Class Note 1989

I’ve been traveling on a combination of work and retailer visits that also saw us visiting Princeton and Cornell in August at my older daughter’s insistence that she see more than Dartmouth and Smith. Chris Baldwin saw my Facebook post of the Princeton pictures and replied simply, “No.” My Dartmouth hat was the only one I had with me so, yes, I was that dad. I was wearing that hat while watching Abbey D’Agostino ’14 help another runner up during the race, truly exemplifying the Dartmouth and Olympic spirit.

Closer to home, I finally got to have a beer with Clay Nichols in Venice, California. Besides running Dadlabs, Clay is also running marketing for Smartypants Vitamins, a company started by his sister. It was great to catch up with him and Jon Ruhl ’91 as an added bonus.

It was great to see our classmate Harmeet Dhillon opening the second night of the Republican convention. Harmeet is now RNC national committewoman from California for the next four years. Her 12-person law firm celebrated its 10th year this fall.

I was up in Seattle for a day trip and Heather Killebrew commented on my Instagram post of Safeco Field on a sunny day. Heather works at a law firm. Heather said, “Husband Pete Pulliam and I have a 5-year-old daughter, Ruby, and we enjoy living near and hiking in Seattle’s Discovery Park. Now that Ruby is beyond toddling, I’m looking forward to getting up into the mountains more often.”

Travel then took me to Minneapolis the next week; on the plane I read Kathy Appruzzese Sherbrooke’s new novel, Fill The Sky. It’s a great read and I’m super excited for Kathy—the book will be out by the time you read this. Kathy writes, “We have been in the Boston area since 1996 and our boys are very close in age to your girls, 10th and seventh grade. I still can’t get over the fact that my child is 6 feet tall and that they are both such wholly individual, independent people. Life is a crazy thing.” Kathy will be doing events on her book tour, and if you want more info (including the story behind the book), go on over to kasherbrooke.com. Kathy says she is “more than game to go to book groups (in person or by Skype) and have a bunch of free stuff online for groups to make the book group discussion a little more interesting than the norm. People can sign up right on my website.”

I had drinks and dinner with Bill Dean and Betsy Aldrich at Betsy’s house in Minneapolis. Bill is now doing trade marketing for Post Holdings and Betsy is director of golf tour operations at Women’s Golf and Travel, where she leads groups of women on amazing golf vacation tours all around the world.

Mateo Romero was awarded a National Artist Fellowship from the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation (NACF) for his work in visual arts in painting. To learn more about the National Artist Fellows and NACF’s work—nurturing the passion and power of creative expression—visit nativeartsandcultures.org. So whenever you’re traveling, either for work or fun (or both) take the time to reach out to fellow ’89s. I still remember meeting Missy Neubert Steffins at the L.L. Bean factory when we were on vacation in Maine eight years ago. Just let me know about these fun reconnections or anything else you’d like to share. And next time I’m in your town, I’ll try to let you know. Happy holidays!

—Ned Ward, 2104 Graham Ave., #B, Redondo Beach, CA 90278; ned@nedorama.com