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1960

Marcia Mattson Todd
mmtodd1@attglobal.net

Our 45th reunion is fast approaching. I hope you will all be there to recapture the friendships from our past. Rosemary Bourne and her committee have been busy filling our mailboxes with updates to whet our appetites.

Marty Miller Spencer has taken over the job of compiling the history book for our 45th and is looking forward to hearing from everyone. She is very hopeful that classmates will send her e-mails and digital photos, but using snail mail is OK too. She can be reached at mmspencer@
adelphia.net.

Becky Martin Watson is looking forward to holding a “marathon talkathon” during Reunion. Still involved with year-round programs at the family-owned Lotus Lake Discovery Center and summer camp in Williamstown, VT, Becky enjoys spending time with her nine grandchildren, whom she considers her “main claims to fame.”

Last summer Lynn Lamont Beckmann and husband Bob were home in Albany, NY, babysitting grandchildren, golfing, and visiting friends and family when Barbara Henry arrived from Phoenix, AZ, for a two-week visit. She and Lynn had a great time visiting Skidmore, day-tripping to Cooperstown, and touring local art galleries. Barbara is a docent at a Phoenix museum. The women then met up with Anne Costales Foy at her Berkshires summer home for even more fun. In the fall the Beckmanns returned to their winter home in Palm City, FL, which sports a new roof following the three hurricanes that hit their neighborhood in 2004. Lynn, who plays golfs daily, hit the greens with Betsy Gluck Singer ’53 and Jan Roth Dorfman ’53 (both of whom winter in Florida) and says, “We talked about Skidmore during most of the round.”

Elaine Bresnahan Ironfield, senior VP for the Clements Group, consultants on strategic planning and fundraising for community colleges, made an unexpected Skidmore connection while interviewing the chair of SUNY-Farmingdale’s board of trustees: Mary Anita Hoff Fallon.

Nancy Tyler retired after 43 years teaching English, French, and music in both public and private schools in California. Although mostly high-school age, her students have ranged from kindergarteners to adults. That background served Nancy well in launching an Adopt-a-Grandparent program, which pairs area teens with local nursing-home residents. The program garnered praise and publicity, including coverage on national TV.

Carol Siccardi Roberts has wonderful news concerning son Garrett, who had a malignant tumor removed from his brain in 2002: he is now in remission. But it gets better. Two years to the day later, at the exact hour he had undergone surgery, his wife presented him with a son. Carol’s house in Vero Beach, FL, survived the hurricanes of 2004, but many nearby units were badly damaged, and most of the dunes just washed away.

Last fall Rita Lamontagne Bowlby hosted a weekend gathering for Mari True McBurney, Lee Abbott Pierson, Toni Wolcott, and Carol Siccardi Roberts. Most of the weekend was spent laughing. This past winter Toni had a pre-Reunion gathering at her house in Boca Grande, FL. Mari joined Carol in Vero Beach prior, for some fun in the sun, then went on to Toni’s in Boca Grande.

“It’s great to be retired and have time to travel,” writes Sandra Blair Ohanian. In the fall she and her husband took an Elderhostel trip to national parks in southern Utah and then spent two weeks in Belize. In January they traveled to Mexico to observe the monarch butterfly migration. They also spent 13 weeks at their condo at Palm Island Resort, near Venice, FL.

As part of her work with a NYC alumni program that mentors high-school students, Nelle Nugent is planning to host a party at her Manhattan apartment for Skidmore alums in the entertainment business. She has asked Showtime’s John Moser and Dave Goldberg of Killer Bunny Productions to persuade other showbiz people to serve as mentors to the students. “We decided the best way to lure them would be with a party.”

The Open Society Institute, an international foundation that serves economically disadvantaged, marginalized communities, presented a Baltimore Community Fellowship award to Betty Garman Robinson. Betty will research, collect, and popularize the history of social justice organizing in Baltimore. Her project will develop ways for organizers working on different issues to share resources, discuss their techniques and vision, and learn from each other.

“How can it be,” writes Marilee Karins Pellegrini, “that it’s time to take our eldest grandchild to visit colleges?” Marilee is really enjoying seeing prospective campuses through the eyes of her granddaughter.

Prudy Georgia was featured in the January 11 Binghamton Press and Sun-Bulletin. The Binghamton, NY, native described a colorful past that included a fairytale wedding to the stepson of the former French ambassador to the US in 1966 and 18 different careers. The government major has been a Wall Street bond trader, real estate agent, decorator, motivational speaker, and most recently, a developmental specialist for Broome-Tioga Association for Retarded Citizens. In 1997 she was ordained a minister in the Unity Church, and she is a founding member
of Broome by Choice, a grassroots effort to promote the local economy.