Class Note 1977
Issue
March-April 2021
Steve Pitschke organized an Alpha Theta Zoom reunion. Present were Steve Koch and Chris Schmidt, as well as Jeb Burns ’76, Gregg Dougherty ’78 and ’79s Paul Berryman, Brian Breneman, Bill Fleming, and Evans Huber. “Many of us had not ‘seen’ each other for 40 years. We shared stories, reminisced about beer pong and Whale’s Tails, and had a great time.” Steve Pitschke works at Synopsys, a high-tech firm, as a senior software manager and architect. Steve Koch has his dream retirement job as a ski host at Mammoth Ski area in California. He actually gets paid to ski! Chris Schmidt is a psychotherapist living in Northampton, Massachusetts. Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health CEO and president Joanne Conroy, M.D., was elected as a regular member of the National Academy of Medicine (NAM). Joanne was selected for leading one of the nation’s most rural academic medical centers and being a pioneer in telemedicine. Election to NAM recognizes individuals who have demonstrated outstanding professional achievement and commitment to service.
Since 2010, on the Thursday before Thanksgiving, Phil Andryc has participated in the Covenant House sleepout to raise funds for and to show solidarity with homeless youth. This year 3,000 sleepers in 31 cities across North America participated. Phil spent the night in the parking lot of the Javits Center in New York City on a piece of cardboard with just his sleeping bag. “I wake up more stiff and with more aches every year, but, unlike the homeless, I am reminded how fortunate I am to have a safe home and warm showerto whichto return.”
Susan Dentzer, Dan Lucey, Jan Malcom,and Steve Mentzer participatedin a Zoom call for the class titled ’77 Eyes on the Pandemic. Susan is senior policy fellow at the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy, where she has written articles and papers on the Covid pandemic. Dan is a physician and the originator of the Smithsonian “Exhibition on Epidemics 2018-2021,” based on his experiences overseas with SARS, MERS, Ebola, flu, and Zika. He is teaching a course on epidemics at Dartmouth this winter. Jan is commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Health and has a leading role in the state’s response to the pandemic, reporting to Gov. Tim Walz. Steve was part of an international team of researchers who recently published an important article in the New England Journal of Medicine chronicling how they identified surprising new features of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and its impact on the lungs and the body’s vascular system.
In The Water Defenders: How Ordinary People Saved A Country from Corporate Greed, John Cavanagh and his wife, Robin Broad, tell the harrowing, inspiring saga of El Salvador’s fight—and historic victory—against “big gold.” John and Robin helped build the network of international allies that spearheaded the global fight against mining in El Salvador that began with the discovery that mining could lead to the catastrophic contamination of the river system supplying water to the majority of Salvadorans.
Note: The previous column contained comments that many found offensive. We apologize for their inclusion. In the future, we will avoid political opinion and social commentary.
—Robin Gosnell, 31 Elm Lane, Princeton, NJ 08540; robins.nest@icloud.com; Eric Edmondson, DC Advisory, 425 California St., Suite 19, San Francisco, CA 94104; eweedmondson@gmail.com; Drew Kintzinger, 2400 M St. NW, Apt. 914, Washington, DC 20037; akintzinger@hunton.com
Since 2010, on the Thursday before Thanksgiving, Phil Andryc has participated in the Covenant House sleepout to raise funds for and to show solidarity with homeless youth. This year 3,000 sleepers in 31 cities across North America participated. Phil spent the night in the parking lot of the Javits Center in New York City on a piece of cardboard with just his sleeping bag. “I wake up more stiff and with more aches every year, but, unlike the homeless, I am reminded how fortunate I am to have a safe home and warm showerto whichto return.”
Susan Dentzer, Dan Lucey, Jan Malcom,and Steve Mentzer participatedin a Zoom call for the class titled ’77 Eyes on the Pandemic. Susan is senior policy fellow at the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy, where she has written articles and papers on the Covid pandemic. Dan is a physician and the originator of the Smithsonian “Exhibition on Epidemics 2018-2021,” based on his experiences overseas with SARS, MERS, Ebola, flu, and Zika. He is teaching a course on epidemics at Dartmouth this winter. Jan is commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Health and has a leading role in the state’s response to the pandemic, reporting to Gov. Tim Walz. Steve was part of an international team of researchers who recently published an important article in the New England Journal of Medicine chronicling how they identified surprising new features of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and its impact on the lungs and the body’s vascular system.
In The Water Defenders: How Ordinary People Saved A Country from Corporate Greed, John Cavanagh and his wife, Robin Broad, tell the harrowing, inspiring saga of El Salvador’s fight—and historic victory—against “big gold.” John and Robin helped build the network of international allies that spearheaded the global fight against mining in El Salvador that began with the discovery that mining could lead to the catastrophic contamination of the river system supplying water to the majority of Salvadorans.
Note: The previous column contained comments that many found offensive. We apologize for their inclusion. In the future, we will avoid political opinion and social commentary.
—Robin Gosnell, 31 Elm Lane, Princeton, NJ 08540; robins.nest@icloud.com; Eric Edmondson, DC Advisory, 425 California St., Suite 19, San Francisco, CA 94104; eweedmondson@gmail.com; Drew Kintzinger, 2400 M St. NW, Apt. 914, Washington, DC 20037; akintzinger@hunton.com