The Class of 1960 will gather in Fall 2022 during UAlbany’s Homecoming weekend. The event will be held in conjunction with alumni from other classes who were a part of our time in Albany. A date has not yet been confirmed.
Class Co-Councilors: Joan Cali Pecore, cueville@comcast.net; Doris Hische Brossy, dbrossy@aol.com
Sheril McCormack watched “Gucci” in the theater, her first film in two years. Only four patrons were in the theatre. With the Omicron virus surging, Sheril has done her best to stay home and stay safe.
Buzz Welker resumed volunteering at the hospital two days per week.
Robert Sweeney moved into his self-designed, energy-efficient home in Florida.
Class Councilor: Sheril McCormack, vanillastar202@yahoo.com
Bob Fairbanks and wife Barbara ’69, ’72 were featured in the Fall 2021 UAlbany Foundation Newsletter for their ongoing support of the Merlin W. Hathaway Memorial Scholarship and Eleanor Roth Hathaway ’47 Scholarship. Bob and Barb credit Coach Hathaway and Eleanor, who served as residence quadrangle coordinator and faculty member of the School of Education, as “matchmakers” for a marriage that has lasted 52 years and counting. They also support the Chi Sigma Theta Sorority Scholarship and other initiatives.
Julia Imbo, recipient of the 2021 Class of ’64 Scholarship, enjoyed a fall semester full of new opportunities. Her experiences observing classroom instruction and attending lectures has increased her confidence. She can’t wait to begin student teaching in Fall 2022.
Unfortunately, we lost two classmates this year. The Reverend Dr. Alan Minarcik passed away Sept. 10, 2021. Following graduation Alan spent time as a high school Latin teacher before becoming a minister and serving numerous parishes in New York, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. He relocated to Canada where he served parishes in Saskatchewan and Ontario. He also served as chaplain at a hospital in St.Catharine’s, Ontario. Alan was our class councilor for many years, assisted in planning our more recent reunions and kept in touch with Alumni Association staff.
Ed Reid informed us that his college roommate Dave Jenks passed away Sept. 14, 2021. Dave had a long and successful career in real estate. He worked in Rochester before relocating to Texas, where he held several leadership positions with major real estate firms. As always, we welcome any news you’d like to share and please inform us if there are any changes in your contact information. “Quiet and solitude are sought by some …but not often found.” - 1964 Torch yearbook
Class co-councilors: Bill Robelee, wmrobelee31@gmail.com; Columba DeFrancesco Heinzelman, heinzel779@aol.com
Nick Argyros continues to expand the museum collection of The Photography Center of the Capital District with acquisitions of cameras and images representing the history of photography over the past 180 years. Since the pandemic has constrained social gatherings, no exhibits or receptions have been scheduled, but visitors to the Troy facility are welcome with safety measures in place. Learn more at photocentertroy.org.
In 2021 Tom Alcamo celebrated three milestones. It’s been 60 years since he graduated from Brooklyn Technical School, 50 years since he received his master’s degree from Buffalo State College and 20 years since he retired from the Williamsville School District. Go Red Devils!
Jim Hottois is fully recovered from injuries he suffered in a bicycle mishap last summer. He returned to flying for the Civil Air Patrol. He and Sue are planning a two-week cruise around the British Isles this spring. After the cruise Jim hopes to spend a month in the Midwest as a flight instructor working with Civil Air Patrol Cadets earning FAA Private Pilot Certificates.
Class Councilor: Judy Koblintz Madnick, jmadnick@gmail.com
Greetings, Beloved 1967 Classmates and Friends,
2022 is a glorious milestone 55th anniversary reunion year for our class and we are ready to celebrate in true Class of 1967 spirit! As always, the heart and soul of our ’67 class reunions is reconnecting and renewing the bonds of friendships with our classmates –friendships that have endured for more than 55 years. You are all so important to our ’67 Class. Our time at UAlbany was very special in many ways. After hearing from so many of our classmates in the last year, I have realized now more than ever that the most notable takeaway from our time together more than 55 years ago was, in fact, being together. So please join your classmates for a fabulous weekend that will be meaningful and fun, where you don’t have to do anything but celebrate and reminisce as you rekindle old friendships, meet some classmates you did not know before and rediscover the matchless experience of our beloved Alma Mater. Information on all reunion activities will be forthcoming. In the meantime, if you have ideas of what you would like to see in our reunion experience or would be open to join our planning efforts, I would love to hear from you. I promise to keep the planning process efficient and to work with everyone’s busy schedules. Our 55th-anniversary reunion will be our best reunion ever, in true Class of 1967 style. That is my story and I am sticking to it! I can’t wait to hear from you!
Class Councilor: Canon Kay Carol Hotaling, FHC, Aspenpaepke@msn.com
Ray Starman earned a consultant’s screen credit for season 1, episode 6 of CNN’s “History of the Sitcom” series. Ray is the author of the book TV Noir: 20th Century and has been published in Films In Review and The New York Times.
As our alma mater opens up this Fall, let us give thanks that it and the world is returning to good health and peace of mind. So many lives have been lost in the past year including members and family of our class. Joan Cali Pecore and Doris Hische Brossy are sorry that our 60-year reunion did not happen last October. We are thinking about a future event, likely in conjunction with the other classes of our era.
Class co-councilors: Joan Cali Pecore, cueville@comcast.net; Doris Hische Brossy, dbrossy@aol.com
Bob Sweeney is dividing time between Hawaii and the mainland while his new home is being built in Florida. He is near completion of writing two books.
Sheril McCormack is happy for the return of Red Hat Society activities.
Class councilor: Sheril McCormack, vanillastar202@yahoo.com
Julia Imbo ’21 is the second recipient of the Class of 1964 Scholarship, established during our 55th reunion year. Julia earned a bachelor’s degree in Human Development and will enter the School of Education’s Special Education and Literacy master’s program this fall. Best wishes, Julia!
Pat Jewell McAlexander has spent part of her retirement writing novels. Her first novel, Stranger in the Storm, is a romantic thriller set in the Adirondacks of her childhood and was released as an e-book in 2020. Her second novel, Shadows of Doubt, is a suspenseful novel set in Athens, Ga., where Pat lives. It is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and iTunes Apple books in both print and e-book.
We hope that your life is starting to get back to “normal” after the COVID-19 pandemic. Please keep us informed of your activities and changes in your contact information. Stay safe and healthy.
“Time marches on…and on… and on…” – From the 1964 Torch yearbook
Class co-councilors: Bill Robelee, wmrobelee31@gmail.com; Columba DeFrancesco Heinzelman, heinzel779@aol.com.
The Class of ’65 Red Devil’s 55th-Year Reunion was delayed but not forgotten. We were reminded of the profound musings of the great Muppet Show philosophers, Statler and Waldorf: Why do we always come here?/ I guess we’ll never know./ It’s like a kind of torture/ To have to watch the show. But it was far from torture. In fact, the 19 Red Devils who got together via Zoom Feb. 11, 2021, had fun! Classmates from all over the U.S. gathered for an imaginary view of the campus, enjoyed phantom fish or chicken dinners, imbibed at the virtual open bar and shared lots of good memories.
Judy Koblintz Madnick kept control of the festivities and Ira Rubtchinsky tried to moderate, but once things got going, there was no holding back. The liveliest discussion came when Jeanne Bollt Krips Tobin remembered going to Europe during her junior-year summer and discovering in her Paris hotel room what she thought looked like a second toilet, or perhaps a foot bath for weary tourists. Fortunately, her travel companion and classmate, Roselle Warshaw Mironer, was more cosmopolitan. Roselle explained that the French all have “bidets” in their bathrooms. Kate Harvey Jacobs recalled that “My fear of attending Harvard University disappeared when I discovered that I was as well-prepared as those who came from Ivy League undergraduate colleges. After I had two master’s degrees and a doctorate, I had a fellowship at Harvard in 2001 and wondered if I had the background to be there. But once there, I felt totally equipped for my goal of investigating the connection between quantum theory and theology.”
We became reacquainted with classmates we hadn’t seen for a half-century, and, as promised, there was a prize for the most profound thoughts submitted in advance of the reunion. Kate Harvey Jacobs and Ruth Siegel Baker won UAlbany t-shirts.
With apologies to Dan Fogelberg: We drank a toast to innocence, We drank a toast to now, We reached beyond the many years, A healthy future for us we did vow! With that in mind, we are looking forward to our in-person 60th-year reunion!
Roselle Warshaw Mironer is excited to report that she has decided to tear herself away from teaching and retire. She is looking forward to seeing friends, traveling, reading, attending classes, dancing, enjoying her synagogue and the work that she is doing with AIPAC.
Linda Delfs retired in 2015. “My colleagues at State Ed. kept telling me I’d be better off financially retired than I was working. They were right,” she said. “It’s been Saturday ever since, with plenty to do and I’m doing as much of it as I can before the arthritis and joint problems get to be too much.” Linda enjoys volunteering, mostly for the Shaker Heritage Society in Colonie, N.Y. She plays with a fife and drug corps near Albany as well as one in Massachusetts, and is involved with a reenacting group – an artillery unit in the 18th century. Linda’s daughter is a lawyer for a non-profit in D.C. and has been working long distance from western Massachusetts, hoping to find work in New England. Linda’s other daughter lives outside Palmyra, working from home for the University of Rochester while homeschooling two kids. Her husband, who does quality control for a Clifton Parkbased company, is the only one who got COVID. “So far he seems to have gotten through it unscathed.”
Class councilor: Judy Madnick, jmadnick@gmail.com
Greetings Beloved ’67 Classmates. The organizing committee for our next reunion promises to go all-out for a grand celebration of our 55th Reunion in 2022. Over the coming year, a major goal is to connect with as many of our classmates as possible. Let us hear from you. Stay connected!
Sandra Rudy Interdonato provided an update on her wonderful group of five former college roommates. “Although the Pandemic was hard on everyone, I was fortunate to be able to Zoom weekly with Rosina Schneider Mulligan, Vicki Fox Friedman, Bonnie Tomaszewski Kisiel and Mary Santay Shevis. The five of us formed a very strong bond at UAlbany and that bond has strengthened throughout the years. Before the Pandemic we got together twice a year and hope to resume that tradition shortly, but we all agree that for us, Zooming once a week will go on indefinitely.” After graduating from UAlbany, Sandy moved to an apartment on the exciting East Side of Manhattan where she met her future husband, Bob, owner and trainer-driver of Standardbred (sulky) racehorses. Sandy then completed graduate studies in speech pathology at California State University Long Beach, returned to New York and got married. Four years later she had a son, Michael, and raised him on their 10-acre horse farm in central New Jersey. In 2005, Sandy retired from her 33-year career as a speech and language therapist, which included 24 years in the Toms River Regional School District in New Jersey. She and Bob have lived in The Villages in Florida for the past 16 years. Despite the pandemic, they’ve been able to enjoy Florida’s warm climate and participate in golf and other outdoor activities that allow for social distancing.
After teaching for many years, Bonnie Tomaszewski Kisiel and husband Don ’66 are enjoying the more relaxing pace of retirement. They still live in the big house with the big yard because it’s hard to downsize, but it does require a lot of time for upkeep. Bonnie and Don spent time at a nearby beach this summer. They’re thankful that loved ones have remained healthly amid the pandemic.
Class councilor: Canon Kay Carol Hotaling, FHC, aspenpaepke@msn.com