Two bits of good news from the West Coast: Michael Wilner was appointed a U.S. magistrate judge for the central district of California and Cynthia Monroe was awarded first place in the Pacific Northwest Writers’ Association Literary Competition for her poetry. Congratulations to you both!


Sam Braverman sent a great update: “Jennie Arlin and I have now been married 20 years. We went to Spain this year with the kids and had a chance to spend a week with Chris Baldwin ’89 and his family on the Mediterranean Sea in Sotogrande, which was so relaxing. Jennie is no longer living the law firm life in N.Y.C., but has agreed to become my chief brief writer. She is also writing a blog called ‘Still Life with Crockpot’ that seems to have struck a chord with its followers. For me, it is such a change to go from state murder trials (my bread and butter for the last 10 years) to nearly only federal criminal cases, each with 10,000-plus documents and thousands of hours of wiretaps, all requiring a staff of attorneys. A good example of ‘be careful what you wish for!’ I passed the Series 7 securities licensing exam recently, because maybe after 20 years in one trench, it is time to try another field. Time will tell. Jerry Hughes and his familywill join us to ski in Park City, Utah, for Presidents Week and then our family will head to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, to join the Dartmouth Lawyers Association for its mid-winter meeting. I have recently spoken with Stevo Davidson, Simon Cordery and Richard Lerner ’87,all of whom seem to be doing well.” 


Thanks to the 572 of you who gave to the Dartmouth College Fund last year. This amazing show of support set a new record and earned our class two big fundraising awards! The College also named Stephanie Welsch Lewin the Class President of the Year and Geoff Hyatt the Webmaster of the Year. They, of course, modestly say the awards belong to the entire class, so congratulations to us all. 


In reading Geoff’s award citation, I learned about a fantastic organization he founded called Good Sports and asked him to tell us more about it: “I had an idea years ago that we should get all the unused sports equipment out of our garages and basements and into the hands of kids who don’t have much. With a few others we started working on it in the evenings. Ten years later we now partner with most of the sports equipment manufacturers and retailers to get their excess sports equipment (they have much bigger ‘garages’ than what I had ever imagined when we started). We also have partnerships with professional sports teams in several cities. Originally we served Boston, and have now replicated the model in Philly (thanks to great help from the Eagles), Atlanta (thank you, Falcons!) and Chicago (thanks, Blackhawks). Currently we distribute several million dollars worth of equipment to community youth athletics organizations that serve kids who can’t afford much, helping to give them a sense of belonging and pride, giving them a productive afternoon activity and keeping them a bit healthier too. If anyone has an introduction for us or wants to play a role in their community, just let me know.” 


Cheers.


—Jane (Grussing) Lonnquist, 4510 Drexel Ave., Edina, MN 55424; jjlonnquist@earthlink.net