Class Note 1981
Issue
March-April 2023
Molly Sundberg Van Metre and Julie Koeninger identified an excellent ’81 class legacy project after surveys revealed the majority of our class was interested in ongoing impact with students (vs. a monument, say).
We now have the opportunity to support the Center for Social Impact by endowing social impact practicums (SIPS), an effort that Pam Donovan Gehret is involved with as a member of the board of advisors. It’s an offshoot of the Tucker Foundation that works across departments to design courses where students interact with and contribute directly to the Upper Valley community. Look for class emails about this exciting development and learn more at https://students.dartmouth.edu/social-impact.
Classmates in show biz redux: Aaron Mendelson is yet another ’81 who’s had a long career as a performing artist—choreographing, dancing, acting, and teaching in Los Angeles and New York. He wrote in about a recent reunion with Kelvin O. Hardy ’79 in Berlin. Aaron and Kelvin toured Europe in 1988 in a production of West Side Story and Kelvin has worked in Berlin ever since, watching up close as the wall came down.
In more show business news, Mark Hansson was awarded the prestigious Frank Capra Career Achievement Award from the Directors Guild of America, as featured in the guild magazine January issue. Mark has worked as an assistant director on such shows as Come From Away, Animal Kingdom, High School Musical, Dreamgirls, the 81st (!) Academy Awards, and Six Feet Under, to name but a few of the scores of series episodes and movies he’s directed. Congratulations, Mark!
In our close-to-retirement years, even classmates with careers in business, engineering, the public sector, education, tech, or medicine may be turning a hand to creative endeavors.
Many ’81’s are, or have recently become, authors. Yes, Kimberly Young worked for years in advertising and marketing, but she was also a Wallace Stegner creative writing fellow at Stanford. Her debut fiction novel, In the Event of Death, came out in February. It’s about a middle-aged woman struggling with marriage, business, and offspring issues while her mother is dying of cancer and long-buried family secrets are revealing themselves—as they do. Congratulations, Kim!
Which brings me to some shameless self-promotion. My latest novel for young adults, The Coldest Winter I Ever Spent, is out this month and concerns a somewhat unstable 18-year-old woman struggling to caregive for her beloved aunt and guardian who is dying of cancer—while they wrestle with family secrets. A coincidence? Sadly, tending to an ill or dying parent, or their affairs, is something most of us are increasingly familiar with, and it inspired my story certainly. If you are publishing a book this year, send us the details and we will gladly mention it here. Meanwhile, consider revealing your family secrets now and save everyone a lot of trouble.
—Ann Jacobus Kordahl, P.O. Box 470443, San Francisco, CA, 94147; ajkordahl@gmail.com; Emil Miskovsky, P.O. Box 2162, North Conway, NH, 03860; emilmiskovsky@gmail.com
We now have the opportunity to support the Center for Social Impact by endowing social impact practicums (SIPS), an effort that Pam Donovan Gehret is involved with as a member of the board of advisors. It’s an offshoot of the Tucker Foundation that works across departments to design courses where students interact with and contribute directly to the Upper Valley community. Look for class emails about this exciting development and learn more at https://students.dartmouth.edu/social-impact.
Classmates in show biz redux: Aaron Mendelson is yet another ’81 who’s had a long career as a performing artist—choreographing, dancing, acting, and teaching in Los Angeles and New York. He wrote in about a recent reunion with Kelvin O. Hardy ’79 in Berlin. Aaron and Kelvin toured Europe in 1988 in a production of West Side Story and Kelvin has worked in Berlin ever since, watching up close as the wall came down.
In more show business news, Mark Hansson was awarded the prestigious Frank Capra Career Achievement Award from the Directors Guild of America, as featured in the guild magazine January issue. Mark has worked as an assistant director on such shows as Come From Away, Animal Kingdom, High School Musical, Dreamgirls, the 81st (!) Academy Awards, and Six Feet Under, to name but a few of the scores of series episodes and movies he’s directed. Congratulations, Mark!
In our close-to-retirement years, even classmates with careers in business, engineering, the public sector, education, tech, or medicine may be turning a hand to creative endeavors.
Many ’81’s are, or have recently become, authors. Yes, Kimberly Young worked for years in advertising and marketing, but she was also a Wallace Stegner creative writing fellow at Stanford. Her debut fiction novel, In the Event of Death, came out in February. It’s about a middle-aged woman struggling with marriage, business, and offspring issues while her mother is dying of cancer and long-buried family secrets are revealing themselves—as they do. Congratulations, Kim!
Which brings me to some shameless self-promotion. My latest novel for young adults, The Coldest Winter I Ever Spent, is out this month and concerns a somewhat unstable 18-year-old woman struggling to caregive for her beloved aunt and guardian who is dying of cancer—while they wrestle with family secrets. A coincidence? Sadly, tending to an ill or dying parent, or their affairs, is something most of us are increasingly familiar with, and it inspired my story certainly. If you are publishing a book this year, send us the details and we will gladly mention it here. Meanwhile, consider revealing your family secrets now and save everyone a lot of trouble.
—Ann Jacobus Kordahl, P.O. Box 470443, San Francisco, CA, 94147; ajkordahl@gmail.com; Emil Miskovsky, P.O. Box 2162, North Conway, NH, 03860; emilmiskovsky@gmail.com