.kenyon.edu/candidates) and was very impressed with the breadth and depth of the qualifications – just another testimony as to why a Kenyon education is so special!
Finally, I want to thank all of you for your support during these past challenging two years and for your support to the Kenyon Fund, Tom Edwards Scholarship, Harvey Lodish President, and other Kenyon support efforts that our class sponsors and supports.
All the Best and Keep Well. Jonathan S. Katz ‘62
31 Bruce Lane
Newton, MA 02458
603-682-4739
P.S. Scroll down to view the 1962 class notes.
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There's still time to join the celebration!
Why limit the fun to April 30, 2022? Here are a few ways you can get in a Gambier state of mind any day of the year:
Give 43022
Because Kenyon is at the heart of 43022, we held our annual giving challenge April 29-30. There's still time to support sustainability, scholarships, athletics and all the elements that make Kenyon, Kenyon. MAKE A GIFT
Buy exclusive 43022 merch
While supplies last, the Bookstore is still selling 43022 shirts, totes and water vessels that include a built-in gift to the Kenyon Fund to support today’s Kenyon students. START SHOPPING
Send Reunion greetings to 43022
Can't make it back to the Hill this year? Record a video greeting to be played on campus for your fellow alumni during Reunion Weekend 2022. RECORD A MESSAGE
Build a 43022 community near you
Attend a regional event or plan one yourself. The Alumni Office can help you organize an event for alumni, families and friends of the College in your region — complete with 43022 swag! PLAN AN EVENT
Connect with 43022 from afar
It's easy — and fun — to stay connected to Kenyon from wherever you are. The Alumni Office organizes virtual events for alumni that range from class-specific gatherings, professional development panels, topical conversations and more. BROWSE UPCOMING EVENTS
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| Upcoming Events for Alumni
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Save the date for these upcoming events for alumni taking place online and on the Hill.
- Virtual Alumni Town Hall
Our Reunion Town Hall with President Decatur will take place Thursday, May 12 via Zoom.
- Reunion Weekend
All alumni are invited to join us on the Hill May 27–29.
- Homecoming Weekend
Join us for athletic competitions, festivities and alumni volunteer meetings on the Hill Sept. 23-25.
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Class of 1962 Spring Notes
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George Brownstone - Hi all, Nothing new to report, but at our age just being around and knowing it is a noteworthy state of affairs (congratulations to all of you reading this). Living comfortably in Vienna (having spent more than half my life here, and I’m much happier being here that I think I’d be in the States, which has turned into a very disappointing place), retired from practice (psychiatry and psychoanalysis), still teach and supervise (easier with Zoom), play OK golf when & wherever the weather permits (but I’ll have to live a great deal longer to play my age), cook a lot for my busy wife (gastroenterologist), and am gratified by our daughter’s career progress with MasterCard.
Covid’s put a damper on everybody’s lives, but we’ve been 4x jabbed, uninfected so far, and it hasn’t been as bad for us personally as it has for many others around the globe. (I hope the Kenyon reunion doesn’t result in a cluster.) More serious: as I write, Putin’s proxies are shelling the Ukraine, and we’re expecting even worse. And we thought armed conflict in Europe would be a thing of the past. My best to all of you.
Byron Dunham - I attended Kenyon only two years, 1958-59 and 1960-61 with an "employment" gap year in between, but it was altogether a thrilling life experience. My undergraduate degree came a few years later from Northwestern University, but college memories of Kenyon prevail. During Freshman Year about 20 of us were assigned rooms on the third floor of creaky old Bexley Hall, at the farthest north edge of the campus. We felt very special! I bought a second-hand English Humber bike for $15 for getting to class and meals at Peirce. People were always "borrowing" it. My second year landed me and another fellow in West Wing with the Dekes, although we were not Dekes, and my ride was a 1951 Studebaker convertible painted fire-engine red, also often borrowed.
My freshman yearbook pictures me with such groups as the Collegian, Student Council, Social Committee, and Pre-Med Club; my second year's book pictures me nowhere, but 'twas a fun year! Afterward came the US Army, also fun, then NU and a journalism career with the Toledo Blade and The Rotarian International Magazine, and later the Savannah Symphony Society, and more.
Today I live with my marriage partner, retired architect Dick Hanna, in Chicago's Lincoln Park and Skidaway Island, GA, depending upon the weather. Glad to participate in Kenyon reunions as long as possible.
Patrick Eggena - My life on the farm during Covid.
Our old black walnut tree no longer stands out front; it fell with others in the tornado of 2018. Its history is inscribed in the sculptures shown below: the insults from droughts, storms, man, and diseases – engraved for us to see with lines that show the years which suddenly came to an end. Quite unexpected.
Our black walnut tree was planted around the time our Democracy was formed. Both stood straight and tall for all these years until they have now been weakened by disease and threatened by insurrection.
These were my thoughts as I cut and sanded trying to capture the feelings and emotions of the pandemic of 2020/21 and the social unrest created by an inept response by our government resulting in hunger, isolation, guilt, pain, fear, sorrow, anger, dying alone.
I have taken a few of the 75 wood sculptures out to pasture where visitors can reflect on what has been happening to them in this Covid Memorial Exhibit.
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Last year Harvey Lodish ’62, H ’82, P ’89, GP ’21 received an Honorary D.Sc. degree at the June commencement of Case Western Reserve University and was elected to the Royal Society of Medicine of Belgium.
As a Kenyon Trustee Emeritus he marched in the academic procession during the May commencement, presented the trustee welcome speech, and watched his granddaughter Emma Steinert ’21 graduate!
In December he was honored with the Wallace H. Coulter Award for Lifetime Achievement in Hematology by the American Society of Hematology at their annual meeting. The society prepared a movie on his career featuring his two Nobel Prize - winning students; it was shown during the presentation and is now on YouTube: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6T-pu3JkDCU).
Kim Stevens - The invasion of Ukraine brings me back to 1968. As a young Foreign Service Officer just returned from our first posting in South America, we found ourselves attending a dinner party at the country estate of the Undersecretary for Political Affairs, at which the guest of honor was Secretary of State Dean Rusk. During cocktails before dinner, someone dragged me over to Rusk to introduce me as one of his minions. Small talk ensued, but was interrupted by the screeching tires of a black limo which drove on the lawn to where we were standing. A Marine officer in full dress jumped out of the back seat and ran over to Rusk holding a sheet of paper. Rusk read it, turned to me and showed me what it said. One sentence. "The Russians have just invaded Czechoslovakia." And then everyone, the entire top echelon of the State Department, went back to drinking and chatting as it were inconsequential. A half hour later, when the Secretary was inside the house changing into black tie for dinner, my wife, carrying our baby with a very dirty and smelly diaper, having been told it was the changing room, burst into the bedroom where Dean Rusk was standing in his underwear. Non-pulsed, he said hello and suggested she use the bathroom while he finished dressing. His security guard then escorted her back to the party. Needless to say, we did not get a repeat invitation.
With the pandemic entering what we hope will be its last year, I am reminded of when it began. To say good-bye to Latin America, where we had spent a good part of our lives posted to various embassies there, we signed up for a long cruise circumnavigating the continent. We left before the pandemic started, but as we were approaching Fort Lauderdale for disembarkation, the first wave had started. We were on the last cruise ship to be permitted to unload passengers in the US, and we took what turned out to be the last train to Washington, DC, where we had planned to see old friends before returning to California. When we moved west, for the weather and family, we kept a small pied-a-terre in downtown Washington. We had planned on being there for a few days, but it turned out to be five months-- together 24 hours a day in a 500 square foot space (no, we did not divorce afterwards). It was also at an interesting time for Washington, as the entire BLM thing took place while we were there. It was weird, even weirder than it was just after 9/11. In anticipation of a demonstration turning into a riot, all the stores and restaurants were closed down, and their windows boarded up with sheets of plywood. In my 80 years of living in Washington, I had never seen that before. By chance, our 12th story window looked out on Pennsylvania Avenue, and so we had a ringside seat as demonstrators moved towards Lafayette Square, and an equally good view of the same demonstrators being pushed by the DC Police, reinforced by about every armed and sworn officer for miles around. Totally black helicopters were buzzing overhead, putting prop wash on the demonstrators heads. And up and down as far as we could see, the streets to which the demonstrators were being funneled, a solid line of people in blue lining the sidewalks. And this went on for days, so long that I was able to become the on-the-scene correspondent for my home town newspaper. When we were finally able to book a transcontinental train to take us home, we took a room and sealed ourselves inside for the duration, as delta swirled around us. Looking out the window, it was as if America had been evacuated. Home never looked as good, even with waist high weeds surrounding up. Especially because I once again had access to my wine cellar.
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If you missed the chance to share your news for this letter, you can submit a class note at any time via kenyon.edu/class-note-form.
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Kenyon College
105 Chase Avenue, Gambier, OH 43022
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