Reunion

There will be a bunch more of these coming, including links to some folks’ Facebook albums, and the “egg game” shots. But until then, here's a few more reunion memories:

Karen (Passmore) Pickering, Heather Greene

Karen, Heather, Debby Stanlezicz

 

Valerie (Dean) Tallet, Mark Petersen, Heather

 

Kevin Kennefick (Sue Killam’s husband) and Torben Brooks

 

Steve Bleezarde, Debby and Katie Koch

 

Ingrid (Booth) Parker and Katie

Greetings from Norton and Backiel

Hey all — On the way to the reunion, Karen Goodell and I stopped by to visit Jerome Norton, who says “hi” to our whole class and “Don't forget to use your commas!”
 

We also crashed Mitch Backiel’s 75th birthday party; Mitch also sends his best regards and hoped we all had a great reunion (which we did).
 

Reunion Golfers

Thanks to Tom K. for forwarding the pre-reunion links crew —

{L to R} Ross Burdick, Tom Kashynski, Paul Buoni, Brian Foss, Paul Woodin, Tred Hulse, John Robinson, Steve Conroy, Del Keyes, Gordon Montgomery, Marc Champange, Tom Szczpaniak.

More About Steve...

I didn’t shoot any pics to speak of at the reunion, so until you all send me some, this is the sort of thing you’re likely to see: old pics I’ll have access to when I get home to SC, and a few family shots from iPhoto on my laptop.

Folks who hadn’t seen me in years we’re caught off-guard by the the beard and the short hair... I tried to make it clear that this look was a recent development, but I could tell, there was some skepticism that I’d ever had “long” hair — so here’s evidence, and a couple more shots just for fun:

I never let it get much past my shoulders. This is 1996 in Arizona.

Goodbye party in Durham, NC in ’97 before we headed to Princeton.

With my wife, Melissa, in 1998.

So that’s all from me for a bit -- can’t wait to see the pairs shots and other photos from Waubeka; send ’em if you got ’em. An let me know what else you’d like to see...

Advocate on Courtney

For those who may have missed it, the 09/17/09 issue of Williamstown’s The Advocate has a nice write-up on Courtney Lyder and the ABC program that allowed him come to Williamstown and to Mt. Greylock in 1981.

We missed you Courtney! Wish you could have made the trip.

For those who aren’t up-to-date with his career successes, Courtney was named dean of UCLA’s School of Nursing in March, 2008 and took up the position in August 2008.

More from the ULCA web site:  story1  story2

Reunion

Amy and Teresa Roy
 

Amy and Del

Me and the beautiful Ms. Heather Greene

MONGEON!!! Good to see ya Alan!

Crazy Val!

Hi all. Great to see everyone last night...some photos from the event! Took a little time to upload just these few, so I'll post the rest when I have time. Hope everyone's feeling well this morning!!

Reunion!

So, just back from reunion. 12:56 a.m., Sunday.

I hope everyone had at least half as good a time as I did. Honestly, it was great to see you all.

I didn't break out my camera much, and I'm counting on folks emailing me pictures from tonight – we've got quite a few classmates who couldn't make it who are counting on you too!

Here’s a couple of shots I'm able to salvage... More to come in the days ahead.

And it’s been said, but bears repeating — many, many thanks to Val, Del, Steve, Tammy, Amy, Ginger, and whoever I'm forgetting who made tonight such a success.

Cheers,
-Steve

Hello Everyone

Hello from Maribeth (Bernardy) Pomerantz. I look forward to seeing everyone tonight at the reunion. My family and I have been living back in Williamstown for the past 7 years. I am a midwife by profession, working most recently at the hospital in Bennington. I have been home full-time for the past couple of years. I received my graduate degree at Yale University, where I got to spend time with our classmate Courtney Lyder, who was a (popular) professor in the nursing program. My husband's name is David (he is an anesthesiologist at Berkshire Medical Center), and we have two lovely (well, most of the time lovely) children Miriam (9) and Adam (6). Interestingly, they currently have the same art and gym teachers that we had at Williamstown Elementary School!

I tried to scan some old photos I had (including a great shot from nursery school that included Ingrid, Garth, Yetta, Brad Grande, and Steve Conroy), but my scanner did not cooperate. Sorry.

And Ingrid Sends Us...

 More golden oldies for our collective scrapbooks:

Thank you, Ingrid, for scanning this -- I've had a framed version of this print for years and it still makes me smile —

New Year’s, ’83-’84. Captioning might be required here: l to r Doug Wick, Mo Ogrodnik, Rachel Ryer, Peter Brooke, Sue Killam, Jon Bach, Matt Bosson, Mark Lewis (’85), Kim Wiley-Schwartz, Steve Bleezarde, Torben Brooks, Ingrid (Booth) Parker.

Sue and Torben

Ingrid and Courtney Lyder

 

Rachel, Sue, Pete, Ingrid, Karen

Pete, Mo, Karen

Yea... I'm not trying to caption this one  <grin>

Musical madness... Mahboud, Paul Ryer (’85), Chris Bolton (’85), Andy Boyer, Jonathan Bolton, Nick Brooke (’86), Tony Shacar

OK. Correct me if I made any mistakes in the captions.

Katie (Thompson) Pugh

Katie writes: “To all my buddies from MGRHS, sorry I can make it. Fly and drive safely and have a great time! Post lots of pics!”

And I’ve pestered her to send along her own pics and some news from Lowndesboro, Alabama. I know she bow hunts —

And runs —

And enjoys nature photography —

Also that she seems to be located in the right place for these things. Looking forward to hearing more details Katie!

Ross

OK Ross. I know that you’re the director if athletics at the Wayneflete school, living in Scarborough, Maine. And I'm pretty sure there are three little ones in your life. But you’re going to have to cough-up some more info —

Smilin’ Ross Burdick

Olga, Lisa, Brad and...

Olga has been digging through the old photos.

Another addition to the “then and now” series —

Mystic Seaport. 1978.  Olga (Beach) Lassalle and Lisa Dietze Molloy.

June, 2009.

And Olga also sends along this crew —

Brad Grande, Andy Pritchard (’83) and Mike Woodruff (’83).
 

Thank You Karen

Karen Goodell sends us a few from her archives:

Cast party at Karen’s... 1984?

From an outing to Plymouth in those hazy days between when

classes ended and graduation rolled around. (And, yes, that
is a non-Greylock friend on the left.)

From the same Plymouth outing... if I'm getting splashed, I'm sure I deserved it.

Thank You Ingrid

Ingrid (Booth) Parker gets a big thank you for digging into her old photos and forwarding some along:

Doug, Peter, Julie, Matt, Leslie and Ingrid.

Sue with Mike McCarthy. Madrigal mayhem?

  

And our musical instruction duo Mike McCarthy and

Brian Norcross, just as serious as they ever were.

09/10/09 UPDATE FROM MIKE: “In case anyone is interested, I am still (for more than 20 years now!) Director of Music at a large church in eastern Connecticut and work with several community choirs.  (I gave up teaching shortly after leaving Williamstown.)  For old times' sake, I still do a few high school musicals every year and work with high school students each summer at New England Music Camp in Sidney, Maine.  I just finished telling Ingrid that I still find myself comparing these high school students to your ilk from MGRHS.  You would be surprised at how often I find myself thinking of all of you!”

Rachel Ryer

Well, I came to Williamstown without moving a batch of old snapshot scans from my desktop onto my laptop, so some of these that were meant to be “then and now” posts are going to be only “now.”

Rachel with husband David Riedel at their daughter's 8th grade promotion.

After years living outside Taos, New Mexico, Rachel relocated to Portland, Oregon. Despite working full-time on her own graduate degree and teaching sixth graders, Rachel still almost booked a red-eye flight to join the reunion crowd. Sadly, she thought better of it. We’ll miss seeing you Rachel!

Andy Boyer

Another Facebook grab —

Andy and his daughter are living in Woburn, MA these days. He’s planning on making reunion, so I’l be able to bug him about posting some more details.

Tracy Brockway Dean

OK. Folks who haven't posted are going to have to put up with whatever I have on hand:

Tracy, you’re first —

Tracy & husband Corky

Tracy’s still making (and teaching) art, calling Golden, Colorado home. Can’t make it East for reunion (we'll miss you Tracy!), but you can catch-up with her, her family, travels to Ghana and more, on Facebook.

More Evidence of a Good Time

Seem to have been more than one camera at this get together... and dare I suggest, maybe a few cocktails?

Sheila, Nicky, Val, Olga and Lisa

Keep it together Val!

  

More evidence? See also Nicky's “Bummed Out” post.

All About Steve

So if I'm going to dredge-up photos of the rest of you, I suppose I should put a little more of myself into this. Here we go:

Photo courtesy of Jenni Spear (MGRHS ’85):  Torben Brooks, 

 Steve Bleezarde & Emma Wilcox at what I think was a 

September/October birthday bash in 1983.

  

My college buddy Keith and me on a floating dock on the 

Deleware river shortly after our graduation in the summer of 1988.

  

This was taken at a woodworking school in Connecticut 

in January of 2006. I built a kayak and got to visit with 

Mike McCarthy for the first time in 15 years. (No, Mike had
nothing to do with the kayak building, he just lives in the area.)

  

On the Folly River: Summer 2009. Kayaking is one of the 

big plusses to my current life in Charleston, SC.
  

I've been married to my wife Melissa Hughes for 11 years. We met in 1984, our freshman year at Bucknell: It just took us a while to get it together. She teaches animal behavior and ornithology at the College of Charleston. After years of newspaper reporting and editing, I got involved in other types of print and web design, and am currently doing that for an assortment of businesses and not-for-profits. No kids running around, but quite a menagerie with 3 adopted cats, 2 cockatiels and a rescued blue-headed pionus.
  

Sea Kayak Carolina is a great local business I work with (and provides great paddling perks!) — give me a heads-up before you travel to Charleston and we'll make sure you get out on the water!

Cheers all!