Class Note 1964

If you read through the personal stories in our 50th reunion book, The Road Less Traveled, you will know that many of our classmates pursued fulfilling careers in law, medicine or finance.

Mike Bender comes from a family of lawyers and followed his father into the legal profession. He wound up in Colorado after visiting Chip Ridgeway’s family ranch in Wyoming. He attended Colorado School of Law, married and had two children—Jeremy and Aviva. After 10 years his marriage ended. He remarried about a year later to his current wife, Helen. Mike and Helen had three children—Maryjean, Tess and Ben—and he has a total of seven grandchildren. Mike practiced law for 30 years and was appointed in 1997 to the Colorado Supreme Court. In 2010 his fellow justices elected him chief justice. He held that position until he was required to retire in 2014 because of his age. Mike has since resumed private practice.

After graduation Tom Bird attended Cornell Medical College with Bob Reidy and Jack Larson. He married Ros in 1967 and moved to the Seattle area, where he has lived ever since, except for two years in the Navy with the Marine Corps. Tom began his medical career as a clinical neurogeneticist and set up the first neurogenetics adult clinic in the country. He studied genetic factors in diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. He and his wife have two children—Caroline (Colby ’96) and Jeff ’92—and three grandchildren. He has traveled to almost all 50 states and throughout the world. Ros was the founding director of the Shoreline Arts Council and is now a part-time public arts coordinator for Shoreline, north of Seattle. During his lifetime, Tom’s politics have gone from right to left. Tom describes himself as a “bearded, bespectacled, bald, prostate cancer survivor with a coronary artery stent” still considering his glass more than half full.

Steven D. Blecher, after military service, entered the world of Wall Street finance. He moved from managing other people’s money to designing portfolio management computer systems. In 1969 he married Amy Glick. They have now been married for 49 years. Steve and Amy have two sons, Andrew (Williams ’95; Tufts Medical ’99) and Jeffrey ’98, Tu’06, and five grandchildren. Steve retired after running financial businesses at Lehman Brothers and Furman Selz, then unretired and cofounded his own investment bank. After giving up sailing for many years, Steve now enjoys sailing his own boat.

These three classmates have all found satisfaction in their lives and careers. Perhaps they have followed the advice emanating from the Mayflower Coffee Shop slogan quoted by Steve Blecher: “As you wander on through life, brother, whatever be your goals, keep your eye upon the doughnut and not upon the hole.”

—Harvey Tettlebaum, 56295 Little Moniteau Road, California, MO 65018; (573) 761-1107; dartsecy64@gmail.com