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1963

Deborah Frankel Reese
bybynj@aol.com

Jan Silverman Rifkin and husband Stan shared a “memorable dinner” in La Jolla with Ronnie Zolondek Bramesco and her man, Art. Jan says, “Art and Stan had much to chat about, and Ronnie still amazes me with her enthusiasm for all things.”

Tamar Greenhauff Karet moved to London from New York in 1968. After becoming outraged at the way British law discriminated against women, she became a founding member of Kingsgate Place Women’s Centre in Kilburn, which worked toward changing discriminatory legislation impacting women. Tamar also worked with the Women’s Rights Campaign, helping lay the groundwork for the enactment of England’s Sex Discrimination Act of 1975. She established and continues to run a highly successful literary agency in London specializing in fiction, travel, leisure, health, cooking, biography, history, social affairs, and politics.

University administrator Karen Levin Coburn’s book Letting Go: A Parent’s Guide to Understanding the College Years is now in its fourth printing. Skidmore’s second annual Coburn Lecture in Women’s Studies was held on campus in April. The lecture featured Sarah B. Hrdy, professor emerita of anthropology at the University of California at Davis, who presented “Maternal Love and Ambivalence in the Pleistocene, the 18th Century, and Today.”

Joan Davidson Reich received the Stamp Award from the Pittsburgh chapter of the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Society. Over 33,000 people participated in this year’s Race for the Cure, and Joan was among the volunteers who helped raise $1.7 million to provide free mammograms to uninsured or underinsured women in 30 counties in Pennsylvania. Joan is a breast-cancer survivor herself, having been diagnosed and treated in 1990. Another area classmate who is an active volunteer in the Race for the Cure is Emily Turano Ward.

Summer plans for Laura Young include teaching a course in acrylic painting, called “The Abstract Landscape,” at Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu, NM. We share Laura’s joy at the safe return of her son Tim from Iraq.

Jane Finneman Hochman is busy promoting a new book, Mental Health in Early Intervention: Achieving Unity in Principles and Practice, released by Paul H. Brookes Publishing earlier this year. Closer to home, Jane does lots of babysitting for her bicoastal grandbabies.

I had lunch with Judith Pettingell, who was planning a trip to Peru. She was looking forward to seeing son Jake, who is working with the Peace Corps there, and to observing firsthand what the organization is accomplishing. Judith’s life is still overflowing, in spite of her retirement. “I’m still trying to become a better potter,” she said, noting that she was taking a course on making teapots. Invited to be president of the Hanover branch of the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen education board, Judith is already very active with the Upper Valley Arts Alliance and the Upper Valley Interfaith Project. Son Wes and his wife live in NYC, where he is in advertising and she works at Polo/Ralph Lauren.

Deborah Ketchum Acton, who left Skidmore for Columbia but still remains in touch with many classmates, is director of special projects at Accuracy in Media, a nonprofit citizen’s watchdog that says it “critiques botched and bungled news stories and sets the record straight on important issues that have received slanted coverage.” Debby is also an Accuracy in Academia board member and writes an often-controversial column for its monthly Campus Report. A former antique dealer and freelance writer, she has served as AIM’s public relations director and producer of its weekly TV show, The Other Side of the Story.

Now a bicoastal mother, Anne Luetkemeyer Stone enjoys visiting both places. One son is a woodworker in Oregon; her other son is a second-year law student in Boston.

Judy Baldwin Martin and her husband enjoyed some nice Florida weather during their winter break but came north in March to do some planting around their new house in Stonington, CT. After almost two years of creating and building, the couple moved in mid-December. “It was a wild Christmas, but we love where we are and are glad to finally be in.” Judy would love to see any Skidmore friends in the area. The Martins’ new home is near Wendy Wesson Benchley’s summer residence.

The class extends condolences to Wendy Benchley, whose husband, Peter, died in February at home in Princeton, NJ, from complications of pulmonary disease. Peter had been a speechwriter for President Lyndon B. Johnson during the Vietnam War and wrote the novel Jaws, made into one of Hollywood’s most famous films. Wendy says Peter was especially proud of his conservation work and became an advocate for the conservation of sharks. “He spent most of his life trying to explain to people that if you are in the ocean, you’re in the shark’s territory, so it behooves you to take precautions.” She said Peter was quite at ease around sharks, and recalled a trip to Guadeloupe, Mexico, last year for their 40th wedding anniversary, when the two went in the water in a special cage to observe up close the sharks playing games.

Do check out the Web site for the spring class newsletter on “Sex and the Skidmore Girl” in the early 1960s (www.skidmore.edu/alumni/classes/1966/).

I remain busy with my painting career, juggling blocks of studio time and the needs of family—both my 94-year-old mom, who is very ill but feeling well, and my kids and four grandkids. John and I welcomed our fourth grandchild in March; I held him 20 minutes after he arrived, tears streaming down my face. Nate is the first child of daughter Rebecca and husband Bob. The baby joined the rest of the Reese family for a bicoastal family reunion in San Francisco in May to celebrate my father-in-law’s 90th birthday.