Class Note 1981
As I write this my hometown Boston Red Sox have opened the season with their worst record in recent years, but in Atlanta there is excitement and new hope for the Braves in the person of rookie sensation Jason Heyward, son of Eugene Heyward and Laura Benjamin Heyward ’79. It’s not just the ceremonial opening day first pitch he received from Hank Aaron or the huge first-time-up-in-the-majors home run that Jason launched later that day, but what MLB.com columnist Peter Gammons calls Atlanta’s “unique connection” to a kid who worked his way through Marietta, Georgia’s East Cobb youth baseball program. By all accounts Jason appears to be taking his fame in stride, a tribute to Eugene and Laura’s parenting, and is clearly a player to watch!
Peter Heymann is just back from three years in Tokyo where his wife, Nicole Piasecki, was president of Boeing Japan. Peter and Nicole welcomed the third of three boys, Franklin, to the family nine weeks before embarking on their Japanese adventure. As Peter notes, in addition to the newborn baby, among the more interesting aspects of his experience was his role as “trailing spouse” with his wife “in the role of president of a Fortune 50 company in a country that is perhaps 25-plus years behind the United States in embracing equality for women in the workplace.” Now back in the United States, Nicole is leading a small business development team charged with identifying strategic elements vital to Boeing’s future success, while Peter expects to soon return to consulting work with faith-based organizations in addition to his Mr. Dad duties with Franklin, now 3, Nicholas (10) and Benjamin (8).
Howard Morse has a new job at Cooley Godward Kronish in the firm’s antitrust and trade regulation practice in Washington, D.C. Howard is the former assistant director of the Bureau of Competition at the Federal Trade Commission and co-chair of the antitrust practice at Drinker Biddle and Reath. Howard’s wife, Laura Loeb, also practices law, focusing on healthcare regulatory issues. Their daughters Elizabeth and Marni are a junior and a freshman in high school, respectively. Elizabeth recently appeared in her high school production of Blast 2010 Rock ’n’ Broadway and Marni was in Thoroughly Modern Millie. “They clearly get their talent from someone other than their father,” says Howard.
After 12 years of consulting on diversity issues in the workplace Susan Adler Funk (Harvard M.B.A. ’86) is back in graduate school working on a master of arts in policy studies at the University of Washington. She hopes to work in the nonprofit sector when she completes her degree. Her husband, Allen, is publisher of The Herald in Everett, Washington. Daughter Lindsay is a freshman at Stanford and Rachel is a junior in high school. On a recent college visit trip Susan and Rachel caught up with Molly Sundberg Van Metre in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Yvonne Howell is associate professor of Russian and international studies at the University of Richmond. She teaches and does research on “the interface between science and literature in East European culture,” publishing articles with sexy titles such as The Liberal Gene: Sociobiology as Emancipatory Discourse in the Late Soviet Union. Yvonne’s husband, Carter Blough ’78, is a bass player who performs and records with various innovative jazz/rock/world combos in Richmond, Virginia. Yvonne notes that daughters Sonia (14) and Marina (11) “have rhythm (from dad), love of language and travel (from mom), generally exceed all our expectations in everything and are a ton of fun to live with.”
Sadly, I must report that Douglas Chang, M.D., passed away on March 23 after a courageous three-year battle with cancer.
—Julie Koeninger, 2 Wilson St., Wellesley, MA 02482; jkoeninger@comcast.net; Abner Oakes, 4807 Dover Road, Bethesda, MD 20816-1772; aoakes4@gmail.com
