Class of 1980

Class Secretary: Vincent B. Skinner Jr., PO Box 8724, Portland, ME 04104, vskinner@gwi.net

Class President: Christine Tegeler Beneman, 105 Spurwink Rd., Scarborough, ME 04074, cbeneman@maine.rr.com

Next Reunion in 2005. Got news? Tap out a note to magazine@bates.edu! Donna Anderson loves living in Pagosa Springs, Colo. She has a half-time private practice working with children, families and adults, specializing in trauma and abuse…. After 10 years in Nevada and California, Paul Barrett and his wife live in a rammed earth house in the barrio of downtown Tucson. Paul works as an endangered species biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, deals with species as diverse as cacti, fish, squirrels, and jaguars. They spent November in the Galapagos and Amazon basin in Ecuador, where they swam with sea turtles, dolphins, sea lions, and sharks…. Michael Bonney has been appointed to the Board of Overseers of the College. He is the president and chief operating officer of Cubist Pharmaceuticals Inc. in Lexington, Mass. Michael and his wife, Alison Grott Bonney, are members of the College’s Boston Council, and Michael is a member of the Leadership Gifts Committee and is active in Alumni-in-Admissions…. Last August, Matt Buchman and family moved into a 1,600-square-foot solar-powered home of his design in the San Juan Islands off Washington state. He took a year off to make it all happen and is just now getting back to his writing and billable work. Outside his office window, a typical day will include four to 10 deer, a pair of ravens, a red-tail hawk, a pair of bald eagles, and several dozen robins, crows, pileated woodpeckers, chickadees, ferry boats, the occasional oil tanker, and a stunning sunset…. Brian Carter traipsed about the U.S. national parks for a decade after graduation and eventually became an EMT-paramedic in Oregon…. Maria Crotty teaches Spanish full time at Malden (Mass.) Catholic High School and is also the department chair…. Marn Davis does not work for a small gas company as reported previously! She is part owner of a small family-owned yoga supply company and really quite proud of it!… After leaving Bates, Susan Branfield Davis Claus went back to western Pennsylvania and graduated from Carnegie-Mellon with a bachelor of fine arts in illustration. She also received a master’s in library science from the Univ. of Pittsburgh, and now works in the children’s department of a good-sized public library. “I would very much like to hear from anyone who remembers me,” she says…. Tom Denegre has been busy with courses for deacon in the Catholic Church, selling home loans with his wife, chaplain work at the hospital, traveling to Europe to ski, and looking for his next opportunity…. After 10 years at Smith College, Rachel Fine Moore is now the director of planned giving at Williams College. “Everything’s purple at Williams and their mascot is a cow, but other than that it seems like a pretty good place!” she says…. Beth Fordiani has a nursing degree from Case Western Reserve Univ. and also studied midwifery at Yale. After 12 years as a nurse-midwife in Boston, she now lives in Southington, Conn., with husband Peter Egan and their two children. She’s taking an “extended break” from the working world to raise her children…. Lisa Jepson Wahlstrom has been raising money for the National Folk Festival, to be held this year in Bangor Aug. 22-24. It was in Bangor last year, also, and will be in Bangor again in 2004. Jeff is in his ninth year as president of the United Way of Eastern Maine…. Catherine Kimball works full time as an osteopathic family practitioner in Waterville. She is chief of the medical staff. She is totally addicted to running, and enjoys scuba diving and horseback riding…. Elizabeth Newell has taken a break from teaching at Hobart & William Smith Colleges to be an American Assn. for International Development diplomacy fellow at USAID (US Agency for International Development) in Washington, D.C., for a year or two. The fellowship program is designed to get more scientists involved in policy making. Most of her work focuses on agricultural development and food security in Africa. “I’ve made one trip to Mali and am hoping to visit eastern and southern Africa as well. When and where I go will depend on what happens in Iraq,” she says…. Anna Schroder expected to be retired from conducting hearing research at the Univ. of Minnesota by now, but found enough money to carry over for another year. She’s been teaching her Midwestern family to ski. “I do look forward to progressing to a non-Midwest location where the vertical drop exceeds 300 feet! I laugh my head off each time when approaching the one-story lodge because it almost completely obstructs the view of the ‘mountain!'”… Vin Skinner runs a small business repairing musical instruments in Portland. He also works part time at the local center of a very large and specialized bank…. David Soley was unsuccessful in his bid for re-election to the town council in Freeport, but he’s busy buying buildings and doing trials in Portland…. David Trull hasn’t moved an inch at work, he says, but now finds himself working for Troon Golf Co., which absorbed his former employer, Starwood. He is a golf outing coordinator and looks forward to the career growth the larger company offers. Troon manages over 120 upscale golf courses around the world…. Last summer, Ethan Whitaker sold his software company with the idea of taking some time off and enjoying life a bit. “I boated, fished, ran a couple of marathons, read a bunch of books, traveled through Europe and after a few months decided that I was bored out of my mind. So I’m now doing some consulting.”