Correspondence from John Cart in Buffalo, New York, brought pictures and news about his children James ’10 and Liz ’12. The pictures from commencement in June showed the new graduate, James, with sister and rising junior Liz and proud parents John and Diane. John noted that our class seems to be a breeding ground for legacies. Carlton Frost’s son Carlton ’10 is a good friend of John’s son. Fred Wearn’s daughter Colleen ’06 works in admissions. Sadly, John also informed me of the death of Robert G. “Purple” Hayes in July. Please look for the obituary on the DAM website in February.


In June Karen “K.G.” Jennings Lewis was elected president of the Chicago Teachers’ Union on a reform platform. Her caucus grew out of a study group that objected to school closings and privatization schemes that ignored community and parental input. There are 400,000 students in the Chicago public schools and 30,000 members of the union. K.G. wrote that her goal is to help restore the joy of teaching and learning to the system. She certainly has the right background to tackle this challenge. Both of her parents were Chicago public school teachers, and her husband, John, is a retired teacher. K.G. originally considered a career in medicine, but started teaching chemistry nearly 25 years ago after earning an M.A. in inner-city studies education and an M.F.A. in film and video. Now she is focused on critical education issues such as curriculum, teacher tenure and student achievement testing. In addition to all of her other responsibilities, K.G. was also recently elected executive vice president of the Illinois Federation of Teachers. Outside of work K.G. was in touch with the Smitty twins in Seattle, Don Smith and Ron Smith, when she attended a convention there last July.


In his October class newsletter Rick Ranger introduced an exciting class project for our 40th reunion proposed by class officers and our executive committee, a bunkhouse at Mount Moosilauke. Stay tuned for additional information.


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—Rick Sample, Retreat Farm, 1137 Manakin Road, Manakin Sabot, VA 23103; samplejr@msn.com