April 2012 - Alumni News - Williams College

Mount Sinai in NYC and is
going into emergency medicine.
He is also still active in the music
world; the choral ensemble he
co-founded in San Francisco
(International Orange Chorale
of San Francisco) won the 2011
ASCAP/Chorus America Award
for commitment to new music.
The chorale remains a locus
of Eph networking for Jeremy.
Kenric Taylor ’00 sings in the
group and runs its public face
(press and web). Following the
award, Jeremy decided to commission
Dan Kohane ’12, a young
composer currently studying at
Williams, to write a new piece
for the ensemble.
Jeremy sees Ryan McNaughton
for almost weekly karaoke
sessions in the East Village and
reports that Ryan recently took
a job as an attorney at the NYC
firm Paul Weiss. Jeremy also
saw Adrienne Wiley and Grayson
Myers recently in Seattle and
met their son Nathaniel, whom
Jeremy reports is charming.
Sara (Grote) Custer is working
as a postdoctoral fellow at the
Indiana University School of
Medicine, where she is studying
spinal muscular atrophy and also
just began a new collaborative
project with Loyola University.
Sara, her husband and her two
girls enjoyed an extended holiday
vacation with lots of family.
Zuzana Tothova wrote in just
hours after getting back to
Boston from a trip home. She
celebrated the New Year in the
mountains of Slovakia at her
family’s ski cabin. I also know
that Zuzana bought her own
little apartment in Brookline last
summer and is enjoying life as an
oncology fellow (even though she
doesn’t do as much dancing as
she used to).
Kivlina (Shepherd) Block, her
husband and their three kids
rang in the New Year with
fondue and an early bedtime.
Kivlina looked forward to taking
a vacation in February with just
her husband.
Seth Brown wrote his update
using only four letter words,
a linguistic challenge he calls
“Game With Four.” If anyone is
interested in trying to correspond
in sentences comprised of words
with only four letters, drop him
a line.
Annaliis (Abrego) Canty and her
husband Scott Canty ’98 are still
living outside DC. They have
three boys and celebrated their
youngest son’s first birthday in
December; their older sons are 5
and almost 4. With a 5-year-old
in the house, they’re in the midst
of applications for kindergarden,
which Annaliis is finding a
very weird concept, especially
given the cost of tuition at
some DC-area schools. Annaliis
remains thankful for Facebook,
which she says allowed her to
reconnect with some classmates
after our reunion last year.
As for me, I’m slowly settling
into life in small-town Maine.
My husband and I have now
been in our house for a year and
have managed to begin far more
house projects than we have
completed. (I am learning that
DIY house projects always take
longer than I think they will.) I
exchanged several emails with
Charis Anderson in December,
and we were in agreement that
it would be really nice to have
an entry again as a way to meet
people now that we’re scattered
all over the country and world.
Short of that, I’ve joined a writing
group to try to meet some
people and to keep the creative
side of my brain active; Charis
has taken a different tactic on
getting involved in the community
and is in her first season
of coaching the New Bedford
(Mass.) YMCA’s swim team. It’s
also great to hear what you’re
all up to—makes me feel more
socially connected than I actually
am. Keep the updates coming in!
2002
REUNION JUNE 7–10
Holly Kohler
541 Main St., Apt. 4
Melrose, MA 01276
2002secretary@williams.edu
What’s that you say? You’ve
been feeling nostalgic for
Williams in general and the
Berkshire Quad in particular?
Dear classmates, you are in luck.
Preparations for reunion 2012
are well under way and the halls
of Prospect, Fitch and Currier are
gearing up to welcome us back
in all of our (slightly more aged)
glory during the weekend of June
7-10. A decade is the sort of time
chunk really worth celebrating,
and I look forward to seeing
many of you there!
Amanda Gramse is so determined
to make it to our 10th
that she specifically scheduled her
June 2012 nuptials around the
event. Amanda got engaged to
her boyfriend of seven years on
a cloudy Cape Cod beach over
Memorial Day weekend and is
n 2001–02
looking forward to having her
wedding on her parents’ front
lawn in Cape Elizabeth, Maine.
Annie Weiss married Peter
Cook on Martha’s Vineyard over
Labor Day weekend in a ceremony
attended by Sarah Barger
Ranney, Hilary Hackmann, Brooke
Ray Smith, Tenaya Plowman
Kolar, Susan Fulmer and Rich
Dunn. Annie is currently living in
New Orleans, where she works
as a clinical psychologist at Sci
Academy, a charter high school.
Sarah and her husband Mike
have since had another cause for
celebration, welcoming their son
Jackson William Ranney into the
world on Nov. 10—just one day
after his mom’s birthday. “He’s a
character, and we’re loving every
minute getting to know him,”
writes Sarah.
Tenaya, her husband Nathan
Kolar ’05 and their 2-year-old son
Dash moved to the Sun Valley
area in Idaho last September.
“Though we couldn’t be happier
up here in our mountain home,”
reports Tenaya, “the move has
taken us from a thriving Ephtropolis
(the Bay Area) to an
area slightly less populated by
Williams alums.”
Conversely, Sarah Philipp
is now living much closer to
familiar faces, having returned to
Jacksonville, Fla., in mid-December
after completing her deployment
to Bahrain and Qatar. She
is thrilled to be home and has
“a newfound appreciation for a
nice private bathroom and the
ability to cook [her] own meals.”
On the way home, Sarah spent
10 days visiting her boyfriend
in Dubai, where he is currently
deployed, and at submission
time she was looking forward
to returning for another visit in
March. She is still with the same
P-3 squadron and divides her
working time between them and
the aviation clinic on base.
Big changes are also afoot for
Patrick McCurdy and his wife
Christine, who were joined
by their first child, Thomas
Frederick McCurdy, on Sept. 21.
Will and Afton Johnson Gilyard
’05 welcomed son William Jesse
Gilyard on Sept. 3.
Michelle O’Brien Sisk, her
husband Jarrod and their 2-yearold
daughter Emma increased
their family size on Dec. 16 with
the arrival of Brennan Michael.
In April Michelle will begin
“a very part-time” position at
a women’s wellness center in
Manchester, Conn. In addition
to giving monthly lectures on
pre- and perinatal nutrition, she
aPril 2012 | Williams PeoPle | 97