Carol Frost writes, “I am continuing my research and professional service activities, writing papers, editing themed issues of geoscience journals, and serving in various roles in my professional societies. It is all the fun of an academic career without the committee meetings and paperwork!” Majoring at Dartmouth and earning her Ph.D. at Cambridge University in earth science, she joined the faculty of geology and geophysics at the University of Wyoming (UW) in 1983. In 2006, as founding director of the UW School of Energy Resources, Carol implemented its strategic plan and launched a major carbon sequestration research program. At D.C.’s National Science Foundation from 2014 to 2018, she oversaw merit review for earth sciences research and education awards to scientists at American universities and research institutions. Now UW professor emerita, Carol stays active in the Mineralogical Society of America (past president), Geological Society of America (councilor), Geochemical Society, American Geophysical Union (publications committee) and, most recently, British Geological Society (non-executive board director). Carol’s current grant-funded research focuses on the Precambrian evolution of the continental crust and granite petrogenesis.

After Pat Pannell and Bill Mitchell hosted Zoom reunions of their language study abroad (LSA) classmates from France and Mexico, respectively, Burr Gray and Carol Mondschein did the same for classmates from their spring ’77 term in Blois, France. Amid lively recollections of times together and updates on current exploits, Jayne Seymour Yarian, joining from Togo, West Africa, remarked that the LSA term “changed her life.” Subsequently in conversation with Carol, Jayne said she began her LSA term as a biology major planning to be a veterinarian but fell so much in love with the French language that she stayed in France for the summer, working on a farm. On campus for fall term and concerned about her gravely ill younger sister, she was drawn to Rollins Chapel and the Dartmouth Area Christian Fellowship (now Wellspring Church) for comfort. There her destiny began to re-shape. Mastering French as a Rassias-trained drill instructor and a postgraduation teaching assistant in Bourges, France, she followed her emerging Christian calling to Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, where she met her future husband, Gregg. After working in youth ministry and a landscaping business while raising four children (and enduring the devastating loss of their eldest daughter to cancer), Jayne and Gregg answered a spiritual call to Togo in 1992. Their mission was to train village pastors and support the local communities. In that tiny, impoverished country where most lacked basic necessities, the locals spoke only tribal languages. Since the educated spoke French, Jayne’s fluency in French, born in her LSA term, became pivotal in their work. Their efforts have contributed to churches, secondary-schools, and l’Institut africain d’administration et d’études commerciales (IAEC) in the capital Lome and included purchasing and furnishing a villa as a dorm for IAEC students. Despite the “unbelievable heat” and initial fears about malaria and poisonous snakes and scorpions, especially when their children were young, Jayne and Gregg continue their mission, returning to the States only during Togo’s rainy season, when most work stops.

—Janie Simms Hamner, 7327 Centenary Ave., Dallas, TX 75225; jshandkids@aol.com