I’m writing this in August, but by the time it comes out I will have been commuting from Bentonville, Arkansas, for my work in Walmart marketing back and forth to Redondo Beach, California. I figured commuting was better than moving the family during my younger daughter’s senior year in high school—I didn’t want the That Dad Award. I brought my mountain bike thanks to Winnie DelliQuadri, who told me how she and her son road-tripped to Bentonville to go mountain biking from Steamboat—yep, it’s that good.

David Hammond recently shared in our class officers meeting about our class service project—planting wildflowers on campus and around the Upper Valley. David shared, “There are currently 11 sites around the Upper Valley—five around campus, downtown Hanover, three in the Old Dartmouth cemetery, a big hillside at the organic farm, and one at a White River Junction, Vermont, elementary school. The 11th site will be planted this fall at Anonymous Hall. If you go to Dartmouthservice.org you can see a Google map and images of the sites already planted.” It’s a great service project for our class that David spearheaded and leaves a lasting mark on the campus for our class. Take a look!

Neil Abramson played football at Dartmouth and now his son, Parrish ’26, will be as well—also under Coach Buddy Teevens ’79 and also as a defensive back! Back at the end of August Neil said, “Very excited for my son. We’re taking him up next week and looks like I’ll be visiting campus a bit more in the next four years.”

I also talked with Andy Wells, who shared, “My wife, Loey, and I moved to Alexandria, Virginia, three years ago, and I’m a director of the advanced manufacturing program at the National Science Foundation, making tens of millions of dollars in grants to people doing fundamental research on everything from semiconductors to 3-D printing to metal cutting. Loey is starting up a business as a personal coach, and our daughter lives nearby in D.C., where she’s a Congress and politics reporter at USA Today. I’ve been happy to see Tim Burdick a couple of times in the past year, as he’s traveled here for meetings from his home in Lyme, New Hampshire, where he and his wife, Kristin, are doctors at DHMC. I’ve also (virtually) run into Sarah Konrad at work, since she’s building scientific research communities in Wyoming when she’s not skiing, biking, or making beautiful art.”

If you’re on Facebook, sometimes you get random instant messages from friends that you realize didn’t come from them. Such a message appeared to come from Cathy Lee, and I reached out to her on email to let her know. Cathy said, “There are positives in getting hacked. I heard from you and Betsy Heafitz, whom I haven’t talked to in ages. We’re hoping to get together later this summer when she comes back to Massachusetts to visit with family. So there’s a silver lining! I’m almost an empty nester. I switched to a different investment advisory firm late last year. I’m mostly remote, enjoying the work and the people. My oldest is adulting in New York City. He’s a theater lighting person hoping to work his way up to being a theater lighting designer one day. My youngest is a rising senior at UMass Amherst studying mechanical engineering.”

So the next time you see what looks like a spam message on Facebook, email your classmate to let them know and catch up. And you never have to wait for a suspected spam from me to let me know your news. Happy holidays!

—Ned Ward, 2104 Graham Ave., #B, Redondo Beach, CA 90278; ned@nedorama.com