Class of 1976

Hello, classmates. About one-fourth of our class visits our Facebook page now and then. Many thanks to Joe Jasinski, Kipp Barker, and Andy Gettinger for their oversight and content curation. We want the page to be a place of meeting, discourse, and friendship. To that end, there is now a communications policy that we would encourage you to check out and abide by that we hope will further encourage meaningful interactions. Of the many benefits of our 50th is a reunion book. You may remember this from our 25th. It will be online and we’re discussing a print version that may be an option or produced for everyone. In researching this we’ve seen what other classes have done for their 50th reunions. I have to say, participation is a little thin. So we’re parking this idea with you now. Let’s get a robust turnout for our class reunion book.

Carolyn Kohn reports: “This March I achieved a lifelong dream to teach another generation of my family, my grandson, to ski. He is 4 1/2 and it felt like the perfect time to have this adventure. We flew from Stuart, Florida, to my home in Jackson, Wyoming, and enjoyed a week of pure pleasure. This Florida boy never even looked back as he went off with ‘Coach Sully’ on his first day of ski school. It was like that every day we were there. Jackie, my daughter, and I enjoyed skiing and some fun lunches at the Four Seasons. My grandson is now the fourth generation to ski.” Also on the skiing front, in case you missed it, Eileen and the late Jeff Shiffrin’s amazing daughter, Mikaela, received an honorary degree at Commencement in June. Might have been nice to wait a year and do it at our 50th, but that shouldn’t lessen our class pride in her historic achievements.

Bill Hutchinson says he finally retired in March and relocated to Rochester, New Hampshire. “I got out of the restaurant business when we left Nantucket in 2007, and I’ve spent the last 15 or so years working in the retail beer-wine-spirits business, focusing mostly on wine. I was the wine manager in a store for a long time, and my most recent gig was as department manager in a specialty grocery store that was less than a mile from our house in Duxbury, Massachusetts (no commute!). Retirement feels good. I’ve got so many projects staring me in the face that I doubt that I will be bored anytime soon. It took me almost 50 years to get back to the North Country, but it feels good. I am taking a page from Scott Simons and am hiking around here every day that the weather allows. The terrain is usually rated on AllTrails as ‘easy,’ but it often kicks my aging ass anyway. My plan is to build up my strength and stamina so I can attempt a couple serious mountain climbs before the summer is out. Moosilauke is on my radar.” Ciao for now.

—Steve Bell, 15 Harbour Pointe, Buffalo, NY 14202; steve@stevebellcommunications.
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