drew and entrepreneurship

Transcription

DREW
SUMMER 2015
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DREW AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Mead 207
“
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MESS A G E F RO M TH E PRE SID E N T
Entrepreneurship is fostered at Drew by
a combination of our geography, attention by faculty
to students’ unique talents and opportunities to
test those talents outside the classroom.
Part of Something Big
As we wrote and edited this issue of Drew
Magazine, I was celebrating one year in office
as president. And a few weeks after this hits
your mailbox, we will celebrate symbolically a
new era in the University as I am inaugurated
as its 13th president.
On arrival last year, I dived in immediately
to lead Drew and to manage the “nuts and
bolts” of everyday operations. At the same
time, I knew that I couldn’t form Drew’s future
in my image, but rather that I needed to “ply
the waters,” to quote Stephen Gordon C’73, an
alumnus featured in this magazine. I needed to
experience and work within the University for
a time to really understand what sets us apart
from the thousands of other colleges and universities in this country.
There are three themes that resonate over
and over in the conversations I have and in the
activities to which our students and faculty
naturally gravitate.
n
n
O
ur faculty mentor students in profoundly
impactful ways—not only by helping them
choose a major, select courses, etc., but also
by arranging internships, introducing them
to alumni mentors, reviewing rounds of
graduate school applications, etc.
O
ur location near New York City—a world
capital—provides rich educational and
internship opportunities.
O
ur focus on real-world learning allows our
students to engage deeply in their world and
connect the classroom with the community.
A Drew education that combines these
strengths—faculty mentorship, proximity to
a world capital and real-world learning—has
produced so many exemplary graduates. This
issue of Drew Magazine features a few who have
excelled as entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship
is fostered at Drew by a combination of our
Roy Groething
n
geography, attention by faculty to students’
unique talents and opportunities to test those
talents outside the classroom. Peter Drucker,
the famous business consultant and theorist,
described entrepreneurs as people who “create
something new, something different; they change
or transmute values.” To me that describes
Drew alums, whether they are entrepreneurs
in the classic sense or whether they are entrepreneurial in their approach to the world.
Stephen Gordon’s notion of “plying the waters”
is a metaphor for how students learn at Drew—
not skimming the surface, but working with
the water, finding the right tack. In fact, the
notion of entrepreneurship itself, defined literally from the French, “to undertake,” calls
forth the qualities of risk, of newness, of exploration—with final outcomes unknown. But it
also calls forth characteristics of preparation,
research, and building and depending upon
networks of others.
Each of our featured alums describes how
the education they experienced at Drew
prepared them to pursue their dreams and
passions and succeed. Their stories also demonstrate that values, avocation and meaning are
essential for success no matter what your field.
As De’Andre Salter C’92 says, “You’ve got to be
a giver somehow.”
At Drew, students have always experienced,
and will continue to experience a connected
environment, where learning runs deep and
the possibilities it presents are expansive, and
in dialogue with the wider world outside The
Forest. These attributes don’t magically take
effect upon graduation, but they are inculcated
into students’ learning the moment they enter
the Drew community. A university president
couldn’t ask for anything more. The alums
featured here, representing various forms of
entrepreneurship, exemplify the lifelong impact of a Drew education.
Over the next months and years we will make
a strong case for Drew University’s prowess in
these areas in all three schools, and I can assure
you that we will spread the word creatively,
boldly and to good effect.
But to describe a university’s primary characteristics, or what it does well, is in some respects
the easy part. This year we will engage the entire
campus community, including alums, in planning conversations about the University’s future,
and how we will focus to ensure Drew’s health
and sustainability. That process will culminate
in a new, vibrant and clearly actionable strategic
plan to guide us over the next five years or so.
To create a living strategic plan, rather than an
“on the shelf” document, we must really understand how the three characteristics I listed
above come together to make a unique whole,
and how that identity will drive our priorities
and attract future students who can most benefit from it.
As the person who is charged with leading
this great University, I must first feel its essence
in my heart before I can bring others along
with me. I hope that you can attend the Installation Ceremony (for which you have received
an invitation) to hear my full ref lections, but
the focus of this magazine provides a window
into one special, unique and enduring outcome
of a Drew education.
I feel very fortunate as Drew’s president to be
part of this community at this juncture of its history. As alumna Emily (Knox) Blitz C’96 says, “I
like the magic of being part of something big.”
Sincerely,
MaryAnn
MaryAnn Baenninger, PhD
President
Summer 2015 1
Summer 2015 I Contents
20
Even the nonprofit
world inspires
entrepreneurs,
many of them
Drew grads.
This issue of Drew Magazine
is framed around a theme of
entrepreneurship—a suitable
topic at a college that nurtures
independent thinkers and
encourages them to take risks.
We applied a broad definition
of entrepreneur in three types
of ventures: traditional profitmaking businesses, the nonprofit sector and the theatre
arts (after all, although the
word emerged in France in the
Middle Ages, it was first used
in the English language, in
1828, to refer to the manager
of a theatrical production). As
our stories attest, Drew has
produced an impressive array
of entrepreneurs across all
these fields. Taken together,
they confirm that on the Drew
campus and beyond, across a
multitude of disciplines, the
entrepreneurial spirit lives.
And thrives.
24
Drew’s drama
students learn to
do it all, leading
some to start
theatre companies
and others to win
Emmy Awards.
12
6
The founder of
Restoration Hardware. The student
who created a
classroom app.
The four foodies.
In the entrepreneurial world,
Drewids rule.
2 Drew Magazine I Drew and Entrepreneurship
A (very) brief
history of Drew
entrepreneurs
across three
centuries.
Everything Else
30 A
round the
Drewniverse
33 Classnotes
48 BackTalk
Summer 2015 3
Letters
TO THE EDITOR
A leap-from-your-seat
round of applause.
Front Spring
'15 2.27_Layout
DREW MAGAZINE
Volume 42, No. 2, Summer 2015
PM Page 1
1 3/4/15 1:41
’s Reach Beyo
nd the Fores
t
D RE W
SPRING 2015
M
A
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G
Exploring Drew
A
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Drew proudly honored these exemplary
members of the community at Reunion 2015.
THE
Y
UNIVERSIT Y
IT
AND THE C
ALUMNI ACHIEVEMENT AWARD WINNERS 2015
George Hayward C’60
Erin Hennessy C’95
Alumni Volunteer Award
Alumni Service Award
George Burrill C’65
Barbara Camacho Wiggan C’00
Achievement in the Liberal Arts Award
Frances B. Sellers Award
Leo Grohowski C’80
Greg Townsend C’05
Achievement in Business Award
Young Alumni Award
Kathryn “Kathy” Cottingham C’90
Achievement in the Sciences Award
Learn more about the winners, view past
recipients and make a nomination.
drew.edu/aaa
The Spring 2015 issue: Poetry
praised, city jaunts recollected
and Theo School news missed.
NYC Field Trips
I was pleased to receive Drew Magazine’s
special issue, “The University and
the City.” As a young man from a
small town in Maryland, I came to
Drew (Brothers College) in 1942, lured
in part by the promise that the school
would shut down once a month and
all 200 students would spend the
day on field trips in New York City.
I went on two such trips, somewhat
dazed by hazing the night before.
After that they were discontinued
because of “The War.” But I didn’t
give up on my dreams of the Emerald
City. I learned to take the Delaware
& Lackawanna by myself and became
an adopted New Yorker. This was a big
step for me—but London? Paris? Wow!
Reid Isaac C’46
C LEVELAND
Editor’s Note: Good ideas stand the test of
time, Mr. Isaac. Our entire first-year class
will take a similar New York City field trip
on September 26 as part of a redesigned
Drew Seminar.
Good Suggestion
In the latest issue of Drew Magazine
the Classnotes ran for nine pages,
went back to 1942 and listed a large
number of people. But the Classnotes
for the Theological School got only
a half-page, went back only to the
1970s and listed just 12 people.
As a 1954 graduate of the Theological School, I used to get news of my
classmates by reading Drew Magazine.
But in the issue on “The University and
the City,” nearly all the stories and the
pictures center on college students,
with little mention of the seminarians.
One other issue: The “In Memoriam”
section, five pages long, lists those
who have died in alphabetical order.
They used to be listed in order of the
years of graduation, which made it
easier to find out about classmates
who had died. Why the change?
Ed Lane T’54
WELLESLEY HILLS, MASSACHUSETTS
Editor’s Note: We hear you loud and clear,
Mr. Lane. We’d love to hear more about
the wonderful activities and contributions
of our Theological School alumni, and we’d
happily print any news we receive. If you
hear of news—or wish to share some
yourself—please email us at classnotes@
drew.edu. Regarding In Memorium, we
appreciate your suggestion. Starting on
page 44 of this issue, alumni who have died
are listed by their year of graduation.
Heavenly Poetry
It’s a great issue. And as a New York
City resident, I love the topic.
Strangely enough, I saw the poem
“Heaven” [“A Classroom Called New
York,” page 21] in the subway today
and I loved it. I wondered who the
author was, but the credit was too
small to read. Please pass on my
congratulations to Patrick Phillips
for a wonderful, moving and dreamfilled piece of work.
Martha Gotwals C’69
N EW YORK CITY
Correction
In the Spring 2015 issue of Drew
Magazine, Shirley Fabrizio, who died
on Nov. 3, 2014, was incorrectly
listed in In Memoriam as a member
of the Class of ’78. Drew Magazine
apologizes for the error and extends
condolences to Michele Fabrizio C’73,
Sharlene Langner C’78 and family.
Write to us at [email protected].
PRESIDENT
CHIEF COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER
Kira Poplowski, PhD
EDITOR
Christopher Hann
ART DIRECTOR
Margaret M. Kiernan
MANAGING EDITOR
Kristen Daily Williams C’98
GRAPHIC DESIGNERS
Taylor Design, Peter Heineck,
Melanie Shandroff
PHOTOGRAPHY ASSISTANT
Lynne DeLade C’12
EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS
Risa Barisch, Lisa Elwood, Christine Kiernan,
Theresa McMackin, Elizabeth Moore,
Amy Motzenbecker
WEBMASTER
Justin Jackson C’05
ALUMNI ASSOCIATION OFFICERS
Robert Benacchio C’98, president,
College Alumni Association
Don Wahlig T’09, president,
Theological School Alumni Association
Drew Magazine (ISSN 0889-0153) is
published by Drew University,
36 Madison Ave., Madison, NJ 07940, USA.
Standard rate postage paid at Madison,
New Jersey, and additional mailing office.
POSTMASTER: Send address changes to
Office of Alumni Records, Alumni House,
Drew University, Madison, NJ 07940.
All material in Drew Magazine is ©2015
by Drew University.
SUBSCRIPTIONS
Through your relationship to Drew University,
you are a subscriber to Drew Magazine.
ADDRESS CHANGES OR TO UNSUBSCRIBE
Office of Alumni and Parent Relations,
973.408.3229, [email protected]
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
[email protected] or to the first address above
Drew University is an equal-opportunity,
affirmative-action employer and educator.
Views expressed herein are those of the authors and do
not necessarily reflect official policy of the university.
A MOST
PERSONAL
VENTURE
First at Restoration Hardware and now at
Guideboat Co., Stephen Gordon C’73 has built successful
A
stack of precisely folded, deepindigo T-shirts sits inside a wooden
building in Northern California that
lived more than 100 years as a sawmill.
They share this space with hundreds of
intriguing, useful and beautiful items—
all placed here to divert you. But the
T-shirts, those carry the biggest clue to
Stephen Gordon, the man behind this
burgeoning retail empire. “PLY THE
WATERS,” the shirts proclaim, in bold,
classic lettering.
Ply the waters. At first, those words
simply evoke the nautical life, and that’s
appropriate: In addition to traditional
apparel, accessories and household items,
the Guideboat Co. store sells small craft,
both new and antique. But the phrase
also implies diligence, searching, a deep
sense of surroundings. “Don’t skim over
the surface,” it says—as archaic and
thoughtful as “Just do it” is impulsive.
Gordon launched Guideboat Co.
two years ago as what he calls “a most
personal venture,” including a flagship store in Mill Valley, California, a
catalog and a website. This is his second
entrepreneurial enterprise. The first was
Restoration Hardware, a business he
started in his home, grew to 112 stores
and took public. He followed that up
with a stint as CEO of Sundance’s retail
operation. At 64, Gordon hasn’t stopped
plying the waters. “It is what I do,”
he explains over coffee. “I don’t play
golf—I build retail brands.”
Gordon’s latest project is informed by
his childhood in a small, upstate New
York town on Lake Champlain, near the
Adirondacks. Plattsburgh was a Leave It
Martin E. Klimek
retail brands rooted in his singular vision.
Summer 2015 7
Kelly Puleio
ENTREPRENEURS
to Beaver sort of place, where his grandfather, Gordon says, owned “the drugstore,
the jewelry store and the shoe store.”
“My grandfather had a guide boat and
used to fish and hunt,” Gordon recalls.
“I got to row that and had many, many
great times.” He recaptured those memories a few years ago by purchasing a rare
1892 J.H. Rushton Adirondack guide boat.
From that single iconic item—a graceful,
handmade vessel resembling a canoe
with oars, fitted with sensuous wooden
planking and caned seats—he created an
entire retail concept.
Just like his guide boat, Gordon’s merchandise is utilitarian, but with a true sense
of provenance, an innate, authentic beauty—whether it’s a $95 striped sailor’s shirt
by the French company that outfitted
Picasso and Chanel, a $4,850 reproduction
of a perky 1950s Sabot sailboat or a $5.50
tin of Rose Salve No. 12, which coincidentally (or perhaps not) was formulated
in 1892.
“It’s not just a boat, it’s symbolic of
something much more,” explains Marie
Wintriss, who worked with Gordon at
Restoration Hardware and Sundance.
“Stephen is able to look at the world or
a thing or an experience and then create
this larger experience for the customer.”
Gordon did just that when he started
Restoration Hardware. After earning his
bachelor’s degree in psychology from
Drew, he got his master’s at Humboldt
State University in Arcata, on the
Northern California coast, and soon
purchased a Queen Anne Victorian house
in nearby Eureka, a former lumber and
fishing boomtown. Working toward
his counseling certification, he had an
epiphany. “I didn’t really enjoy sitting for
eight hours a day and listening to others,”
he admits. “I took my pulse and asked,
‘What am I thinking about?’ Often it was
entrepreneurial thoughts.”
So Gordon decided to renovate his
house, with hopes of opening a bedand-breakfast. “In the process I realized
two things,” he says. “One was that I
couldn’t find the parts, and the second
was that I actually didn’t have any money
to buy the parts.”
“I just happened to recall that somebody
said if you buy something for a dollar and
sell it for $2, everything’s good,” Gordon
remembers. “So I made these binders with
pictures of door knobs and chandeliers
and things.” He paid $30 for a crude sign,
“which actually scared me,” he confesses,
because money was so tight. But then
customers began to appear. “They would
Martin E. Klimek
RIGHT: Guideboat Co.’s
flagship store in Mill Valley,
California. Gordon’s passion
for boats stems from his
childhood on the shores of
Lake Champlain in upstate
New York.
buy five door knobs, then I would buy
five door knobs,” Gordon says. “It was as
simple as that.”
The following year he put $500 worth
of inventory on his credit card and
opened a 300-square-foot store that soon
grew to 3,000 square feet. Gordon found
he had “an intuitive sense of what people
would like.” He also figured out how to
market what they liked. “But ultimately
my whole career has been based pretty
much on what I like,” Gordon says, “and
hoping there were enough other people
who share that.”
A gutsy strategy, but Gordon believes
confidence is at the heart of entrepreneurship. “Entrepreneurs are some of the most
careful people on earth,” he explains.
“They just look like they’re risky.”
“It is what I do.
I don’t play golf—
I build retail brands.”
Stephen Gordon C’73
Summer 2015 9
ENTREPRENEURS
“I learned so much at Drew—
the things one gets in a liberal
arts education that have nothing
to do with a particular discipline.”
“You have to have
radar,” Gordon says. “If
we were all honest with
ourselves, we’d say that
same sense enabled
being great merchants.”
Martin E. Klimek
Stephen Gordon C’73
Martin E. Klimek
From a rare 1892
Adirondack guide boat
he purchased a few years
ago, Gordon created an
entire retail concept.
Digging deeper, proving he still has
his psychology chops, Gordon says he
believes successful merchants simply aim
to please their customers. “And in wanting
to please—be it family, social situations,
whatever—you have to have radar, you
have to be keenly aware of your surroundings. If we were all honest with ourselves,
we’d say that same sense enabled being
great merchants.”
Wintriss says Gordon’s success can
be traced to his ability to “emotionally
connect with people” by telling stories.
At Restoration Hardware, she recalls,
“There’d be a bowl of doorknobs—but
it wouldn’t just be a bowl of doorknobs.
There’d be a sign, with a paragraph of
text that Stephen wrote. He wrote all the
copy, and he told you the story of why
this doorknob was made out of brass,
and the original foundry, the history of
the people and why brass was the best
material to use. All of a sudden, he’s made
this emotional connection.” She laughs.
“You’re finding yourself getting really
emotionally attached to a brass doorknob
that you don’t even need.”
That level of obsession fuels Gordon’s
success. “He’s the kind of guy who will
have a dream about something and wake
up in the middle of the night and send
you an email,” Wintriss says. One time,
another former colleague recalls, Gordon
stumbled upon a vintage penguin cocktail shaker at a martini exhibit at San
Francisco International Airport. “I immediately got a call from Stephen,” designer Ed
Robinson remembers, “saying, ‘You’ve got
to get down to the airport!’”
The Restoration Hardware team produced a version of the shaker in record
time, and it went on to be a top seller. “He
found joy in working really hard, having
excellent standards and pushing his team,”
Robinson says. “But the folks who worked
for him wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“What you see in the product is
Stephen,” says Mary Britton-Rose, who
worked with Gordon at Restoration
Hardware and also came aboard Guideboat.
“He edits it, curates it, tears it down to
something that’s very cohesive, and people
get it immediately.”
“He would say, ‘You’ve gotta think
’til it hurts,’” Wintriss says. “‘So don’t
just take the easy way. Mull things over.
Study things.’”
Gordon credits his college days with
shaping that rigor. “I learned so much
at Drew, and a lot of that was analytical
thinking and how to communicate—the
things one gets in a liberal arts education
that have nothing to do with a particular
discipline.”
His advice for budding entrepreneurs?
“Do what you love,” he says. “Do what feels
natural. Protect your backside. Make sure
you have a safety net. And once you believe
you have it, proceed fearlessly.”
In other words, ply the waters. Gayle Keck
Summer 2015 11
DREW AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP: A TIMELINE
Through the years, Drew has been
a thread connecting a wide range of
successful entrepreneurial venturers.
Here, just a few.
Katherine Knotts C’01, a resident
of England whose consultancy
works with microfinance organizations worldwide, co-authors
The Business of Doing Good.
Niamh Hamill G’15
founds Institute of
Study Abroad Ireland,
a company that leads
educational and cultural
trips to the Emerald Isle.
Jack Harding C’77
founds eSilicon
Corporation, a
privately held
company that designs
and manufactures
custom computer
chips. Today Harding
serves as president
and CEO.
New York lawyers Leonard D.
and Arthur J. Baldwin, who
would later donate $1.5 million
to build a college of liberal
arts on the campus of Drew
Theological Seminary, team with
former New Jersey Governor
John W. Griggs to form a new law
firm, Griggs, Baldwin & Baldwin.
Crain’s New York Business
names Peppercomm, cofounded by Ed Moed C’89, a
Drew trustee, the “Best Place
to Work” in New York City.
“We’re the only company in
the world with a chief comedy
officer,” Moed says.
Wall Street financier Daniel
Drew, who built his fortune
despite little formal schooling,
gives $500,000 toward the
founding of Drew Theological
Seminary.
1885
1970
1 866
1902
199 8
1996
Author, historian and Emmy Award winner
John Cunningham C’38 founds Afton
Press (now Afton Publishing) in Florham
Park, New Jersey. Cunningham, who died in
2012, wrote more than 50 books, including
University in the Forest, a history of Drew.
2009
2000
Drew, Appenzellers, Baldwins, Cunningham: University Archives. Hamill: Lynne DeLade. Dee: Bill Cardoni.
2013
2012
2015
2014
The Thread
Continues >
The Rev. William J. Barber II
T’03, president of the North
Carolina NAACP, organizes Moral
Mondays, a protest movement
aimed at the state’s moves to
restrict voting rights and cut
education spending.
Michael Dee G’05
takes a break from his
entrepreneurial duties as
co-owner of the Smarties
Candy Co. to study
evolutionary science.
Ella and Henry
Appenzeller T’1885
embark on a gamechanging mission
to bring Protestant
Christianity to Korea.
Yasin Abbak C’09 and
Stacy Sailer C’10 co-found
Paired Media, an advertising
agency focused on the
restaurant industry.
ABC News calls Omar Rodriguez-Graham C’02
one of Mexico’s “up-and-coming painters,” carrying
on the tradition of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera.
Five years later Rodriguez-Graham is listed in
100 Painters of Tomorrow (Thames & Hudson).
Harding: courtesy of eSilicon. Rodriguez-Graham: Rodrigo Ceballos. Moed, Ingrao: Deborah Feingold.
Barber: Justin Cook. Abbak, Sailer: courtesy of Paired Media. Knotts: courtesy of Katherine Knotts.
Architectural Digest gushes over
a Time Warner Center penthouse
apartment that Tony Ingrao C’78
designed for real estate titan
Stephen Ross. To wit: “The entry,
extravagantly inlaid with different
kinds of stone, sets the tone for the
residence, but the blend of exotic
materials doesn’t stop there.”
Summer 2015 13
ENTREPRENEURS
Pastor/Entrepreneur
2006
From the pulpit of his New Jersey church, De’Andre Salter C’92
preaches the power of the purse.
“The whole Bible
is full of enterprises,
It says a lot about De’Andre Salter that
one of his first priorities upon becoming
senior pastor of Tabernacle Church in
South Plainfield, New Jersey, nine years
ago was to buy a master franchise license
from a commercial cleaning service chain.
Salter used that investment to help
shepherd 55 unemployed members of his
flock through the process of starting their
own cleaning businesses. The graduates
of Salter’s biblically based entrepreneurial
boot camp saw their lives transformed. Today, he says, some earn incomes in excess
of $100,000 a year.
Making money isn’t a taboo topic at
Tabernacle. Far from it. That’s made clear
by the church’s stated mission: “to train
people to intentionally use their time,
talent and money to make a Christ impact
in the world.”
The irony? Salter himself isn’t on salary.
A Newark native, Salter, 43, left a suc-
startups and ventures.”
2010
De’Andre Salter C’92
cessful corporate career to start his own
insurance brokerage in 2001. Today the
firm has offices in New Jersey, Maryland
and Florida.
So Salter volunteers his time at Tabernacle, where his mother, Emma, preceded
him as pastor. “I believe all that I have has
been given to me for the purpose of being
pastor of Tabernacle Church,” says Salter, a
father of four and the husband of novelist
Terri Jones Salter.
Recently elected as one of the College
Alumni Association’s representatives
on the university’s Board of Trustees,
Salter may be a prosperous minister, but
don’t call him a prosperity preacher. His
experience as an entrepreneur and angel
investor has taught him there’s more to
achieving wealth than simply believing
riches will come, as some proponents of
“prosperity theology” maintain.
His recently published book, Seven
Wealth Building Secrets: Your Guide to
Money and Meaning (LifeBridge Books,
2015), distills those life lessons into a 176page guide to merging faith and finances.
The book draws from a higher authority
than Harvard Business School—namely,
the Bible. Salter says the scriptures contain
no fewer than 2,300 verses dealing with
wealth and money management. Clearly
the Lord has opinions on the matter.
If “Blessed are the poor” is the passage
that springs to mind, Salter says, it bears
noting that Jesus was referring to the
simple-hearted, not the materially disadvantaged. “Poverty,” he says, “is no badge
of honor.” While he’s been at Tabernacle,
unemployment among Salter’s predominantly African-American congregation has
never risen above 6.5 percent, Salter notes,
even at the height of the Great Recession,
when the nationwide jobless rate for blacks
was 14 percent.
Among the book’s surprises is Salter’s
contention that Jesus wasn’t poor.
Consider the evidence. His parents,
Joseph and Mary, had the means to travel to Bethlehem prior to his birth and stay
in an inn (had a room been available).
They also made the annual trek from
their home in Nazareth to Jerusalem to
celebrate Passover, a vacation of sorts
that many Jews of his day couldn’t afford.
And as a carpenter by trade, Salter
argues, Joseph likely would have earned
enough money to leave his son at least a
small inheritance.
“Now, he wasn’t rich,” Salter notes, “but
he definitely wasn’t poor.”
God wants Christians to prosper
financially so they’ll have the resources
to “solve the planet’s problems,” Salter
writes. “The whole Bible is full of
enterprises, startups and ventures.”
Shannon Mullen
Making Her Way
Bill Cardoni. Opposite: Courtesy of Emily Blitz.
Emily (Knox) Blitz C’96 put
her experience to work when
she started her own consultancy in Switzerland.
Emily Blitz had nearly a decade of experience with a Geneva-based AIDS
organization under her belt when, in
2010, she found herself rather abruptly
unemployed.
What to do? Blitz packed up her
experience planning large-scale global
health conferences and high-level
meetings for international HIV organizations and went out on her own as
a consultant. The decision matched
perfectly her expertise with her ambitions. “I like the magic of being part of
something big,” she says.
These days Blitz keeps pushing
herself into new roles, thanks in part to
skills she learned as a theatre arts major at Drew, where she got to “try a little
bit of everything. I was props designer,
stage manager, onstage, backstage.”
Drew also gave Blitz a passion for
helping others around the world. As
a sophomore she spent a semester in
Thailand, her first visit to a developing
country. “It was my first experience in
really seeing how people lived with
much less than I did, and opening that
door for me clicked,” Blitz says. After
graduation, she joined the Peace Corps.
To expand her client options, last
year Blitz signed up for humanitarian
operations training run by Save the
Children. “We had to turn in our com-
puters and phones and live and work
in tents for a week of scenario-based
learning,” she says. “It was emotionally
hard, freezing cold, incredibly frustrating
and I absolutely loved it.” The experience
helped her secure her current contract
with UNICEF.
Self-employment suits Blitz. “I have
done so many things I never would
have done if I stayed where I was,” she
says. “I have a lot more confidence in my
adaptability and flexibility than I did five
years ago.” Jenna Schnuer
Summer 2015 15
ENTREPRENEURS
ILLUSTRATION BY JOE CARDIELLO
2008
If Kitchen a la Mode in South Orange, New Jersey, doesn’t stock
it, your kitchen doesn’t need it. Ben Salmon C’03 opened his
1,000-square-foot shop (which stocks 6,000 items) in 2008. “We
have a really great community of customers, much like the great
community at Drew,” he says. “I’m drawn to great communities, and
I always seem to end up in the middle of one.”
2010
For Alain Farrelly C’99 and his two brothers, sitting around drinking
coffee isn’t slacking off—it’s their business. The trio launched
Brewklyn Grind, their artisan coffee roaster and café, in 2010. After
Hurricane Sandy wiped out their shop in Red Hook, they relaunched
on higher ground in Clinton Hill. “We are three boys from Brooklyn,”
Farrelly says, “so we are scrappy, street smart and like a good fight.”
2012
When one of Brandon Michael Arrington’s [C’99] catering bosses
found out the former drama student could spin magic from sugar
and flour, a baking star was born. Arrington’s business, Danta Bonnier,
specializes in a French almond cookie known as a “croquet bordelais.”
His cooking career began beside his Grandma Mary. “In the end,”
Arrington says, “it turned into doing a 300-person dessert party for
the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.”
2013
Bread fanatics on California’s central coast beat a path to Kirsten
Finberg Frazier’s [C’00] Little Red Hen Bread, where they indulge in
loaves of potato rosemary and jalapeño cheddar bread, among other
delights. “We kind of live in a fast-paced world,” she says, “and this is
something that takes a good deal of time and skill to accomplish.”
Jenna Schnuer
Summer 2015 17
ENTREPRENEURS
Media Magnate
2008
On the strength of her magazine on Muslim culture,
Moniza Khokhar C’05 takes on television.
Moniza Khokhar
can trace her path to
a career as a media
entrepreneur to a
specific date—
September 11, 2001.
She was just a
week into her first
year at Drew when
Islamic terrorists killed
nearly 3,000 innocent
Americans, plunging
the country into war.
Khokhar, who was
born in Saudi Arabia to Pakistani parents and who moved with
her family to Basking Ridge, New Jersey, when she was a baby,
says the questions she wrestled with after 9/11 led her to examine
her own cultural and religious roots.
“The more I discovered about the rich history of the Middle
East and South Asia, its people and their accomplishments,” she
says, “the more I realized it was a major part of who I am.”
Her journey of self-discovery led to freelance writing jobs for
Muslim periodicals and eventually a master’s degree in Islamic
Cultural Studies from Columbia University. In 2008 she started
The Undergrad and the App
“Readers say they love
reading elan first thing in the
morning because it uplifts
and inspires them.”
Moniza Khokhar C’05
elan, a magazine focused on global Muslim culture. Elan means
“announcement” in Arabic, Urdu and Farsi.
Seven years later, elan has moved online and reaches some
3 million readers worldwide. But these days Khokhar has an even
bigger vision. She recently partnered with veteran TV producer John
Miller on a new media venture called Locomojo. They plan to produce television shows around the globe and create a brand that will
resonate with young Muslims worldwide. The positive feedback she’s
received from elan’s loyal readers tells her she’s on the right track.
“Elan’s platform helped us have ownership over our community’s
narrative,” she explains. “We counteracted the oftentimes negative
coverage in mainstream press. We’ve gotten letters from readers
that say they love reading elan first thing in the morning because
it uplifts and inspires them.”
And that, she says, “is all I need to know to keep going.”
Shannon Mullen
the father at different times, and then
I train their three kids at another time
during the week. I train two 84-year-old
women, so I go from actually training a
4-year-old to training an 84-year-old
the same day. I love it.
Steiner says Drew introduced him to
like-minded entrepreneurial students and
supportive professors who motivated
him to follow his dream of starting the
next big tech company. These days he’s
studying for his MBA at Carnegie Mellon
University in Pittsburgh, where he’s learning to code apps himself. He says he has
a “few ideas kicking around” for new ones.
Gwen Moran
because I was planning on opening my
own business. When I was at Drew, I had
a couple jobs.
Given you played sports and majored
in business, how do you feel Drew prepared you for what you’re doing now?
If I didn’t major in business, I would just
Did you finance the business out of
understand all the athletics of personal
your own pocket? I didn’t have any
help financially from my parents or the training. But because I majored in busibank or anything. I had to invest money ness, it gave me the opportunity to actufor my marketing, for my website, social ally have my own company. And playing
sports in college obviously helped me
media, clothing, merchandise. But I’d
been saving for that throughout college with the personal training side.
Brooke Gagliano C’14
Karen Mancinelli; Neil Steiner. Opposite: Bill Cardoni.
You graduated in 2014. What are you
doing now? I have my own personal
training business. I travel to clients’
houses or they travel to me. I’ll basically
train them in a personal training 101
session or we do group training sessions
from two to five people. I do sports-
specific training in field hockey, lacrosse
and softball, which I played in college.
“Drew gave me a jumpstart
to what I need to
do to prepare myself
for the real world.”
2013
Semester. Marc Tomljanovich, an
associate professor of economics and
the program’s co-director, says students
in the program used Class Chat to communicate throughout the semester. It
has since been used for both the spring
Wall Street Semester and the Wall Street
Summer Program.
Steiner and his coding partner also
developed Glimpse Messenger, which
allows users to send “self-destructing”
messages in a secure way, much like
SnapChat allows people to send photos
that “disappear.” Developing the apps,
Steiner says, taught him about the
challenges of getting users to adopt new
applications. Some students were enthusiastic, he says, others not so much. Class
Chat is no longer supported, but Glimpse
Messenger is available for iPhone.
2014
Brooke Gagliano C’14, a former All-American, on her personal training
business, her 84-year-old clients, and her favorite class at Drew.
When did you start the business?
About three months after I graduated.
Right now I have about 20 clients. I have
a kids group: I train the mother and
George Steiner C’14 facilitated discussions with a
little Class Chat.
Some of us cope with life’s annoyances—and some of us, like George

Steiner, solve them by building apps.
An economics major, Steiner says he
wanted to be able to talk with his classmates about lessons and homework
assignments “as if you’d all bumped into
each other in the library.”
In March 2013, Steiner conceived an
app that would enable his classmates
to do just that. With a programmer
partner, Steiner developed Class Chat,
a platform for dedicated classroom chat
rooms. Students who signed up for the
app could post questions and engage in
text-based exchanges without having to
track down classmates’ phone numbers
or connect on social media.
Steiner had just finished the app
when he began the Wall Street
Q&A With a Crossfit Queen
Was there any particular experience at
Drew that stoked your entrepreneurial
spirit? “Management,” with Professor
[Jennifer] Kohn. We had to do projects,
and our project was to open your own
business. I was like, “Perfect.” I knew from
the start I wanted to have my own facility, and I said, “There’s no better class
than this one.” Professor Kohn kept saying, “Why this? Why that? Change this.
Try this.” And that really helped me with
my business today because Drew gave
me a jumpstart to what I need to do to
prepare myself for the real world. Dustin Racioppi
Joyce Reilly C’74, the
founder of Adesha Village,
decided at a young age
she wanted to spend her
life listening to people tell
their stories.
AN
URGE TO
HEAL
One local organization houses the homeless.
A faraway group promotes peace in the Middle East.
An undergrad knits hats for those in need
across the globe.
Drew has long fostered a passion for
entrepreneurship in the nonprofit world.
“Therewasadeeplycompassionate
and even spiritual background
to most of the people I met in
the psychology department.”
Bill Cardoni
Joyce Reilly C’74
FI RST C AME T HE STORI ES. Joyce Reilly C’74 heard them from her
mother—how she’d been orphaned in the flu epidemic of 1918 and spent
her childhood in a succession of foster homes, how Reilly’s father had grown
up dirt poor in an alcoholic household. “My mother had the wisdom to talk
about things in a way that allowed you to see why people ended up doing
what they did,” she says.
Early on, Reilly decided she wanted to spend her life listening to people
tell their stories. It wasn’t long before she figured out she also wanted to heal
their pain. At the age of 12, she hatched a plan for founding a therapeutic
community—a place where people with mental illness could live together
and receive help and support—though it wasn’t until her first day at Drew
that she learned such places actually existed. She met a classmate who had
worked summers at a facility that was, she says, “just what I had in mind.”
Summer 2015 21
ENTREPRENEURS
In Patrick McGuinn’s course,
“Social Policy and Inequality in America,” students
surveyed social service
agencies to determine their
most pressing needs.
After graduating with a degree in psychology, Reilly worked in a
therapeutic community in England and then a psychiatric hospital in
Germany. In 1984 she opened Gheel House, where she lived with six
residents with mental illness, in Kimberton, Pennsylvania. She left
Gheel House after nearly a decade—the community still runs smoothly
today—but the urge to heal continued to inspire her. In 2005 she helped
found Adesha Village, a therapeutic community in Chester Springs,
Pennsylvania, where she still works as a consultant, trainer and mentor
to the staff.
Reilly credits Drew with giving her a new way to think about mental
illness and with nurturing her social conscience. “I had a very strong
sense that there was a deeply compassionate and even spiritual
background to most of the people I met in the psychology department,”
she says.
Throughout its history, Drew has fostered in its students a desire to
give back through creativity, forward thinking, hard work and researchbacked risk-taking. Those traits constitute the very essence of entrepreneurship, even when applied in the nonprofit world. Like their for-profit
counterparts, nonprofit entrepreneurs often start by recognizing a need
and then setting out to fill it. Sometimes their work takes them across the
globe, and sometimes they find a cause in their own backyard.
For Emily Kubin, a Drew junior majoring in
psychology, inspiration struck early, when she
spotted a homeless man sleeping in a cardboard
box in Morristown, New Jersey, her hometown.
“I couldn’t understand it,” she says. “How could
we all be living in houses and he didn’t have one?
It bothered me, and I wanted to change it.” In
high school she combined two passions, knitting
and social justice, and started making hats for
the homeless. To date, Emily’s Hats for Hope has
donated some 17,000 hats in Morristown and
across the country, and spawned more than 40
sister groups around the world.
In her sophomore year at Drew, Melanie
Robbins C’11 co-founded PeaceBuilders, an organization promoting grassroots efforts to build an
Israeli-Palestinian peace. Since early adolescence
she’s supported the idea of a Jewish state in Israel,
but during her years at Drew her view of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict grew more nuanced.
She credits her participation in Drew’s Semester
at the United Nations with opening her eyes to
the world of international nonprofits. After graduating, she moved to Israel and founded Turning
Walls into Windows, which aimed to bring people
from around the world to Israel’s West Bank
so they could view the conflict from what she
describes as “a human rights–based approach.”
Sometimes entrepreneurship is born out of the
need to heal oneself. Michael Bethune T’08, who’s
worked as a minister for the past two decades,
has written two books, each a product of personal
pain. After serving in the Army in Nicaragua in
the 1980s, Bethune struggled with post-traumatic
stress disorder. He recovered, he says, thanks to “a
calling to help people every day that I have breath
and strength to do it.” That calling impelled him
to write Unto the Last of These, a book designed to
help nonprofits achieve real compassion for those
they serve.
Then last year, Bethune’s older brother
committed suicide after a period of unemployment. Through his grief, Bethune began to realize
that his brother “didn’t know how to turn that
Clockwise from top left: Courtesy of Melanie Robbins; Peter Murphy; Bill Cardoni. Opposite: Courtesy of Sharnice Jones.
FAR LEFT: At Drew, Melanie Robbins
C’11 (in center of photo) co-founded
PeaceBuilders, an organization
promoting an Israeli-Palestinian
peace. LEFT: At Homeless Solutions
in Morristown, New Jersey, Betsey
Hall T’84 opened a retail shop selling
used furniture.
corner, repackage and rebrand himself.” He wrote a second book, 8
Steps to Getting Unstuck in Life, designed to help readers move past despair.
Bethune says he’s been inspired by his training at Drew, which “helped
make my faith an anchor for me in the worst moments in my life.”
It takes more than inspiration, of course, to make an impact in the
nonprofit realm. As with any entrepreneurial venture, nonprofits
require research, planning, funding and hard work. Fran Palm C’88 was
working for the Women’s Health & Counseling Center in Somerville,
New Jersey, when she realized that traditional funding streams from
donors and government sources weren’t going to be sufficient to sustain
the charity. So she turned an occasional fundraising event—what she
calls “a glorified garage sale”—into a permanent venture. She raised
$20,000 in startup capital and, in 2013, opened the Good as New thrift
shop. She had to be creative to find stock, so she established a partnership with the for-profit company Got Junk?, which agreed to donate a
percentage of the discards it picked up.
Like Palm, Betsey Hall T’84 turned to a retail model when the
Morristown-based nonprofit she headed, Homeless Solutions, needed to
find additional funding. She established Furnishing Solutions, a resale
shop, in 2013. Homeless Solutions also has built or renovated 79 affordable, eco-friendly homes, and more are planned. But Hall, who stepped
down as CEO in July, acknowledges that traditional funding sources are
not always available to nonprofit entrepreneurs. “In the for-profit world,
there are venture-capital and borrowing avenues that don’t really exist
for us,” she says.
Molly Singer C’88, whose background is in management consulting,
founded Dexterity Management in part to help nonprofits become more
entrepreneurial. “I help them move from the idea to the process to the
outcome,” she says. One of her clients, an organization that provides
housing for people with mental illness, “changed policies so much they
worked themselves out of a purpose.” She’s now helping the group
assess newer areas of need, including housing for seniors and veterans.
Singer’s experience underscores that sometimes the helpers need
some help. That was the idea behind an innovative course at Drew that
provided local nonprofits with some muchneeded business acumen. Patrick McGuinn,
an associate professor of political science,
designed the course in response to a request
from Morristown’s Interfaith Food Pantry.
Rosemary Gilmartin, the pantry’s director and
a former assistant dean of students at Drew,
wanted to get more information about the
needs of the people she served. In McGuinn’s
course, “Social Policy and Inequality in
America,” first taught last spring, students
surveyed town governments, social service
agencies, food pantries and soup kitchens to
determine the most pressing exigencies. Some
pantries, for example, couldn’t provide fresh
food because they lacked refrigeration, and
several social service agencies said their clients
couldn’t use the local pantries because they
lacked transportation.
McGuinn hopes the data will lead to new
pantries in areas of particular need. And the
class, which will likely be taught every other
year, is already changing lives: For the students,
McGuinn says, “it was an eye-opening and
transformative experience”—and perhaps a
jumping-off point for Drew’s next generation
of nonprofit entrepreneurs. Leslie Garisto Pfaff
Teaching Success
One newly minted grad’s nonprofit aims to help young people make good decisions.
Sharnice Jones C’15 was a freshman in
high school when a guidance counselor
suggested she compete in the NAACP’s
Afro-Academic, Cultural, Technological and
Scientific Olympics, a yearlong program in
which high-performing students compete for
scholarship funds in one of 26 categories.
A budding singer, Jones initially entered the
competition in the vocal category. In her
junior year she tried again, this time with an
essay titled “Success before Sex.” She won
the highest award in its category.
When Jones was working on the essay,
which focused on the threat of HIV and
AIDS, she thought she could make her point
more forcefully if she interviewed someone
with the disease. She chose a young man
who told her he’d become sexually active at
12, the same age as her brother at the time.
“To think of that was very powerful for me,”
she says, “and something I wanted to help
change if I possibly could.”
As a high school senior, Jones expanded
the essay into a book, which was published
under the same title in 2012. A year later,
during her first year at Drew, she turned the
book into a nonprofit business. Through
workshops, presentations, online chats,
competitions and special events, Success
1st encourages young people from 11 to
22 to develop
decision-making
skills in education, dating,
leadership, and
internet, social
and personal
safety. All profits from the book go to support the organization,
which is also funded by donations. To help her spread her message, Jones put together a team of six other equally outgoing
and articulate young people.
Jones plans to study public health and hopes that one of her
younger speakers will take over the nonprofit’s helm. “I’d like to
keep the youthful perspective,” she says, “and keep sharing the
message with as many people as I can.”
Summer 2015 23
ALL THE WORLD’S
A S TA G E
At Drew, theatre arts students don’t just act
in plays—they write them, direct them, even
build sets for them. Which might explain why
an extraordinary number of theatre alumni
have headlined in entrepreneurial roles.
THE
big show that Dan Studney and Kevin
Murphy wrote and staged together as
students—Valley of Kings, the one that cost Studney
a full semester and put him on the five-year plan
at Drew—was an Indiana Jones-style adventure
musical with a score for 13 instruments. Studney
squirreled himself away from classes in the
basement of Bowne Theatre to write the orchestrations, build a giant tomb for the set, and dream of
bright lights ahead.
ILLUSTRATION BY TOM FROESE
Summer 2015 25
ENTREPRENEURS
“Oh yeah, we saw that thing going to
Broadway for sure,” says Studney C’89, who
majored in theatre arts and minored in music.
“I figured I didn’t want to give myself a backup
option. I thought that was just an excuse
to fail.”
Valley of Kings didn’t make it beyond Drew,
but its two creators were determined to. “I
really didn’t think I could make a living doing
musical theatre, which is the thing I really love
to do the most,” says Murphy C’89.
So they headed to California—Murphy first,
then Studney—and wrote for a series of television shows, including Weird Science and Honey,
I Shrunk the Kids, but still dreamed of a musical.
“While we were making TV-writer money,
which was good money and pretty stable, we
decided we’d just write a musical,” Murphy
says. They collaborated on a musical adaptation
of the 1930s anti-drug movie Reefer Madness.
Murphy wrote the book and lyrics, Studney the
music. “Nobody paid us for it,” Murphy says.
“There was no reason to do it other than we
wanted to do it.”
Their Reefer Madness opened in Los Angeles
in 1998, played Off-Broadway in New York in
2001 and was made into a movie in 2005. The
musical has since been seen around the world
in a steady stream of productions—more than
100 are scheduled over the next two years—and
has provided a steady stream of income for
“I didn’t want to give
myself a backup option.
I thought that was
just an excuse to fail.”
Elizabeth Timperman C’92
won a Tony in 2010 as
co-producer of a revival
of La Cage aux Folles.
Dan Studney C’89
its creators. And when they recorded a Reefer
Madness cast album, they added a bonus track:
“Weather Changes,” a song from Valley of Kings.
“None of that would have ever happened
without that initial leap of faith,” Murphy says.
For theatre arts graduates, entrepreneurship
is often a means, not an end—a step along a
career path, not the final destination. Write a
play and try to produce it. Write a script and
try to sell it. Make an independent film and try
to screen it. Start a theatre company and try to
grow it. Then do it again. Theatre artists need to
be not only serial creators, making something
new again and again, but serial entrepreneurs,
selling their work again and again.
“The nature of the theatre is finite,” says
Elizabeth Timperman C’92, executive director
of Olympus Theatricals, which produces shows
Writing partners Kevin
Murphy C’89 and Dan
Studney C’89, here with
their 2005 Creative
Arts Emmy Awards
for their work on the
musical Reefer Madness,
first worked together
as undergrads at Drew.
Rebecca Schlossberg C’09
Five theatre arts grads collaborate on a Philadelphia theatre company.
In the summer of 2003, in Gigi Naglak’s
apartment in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, five
recent theatre arts graduates finally took the
step they had been talking about for months.
“It was the Fourth of July, and we declared
ourselves an independent theatre company,”
says Naglak C’99, the oldest of the five, just
back from a master’s degree program in
England and working as a temp.
The youngest, Meghann Williams C’02,
pushed for Philadelphia as the location,
where she was working as company manager
of Prince Music Theater. “It seemed like a
place where we could really make a mark,”
she says. “New York just felt very crowded.”
The other three agreed—Derick
Loafmann C’01, Erin Lucas C’01 and
Michael Osinski C’01, a Rolling Stones
fan who suggested they borrow the
name of a live album: Flashpoint. “It
means ‘the moment of combustion,’”
Williams says, “and we thought that’s
just what we want it to be.”
They spent a year raising money and
planning the first production. “The Drew
theatre department makes you do everything yourself, and it encourages you to learn
all sides of the theatre,” Williams says. “Thank
God, because Flashpoint would not have
happened if we did not have that knowledge
and that experience,” she adds.
Flashpoint Theatre Company’s premiere
took place in October 2004, in the 35seat Shubin Theatre just off South Street:
The Credeaux Canvas by Keith Bunin. The company grew
into larger quarters and more ambitious productions, acquired new members and gradually each of the original five
left for other projects.
Naglak, the curator of museum education at the American
Philosophical Society, recently attended the closing night
of Flashpoint’s latest production, Hands Up: 6 Playwrights,
6 Testaments. “I leapt to my feet for a standing ovation at
the end of the show,” she says. “I was the first person up.
I was so proud. I was like, ‘This is exactly what I had in my
mind in my living room 12 years ago talking about what this
was going to be.’” Kevin Coyne
Courtesy of Meghann Williams. Opposite: (above left) Stephen
Shugerman/2005 Getty Images. (above right) Bill Cardoni.
An Ensemble Production
in New York and London. “It opens, it closes.
Nothing runs forever. You’re always sort of
keeping an eye out for what your next job is
going to be.”
Like many theatre arts graduates, Timperman
tried to make her first job in acting, moving to
New York and auditioning for part after part.
And also like many theatre arts graduates, she
soon realized that she couldn’t just wait around
for callbacks. She took her head shot to a small
theatre on her native Long Island, Bay Street
Theater in Sag Harbor, hoping for a part but
settling for a production job. “You just don’t
turn down an opportunity,” says Timperman,
who later started a theatre company of her
own and worked for Off-Broadway companies
producing plays and musicals before landing on
Broadway with Olympus Theatricals, where she
won a Tony in 2010 as co-producer of a revival
of La Cage aux Folles. “If someone says to you,
‘Oh, you can sit on the sidelines and just wait to
get a job or you can have this smaller job,’ well,
I was always, ‘Well, I’ll do that.’”
Drew’s theatre arts program, long ranked
among the top 10 in the nation, has a broader
philosophy than other undergraduate
programs, offering a BA, not the narrower
BFA of a conservatory like Carnegie Mellon’s,
and requiring all majors to take a turn at all
aspects of producing a show, from hanging
lights to building sets to performing on stage.
“All the tools that allow them to be independently creative,” says Chris Ceraso, chair
of the Department of Theatre and Dance.
“So many people get the idea that what
the theatre world is about is walking into
somebody’s audition room, doing a great
audition, smiling and having somebody fall
in love with you and give you a part and then
you’re famous,” Ceraso says. “But that career
happens for very few people. The people I
know that are working are constantly creating
things on their own. They create their own
theatre companies, they do their own work,
they write their own plays.”
A lot of their own plays. “I’ve written more
Annalisa Ledson C’10
Madeleine Parsigian C’09
Summer 2015 27
ENTREPRENEURS
Bradley Wrenn C ’02
Theatre and Dance
Chair Chris Ceraso
says Drew’s curriculum
requires students to
hone “all the tools that
allow them to be independently creative.”
Steven Strafford C’99
mined his own struggle
with drug addiction to
create a darkly comic
one-man show.
Christopher Shorr C’94
Liliana Ashman C’10
Whitney Estrin C’02
“Young adults do have the
power to run things.”
Catherine Spino C’15
Peter Murphy. Bottom: Bruce Frazier. Opposite: Lynne DeLade.
Jessica Loria C’09
plays than years I’ve been alive,” says Rebecca
Schlossberg C’09, who at 29 has written 40 plays
and co-founded a theatre company, Sunglasses
after Dark, with a Drew classmate, Madeleine
Parsigian C’09. They have cast Drew alumni
in their productions, and when filming one
of Schlossberg’s short plays recently used as a
set the Lower East Side rooftop of yet another
classmate.
Some start dance companies, like Angie
Phillips C’10, whose Full Force Dance Repertory
is based at Brooklyn Friends School, and who
also works as a dance therapist; and Annalisa
Ledson C’10, a choreographer who is launching
a performance company this summer, Current
Harbor, that will, she says, “create live performances with original movement and sound with
an optimistic viewpoint.”
Some try to make people laugh, like Jessica
Loria C’09, who helps run Go Comedy! Improv
Theater outside Detroit; and Bradley Wrenn C’02,
whose Philadelphia-based comedic performance
company, The Berserkers, has staged shows in
such unlikely venues as a fallout shelter and the
recreation hall of a Romanian Orthodox church.
Some bring theatre to places that haven’t
seen much before, like Christopher Shorr C’94,
who raised $1 million to open a theatre and
arts center in downtown Petersburg, Virginia;
and Whitney Estrin C’02, one of the founders of
Shakespeare in Clark Park in West Philadelphia,
which celebrated its 10th season this summer.
“We didn’t know if anyone would show up,”
says Estrin, who went on to earn a master’s
degree in theatre management at the Yale
School of Drama and is now director of development for Theatre for a New Audience in
Brooklyn. “But over 2,000 people attended the
first four performances.”
Some mine their own lives for one-person
shows, like Liliana Ashman C’10, whose
struggle with the Irish immigration authorities
was the raw material of How I Learned to Stop
Worrying and Love the Gardai; and Dana SumnerPritchard C’12, who developed her show,
Boobs and Hope, in a workshop at Drew with
Steven Strafford C’99.
“It began as an exercise in exorcism,”
Strafford says about his own darkly comic
one-man show, Methtacular!—about his
years as a meth addict in his 20s. “Rosemary
McLaughlin”—a theatre arts professor and the
director of the dance minor at Drew—“said
early on to me, ‘Don’t be afraid to be incredibly
specific about your own stuff because the more
you do that, the more universal your play will
be.’ That advice stayed in my ear for a really
long time.”
And some never give up the dream of
musicals. “I’m always going to be working on
a musical,” says Kevin Murphy, who later
became head writer for Desperate Housewives, and
is executive producer and co-creator of Defiance,
a series on SyFy. His Heathers: The Musical, based
on the movie and written with a different
collaborator, opened Off-Broadway in 2014.
“I’m trying to think of what the next music
project is.” Kevin Coyne
Command Performance
While still a teenager, Catherine Spino started
an acting company for teenagers.
Before she left home for first-year orientation at Drew,
Catherine Spino C’15 had some pressing business to attend
to—final rehearsals for The 39 Steps, the first play staged by the
Boston Teen Acting Troupe, the theatre company she had just
started. She was co-directing along with her co-founder, Jack
Serio, who had just finished his freshman year of high school.
“He sat me down and said, ‘I’m thinking of starting a theatre
company,’” Spino says, recalling the conversation that started it
all. “And I said, ‘OK, cool.’ And he said, ‘No, when I say I am, I mean
we are going to start a theatre company.’ I’m still kind of shellshocked we’ve made it this far.”
The 39 Steps was staged in a social hall in Boston. By the time
Spino directed J.B. Priestley’s An Inspector Calls in the summer
of 2014, the company had been featured in The Boston Globe,
The New York Times and on National Public Radio, and attracted
a large enough audience to sell out five of its six nights in a real
theatre, at the Boston Center for the Arts.
Spino met Serio in a community theatre teen acting program
that cast her as Helen of Troy in Euripides’ The Trojan Women
(in her high school production of Gypsy, she’d played the back
end of a cow). “That’s our mission—to create really thought-
provoking professional theatre for teens,” she says.
And Drew, where she received a Presidential Scholarship for
Theatre Arts, was a natural next step. “It stands above the rest in
the sense that it’s run by students,” Spino says, “and I think that
also empowered me to continue with the company, knowing that
we as young adults do have the power to run things.”
Kevin Coyne
Summer 2015 29
Into the Forest
AROUND THE
Drewniverse
More Fall
Happenings
Hilltop House
In July, President MaryAnn
Baenninger and her husband, Ron,
marked their one-year anniversary
as campus residents.
Concert Hall
drew.edu/concerthall
An insider’s guide to what’s
happening on campus.
October 2
Queen of Hearts Concert
October 11
New Jersey Festival Orchestra Concert
October 19
Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center:
Haydn, Mendelssohn & Schumann
November 7
da Camera Concert: Kathryn Findlen
and Richard Masters
Caspersen School of
Graduate Studies
MAT students can be dually certified
in elementary or secondary education
and special education.
Embury Hall
Simon Forum and
Athletic Center
On a short TREC to South Africa,
eight students learned about
health care, medicine
and faith traditions.
By the time you read this,
men’s soccer Coach Lenny Armuth
might have captured his 300th
victory at Drew.
Seminary Hall
Brothers College
Sycamore Cottage
This fall, The Forest welcomes
420 members of the Class
of 2019, a 21 percent
increase from last fall.
drew.edu/forum
September 10
Ira Berkow with Walt “Clyde” Frazier
September 29
Calvin Trillin
October 15
Ira Berkow with Jim Bouton
November 4
David McCullough
Mead Hall
Last school year, the Center for
Internships and Career Development
helped students land 390 internships,
with the Boston Red Sox, U.S. Senator
Cory Booker and the Shakespeare
Theatre of New Jersey,
to name just three.
Wesley House
The campus celebrates
the Inauguration of President
MaryAnn Baenninger
on Oct. 1–2.
drew.edu/inauguration
Korn Gallery
drew.edu/korngallery
September 3–October 8
Jason Karolak: Linemaker
October 20–November 20
Robin Koss: Prints and Collages
An Admissions Office
renovation will open up
the space for visitors.
Dorothy Young Center for the Arts
Hall of Sciences
The Drew Forum
This year’s Tipple-Vosburgh Lectures
and Theo School Alumni Reunion
on October 13–14 focuses on mission—
then, now and in the future.
drew.edu/tipple
Theatre arts professor Lisa Brenner captures
the culture of play in her book Playing
Harry Potter: Essays and Interviews on
Fandom and Performance.
Drew Summer Science Institute
students’ research topics include
HIV treatment, diabetes control
and eco-friendly plastic.
Tilghman House
The Inauguration of
Major renovations will make way
for INTO’s new home base, as well
as additional classroom space for the
whole community.
October 1–2
Spiritual Leadership
Today Workshops
drew.edu/slt
The Farmers Market, co-sponsored
by Drew, is held every Thursday
afternoon through October 15.
Map by Anne Smith
Downtown Madison
September 12
Retirement—a Life-Stage Ripe for
Pastoral Care
September 25
Growing Holy Relationships through
Small Group Ministry
October 10
Energy Conservation Training for
Faith Communities
October 30
Reinvent Advents
Tipple-Vosburgh Lectures
and Theological School
Alumni Reunion
drew.edu/tipple
October 13–14
Summer 2015 31
CLASSNOTES
The College of Liberal Arts
A Small Act Yields
Generous Rewards
The daughter of an Oberlin College professor, Joan Steiner gave 30 years of her life
to Drew as a beloved teacher and respected scholar of modern and contemporary
British literature. Shortly after arriving at Drew in 1968, Joan developed some of Drew’s
earliest courses on African-American literature, then an emerging field of study.
University Archives; Bill Cardoni
After her retirement in 1998, Joan made Drew a beneficiary of her retirement assets. She
also left the university her home in Florham Park, New Jersey. Her gifts, which amount to
$2 million, are now supporting the Library Book Endowment Fund as well as materials
related to African-American studies. They also serve as a reminder of the transformational impact that bequests and other planned gifts have on Drew.
Jim Dewart, [email protected]
54
Mary Z. Hepburn, [email protected]
I have volunteered to resume doing
Classnotes, a position that my wife,
Elaine, assumed for many years prior to her
death in 2012. Seventy years ago Elaine and
I met at a welcome party in Brothers College.
I continue to live in our South Jersey home
and remain active at the Haddonfield United
Methodist Church. I have close ties to my
three children, eight grandchildren and 11
great-grandchildren.
Margo Sarno, who lives at Heritage Village
in Southbury, Connecticut, remains upbeat.
We remember her incredible solos with the
women’s chorus.
Mary Romano Alvey C’45, P’77 maintains
her private piano pupils and directs a women’s
chorus in Morristown.
Louis Philippe Goldman C’50 published
a book of fables titled The Rise and Fall of the
Gimmee Gimmee Birds.
I’d appreciate hearing from members of
our class. Look for my call for information
about your families and activities.
By naming Drew a beneficiary of her estate—an easy and
powerful gesture of generosity—Joan Steiner left Drew a
transformative $2 million planned gift.
Your legacy. Drew’s future. For more information on planned gifts, contact David
Terdiman C’89, 973.408.3899 or [email protected].
48
Marianne (Kirchoff) and Warren
Campbell C’55 greatly enjoyed a
2014 Christmas visit from their German
granddaughter, Katie, who lived with them
for a year in 2012–2013 and this year graduated from her German high school. Last
spring the Campbells traveled to Germany
for a three-week visit with their son, David,
and family near Hannover. The group enjoyed
a 10-day RV trip through southern Germany,
where Marianne visited seven first cousins
with whom she had grown up.
I was sorry to learn from Ruth Moorman
Hardin that her husband, Bill, died in
September 2014. She still resides in Stuart,
Florida, but returns to Green Pond, New Jersey,
in the summer, where both her son and
daughter live nearby. She plays golf, bridge
and mahjong and belongs to two book clubs.
Last fall she went on a cruise to ports in
Italy, France and Spain. Ruth exercises daily
to “keep fit for two granddaughters, aged 6
and 7.” This past summer she took art lessons.
Nan (Lawthers) Dreselly says her life in
Vernon, Connecticut, is “same o
l’.” She enjoys
singing in a choir, taking piano lessons,
playing bridge and continuing with her
part-time job as a recorder at the Superior
Court. Recently she enjoyed a weeklong visit
with her granddaughter, a student at Embry
Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona
Beach, Florida.
Richard “Hoppy” Hammond and his wife,
Marilyn, traveled with a group to Lima and
on to Cuzco, Peru, to work for two weeks on
a construction project at a Cuzco Methodist
church. Cuzco is about 14,000 feet in elevation, hence, “breathless” was his description
of their time there. They tore down an old
adobe kitchen and built a new, outdoor
kitchen in its place. They all attended a fourhour Sunday service (Dick said he’d never
again complain about an overlong Methodist
service back home). “Seeing Machu Picchu,”
he said, “should be on everyone’s bucket list.”
Pat (Carnaghan) Kroepke is glad to be in
Vero Beach, Florida, with the benefits of an
ocean breeze. She planned a visit across the
state to Sarasota, where her nephew from Long
Island was vacationing. She continues her regular volunteer work with the Humane Society.
Charles Cross and his wife, Judy, live in
Willsboro, New York, on Lake Champlain,
where they had some excitement this summer
during the high-profile search for escaped
convicts. Chic was carefully guarding his
paddle boat. The Crosses do leave the cool
air and beauty of Lake Champlain each April,
when they flee to Sanibel Island, Florida, to
recover from those upstate winters.
Bob McKee and his wife, Grace, were
at Drew Reunion last spring and enjoyed
talking with Nancy P’81,’84,’13 and Richard
Rice C’54, T’58, P’81,’84,’13 and Marianne
and Warren Campbell.
Richard Johnston lives in Bucks County,
Pennsylvania. He and his wife, Pat, enjoy
the activities of their grandchildren. When I
mentioned Drew years he recalled the “lounge
lizards” (including Bob McKee, Charlie Allen
and him). Dick is a former teacher and hopes
that people around us continue to learn
about the history of our country.
Ruth (Brown) Padawer works on archival
portfolios for a “lifetime of artwork,” including her original artwork contributed to the
Morristown High School yearbook and newspaper, the Drew 1953 Oak Leaves, The Acorn
and Tower, as well as for Mademoiselle. More
recently, many of our classmates saw copies
of her award-winning watercolors presented
at our Reunion in 2009.
56
Ronald Vander Schaaf
[email protected]
Ingrid Mueller May is a celebrity in Leipzig, Germany.
Taxi drivers, store owners
60th Reunion and especially the staff and
members of St. Thomas Church recognize
her. St. Thomas is the home of the Thomaschor, the famous boys’ choir whose first
cantor was J.S. Bach. Ingrid and her husband, Albert May, committed $300,000 to
Summer 2015 33
the new elementary school the choir members attend. At the setting of the cornerstone Ingrid was given a hammer to set the
top of the time capsule. The main auditorium
will be named “Ingrid’s Hall” in her honor.
Ingrid taught German in two high schools
in Ohio for 22 years. Albert is a pediatrician.
They have traveled to Germany 19 times
on the Queen Mary and will be making their
20th trip in November to celebrate Ingrid’s
82nd birthday. They have two children and
six grandchildren.
Jim Hill says the biggest news came in a
small package when a great-granddaughter
arrived last October. Jim lives in Arizona.
Mimi Brewster Hollister’s stepson got
married in June 2015. Family from all over
came for the occasion, including her daughter from Montana. Mimi and her partner,
Don Gardner, attended the reunion of the
Shanghai American School where Mimi
attended eighth and ninth grades. Mimi
is in charge of reunions and also edits the
school’s alumni news.
Carole (Horncastle) C’59 and Dick James
C’56, T’59 visited their grandson Brad in
Colorado in September 2014. In October they
visited their granddaughter, Laura, who attends
Miami University in Ohio. They have a grandson at the University of Texas and another at
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. In March,
they came to Florida. At a dinner meeting
we discussed how many of our classmates
have died. With the help of David Rein, we
determined that 30 classmates are gone.
Ruth Schubert Haynes and Roy Haynes
attended a family Christmas celebration in
Dover, Delaware, with Ruth’s sister. Last
August they headed west to Missouri for
their stepdaughter’s wedding. In between
they journeyed to Lynchburg, Virginia, to
celebrate Ruth’s brother’s retirement. As
usual, March found them in Florida. As if
driving all over the country was not enough,
Roy managed to bike more than 1,000
miles, and Ruth did 240.
Jean Barbour Peterson teaches writing
at Carnegie Mellon University. She sings in
choirs and plays in a folk orchestra.
Prunella Read Williams went to Scotland in June 2014. Starting in Edinburgh,
she traveled to Outer Hebrides, Isle of Skye
and ended at Loch Ness.
University Advancement
SUBMIT YOUR CLASSNOTES
[email protected]
ALUMNI & PARENT RELATIONS
973.408.3229
800.979.DREW
[email protected]
ALUMNI HOUSE
36 Madison Avenue
Madison, NJ 07940
Flora Robinson Hullstrung and Bob
Hullstrung T’60 moved into an apartment
in the home of their son, Russell, in
Connecticut.
Barbara “Bobbi” Simpson Schlerf keeps
busy taking care of her two poodles. Barbara,
her daughter, Christine, and three dogs (two
poodles plus a Shar-Pei) went to Georgia to
celebrate Bobbi’s 80th birthday, the highlight
of which was a day spent at Alpine Village
in Helen, Georgia. Grandson Matthew started
college at the University of West Florida in
Pensacola.
William Onderdonk’s son, Jeffrey, is a
traffic controller at the Seattle Center. His
daughter, Susan, and her two sons live near
Bill in Spring Lake, New Jersey. The older
boy, Adam, attends a local community
college, and the younger one, Garrett, is
starting ninth grade. The boys have traveled to Belize, China, Hawaii, England and
Turkmenistan. As Bill said, how times have
changed. When he was a kid, going from
Brielle to Asbury Park was a big deal.
Patricia Brown McQueen and Bob McQueen C’54 enjoy watching their daughter
Diana act in plays. She recently played Billie
Dawn in Born Yesterday. Their other children
are spread across the land, from Virginia to
Montana.
Diana Miller Custer has three sons. David
lives in Finland with his Finnish wife and
three children. Todd is married, has two
sons and lives in Manchester, Connecticut.
Michael is married and lives in Florida. Both
Todd and Michael teach tennis.
Claire Dresner Newman and Edward
Newman are mostly retired. Their three
children attended Oberlin College, and now
a granddaughter will enter her sophomore
year there. One son has a PhD in neuropsychology from the University of Cincinnati.
Another has a PhD in geology from the
University of Rochester. The third son
has a master’s in information technology
from Drexel.
Yours truly, Ron Vander Schaaf C’56,
T’59, took a 1,050-mile bus tour of Poland in
September 2014. Highlights were Holocaust
sites, a huge castle, a wondrous salt mine, a
Soviet-era apartment building two kilometers long and a Chopin concert in Warsaw,
his hometown. I also had a short article published in the “Metropolitan Diary” section
of The New York Times based on a mugging
I prevented many years ago. My grandson,
Mark Vander Schaaf, who developed a strokeprevention medical device, had the instrument approved by the FDA last May. A few
days later a doctor who’d just seen a demonstration used the tool to capture and remove
a large blood clot in a man suffering a stroke.
Within three hours all signs of the stroke
were gone.
Dottie Simpfendorfer Noyce’s highlight
of the year was a trip to the Holy Land in
May of 2014. Then she and her sister, Sylvia,
went to California for the reunion of the
Chilean United Methodist Church Dottie
attended in her youth. She reconnected with
a high school friend, Richard, and the two
have each traveled to meet the other’s family.
She also took advantage of a visit with family
in New Jersey to go to the Drew Reunion. She
had a great time in spite of being the only
one from our class in attendance. Don’t forget,
next year will be our 60th Reunion. We’re
on the verge of getting old and antiquated.
But coming to Reunion will rejuvenate you.
57
Eleanor (Sheldon) Stearns
[email protected]
Dottie Strout deSilva’s son, David
deSilva, flew to Beirut in February to talk
about his book Introduction to the New Testament, which had just been translated into
Arabic. He visited other cities of interest
to him and hoped to connect with Judy
(Palmer) Harik, but Judy left Beirut and
spent the summer on Cape Cod with her
daughter, Vaira, intending to do a lot of
painting. She sent me a picture of one of
her paintings; Mrs. Korn would have been
proud. In October on her way home, she
will be presenting papers at a conference in
Frankfurt that is considering a nuclear- and
missile-free zone for the Middle East. She will
be addressing the Syrian crisis and Hezbollah’s
arsenal. We wish her luck in her efforts at
the conference.
Jan and Stan Wiley C’57, T’61 are moving again to live in their daughter’s home
in Hopewell Junction, New York, with their
four grandchildren. After some health scares,
Stan is stable and feeling much better. We
all hope that he keeps up the good work.
Johanna Zimermann Wishart and Vern
Wishart G’58 made a trip to Colorado in
June, piggybacking on the work-related
travels of their daughter, Karen. It was a
chance to show her and their son, Jim, who
joined them and did the driving (thank
heavens—lots of zigzag roads) the place
in Colorado where Vern spent his college
years, including the Broadmoor Hotel, where
Vern worked as head waiter. They then went
to Aspen, Rocky Mountain National Park,
Boulder and back to Denver for their flight
home. The park was a highlight where they
saw much wildlife.
If anyone wants to join our email group
list, please send your email address to me at
my address listed above. I love to hear from
everyone with news for the magazine or just
to keep in touch.
58
John Borden
[email protected]
Thanks first from all of us to Helen
Williams for being our class secretary for so
long and doing such a wonderful job! Helen
writes that she is trying to sell her historic
home in Georgetown, Delaware, so she can
move into a retirement home close to her
daughter Dawn in Annapolis.
Julia and Robert Phyliky rented a home
in Venice, Florida, and were visited for dinner
and a round of golf by Chris and Doug
Lonnstrom. JoAnn Mantel met the Phylikys
and Helen in Fort Myers for lunch overlooking
the water at a favorite restaurant. Pictures
of grandchildren were passed around as
well as stories of Willy (Williams) and Greg
Mantel. Bob and Julia stopped to see Franki
C’60 and Dick Edel in Florida. Dick, in particular, would like to hear from the Class
of ’58.
Llew Pritchard was feted in Seattle on
June 18 as the 2015 outstanding lawyer in
King County. He said, “It is terrific to be honored by my peers! Jonie C’59 and I are still
holding hands as we lurch through life.”
Peg Luisa Mitchell was in Jacksonville,
Florida, with her husband, Charles, for a
fun reunion with Charles’ shipmates from
the William H. Stanley. Peg waves hello from
North Carolina to all her classmates.
Joyce and Peter Rushbrook went to Disneyland on June 6 for eight days and then to
Lake Tahoe for a family reunion. Peter has
been retired for 17 years and has yet to
become bored. Peter laments that our classmates do not send in their news enough and
suggests we all get on Facebook to keep in
touch between magazines.
Casey Smith Mollach C’58, P’81 lives in
beautiful Oswego County, New York, near the
famed Cooperstown, on her 70-acre Tanner
Hill Herb Farm, growing herbs, perennials,
vegetables … “and my pottery, if I ever get
to that.” Her brother has the neighboring
500 acres. She has never been happier or felt
better. She encourages classmates to find her
on Facebook, either as herself or as Tanner
Hill Herb Farm. In February and March Casey
goes to Caloosahatchee River, Florida, upstream from Fort Myers. Casey may come to
California in the fall.
David Morse has been enjoying his new
inflatable rubber boat, so he is as laid back
as a Drew grad has every right to be, being
pulled along by his wife, Barbara, in the
boat ahead. Nice! Dave is a huge fan of PBS
and gardening with Barbara, whose garden
is justly famous! Dave sent around a DVD of
the garden a while back.
Holly and Mac Hubbard just returned
from a Florida vacation. There must be
something in the southern waters, so many
of us end up there now and then. I, myself,
have been spending New Year’s in south
Florida for 18 years and counting.
Nancy and Walter Adams also spend
the cold months in Florida. Last fall they
attended a reception for Drew President
MaryAnn Baenninger at the Union League
in Philadelphia, as she had been riding the
circuit to meet with various alumni groups.
They found her most impressive. “Drew
has made a wise choice. We were the most
ancient alumni there!” They get into the city
often to the art museum, the Barnes Museum
and the Philadelphia Orchestra. It’s a short
train ride for $1 for senior citizens (Walter
detests that patronizing phrase but is happy
to have the discount). Otherwise they tend
to their grandchildren a couple of times
a week and are glad to get to Florida for
the winter where they get to see Lorraine
“Woody” Wood, William Craven C’57 and
Casey Smith Mollach.
Dave Ossenkop continues to professionally
write program notes for music performances.
The Drew Society
STUDENTS add to the world’s good by responding
to the most urgent challenges of our time.
drew.edu/respond
FACULTY mentors engage with the
world beyond Drew’s gates.
drew.edu/engage
ALUMNI share their experience and offer
service to better the university community.
drew.edu/share
Members of the Drew Society provide the
leadership and support to make Drew a
university that shines.
Heritage Oak Club: annual gifts of $10,000 or more
Copper Beech Club: annual gifts of $5,000–$9,999
Sycamore Cottage Club: annual gifts of $2,500–$4,999
Evergreen Club: annual gifts of $1,000–$2,499
Learn more at drew.edu/drewsociety.
He often sends me emails about classical
music, which I keep in my music textbooks
as reference.
During the last 30 years—really as far
back as his Hamburg years during the
1960s—Rolf Ahlers has spent most of his
time in German Idealist thinking, mainly
Jacobi, Fichte and Hegel. Retirement in 2010
brought a stop to his teaching, but Rolf’s
research, publication and professional
society work continue as usual. He is now
working on a new book manuscript that
deals with the tradition of negative theology.
At the International Conference on Persons
at Boston University in August, he read his
paper “Holy Robot. Discourse on Persons
and Machines in Early German Idealism.”
He bones up on his Greek and Latin language
skills and 16th-century Italian and studies
Greek intensely every morning for 30 minutes. Rolf’s wife, Luise, also retired in 2010
from her decades-long teaching and practicing career in pediatrics in Germany and in
upstate New York. They celebrated 50 years
of marriage this past July 31.
Classmates, please send me news!
59
Ellen deLalla, [email protected]
Jodi Della-Cerra Headley C’60
and Pete Headley were very fortunate this winter and didn’t see a single
snowflake. They spent most of January in
Charleston, South Carolina, and Florida.
February and March were spent in Arizona
for the 11th year, watching baseball spring
training games and the Arabian Horse
Show. At the end of May they returned to
the Drew campus for Jodi’s 55th Class of
1960 Reunion. They helped raise money for
that class’s internship fund. Twelve C’59ers
(Pete calls them the “1959 Dandy Dozen”)
contributed to the Class of ’60 Internship
Fund, helping them reach their required
threshold total. Pete says “No wonder I’m so
proud of my classmates! Thank you, Dandy
Dozen!” Jodi adds, “I owe you all a lunch.”
Declares Pete, “We will try to motorcycle
your way in the coming months with her
credit card.”
The last issue of Drew Magazine, with all
its Reunion info, reminded Walter Lidman
of a very pleasant 10th Reunion his late wife
Nancy Taber C’56 attended, during which
Summer 2015 35
they ate dinner with Dean Morris, who not
only put them at ease but captivated them,
getting them to chat easily about trivia and
deep matters. Walter still loves teaching
developmental reading and writing classes
at Union County College in Cranford, New
Jersey, where he often sees Jeff Shalan C’84
and Lauren Falkowski, both full-time faculty
at UCC. Walter also teaches English as a Second
Language to Spanish-speaking employees at
a company called Excelsior Medical Corporation in nearby Neptune. Aside from that,
he keeps himself in excellent physical condition by swimming 500 yards a day, four
days a week.
After hearing from Pete and Jodi Headley,
I am looking forward to our 60th in 2019!
See all of you then!
60
Carl Verrusio, [email protected]
This May our class celebrated its
55th Reunion. Wow! Only seven
members of the class showed up; nevertheless, we had a wonderful time. A trip into
nostalgia now and then is good for the spirit.
We all take different paths in life, but no
matter where we go we take a little bit of each
other with us. The group banded together
and railroaded me into being class secretary.
Given my propensity to be long-winded, tactless and insensitive, I seemed well suited for
the job. Proceed at your own risk.
My bride, Elaine Norris Verrusio, and I
were walking across campus when I said,
“That sounds like Nancy Marshall Stroh.”
Lo and behold, she and Judy Smith appeared
on the path. Kiss, kiss, hug, hug! We agreed
to meet at the Korn Gallery after we registered.
As we approached the registration site the
door opened and Jodi Della-Cerra Headley
and Pete Headley C’59 emerged. Little did
we realize that except for Midge Morell
Campbell and George Hayward, that would
be it for our reunion party. Bennett Cerf—
not a classmate—said, “Middle age is when
your classmates are so gray and wrinkled
and bald they don’t recognize you.” Do you
think more of you were there but we didn’t
recognize one another?
The Elizabeth Korn exhibit was exceptional.
There was a progression of her work from
early figure studies to Neo-Dada (oh my!) reliefs and mixed media collages with classical
figures. I have always wanted to own one of
her paintings, and much to my delight some
of the paintings in the exhibit were for sale.
After the gallery show, the group gathered at the lovely home of Midge and Ed
Campbell C’58 for drinks, refreshments and
reminiscing (read: gossiping). Judy Smith
said, “Carl, if you haven’t anything nice to
say about anybody, come sit next to me.”
Elaine intervened, and we were forced to
behave. You will recall that when we graduated, the Age of Aquarius was waiting in
the wings. Our generation embraced the
New Age movement with a vengeance,
and set out to change the world. The most
recent manifestation of our trendsetting,
mind-bending, over-the-top approach to life
involves a member of our class who married
his father. This requires an explanation. For
years Norman MacArthur and William
Novak wished to solemnize their 52-year
relationship through marriage. Since this
was not possible given our antediluvian
marriage laws, they first registered as domestic partners in New York City, but when they
moved to Bucks County they learned that
Pennsylvania did not recognize domestic
partners. The only legal method to protect
their spousal rights and assets at the time was
through adoption. In 2000 they obtained an
adoption decree and Bill became Norman’s
father. Nearly 15 years later, when Pennsylvania’s marriage laws were declared unconstitutional, it seemed that common sense
would prevail and they could at last be married. Not so fast! Their status as parent and
child was a problem, so they filed a petition
to vacate the adoption decree. In May the
adoption decree was vacated (the first time
in Pennsylvania) and Norman and Bill were
free to marry, which they did soon after.
Mazel tov, guys. Oh yes, the Episcopal priest
officiating at the ceremony was none other
than our own peripatetic preacher Nancy
Marshall Stroh. Provence, the Holy Land,
Bucks County ... “Have Bible, will travel.”
We should elect her class pastor.
On Saturday morning our small group
attended the Alumni Achievement Awards
Champagne Brunch. The recipient of the
Volunteer Award was our longtime class
agent, George Hayward, who gave an outstanding acceptance speech. His underplayed, deadpan delivery suggested he
was channeling George Gobel. He had the
audience roaring as he recounted tales of
the Drew food strike and his four winless
years on the hapless basketball team. At one
point after the team blew a game, the coach
refused to buy the team dinner. George’s
fundraising team (Midge, Jodi and special
assistant Pete Headley) raised $56,750 for
the Class of 1960 Internship Fund—a recordbreaking year for both the amount donated
and class participation (81 percent of our
class gave!). See photo below.
Regrets from Vic Burke (lost his crown,
on a front tooth), Jerome Wolfson (family
emergency), John Gill (in Seattle for the birth
of his fifth grandchild), Carol Purdy Twomey
(too far to drive alone) and Deanna Formica
Lewis (didn’t finish her English lit paper).
Reid Morrow moved to a retirement
community in Knoxville, Tennessee, following the death of his wife, Adelle. Robert
Bredin moved from Hilton Head to Fort Mill,
South Carolina. He is involved in community theatre and just wrote his first book,
Grains of Sand (available on Amazon), about
a retired Wall Street executive who trades the
challenges of investing for the life lessons
discovered as a trash man on the beach.
Judy Smith is still in New York City,
where she teaches reading and is involved
with a small theatre group. (Probably runs
the whole show like she did at Drew.) She
and I each know one of the authors of a
new comedy, Application Pending.
That’s all, folks. Keep those cards and letters coming. I’m a troglodyte when it comes
to new technologies. Remember what Emerson said, “The best effect of fine persons is
felt after we have left their presence.” Please
send news to me at the email above (don’t
forget the extra “e”) or 107 East Nevada
Ave., Beach Haven, NJ 08008.
63
THE CLASS OF ’60 RAISED MORE THAN $54,610 FOR THEIR INTERNSHIP FUND LAST
FISCAL YEAR!
Ellen E. Baker, [email protected]
Hello from Maryland! I’m delighted
to hear from Jeff Gillman, who
is still working part time for a local law
firm, which gives him, as his wife, Marie,
says, the financial freedom to chase the
little white ball all over a golf course. He
enjoys the office work, which keeps the
gray matter working. The Gillmans’ kids
and grandkids are all within a 30-minute
drive. Thus, they pick them up, drop them
off, visit school activities and watch sports,
which keeps both of them going. They winter in Florida, with golf clubs in tow for Jeff
and book for Marie. They’re taking a trip to
France soon, after spending a vacation in
Scotland, Wales and England last year.
My hometown friend, Candy Ridington,
a volunteer for the Montgomery County
Maryland Historical Society, will be portraying
Emily Dickinson in Attleboro, Massachusetts,
in October, for the Conference of Retired
Unitarian Ministers.
After all these years, I finally made it
across the pond. My husband and I traveled
above the Arctic Circle in Norway in hopes
of seeing the Northern Lights. We finally did
for a brief moment in Tromso. We also spent
a fascinating time in London and nearby
Windsor Castle. The Churchill War Room
was intriguing, and we had a chance to visit
John Wesley’s Church and learn some more
about our Methodist heritage. Windsor Castle
and Westminster Abbey were truly amazing
and make age 73 seem not so old after all.
Not all of us are Facebook regulars, so please
send an update to keep us posted on your
most recent adventures.
64
Jackie Shahzadi
[email protected]
Toni (Kenner) Pepe writes that “life
is good.” 2015 marks her 45th year of singing
in the Danbury Concert Chorus, one of the
performing groups of the Danbury Music
Centre in Connecticut. Next spring she and
her husband, John, celebrate their 50th anniversary. Their daughter, Mara, author of Inner
Divinity, continues her work as an artist and
healer in North Carolina. Every summer their
extended family has a reunion at Capon
Springs and Farms in West Virginia, a rustic
and peaceful resort.
Dianne Murphy Frazier C’64, P’97 is still
consulting in genetics, mostly on a volunteer
basis. She is also completing the certificate
program in botanical illustration through
the University of North Carolina Botanical
Gardens. Though this activity might not ever
lead to any job offers, Dianne says it is great
fun to use a different part of her brain. Her
husband, Jim, also continues to work, but has
scaled down to allow many other activities.
They are the proud grandparents of Betsy
and Sadie, their daughter Jenny Leventhal’s
[C’97] children.
Daphne Miller-Marselas and her husband
are happily retired and enjoying a relaxed
lifestyle with two dogs, several cats and a
summer veggie garden. Daphne goes to yoga
twice a week, walks the dogs, reads, cooks
and enjoys using her electronic tablet.
Donald Scott is still serving as minister
of visitation at Trinity Presbyterian Church
in Palm Coast, Florida, where he is also a
chaplain at Florida Hospital Flagler working
in the same-day surgery unit. He also runs
the church’s columbarium, is editor of its
monthly newsletter and manages its Facebook
page. Retirement has been busy, according to
Don, but his wife, Vickie, and he get to enjoy
three weeks each October at their beachfront
condo in Cancún, Mexico. Don’s son, Kirk,
and his grandkids live four hours south in
the Fort Lauderdale area. Don loves Florida!
In December 2014, my daughter, Susanne,
became a live kidney donor in a donor chain,
which ultimately resulted in her husband
receiving a much-needed kidney from another
live donor. Coincidently, she just started
THE CLASS OF ’65 CELEBRATING THEIR 50TH REUNION IN MAY 2015.
Front row: Kathy Henry, Carol (Mims) Dukes, Joyce Brunelle Pazianos, Isabelle (Miller) Kanz,
Naomi Shapiro, Dianne Mabb Peeling. Second row: Howard Currid, Art Mittler, Keir Hoeltzel, Peggy
Leichthammer Domber, Isabelle (Street) Smith, Bruce Littmann, Barbara Eichhorn Stevens. Third
row: John Hicks, Jon Schweiger, David Schlansker, Allen Hood, Bob Smart, Andrea (Kaufmann)
Scott-Ram, Jim Eastman. Top row: John Allen, George Burrill, Roger “Rusty” Martin.
a new job with One Legacy, coordinating
organ donations! Everyone reading this:
Please consider donating your organs.
I am still remembering fondly our 50th
class Reunion at Drew, with good thoughts
of all those who came to celebrate. Hope to
see even more at the next Reunion!
65
Allen Hood, [email protected]
Naomi Shapiro greatly enjoyed
seeing and speaking to classmates
Joyce Brunelle Pazianos, Dianne Mabb
Peeling, Carol (Mims) Dukes and the two
Izzy’s, Smith and Kanz. She says the movie,
The Duck Diaries, was terrific and hopes everyone will get a chance to see it in the future!
Naomi continues to teach cello, volunteer at
New Eyes, swim and hike. She is also enjoying her partner’s semiretirement, since he
can now share dinner-making activities!
Joel Merchant heard from four longtime friends who weren’t able to make it
to Reunion because of scheduling conflicts.
George Engelhardt was unable to attend
Reunion, but was planning to go on a safari
this past summer with his wife, Carolyn.
Your class correspondent, Allen Hood
C’65, P’92, had a busy winter blowing snow.
My wife, Kit, and I finally had enough by
the end of February and headed to Cape
Coral, Florida. My pal, Pumpkin Beagle, and
I headed home in April to mow the lawn
and begin gardening. I had a wonderful
time at our 50th Reunion, greatly enjoying
seeing classmates again.
I’d love to hear from everyone. Please
write to the email address above, or to 380
Whitney Road, South Royalton, VT 05068.
My door is always open for visitors!
74
Mark P. Lang, [email protected]
Pam Jutkus Schmidle and my old
roommate, Robert Schmidle C’75,
report that Bob completed his doctorate
at Georgetown. His thesis was The Power of
Context in Shaping Moral Choices—perfect for
a Marine Corps lieutenant general. Robert
works in the Pentagon analyzing defense
strategies and weapons cost and effectiveness.
I ran marathon number 31 and have entered
another. I’m also training my puppy in versatility, working toward a show.
75
Robert Zwengler
[email protected]
The Class of 1975 had a good turnout
for our 40th Reunion in May. It was great
reconnecting with so many people. Among
those in attendance were Rusty Siegel, Mike
Sigal, Ed Golinowski, Frank Brady, William
Muscato, Michelle Boyle, Anne and Jeff
Noss and Scott Amann C’74.
Lynn K. Jones recently started an online
coaching program to complement her inperson and phone coaching, consulting,
training and retreat services. She hopes that
this service will allow her clients to be able
to access her services no matter how busy
their schedule is.
76
Marie “Seren” Walls Cohen
is one of the fewer than 50
psychologists certified as a
geropsychologist. To become
certified, Seren passed mul40th Reunion tiple rigorous written and
oral examinations concerning the mental
health needs of the elderly and their families. She has been practicing as a clinical
geropsychologist for the last 20 years.
77
Deborah Yingling
[email protected]
2015 was a significant year for
most of us because we turned 60. While
each of us may have different thoughts
Summer 2015 37
Join us for the
Department of Music’s
HOLIDAY CHOIR
GALA & CONCERT
FEATURING
Benjamin Britten’s Saint Nicolas & Music for the Season
Saturday, December 5, 2015
Cocktails & Dinner | Concert
Proceeds benefit the Drew University
Department of Music and its Choral
& Vocal Studies program. Sponsorship
opportunities are available.
drew.edu/choirgala
about approaching that decade, it is a milestone, and those milestones have a way of
making us look backward and forward.
I was fortunate to celebrate my milestone in May in the company of several
dear friends from Drew. Laura Papa, Larry
Babbin C’79, Jennifer Beaver, Christine
Stack Bell, Paul Bell C’76, Michelle Boyle
C’75, Kathy Hyman Floyd C’78, P’13, Robin
Stern, Oona Stieglitz C’79 and her husband, Lee Arbetman, and other family and
friends, helped me to celebrate turning 60.
Doug Goodman C’76 and Nikki Shomer
C’78 wrote well wishes. The gathering of
Laura, Jenny, Chris and Robin at our house
was particularly meaningful because of
our long connection, since freshmen year,
and because geographical distances make it
sometimes hard for us to get together on a
regular basis. The power of our connection
has prevailed all these years, and that force
that was the two Holloway quads freshman
year and the Foster 22 suite sophomore year
is still felt when we get together. While I will
always be grateful for the formal education I
received at Drew, the personal development
and friendships experienced had perhaps
the most lasting effect.
Andrew Sciranka retired from his post
with the Laser Spine Institute on Dec. 5, 2014.
He is a professor of medicine at the University of Science, Arts and Technology, a position
he’s held for the past three years. Andrew
lives in Scottsdale, Arizona, with his shelties.
The Facebook posts I see by Drew friends
indicate that others also developed lasting
friendships during their Drew years. Happy
60th birthday, Class of 1977!
Before we know it, in 2017, we will be
celebrating our 40th Reunion—a big one we
don’t want to miss. In the meantime, write to
me and let me know how you celebrated your
60th birthday. What is going on with you?
78
Thomas Tani
[email protected]
Guy Blumberg and his wife, Melissa,
“live a pretty quiet life, especially by Manhattan
standards.” Guy said they are homebodies
but do enough typical New York-y things
to not be considered boring. Three years
ago Guy went back to the education media
world and works with Editorial Projects in
Education. Guy spends occasional time with
Nancy Frohman, Martha Herrmann and
Marla and Paul Boren. He recently spent an
entire Sunday morning with Eric White
while in San Francisco for a conference.
Craig Stanford is still a professor of biology at the University of Southern California
(USC, for acronym lovers), and continues to
study and publish books about great apes
and human origins. He also does a lot of traveling with his anthropologist wife, Erin. His
son, Adam, will be a freshman at Stanford
University in the fall and just hiked the
John Muir trail solo. His daughter Marika
is a senior at USC, and his eldest daughter,
Gaelen, is putting in crazy hours as a thirdyear medical student at the University of
California, San Francisco. Exciting, indeed!
Debra Bass C’78, G’90,’02 has had, in her
words, “a very busy year.” She celebrated
her 40th year in the preaching ministry,
in which she presented a workshop on the
racial and gender issues in the Woman at
the Well story for the Presbyterian Church
in Alabama in August, completed her third
book, Journaling through the Year with God, and
was appointed dean of conference course
studies at the AME Zion Church, Birmingham
District, North Alabama Conference.
Dennis Wanless is still instructing continuing education classes for water and
wastewater treatment plant operators in
Virginia. Dennis says that developing and
presenting classes on dozens of different
topics over the last decade makes him feel
he will never be done with term papers and
exam preparation. He is puzzled that despite
his research skills, he can’t locate Rob Mack
or Denise Olesky from our class, and asks if
anyone else knows what has become of them.
Joanna Mauer “continues to survive” as
an appellate public defender in Tallahassee.
She is also in a loving, growing relationship;
her partner built them a movement and meditation studio on their property. She wishes
she had more time to use it, as she is also
very busy continuing to present “Transforming
Through Moving” workshops. She continues
to be indebted to and thinks fondly of Drew!
Marlene Connor sent her regrets for missing Reunion this year. After many years of
working in architectural/engineering firms on
public transportation planning projects, she
set up her own consulting practice, Marlene
Connor Associates. Her company is based in
Massachusetts and North Carolina, but she
works on assignments all over the country.
She said, “It’s great to be out trying the new
market economy and making a go of it!”
From the “small world” category, Gail
Gardner sent this story: “Last summer I was
sitting under a tree at Maine Fiddle Camp,
talking with a friend I’d met there a few
years before. He was telling me about a trip
he’d gone on after college. When I asked
where he went to college, he told me that
it was a small college in New Jersey called
Drew University. It turned out that we were
there at the same time (I transferred there
for my junior and senior years, and he was
there all four). Since I took a lot of art and
English classes and he was in the sciences,
we don’t remember meeting, in spite of
Drew’s small size. But Jonathan Leonard
and I are great friends now!”
Carol Torchia Clinton asked me to let
the class know that she wed her longtime
beau, Joe Reina, on July 11, in a garden
outside a restaurant in Basking Ridge, New
Jersey. “Both sets of family and offspring,
his and mine, celebrated that we finally tied
the knot!” Since completing her master’s,
she’s been working as a certified holistic
nutritionist for a couple of integrative practitioners in the Somerville area. Joe is a consultant project manager for J&J in Raritan.
Bonni Van Blarcom works as a trade
policy specialist, advising governments on
trade policy reform and assisting the private
sector with public policy advocacy. She is
currently at the Library of Congress, Business
Reference Services, in Washington, D.C. Bonni
welcomes visitors to the D.C. area.
Lynne Merbler Pradke became a firsttime grandma! Her beautiful granddaughter, Gianna Marie, was born on June 9, and
“of course, she is the most perfect baby
ever!” Her oldest daughter is getting married
on October 3. Lots of excitement!
Susan Fenske McDonough remains in New
Hampshire helping to care for her 98-yearold dad, an amazing WWII vet, who still gets
out to seniors’ potluck lunches. She had a
couple of nice visits at Drew this spring to
meet the new president and some of the
new staff, and enjoyed the Celebration of
Benefactors luncheon with her brother Karl
Fenske C’74. (There’s an intern scholarship
in her mother’s name.)
Freddi C’79 and Jack Dempsey’s oldest
daughter, Kelli, 21, is a junior at Ramapo
majoring in biology and wants to go into
research or genetic counseling. At the same
time their middle daughter, Allison, 18, just
graduated high school and will enter Rowan
in September to study graphic arts and music.
Their youngest, Shannon, 14, will be a freshman at Somerville High School. Not to be
left out, the pair celebrated their 34th wedding anniversary on June 13 in Sea Girt at
a place called Scarborough Fair, which was
also the title of their wedding song. Jack and
Freddi met in botany class October 14, 1976.
“OMG the years.”
I, Tom Tani, feel like a slacker when reading about the great accomplishments of my
classmates. I continue to enjoy retirement, and
just finished my third year full-time substitute teaching, staying busy until Christine
retires early as well. Someone asked me what
the difference is between corporate life and
a school environment and my answer was,
“I deal with more adults in school (bah duh
bump).” Working with Madison, Morris Plains
and the Parsippany-Troy Hills districts offers
all the opportunities I could want, with the
freedom to be able to say no when I’d rather
referee rugby matches. This spring saw me
doing a lot of U19 (high school) matches in
addition to adult ones, which is a form of
substitute teaching in itself. I find myself
meeting more U19 vintage ruggers who are
sons or daughters of folks I played against.
Time marches on. Christine, Philip and I
enjoyed a great vacation to London during
the past Christmas holiday. It will be our last
“fun” vacation for a while, as our next family
trips will be centered around the college search
process! It’s been very enjoyable talking with
Drew alums who have already gone through
it all.
While I didn’t see anyone else from our
class at this past revival of the spring Reunion,
the numbers apparently were good enough
that Drew will keep this going. Hopefully we
will have our usual stellar turnout when our
40th rolls around in 2018!
to provide adult supervision in the form of
refereeing the almost-annual alumni rugby
match, stepping into the shoes of Tom Tani
C’78, our traditional referee, who this year
was a late arrival. Mike has been living up in
Vermont for a few years and comes down for
all the important alumni events.
Others in attendance were Steve Dultz, a
dentist in Gillette, New Jersey; Keith Martin,
an attorney in the Philadelphia area; Michael
Ravensbergen, who works for JPMorgan
Chase in New York City; and Kevin Marino,
an attorney in and around New Jersey. You
can see Kevin mentioned in some newspapers
from time to time when he represents some
higher-profile clients. Alison Grillo came out
from New York City. Alison, among other
things, is a stand-up comedian, which takes
her on the road to colleges and universities.
Craig Keyworth came up from Georgia,
where he works at ADP; Marianne Hyzak
Ehinger and Tony Ehinger came over from
Morristown to check on the campus; and
Andy Rupp came up from Berkeley Heights.
Ralph Scoville played in the alumni rugby
match along with me. Having Ralph, Exxon
and me on the pitch meant that the Class of
1980 was better represented than any other
class, with the possible exception of the
Class of 2017.
Speaking of the match, Paul Cortellesi
C’84 got a crash course in playing in the
front row and survived it—even while wearing sneakers. Ben Malin C’90 temporarily
traded the use of an arm for a T-shirt.
Over the extended July 4 weekend, Steve
Thompson C’83 hosted a soiree at his house
in Maplewood in honor of our visiting prodigal
brother, Tony Buttacavoli C’82, who was
in town with his wife, Delane. Tony and
Delane are both commercial pilots and live
in the Detroit area with their daughter, Hannah. Also visiting the Thompson homestead
that evening were Mickey Green C’79, Bill
Ehlers C’82, Ricki Curran C’82, Lisa King
Nolet C’84, Edith Wolf Marucci C’86 and
Tony Marucci C’85. Chip Nolet, who retired
from his law practice, was in Atlanta with
their youngest child, Pete, at a baseball event.
Drop me a line. Let me know what you’re
up to, via the Drew alumni office, the email
above or the C’80 Facebook page!
83
Susan Kessler Apter
[email protected]
Heidi Utz works as an editor for
National Geographic Books and recently
moved to Montana. She continues her work
as a professional writer and photographer.
Mordechai Bermann retired as president
of the New Jersey State Society of Anesthesiologists in March after the completion of
his two-year term. He has been chief of the
anesthesia department at Southern Ocean
Medical Center in Manahawkin, New Jersey,
for the past nine years. His daughter, Mia,
was married on June 28 in Long Branch,
New Jersey, to Shai Van Gelder.
My husband, Alan Apter C’80, and I took
a trip to London and Paris in May, visiting
our son on his semester abroad from the
University of Maryland, from which he will
be a 2016 graduate. This was my first trip
back to Paris since the spring of 1982, when
I did the Drew London Semester and spent
part of spring break touring Paris with Becky
Emmons Wisser and James Dobbins C’83, P’15.
85
William Pezzuti, [email protected]
Katherine L. Savige’s daughter,
Morgan, just graduated from Riverdale Country School in the Bronx and will
be attending the University of Pennsylvania
in Philadelphia this autumn. She had a big
celebration at the Monkey Bar in NYC for
her 17th birthday on May 29. Katherine celebrated her 51st birthday last November at
Le Bilboquet—a large, irreverent bash. They
divided this past summer between Maui and
Sagaponack. They’re still on the Upper West
Side with their Yorkie, McTavish.
86
Sandra Miller
[email protected]
Harriet Middleton Wright
finished nursing school last
year and has been working
30th Reunion in psychiatric behavioral
79
Richard Raphael was awarded the
Austin Joenen Career Achievement
Award on May 6 during the Municipal
Forum of New York’s 26th annual Awards
and Urban Leadership Fellows dinner. Richard has been with Fitch Ratings since 1989
and is currently the U.S. public finance head.
80
Chris Walsh
[email protected]
We had our 35th Reunion at Drew
in May, as Reunion weekend has been
moved back to the spring. Perhaps we’ll all
be more used to that in five years, and we’ll
get a big turnout. Among our classmates who
attended were a newly almost-svelte Mike
Stern C’80, T’84, who’s almost half the man
he used to be. Mike was feeling spry enough
THE CLASS OF ’90 CELEBRATED THEIR 25TH REUNION IN MAY 2015.
Back row: James Jones C’89, Audrey Rigsbee, Deb (Barkhausen) McKinley, Traci Hilbert (wearing
sunglasses), Brett Hendricks, Ben Malin, Craig Chanti, Anne Yearsley Crisafulli. Front row: Dean
Blumetti, Christine Zmurek, Khurt Williams C’91, Bhavana Raval Williams, Emilio Cordova, Bonnie
Draina, Linda HagenBurger Krebs, Deb Pawlikowski, Danielle Ring.
Summer 2015 39
health in acute care. While she especially
enjoys her young adult patients, she is hoping
to move to pediatric nursing. Harriet and her
husband, Cary, will celebrate their 25th anniversary this fall. Their son Henry, 20, has
been cooking in a local restaurant and may
apply to culinary school. Despite his extensive kitchen training, he has managed not to
cook a family meal at home. Their daughter
Addie, 18, captained her high school soccer
team to a Virginia Independent School Division I state title and is now at Wake Forest
University, fulfilling her dream to play Division I college soccer. Harriet still catches a
movie with Paul Babitts every few months,
or they’ll pass each other (Paul in an oldschool white Volvo sedan) driving around
Richmond, where they both live.
Alicia Galli-Amil took a new role as vice
president and global product and technology
counsel at Automatic Data Processing, where
she has worked in the legal department for
20 years. She and her husband, Bill, will celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary this
year. Their daughter, Sara, is finishing her
freshman year in high school and plays on a
nationally ranked field hockey team as goalie;
their son, William, is in middle school.
Stephanie Miller Laborde lives in New
Orleans with her husband, Bo; they have three
sons, one of whom is starting his freshman
year at Georgetown. Stephanie has been
Facebooking with Cheryl Nelson, who lives
with her husband and two children on the
island of Nevis in the Caribbean. Stephanie
thinks a road trip may be in the works.
Brenda Rhodes started contract work as
a business analyst at Genesys, which sells
IVR solutions to call centers. She is thrilled
to be working from home while taking the
occasional business trip to Canada. Brenda
continues to sing in her church choir and
the Georgia Symphony Orchestra Chorus.
She also volunteers at many different
agencies as well as running her nonprofit,
Simple Needs GA, which celebrated its
fifth anniversary in June. Brenda was
accepted into Leadership Cobb, a ninemonth program run by her county Chamber
of Commerce that recognizes local leaders
in business and the nonprofit community.
On the home front, Brenda got closer to
the crazy cat lady designation, as she now
rescues kittens and keeps them in her bathroom until she finds them homes.
Margaret Lee recently attended her 25th
reunion for the University of Pennsylvania
School of Dental Medicine. She is still practicing in West Chester, Pennsylvania, with
her husband, Eric Shelly, and a third partner. She has also started her own business
making jewelry (horsetaillegacy.com).
I had a great time catching up with Marc
Scarduffa this spring when he was in Cambridge for business. Marc is still slightly baffled
by my choice of lunch restaurant, which
featured a bar completely covered in Wacky
Packages stickers and a life-size Barbie doll
in the foyer.
Thanks for keeping me up to date with
your news. I love hearing from you.
Jess (Snyder) C’02 and Jeremy Katzeff were married in November 2014. Stevan Overby Jendi C’99
(far right) officiated the ceremony, and Toral Patel Jendi C’02 (next to Stevan) was a bridesmaid.
92
Vanessa Allen Sutherland has
served as the chief counsel for the
Pipeline and Hazardous Materials
Safety Administration at the Department
of Transportation since 2011. On March 3,
President Obama nominated Vanessa to
serve as chair of the Chemical Safety Board.
93
Having completed her degree in veterinary technology, Karen Thomas
Kolber is now pursuing a master’s
degree in veterinary education through the
Royal Veterinary College.
96
Shannon Tilton Travis
[email protected]
Greetings, my fellow C’96
classmates, from Jacksonville,
Florida. Let me reintroduce
20th Reunion myself: I am Shannon Tilton
Travis. Since we graduated, I married my
wonderful husband, Jeff, almost 10 years
ago. We’ve had the privilege to explore and
travel to various places around the world,
including Italy, Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Malta,
Egypt, South Africa, Mexico, the Caribbean
and others. My career blossomed in the property and casualty insurance space. I am now a
director working in the advisory practice for
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLC. My jobs allowed
me the opportunity to live and work in two
wonderful states (Virginia, and now Florida),
and now I get to travel weekly and experience many of the great cities in our country.
It is exciting for me to be taking on the role
of class secretary. I look forward to catching
up with each and every one of you and capturing your stories for Drew Magazine. Please
reach out to me and let me know what is
happening in your life. You can reach me at
the email above or at 804.397.5195. Have a
wonderful autumn.
97
Daniel Ilaria, [email protected]
Mauricio Rodriguez is a behavioral
health counselor at Broadway House
in Newark. He and his wife, Claudia, welcomed
twin boys, Bryan and Randy, on Dec. 22, 2014.
Mauricio and Claudia celebrate their ninth
wedding anniversary in September and live
in Summit, New Jersey.
Sara Hall Phillips is a project manager
with the National Association of State Workforce Agencies Unemployment Integrity Center
of Excellence. Sara gets to work from home
in Columbus, Ohio, and enjoys the extra
time with Leah, her two-year-old daughter.
Kat O’Connor just released her first audio
drama, Simple Harmonic Motion, from her
Burning Bridge Media company.
My wife, Kristine Papachristos Ilaria C’00,
and I welcomed Emerson Joy on March 19.
Our son, Aaron, 6, enjoys being a big brother.
I continue to work with preservice mathematics teachers at West Chester University
and as a professional development consultant
with Teachers Teaching with Technology.
Marti Winer is the chief of staff for
MaryAnn Baenninger at Drew. She enjoys
the challenging work and not having to
search for a parking spot around campus.
98
Kristen Daily Williams
[email protected]
Hey, classmates! I had the great
pleasure of attending the July 11 wedding
of Aaron Smith and the brilliant and beautiful Danielle Kane in New York City. At the
reception, where we all enjoyed breathtaking views of Lady Liberty and her purlieu,
there were at least two tables chock-full of
Drew folk. Despite the delectable menu,
we weren’t seated for long. Burning up the
dance floor like it was a 1996 cast party
were William Addis, Carolin Collins, Kate
Cyr, Darren DeMarco C’96, Annie DiMario
C’00, Marsha Harman, Jennifer Jones C’97,
Suzanne Longley, Joe Mihalchick, Sarah
Murphy, Meg Daniel Nelson C’97, Steven
Strafford C’99, Joy Tomasko C’97 and, of
course, the amazing bride and groom.
And, guess what! I have news from others
to report!
Katherine (Smith) Krivan and her husband,
David, have been living in Truckee, California,
near Lake Tahoe, for more than two years.
Anna is in first grade, and Frank is nearly 4.
The Krivans enjoy the magnificent Sierras—
and happily welcome visitors! To celebrate
her approaching—ahem—milestone birthday,
Katherine rode in a Sierra Century bike ride
on June 7.
How about the rest of you? What are your
40th birthday plans?
Stacey (Trzesinski) McClain’s family grew
by one daughter last April: Abigail Violet.
Emily, 3, loves being a big sister. The McClains
live in Berlin, New Jersey, just outside Philadelphia, where Stacey works full time at
home for an arts consulting company, Elliott
Marketing Group. Her clients include the
New Jersey Symphony Orchestra and the
Philadelphia Orchestra.
Chiara Mastrodomenico Engstrom saw
John Holden, Rob Benacchio, Joe Lamberti,
Lisa Cornacchia and Jeanine Columbo at
the Wall Street Semester reunion last spring.
It was the first time she’d done a Drew
alumni event since graduation—and we hope
it won’t be the last. Chiara said Danielle
Paganuzzi wasn’t able to make it because
she was on a tropical island vacation with
her fiancé. Very good excuse. Chiara sees
Jeanine once in a while at AIG, where they
work in different areas. Chiara’s been at
AIG nine years and is currently the chief of
staff for the treasurer. She says she “moved
really far away from Drew … all the way to
Chatham,” has been married nine years, and
has two kids, Sebastian and Annika. She saw
Joel Wallace, who lives in D.C.; they did a
tour of Drew (“it was amazing to see all the
work that has been done”) and lunched at
the Nautilus. In April, she did a half-marathon
relay and helped raise $10,000 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. It turns out
Jennifer Morgan Kidd C’97 was running
with and fundraising for the same group.
Chiara says it was awesome to give back to
an organization she benefitted from: She
was diagnosed with (and beat, thankfully!)
stage four non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 2014.
Chiara, you’re an inspiration!
Penny (Trease) Schade lives in Germany,
where she helped organize and maintains
a clothing bank for residents in need from
countries like Kosovo, Syria, Albania, Eritrea,
Somalia and Serbia. Sometimes her daughter
joins her. Penny stays busy working and
caring for her daughter and son, and just
enjoyed a summer vacation in Turkey. She
loves seeing the updates and pictures of fellow Drewids on Facebook.
Jonathan Slaght translated Vladimir
Arsenyev’s 1921 book Across the Ussuri Krai
from Russian into English. It was picked up
by Indiana University Press with an autumn
2016 release date. He is in talks with the
Russian and the environmental studies and
sustainability departments at Drew to give a
talk on campus about his work with owls in
Russia this fall.
Mia Pappas is getting married May 15, 2016,
to Steve Piluso, a Boston College grad. We’ll
look for a photo in Drew Magazine next year!
Jill (Graffagnino) Nitkinas was elected to
her local Board of Education and began her
three-year term in January.
Kathy Forrestal is in the final stages of
her master’s degree in adolescent education
while serving as director of education at
King Manor Museum in Queens, New York,
the historic home of founding father Rufus
King. Most weekends find her on a hiking
trail or mountain. Kathy finished climbing
the 48 peaks in New Hampshire that are
over 4,000 feet in elevation. Nine to go for
the 115 highest peaks in the northeast.
Speaking of exercise, Fran CaggianoSwenson is training for a Half Ironman this
September and ran several marathons last
year—one with Chris Tyburski C’96. During
Reunion 2015, Fran attended fencing Coach
Dayn DeRose’s retirement party in Great Hall,
where she, not surprisingly, ran into John
Holden. And when she’s not commuting
from New Jersey to the company she works
for in Minnesota (you read that correctly),
she’s hard at work with her husband and
two cats finishing a never-ending bathroom
renovation. (Note to self: Investigate cats as
construction crew.)
Heather (McMurchie) Champagne and
her husband, Craig T’00, hang out on occasion with Deb (Pierce) C’97 and Paul Coen
C’91 and the aforementioned Chris Tyburski
and Fran Caggiano-Swenson and their respective spouses, Joan’na and Jan. Deb and Craig
work together at West Orange High School.
Heather works as a paralegal at a medical
malpractice firm. She is running for town
council for her ward in Roxbury! As if that
doesn’t keep her busy enough, inspired by
my last column’s evocative description of
the scrumptious baked goods in my life (or
perhaps moved to take pity on me), Heather
has plans to send me a holiday care package
with her own goodies. Who knew being a
class secretary came with such bonuses?
99
Kristy Miskoff Materasso
[email protected]
Alison Bayersdorfer Vovchuk and
Dmitry Vovchuk live in Brussels, where
Dmitry works for NATO. Alison is pausing
from full-time work outside the home as a
reading specialist to enjoy exploring Europe
with Dmitry and their boys, Nicholas, 7, and
Benjamin, 5.
Yesenia Aquino Ruffin has lived in
Australia for the past seven years with her
husband, Michael, and their two young sons.
Yesenia works part time with the severely
mentally unwell in reaching recovery goals.
She and her husband also own an IT consulting company. Yesenia continues to write
during her rare free time and is hoping to dust
off her completed screenplays and submit
them to the pros when she works up the nerve.
00
Kate Harvey Gratto, kate.gratto@
gmail.com; Jennifer Hicks Tocco,
[email protected]; Janet Wong,
[email protected]
Thank you to all of our classmates who
returned to campus for Reunion this year!
We received happy news from Anna
Kaltsas, who married Fotios Harmantzis
in August on the Greek island of Sifnos.
Congratulations to Anna and her groom!
Brian Smallwood is an assistant professor
in technical direction for the Department of
Theatre at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
For Wendy Crouse, who spends six months
a year traveling, Bali has become a second home.
There she creates batik artwork at a local artist’s
studio. Thank you for sharing, Wendy!
Rebecca Fraser Thill and her husband,
Brian, welcomed Theodore William on June 16.
He joins older sister, Kara, who is thrilled to
trade her baby dolls for a real baby!
Alison O’Connor Wetmur married John
Wetmur in 2012, and they make their home
in New London, Connecticut. In April 2014,
they welcomed a son, Liam. After leaving Drew,
Alison learned American Sign Language, then
earned a master’s degree in social work at
Rutgers. She works as a licensed clinical social
worker providing in-office mental health
counseling to both deaf and hearing clients.
Alison is a longtime adjunct professor of sign
language at Manchester Community College.
Edward Dooley works as a systems engineer at Picatinny Arsenal. He and his wife,
Stacey, live in Madison with their two kids,
Emma and Shawn. Ed loves watching Emma
compete on her swim team, and Shawn just
graduated kindergarten.
Thanks to everyone for sharing your updates, and we look forward to hearing more
from you soon!
Aaron Loether C’11 and Annie Horlick C’12 married on August 24, 2014, with lots of Drew friends
in attendance.
Summer 2015 41
01
Maren Watkins Calzia
[email protected]
Congratulations to Katie
Woods for her induction
to the Connecticut Lacrosse
15th Reunion Hall of Fame. Katie is the
women’s lacrosse coach at the University of
Connecticut, and the Huskies finished with
a winning record in each of Woods’ first
four years at UConn as well as making their
first appearance in the NCAA Tournament.
Jairo Cano was married on April 11. The
happy couple had their engagement photos
shot on Drew’s beautiful campus! In addition,
the American Bar Association’s Tax Section
selected Jairo as one of six Nolan Fellows for
the 2015–2016 period, in recognition of his
leadership qualities.
Many bouncing baby Drewlers have been
born in recent months. In December, Sara
Zarbo Morrison, her husband, Shawn, and
daughter, Charlotte, welcomed new baby
Henry to their family. Sara and her family
live in Los Angeles.
Maria E. Perez and her husband, Telmo,
welcomed their first child, Ines Sofía, on
January 8, at Morristown Medical Center just
one day before Anetta Puszynski Burdzy
welcomed her first child.
Heather Cantwell Miller and Matt Miller
welcomed Adalyn Drew Miller on April 9.
On May 18, Bart Zoni and his wife, Anna,
introduced Natalia Magdalena. Bart is optimistic she will hit it off famously with Chris
McNulty’s boys.
Some classmates have been planting their
roots. After purchasing a three-story Victorian house in Somerset County, Michele
Wallace C’01, G’05 is a hip homesteader,
raising free-range chickens—very handy
after the hike in egg prices. She stays busy
building an apocalyptic bomb shelter and
growing organic veggies.
D.J. Wright purchased a funeral home
in Flemington, New Jersey: Wright and Ford
Family Funeral Home and Cremation Services (wrightfamily.com). The funeral home
is undergoing a massive renovation. D.J. is
excited to continue bringing traditional-yetprogressive funeral services ideas to those
in need. New initiatives—from “green”
funerals to therapy dog visitations—are in
the works.
Katherine Knotts lives in Corfe Castle,
Dorset, in the United Kingdom along with
her son, Emory. She obtained a master’s
degree from the London School of Economics.
She owns her own consultancy, working
with microfinance organizations worldwide.
In 2014 she was an invited presenter at con-
ferences in Istanbul and Dakar. Her book,
co-authored with Anton Simanowitz, The
Business of Doing Good, was recently published
in England.
02
David Lee, [email protected]
The Class of 2002 welcomes new
additions to the Drew family!
Amy Cavanaugh and her husband, Alvin,
announced the birth of their second daughter,
Finnuala Susanne, on April 13. She joins
older sister Eleanor.
Peter Cole and his wife, Vanessa, welcomed
their son, Rhys Ian, on March 8.
Corrie Aukema Cieslukowski and her
husband, Brian, welcomed their fifth child,
Arlie Mac, on March 14. Arlie joins siblings
Aurora, Braego, Olesia and Henry.
Aaron Zegas is the children’s librarian in
New Jersey’s Camden County Libraries.
Romit Patel has a new job at the Hartford.
Congrats, Romit!
Jess Kates Galatro and her family moved
to Providence, Rhode Island, where she is a
project manager in the capital projects office
at Rhode Island College. Her children, Hannah
and Eva, love living close to “Aunt” Amy
Ewen C’03.
Congratulations to Suzanne Rovegno
Apicella, named a 2015 “Teacher Who Rocks”
by WDHA. Suzanne is an art teacher at
Hanover Park High School in East Hanover,
New Jersey, a position she has held since
we graduated!
Many happy years to Jayson Swanson,
who married Gina Ipolysagi on July 12.
Jayson has also been busy publishing his
first book, Where’s the Math?—which explores
the connections between mathematical topics
and everyday careers. Buy your copy on
Amazon or createspace.com.
The Theological School
60s
08
70s
Stephanie Rice has performed with
three professional improv troupes,
two in Shanghai. Her current improv
troupe, Sea Tea Improv, is building its own
theatre space in Hartford, Connecticut.
Stephanie is very thankful for her experiences at Drew!
Elizabeth Moore published her first
novel, The Truth and the Life, with Alternative
Book Press in Marlboro, Massachusetts.
09
The Future of Global
Christianities and Mission:
130 Years After the Appenzellers
The Tipple-Vosburgh Lecture Series
Theological School Alumni Reunion
Drew University | October 13–14, 2015
Visit drew.edu/tipple and check back
often for details and registration info.
Zack Bircks, a former Drew baseball
player, successfully pitched his Ugly
Christmas Sweater idea to the NFL.
Ugly Christmas Sweaters for your favorite
NFL team are available for purchase online.
11
Aaron Loether and Annie
Horlick Loether C’12 married
on August 24, 2014, at the
Lake House Inn in Perkasie,
Pennsylvania. Their bridal
5th Reunion party and attendees included
many recent Drew University alums. See
photo, page 41.
13
Ashley Petix was the set designer for
Father Kennedy, a play performed in
August as part of the New York International Fringe Festival.
Stanley Wiley C’57, T’61, a
pastor, shares seven messages
to bring the focus of Christmas
to Christ in his new book, Save Christmas for
Christ Alone: 7 Biblical Messages and Hymn Texts
for a Faith Adventure with Our Savior, published
in July by Xulon Press.
The Goodwill Industries Hall of Fame,
which recognizes retired Goodwill partners
who have made lasting contributions to the
organization, inducted George Kessinger
T’69 for his work as CEO of Goodwill Industries of Orange County in Santa Ana, California. He developed the shopgoodwill.com
website, which, since 1999, has brought in
$300 million for 137 registered local Goodwill members.
David E. Wiley III T’75,’76 published his first book, Why Mark:
The Politics of Resurrection in the
First Gospel. It is available on CSS Publishing’s
website.
James L. Harring T’77 was recognized
and honored on the occasion of his 60th
ordination anniversary by the congregation
of the Church of Christ Uniting in Kingston,
Pennsylvania, which he has served for the
past 16 years as minister of pastoral care. He
and his wife, Doris, live in Mountain Top,
Pennsylvania, and observed their 63rd wed-
ding anniversary April 10. The couple has
two daughters and two grandsons.
In March, Pilgrim Congregational Church
in Chattanooga, Tennessee, welcomed Marvin
L. Morgan T’79 to serve as its interim minister. During his term, he will help local
leaders guide a church-wide analysis to determine the type of pastoral leadership the
congregation seeks in its next settled pastor.
80s
Lorna Lee Sellers T’80 and her
husband, Ed, opened their recently
remodeled, expansive Jacksonville, Florida, home as the Summer Dreams
Bed and Breakfast.
Dean Fager T’81 is the newly appointed
pastor of Knox United Methodist Church in
Indiana. He and his wife, Jan, live in nearby
Plymouth.
Yale University Press released the seventh
book by Robin R. Meyers T’81 in April.
Spiritual Defiance: Building a Beloved Community
of Resistance is expanded from his 2013–14
Lyman Beecher Lectures at Yale.
Elizabeth S. Hall T’84 retired in August
as president and chief executive officer of
Homeless Solutions in Morristown, New
Jersey, after 17 years in the position.
90s
Lee Jessup T’92 recently announced his retirement as the
president of the United Way of Davidson
County in Lexington, Kentucky. September
1 marks his last day on the job, which he’s
held for the past 14 years. His retirement
plans include continued support for the Lexington Kiwanis Club and trips with his buddies to the Lexington Golf Course—which he
can see from his house.
Shawn Moses Anglim T’99 is the pastor
of First Grace UMC in New Orleans, where he
lives with his wife, Anne Daniell G’00,’05.
In a letter to Dean Viera, he noted the Theological School’s tremendous influence on his
ministry, which helped to rebuild First Grace
after the storm. First Grace’s altar came by
way of Dean Samuel and a crew when they
came in 2007 to help rebuild.
10s
Sharon Jacob T’10,’13 joined the
faculty of Phillips Theological
Seminary in Tulsa, Oklahoma,
and will teach courses in the New Testament
in the fall semester. Her book Reading Mary
Alongside Indian Surrogate Mothers is set to
reach publication early next year.
Ronald E. Verblaauw T’12 is the interim
pastor at Rutherford Congregational Church
in Rutherford, New Jersey. He received the
Class of 1956 Dr. Franz Hildebrandt Award
at Drew in 2012 for excellence in theological
studies and student ministry.
The Caspersen School
DLitt
Jude M. Pfister G’07 published
Morris County’s Acorn Hall (History Press Publishers, 2015), a biography of
the hall and the families who lived there
prior to its becoming the admired historic
site it is today.
Arthur Turfa G’07 published his first
book of poetry, Places and Times, with eLectio
Publishing in April.
PhD
Darius Salter G’82,’83, senior
pastor at Richardson, Texas,
Church of the Nazarene, was the featured
pastor at a camp in Beecher City, Illinois.
Jeffrey J. Richards G’83,’85 traveled
to Kiev, Ukraine, in May to teach a 10-day
course to 12 students at Kiev Regional
Bible College.
Mark Sneed G’88,’90 published The Social
World of the Sages: An Introduction to Israelite and
Jewish Wisdom Literature with Fortress Press
in June.
Hugo Walter G’94,’96 published a book
titled Sanctuaries in Washington Irving’s The
Sketch Book (Peter Lang Publishing, 2014).
Vincent Bacote G’99,’02 released his
new book, The Political Disciple: A Theology of
Public Life.
Summer 2015 43
In Memoriam
The Drew community and its alumni associations extend our heartfelt sympathy to the families and friends of
those alumni and members of the Drew community listed below. Our ranks are diminished by their loss.
College of Liberal Arts
Americo P. Cocco C’42, of Philadelphia,
passed away at home on January 16. He was
101. After Drew, he earned a master’s degree
at Columbia University. He served in the
U.S. Army during World War II from 1942 to
1945, and served as an interpreter of French,
Italian and German. Thereafter, he taught
European history at Seton Hall University,
until his retirement in 1978. Americo loved
traveling, singing and playing the piano.
He is survived by many nephews and their
spouses, great-nieces and nephews, and
great-great nieces and nephews.
Alfred Zampella C’43, a lifelong resident
of Jersey City, New Jersey, died on February
1, 2014, at age 90. He served in the Pacific
theatre of World War II, and then earned
degrees including a master’s in educational
administration at New York University. He
became an influential educator, spending 37
years as a Jersey City teacher and principal.
When he retired in 1990, his school was
renamed in his honor. He is survived by wife
Jaclyn, three sons, two daughters-in-law and
six grandchildren.
Frederick L. Askham C’47, of Oceanside,
California, died on March 9. He was 91. He
served in the Army Air Corps during World
War II. After earning a bachelor’s degree in
chemistry at Drew, he attained a master’s
degree in chemistry at Brooklyn Polytechnic
Institute, and went on to a career in technical
sales and marketing. In retirement he served
as a volunteer and supporter of many organizations, most notably a food pantry. Fred
and his first wife, Jean, were married for 54
years, until she preceded him in death. Fred
married Mildred Sudman Stewart in 2004.
She survives him, along with a daughter, a
son and two grandchildren.
Dr. Ralph R. Pfeiffer C’48 was born in
Germany but grew up in New Jersey. He
served in the U.S. Army in Europe in 1944–46.
He then earned a doctoral degree in chemistry
at Syracuse University and had a long career
in science, both with Eli Lilly & Co. and in
pharmaceutical consulting. He died on June
1 as a longtime Indianapolis resident, and a
member of All Souls Unitarian Church since
1959. He is survived by his wife, Fay, their
son, three daughters and two sons from a
prior marriage, a stepdaughter, a stepson
and three grandchildren.
Arthur Grambling C’49 passed away
peacefully at the age of 88 on February 22.
He proudly served in the U.S. Navy and felt
very fortunate to earn a degree at Drew
under the GI Bill. His professional career
was dedicated to the United Way, serving as
director of the Broome County, New York,
chapter before retiring. He is survived by
Lois C’49, his wife of 66 years, two children,
their spouses and three grandchildren.
Eleanor Wisner Gural C’50, a passionate
advocate for animals and nature, died on
March 8 at the age of 87. She was a lifelong
resident of Summit and Springfield, New
Jersey. She and her late husband, the Hon.
William Gural, were the proprietors of Laurel
Woods Nursery, later named Springfield’s
Hidden Garden. Ellie graduated from Drew
and from the Bank Street Teachers College.
She taught nursery school in Geneva,
Switzerland, and second grade at the Far
Brook School in Short Hills, New Jersey,
before raising her family. She is survived
by her daughter and son, their spouses and
one granddaughter.
John T. McCallum C’51, a resident of New
Hope, Minnesota, died at 92 on December 16,
2014. A World War II veteran of the Army Air
Corps, he went on to have a distinguished
career as a social worker. He was preceded
in death by his wife, Dorothy, and is survived
by two sons, their wives, seven grandchildren
and a brother.
Lois Mays Osborn C’51 of Hockessin,
Delaware, died peacefully at home, surrounded
by loved ones, on April 1. She was 86. She
met her husband, Kenton C’51, at Drew,
when she was a student there. They enjoyed
55 years of marriage, in which they raised
four children. She taught yoga, worked
with children and traveled. Preceded in
death by Kenton, she is survived by their
four children, five grandchildren and a
beloved companion whom she met in her
widowhood.
Eleanor Karasic Gould C’52 died on
February 14. After graduating from Drew,
she taught kindergarten in Ocean Township,
New Jersey. A lover of art, music, theatre
and cooking, and an active book-group
member, she also served on the auxiliary
boards of the Middlesex County Medical
Society, Perth Amboy General Hospital and
John F. Kennedy Medical Center in Edison,
New Jersey. She was preceded in death by
her husband, Louis, and is survived by three
children, five grandchildren and members
of her extended family.
Norma Jean Brown C’53, of Phoenix,
Arizona, died December 10, 2014. She was
87. Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, to immigrants
from Norka, Russia, she met and married Ed
Brown T’53 in 1944, when he was stationed
in Lincoln with the Army Air Corps. Subsequently, they arrived at Drew, where Norma
graduated with a degree in Christian education. She and Ed served in the United
Methodist Church and worked for over 18
years in Peru, South America. They returned
to the United States in 1970 and continued
their ministry at churches in Massachusetts
and New Hampshire, eventually retiring to
Maine. They recently celebrated 70 years of
marriage. Norma is survived by her husband,
their four children, several grandchildren
and other relatives.
Esther D. Paddack C’53 passed away on
March 5. She was 83. Born in Iowa, she moved
to New Jersey, earned a bachelor’s in theological studies at Drew, and settled in Atlantic
Highlands in 1953. She made use of the
degree by teaching in a Christian school
and many Sunday schools in the Atlantic
Highlands area. She was predeceased by her
husband, Robert, in 2011, and is survived by
three sons, their wives, three grandchildren
and her sister.
Margaret “Peg” Reed Bloom C’55 passed
away on May 3 at age 82, after 60 years of
marriage and over 20 years in retirement.
A special education teacher, she earned a
master’s degree at Columbia University while
her children were still young. A Methodist
minister’s wife, she assisted her husband,
Art T’54,’75, with numerous church committees and endeavors. Peg is survived by
husband Art, their children Bryan and
Joyce, a son-in-law, three grandsons, a greatgranddaughter and several other dear friends
and relatives.
The Rev. Malcolm Howard C’55, T’58
passed away on Dec. 13, 2014. He is
survived by his wife, Joan.
Clyde Lindsley C’59, who helped to bring
big-name artists to the Strand-Capitol Performing Arts Center in York, Pennsylvania,
through contacts he had in the music and
theatre industry, died on November 11,
2014, in Olney, Maryland. He was 77. Clyde
served as executive director of the Strand
from 1984 to 1999. He also opened up the
theatre to a wider variety of performances,
helping to grow the Strand. He is survived
by his wife, Sara, two children and four
grandchildren.
Beverly Cole Boston C’64, daughter of
the late Dr. Austin A. Cole, the former director
of admissions at Drew, passed away on
February 9 in Albany, New York. She was
73. During her college years at Drew as an
English major, Bev became an anglophile.
While at Drew, she met her future husband,
Robert S. Boston T’64. They married in 1964
and began serving churches of the United
Methodist Church Troy Conference in New
York. Bev also enjoyed a 20-year career as
a librarian, but her real passion was her
family. She is survived by her husband of
50 years, Robert, their two children, many
grandchildren and great-grandchildren and
extended family members.
The Hon. Deedee Corradini C’65, Salt
Lake City’s only female mayor to date, died
on March 1 at age 70. After Drew, she relocated
to Utah. During her tenure as mayor of Salt
Lake City from 1992 to 2000, she was instrumental in achieving milestones of urban
redevelopment, a transportation hub in
a former red-light district, a new baseball
stadium and in securing the 2002 Winter
Olympics for the city. In 1998, as a panelist
at a Renaissance Weekend in Hilton Head,
South Carolina, she went “head-to-head”
with a Southern gentleman, John Huebner,
on the topic of the changing relationships
between men and women. She married him
a year later. She is survived by John, her two
children, three grandchildren and many
other cherished relatives.
Dr. Richard A. Lehne C’65, age 71, of
Charlottesville, Virginia, died peacefully at
home on March 16, with wife Nancy at his
side. A native of New Jersey, he held a PhD
in pharmacology from George Washington
University and was the author of a leading
textbook on pharmacology for nurses. His
writing style was known for infusing humor
and personality into a potentially dry subject.
He met Nancy in a swing dance class, and
literally swept her off her feet. Other survivors
include two stepdaughters, a brother, many
more relatives and a farm full of cats, dogs,
horses and ponies.
Crane Nichols Zuvich C’65 was born in
Manhattan in 1930. She became a featured
performer in the Water Follies in the 1940s.
After Drew she became a criminal psychologist,
whose research papers are housed at the
Criminal Justice Library at John Jay College.
She was also involved in horticulture-related
volunteer work. A resident of Lakewood,
New Jersey, she died peacefully on July 8 at
age 85. She is survived by husband Jerry,
two sons from a prior relationship, their
wives, two grandchildren and her brother.
Donna Kennedy Walker C’68, of Daytona
Beach, Florida, died on April 8 at age 68.
After Drew, Donna earned a graduate degree
at the University of Delaware. Donna then
began a career in the Philadelphia area as a
college instructor, proofreader and editor.
She then pursued a two-year counseling
program at Westminster Theological Seminary
in Glenside, Pennsylvania, which led her to
start a counseling ministry at her church.
She is survived by Bill, her husband of 30
years, two children, four grandchildren and
many extended family members.
Richard Kastendieck C’69 passed away at
67, on July 5, as a resident of Baltimore. An
attorney, he received degrees from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Temple
University, practiced law in Pennsylvania
and ultimately retired from the Maryland
Attorney General’s office. He was an engaged
volunteer and member of his community.
An athlete, he remained active, hiking parts
of the Appalachian Trail. He is survived by
his wife of 32 years, Sally Miles, their two
children, a twin brother and one sister.
Eric R. Nahm C’71, P’05 died on March 6
at his home in Far Hills, New Jersey, with his
family at his side. Shortly after graduating
from Drew, Eric married Ruth Rhodes C’75,
P’05. He worked for IBM and AT&T and
quickly became a respected executive in
sales and marketing. He later became a
Realtor/broker in Bernardsville, New Jersey,
and Venice, Florida, building his own dream
home on the Gulf of Mexico in 2012. He was
also the owner and CEO of Speech Interface
Design, a voice-recognition company in
Pittsburgh. He is survived by Ruth, three
daughters including Erica Kerr C’05, their
husbands and two grandchildren.
Henry B. Selvin C’72 died on June 12. He
was a 34-year resident of Florida when he
recently moved to North Carolina. Henry
cherished his Drew memories. Always enthusiastic, he was an active volunteer and
participant at his local senior center. Henry’s
favorite conversations involved Drew, his
home state of New Jersey and David Letterman.
Michael George Zuck C’72 died on March 7
at age 63. After Drew, he attended graduate
school at the University of Maine. He shared
his life’s work of building and operating
Everlasting Farm with his wife, Gail. He was
the founding president of the Mid Maine
Greenhouse Growers Association. Following
retirement he took pleasure in gardening and
teaching amateur gardeners. He is survived
by his wife, a stepdaughter and stepson, a
sister, two brothers, a grandson and several
nieces and nephews.
Thomas Lanman Struthers C’73 passed
away on February 15. He was 64. He recently
retired as vice president and chief financial
officer of John Milner Associates, Inc., a
nationally known preservation and cultural
resources firm in West Chester, Pennsylvania.
After Drew, he earned a master’s degree in
archaeology at Idaho State University. Tom
is survived by his wife, Jacqueline C’73, his
two daughters and his sister.
Daniel J. Sumption C’76 passed away
suddenly at the age of 61 on March 15. After
growing up in New Jersey and graduating
from Drew, he earned a law degree at the
College of William and Mary. A resident of
Derry, New Hampshire, he loved sailing,
which led to him attend boat-building school.
Daniel was a history buff, a Civil War reenactor,
a master electrician and an expert tour guide.
He is survived by his daughter Jessica, her
husband, two grandchildren and four siblings.
Margaret H. Knoecklein C’82, G’88 died
on March 16 at age 95. As a young woman,
she enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania
and became a surgical nurse. The day after
Pearl Harbor, she enlisted in the U.S. Army
and served in India. After retiring from the
Army, she earned bachelor’s and master’s
degrees in English at Drew, and then wrote
a novel about her Army experiences. She
found joy in her family, and in volunteering
at the Methodist church in her hometown of
Chatham, New Jersey, where the women’s
group has established a Drew scholarship
in her memory. Her husband, Max, passed
away in January 2015. She is survived by their
four sons and their wives, numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren and many
dear friends and extended family members.
Stephen Rao C’82, a cherished faculty
member at the San Francisco VA Medical
Center, died on May 24, 2014. He served for
many years at San Francisco General Hospital.
At the VA, Stephen was health behavior
coordinator in the new Health Promotion and
Disease Prevention Program. He is survived
by his husband, Randy, his parents and a
circle of loving friends. To honor his memory,
his Drew classmates and family raised nearly
$12,000 for the Stephen M. Rao, PhD C’82
Fellowship for Research in the Sciences. To
make a contribution, contact John Holden at
973.408.3872 or [email protected].
Casimir “Chuck” Bolanowski C’89 of
Boca Raton, Florida, passed away at the age
of 48, on March 31. He is survived by wife
Staci C’89, two sons, his mother and a brother.
Anne Garrison C’90 passed away on
March 5 after a long illness. She is survived
by her husband, Michael; her daughter,
Eleanor; and her mother, Joanne.
Jeffrey R. Zecher C’96, of Madison, New
Jersey, passed away on March 14 at the age
of 43. Born in Chicago, he lived in Iowa City,
Iowa, before moving to Madison in 1981. He
was the owner of Zecher Roofing in Morristown, New Jersey, for the last 15 years. His
family will remember him as hard working,
loyal and fun loving. He is survived by his
parents, a brother, two sisters and many
nieces and nephews.
Clifford Maceda C’98, a longtime resident
of Greenpoint, Brooklyn, died at age 39, on
April 6. His career was spent in elections
research, most recently with the Associated
Press. A lifelong student of history, politics
and economics, he had a passion for social
justice. He is survived by his parents, four
siblings and members of his extended family.
Clare Goggins C’16 passed away on July 7.
A resident of Chatham, New Jersey, Clare is
survived by her parents and older sister.
Neil Torian VanDePutte C’16, a physics
major at Drew, passed away after a tragic
accident on July 5, in the summer after his
junior year. He was 25. A resident of Toms
River, New Jersey, he had maintained a 4.0
GPA and had recently won the Marshall C.
Harrington Prize in Physics and Astronomy.
He is survived by his parents, stepparents,
grandmothers, a sister and five stepbrothers
and stepsisters.
Theological School
The Rev. George Eppehimer T’44 passed
away quietly on January 20 after a short illness.
He served the Cherry Valley five-church
country circuit from 1943 to 1946. He earned
a master’s degree in sacred theology at Temple
University in 1949, while continuing parish
ministry with various churches in Pennsylvania. George and Mabel, his wife of 72 years,
retired to Wesley Enhanced Living in Philadelphia. Along with Mabel, he is survived by
two sons and their wives, four grandchildren
and four great-grandchildren.
The Rev. Dr. William D. Geoghegan T’45
died on April 25 in his hometown of Brunswick,
Maine. Born in 1922, he entered Yale University
at age 17, graduated magna cum laude, and
was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. In 1946,
he married Sarah T’46, whom he had met
at Drew. Ordained a Methodist minister,
his career consisted principally of academic
chaplaincy and teaching, at the University of
Rochester and at Bowdoin College. He was
preceded in death by Sarah and one child,
and is survived by their three remaining
children, nine grandchildren and other
family members.
The Rev. Ralph B. Shoemaker T’53 passed
away on March 21. An ordained elder in the
United Methodist Church, he was in fulltime ministry until his retirement in 1979,
serving numerous Minnesota churches and
continuing part-time ministry in retirement.
A month before his death, Ralph was the
guest of honor at a joyous celebration of his
100th birthday. He still had a quick wit and
a desire to serve others. He was preceded in
death by his beloved wife, Pearl, and one
son. He is survived by two daughters and
sons-in-law, five grandchildren and three
great-grandsons.
The Rev. Melvin R. Byrd T’54, an Army
veteran and former Methodist minister,
passed away in his hometown of Granite
City, Illinois, on May 26 at the age of 87.
Melvin was a member of the St. Elizabeth
Roman Catholic Church in Granite City, and
became active in the Knights of Columbus.
He is survived by his wife, two daughters,
two stepchildren, their spouses, five siblings,
17 grandchildren, 36 great-grandchildren
and four great-great-grandchildren.
The Rev. Verne E. Schattner T’54, age 94,
passed away peacefully at home in Cohocton,
New York, on May 29. A Methodist minister,
he earned a doctoral degree at Drew. He was a
pastor at the North Cohocton and Cohocton
United Methodist churches from 1954 until
Summer 2015 45
his retirement in 1990. He is survived by his
wife of 54 years, Lillian, and many members
of his extended family.
The Rev. Don L. Young T’54 was born in
1929 on an Iowa farm, became a social
worker and then earned two master’s
degrees at Drew, in divinity and counseling.
His parish ministry took him to churches in
Montana, Ohio, Arizona and Washington.
The father of seven, he led his family in
sailing the San Juan Islands and in traveling
the country with an Airstream trailer. He
retired to Sierra Vista, Arizona, in 1996 with
wife Helene, and remained active with Habitat
for Humanity. One son preceded him in death,
and he is survived by Helene, six remaining
children, 12 grandchildren and members of
his extended family.
The Rev. John C. Barr T’56, a graduate
of Drew’s Master of Divinity program, died
on March 22 at age 85. An Army chaplain,
he retired as a colonel, having served in the
United States and Germany. He continued
with hospital chaplaincy, and as pastor of
several congregations in Virginia and in his
native South Carolina. In 1997, he retired
to his childhood home in Florence, South
Carolina. He is survived by Nora, his wife of
59 years, two children, three grandchildren
and a host of other relatives and friends.
The Rev. Robert D. Kendall T’57 died at
his home in St. Cloud, Minnesota, on March
26 at the age of 81. He became a pastor in
New York in 1955 and continued as a pastor
until 1968. He then became a professor of
speech communication at St. Cloud State
University, serving in that capacity from 1971
to 1992. Survivors include LuBelle, his wife
of 60 years, four children, six grandchildren,
two great-grandchildren and two siblings.
The Rev. Charles H. Berg T’58, of New
Brighton, Minnesota, died on January 23. He
enlisted for five years in the Army, spending
two of them in Germany during World War
II. Charles graduated from the University of
Minnesota before entering the seminary at
Drew. He served United Methodist congregations throughout Minnesota. Preceded in death
by his first wife, Sigrid, he is survived by wife
Wilma, two sons, three stepchildren, seven
grandchildren, two great-grandchildren and
two sisters.
The Rev. Lloyd Lester McGonagle T’58, a
Methodist pastor, earned a divinity degree at
Drew and then served congregations in New
York for 42 years. Upon retirement to Lakeland,
Florida, he became an active volunteer with
many causes. He passed away peacefully
at home on April 18 at age 84. Preceded in
death by one son, he is survived by Martha,
his loving wife of 60 years, their daughter
and five grandchildren.
The Rev. John Nevin Wimer Jr. T’62, of
Suffolk, Virginia, died on March 8 with his
family by his side. He was 84. He served in
the U.S. Air Force, earning the rank of staff
sergeant. Receiving the call to the ministry,
he attended Wake Forest University and Drew.
Ordained in the United Methodist Church
in 1964 and served for 36 years at churches
in New York and Virginia. While serving
First United Methodist Church in Hampton,
Virginia, he met Ella Mae, his wife of 47 years,
who survives him, along with a son and a
daughter, three grandchildren, a sister, two
brothers and many other relatives.
The Rev. Arthur L. Hill T’65,’67 died in
his hometown of Indianola, Iowa, on June 24.
A Methodist pastor from 1963 to 2010, he
married Edythe, also a minister, in 1962.
He is survived by Edythe, two of their three
children, two grandsons, four siblings (including
his twin) and many other relatives and friends.
The Rev. Herman A. Soderberg T’65, a
Navy veteran, died at home in Fayetteville,
North Carolina, on April 24. He was 83. After
serving as a naval electronic engineer and
earning a bachelor’s degree in math, he
earned a master’s at Drew. As a Methodist
minister, he served in New Jersey and North
Carolina. He also taught math, religion,
philosophy, creative writing, Old and New
Testament at the collegiate level. He is survived by Audrey, his wife of 43 years, and
many dear friends.
The Rev. Frank Monte T’74, a native
New Yorker, died on April 23 as an Orlando,
Florida resident. He was 72. After graduating
from Drew, he served as a minister with several
United Methodist churches in New York City,
with the support of Marilyn, his devoted
wife of 52 years. He relocated to Orlando and
operated a successful real estate business. He
is survived by Marilyn, three children, nine
grandchildren, a great-granddaughter, his
brother and his extended family.
Patricia Lynn RichardsonNewman T’74,
of Charleston, West Virginia, passed away
on March 14, 2015. She was 74. As an undergraduate, she met her husband, Kenneth
T’76. Both went on to earn master’s degrees
at Drew. Kenneth was ordained and served
five Methodist congregations in New Jersey
until his death in 1999. Patricia was a born
educator, preaching and teaching in the
communities where she and Kenneth served.
Widowed, she returned to her native West
Virginia in 2001, and married Robert G.
Newman G’65, her former undergraduate
adviser and lifelong friend. She is survived
by Robert, her daughter, Kristan, and her
brother.
The Rev. Dr. Russell D. Goodwin T’75, a
resident of Inman, South Carolina, passed
away on April 18. He pursued a full-time
career in Methodist ministry from 1967 to
1995, and earned a doctoral degree at Drew
Theological Seminary. He is survived by wife
Maria, four children, five grandchildren, one
great-granddaughter and members of his
extended family.
The Rt. Rev. Orris G. Walker Jr. T’80, bishop
of the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island, New
York, from 1991 to 2009, died on February
28 at the age of 72. Born in Baltimore, he
was a graduate of the University of Maryland
and General Theological Seminary and was
ordained deacon in 1968 and priest in 1969.
During the 1980s he earned further degrees
from Drew, the University of Windsor and
the Graduate Theological Foundation. He is
survived by his wife, Norma, two children, two
grandsons and other family members.
The Rev. Roger W. Weeks T’81, of Newberg,
Oregon, died on February 19 at 74. Born in
Everett, Washington, he was ordained a Methodist minister and served 10 churches in
Colorado and Oregon, retiring in 1997 as
the chaplain of Kaiser Permanente’s Hospice
in Portland. He is survived by the Rev. Dr.
Carolynne Fairweather T’86,’95, his wife
since 1996, along with two stepchildren,
seven grandchildren, six brothers and other
family members.
The Rev. Dr. William J. “Bill” Caple T’82
of Lexington, Kentucky, died on May 1. A
Methodist minister, he retired as a chaplain
of the U.S. Army. He had previously served
in the Air Force. He also taught English at
the Japanese Naval Academy, and served as
chaplain and religion instructor at RandolphMacon Academy in Front Royal, Virginia. He
is survived by two children, a son-in-law, five
grandchildren and a large extended family.
Patricia, his wife of 49 years, preceded him in
death. Arrangements were made for them to
be interred together at Arlington National
Cemetery.
The Rev. Dr. Buddy R. Pipes T’82 passed
away on February 28 in Lebanon, New Hampshire, after a prolonged illness. Born in 1931,
he earned a bachelor’s degree in 1957 and
married Grace Fletcher the next day. He
served as pastor of Methodist churches in
Maryland from 1960 to 1992, and was also
active in Kiwanis. In 1994, he and Grace
retired to Vermont, moving to Lebanon in
2011. Buddy is survived by Grace, three
children and their spouses, seven grandchildren and two siblings and their spouses.
The Rev. Dr. Dwight A. White T’82 died
on March 10 at his family homestead in
Ryegate, Vermont, where he had grown up.
He was 89. Upon graduation from high school
in 1944, he joined the U.S. Army and served
in the Pacific theatre until 1946. He became
a Presbyterian minister in 1953, and was
married that same year to Jean, who survives
him. His ministry took the couple to Presbyterian congregations in California and New
Jersey. He was also a dedicated community
volunteer. Along with wife Jean, he is survived
by their two children, three grandchildren
and extended family.
The Rev. Dr. William F. Allinder T’83 of
Grand Rapids, Michigan, passed away on
April 3, two days short of his 80th birthday.
He had a 40-year career as a United Church
of Christ pastor in the Midwest. A lifelong
Rotarian, he generously volunteered his time
to many other charitable and civic causes. A
scratch golfer and an avid outdoorsman, he
encouraged young people to draw life lessons
from their experiences on the playing field,
the golf course or outdoors in nature. He is
survived by the love of his life and wife of 55
years, Joan, two children, a daughter-in-law
and twin granddaughters.
The Rev. Howard Allen Chubbs T’83, a
pastor, preacher, scholar, singer and spiritual
father for 49 years at Providence Baptist
Church of Greensboro, North Carolina, passed
away on March 1 at the age of 79. Ordained
at 22, his ministry coincided with his other
vocational pursuits as a social worker in
Chicago, a public school teacher in Virginia
and an adjunct professor and guest lecturer
at numerous colleges and universities. Howard
received many awards. He is survived by
his wife, Louise, his son, three sisters and
members of his extended family.
The Rev. Dr. James C. Mooney T’87, a
Canadian by birth, served as a Southern
Baptist pastor in the Carolinas. In 1972, he
naturalized as a U.S. citizen. He retired from
the ministry in 1990 and passed away on
May 24 at the age of 75. He is survived by
wife Barbara, a sister and brother in Canada,
and members of his extended family.
The Rev. Rachel Ye Kim T’89 was born in
Inchon, South Korea, and moved to New York
with her family. She became a Methodist
minister, earning a Master of Divinity degree
at Drew in 1989. On January 14, at age 50,
the Milford, Connecticut, resident passed
away. She is survived by her husband of
nearly 17 years, the Rev. Gye Ho (Tom) Kim
G’95,’99 and their two children.
The Rev. Chester W. Plank T’89 passed
away on February 10 in Jacksonville, Florida,
at the age of 94. Better known as Brother
Chester, he was a retired Methodist minister,
published author, member of the Civil Air
Patrol, a 70-year Freemason, barbershopquartet singer and a well-established hamradio operator. Brother Chester was also an
engineer, a pilot and a Seabee in the Navy
during World War II. In addition to his
parents, he was preceded in death by his
dear wife, Barbara, his daughter, Rena Jean,
and his brother, Robert. He is survived by
nieces, nephews and many friends.
The Rev. Dr. Cynthia Willis Stewart
T’90, a resident of Long Island, New York,
passed away on June 1. A native of Guyana,
she immigrated to the United States in 1981.
She held degrees from several institutions,
including Drew, and occupied many offices
in the A.M.E. Zion Church, ending a 13-year
term as senior presiding elder in June 2014.
She was also a writer, teacher, preacher and
workshop presenter for the A.M.E. Zion
denomination, both domestically and
abroad. She is survived by her husband,
Brother Ronald Stewart, five siblings and
many nieces and nephews.
The Rev. Dr. Clifford T. Parke T’93,
a minister in the First Christian Church
Disciples of Christ, served for over 48 years
with churches in the South and Midwest,
retiring in 2001 from his last church in
Baltimore. He died as a resident of Round
Rock, Texas, on May 30 at age 79. Preceded
in death by his wife, Alma, he is survived by
four daughters, 11 grandchildren and two
great-grandchildren.
The Rev. Dr. Thomas P. Armour T’95, a
retired pastor and resident of Hackettstown,
New Jersey, died in Naples, Florida, on June 15.
His ministry included a 31-year term at
Gethsemane Lutheran Church, Hackettstown.
In 1975, he became involved with the
Lutheran Friends of the Deaf, working to
enhance the quality of life for the deaf,
and this continued for the rest of his life.
He is survived by Lois, his wife of 58 years,
four children and their spouses, nine
grandchildren and many members of his
extended family.
The Rev. Bonita H. Owens T’97 passed
away on June 17 at 68, a resident of
Huntersville, North Carolina. A wife and
mother of two, she earned a Master of
Divinity degree at Drew. She was originally
from Baltimore, and served as pastor of
three A.M.E. Zion churches in New Jersey
before relocating to North Carolina and
assuming the pastorate of a fourth church.
As recently as four months prior to her death,
she was an associate minister at a fifth
church, was also working as a substitute
teacher and was pursuing a second master’s
degree. She is survived by her daughter,
DeAnna, a grandson and other family
members. She was preceded in death by her
husband, Kenneth, and son Kenny Jr.
Aarona Cooper T’10 passed away peacefully on January 16 in Wilmington, Delaware.
She was born on August 28, 1950, in New
York City to the late Andrew and Ruth
Cooper. She is survived by her son, Aaron
Browne, a granddaughter, members of her
extended family and dear friends.
The Rev. Dr. Karrie A. Oertli T’10, a
Baptist minister, passed away at her home
in Normal, Illinois, on May 2. She was 57.
Her drive to improve health care led her
to the role of vice president of mission and
spiritual care at Advocate BroMenn Medical
Center, a position she held at the time of her
death. She is survived by the Rev. Dennis
Pendleton, her husband since 1996, her
parents, her sister, six stepchildren, eight
grandchildren and extended family members.
Caspersen School
The Rev. Dr. William J. Hausmann G’68,’78
passed away on February 2. A resident of
Rockaway, New Jersey, he is survived by
his beloved wife, Trudi, two children, their
spouses and four grandchildren.
Louise Ann Poresky G’77 was a literary
scholar, professor and author who earned a
doctoral degree at Drew. On April 1, she
died at home in Nyack, New York, surrounded
by friends, at age 69. From the late 1970s,
she taught literature and writing at colleges
in the New York metropolitan area. Her
dissertation was published, as were two
subsequent books she wrote. She spent the
last 15 years serving the Blue Rock School,
West Nyack. She is survived by two brothers,
a sister, and many nieces, nephews and cousins.
Mary Alison Levine G’78, a resident
of Basking Ridge, New Jersey, died in New
York on March 26 at age 61. Originally
from the Midwest, she moved to New Jersey
in 1973 and earned a master’s degree in
literature at Drew. She worked in undersea
telecommunications with AT&T, retiring in
2004 after 25 years. She enjoyed classical
guitar and horseback riding. She is survived
by two brothers, two nieces and a nephew.
The Rev. Dr. Richard Miller G’87,’91, age
72, of Bloomington, Indiana, passed away
on April 17. A Nazarene pastor, he served as
a pastor in New Jersey and Indiana, and as
an educator, teaching at the high school and
college levels. An author, he published many
poems and devotional articles. He is survived
by Sandi, his wife of 42 years, two sons, a
daughter, along with siblings and many
nieces and nephews.
John J. Tamasik G’96, of Waldwick, New
Jersey, passed away peacefully on March 12
at the age of 62. For the past 28 years, he
taught U.S. history, government, social
studies and economics at Monroe-Woodbury
High School in Central Valley, New York.
He was named Teacher of the Year in 2014
by the Central Valley School District. He is
survived by his sister, Catherine, as well as
his dear friend, Marilyn, and her children.
Carol Zanisnik P’01, G’09 of Springfield,
New Jersey, passed away on March 6. She
was a teacher for St. Rose of Lima School
in Short Hills, New Jersey. Carol had been
working on her doctoral degree at Drew at
the time of her death. She is survived by
her husband, Bob, two sons including Bryan
Zanisnik C’01 and two grandchildren.
Faculty, Staff & Friends
The Rev. Dr. William Barrick died on June
24. Born into a large Oklahoma farming
family in 1928, he became a Methodist
minister, and married his wife, Jean, in 1953.
The couple relocated to New York City in
1961, where both received doctoral degrees
from Columbia University. He subsequently
became Drew’s director of continuing
education. The couple moved to Texas
in 1977, where both taught at McMurry
University. Predeceased by Jean and seven
of his siblings, he is survived by daughter
Darcy, two sisters and many friends and
colleagues.
Dr. Karen M. Brown, retired Drew professor
of sociology and anthropology, died on March
4 at the age of 73. She taught at Drew from
1976 until her retirement in 2009. A 1964
graduate of Smith College, she held a PhD
from Temple University. She was the Theological School’s first tenured woman and
first female full professor. Her scholarly
work focused on the religious practices
of the Haitian Diaspora. The University
of California Press published her awardwinning 1991 book. At Drew, she was a
founder of the Newark Project, a decadelong effort to map the changing religious
landscape in Newark, for which she secured
a major grant from the Ford Foundation. She
is survived by her spouse, Robert Machover,
and other loved ones.
Mary Marx P’77, A’08 passed away
peacefully on December 7, 2014. She was
93. Born in Glasgow, Scotland, she served
in the British Army during World War II. It
was there that she met her husband. Mary
worked in the registrar’s office of Drew for
nine years. She is survived by her devoted
husband of 67 years, Karl C’49, P’77, A’08
two daughters and their families, including
Karen C’77, P’08 and Lloyd Hymen C’77,
P’08 and Louis Hymen C’08.
Nan Tucker McEvoy, a Drew benefactor
and the grandmother of Griffin McEvoy
C’13, passed away peacefully at age 95
in her San Francisco home on March 26.
McEvoy was the last member of the San
Francisco Chronicle’s founding family to
run the 150-year-old newspaper. She was
also instrumental in founding the Peace
Corps. The McEvoys recognize the value
of Drew’s proximity to New York City,
and through the generosity of the Nan T.
McEvoy Foundation Fund, an endowment
now assists Drew students in the pursuit of
internship opportunities there.
Elfriede W. Smith, a professor emeritus
who taught at Drew for 40 years, passed
away on October 11, 2014, at her home in
Madison. Frau Smith—as her many devoted
students called her—was 73. She became
the German program coordinator in the late
1980s, serving in this position until her retirement in 2008. She was an adviser for Drew
students and was a frequent consultant
to major publishers of German textbooks.
Though she had retired from Drew, Frau
Smith returned frequently as a visitor to the
campus. She is survived by her brother-inlaw, Leonard Smith, his wife, Geri, and several
nieces and nephews. She was predeceased
by her husband, Joseph C. Smith, in 2012.
Gert von der Linde, a former Drew board
member, passed away on February 10 at age
85. Born in Germany, he graduated from
the University of Munich and then earned
a PhD in economics at the University of
California at Berkeley. He taught at Berkeley,
Carnegie Mellon University and Stanford
University before leaving academia for Wall
Street. He is survived by Margaret, his wife
of almost 61 years, two sons, seven grandchildren and special family friends. Gert is
also survived by three of his six brothers.
Summer 2015 47
BackTalk
Trevor Weston
Associate Professor of Music, Composer
Many of my commissioned pieces have come about because a
director was told by another director, “Oh, you should look at
Trevor Weston’s music.” But as a composer and really CEO of
trevorwestonmusic.com, if that ever existed, I have to go out and
look for opportunities to put my music in front of people.
I’ve known Julian Wachner [the music director and conductor at
Trinity Church on Wall Street in Lower Manhattan] since I was a
choirboy. Really out of the blue, he came to me and said, “Hey, we’re
going to do a whole concert of your music, so send me everything.”
These were all previously composed pieces. They were written for
different ensembles and have different inspirational elements. The
first piece, “Ma’at Musings,” uses ancient Egyptian pyramid texts. I
wanted to write a piece that was powerful but also intimate.
In one movement, I wanted to make reference to rap music, because
in some of the texts the pharaohs are boasting about the things they
did that made them great, which to me sounded like a rap artist. I like
making connections between things that seem completely different.
“Ashes” is a piece I wrote in response to 9/11. It addresses the issue
of human suffering, so I used verses of a psalm for that. “Given
Sound” uses a poem by the daughter-in-law of my first composition
professor.
The first rehearsal I went to, they went through everything. It felt like
someone was reading my journal to me, out loud, because the earliest
piece I wrote in 1996, the last was finished in 2008, maybe.
When I was younger, composing was more torturous because I
wasn’t sure that I could actually write something. Now, I’m not
worried about that. I’m focusing on writing something that I’m
really happy with.
It was a strange experience of thinking about my evolution as a
composer and hearing the connections between pieces that I thought
were very different. After going through that, and thinking, like, “Oh,
I could have done that better,” it became this amazing experience of
having one of the best choirs in the country performing my music.
I told members of the choir that I felt like all these years I’ve been
A selection of Weston’s choral works,
drawn from Egyptian, Hebrew and
Chinese sacred texts, was performed
earlier this year by the choir of New
York’s Trinity Church.
Bill Cardoni
driving a Pinto and now I’m in this Rolls-Royce.—SHANNON MULLEN
Summer 2015 3
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Permit 571
Burl. VT 05401
Drew University
36 Madison Ave.
Madison, NJ 07940
drew.edu
Please join us for
The INAUGURATION of
as the thirteenth president of
DREW UNIVERSITY
Thursday, October 1
Inaugural Academic Symposia
n T
he
City as Classroom: Case Studies, Lessons and Aspirations
n S
tewardship,
Service and the Common Good:
Re-Imagining University-City Partnerships
n O
rganic Community: Universities, Cities and Diversity
Friday, October 2
Installation Ceremony at 11 a.m.
A Campus Celebration will immediately
follow the ceremony.