CLASS OF 1971 Marc Grappel ’71 God bless all of you, especially all the friends and classmates that I have never heard from in fifty years. Hope you are all well. It’s been a very interesting and sinuous road to the present, and the story is still unfolding. My best memory, aside from those wonderful Big Red sunsets, was my discovery of the sculpture garden concrete creations from those early ’60s architecture students, and I visit them every year I return to Ithaca, mainly to take in the car races at Watkins Glen, as well as the state park there. Peace and love to you all. marcvette1949@yahoo.com
CLASS OF 1993 John Sandford Rueppel ’93 I am happily ensconced in San Francisco with my wife, Aparna Venkatesan ’93, and two teenage sons. I am a partner at the law firm of Johnston, Kinney & Zulaica, LLP, trust and estates firm, where I handle trust and estates litigation. Happy to connect with all Bay Area alums interested in the law or trust and estates. jrueppel@gmail.com
CLASS OF 1988 Diane Weisbrot Nagle ’88 Lots of changes! Left California (Redondo Beach) almost two years ago after 26 years, relocating to Clearwater, Florida. Married Tom Nagle (BU ’83) in January (we met at the ice rink I trained at in El Segundo, CA, as he was on layover from his commercial pilot job, skating on a public session and wearing a BU hockey jacket …). Bought a house in May and am totally enjoying sitting on our dock and bird watching. My son David Wing is to graduate USC this December and my daughter Kiana is working on college transfer applications; desperately trying to get her to move out to Florida with us. dwnagle@icloud.com
CLASS OF 1993 Jennifer Barber Joyce ’93 I met up with Tri-Delta sisters from the 1990s in Alexandria, VA, in October 2021. It was so great to see Cristina Moeder Shaul ’91, Ariane Schreiber Horn ’91, JD ’96, Christine Bleyle Frank ’93, Melissa Turner Booth ’93, Lara Thornton Tabola ’93, Kimberly Martin-Epstein ’91, Corinne McKamey ’92, Jocelyn Spielman Turkel ’93, Mary Shelley ’96, Kristi Covert Tsiopanas ’94, ME ’95, Amy Lawrence Flueck ’91, Liz Baum Schnelzer ’91, Eileen McPeake ’90, Katherine Stifel ’87, Jill Fields ’88, and Lisa Stuart ’89.
Ronda Hamm, PhD ’08 Ronda, Global Academic Relations Leader at Corteva Agriscience, was featured on the season three premier of CBS’s “Mission Unstoppable” television show. You can watch the episode here.
Leonard Lehrman, MFA ’75, DMA ’77 On October 19 & 21, I will be presenting a virtual, two-part Retrospective Preview of the opera SACCO AND VANZETTI, begun by Marc Blitzstein and completed by me. (Work on it began while I was still at Cornell.) The opera was commissioned by the Ford Foundation and optioned by the Met in 1959. Blitzstein called it his magnum opus, but left it incomplete at his death in 1964. It was premiered, concertante, with piano, at the White Barn Theatre in Westport, CT, in August 2001, just weeks before 9/11. It has been an uphill battle since then; four times, premieres have been cancelled or postponed—in Italy, at UCLA, and at Hofstra. At this free Zoom event, we will be showing the 2001 video and interviewing cast members, past, present, and future, planning for an orchestral premiere some time by 2027. You can learn more about the event here. ljlehrman@nassaulibrary.org
Geoffrey Hewitt, MPS ’79 I am retired now and living in Raleigh, NC. I have twin sons, age 33, Eric and Brent. Brent is finishing his last year as a Daytime Duke MBA student and Eric works for EA (Electronic Arts), where he has developed a video game called Apex Legends, which will bring in $1 billon in revenue this year after only 3 years.
CLASS OF 1968 Henry Siegel ’68 Henry writes that the passing of his classmate Neal Sher ’68, an acclaimed Nazi hunter, was marked with a news obituary in the New York Times.
CLASS OF 1993 Jay Drezner ’93 We’re moving the family back to Australia after a great four years in Colorado. Our children, Nathan (14) and Alexandra (12), will be going to high school in Sydney. My last job was as a fractional CFO for small, growing companies which I loved and now it’s time to take a breather and spend more time with the family.
CLASS OF 2009 Richardson Handjaja ’09 Richardson recently married Eri Isomura, a freelance musician and graduate of St. Olaf College and The Boston Conservatory, and changed his last name from Kilis to Handjaja. The wedding was held in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, during the summer. In attendance were Richardson’s friends from the Cornell Asian Pacific Student Union (Junchi “John” Dong ’09; Nathan Chun ’09; Siyeon Andrew Seong ’10, MEng ’11; Risa Naka ’11, MEng ’13; Jason Xu ’11; and Xiao Wang, PhD ’12) and Chinese Bible Study (Wenqian “Ronny” Huang ’09; Calinda Yew Huang ’08; and Yanan Henry Wen ’09, PhD ’15). The couple now lives in Minneapolis, where Richardson works as a senior systems administrator at Prime Therapeutics.