Class of 2017

Happy spring to the class of 2017! I hope you’re ready to roll into the warm months of the year!

Let’s find out what some of our friends have been up to recently.

After graduation Mercedes de Guardiola moved back to her hometown of New York City to work at Lubin Lawrence as a brand strategy consultant. Mercedes has enjoyed building her experience in marketing and brand strategy. In her free time she’s continued to work on her history thesis on Vermont’s eugenics campaigns. Part of it will be published later this year as an article in Vermont History. Additionally, she volunteers with a playground improvement project, where she raises funds, replants at playgrounds, and repaints equipment in the city. When she is not working or volunteering, she loves to explore the city’s many museums and restaurants. She recently went to Bruce Nauman’s Disappearing Acts at the MoMA with Kevin Brotman and she’s been trying out new brunch spots with Rachel DeChiara, Arial Klein,and Sara Trautz ’15. Mercedes spent the holidays with her family and their new dog Leopoldo in New York.

After moving to Texas shortly after Commencement, Elaine Lunsford got right back to New England this past fall. Elaine is working in Manchester, New Hampshire, as a fifth-grade teacher through the AmeriCorps program City Year. Although she did not study anything related to education at Dartmouth (she majored in government and minored in computer science), Elaine’s friend from church and fellow ’17 Yi He recommended the program to her. Elaine enjoys education because she works with and manages people, gets to be creative, and the United States needs more teachers. When she is not teaching, Elaine visits ’17s both in Boston and the Upper Valley. In the fall she was on campus nearly every other weekend for events such as Homecoming and a concert by the Dartmouth Symphony Orchestra, which she participated in as an undergraduate.

Graham Rigby spent time all over the United States during the back half of 2018. Although a Rhode Island native, Graham moved to Tucson, Arizona, to work as a field organizer on Ann Kirkpatrick’s congressional campaign and the Arizona Democratic Party in the second congressional district. As a field organizer, Graham recruited, trained, and managed teams of volunteers in a rural county to motivate individuals to vote. Graham chose this role because he wanted to make a positive difference in billions of people’s lives and the history of the world by inspiring voters and electing congressional representation in our national political system. After spending Thanksgiving back at home in Rhode Island, Graham drove across the country before arriving at his new job in Wyoming. Along the way he visited his brother and sister-in-law in upstate New York; Preeti Rishi ’18 in Detroit; Angela Noppenburger in Madison, Wisconsin; and Paul Finkelstein ’13 and me in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Now Graham teaches skiing at the Snow King Resort in Jackson Hole, which he considers one of the most beautiful places on Earth.

—Dorian Allen, 117 West Grant St., Apt. 123, Minneapolis, MN 55403; (973) 986-5988; dorallen@comcast.net