Class Note 1988
Summer greetings! I begin this column by continuing the “what it means to be part of a community” theme that started in the last column, and then update you on several classmates’ new jobs and professional adventures. Hope you enjoy the news, and please send me the latest about you or another classmate. In the meantime, look for my continued email outreach with questions intended to elicit your varied and thought-provoking responses.
On the topic of community, Caroline (McKeldin) Wayner offered her view that “kindness is the most important characteristic for a strong community.” As the president of her small Baltimore neighborhood, she uses kindness as her guiding principle—“and humor, of course.” Caroline also notes she really likes the way our class has come together in kindness through the years. Kathy (Beams) Wiseman says that, when she thinks of community, she thinks back to her time in Tibati, Cameroon, for two years in the Peace Corps, where she worked to help with the healthcare infrastructure. She says she gained so much from the experience, as the people there were welcoming, helpful, and friendly, and there was a sense of enjoying time with each other: “Things happened slowly, but that was okay.” Please keep sending me your reflections on community and what it means to you.
Turning now to several classmates’ professional journeys, I will start with Laura Weylman Turner and Kristen Morwick, whom I had the great pleasure of seeing at a New England Small College Athletic Conference track meet in April. Kristen is the highly decorated head track-and-field and cross-country coach at Tufts University, where she has established an impressive record of accomplishments since arriving in 2000. Laura is a family practice doctor in Middlebury, Vermont, and earlier this year opened her “dream practice,” where she and a colleague put together an innovative structure designed to allow them to spend more time with each patient. From her empty nest in the D.C. area, Stephanie (Welch) Lewin is engaged in a professional labor of love of her own: her business helping high school students with innovative approaches to finding the right college. Our class president, Traci (Byrne) Gentry, has started on a new professional path as well: Traci, who has worked at companies such as Hershey and Reebok, now has a senior role in a recruitment and talent advisory firm that focuses on the consumer goods industry. Two of our classmates are taking new head of school roles this summer. Dave McCusker will join the Manlius Pebble Hill School in the Syracuse area, and so he and Steff McCusker will be getting to know central New York. Carrie Brennan will leave Tucson, Arizona, where she founded and led a charter school, and will return to the Upper Valley as she takes the helm at Thetford (Vermont) Academy. Also in the Upper Valley, Leah (Yegian) Whelan finished her first year as principal of Canaan (New Hampshire) Elementary School.
Best regards for a great summer, and I look forward to hearing from you.
—Tory Woodin Chavey, 128 Steele Road, West Hartford, CT 06119; dartmouth88classnotes@gmail.com
