With this column reaching everyone just prior to Halloween, it was very much a “treat” to bask in the many ’96 updates I’ve received in recent days! 


Michael Strahs wrote from San Diego, where he and wife Kathy have two children (ages 3 and 5). He has been working in retail real estate development (which he loves) with the same firm since 2002. The family was happily preparing for the release of Kathy’s first cookbook in early September. The Ultimate Panini Press Cookbook is an extension of her popular food blog, www.paninihappy.com; and while she wrote all the recipes and took the pictures, Michael did much of the tasting and washed the dishes (therefore allowing him to claim some credit!). He said Todd Newman had recently moved nearby (he’s in the tuna business), and that it was great to see Scott Nudelman and Jon Meltzer during their respective visits to southern California with their families.


I heard monumental news from fellow Californian Jonathon “Stew” Stewart. Stew and writing partner Eyal Podell ’97 have had a great year so far. After hitting No. 2 on the coveted “Hollywood Black List” with a screenplay about beloved Dartmouth alum Theodor Geisel ’25 (a.k.a. “Dr. Seuss”) last December, the pair have been hired to write a movie for Paramount and are currently writing for an as-yet-undisclosed studio on an upcoming feature. Seuss is being shepherded by a producer at DreamWorks and has attracted Colin Firth to play the lead. Stew and Eyal each have two “beautiful kids who inspire them every day” and make their work even more special.


Andrew Koh passed along tidbits on several ’96s. He ran into John Barros in his office a few months ago, just before John announced his candidacy for mayor of Boston (which, as Andrew put it, “is pretty cool”). Andrew has also been very active on the alumni athletics front, where he, Enrique Colbert and Chris Cho were a few of the ’96s who helped Dartmouth win the Ivy alumni softball league for the second year; he also recently joined up a few ’94s to win the 40th anniversary Killington Tricycle Race (yes, tricycles!). Andrew and his family just completed a deep energy retrofit of their home, completing the 1,000 Home Challenge, which required a 70-percent energy use reduction. Now he “can be a little less militant about our energy consumption. Go green!”


I received a decade’s worth of updates from Bridget Canniff! She recently earned a public health management certificate from the Northwest Center for Public Health Practice at the University of Washington School of Public Health, after previously completing her master’s in law and diplomacy (international affairs) at the Fletcher School at Tufts University in 2003. She has been working in the public health field, first for a global health nonprofit in Massachusetts and since 2006 as project director for the Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board (within the Northwest Tribal Epidemiology Center). The center serves 43 tribes in Idaho, Oregon and Washington. She has “been happily living in Portland for the last seven years, spending my free time enjoying the rivers, coast, forest and mountains with my husband of 15 years, Dan Fellini, and our black Lab mix Harold.”


Luke Brown and his wife, Audra Rudys ’95, in May welcomed their third child (and first girl), who Luke indicates is “smiley and adored by her older brothers.” 


Lastly Gregory Papajohn passed along that the “Papajohn clan” (including wife Suzanne and sons Nicholas, 7, and James, 2) just moved to Darien, Connecticut, and he “would love to reconnect with old friends in the ’hood!”


—Garrett Gil de Rubio, 1062 Middlebrooke Drive, Canton, GA 30115; ggdr@alum.dartmouth.org