Class Note 2008
I have some fascinating updates to share from the class of 2008 around the girdled earth.
Matthew Siegfried is leaving Stanford and starting as an assistant professor at Colorado School of Mines in January. Somewhat inconveniently, he’ll be in the middle of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet on his first day of work. He headed off to start his eighth field season in October. You can see what he’s been up to on Twitter at @MinesGlaciology, where he posts updates via satellite phone.
Some more updates on the job front. Sidd Singhal writes in to share that his current job is to manage Totino’s Pizza Rolls. If anyone is having a Dartmouth reunion (big or small) and wants to celebrate with pizza rolls, he’s happy to help hook them up! RuDee Sade Lipscomb is working with an indigenous rights and community advocacy nonprofit in Vancouver’s Downtown East Side. And Emily Frank remains in the Bay Area teaching public school in Oakland, California, and practicing medicine as a pediatrician. If you’re in the area, get in touch and you can arrange to visit her class sometime; they would love to have you!
Approaching two years sober, Joshua Turnbull is engrossed and enjoying his first year at Pitt Law. He writes, “It’s not been an easy path but as our graduation theme told us: ‘You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.’ There can be no doubt I’ve paid my dues. It’s great to finally share some good news.” He keeps the rhyming up to solicit visitors to his neck of the woods: “Need some Dartmouth visitors in Pittsburgh, singly or in twos (Hi, Mitch/Stiffy), it’s up to yous.”
On the wedding front, Adria Buchanan wed Aleksey Karulin in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, on March 27, 2018. They were joined by family and friends, including fellow Casque & Gauntlets Abe Holland, Ian Tapu, Lena Martinez-Wolfinger, Zainep Mahmoud, Denise Abeita, and Uma Shankoor. Adria and Aleksey just returned from their honeymoon in Vietnam and recommend it to anyone!
And Evon Noyes shares the amazing story of what he’s been up to for the past half-decade or so. He and four friends were tired of waking up a 7 a.m. to watch the English Premier League, so they started what they hoped would become a professional soccer team in his adopted hometown of Birmingham, Alabama. They put together exhibition matches in 2013 to raise money and awareness, and then recruited a coach and college players to play a full exhibition season in 2014 in front of crowds of 400 to 500 people. Leveraging that success, they earned an expansion charter in the National Premier Soccer League in 2015, and for the next three years Evon was a forensic accountant by day and part-time minor league soccer team owner by night.
Without employees, the founder group ran everything from merchandise sales to security, drawing more than a thousand people to some games and beating Nashville in the Vanderbilt Stadium to win the I-65 Cup. In 2017 they sold the team to investors with a United Soccer League franchise, and in 2019 the dream of a truly professional team in Birmingham will be a reality with Birmingham Legion FC. A truly wild success story. Congrats to Evon, who has now moved to California.
I didn’t start a soccer team, but I did coauthor a book, The Contagious Commandments: Ten Steps to Brand Bravery, out now from Penguin Business UK. It feels weird to write about it, but it’s my duty as class secretary to share. So there it is.
Until next time!
—Chris Barth, 315 14th Ave. NE, Minneapolis, MN 55413; (609) 405-9153; cbarthrun@gmail.com
