Class of 1985

As the A-Team’s Hannibal Smith said, “I love it when a plan comes together.” Similarly, I love it when a column comes together thanks to Kris Ellis and Dana (Blatt) Stewart. Kris and Dana linked up in October in St. George, Utah, at the 2024 Huntsman World Senior Games, the largest annual multisport senior competition in the world (this year’s competition included 12,055 athletes across 42 sports). Kris had been planning to participate in the indoor rowing competition and Dana decided she would as well. Dana’s primary sport is pickleball, so she also entered pickleball singles and mixed doubles with husband Tim. Kris earned silver in the men’s open-weight 60-64 2-kilometer row and then took gold in the men’s open-weight 60-64 5-kilometer row. Dana took bronze in the women’s lightweight 60-64 2-kilometer row (her first-ever indoor rowing race) and followed it the next day with a silver in the women’s pickleball singles 60-64, winning 14 matches in one day. Kris and Dana proceeded to drink beer and debate whether gold and silver in a single discipline were more impressive than silver in one discipline and bronze in an entirely different discipline, and the argument was settled when Dana won an arm-wrestling contest. Both are planning to participate in the 2025 games and highly encourage other alums to sign up. Kris is adding the 2-kilometer relay in 2025 and invites both Peter Massarelli and Michael Oniskey to join his team. Any other interested Huntsmen out there?

Prolific writer Matthew Dickerson shares: “I am now in my 36th year teaching at Middlebury College. A benefit of my job, likely enhanced by my proximity to Dartmouth, is that classmates occasionally visit. Recently I enjoyed coffee with Mark Inkster, who came to visit his daughter at Middlebury and give a talk on sustainable investing. My wife, Deborah, and I have four grandchildren and will soon gain our fourth daughter-in-law. In addition to teaching, I continue to write. This year I was selected for a collaborative artist-in-residency in the Juneau area for Alaska State Parks. The residency included a side trip to Glacier Bay National Park, which was the sixth national park we were able to visit this year. Some of my work from that residency will appear in my soon-to-be-released book, Birds of the Sky, Fish of the Sea. I also had Aslan’s Breath published earlier this year and in 2023 published a book of narrative nonfiction titled The Salvelinus, the Sockeye, and the Egg-Sucking Leech about Bristol Bay, native fish, river ecology, and fly-fishing. If you are in Vermont, look me up.

Next column: Stay tuned for a “Fab 5” update courtesy of Anne Schonfield and a review of the Key lime pie I am baking as I type. Stay well all!

—John MacManus, 118 Ringwood Road, Rosemont, PA 19010; (610) 331-6417; slampong@aol.com; Rebecca Blake Osborne, 42 Olive St., Newburyport, MA 01950; (603) 381-4164; rosborne29@comcast.net