Class Note 1975
Issue
September-October 2020
This installation of our Class Notes features a couple of classmates with whom we have not been in touch for quite some time.
First comes news from Larry Conley, who, after Dartmouth and Columbia, has spent almost 40 years as a communicator, teacher, and primarily journalist. His journalism career covered various cities, including Memphis, Tennessee, where he was the first Black editor of a city magazine in the country. In 2009, after 16 years as an editor at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, he dipped in and out of retirement until taking the plunge for good in 2013.
Currently, in his words, “I’ve also been teaching adult literacy since 2010, first as a volunteer working with American adults and since last fall on a paid, part-time basis working with adult English as a second language students. Of course now, with the Covid outbreak, all my classes are online, which has been challenging but interesting. Personally, I’m living solo in an Atlanta suburb, have a grown son in Fort Worth, Texas, and, most importantly, my cutie granddaughter turned 1 year old on June 8. When it seems safe to fly again, first thing I’m booking is a ticket to Texas.”
Well, get on over here, Larry! He is still in regular touch with several ’75s, including Jerome Taylor, Rick Jones, Jeff Hunter, and Darryl Lewis.
Rich Yurko describes himself as “one of those silent readers of the Class Notes who always mean to write but almost never do.” Well, he did this month! Rich is still a practicing lawyer in Boston, having founded his own firm, a business litigation boutique, 25 1/2 years ago and is now in an “of counsel” role. He has always maintained outside interests, and after 10 years, including two as president, he just rolled off the board at GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders (GLAD), the “legal group that got marriage equality recognized throughout New England and then in the U.S. Supreme Court. As a member of the Supreme Court bar, I was in the well of the courtroom when our lawyer successfully argued our cause.”
His family still owns the Lyme, New Hampshire-based B&B, Breakfast on the Connecticut, and Rich is able to see lots of grads and lots of parents of current students as a result. He has remained in close touch with Hoyt Zia, with whom he and a couple of other high school friends gathered in Santa Fe, New Mexico, late last year. Hoyt has just retired as general counsel at Hawaiian Airlines. He also stays in touch with one of his former roommates, Dr. Mark Greenstein, who just retired from teaching at the UConn Medical School. “Finally, there are our classmates who worked for The Daily D. We stay in touch via Facebook and Instagram and poke each other when the news warrants it.”
Rich has promised to tell me over a beer about his trip out of China in January and Australia after that, escaping the virus and wildfires. Indiana Jones?
Vox clamantis in Tejas.
—Stephen D. Gray, 3627 Avenue M, Galveston, TX 77550; (650) 302-8739; fratergray@gmail.com
First comes news from Larry Conley, who, after Dartmouth and Columbia, has spent almost 40 years as a communicator, teacher, and primarily journalist. His journalism career covered various cities, including Memphis, Tennessee, where he was the first Black editor of a city magazine in the country. In 2009, after 16 years as an editor at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, he dipped in and out of retirement until taking the plunge for good in 2013.
Currently, in his words, “I’ve also been teaching adult literacy since 2010, first as a volunteer working with American adults and since last fall on a paid, part-time basis working with adult English as a second language students. Of course now, with the Covid outbreak, all my classes are online, which has been challenging but interesting. Personally, I’m living solo in an Atlanta suburb, have a grown son in Fort Worth, Texas, and, most importantly, my cutie granddaughter turned 1 year old on June 8. When it seems safe to fly again, first thing I’m booking is a ticket to Texas.”
Well, get on over here, Larry! He is still in regular touch with several ’75s, including Jerome Taylor, Rick Jones, Jeff Hunter, and Darryl Lewis.
Rich Yurko describes himself as “one of those silent readers of the Class Notes who always mean to write but almost never do.” Well, he did this month! Rich is still a practicing lawyer in Boston, having founded his own firm, a business litigation boutique, 25 1/2 years ago and is now in an “of counsel” role. He has always maintained outside interests, and after 10 years, including two as president, he just rolled off the board at GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders (GLAD), the “legal group that got marriage equality recognized throughout New England and then in the U.S. Supreme Court. As a member of the Supreme Court bar, I was in the well of the courtroom when our lawyer successfully argued our cause.”
His family still owns the Lyme, New Hampshire-based B&B, Breakfast on the Connecticut, and Rich is able to see lots of grads and lots of parents of current students as a result. He has remained in close touch with Hoyt Zia, with whom he and a couple of other high school friends gathered in Santa Fe, New Mexico, late last year. Hoyt has just retired as general counsel at Hawaiian Airlines. He also stays in touch with one of his former roommates, Dr. Mark Greenstein, who just retired from teaching at the UConn Medical School. “Finally, there are our classmates who worked for The Daily D. We stay in touch via Facebook and Instagram and poke each other when the news warrants it.”
Rich has promised to tell me over a beer about his trip out of China in January and Australia after that, escaping the virus and wildfires. Indiana Jones?
Vox clamantis in Tejas.
—Stephen D. Gray, 3627 Avenue M, Galveston, TX 77550; (650) 302-8739; fratergray@gmail.com