1950s
1953
After an incredible river cruise from Moscow to St. Petersburg, Sunya Felburg, her daughter, and son-in-law, spent three days in Finland.
Dorothy Garrett said “life is good.” She proudly reports that all of eight of her grandchildren are now college graduates.
1956
After a 62-year career as an active educator Stu Gothold hooded his final cohort of Ed.D. candidates at USC in May.
Jackie Hanson is keeping busy, traveling, and enjoying life after the passing of her husband, Lou Hanson ’53.
1958
Irving Hendrick is currently serving as interim president for Riverside City College.
1960s
1962
▲ Whittier College Class of 1962
▲ Lynne Therriault on South Georgia Island in the South Atlantic, “teaching” a seal to Fear the Poet!
1963
Carol Anne Converse is living in a small ranch in Utah with her husband. She sees her five children and grandchildren as often as possible. She would love to get in touch with former classmates.
1964
Bill Francis is serving on the Whittier College Alumni Association Board of Directors this year. He recently attended the ribbon cutting for the refurbished Memorial Stadium and at the ceremony was invited to reprise his position as “football game announcer “ for the Occidental game. Go Poets!
1965
Sandra Hemphill and Harvey Hemphill ’64 are enjoying retirement. She volunteers as a guide at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and he gives tours of North Beach for City Guides.
In 2017, Alice L. (Martin) Goodson Johnson welcomed a new grandson and great grandson and celebrated the wedding of her granddaughter. Capping off her year, she traveled to Australia and New Zealand.
1966
After a long career as a teacher and a special education resource specialist, Pat (Neilson) Walworth has retired in Aromas, Calif. Walworth and her husband John enjoy raising horses on their ranch and traveling around the world—sometimes with their good friends from Whittier.
1967
Class Agents:
Ann Hansen Burge and John Hall wish to thank members of the Class of ’67 for attending the 50th Homecoming Reunion. “Our reunion was extremely successful because of you, the alumni, who so generously gave of your time to put this great event together,” said Burge.
Reports from reunion attendees: Bill Demmin said, “I especially enjoyed seeing folks who were on the Copenhagen trip where Dot (Hodge) Demmin ’66 and I met—on a bus in London; 51 years later we are still together and loving each other and life.” Richard Hodson said, “The reunion dinner at the President’s residence was a highlight of the reunion. Sandra Loman said, “My favorite memory of the reunion involved comparing scars from total knee replacements with Jim Colborn and Greg Hardy ’66. Mary O’Brien said, “The 50th reunion was so well organized with such diverse activities, that I can’t imagine that each ’67 participant didn’t come away thinking it was time and travel extremely well spent.”
Michelle Kimball reports that the Copenhagen alumni are active and recently gathered in Solvang for a mini-reunion. Contact her (denmark6566@icloud.com) to connect.
Renee (Norrblom) Montgelas retired from 30 years in the public sector at all levels of government. These days she enjoys traveling and organizing garden tours for the NW Horticultural Society in Seattle.
1968
1968 50th Reunion Celebration begins on August 24-25 with a reception and dinner (Mona Kai Revisited) and continues during Whittier Weekend, October 12-13. For more information visit whittier.edu/whittierweekend.
Since retiring, Gordon D. Calac has been assisting his tribe—Rincon Band of Luiseno Indians—in implementing various economic growth strategies.
1970s
1970
David H. and Virginia M. Edinger ’72 represented Whittier College at the inauguration of Earlham College’s new president, Alan Price, in Richmond, VA.
◄ Bill Jones retired as the Executive Director of the Surfer’s Medical Association in 2017. He is now traveling the world looking for surf and old Whittier friends.
1971
Roger Thompson retired from his long career as a semi-conductor engineer and lives in Menlo Park, Calif. He fills his time with golfing, ushering football games, and volunteering for several local organizations.
1972
Robert H. Fish was appointed chairman of the board of directors of Genesis Healthcare, Inc., the largest national provider of post-acute healthcare services, in April 2017. He has extensive experience in the health care industry, having served as chairman, president or CEO of a number of healthcare companies.
1975
Sue (Sioux) Thompson retired from her position as the head of the talent management and leadership development at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in Washington, D.C. She plans to go into private practice as a consultant and executive coach as well as train her new puppy for therapy dog work.
1978
Bill Qualls began work on a Ph.D. in Mathematics at Central Michigan University.
1980s
1980
Michael Vacchio joined the ADLI Law Group as the senior counsel.
1984
Steven Miller was named chief human resources officer for the Pasadena Unified School District. He was previously the deputy superintendent of human resources for the Lawndale Unified
School District.
▲ Mark Peter married Li Xiao Hong in August 2017 at the Chinese Christian Church of Columbia, SC. The couple is back in East Asia teaching English to university students.
1986
Ronald F. Lopez, M.D. was named senior medical director for Missouri Care, Inc. Prior to joining Missouri Care, Lopez served as the chief medical officer for Molina Healthcare of Utah and president/CEO of Hidden Valley Family Medicine, Inc., in Draper, Utah, which he founded.
1987
▲ Mary C. J. Butterly, Mihael Herrera, and Julie (Curtis) Kline had a reunion encounter during Whittier Weekend.
▲ Kent Gilbert married Diana Hultgren August 5, 2017 in Berea, KY where Kent is pastor of historic Union Church.
1989
Jack Rosenhan and Sheri Solomon Rosenhan ’88 married in 2013, 27 years after having met at Whittier. They reside in Mountain View, Calif. with their three children. Jack works for Cushman & Wakefield in facilities management and has been coaching soccer for over 32 years. Sheri is an outspoken advocate for her 16-year-old son Zachary, who has and autism, and works as a pre-school teacher at Children’s Learning Cottage.
Andrew Scofield married Lauren Scofield in 2012, they have a new baby, Juliet, and he is fighting MS full-time.
▲ After 28 years in the classroom, Janet Wheeler took a well-deserved sabbatical to work on academic projects, play tennis, and do some traveling to French-speaking destinations: seven weeks in the South Pacific, two weeks in Morocco, jaunts to New Orleans and Quebec, Canada, and a month in France. Check out her travel blog, comfyshoestravel.com.
Marla Wolsky-Proctor retired from the criminal justice field after almost 30 years. She is currently completing a master’s degree in clinical mental health to become a licensed professional counselor. Her oldest daughter is a first-year student at Whittier.
1990s
1992
Floyd and Sheri Cheung celebrated their twenty-fifth anniversary this year. Sheri works as a primary-care physician at Hilltown Community Health Center. Following her interest in cooking, she published an e-book, The Jook Book: Demystifying the Art of Making Asian Rice Porridge. Floyd is an English professor at Smith College who specializes in recovering lost and lesser-known Asian American writings. Two of his recent publications include, John Okada: The Life and Rediscovered Work of the Author of No-No Boy and Sadakichi Hartmann: Collected Poems, 1886-1944.
◄ Martin A. Stuart, a partner of McDermott Stuart & Ward LLP in Colorado, was named a Top Criminal Defense Lawyer by 5280 Magazine in 2018.
Kathleen Johnson has worked for the Walt Disney Company, American Red Cross and other non-profits. She married in 2014, had a daughter in 2015, and resides in Orange County, Calif.
1993
Message from Hale LaBore: “Mark your calendars now and makes plans to spend Whittier Weekend, October 12-13, with the Class of 1993. I am looking for a few fellow alumni to form a reunion committee so we can put on a really great weekend for all of us and our families. Please contact me, if you are interested in helping out.”
▲ Sanjay Das representing the Poets at the Taj Majal.
1999
Brandon Valeriano published his sixth book, Cyber Strategy: The Evolving Character of Power and Coercion. His ongoing research explores documenting cyber events, biological examinations of cyber threat, and repression in cyberspace.
2000s
2000
▲ Alicia M. Rodriguez is a bilingual outreach librarian for the Los Angeles Public Library. She’s pictured here in the Sahara where she rode Dromedaries (a camel) at 4 a.m. to watch the sunrise—one of her many adventures while in Morocco.
2002
Amanda J. Shallcross ‘00 and Pallavi D. Visvanathan are celebrating their six-year wedding anniversary in 2018. Shallcross is an assistant professor in the Department of Population Health at NYU School of Medicine. Visvanathan has a busy private psychotherapy practice in Manhattan. She also consults on mindfulness-based intervention development at NYU School of Medicine. After five years in New York, the couple has visited nearly all of the city’s museums and enjoy sampling food from around the globe and are regulars at the annual NYC International Dumpling Festival.
▲ Dana (Fitchett) Jacques and Vincent Vigil created a pop culture podcast, Somewhere Over The Rainbow, which originated as a radio show they hosted during their time at Whittier College. The podcast features their comedic slant on various topics in pop culture and musings on love, life and whatever comes up. You can find them on iTunes, Google Play and other platforms as well as on Facebook and Instagram.
Marcello Sawyer is currently the talent acquisition manager at American Public Media Group (APMG), one of the largest producers and distributors of public radio shows and podcasts. He was recently on the Whittier campus to recruit for APMG at the career and internship fair. Living in the Long Beach area with his wife and two young sons, Sawyer is not too far from campus and is always open to connect with students and alumni about job opportunities.
2003
Brendan Maun is CEO of TMG Home Loans. He lives in San Juan Capistrano, Calif. with his wife, Janaee, and their two beautiful girls, Marissa and Chelsea.
Chris Zepeda recently joined the Walt Disney Company working as a regional account manager for the Disney Institute.
2004
Yasmin Jamshed has been working at UNICEF for over 10 years. After two years in Baghdad, Iraq as chief of program planning, Jamshed returned to the New York City UNICEF office at the end of 2017 to take a business analyst position.
Ian Slaney was named varsity baseball coach at Sonoma Valley High School (SVHS). Slaney, who played for the Purple and Gold, is also in his third year teaching science at SVHS.
Artie Straus and Kim (Faulkinbury) Straus ’07 welcomed their first child, Carter Michael Straus, on November 3, 2017.
2005
Lindsey (Leidy) Jenkins and Jason Jenkins ’07 welcomed their second child, Jonah Philip Jenkins, on January 12, 2018. Mom, dad, and sister Charlotte are in love.
▲ Raquel McLeod and spouse Vincent McLeod IV ’07 made a strong bid for local offices in the City of Whittier, running for mayor and city council respectively.
2006
Rebecca (Wood) Berry is working at the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation in Washington D.C. She and her husband, Kevin, welcomed their third child in December.
2007
Experienced attorney and senior policy analyst with the Council of State Governments Justice Center Deanna Adams was appointed to the City of Sacramento Ethics Commission.
Erin Clancy recently relocated to New York City, where she serves as political adviser to Ambassador Nikki Haley at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations.
▲ Former Whittier athlete Adam Sandoval posed with one of his kindergarten students showing off his Poet pride. He teaches PE and coaches K-5th grade at an Aspire public school.
▲ Kelsey (Wuornos) Stommel and husband Noah Stommel welcomed a son, Leo Robert Stommel, on July 29, 2017.
2009
Steve Addezio is a practicing trial attorney serving New Jersey and Pennsylvania. With skills in trial advocacy, his primary areas of focus are workers’ compensation litigation, motion practice, and settlement negotiations. Addezio also serves on the Board of Trustees of the Burlington County Military Affairs Committee and is pursuing an MBA at
Rutgers University.
2010s
2010
Benjamin Cohon was appointed new media and marketing integration manager for Marvel Entertainment in New York City. This follows nearly three years in digital marketing at ESPN where Cohon worked to identify and create new multimedia revenue opportunities for the company.
Seth Mahler was selected to play for the Israeli men’s national lacrosse team, which will compete in the 2018 Federation of International Lacrosse World Championships in Israel this summer.
2011
▲ U.S. Army Second Lieutenant Conny Joel visited campus in the spring to speak with and mentor current students. Joel is in her last semester at the Medical College of Wisconsin. Post-graduation, she will be promoted to captain and begin a surgery residency at Eisenhower Army Medical Center at Ft. Gordon in Augusta, GA.
2012
Deyla Curtis has been working for the Washington D.C. based non-profit Namati: Innovations in Legal Empowerment for nearly four years and was recently appointed global talent operations manager. Curtis has been active in mentoring Whittier students remotely in collaboration with the Weingart Center for Career and Professional Development.
◄ Daniel Smith was selected as Assistant United State Attorney for the eastern district of North Carolina.
2013
Gina-Marie DiPierro received the Community Service Award from the Whittier Schools Administrators Association. She is currently the assistant director of Whittier College’s Center for Engagement with Communities.
2014
Keith Moebus started a position as a sales sourcer for Facebook.
2015
Sophia Genovese earned a J.D. from Brooklyn Law School in 2017. She is currently an associate at Cyrus D. Mehta & Partners, PLLC in New York City, a firm which represents corporations and individuals in complex and routine immigration matters.
2016
Former Poet athlete Matt Hernandez was selected to Mexico’s men’s national lacrosse team and will be on the roster for the 2018 Federation of International Lacrosse World Championships in Israel this summer. As a first-generation U.S. citizen, Hernandez will represent both the country of his heritage and his hometown, Los Angeles, Calif.
2017
Max Kaufman was selected to play for the Israeli lacrosse men’s national team, which will compete in the 2018 Federation of International Lacrosse World Lacrosse Championships.
▲ In early 2018, Alex Perez left his job as editor-in-chief of Dodgers Nation—a prominent fan website—to take a post as marketing and communications associate for the New York Mets.
Amer Rashid is in Sacramento as part of the California State Assembly Fellowship Program, one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious legislative fellowship programs.
Samantha Vega was selected as a spring 2017 intern for the Congressional Hispanic Leadership.