Class Note 1974
Issue
We have news from three classmates, with two earning Yale doctorates in history 30 years apart! Bob Bauman is the director of graduate degree programs at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College (CGSC) in Leavenworth, Kansas. CGSC is the Army’s graduate school attended by majors from all services, personnel from government agencies and representatives from 90 foreign countries. Bob started with a major in Russian and foreign study in Leningrad. He completed his doctorate in history at Yale, including a research year at Moscow University. He has spent the last 25 years at CGSC. Bob expanded his interests to peacekeeping operations and coauthored books on Somalia, Haiti and Bosnia. He traveled to Afghanistan in 2002 and has published a book on Soviet military actions there, in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Bob has three children. Ruthie graduates in May with a degree in early childhood development. She has also provided Bob a grandson, Alex. Son Bobby also graduates in May with a major in communications and a minor in Russian. Ben (15) joined Bob in Hanover for our reunion last June. While visiting New England Bob saw Laurie Robbins, widow of Steve Robbins. Laurie is doing well and their daughter, Emily, studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
After several years in Yale’s history department, including a year doing a master’s at Yale Law School, Owen Williams was awarded his Ph.D. in history in December and the two-year postdoctoral Cassius Marcellus Clay fellowship, named after the 19th-century abolitionist. Now Owen will teach and craft a book from his dissertation, Unequal Justice Under Law: The Supreme Court and the Failure of America’s First Civil Rights Movement. Owen and his wife, Jennifer, live in Wilton, Connecticut. Jennifer is an avid and highly ranked bridge player. Their son is studying Arabic at King’s Academy in Jordan during a gap year between high school and college. Their daughter is studying Chinese as a sophomore at Hopkins School in New Haven.
Noel Thompson and his wife, Nancy, live in Warwick, New York. Their older son, Alexander, studies at St. John’s University Law School. Their younger son, Maximilian, is finishing his undergraduate degree at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. Noel has been busy with Nancy starting an importing company and a luxury proprietary label to market foods from Italy. Noel started in the food business many years ago when a friend persuaded him to join a venture to introduce European foods to the United States. Since then Noel has imported, marketed and distributed fine foods. In 2000 he joined Ben Nourse ’79 in Seattle to build the wholesale division for the Internet site Ben had founded, greatfood.com, the premier online food retailer that 1800flowers.com acquired. International business comes naturally to Noel. He was born in London and went to school in Switzerland. He participated in the Dartmouth foreign study program in Mainz and majored in German. Noel enjoys the flexibility and travel opportunities that the international food business and his consulting assignments provide.
—Rick Sample, Retreat Farm, 1137 Manakin Road, Manakin Sabot, VA 23103; samplejr@msn.com
Mar - Apr 2010
We have news from three classmates, with two earning Yale doctorates in history 30 years apart! Bob Bauman is the director of graduate degree programs at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College (CGSC) in Leavenworth, Kansas. CGSC is the Army’s graduate school attended by majors from all services, personnel from government agencies and representatives from 90 foreign countries. Bob started with a major in Russian and foreign study in Leningrad. He completed his doctorate in history at Yale, including a research year at Moscow University. He has spent the last 25 years at CGSC. Bob expanded his interests to peacekeeping operations and coauthored books on Somalia, Haiti and Bosnia. He traveled to Afghanistan in 2002 and has published a book on Soviet military actions there, in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Bob has three children. Ruthie graduates in May with a degree in early childhood development. She has also provided Bob a grandson, Alex. Son Bobby also graduates in May with a major in communications and a minor in Russian. Ben (15) joined Bob in Hanover for our reunion last June. While visiting New England Bob saw Laurie Robbins, widow of Steve Robbins. Laurie is doing well and their daughter, Emily, studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
After several years in Yale’s history department, including a year doing a master’s at Yale Law School, Owen Williams was awarded his Ph.D. in history in December and the two-year postdoctoral Cassius Marcellus Clay fellowship, named after the 19th-century abolitionist. Now Owen will teach and craft a book from his dissertation, Unequal Justice Under Law: The Supreme Court and the Failure of America’s First Civil Rights Movement. Owen and his wife, Jennifer, live in Wilton, Connecticut. Jennifer is an avid and highly ranked bridge player. Their son is studying Arabic at King’s Academy in Jordan during a gap year between high school and college. Their daughter is studying Chinese as a sophomore at Hopkins School in New Haven.
Noel Thompson and his wife, Nancy, live in Warwick, New York. Their older son, Alexander, studies at St. John’s University Law School. Their younger son, Maximilian, is finishing his undergraduate degree at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. Noel has been busy with Nancy starting an importing company and a luxury proprietary label to market foods from Italy. Noel started in the food business many years ago when a friend persuaded him to join a venture to introduce European foods to the United States. Since then Noel has imported, marketed and distributed fine foods. In 2000 he joined Ben Nourse ’79 in Seattle to build the wholesale division for the Internet site Ben had founded, greatfood.com, the premier online food retailer that 1800flowers.com acquired. International business comes naturally to Noel. He was born in London and went to school in Switzerland. He participated in the Dartmouth foreign study program in Mainz and majored in German. Noel enjoys the flexibility and travel opportunities that the international food business and his consulting assignments provide.
—Rick Sample, Retreat Farm, 1137 Manakin Road, Manakin Sabot, VA 23103; samplejr@msn.com