Page 44 - Alumni Horae: Vol. 94, No. 1 Fall 2013

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dance from my son, Santiago
(7), and how to push boundar-
ies from my daughter, Luna (5).
I’m surrounded by St. Paul’s
connections. Alessia Carega’s
husband, Trent, is on the Eng-
lish faculty here, and commutes
fromKitt II. Jon Shackett ’88 is
a biology teacher at NewHamp-
ton and just became a live-in
house parent in the building
where I amhouse head. He gives
me a lot of tips when we play
music together and has taught
me how to brew my own beer.
Folks should look out for his
nano-brewery opening in the
summer of 2014. He’s a master.
Looking forward to the 20th
reunion. “Weare the hell did I
wake up” T-shirts perhaps?”
And back here in New York
City, Dahni-El Giles an-
nounced that he is “. . . moving
on to build and launch a new
company called BlocPower, a
for-profit social venture that
seeks to market and finance
a portfolio of energy retrofits
to buildings in underserved
communities as well as to drive
and aggregate a workforce from
those communities to perform
the retrofits.”
This fall report from Marlon
Key: “Paulies near and far have
been busy congregating, so I’ve
been putting in face time. Ed
Peña ’98 and Sarah (Macdon-
ald) Pe ña ’00 hosted a gather-
ing at their beautiful, secluded
Jersey home. Yuri Francis and
Adrian Stafford-Browne ’96
(both of whom I see fairly often
and were at the other events
listed) were present, as were
Husani Barnwell ’94 , Kevin
Cummings ’97, Alex Yin ’97,
Javier Hidalgo ’98, Shamika
Lee ’98, Antonio (Javier) Lora
’98, and Claude Mayo ’98 . But
the real treat there was seeing
my ‘new boy’ Tye Campbell ’98,
whom I hadn’t seen since our
shared time at SPS!
A couple of weeks later, I
was out in Chicago to see T.J.
Hardaway and Kristian Moore
get married on September 7,
2013. The happy couple was
originally introduced by Kelli
Phillips ’97. Jamal Johnson
’94 , Caryn Cross Hawk ’76,
and Shawn Hawk ’09 were
also in attendance to hear the
story of how she got the two
lovebirds together. I found time
over the busy weekend to hang
out with Dave Mathews ’96
as well. Although we were in
touch, I missed catching up with
my sister in law enforcement,
Monique Washington ’87 ,
as work prevented her from
getting away. We were all thor-
oughly surprised to find out that
newly transplanted Chicagoan
Monique (Bobb) Schlicht-
man ’92 literally lives a block
away from T.J., and she made a
special guest appearance when
we gathered on the rooftop of
T.J.’s condo.
Speaking of rooftops, Javier
Hidalgo hosted a cookout on the
roof deck of his building a week
later back in Brooklyn. Natasha
Cobb ’97, Quincy Gambrell
’98, and Kareem Roberts ’99
joined in the festivities and then
it was off to Jamal Johnson’s
birthday party later that night,
where I met up with even more
members of the SPS collective,
including ThayerWalker, Cur-
tis Sarles ’96, Ayesha (Sam)
Adamo ’97 , Hannah Gray ’97,
and Nick Yap ’97.”
A personal note from Nick
Van Amburg: “I am happy to
report that having recently
started a new role at Condé Nast
Media Group, I have had the
pleasure of reconnecting with
formmate Cindy Day, a Condé
Nast veteran. Keeping up with
first year pre-schooler Eliza,
son Malcolm, and Cornelia is a
marathon, but I wouldn’t have it
any other way. If you’re in New
York City, drop me a line as I
would love to connect.”
1996
Emily Chang Brands
emilychangbrands@gmail.com
I had a wonderful Paulies’ kick-
off to fall with a visit from Jenn
Connelly Garcia-Alonso and a
play date with a few ’97s in the
Durham/Chapel Hill area with
Catherine Ruedig Hunter
’97 and son Morgan, Caroline
Bruce Finholt ’97 and daugh-
ters Alexandra and Vanessa,
and Sarah Stehli Howell ’97
with son Lucius.
I’ve heard from Gus Mac-
Laurin, who recently moved
back to the Bay Area after three
years of commuting from Santa
Barbara. When he’s not busy
chasing his 18-month-old,
he’s at Samsung creating new
products in the mobile space.
Val Charat is quite busy with
her “precocious six-year-old
son, who fills my days (andmost
allmy table space) withdrawings
of epic battle scenes. I also have
a lovely four-year-old daughter,
who will pretend battle scenes
interest her when she’d prob-
ably prefer to talk about whether
unicorns are real. We have set
up shop in San Diego and have
DeWolf Emery ’99, Andy Gus-
tin ’98, Quentin Reeve ’03, and
Josiah Hornblower ’94.
(L. to r.) Catherine Ruedig Hunter ’97 with her son, Morgan,
Caroline Bruce Finholt ’97 with her daughters, Alexandra and
Vanessa, Sarah Stehli Howell ’97 with her son, Lucius, and Emily
Chang Brands ’96 with her daughter, Annabelle, and son, Henry.
Paulies who gathered recently in New York City included (l. to r.)
back: Ayesha Adamo ’97, Curtis Sarles ’96, Adrian Stafford-
Browne ’96, and Yuri Francis ’95; front: Nick Yap ’97, Marlon
Key ’95, Thayer Walker ’95, and Jamal Johnson ’94.
FORMNOTES