Class Note 1996
Issue
Mar - Apr 2017
With this first column of the new year, I would normally extend well wishes to everyone for what lies ahead in 2017. However, it is with great sadness that I instead relay the passing of one of our own in the final hours of 2016. Maribel (Sanchez) Souther passed away in Hanover on the afternoon of New Year’s Eve after a courageous two-and-a-half-year battle with breast cancer.
As an undergraduate Maribel was a cross-country and track and field legend. She was a four-time All-American, a two-time Heptagonal cross-country champion and a two-time indoor and three-time outdoor Heptagonal champion. She won the USA Junior Nationals in cross country in 1994, captained the cross-country teams in 1995 and 1996 and was honored as Dartmouth’s outstanding female athlete in 1996 after leading cross country to a fifth-place finish at the NCAA championships. She also holds the school record in the 3,000-meter.
After graduation Maribel stayed in Hanover for two years, running competitively and coaching track at Hanover High School. She then moved to Boston (where she was introduced to her husband by a former Dartmouth teammate), earned a license as a massage therapist and continued to run competitively while counting a number of elite Boston-area athletes as her clients. She competed for both Team New Balance and Reebok Boston, qualifying for the 2000 Olympic trials in the 5,000-meter. In the fall of 2002 she returned to Dartmouth as an intern, helping lead the women’s cross-country team to a third-place finish at the NCAA qualifier.
In August 2003 Maribel was named Dartmouth’s interim cross-country and track coach and, in July 2004, became the women’s head cross-country coach. In her first year the team achieved its highest finish in the Ivy League championships since 1998. She would coach the Big Green women’s team for six years, developing talent within the program and recruiting outstanding first-year classes. She is credited with coaching one All-American, seven All-Ivy, five All-Region and six All-New England runners—and with the recruitment of now storied Olympian Abbey D’Agostino ’14.
Maribel is survived by her husband, John, and their three young children. In her memory her family established the Maribel Sanchez Souther 1996 Memorial Scholarship Fund, supporting track and field and cross-country athletes at Dartmouth (available at dartgo.org/MaribelFund); its focus will be to provide scholarships to student-athletes at Dartmouth in need of financial aid. The fund has a goal of reaching $50,000 in order to make it a permanent legacy and allow future cross-country and track and field athletes to be touched by Maribel. Please donate today and keep Maribel’s loved ones in your thoughts and prayers as they endure this time of great loss.
The universe certainly likes a sense of balance, so with sad news comes happy news as well: Shawn Burgess and his wife, Diana, welcomed their fourth child, Mallory Ruth, on July 17. She joins big sister Karina (age 10) and brothers Quinn and Rhett (ages 7 and 2). Shawn added, “We’re about to celebrate our 10th anniversary living in Charlotte, North Carolina, where I’m an ER physician. With four possible future Dartmouth legacies I’ll probably be working until I’m 80!”
Congrats to the Burgess clan on its newest addition and best of luck to Shawn for those three to four additional decades of gainful employment!
And with that, I wish all our classmates far and wide a wonderful new year filled with great happiness, health and prosperity—and with a reminder to keep those we hold dear a little closer this year!
—Garrett Gil de Rubio, 1062 Middlebrooke Drive, Canton, GA 30115; ggdr@alum.dartmouth.org
As an undergraduate Maribel was a cross-country and track and field legend. She was a four-time All-American, a two-time Heptagonal cross-country champion and a two-time indoor and three-time outdoor Heptagonal champion. She won the USA Junior Nationals in cross country in 1994, captained the cross-country teams in 1995 and 1996 and was honored as Dartmouth’s outstanding female athlete in 1996 after leading cross country to a fifth-place finish at the NCAA championships. She also holds the school record in the 3,000-meter.
After graduation Maribel stayed in Hanover for two years, running competitively and coaching track at Hanover High School. She then moved to Boston (where she was introduced to her husband by a former Dartmouth teammate), earned a license as a massage therapist and continued to run competitively while counting a number of elite Boston-area athletes as her clients. She competed for both Team New Balance and Reebok Boston, qualifying for the 2000 Olympic trials in the 5,000-meter. In the fall of 2002 she returned to Dartmouth as an intern, helping lead the women’s cross-country team to a third-place finish at the NCAA qualifier.
In August 2003 Maribel was named Dartmouth’s interim cross-country and track coach and, in July 2004, became the women’s head cross-country coach. In her first year the team achieved its highest finish in the Ivy League championships since 1998. She would coach the Big Green women’s team for six years, developing talent within the program and recruiting outstanding first-year classes. She is credited with coaching one All-American, seven All-Ivy, five All-Region and six All-New England runners—and with the recruitment of now storied Olympian Abbey D’Agostino ’14.
Maribel is survived by her husband, John, and their three young children. In her memory her family established the Maribel Sanchez Souther 1996 Memorial Scholarship Fund, supporting track and field and cross-country athletes at Dartmouth (available at dartgo.org/MaribelFund); its focus will be to provide scholarships to student-athletes at Dartmouth in need of financial aid. The fund has a goal of reaching $50,000 in order to make it a permanent legacy and allow future cross-country and track and field athletes to be touched by Maribel. Please donate today and keep Maribel’s loved ones in your thoughts and prayers as they endure this time of great loss.
The universe certainly likes a sense of balance, so with sad news comes happy news as well: Shawn Burgess and his wife, Diana, welcomed their fourth child, Mallory Ruth, on July 17. She joins big sister Karina (age 10) and brothers Quinn and Rhett (ages 7 and 2). Shawn added, “We’re about to celebrate our 10th anniversary living in Charlotte, North Carolina, where I’m an ER physician. With four possible future Dartmouth legacies I’ll probably be working until I’m 80!”
Congrats to the Burgess clan on its newest addition and best of luck to Shawn for those three to four additional decades of gainful employment!
And with that, I wish all our classmates far and wide a wonderful new year filled with great happiness, health and prosperity—and with a reminder to keep those we hold dear a little closer this year!
—Garrett Gil de Rubio, 1062 Middlebrooke Drive, Canton, GA 30115; ggdr@alum.dartmouth.org