You can go home again! Bob Shanno returned to his birthplace, Conyngham, Pennsylvania, nearly 50 years ago and never regretted it for a second. Likewise did Douglas Cooper go back to Lakewood, Ohio, with stops along the way in Vietnam for military service and University of Wisconsin to study law. Tom Kenison, on the other hand, has spent most of his life in semi-rural Lakeside, California, far from his roots in Concord, New Hampshire, 


Bob Shanno settled in Conyngham, a small town in northeast Pennsylvania, about 40 miles south of Wilkes-Barre. He earned master’s degrees in history and education at Lehigh and taught 40 years at Hazleton High School. But by then Bob was retired in Conyngham volunteering for Meals on Wheels and refurbishing the old high school. “My parents were teachers in the same area,” he said. Bob hopes to make our 50th reunion. 


Douglas Cooper joined the Cleveland law firm of Thompson, Hine and Flory in 1970 and left in 2000 to become CEO of the Cuyhoga Valley Scenic Railroad, which runs through Ohio’s famous Cuyhoga National Park. Coops left the railroad in 2006 to join Forest City Enterprises, a national real estate development firm in Cleveland. Recently retired, he was president of the Lakewood-Rocky River-Sunrise Rotary Club and, with wife Karen, visits his three children, including Bryan ’89, and two grandchildren. All live far from Lakewood.


Tom Kenison earned a master’s in social work at Boston College but left the field and East Coast for California to embark on a career of gardening and landscaping. In the 1970s Tom spent time in San Francisco, where he ran into Phi Tau brother John Prescott. Tom moved to Lakeside near San Diego in 1980 and earned an associate’s degree in ornamental horticulture at Cuyamaca College. His main assignment since 1980 in Lakeside was caring for grounds and livestock at the 20-acre Spots N’ Stripes Ranch, which breeds, researches, trains, shows and sells zebras and horses. Spots N’ Stripes moved to a new location in 2001 but Tom retired in Lakeside while still doing landscaping, brush clearing and tree trimming. Last year he heard from Dave Bunting, a classmate and hockey teammate at Vermont Academy. Tom would love to hear from Phi Tau brothers and classmates. His address is 13315 Highway #67, Lakeside, CA 92040; telephone (619) 561-6835. 


Paul Binder, retired artistic director and founder of the Big Apple Circus, was featured in the six-hour documentary Circus on PBS in November. Earlier Paul emceed the 20th anniversary of the Institute for Lifelong Education at Dartmouth. He also conducted “Ritual, Theater, Circus,” an annual seminar in Dartmouth’s sophomore summer, the fourth time he has done that. As promised, Tom Holzel is forming an expedition to Mount Everest this year to recover the body and camera of Andrew Irvine, who perished there with George Mallory in 1924. If you want to join, contact Tom at thosholzel@aol.com, (617) 293-1958. 


—Harry Zlokower, 60 Madison Ave., Suite 910, New York, NY 10010; (212) 447-9292; harry@zlokower.com