AndoverMagSpring2015

stay connected...She has a Capitol Hill row house that’s 100-plusyears old and is close to a park, Eastern Market, andso many other things. She loves her job as developmentdirector for Woodley House (a nonprofitthat provides housing and support services for thementally ill) and has four grandchildren, ages 7weeks to 7 years, plus a lovely 14-year-old schnauzerwho is not amused by 14-degree weather!The best news I’ve heard is that Joan HarneyWiles has completed chemotherapy and is nearingthe end of her treatment with radiation. Her spiritsare good and she reports that she has a muchgreater understanding of and appreciation forthe challenges of cancer treatment and recoverythan ever before. She and husband John intend tocelebrate with a visit to New York.Kit Jones Prager and her husband, Allan,celebrated their 40th anniversary by returningto Brazil, where they spent their newlywedyears. Highlights were reconnecting with formercoworkers in São Paulo, visits to Iguazu Falls andBrazil’s colonial capital of Salvador, several daysof hiking, bird-watching, boating, and horsebackriding in Pantanal (the world’s largest seasonalwetland), and visiting old haunts and friends inRio. Their Portuguese came flowing back, afteryears of disuse.Our class continues to produce buddingartists, both in the literary field and as musicians.Laura Stevenson also commented on thecold, snow, and ice in Vermont. She has beendistracted from the weather by writing a collectionof linked short stories. Liar From Vermont will becoming out in May, and she’s having fun writing aperiod murder mystery.In addition to taking beautiful photographs(posted on our Facebook page, Abbot Classmates’64), Lucy Bingham recently penned herfirst novel. The Talcott House is available in bookstoresand on Amazon.com and Barnes and Noblewebsites. Here’s how the publisher describes it: “Amodern version of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca,The Talcott House is a fast-paced romantic thrillerset in the brooding environs of a waterfront mansionwhere an evil housekeeper plots to sabotagethe passionate love of the two main characters,Stuart and Ophelia. Beginning along the glitteringwaters of the Mekong River in Cambodia thenonto the shoreline of Connecticut, this book islyrical, scary, and heartwarming. An exciting,page-turning read.” If anyone is interested, they canget more info about the book or buy it on Lucy’swebsite, thetalcotthouse.com.Gwyneth Walker continues to compose musicfor a variety of venues. When traveling to Lowell,Mass., for the premier of a new work commissionedby the Massachusetts All-State FestivalChorus, she stopped for a visit in Andover andstayed with Abbey Siegfried (Andover’s organist)and Abbey’s family. Gwyneth has been movingback and forth between her home in Connecticutand her “second home” and composing studio inVermont. She planned to head to Sarasota, Fla., atthe end of January.86 Andover | Spring 2015[Husband] Dan and I have been busy withactivities at church and in our community (TellicoVillage [Tenn.] is a great place to be!). We traveledto Hilton Head, S.C., to celebrate our 45th anniversaryin November. We enjoyed Christmas inAtlanta with our two younger sons and are lookingforward to a visit from our son and his family, wholive in Anchorage, Alaska. Now there’s a place thatknows about winter weather!PHILLIPSKen Gass2107 Evening Star LaneBellingham WA 98229360-393-2612 (cell)agassk@aol.comOur Pot Pourri was the first to list a student activitythat our class launched the fall term 1963—notstickball, but radio PA: WPAA 645 AM. WPAAtook to the air with the flip of a switch thatwas three years in the making. We have BruceKauffman to thank for this class notes topic.After reading of Dave Dimlich’s degenerativecondition in our reunion book addendum, hewondered about the fate of the radio station: “LastI heard, the transmitting tower for WPAA-FMhad disappeared with the rest of Evans Hall. Thestation had been in the basement. Someone mightwant to pursue that for an Andover magazine item,especially in light of it being our class that broughtthe medium in.” Dave Dimlich literally engineeredWPAA, starting as a junior, and was at the helm asstation manager when it went live. From our PotPourri: “Mr. Robert Sarnoff, chairman of the boardof NBC, PA ’35, was so impressed that he donateda 10-watt FM station valued at $15,000 to be readyfor operation in 1965.”A couple e-mails led to Chris Capano, currentdirector of student activities, who describedthe circuitous route WPAA has traveled fromits primordial beginnings in ’63 to a thoroughlymodern online station in ’15. He said, “Whenthe station moved from Evans to Morse, the FMantenna came down and the school did not renewthe broadcast license. I believe the timing was onlyhalf the issue, as I’ve heard that this was also a timewhen the FCC was cracking down on profanity; afew students had dropped some curse words intotheir broadcasts and complaints had been made.“Since that time the radio has streamed online,so you can listen over your computer either on oroff campus.“Two summers ago, a water leakage issue inMorse led to a complete gutting of the stationoffice and recording studio. ... This ended upbeing a blessing in disguise as OPP [the Office ofPhysical Plant] fixed things beautifully, and it gavethe kids a chance to organize the station in a waythat had not been done for what might have beendecades. Since then, the station has continued tostream online and has also served as the onsiterecording studio for many students.”If this bit of class history strikes a chord withyou, send your reflections to me for the fall issue.Though reported as “lost” in our reunionplanning, Vijay Shah has been in regular contactwith Conway “Doc” Downing, the latter supplyingphoto documentation of the two of them sharingholiday cheer at the Yale Club in NYC undera portrait of classmate George W. Bush (seehttp://1drv.ms/1GRs7VV).According to Doc, “For the past two decadesor so we have lived within walking distance ofone another in Washington and get together fora proper martini most Fridays. I often rib Vijayabout how it was apparent to me, upon arriving atAndover as a junior, that he had attended schoolsin India since kindergarten that were just asexclusive as PA or more so. We bonded since thenat Rockwell.”Tim Booth regaled us at our reunion aboutsailing to Guatemala and deciding to pull uphis NY stakes and stay. He reported, “Hola fromGuatemala. Certainly enjoyed seeing everybodyat reunion. It was interesting to see how wehave grown together and are now enjoying eachother’s company.“We continue to build our new home here...living in the boathouse, our first project [seehttp://1drv.ms/1GRs7VV]. ...We really loveGuatemala, though it’s an adjustment from ‘everythingnow’ in the U.S. We live in a rural fishingcommunity about 45 minutes’ boat ride fromthe nearest town of any size. I am part of a non sibieffort here to provide continuing education grantsto locals. Public support of education stops atthe 6th grade.“We will be cruising in Belize and Honduraswhen this goes to press, but hope some of youmight consider a visit next year. Welcome matwill be out.”Peter Schandorff was admitted to St. Louis’sBarnes-Jewish Hospital just before Thanksgivingfor, in his words, “spinal fusion, which is meantto correct problems that have left me in pain andunable to walk any distance. The procedure andrehabilitation will take me out of commission fortwo or three weeks.” Plenty of time to be readyfor his legendary April 2015 guided tour in Chinafor PA ’64, right? Nearly seven weeks after thefirst surgery, Logan “L.E.” Sawyer reported that“[Peter] has had infection in the surgical area andhad three follow-up collateral surgeries. A fifthis scheduled soon [for bone grafting]. Since hisoriginal surgery was before Thanksgiving, he hashad a miserable time of it.”A call to Peter’s hospital room found him to bethe “the smiling Buddha,” as described by L.E. TheChina trip may not merit a year’s worth of copy inthese class notes, but as this piece is being writtenin January for May publication, you can expect atleast a picture and brief copy next fall.Bart Loomis died in Louisiana on Oct. 26,2014, just four months after attending our 50thReunion. In the words of Tony Bryant, “LastJune I was lucky to spend some time chatting with