John Johnston is doing well. He is best known for his home-built classroom-demonstration apparatus, which he began exhibiting to teachers across the country in 1973. John remains active as a demonstrator in the Northeast. His work can be found on the Union College website.
“Thank you” to all who responded with your updated contact information! We’re working with the Alumni Association to find missing contact info for classmates. If you are in touch with any fellow Red Devils, please send their information, including name, email address, phone number, and/or mailing address, to your class councilor at [email protected]. Dave Pause has been married for 53 years and has two children and five grandchildren, three of them in college. A fourth will start next year. Doug is on the road to recovery after suffering major complications following a heart operation. He retired from the Schenectady school district in 1994. He enjoyed his last endeavor, driving vehicles up and down the East Coast for Enterprise. Nancy Wirtz recently moved from one side of Paradise, Calif,. to the other and is now within walking distance of her daughter’s home. She is enjoying retirement. Nancy volunteers at the local Salvation Army office and enjoys being in the American Association of University Women, especially the book group. She has seven grandchildren who live in Maui and San Jose. June Perry Davin of Jupiter, Fla., remembers bailing out of upstate New York in 1981 with little money and no job, but she has never looked back. June taught English at three schools in Palm Beach County and retired in 2006. She has been working part time at the Jupiter Lighthouse. June recently traveled to Italy and Croatia. She visits NYC a few times each year. For four years, she has led a book club centering on Florida history. She says hello to her Chi Sigma Theta sorority sisters. Don Cohen stayed in Del Ray Beach, Fla., throughout the holidays and winter months. He now has a pacemaker, but says it’s working fine and his heartbeats “are exactly regular – one per second.” Margie Kropac Paul of Los Angeles visited Barbara Smith Passino in Savannah, Ga., and enjoyed a side trip to Charleston. They enjoyed great weather and collected some unique jewelry in their travels. Gail Kasparian D’Onofrio has vacationed with Gamma Kappa sisters Marcia Marion Bailey, Judy Kiehle, Rosie Kverek, and Joanne Simons LaFay at Lake George; Sedona, Ariz.; and Long Island. They’ve been friends for 60 years! Gail’s husband, Tony, passed away in 2011. They traveled to Egypt, Turkey, South America, Europe, China and throughout the USA; Gail continues to travel with her sister. Last year, they cruised to New Zealand and Australia. After playing the organ at St. Sarkis Armenian Apostolic Church for 53 years and retiring, Gail was honored with an award from the archbishop. Fran Pavliga Zwicklbauer and Franz of Naples, Fla., stay busy in retirement with 11 grandchildren. They enjoy visiting their grandchildren, who attend the University of Virginia, Richmond, Keuka, William and Mary, and soon, Elon. Fran and Franz play golf, travel, and enjoy time with friends. They recently visited Japan, Korea, and China, and were surprised by the beauty there, as well as by the cordiality of the people. Fran spends the summer at Friends Lake in the Adirondacks and holidays with family. Mel Horowitz is doing well despite his continued struggle with a rare lymphoma. It hasn’t stopped him from volunteering for several organizations, including Rotary and the U.S.-China Peoples Friendship Association, and enjoying vacations in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Las Vegas, and Florida with his wife, Sissy. His is proud of all four of his granddaughters; the oldest attends Savannah College of Art and Design. Ruby “Candy” Campbell Cook of Sarasota, Fla., hopes everyone had a Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah, and wishes all a healthy 2018. We regret to share sad news about our classmates: Gale Neller Harris passed away in May, and Constance Dorland Herodes passed away in October. Connie’s husband, Dick ’59, shared her obituary: “She was grateful during her final days to be able to say an individual goodbye to all her grandchildren, sons, daughters-in-law and husband and to be able to share personal recollections of a life well lived.” Author Diane Woodward Sawyer won first-place gold medals for “Best Mystery” and “Best Suspense/Thriller” at the 2017 Florida Authors and Publishers Association President’s Book Awards for her latest novel, The Tell-Tale Treasure. The cold-case missing-person story is set in St. Petersburg. Diane was invited to be a guest panelist at the Venice Book Fair and Writers Festival in March. Her next book, Trouble in Tikal, is set in Guatemala and will be released by Southern Yellow Pine Publishing in April.
Class notes councilor: Mel Horowitz, [email protected]
After graduating with a master’s degree, Gerald Griffin taught high school in Fabius, N.Y. He later taught classes at CIA’s Kent School and CIA University, and retired in 1999.
Fiftieth-reunion committee members Columba DeFrancesco Heinzelman and Bob Fairbanks are doing well. Your co-councilors connected via telephone over the holidays, and look forward planning our 55th-year reunion, which will be held in 2019. As always, we welcome your news and updates.
Class notes councilors: Alan Minarcik, [email protected], Bill Robelee, [email protected]
Jim Hottois and Sue checked an item off their bucket list when they visited Cuba last spring. Judy Koblintz Madnick and Stu enjoyed a cruise to the Panama Canal in late November. They were happy to return to Albany to attend UAlbany men’s and women’s basketball games. The Madnicks are longtime UAlbany basketball fans and season-ticket holders. Once retired from ordained ministry, Carole “Kate” Harvey Jacobs moved to Tennessee, where she continued preaching, teaching, leading a book group, chairing community committees on long-range planning and communications and marketing for seven years. Kate now lives in the D.C. area, where a number of her children and grandchildren live. She says every day is an amazing opportunity to connect with family and attend events on contemporary world occurrences. Kate would like to visit with classmates who visit or live in the D.C. area, and she is happy to provide information on transitioning to the area. She invites classmates to connect with her on Facebook.
Class notes councilor: Judy Madnick, [email protected]
C.W. Sullivan III, retired from East Carolina University since 2011, fills some of his time as a guest lecturer on various Scandinavian topics aboard Viking Ocean cruise ships sailing the Baltic Sea or the North Atlantic Ocean.
Dear 1967 Classmates:
The Class of 1967 “Green Gremlins” celebrated their 50th-anniversary reunion during Homecoming, Oct. 20-22, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of our graduation from UAlbany. Some 40 Green Gremlins and their guests returned to UAlbany for the once-in-a-lifetime 50th-year reunion weekend. UAlbany truly rolled out the green carpet to warmly welcome us back home to campus. The entire University campus was in full throttle with a kaleidoscope of activities for Homecoming Weekend. So we had a marvelous opportunity to enjoy a great taste of University life today. Our 50th-year reunion weekend would not have happened without the talented and ever-faithful planning committee. I wish to recognize and formally express profound appreciation to the 50th-Year Reunion Planning Committee – Stephanie DeSimone Bollam, Ann Holcomb Fairbank and Carol Marohn Zahurak – for their extraordinarily central role in skillfully and splendidly organizing an action-packed three days of 50th-year reunion activities filled with lively discussion, great laughter, and wonderful memories. Additionally, I am tremendously grateful to the numerous classmates who graciously joined in many aspects of the reunion planning, from simply a telephone call with an idea, to providing up-to-date information on classmates, and, most of all, to contacting and urging classmates to come back to the University for our 50th.
Highlights of the occasion were:
Friday, Oct. 20, 2017
Saturday, Oct. 21, 2017
Sunday, Oct. 22, 2017
For those of us who were blessed to attend the 50th-Year Reunion Dinner, we were happily entertained by a specially composed and choreographed musical reflection by Stephanie DeSimone Bollam, titled “Western Avenue.” Her original musical composition was sung to the Beatles’ tune “Penny Lane.” Stephanie’s brilliant musical reflection was, quite simply, an extraordinarily wonderful and lively look back on memorable traditions and places from our shared, stirring undergraduate days. Stephanie and her cast of ’67 performers surely WOWED us with their great musicianship and their great Class of ’67 spirit. Stephanie is surely an expert on all things terpsichorean.
I wish to offer a tremendous thank you to our ’67 classmates for joining our 50th-Year Reunion as we reconnected and thoroughly enjoyed the company of old friends and acquaintances, met some classmates we did not know before, and re-discovered the matchless experience of our beloved Alma Mater. This letter is to share some of the highlights of our richly memorable and greatly fun-filled three days of our 50th-Year Reunion with the hope that you will stay connected and plan now to attend our 55th-Year Reunion. I welcome your comments and thoughts for our next ’67 Class Reunion in 2022. Let us continue “living the spirit of the ’60s in our seventies” as we gloriously did this past Oct ... I am waiting to hear from you!
Gratefully and many blessings always,
Canon Kay Carol Hotaling, FHC
Class Councilor
[email protected]
Fifty years ago, we left the University at Albany (known then as “SUNYA”) to follow our dreams. Many of us thought we knew what our futures would be; some of us were still deciding. Today, we have experienced many ups and downs and have seen our dreams come true, or seen them replaced by other, sometimes unlikely, results. Regardless, I know every one of you looks back to our college years as a wonderful time in our lives. I still remember my first year living at Alden Hall and taking classes in different buildings down on Western Avenue and Washington Avenue. Moving into a space the size of a hotel room with two other girls was a very scary moment for me. The Class of ’68 was the first to live and take courses on the “old” campus, and attended class on the “new” uptown campus. Dutch and Colonial Quads were our homes. I still remember many of the places we frequented, including “the WT”, Yezzis, Casolaros, and Cosimos. We had all-girl and all-boy dormitories and curfews. We all became closer friends because of those rules! Now our lives are different, but we have the chance to reconnect at our alma mater Oct. 19-21, 2018, to celebrate our 50th-year reunion! Your class councilors and UAlbany Alumni Association staff will plan events for the weekend. We would love for you to get involved! Volunteer by reaching out to your friends and fellow classmates from ’68 by phone, email, or in person to help spread the word. Share current photos, as well as any taken during your college years. Maybe we can feel the same as we felt back when we started at UAlbany in 1964! Update your contact information so you can receive reunion information.
Class notes councilors: Linda Stehr Bopp ’68, [email protected]
Robert Iseman, attorney at Rivkin Radler LLP in Uniondale, N.Y., was listed as a 2018 Best Lawyer in the areas of commercial litigation, antitrust litigation, regulatory enforcement litigation and healthcare law.
Donna Simonetti recently began serving a four-year term on the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB), and is currently on the finance committee board of non-profit writing center The Telling Room. She formerly served as executive director at JP Morgan.
Charlotte Biblow, an environmental attorney at Farrell Fritz, was named a 2017 New York Metro Super Lawyer. Donald Sapienza passed away in August following a battle with cancer. He was diagnosed in April 2016 and underwent 16 months of chemotherapy and two clinical trials at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo. After graduating from UAlbany, Donald earned a master’s in public administration from Penn State. His close-knit group of friends from UAlbany included Jim Keenan ’72 and Christine Godden Keenan ’72; Larry Pohl, David Hoover ’72 and Barbara Hoover ’71; and GDX fraternity brothers. Stephen H. Goldstein recently wrote an article about the UAlbany Semester in Washington for the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy. The article focuses on the Fall 2017 interns. After 11 years as a copy editor and content manager for Transport Topics, the publishing division of American Trucking Associations in Arlington, Va., Stephen returned to Golden Quill Editorial Services, a freelance-writing and -editing business first registered in 1993 in Pennsylvania.
Recently retired, Tom Moyer and his wife relocated from Alaska to Ashland, Ore., to be closer to family. Tom is remodeling their new home and is considering a part-time adjunct-professor position at Southern Oregon University when he finishes his renovation project.
Carolyn Shearer, an attorney at Bond, Schoeneck & King, was highlighted in The Best Lawyers in America 2018.
Steven Surowitz was elected Northeast Regional vice president and board member of the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI. Mark Weyman joined Norris McLaughlin & Marcus litigation practice group in New York City. He is a frequent speaker on commercial-litigation and legal-ethics topics.
Samuel Moskowitz of Boston-based Davis, Malm & D’Agostine, P.C., was re-elected vice president of the Greater Boston Legal Services (GBLS)
Board of Directors.
Class Councilor Nancy Benz would like to thank all classmates who submitted class notes. Many seem interested in having a 40th-year reunion during UAlbany Homecoming Weekend Oct. 19-21. If you’d like to contribute ideas or help plan reunion events, please contact Nancy. It was decided by many classmates that remaining class funds go to the UAlbany Fund. Larry Bartimer has been a partner with Portfolio Strategy Group, a registered investment advisor firm, since 2006. His 24-year-old fraternal twin sons work at JPM and Slalom Consulting, and fraternal twin daughters attend college at Brown University and Colgate. Larry is involved with business fraternity Delta Sigma Pi and organizes alumni gatherings in Manhattan twice a year. Nancy Benz has worked in non-profit management for more than 25 years and has experience in fundraising, board and volunteer development, public relations, and marketing. She started her own fundraising business focusing on small to mid-sized non-profit organizations that have limited development staff. Nancy has three sons and is involved in her community. Barbara Bakal Borys and Michael Borys celebrated their 38th wedding anniversary. Their son Gregory, 27, lives and works in NYC as an investment banker. Their daughter Alexandra, 32, is an art therapist currently living in Colorado with her husband and two children, ages 1 and 3. After 21 years of active duty, Joseph Bulger III retired from the U.S. Navy as a commander, then transitioned to the defense industry. Ten years later, he started a company that evaluates satellite communications terminals and data-link testing. Joseph’s son began working for the company after completing a tour in the U.S. Air Force as a ground RADAR systems technician. Joseph’s daughter is a senior at San Francisco State University. Susan Marek Kasso manages residential properties in NYC. Peter Matineau of Albany walks the University’s Purple Path regularly. He worked for the New York State Senate Finance Committee from 1978-90. Robin Nissan of Washington, D.C., works for the Department of Defense, managing environmental chemistry projects. Her 3-year-old granddaughter and 6-month-old grandson live in Norfolk, Va. Robin’s eldest son is on the U.S. Navy ship Comfort in Puerto Rico. Her middle son works in student affairs at the University of California in Santa Cruz. Her daughter is working for a 3D printer start-up company in Cambridge, Mass. Marcus Peterzell is hoping to reconnect with old friends at the reunion. Jeffrey Segal completed his 12th year as chair of the political-science department at Stony Brook University. He is a visiting professor of American Politics at Harvard for the 2017-2018 academic year. Adrienne Ross Scanlan left upstate New York for the Pacific Northwest many years ago. Her recent book Turning Homeward – Restoring Hope and Nature in the Urban Wild is a Washington State Book Award 2017 finalist. Contact her via email at [email protected]. Bob Stern has worked for the New York State Assembly as a policy analyst for more than 30 years. He has four grandchildren. Last year, he and several classmates gathered for a mini-reunion in NYC. Jane Straitiff Webster and husband Thomas ’78 reside in the D.C. area. Jane is vice president of Medicare Advantage Plan at Erickson Living. She and Tom are enjoying new grandkids. They traveled to Ireland this past summer and toured the beautiful countryside. Lucien Lombardo addressed the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child in Geneva, Switzerland, in May.
Class notes councilor: Nancy Benz, [email protected]
Paul Feldman, attorney at Davis, Malm & D’Agostine in Boston, was recognized as a 2018 Best Lawyer in the areas of real-estate law and litigation. Terry McGovern was appointed chair of Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. Daniel Clark and wife Dolores Murray Clark ’77 celebrated their 32nd wedding anniversary in September.