University of Mary Washington - Index

University of Mary Washington - summer08 - Index

Permanente and getting ready to send
her daughter, Ellen, to Spain for a year
of study. We spent an afternoon catching
up by looking through the 1975 Mary
Washington yearbook and reminiscing.
I saw her again last August and got this
update: She visited Ellen in Spain; her
youngest son, Andrew, got married on
Dec. 29; and last February, she started
working full time at Kaiser.
Don’t forget to send me your email
address if you would like to be added
to my distribution list to be notified of
happenings for the Class of 1975. It’s
been great hearing from you. Please
keep the news coming!
1976
Helen Salter
2494 East Harbor Circle
Grand Junction, CO 81505
salter2@earthlink.net
1977
Vicki Sprague Church
155 Arbor Creek Way
Roswell, GA 30076
churchflint816@aol.com
1978
Cindy Drury Clark
8 Peaceful Lane
Norwalk, CT 06851
cclarkct@optonline.net
Ah, the power of email! It’s been quite
awhile since our class had anything
reported in Class Notes, and I think that
attests to our busy lives as part of the
“sandwich generation.”
I’ve lived in Connecticut for 20
years and have been married nearly that
long. I met my husband, Jim, when we
both were living in San Francisco; his
job with General Electric brought us
back to the East Coast. I have had four
distinct careers: as a federal government
worker, as a mainframe software sales
executive, as owner of a corporate
gift and gift basket company, and
currently as a fundraiser in nonprofit
development. I’m a senior development
director at our local community college.
Jim and I love outdoor activities,
including tennis, biking, and kayaking.
Ranelle Weeks Flurie has run
her own dance studio for 19 years. She
dances and does lots of instruction and
putting on shows with her students. She
has a son who is going into banking and
a daughter who is in pharmacy school.
She keeps in touch with Sherrie Adams
and Ann Withers.
Carol Mills started teaching
elementary music in Prince William
County right after graduation and
is now in her 30th year there. She is
busy with church activities, leading a
children’s choir, and singing with the
adult choir. She attends the occasional
concert, play, or sporting event,
particularly now that D.C. has a baseball
team again. She travels and twice led a
delegation of middle school students to
Australia and New Zealand with People
to People Student Ambassadors. She
eased her way into the age of 50 by
visiting friends in Paris.
Marnie Snyder Wheatley lives
in the suburbs of Frederick, Md., with
her husband of more than 25 years,
Tom. Their daughter, Leanne, 23, is in
graduate school; son Daniel is a senior
in college; Russell is a freshman in
college. Marnie has gone back to school
to study accounting.
Beverly Wood-Holt graduated
from Mary Washington with a bachelor
of chemistry degree and went on to
earn a master of analytical chemistry
degree from the University of Georgia.
She worked in Kodak’s motion picture
division for 10 years, and in that job,
moved to Los Angeles in 1986. Her
present job is as an executive vice
president of technical services for
DELUXE Labs in Los Angeles, where
she has been for 15 years. DELUXE
makes movies – the actual prints you
see in your local theaters. Five years ago,
Bev married a man she’d known for 25
years. Brian is a composer and makes
sound tracks and scores for films and
commercials. They travel back to their
farm in the southern part of Virginia two
to three times a year. Beverly keeps in
touch with Roseanne Galzerano Wyatt.
Roseanne has been busy getting
settled into expat life in Kuwait and
traveling all over the region. Her
husband, Jeff, is working on a major
project for Chevron in Saudi Arabia,
and they will be there for about four
years. They live on the Arabian Gulf
waterfront! Their daughter, Sam,
is a freshman at the University of
Pennsylvania.
Joanna Markunssen Livengood
went to Carnegie Mellon after
graduation and earned master’s
and doctorate degrees in chemical
engineering. She joined the Department
of Energy 24 years ago, doing research
in fossil energy. Joanna is a member
of the federal government’s Senior
Executive Service and is site manager
at a Fermi National Accelerator
Laboratory. She has been married to
Dave for 11 years, and they live in the
Chicago area.
Jane Roth Baugh and her husband,
Tom, have been in Roanoke for more
than 21 years. After working at Hollins
for four years, she became a librarian
at Woods Rogers PLC, the largest law
firm in that part of the state, and is
about to celebrate her 18th anniversary
with the firm, where she is also the
records manager and handles several
other jobs. Tom is the music director
at Christ Episcopal Church, where Jane
sings in the choir and helps him with
the children’s choir. She is also in the
Roanoke Symphony Chorus.
Jeanne Munns Swartz has lived
in Alaska for 30 years and works as a
forensic scientist in the Alaska Crime
Lab. Before that, she did stints as an
oil company geophysicist and a high
school teacher. She has two daughters,
one husband, one dog, one cat, and one
chicken. She really wanted to be at our
30th reunion but planned to attend her
daughter’s college graduation.
Krista Wentz Levy and her
husband, Andy, live in Ashburn, Va. She
moved around the country a lot for her
career and is glad to be back in Virginia.
These days, she works as the director of
marketing services for Lonza, a Swissbased
pharmaceutical company. She has
no children of her own, but she is the
proud stepmom of three young adults.
Kathy Cesky Heggman is on
assignment as IBM’s global integration
executive for India and manager of
two large transformation accounts in
Australia and Europe.
Shirley Tyykila VanRiper has been
married to Tim, a photographer and
copy editor, for 25 years. They have two
children but are now empty-nesters.
Shirley and Tim have lived in Baton
Rouge, La.; Asheville, N.C.; Roanoke,
Va.; and now Pueblo, Colo., where they
are building a timber frame house.
Shirley works as a medical technologist
and visits her mom, who is battling a
brain tumor, as often as she can.
Linda Meeker Young hoped to
attend the reunion, but with two teenage
boys, everything is always subject to
change. Both Sam, 17, and Ben, 14, are
active in Boy Scouts. Linda has been
married to David since 1983, and they
continue to live in the same house in
State College, Pa.
Margaret Tillery Bell has
been married for nearly 20 years to
Doug. They have four children who
range in age from 8 to 18. For 15 years
they have lived in Michigan, where
Doug is a research analyst for Ford.
Margaret has three part-time jobs:
church organist, piano teacher, and
assistant in an accounting office. Her
father, Frank Tillery, who sponsored
many scholarships at Mary Washington,
just passed away in
December. Margaret
did not plan to attend
the reunion since
her oldest son, Kirk,
was to graduate from
high school that same
weekend.
Paula Ruth
Steere Newquist married husband John
in 1969 and attended classes at Mary
Washington from 1970 to 1972 and
again from 1976 through December
of 1977. She graduated in May of 1978
while she was pregnant with her second
child. She has four children: daughter
Gusti, 33; son Russell, 29; son John,
25; and son Noel, 23; all were born in
Fredericksburg. The family moved to
Madison, Ala., in 1985, when John got a
job with Teledyne Brown Engineering,
and has been there ever since. Paula
earned a Master Craftsman in Counted
Thread certification from The
Embroiderers’ Guild of America and
has had several quilted outfits accepted
and shown in national competitions.
Between 2000 and 2002, she lost 79
pounds (way to go, Paula!), and she
currently works for Weight Watchers as
a leader and receptionist.
Patricia Ringle Vandever has
lived in Charlottesville since 1979 and
really loves it. She is in her 28th year
of teaching high school English and
is chair of the English department
at Charlottesville High School. She
has identical twin sons, Justin and
Jason – one is married and lives in the
Dallas area, and the other lives in San
Francisco.
Ann Plough Shaw studied school/
clinical child psychology in grad school at
U.Va. and received her doctorate in 1986.
She married fellow graduate student
Daniel Shaw in 1987. They moved to
Pittsburgh in 1988 and have been there
ever since. He is a faculty member in the
clinical psychology department at the
University of Pittsburgh. Ann has worked
on and off as a clinical psychologist and
is now working part time with children
who have been diagnosed with an autism
spectrum. She and Daniel have three
children: Alyssa, 17; Zachary, 14; and
Joshua, 9.
Vanessa Vance Moncure is
celebrating her 30th anniversary this
year with her husband, Withers “Buzzy”
Moncure Jr. Because of health problems
for which she’s been treated at the
Cancer Center at U.Va., she has had to
retire from the catering and restaurant
businesses she owned in Fredericksburg.
Her son, Webb, and his wife, Fernanda
Ibarra Moncure, of Klamath Falls, Ore.,
have two sons, Sebastian and George.
Vanessa is learning to knit because the
couple is expecting a third child during
our Reunion Week. Vanessa’s daughter,
Katherine Stuart, is expecting her first
child in August, so Vanessa will be a
grandmother of four and a knitting
whiz by then. Her youngest son, Avery,
is at UMW this year. He is the third
generation in her family to attend.
Vanessa’s mother, Wyvonne Weaver
Vance ’53, was on the May Court.
Jeanne Munns Swartz ’78 has
lived in Alaska for 30 years and
works as a forensic scientist in the
Alaska Crime Lab.
Deby Cox Bigdely is the human
resources manager for Hankins and
Anderson Consulting Engineers in
Richmond. She earned a master’s
degree in business human resources
and industrial relations from VCU,
graduating with a 3.9 GPA. She jokes
that she was more focused as a grad
student than she was when she attended
Mary Washington! She also is certified
as a senior professional in human
resources. Deby and Bill, an electrical
engineer with Dominion, have been
married for 28 years. They have three
grown sons, Austin, Adam, and Thomas.
Kathy King Wirtala lives in
Fredericksburg with her family. She
and husband Joe were to celebrate
their 28th wedding anniversary on
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