Class Notes

NEWS OF 1977

From the Alumni House:

Kathy Ozzard Chism ’77 wrote to tell us about the Bahamian Children’s Trust Fund that she has established to help the victims of Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne in the Bahamas. Kathy lived for four years in Freeport and made good friends there, so the islands are close to her heart. Her work has ranged from setting up the fund to creating a website and engaging people all over the world in this project. She hopes the funds raised not only will feed and clothe children but also help buy materials to rebuild their homes.

NEWS OF 1976

NEWS OF 1975

Reunion May 20-21

From Susan Bacci Adams:

I heard from Bette Kovach that she, Barbara Bennett Psathas, and Gail Warren celebrated their “half century” + 1 milestone this past summer. They drove from Bethlehem to Nova Scotia, where they spent six days sightseeing and shopping. On the way up, they stopped in Portland and Bar Harbor, Maine. On the return trip, they visited Newport, R.I.

Barb lives in Bethlehem and is chair of the English Department at Saucon Valley High School. She and her husband, Nick, have three children: Jimmy, a Ph.D. candidate in biochemistry at Penn State; Alexandra, a senior at Lafayette College majoring in English; and Michael, a political science major at Lehigh University. Michael is spending the first semester of his junior year at Oxford University, and Barb planned to spend Thanksgiving with him there.

Bette also lives in Bethlehem, where she was employed by Bethlehem Steel for 27 years. She is now managing director of PRGeneration in New York City and works locally as an independent contractor. She and her husband, Clay Morgan, have a 16-year-old daughter, Angela, an accomplished artist whose work has been exhibited in the Capitol Rotunda in Harrisburg.

Gail has lived in San Francisco since 1981 and has worked in corporate information services for The Gap since 1991. She and her husband, King Au, enjoy creating art and traveling.

I recently got together with Debbi Lewis Zvanut and Cindy Lewis-Hart at the home of Nancy Martin Lasher in New Jersey. We had a good time reminiscing about our time at Moravian and catching up with each other’s lives. Nancy has a daughter at Rutgers University and a son who’s a senior in high school. Debbi is a working woman (aren’t we all!) who enjoys crafts and traveling with her husband, Carl, in her spare time. Cindy is a guidance counselor in the Nazareth School District and spends her spare time renovating her home with her husband, Larry Hart.

Laura Likman Schell was getting ready to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with daughter Ashley, who is in Seville, Spain, for a semester. Ashley is a junior at Wake Forest University, where her brother Blake is in his fifth year, looking forward to graduating in May with an M.B.A.

We hear that Carter Lee and her husband, Peter Maas, recently returned from China, where they adopted another daughter.

I am still with the New York City Department of Education, teaching kindergarten at a school here on Staten Island. Our daughter Melanie recently graduated from Syracuse University and is working for a kitchen-design firm, also here on the island. Our daughter Jaqui is a senior at the College of Staten Island, majoring in communications and public relations.

Don’t forget, everyone! This is our reunion year! Let’s all make an effort to get back to Moravian to renew old friendships, make new ones, and honor the professors who helped us get where we are today. Keep May 20-21 open. Hope to see you all soon! 

NEWS OF 1974

From Cyndee Andreas Grifo:

Gary Marsh writes that last January he left his ministry at the East Hills Moravian Church in Bethlehem, where he had served for 8½ years as the pastor, to begin a new ministry. For 21 years he had been pastor of churches in Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. Then he was called to serve as director of stewardship (education and resources) for the Moravian Church, Northern Province. He has an office at the Moravian Church Center in Bethlehem. His position requires quite a bit of travel, but he’s getting used to it.

Gary wanted us to know that there are several Moravian grads who get together for breakfast twice a month, just to keep in touch. They moved into the dorms together at age 18, and most pledged Beta. The guys who frequent the Oasis Restaurant at 6:45 a.m. every other week include Bob Mende, Mark Jones, Bob Pharo, Joel Oleksa, Gary Johnson ’73, and Dean Smith. Gary hopes to see Kevin Jones in Oregon and Charlie Pohl in Idaho during his travels this fall.

From the Alumni House:

In addition to his position as human resources manager at Home Depot, Jeff Benner teaches business law, management, and human resources at Cedar Crest College.

NEWS OF 1973

NEWS OF 1972

From Terrell McMann:

Tom Repasch [see below] sent this letter:

“As they have done each year for more than 30 years, alumni of Alpha Phi Omega service fraternity met January 8 at the Chelsea Bar (now Our Beerbelly’s) to catch up on one another’s lives and share memories of their days at Moravian. Attending this year were: Danny Alonzo ’73, a teacher at East Hills Middle School in Bethlehem; John Gehring ’71, an attorney in suburban Philadelphia; Keene Jabbour ’74, an attorney with a practice in Easton; Fran Petko, employed by a media-equipment company in Allentown; Ron Reed ’70, longtime social science teacher in Northampton; and George Senick, a consultant specializing in software applications for local governments.”

I also received a note from Dale Ginter, who is an attorney in California. He finished a three-month sabbatical in September, traveling through France and Italy with his wife, Deb. They also spent time in their condo in Sun Valley, Idaho, which he describes as “very modest, not like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s or John Kerry’s.” His son Seth is an engineer in San Diego, developing a new type of reverse-osmosis filter for desalinizing ocean water.

From the Alumni House:

Bruce Hankee began a pastorate at Greenmonte Mennonite Church in Stuarts Draft, Va., last February. His son Seth graduated from Church of God Theological Seminary in Cleveland, Tenn., in June. He joined his father in the ministry at Greenmonte as worship and outreach preacher.

Tom Repasch was appointed by the United Nations General Assembly to the board of the U.N. Joint Staff Pension Fund. A U.S. advisor to the U.N. since 1996, Tom was nominated by the U.S. government to serve on the board, which oversees the $26 billion fund that provides retirement benefits for former staff members of the U.N. and other international organizations.

Linda de Seife is senior marketing manager for Nutrition 21, a small company that manufactures and distributes nutritional supplements and ingredients. It’s in the process of a turnaround, and Linda is excited about the opportunity to make a difference in building a business.

NEWS OF 1971

NEWS OF 1970

Reunion May 20-21

From the Alumni House:

Roberta Killmelan has been principal of two inner-city schools and one suburban school, a special education supervisor, assistant to two regional superintendents, and principal (for a year) of a blue-collar suburban middle-senior high school. For the last few years, Roberta has worked in Philadelphia as an assistant principal at two high schools and an elementary school with three annexes.

Holden Waterman enjoys his new position as superintendent of schools in the Milton Township School District in Vermont. Holden has traveled to China many times to set up a sister-school system in the southern part of that country. He has also spoken at conferences for administrators in China to decentralize their education system and the movement in the United States to a more centralized system. He will bring five teachers from China to the U.S. this year.

NEWS OF 1969

From Caroline Funk Rabold:

Greetings and thanks to all who have responded to requests for news. You make our section more fun to read.

Martha Poole writes from her new home in Wilmington, N.C., where she attends the University of North Carolina. She is pursuing a master’s degree in liberal studies, which allows her to create her own program. She has taken exciting classes in documentary film, screen writing, cinematography, and medieval history. Her real passion is genealogy. She plans on traveling to Somerset, England, where she will shoot a documentary about her mother’s family line, which has been traced as far back as 1537.

Donna Owen Baur remained in the Lehigh Valley after graduation. She teaches senior English at Saucon Valley High School. She has been married for 35 years to Dick Baur, who retired from sales to pursue a second career teaching at-risk students at Bethlehem Vo-Tech. Their two children are also involved in education. Rich is a special education teacher with IU20, and Erin teaches high school Spanish. Both are married, and Rich presented his parents with a new grandson this year.

Jim Hutchinson lives in Rumson, N.J. He is a managing director of Dreman Value Management, an investment advisor based in Jersey City, after having spent more than 30 years in corporate finance with the Bank of New York. Jim and his wife, Daren, have two children. Emily is a Colgate University graduate working in San Francisco. Jimmy, a Lafayette College graduate, is a first lieutenant in the Marine Corps. He was wounded seriously in Operation Iraqi Freedom, earning a Purple Heart. He is now in Afghanistan. Jim has lived on the Jersey shore for more than 30 years and enjoys its opportunities for sports and recreation. He is a Moravian College trustee and enjoys being reconnected to the College.

Noel Desousa traveled from Pittsfield, N.H., to attend our 35th reunion last year. After spending 26 years as a teacher and occasional interim principal in Quakertown and Plymouth-Whitemarsh, he became a high school principal in New Hampshire. In 2000, he took off for a couple of years to care for his parents. This year, he’s back as principal.

Noel and his wife, Nancy Christie, have two children and two grandchildren in Quakertown. They both enjoy the outdoors—hiking, skiing, and backpacking—and traveling. They went to Yellowstone National Park last summer with their grandchildren.
Keep the news coming!

From the Alumni House:

Jeanne Taccarino Guaraldo’s home was featured on the Wilmington, Del., Holiday House tour this past December.

Lt. Col. Shane Hershman ’80, at the mike, and his crew accept the Clarence Mackay Trophy at the National Aeronautical Association’s fall awards banquet in November 2004.

Photo: courtesy of NAA

Remember that scene in The Aviator in which Howard Hughes gets the “Spruce Goose,” his immense wooden airplane, off the ground? (Well, off the water, actually.) That’s about the size of the C-17A Globemaster III, the Air Force’s largest transport plane, which Lt. Col. Shane Hershman ’80 pilots.

That’s the plane he and a crew of four flew during the first phase of the war in Iraq, in a support mission for Operation Iraqi Freedom. Their successful completion of that mission won them the National Aeronautical Association/United States Air Force’s Clarence Mackay Trophy for 2003.

Since it was established in 1911, the award is presented annually for the most meritorious flight of the year and for gallantry, intrepidity, unusual initiative and resourcefulness, and achievement of outstanding results with unusual presence of mind.

According to the citation that came with the trophy, on March 26, 2003, the first night of the coalition ground campaign in Northern Iraq, the crew (whose call sign was “Vijay 10”) directed the combat insertion of the 173rd Airborne Brigade, which was flown in on a 15-ship formation of C-17As. The initial drop, over the city of Bashur, was the largest formation air drop since D-Day, and it was the first time that troops were dropped from the C-17A in combat.

Vijay 10 crew members, along with active and reserve crews from Charleston Air Force Base, South Carolina, and McChord Air Force Base outside Tacoma, Washington, took four more nights to deploy the rest of the brigade and its auxiliary Combat Readiness Group, establishing the American second front in Iraq.

Lt. Col. Hershman’s crew were Major Bob Colvin, Lieutenant Matt Clausen, and Master Sergeants Shawn Brumfield and Chris Dockery.

—Judith Green