Wilder Gutterson:  
Kathleen Hume Britz 1952-2022 - When Kathleen arrived on campus on whatever day that was in the late summer of 1970, heads turned. She was statuesque and carried her height proudly and with confidence. She had long, silky, brown hair that fell to her waist and large eyes that took in everything and everyone. Why wouldn’t she turn heads? She was a blend of both sophistication and down-home Midwestern practicality, and many of us were drawn in to her web of charm, wit and keen intelligence. I think others found her haughty or aloof – perhaps even unapproachable. Yet beneath the bravado of her fashion model exterior Kathleen was more fragile than she let on. 

She certainly left her mark within the theatre world at Kenyon. I acted with her in at least two Hill Theatre productions and undoubtedly countless acting scenes in various theatre classes. Perhaps our finest moment was the standing room only – no exaggeration – performance of our final senior thesis production, the Peter Shaffer farce, Black Comedy, brilliantly directed by our good pal, Eddie Cohen. Others remember her scrunched in a trashcan alongside David Jaffe ’72 as Nagg and Nell in Beckett’s Endgame.

After Kenyon, Kathleen and I moved to Chicago to study drama and we shared an apartment with Kathleen’s damn cats that she refused to neuter and who meowed throughout the whole bloody night. We both soon dropped out of drama school but Kathleen forged connections with some ambitious teachers which led to her serving as the Assistant Director for the world premiere of David Mamet’s American Buffalo – certainly one of our era’s most seminal works. I’m sure she held her own in the rehearsal room and backstage during that most macho of plays. 

Many in our Kenyon circle of theatre majors ended up in New York working in films and commercials and Kathleen was part of this cabal doing makeup and styling for numerous films. She married the Austrian painter, Chris Britz, and they moved to Ireland in the 1990’s where they raised their now writer/poet son, Andreas, who currently teaches English in Minnesota. 

In Ireland, Kathleen retrained as a psychotherapist and was drawn to working with highly challenging patients – those who survived childhood abuse, neglect and trauma. She recounted one unorthodox therapeutic convention she employed: to allow sessions to overrun past the standard 50 minutes. She felt that by giving clients the power to say when then wanted to end, she was teaching them to take control – at least of the session time – a step towards recapturing their total loss of control from childhood. Her supervisor encouraged her to write a paper about this unorthodox technique, but it didn’t interest her. 

The week before Kathleen died on 4 July– of pancreatic cancer, Jane (Hershcopf) Schreck and I spent a few days at her gorgeous home in West Cork, Ireland, cooking, laughing, reminiscing and helping her get settled into a new home-hospital bed and the routine of pain and cancer medications. She was surrounded by Andreas and a vast community of caring and generous neighbors and friends. We miss you terribly, Kathleen.

Jane Hershcopf Schreck: I was heartbroken to have heard from Kathleen Hume Britz’s son, Andreas that she passed away on July 4th. It was just 10 days after I had seen her. Wilder Gutterson and I made the trip to see her at the end of June. It was a shock but sadly not a surprise. She was very sick.

Kathleen and I came from very different backgrounds but managed early on to form a lifetime bond. We were the only bridesmaid at each other’s weddings, our only-child sons are 8 months apart and we managed to stay close even after she moved to Ireland 25 years ago. 

Kathleen stood out in many ways. She was strikingly beautiful with terrific presence. She also had an incisive, laser focus intelligence and a deep understanding and interest in many subjects but the quality that over the years stood out to me and kept me so devoted to her, was that she was a real human being, a true mensch. In the over 50 years that I knew her, I never saw her judge another person by the way they looked, the way they dressed, the amount of money they had or in any superficial way. She only cared about what kind of person they were. She was drawn to those who were uncool or nerdy and not popular. She was so appreciative of the elderly and spoke to them with true interest in the lives they had led and the interests that inspired them. She had a strong and true moral compass that was an inspiration to me. She was a true and wonderful friend. I will miss her!

David Horvitz: All's well at the time of this writing in my life and family. With 11 grandchildren, 10 of them boys, we are keeping very busy. Does anyone else ever feel like the less we are working the busier we are?

Rob Kolson is still producing. "About three years ago I made what some may consider an insane decision at my age to produce a daughter (through surrogacy), and Opening Night was May 3, 2020. It is undoubtably the most spectacular production I've ever developed, and will almost certainly remain so even though I'm a producer on another stellar show that is opening on Broadway in December: A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical."

Tim Newcomb: Bafflingly again, for the fourth year running, I have won top honors for political cartooning at the annual AAN (Association of Alternative Newsmedia) convention, this year again taking first place. In spite of the fact the AAN represents newspapers across the U.S. and Canada, it proves there is no accounting for taste. In other news, we're delighted to have our daughter Lydia VanDorn Newcomb ’08 back in Vermont, practicing as a criminal defense attorney up in the Northeast Kingdom.

Dennis Pannullo: I have joined the ranks of Chalk Artists Internationale. The Venice Chalk Festival is the oldest in the US and one of the most competitive. I chalked a segment of Gericault's The Raft of the Medusa on the infamous Venice Airport tarmac among a cadre of artists from around the world (sadly, one of our number was trapped in a war zone in the Ukraine) who were working on their own tribute to Resilience. My joints were not so resilient however. After 8 hours on my hands, knees and right hip, my body was enraged with my flight of fancy and remained so for a week. Adding insult to injury, an overnight rainstorm washed away my chalk drawing. Undaunted, we went up to Sarasota to paint the sidewalks with more durable acrylic paint. There may be a hundred concrete slabs with brightly painted depictions of life around Sarasota. Altogether, this was the best of times.

I am also teaching English to asylum seekers from Cuba and Venezuela; Professor Piano would be so gratified. Lastly, my rogue's tale has gone dormant with my protagonist stranded in St. Croix inventing new cocktails with cheap Cruzan rum.

Peter Smagorinsky wonders what the heck is going on out there.

Sidney Wanetick: Our Nashville experiment didn’t work out as well as we had hoped. We have happily returned to California, despite the taxes and cost of living. This time, though, we have settled in Carlsbad. We bought an old - not to be confused with charming- townhouse. Our “90 day” renovation took 8 months, but we finally moved in mid-August. We will head back to Mexico in about 6 weeks.

Read notes from the Class of 1975 and the Class of 1973. 

1974
Annual Fund Total: $215,553  
Class Participation: 46.80%

Presidents Society
Donors of $50,000 or more
Stuart H. Anness MD*
Robert E. Hallinan*
David W. Horvitz H'98*
William A. Kozy*

Kokosing Society
Donors of $25,000 to $49,999
Gilbert C. Meister Jr.*
Stewart F. Peck*

Philander Chase Society
Donors of $10,000 to $24,999
Joseph J. Baem MD*
Gail L. Cudak*
Alva G. Greenberg P'02 '04*
Roy W. Tucker*

Bexley Society
Donors of $2,500 to $9,999
Alan G. R. Bell*
Neil S. Bloomberg*
David H. Brown*
W. Bruce Isaacs III 
Marilyn Jones Goodman*
Rob Kolson*
Marylen Marty-Gentile*
James W. McCarter P'10*
James W. Vick MD P'12*
Sidney E. Wanetick MD*

Kenyon Society
Donors of $1,000 to $2,499
Chester E. Blackey III P'09*
Dorinda Kim M. Blackey P'09*
James E. Breece III P'04*
Jack Buchan*
Cynthia A. Cole*
Julie M. Conway P'98*
J. Paul Gilman*
Allan Lauer MD*
Timothy J. Newcomb P'06 '08*
Janet Noakes McGannon (widow of Thomas H. McGannon P'09) 
Dan E. Patterson*
Hal Real*
Kim Stapleton Smith P'13*
Frederick A. Specht MD*
Jeffrey A. Walker*
Carolyn Ziurys (widow of Bartholomew J. Ziurys)*

Kenyon Society
Donors of $1 to $999
Thomas A. Andrew*
Anonymous (3)
Elizabeth Arnold Rice 
David S. Barrie*
Jamie J. Barth*
Rodney G. Bent*
H. Nicholas Berberian*
Bruce E. Betz*
Andrew I. Brafman*
Lucy Brown Vinis 
Thomas R. Bullock MD*
Virginia B. Capute*
James G. Carson*
Richard J. Clarke*
Peter L. Conroy*
Miriam Dean-Otting P'05 '06 H'19*
Kate S. Debevoise 
Susan L. Farrell*
Alice C. Fleming P'12 
Jan D. Forsyth 
Rob Galbraith*
Adam B. Gilbert*
Pamela S. Goetsch*
Todd I. Gordon*
Andrew N. Gross P'19*
Wilder Gutterson III*
Craig S. Hakkio 
Thomas M. Hazlett 
Carol A. Heiberger 
Kenneth W. Heick*
Jeffrey Hymes 
Susan L. Inbusch*
Charles W. Jones*
Lindsay P. Jones*
William K. Keyes 
Daniel L. Kleinman P'06*
Eric R. Koppert P'04*
David C. Lindy MD P'12*
Douglas M. London 
Mark W. Lowery*
Richard M. Lowish*
Michael D. Mann*
Barbara L. McKay 
Ralph P. Molnick 
Robert D. Murphy Jr.*
Tom Neely 
Thomas F. Northway DDS*
Vern Oakley P'16*
Dennis R. Pannullo MD FACP*
David R. Pasahow*
Frank J. Rahel P'09*
Debra A. Ratner 
Renata M. Renner*
Laurie P. Roche 
Steven B. Rogers*
John M. Schmidt 
Elizabeth R. Schram*
Susan G. Schueller-Meyer*
Martha S. Schulman PhD*
Dian F. Seabury*
John L. Seed*
Paul Shapiro DO 
Susan M. Soltis*
Guilford L. Spencer III*
Jacob S. Spiegler P'06 '10 '13*
Marian L. Steele*
Robin S. Stefan*
Stephen F. Stettler*
John L. Sutton Jr.*
Joseph G. Tegreene*
Stephen C. Thompson*
Theodore T. Toole III P'09*
Lawrence A. Towers*
John I. Trawick*
Vickery Trinkaus-Randall*
Robert R. Vonick*
John G. Vrtachnik*
Craig Waggaman PhD 
Andrew J. Wellenbach*
Timothy W. Welsh*
Gregory P. Widin*
Katharine D. Widin*
Gail P. Woodhouse*
Sally B. Wright*
Robert C. Zoller MD*

George Wharton Marriott Society
These alumni have included Kenyon in their estate plans or have made other planned gifts.

Joseph J. Baem '74
Alan G.R. Bell '74
Bruce E. Betz '74
Gail L. Cudak '74
Alva G. Greenberg '74 P'02, '04
Wilder Gutterson III '74
David W. Horvitz '74
Marilyn L. Jones-Goodman '74
Michael D. Mann '74
Marylen Marty-Gentile '74
James W. McCarter '74
Vern '74 P'16 and Mary Jo Oakley P'16
Dennis R. Pannullo '74
David R. Pasahow '74
Jane F. Peden '74
Elliott S. Robinson '74†
Richard B. Smith III '74
Frederick A. Specht '74
Joseph G. Tegreene '74
Geraldine Coleman Tucker '74
James W. Vick '74 P'12 and Julia Miller Vick '73 P'12 H'97
Sidney E. Wanetick '74

Kenyon College
105 Chase Avenue, Gambier, OH 43022