University of Mary Washington - Index

University of Mary Washington - summer08 - Index

Photo courtesy of Universal Press Syndicate
68
CLASS NOTES
plans include a stay at the Jersey shore
with longtime friends.
Leslie Pack Hertzler and Gerry
live in Edmond, Okla., a suburb of
Oklahoma City. Leslie is retired from
technical editing and travels often to
Charlottesville, where both of their
daughters and their four grandchildren
live. Leslie is in touch with Lynne
Shaw deVries, her freshman- and
sophomore-year roommate, who left
after our second year, and Helen Ritchie
Donnelly, her junior-year roommate.
Beth Felton Jarrard retired from
the County of Henrico in Richmond,
Va., on March 31, and planned to move
to Durham, N.C. She has two daughters,
one granddaughter, and three grandsons.
The older daughter and her family live in
Durham, and the younger daughter and
her family live in Hamden, Conn.
With a long-running syndicated column
that appears in 70 newspapers across the
country, Susan Orebaugh Nicholson ’64
has made her mark as a menu planner.
Christine Scheuring Kapfer
became a microbiologist after
graduation, published several
research articles, and later worked
as a consumer safety officer for the
FDA, traveling to various countries
to inspect pharmaceutical companies.
She has a daughter who lives in
Virginia, another who lives in Idaho,
and seven grandchildren. She and
her husband have retired to a town
about 15 miles from Myrtle Beach.
They live near a pond and get to
watch ducks and geese. Christine
co-edits their community newsletter,
and their rambunctious husky-mix
dog keeps them busy. Christine keeps in
touch with Kathy Farrell Rubach, who
retired from teaching school in Virginia
and has recently moved to Pennsylvania
with her husband.
UNIVERSITY OF MARY WASHINGTON MAGAZINE����������������
After major renovation and
construction, Betsy Stanley Klein finally
moved into the house she grew up in.
Betsy became a nationally accredited
flower show judge in October. Studying
for the exam and moving kept her busy.
Peggy Mitchell Bliss met Jane
Totty Collier for a crab dinner in
Baltimore. Three of her grandchildren
are there, so she makes the drive
down several times a year. Seeing Jane
motivated Peggy to look for Ellen
Leartherbury McWhorter, and when
she called her, it was like no time had
elapsed. Peggy can’t sit still in retirement
and is working on an advanced mastergardener
certification at the University
of Connecticut, is the publicity co-chair
for the 2008 Farmington House and
Garden Tour, and researches genealogy
– digging up dirt on her deceased DAR
and Mayflower relatives.
Betty Jennings Peterson and Mel
celebrated their 40th anniversary with
a trip to Teton National Park and a tour
of art in the mountains. They viewed
paintings and sculpture at artists’ and
collectors’ homes and at Teton galleries
and museums.
1965
Phyllis Cavedo Weisser
5308 Fairfield West
Dunwoody, GA 30338
pcweisser@yahoo.com
Last year was a great one for my family.
My son, Frank, was named to the
Blue Angels team and will serve as the
narrator this year. I plan to go to lots
of the 35 sites he visits for air shows
each year so I can see him in action and
MARY WASHINGTON WHETTED
MENU PLANNER’S APPETITE FOR SUCCESS
She studied home economics, worked in a hospital, and found her niche in the culinary arts. Based
on those credentials, it would be easy to assume that Susan Orebaugh Nicholson ’64 has traveled a route
familiar to women of her generation.
That assumption would be wrong.
Nicholson has bucked tradition all her life, leaving her small town of New Market, Va., to attend Mary
Washington College in Fredericksburg without even seeing the campus in advance. She later became the
first female pharmaceutical company representative with Mead Johnson and married Gordon “Nick”
Nicholson, who would become her “trailing spouse” – a role typically reserved for wives rather than
husbands. She owned a business when most women were at home managing a household, and she now
writes a syndicated column published in 70 newspapers across the country.
Clearly, Nicholson embraces adventure, including her transformative move to Mary Washington. “I
was so glad to get away from home!” she said. “I was thrilled to be in college.”
Because she minored in foods and nutrition, she was required to take many science courses,
which she credits for having helped her break gender barriers time and again. After college, she did an
internship and worked five years as a dietitian in a Veterans Affairs hospital in Houston before landing her
groundbreaking job with Mead Johnson.
“I’d show up at doctors’ offices, and the receptionist would call the doctor,” Nicholson explained.
“They’d whisper into the phone, ‘It’s a woooo-man!’”
Sales meetings were tricky, too, since the company typically planned “day trips for the wives.” Her
husband was a good sport, though, and found plenty to do while she participated in meetings with
hundreds of men. Nicholson remembers struggling to find business suits for women and accoutrements
while traveling.
’64
These days, she writes from her home near downtown Atlanta and spends plenty of time in grocery stores, testing recipes, and exercising.
By the early-1980s, she had moved to Atlanta to work with the Marriott Corp.; husband Nick trailed along with her. A few years later, she opened a
microwave retail store and soon started holding classes in healthy meal preparation using this relatively new device.
She eventually landed on CNN, showing a national audience how to cook using the microwave. The following week, an agent called and asked her to write
a book about the subject. Good thing, apparently, that one of her favorite classes at Mary Washington was Donald E. Glover’s sophomore English, where she got
plenty of writing practice. She took the offer and wrote Save Your Heart With Susan: Six Easy Steps to Cooking Delicious Healthy Meals in a Microwave.
“They sent me money. I spent it. I wrote that book,” she said.
In 1995, Nicholson started writing her column, the “7-Day Menu Planner,” for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. It was syndicated a few years later. In
2004, she added another culinary column to her plate, “Double-Duty Dinners.”
In many ways, Nicholson still follows the unconventional route. Take travel, for instance. She and Nick, married now for 38 years, visit exotic locales such
as Buenos Aires, Barcelona, and Florence, where they try to speak the language and shop, cook, and live like the locals rather than joining tours.
“We’re not beach-vacation goers,” she said. “I like to move around.”
– Melissa Haller