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1967

Lorraine Rorke Bader
lorrainerb@sprynet.com

At a San Francisco Skidmore club event, I spent a wonderful Sunday morning with 30 other alums on a docent-guided tour of an exhibit at the Asian Art Museum. It was a great way to catch up with some people I knew from other Skidmore activities and meet some young alumni. It is exciting to hear what they are doing, and every bit as exciting to hear what some of us are up to these days. The energy, creativity, and commitment of our classmates is inspiring.

Our class president, retired art teacher Judy Harris Soper, is on the design committee for the Rochester (NY) Symphony House, a historic landmark being renovated to house educational programs provided by the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. She is also president of a local garden club that is redoing a garden in a local arboretum. But her real focus is finishing a quilt she started five years ago but got distracted from by new grandchildren, moving, and other life events. Judy designs and makes greeting cards and individual totes with stamped and painted designs for the many grandchildren of her friends. She says, “The creative part of me looks forward to a quiet day when I can retreat to my craft room and delve into my sewing or card-making supplies.”

Retired teacher Pat Hoff McCartan and her husband recently moved to Wilmington, NC, to be closer to grandchildren and away from the snow. Pat started a home-staging business called Exiting-Stage Right. “I’m enjoying reinventing myself while still using my creative, organizational, and communication skills,” she says. Four granddaughters keep the McCartans young and happy.

Sara Schroeder Keaney’s husband, Jim, died in September after two months of ill health. “We had a wonderful celebration of his life and scattered his ashes on the outgoing tide of our river, as he wished,” she says. Sara still works as a school nurse and loves the contact with elementary children and their families. Daughter Ann ’95 has two boys, and son Mike has entered a master’s program to become a nurse practitioner. Both live in the Boston area, just two hours away. Sara has been planning a high-school reunion and recently connected with Kate Ledlie Krop.

Pam Scharmann Stewart sings in a couple of choral groups and directs a small madrigal group at her home. She picked up bluegrass banjo playing at J. C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC, and can actually pick a few tunes! Pam has much to be thankful for, including three grandchildren in San Francisco and a grandson in Maine.

In Virginia, Sue Leferson is charge nurse at the Prince William Area Free Clinic and coordinates the local Medical Reserve Corps, a group of over 160 volunteers. She encourages interested classmates to go to www.medicalreservecorps.gov to learn how to become involved; you don’t need to be a health-care worker. Sue is also on the faculty of the Medical Careers Institute at ECPI College of Technology, where she teaches LPN students. And she volunteers for a cat rescue group. Sue keeps in touch with her Skidmore big sister, Maggie McGill Walden ’66, and Cindy Shober Daly.

Barb Danielson Whitney is a faculty member at Oregon State University, training future elementary teachers at its lab school. In July she married Mark Whitney, a member of the Oregon National Guard stationed in Afghanistan last year. Both sports enthusiasts, they are big Oregon State Beaver fans and made all the away football games except one last fall. Mark is a fundraiser for student athletics.

Linda Raze County is still enjoying life in Fairfax, CA. For the past 12 years she has been leading spiritual and cultural tours to mystical Bali and spending time with master artists and traditional healers. She brings art and culture groups to San Miguel de Allende as part of her travel business, Journeys Off the Tourist Track. Linda did group tours for author Caroline Myss and others. Betty Corcoran DeMarco and Sandy Harrod Frigon came on a Bali trip as well, a real treat. Retirement is not in sight yet for Linda; she is still figuring out what’s next.

Several years ago, Bev Harrison Miller’s daughter Brooke ’99 bought a horse with the help of Beth Alexander Baumert. Now a postdoc at Scripps in Florida, Brooke was looking for an equestrian teacher. Beth put Brooke in touch with her daughter, who teaches riding and happened to be in Florida during the show season.

I am very fortunate to have a part-time job teaching fourth grade at the French-American International School in San Francisco. Last year I took a workshop at KQED on making iMovies. I am also attending collage workshops taught by Marsha Sussman Connell in nearby Santa Rosa. This year, I have incorporated art history into my colonial American history curriculum.