Association news & class notes
1972
In the spring of 2022, about 40 of our classmates gathered for our 50th Reunion, and what a shock it was to realize that 50 years had passed since we had walked these halls and grounds! It was great to see so many people turn out, including five classmates who had never been to a Reunion before.
Jim Wilberger was coincidentally on campus for his first Reunion because of the inauguration of McDaniel’s new president. He had a chance to chat with Doug Rinehart, who was in from Hawaii and lived in the same dorm back in the day. Jim had to dash off after our first luncheon to fly to Utah, where he was producing a movie that came out in the summer of 2022, “Love in the Limelight.” Jim has been executive producer for the Hallmark Channel for many years. He says he always appreciates getting feedback, both positive and negative about his movies. “I also had another more serious Hallmark movie that premiered a couple months earlier in 2022,” he says. “If you should happen to see the title, it’s called ‘Heart of the Matter.’” He said his movie schedule has made it difficult for him to attend our Reunions in the past. “It’s just that I schedule my trips to campus around my volunteer work for the Cinema Department, which is scheduled around my free time between movie productions. Usually, the Reunion schedule doesn’t fit with everything else.” Jim and Manana have been spending some time in Spain with her family.
Ken Kester is thrilled that “after 21 years being a single guy, I married my lady friend of 13 years last November! She finally said yes! Mary and I just took a quick road trip to Savannah, Georgia, and Cocoa Beach, Florida.”
Dave Wiley is one of the five classmates who had never been to a Reunion. “Although we had visited the campus a few times over the years since graduation, we had never made it to a Reunion until the 50th last year. It was good to see the things that had changed and those that had stayed the same — as well as to reconnect with old friends (we shared a dinner with Steve Kelly ’73, M.Ed. ’83 and Carol MacDonald Kelly ’73 the night before the Reunion) and to meet the new president. Last August was also Phyllis’ and my 50th wedding anniversary! We celebrated by taking our children and grandchildren (14 of us in all) on a trip to Sicily. We took a private tour of the island — with a highlight being a visit to the town of Regalbuto where Phyllis’ mother was born and raised. We even got to meet and enjoy the hospitality of some relatives who still live in the town. It was the trip of a lifetime! We continue to divide our time in New Jersey between Allendale and the shore town of Brigantine — with a large part of our lives rotating around helping with grandkids and attending their many, many sporting and dance events and other activities. I have also worked on a revised and expanded version of my book ‘Why Mark: The Politics of Resurrection in the First Gospel,’ this time with footnotes and an appendix on the Priority of Mark, published by CSS Publishing of Lima, Ohio.”
John Sloan ’72 enjoyed volunteering for McDaniel’s January Term through Zoom meetings with two groups of students.
John Sloan attended both our 50th Reunion last year and the 51st this summer. “Since retiring in 2017, I’ve been keeping up with my field in computer science. Even more so, I’ve been on a permanent gap year enjoying winter and summer holidays now and then. John enjoyed catching up with Susan Phoebus Panek, Pam Zappardino ’71, and Walt Michael, as well as Hiroshima’s friends (and mine) Chris Spencer ’71 in the Preachers fraternity. “I also thoroughly enjoyed volunteering for January Term, Zooming with two groups of students.” John added that he met Milford Sprecher ’73 for the first time in 50 years and was saddened to hear of the passing of Rowland Hill ’71, with condolences to Marcie Ellithorpe Hill ’75.
Lily Chen moved from Berkeley, California, to South Bay, California, a couple of years ago after living in Berkeley for over 25 years. She retired from her graphic contract business “and took care of my Mum full time until she passed away two years ago at the age of 100.” Earlier this summer, Lily took her first trip overseas since before the pandemic, spending 10 days in Portugal and nine days in Greece. Last year, Lily picked up playing pickleball. She volunteers regularly with Second Harvest, an organization that distributes food to over 500,000 households a month.
It’s been 50 years since Lynn Tarbutton Cummings moved from the Eastern Shore to northwestern Vermont and 15 years since she retired from the University of Vermont. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, she and her husband spent several months each year traveling in fall and winter, coming back home for the holidays. “We have owned two small motorhomes and visited 46 states in those,” plus a flight to Hawaii. They have also done some international travel to Central and South America, Mexico, the Caribbean islands, Europe, New Zealand, and Australia. “Since both sons are back in Vermont, and we now have two young grandchildren who live only minutes away, we spend a lot of time in Vermont. We are nearly full-time caregivers for the little boys and our house looks like a baby/toddler preschool, but we love every minute of it. My sister, Polly Tarbutton ’68, recently came for a visit and enjoyed finally meeting her great-nephews. I still teach watercolor, acrylic, and mixed-media painting part time, participate in several juried art shows as well as solo shows in the area, and I enjoy my many colorful flowerbeds all spring and summer.”
Michelle Catington Porter sent summer greetings from “hazy, hot, and humid” North Carolina. “The greeting, above, really does sum it up here in Raleigh. Smoke from the Canadian wildfires has drifted our way and we are under a Code Orange air quality alert, along with temps in the 90s and full sunshine through the haze! Still love it here, though! Usually, it’s just good summertime weather! Keith Porter ’70 and I are doing very well and are enjoying retirement and managing to keep busy and involved with family, friends, and church. Our daughter, Kerrie, and her husband, Jim, and their three children, still live in Middletown, Delaware. We see their family frequently and enjoy our trips to Delaware! We love to meet up in Middletown with Art Blake ’71, Ginny Golden Blake, and Tom Mavity ’71 for lunch and laughter! Our son, Craig; his wife, Mari; and their sons, Colton, 9, and Benny, 6, still live near us in Raleigh. Having them nearby is great, and we love being able to attend school programs, their games, and having sleepovers! Home and garden projects; trips to the beach; lots of church activities; trips to, and visits from, friends and family; and relaxing on the front porch in this lovely city add up to lots of blessings, and we are so grateful for them all! A highlight of each year is getting together with WMC friends at the beach in New Jersey at summer’s end for a fabulous weekend!”
Rich Tom wrote, “Life continues to stay busy with what we worked hard for, which is to enjoy retirement to its fullest and to continue to stay as healthy as possible. Our life is centered on visiting kids and grandkids from the Eastern Shore to the Lone Star State and the ski resorts of Albuquerque, New Mexico. To be able to share my life’s past and present with the family is a true blessing that I am very grateful to be able to do. I spend a lot of my free time documenting and writing about my personal experiences, struggles, and success being the first in my family to achieve my educational milestone, which is considered a place of honor in my Chinese culture.”
Liz Sewell Wildasin and Ed enjoyed reconnecting and catching up with members of the WMC Class of 1972 and celebrating the 50th anniversary of their Little Baker wedding. “Ed and I are still enjoying our retirements in Easton, Maryland. I keep busy playing in the MidShore Community Band, playing and singing at our church, providing the music for Talbot Hospice a couple of times each month, and staying active with the Talbot County Retired Teachers Association and the Maryland Xi Chapter of Alpha Delta Kappa.”
Robert Read and his wife, Clare, are both retired. “In May, we took a river cruise on the Danube from Munich to Budapest. We have gone to Maine a few times to visit Clare’s son and daughter-in-law and two grandchildren. Clare’s daughter and son-in-law sold their Baltimore City home last July and started a search for a home near us. In the interim, they and their two children moved in with us. That lasted until last June, as the housing market got tight very quickly. They did eventually find a nice home in Ellicott City, Maryland.”
Sandy Fargo Geres, M.L.A. ’78 wrote that she and her husband, Michael, celebrated their 43rd wedding anniversary in June. “We’re still keeping on keeping on,” despite Michael having some asthma and allergy issues starting last year, and Sandy dealing with some persistent problems with vertigo. “I still work three days a week as a pharmacy technician and also give immunization vaccines,” Sandy said. “This spring I tutored two middle schoolers for the last quarter of the school year as well. We’ve vacationed in various Maine locations and on Cape Cod and attended some splendid shows such as ‘Hamilton’ and ‘Six.’ Last month we went to the Hartford Yard Goats game (semi-pro baseball league), and I was one of 10 vocalists selected to sing the national anthem before the start of the game, which was great fun! I am still in touch with some classmates, and I enjoy that very much.”
Nancy Lee Porter just celebrated her 73rd birthday with Ruth Howell and Dru Tresselt. They get together about every three months. “We have now been friends for 55 years, meeting as roommates at WMC. A wonderful long-term friendship. They are retired, but I still work as a consultant for Anne Arundel County Mental Health Agency. David and I went on a 12-day cruise to the West Indies in April and enjoyed new sights. I have limited mobility but can get around with a walker.”
Charlie Bowers, M.Ed. ’74 came to the 50th Reunion, and he wrote twice, promising to send in an article for this column for the first time ever. But he didn’t. Since he mentioned it twice, I thought I should go ahead and put him in the column.
James “Jim” Yates sold his company but is still working part time as a consultant. His full retirement date will be March 31, 2024. “We welcomed my first grandson on April 4, 2023, which was an anniversary gift for Nancy and me.” They have three grandchildren, and he is loving life. He was very happy to see a number of classmates at the Founders Society dinner.
Sadly, Steve McSweeney of Longmont, Colorado, passed away on March 18, 2022.
The last three years have been wild with very strange life challenges for me, Kathy Bryant. Last summer, there was the famous storm of July 2022 that knocked down over 100 trees in College Park, plus numerous trees in Westminster, Maryland. College Park made national news when a tree fell on a house while a student was sleeping and split it in half. A pecan tree in my backyard, planted by my great-uncle in 1888, fell on part of my house and demolished the back porch. Because my great-uncle was a professor of agriculture at the University of Maryland in the 1800s, I decided to donate a lot of the pecan wood to students in the wood shop and to Makers Woodshop milling company in Baltimore, so that they can make tables, bowls, spoons, pipes, and wands. Chesapeake Tree Company was finally able to come haul the trunk out of the yard in July of this year, and told me that the trunk was the biggest piece of wood they had ever picked up. It weighed 8,300 pounds. The tree had been unofficially declared the champion pecan tree for the state of Maryland. On a fun note, in October 2021, my brother and I took a breathtaking train trip from College Park to Maine to visit some of my best friends in Belfast to pick up a 2007 Buick I had accidentally bought from them. We ended up staying three weeks on their gorgeous five-acre wooded property.
Kathy Bryant1972 Class Reporter301-906-4442kdbryant20740@gmail.com7406 Columbia Ave.College Park, MD 20740