Page 44 - Alumni Horae: Vol. 94, No. 2 Winter 2014

44
FORMNOTES
Ohio, was the ordaining bishop
and preacher. Liz Maxwell-
Schmidt participated in the
festivities as a vester and placed
a pelican pin on my red stole. In
Version 2.0, on St. Nicholas’ Day
(December 6), I was ordained
to the priesthood. I am now the
priest-in-charge of New Life
Episcopal Church in Union-
town, Ohio.”
1979
Dave Stevenson
dasteveson@hotmail.com
www.sps.edu/1979
Dave Stevenson sent us this
update: “I will be celebrating
my 30th anniversary of military
service this April in Kosovo,
where I will be deployed for
four months through mid-
May. I am joining the NATO
peacekeeping mission known
as KFOR (Kosovo Force) and
will be attached as a flight
surgeon to Task Force Aviation
in southeastern Kosovo. I look
forward to returning in time for
reunion.”
Andy Schlosser writes: “I
have just changed jobs after 24
years at Kaman Music/Fender
and am now vice president of
Global Sales for Avedis Zildjian
Co., the 390-year-old renowned
cymbal and drumstick company.
Moving from northern Conn. to
Marshfield, Mass., and trying
to get used to life on the South
Shore. My wife, Robbi Boston,
and 22-year-old son, Evan,
are moving with me, while my
19-year-old daughter, Mad-
eleine (Maddy), is a sophomore
at Tulane University. Hoping to
make it to reunion, depending on
my travel schedule.”
A note from Rosemary Ma-
honey: “Unfortunately, I won’t
be able to make it to our 35th
reunion at SPS but wanted to
share that my new book, For
the Benefit of Those Who See:
Dispatches from the World of
the Blind , will be published this
month by Little, Brown & Co. It
is being described as a ‘joyful,
thoughtful book’ exhibiting
‘wonderfully sharp prose’ of
‘people who are blind, many of
them from impoverished cul-
tures with little sympathy for
their plight’ giving these people
‘voice, time and again.’ In this I
hope you’re well, and that the
reunion will be fun.”
1981
Biddle Duke
biddleduke@aol.com
Biddle Duke shares this report:
“Someone in our form might
well be making huge news –
having found a sure-fire hair
loss formula, just won as a
Democrat in Texas’s 13th Con-
gressional District (the nation’s
most Republican), or circled the
globe in a pedal-powered air-
plane – but no one let me know.
I’ve been shaking the proverbial
trees but get little in the way of
news back from you, my SPS
form sisters and brothers.
“I did hear that Andrew
Binger had gone into private
equity, specializing in men’s
and women’s personal skin and
body care and Western cloth-
ing companies. His company
is called BingHair. Peter Paine
has sold his house in Princeton,
put all his savings into socially
responsible funds, and moved
to an ashram in northern India.
He is going by the name Nono,
as in Nono Paine.
“Just kidding. My daughter, a
wise and worldly SPS 2011 grad,
suggested that I make stuff up.
‘That would get them to send
news,’ she said, cunningly.
“Here’s what I do know, seri-
ously. Our own Sam Reid has
done a fine job as the Alumni
Association president. But we
have term limits at the As-
sociation and, much as Sam
would love to be at the helm for
another two years (and at the
receiving end of assorted cool
SPS ties, glassware, and such),
he’s out.
“I had a nice chat with Bruce
Stone recently. We covered
the past 30 years in about 20
minutes, and it was a wonder-
ful experience. Bruce, who has
worked in the tech world for
some time, is currently living
in Sweden in what sounded like
a spectacularly pretty rural
setting. He has two teenage
sons and plans to move back
to the Boston area in 2014 with
his boys.
“Maria Agui Carter’s latest
documentary film, Rebel, about
a female Civil War soldier, was
broadcast on PBS in January
2013 and has been showing at
film festivals and other venues
all year. Maria worked on the
film for over a decade with
historians and archivists, un-
covering the story behind the
myth of a Havana-born and
New Orleans-raised woman,
Loretta Janeta Velazquez, who
fought on both sides of the
Civil War. The film is based on
Velazquez’s memoir, A Woman
in Battle, in which she revealed
she had fought as a soldier and
spy. Attacked not only for her
criticism of the Confederacy
and the corruption of wartime
society but for her sexual free-
dom and social rule breaking,
Velazquez had been dismissed
as a hoax for over a century.
Maria’s Rebel sets the record
straight but also reveals a pow-
erful, funny, cunning, quick-
witted, unconventional woman
who refused to be constrained
by the gender and ethnic preju-
dices of her time to take part in
a pivotal moment of American
history. A Harvard grad and
a former producer for public
television, Maria now heads up
Iguana Films, a film and new
media company working in
Spanish and English language
productions.
“Elise Pettus has literally
beenmaking headlines. She just
landed a column with Huffing-
ton Post on relationships. The
last column of hers I read was
entitled ‘A Second Look at the
Vicious Cycle of Divorce.’ It is
deeply personal, powerful and,
predictably, well written. From
the sound of that column, she
is doing great. Elise also just
launched a website: untied.net.
“I had a nice chat with Bill
Duryea recently. Bill, now na-
tional news editor at the Tampa
Tribune and the editor of the
paper’s weekly magazine, was
helpingme make some journal-
ism connections.
“As for me, all’s well. Good
friend Preston Read ’82 and
I have seen more and more of
each other. His son, Johnny, is
now a freshman at Middlebury,
just down the road, so the Dukes
Arriving at St. Paul’s (l. to r.): Fisher Gates ’17, mom Jill Forney ’86,
Clio Gates ’17, and Colby Gates ’17.