Peay Vineyards, co-founded by Andy Peay ’92, was named Winery of the Year by the San Francisco Chronicle in December. The Annapolis, California, vineyard Peay started 13 years ago with his brother Nick was called the “very model of the modern wine estate,” and the Chronicle added that their “complex pinot noir and syrah have rapidly become benchmarks.” Although the Sonoma Coast is a difficult place to grow grapes, it provided the cold, damp growing conditions the brothers were seeking. “There was a breeze blowing when I got out of the truck,” Peay said of the first time they saw the property in 1996. “That was good. There was moss growing. That was good.”

In February Maj. Robert White ’42 and a dozen World War II veterans from Colorado revisited the Iwo Jima battlefield on which they fought 65 years ago. “I’ll never forget jumping out and seeing that black sand,” White told Denver’s KUSA-TV. “The beach was chaos. There were people all over the place. There were bodies all over the place.” The trip was sponsored by the Greatest Generation Foundation, a nonprofit that helps veterans return to their former battlefields. Twelve students from the College of the Ozarks accompanied the veterans and blogged about the experience at http://ourfinalreturn.blog.com.

It has been a busy year for Jerry Zaks ’67, director of The 101 Dalmations Musical, which is touring the country. As The New York Times reported in December, the Tony Award-winning director was hired by The Addams Family producers to help revamp that $16.5 million production after it earned mixed reviews in a pre-Broadway tryout. The Addams Family began performances on Broadway in early March and stars Nathan Lane, whom Zaks directed in Guys and Dolls and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.

Dartmouth placed three alums in The Daily Beast’s ranking of “The Right’s Top 25 Journalists.” Paul Gigot ’77, editorial page editor of The Wall Street Journal, earned the top spot, and Joseph Rago ’05 and Laura Ingraham ’85 came in at No. 20 and No. 21, respectively. Rago, an editorial writer for the Journal, was described as Gigot’s “precocious workhorse” for writing first drafts of most of the Journal’s editorials on President Obama’s healthcare plan. Radio host and blogger Ingraham was lauded for her insightful political commentary and called the “cleverer version of Ann Coulter.”

In only her third year as Princeton’s women’s basketball coach, Courtney Banghart ’00 led the 26-2 Tigers to the 2010 Ivy League title. The Tigers hadn't finished atop the league since 2006, when they tied with Dartmouth and lost a playoff game to the Big Green that determined an NCAA Tournament berth. (The same situation unfolded in 1999, when Banghart was playing for Dartmouth.) With a 14-0 Ivy record, Princeton earned an automatic conference bid to the 2010 tournament, marking the team's first appearance in the Big Dance. Known as a fiery player, Banghart said she’s remarkably calm as a head coach. “I figure that by game time, it’s the kids’ time,” Banghart told the Valley News in March. “I tell them that I’m here if you need me. But if we’ve done our job as coaches, then all they have to do is play. I stand and watch.”

Chatroulette.com, the latest entrant into the world of social Web sites, is “akin to speed-dating tens of thousands of perfect strangers,” The New York Times declared in February. Sarita Yardi ’02, a doctoral candidate studying social computing at Georgia Tech, was asked by The Times to weigh-in on the site that randomly connects users around the world via Webcams. “There’s no login, there’s no registration, and that’s fundamentally different from Facebook and Twitter, where your real persona is tied back to you,” said Yardi, a former All-Ivy women’s tennis player. “Right now it’s kind of like an online Lord of the Flies. I suspect it won’t exist in its current state in the future, but I think it will spin out into a new kind of category online.”

As a member of the Barbary Coast Jazz Ensemble Michael B. Greene ’07 was known for his talent on the trombone. Last February Martha Stewart taught him a new skill on her syndicated television show. In the video link, Greene crafts a Valentine’s Day gift for his June 2009 bride, former women’s tennis captain Kerry Snow ’07.

Matthew Badalucco ’04 left behind hedge-fund work to start Pixel Equity: The Video Game Charity (pixelequity.org), which donates video games and consoles to youth centers nationwide. The group gained nonprofit status in February, and Badalucco hopes even more people will make monetary or equipment donations. As he told NY1.com last July, a month after launching the organization, video games aren’t just for fun, they’re also a great learning tool. “Gaming teaches you to think scientifically, because you’re constantly employing the scientific method,” Badalucco said. “You’re gathering facts about the game, testing hypotheses, coming to conclusions. Especially with the advent of the Wii, you can also spend time with your family playing games.”

—Bonnie Barber