Read the Summer 2012 issue - the University of Maine Alumni ...

1948
Lancy Carter Bradshaw
202 Birchwood Terrace
Pittsfield, ME 04967
Bradshaw45@roadrunner.com
Barbara Sullivan Knowlton
16 Lloyd Road
Waterville, ME 04901
I have just returned from a meeting of the Taverner
Scholarship Committee at the Buchanan
Alumni House in Orono. It will be my last meeting
with this committee in my capacity as a
member of the Senior Alumni. It is a tremendously
heart-warming committee to serve with
and also distressing because of limited funds.
These scholarships are awarded to nontraditional
students who are so deserving of financial
assistance. This year we received 50 applications
but gave only 22 awards. I wish you could
all have the opportunity, as I, to read their bios.
You would want to reward all of these dedicated
persons. How about sending a small check to
the UMAA and indicate on the memo line Taverner
Scholarship. No mater the amount, it adds
up and no gift is too small. I am sure it would be
gratifying.
The alumni office tells us again that we have
had no correspondence since the last issue.
Don’t you look for something to read about
your classmates? Don’t you wonder whatever
happened to so and so? Just a postcard that
you are alive and as well as can be at our ages
would be a very pleasant thing to hear. We all
have good memories of our years at Maine.
Please take time to drop a line to Lancy, the
alumni office, or me. Thanks in advance.
Our thoughts all go to Willard Moulton ’45,
’50G and his family in the recent loss of his beloved
Pauline True Moulton. Peen, as we knew
her, was also a member of the Kitchen Kabinet
and we will miss her.
As of this writing, Lancy is planning to travel
to Chicago in May to attend a Heritage Reunion
sponsored by her great-granddaughter’s
second-grade class. These children have been
comparing then and now with correspondence
from older family members and their childhood
experiences. Lancy selected her life in a oneroom
schoolhouse in Etna, ME. Am sure this
will be an eye-opener to a child in a schoolroom
in Chicago, IL. Maryjane Christie Stafford ’69,
’95G will accompany her mother on this journey.
As an aside, Lancy and her family members
are in the process of restoring that one-room
schoolhouse so typical of many small towns in
our big state.
In closing, I want to tell you of a great
evening I spent on January 21 st . I went to the
UMaine vs. Boston College hockey game with
my son Robert ’83, his daughters Whitney ’10,
and Audrey ’14; also grandson Jay ’15, whose
dad is Rick ’80. Three generations of alums and
two present-day students. The frosting on the
cake was the fact that Maine won.
Please, please, please write to us.
1949
Kathleen Kennedy Nickless
12 Northwood Drive
Portland, ME 04103
(207) 878-0954
kay.nickless@gmail.com
On October 9, 2011, Jim Beaudry ’52G was
one of 13 men and women who were elected
into Maine Sports Legends Hall of Honors. A
1941 graduate of Cheverus High in Portland,
Jim was athletic director at St. Francis College
(now University of New England) in Biddeford
for 21 years. He coached baseball, men’s
basketball, men’s soccer, cross-country, and
golf. He was inducted into the NE Basketball
Hall of Fame in 2004. The new basketball gym
at UNE was dedicated to Jim on December
3, 2011. We congratulate him on these welldeserved
honors.
Former Aroostook County potato farmers
Bernard and Norma Shaw received the 2012
Agriculture Commissioner’s Distinguished
Service Award at the 71 st annual Maine
Agricultural Trade Show on January 10.
Agriculture Commissioner Walter Whitcomb
’74 described the Shaws as “two of the most
accomplished, yet humble, contributors to
Maine’s agricultural community.” Bernard Shaw
served as agriculture commissioner from 1988
to 1996.
The Shaws, married for 61 years, not only
ran a busy and successful farm while raising
three children, but also managed to extensively
participate in local, state, and national
organizations.
Now living in Augusta they are still active
in volunteering. Notable volunteer efforts are
their many years of work in helping to run the
Windsor Fair, and their work with the Augusta
Food Bank, helping to expand its service from
20 to 900 families.
1950
Ruth Holland Walsh
186 Jerry Browne Road
Apartment 1112
Mystic, CT 06355
(860) 536-6265
rhwdvb@aol.com
This past winter was the winter of “no winter”
as we experienced unusually warm weather in
Connecticut…after a “wicked” snowstorm on
October 31 st ! Truly an experience and a half—
particularly when the peepers started peeping
in late February! Everyone was confused!
Our class celebrated its 62 nd Reunion on
June 1 st and 2 nd on the Orono campus; we were
pleased to honor six classmates who received
the Class of 1950 Greatest Generation Award
this year. Our celebration began on Saturday
morning as Alton “Hoppy” Hopkins emceed a
moving memorial service honoring classmates
who had died since our Reunion service last
year; of that number, many were veterans of
World War II and Korea. Immediately following
that service, we were honored to present the
Greatest Generation Awards to the following
classmates: Leslie D. Ames who hails from
South China, ME, for his exemplary service
to the United States during in the European
Theater of Operations in World War II; Robert
F. Burt, who is living in Scarborough, for his
valor and bravery during the Korean War; Murry
Cunningham from Ipswich, MA, for bravery
above and beyond the call of duty in the Rome-
Arno Campaigns including the liberation of
Rome; James F. McNiff from Salisbury, MA, for
courage and bravery during the battles of North
Sach’ang-ni and the Imjin River in North Korea;
Ralph C. Wharff, who hails from Dover, DE, for
meritorious service with the First United States
Army in France and Belgium during World War
II; and Max S. Cohen, from Augusta, for his
courage and valor both in Normandy and the
Battle of the Bulge during World War II. Their
awards bring to 27, the number of heroes from
the Class of 1950 who have been honored. Our
honorees were toasted with a champagne toast
as we viewed the Greatest Generation Award
plaque that is hanging in the Class of 1950 Suite
on the second floor of the Buchanan Alumni
House. And we are so very proud of all.
Len ’44H and Renee Minsky ’44H of Bangor
were honored at the Stillwater Dinner this spring
in Orono. Congratulations—we are proud of
you! The Minsky Recital Hall adjoining the
School of Performing Arts is a very busy area
for performances and meetings. Len and Renee
are surely among the most loyal supporters of
the University of Maine.
I recently talked with Betty Friedler Wexler
who lives at 301 CodFish Falls Road, Storrs, CT
06268. Betty reported that she and Imanuel had
a marvelous time in March while aboard a cruise
ship that took them through the wonder of the
Panama Canal. They noted that the Canal is an
engineering masterpiece—all constructed with
no heavy diesel machinery, just muscle, skill,
determination, and inventive genius. True—
and if you haven’t been through the Canal,
you should make the trip! Truly an awesome
experience! And it was topped off before they
flew back to the East Coast with a quick but
wonderful visit with their two grandchildren and
their families who live in the Los Angeles area.
Irv ’56G and Dottie Butler Marsden
are happily at home in their continuing care
community known as Park Point Village in Rock
Hill, SC. Dottie said that they spent last July
on Peaks Island in Portland Harbor with family
and friends and then attended a Butler family
reunion at an Elderhostel in Rehoboth Beach,
DE. She said the family had a great five days
remembering the excellence of “the golden years
of radio and Broadway!” Dottie said that Irv has
experienced increasing difficulty walking, but is
loathe to give in to a wheelchair—and thus they
take it one day at a time. Their address is 4206
Ormston Circle, Rock Hill, SC 29732.
Donn Fendler recently published a book,
Lost Trail: Nine Days Alone in the Wilderness
that tells his story as he survived nine days lost
in the Maine wilderness in 1939—and just think,
that was 73 short years ago! This new edition
Summer 2012 31