April 2012 - Alumni News - Williams College

CLASS NOTES
civilization—“a combination
of English, history, philosophy,
economics, etc. It’s been great
for me. I have good students and
a lot of freedom to teach what
and how I think best.” He had a
chance to get back to Oxford last
spring and stayed in the college,
which was fun and especially
exciting for his son.
Nathaniel McVey-Finney has
been teaching for more than two
decades at public, charter (very
briefly) and private/independent
schools as well as coaching cross
country at several schools including,
recently, The Bullis School in
Potomac, Md., and The Madeira
School in McLean, Va. Nate
also has a 5-year-old son in the
second year of preschool.
Kristin Moomaw Harder also
started teaching right out of
Williams and promptly met
future husband Adam at Choate
Rosemary Hall. She’s been teaching
ever since, most recently at
The Rivers School near Boston.
Kristin teaches math, and Adam
both math and Spanish. When
they had children, they were
eager for them to be bilingual,
and this year have had the
great fortune (and thoughtful
employers) of being awarded
concurrent sabbaticals. They
have taken one-year appointments
at School Year Abroad
Spain, an immersion program for
U.S. high school students. So the
Harder family is having a grand
adventure, centered in Zaragoza
(midway between Madrid
and Barcelona), with jaunts
to Burgos, Leon, the Asturian
coast as well as Portugal and
Lanzarote, in the Canary Islands!
Kristin is finally catching up
to Adam in Spanish (no more
secret Dad-kid conversations?!)
and enjoying a reduced teaching
load for the year. “Our children
(Keagan, 5, and Keira, 8) are
attending a Spanish school. They
have adjusted well to both the
language and the culture (and
they have learned a lot about the
Catholic religion). After just a
few months, they are completely
fluent.” Wishing the Harder family
a few more months of delight
in Spain before they return to
Boston in July.
Also living a life of adventure
is the family of Karen Hufnagel
and Brice Hoskins. “In May,
we moved our family of four
and two businesses (Montanya
Distillers and Mountain Boy
Sledworks) to Crested Butte,
Colo. New school, new house,
new community, new friends,
new employees, new ski area,
78 | Williams PeoPle | aPril 2012
new mountains. You name it, we
changed it. And we are loving it!
In June, we all went to Ladakh
and Darjeeling, India, for a
three-week trip that involved lots
of hiking (our 11- and 13-yearold
boys made it to 17,000 feet
in the Himalayas!) and lots
of eating great food. We are
ever so tired of moving boxes
around. Sammy Rogers came
to visit over Thanksgiving, and
she thought we were living in a
vacation rental because we got
rid of half of what we owned in
the transition, leaving not much
to help her know she was in
the right house. We are looking
forward to lots of visits from
Ephs for rum at our new facility
in Crested Butte.”
Yoko Hirano wrote, “I’m still at
Pearson working as a ‘publisher’
(in U.K. terms), which is more
like an editorial manager, in ELT
material for children learning
English around the world,
primarily in Latin America. It’s
a great job with fabulous people
that I am so lucky to have! I am
married, living in Cold Spring,
N.Y., and have two boys (7 and
almost 3), who are lots of work
but so much fun.”
Brett Babat is a practicing spine
surgeon in Nashville, specializing
in adult deformity and revision
surgery. He spent a great week
before Christmas in Playa del
Carmen, Mexico, with wife
Jackie and kids Zach, Sylvie and
Lucy. Brett also reported a great
weekend eating and drinking in
Manhattan with Ed Wiggers last
July.
Timmie Friend Haskins is doing
residential interior design in the
SF Bay area as well as in Hawaii,
Montana and Sun Valley. A
splendiferous house she designed
in Hawaii was featured in
Architectural Digest.
You may recall reading here
that Michael Erard was finishing
up a book on super language
learners. Babel no More has
had a fantastic review in the
New York Times Book Review.
Of course, you should read the
book, but if you at least manage
to read the review, you’ll
learn how “shadowing” is a
great technique to learn a new
language, one that might involve
making a “spectacle of oneself …
but seems to help the beginner
shed some of the self-consciousness
connected with speaking a
foreign language.”
Whitney Wilson is a lawyer
at Jacobson Holman, in DC,
practicing in the patent and
trademark fields. “I spend most
of my spare time patrolling the
youth sports sidelines (hockey,
soccer, baseball and diving) with
my 8- and 10-year-old sons and
leading an eager group of 10
Cub Scouts. One of my fellow
soccer dads is Hamilton Humes
’85. I get to see Bruce Young ’90
pretty regularly.”
Tim Sullivan wrote while
recovering from his first-ever
marathon! He wisely selected
the Disney World Marathon for
his debut, and wife Katie, son
Devin, 12, and daughters Niamh,
10, and Aoife, 4, all enjoyed
a long weekend in Orlando.
Otherwise, the Sullivan family
lives in Marblehead, Mass., and
Tim commutes to Cambridge,
where has worked for 15 years
at Millenium Pharmaceuticals,
currently in environment, health
and safety. Tim and family have
been getting some skiing in at
Jay Peak, including with Peter
Millikan and family. Tim was also
looking forward to getting back
in touch with Rubber Band mate
Phil Jordan ’89.
Training for a half-marathon
is Steve Allen. Unfortunately,
the unseasonably warm winter
in Moscow has been depriving
him of the best excuse not
to train, reducing him to “my
legs really hurt from running
so much, when the hell is it
going to get cold so I can stop
running?” Hope was on the
horizon, though, with a promising
10 degrees F on a day in
January, and “with the wind chill
it is somewhere between seven
degrees below and 18 degrees
below zero. A) Russians scoff at
this. For Christ’s sake, it should
be 20 below for two or three
solid weeks. ‘You know, back in
the 70’s…’ is something I often
hear as a preface to just how
mild the current weather is, and
this has been the case in exactly
17 of the last 17 years. B) There
is no such thing as ‘wind chill,’
bekoz unlike amerikaans vee do
not feel zee vind.” But can zey
handle zee heat?
Pam Lotke is stoic during the
summers, and enjoys the cooler
seasons in Tucson with her
family, including husband Alex,
daughter Allegra, 7, and son
Asher, 5. Pam is keeping very
busy working at the University
of Arizona, Department of
OB/GYN as well as spending
one day a week at Planned
Parenthood and another half
day at the county jail. “Enough
research to keep it interesting but
not so I have to bring it home.
Alex, on the other hand, could