By Bill Sargent
William Joshua Carter III died on June 13, 2018. He completed his juris doctorate at the University of Arizona law school, and as a new lawyer worked on the Navaho Nation. He spent most of his career working for Maricopa County and served as chief presiding judge for the Phoenix Municipal Court.
Joe Manko writes, “For many years my late wife, Lynn, and I attended performances and cared deeply about the Philadelphia Orchestra. Like most orchestras it struggles financially, and I have been pleased and proud to serve as a board member and cochair of the development committee. I recently had the opportunity to travel to Israel with the orchestra and was amazed at the enthusiasm of the audiences at each performance. I am deeply touched by the fact that Lynn and I will be presented the orchestra’s distinguished Philadelphia Orchestra Award at their opening-night concert in September.”
Fred Herring reports, “I am fine or as fine as a 79-year-old relic can be. I will spend the summer in the mountains of North Carolina and Santa Fe with family and friends.”
Steve Foster says he continues to live his “perfect life!”
Robert Jones says that he and Frost Walker “visited the Yale Golf Course on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, and on that very tough course remembered each other’s shots from a round 57 years ago.”
Austin Pendleton will direct and star in his adaptation of two well-known Shakespeare plays, Henry VI Part 3 and Richard III—presented as a single evening of theater to tell the story of one of the Bard’s most infamous villains, King Richard III. Austin says, “With a great deal of judicious cutting we can track the development of this troubled and terrifying Richard from a young man searching for love and acknowledgment to the monster that became King Richard III.”
Paul Jarocki reports, “For years I have been learning about classical Greek and Roman history by watching online courses with my wife. And I have read books—The Fate of Rome by Kyle Harper being one of the best. The author writes in a novelistic style. In truth, I’ve read it twice through. It was that good.”
Caleb ‘Tuck’ Finch sends word, “I was awarded a doctorate honoris causa by the oldest French academy, École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE), in June 2018. My research on aging continues at the University of Southern California.”
Jim Jalenak notes, “My wife Natalie and I were thrilled to be able to spend a day and an evening in April with Bill and Kathleen Chilton in Washington, where our oldest grandchild is a college freshman. Also, the University of Memphis law school has given me their Pillars of Excellence award this year—if that’s not a pretentious name for an award, I don’t know what is.”
Phil Champlin writes, “Lynne and I just returned from a 102-day cruise around the world. I call it our ‘bucket list’ trip. We visited many of the regions in the Pacific where my father’s ship fought during WWII, visited Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and enjoyed a safari in South Africa. We are now back at home in Napa where I continue to work part-time as an assigned judge in the California Superior Courts and Lynne writes her column, ‘Coffee, Tea, and Me,’ for the Napa Valley Register.”
Dan Simpson notes, “My wife Libby and I saw Nick Gardiner and his wife Sigrid in Paris. He continues to put out Passy Press, with reflections on international, political, and philosophic topics. We decided I would write an article on the qualities needed to be an effective national leader. On the personal front, I resigned as associate editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette due to its increasingly lamentable editorial posture and its management’s poisonous relationship with its journalist union, I as a ship leaving a sinking rat. I kept my weekly, mostly foreign affairs column at the paper’s request. I’m sort of looking around for something useful or destructive to do, perhaps in a political campaign.”
Ronald St. John says, “Peggy and I wanted to downsize and decided to sell our house and build something smaller. We figured it would take maybe six months to sell the house. Surprise! It sold in 24 hours. While homeless, we will hit the road with visits to Vermont, Atlanta, Kitchener (that’s in Canada), and Maine, and probably visit Portugal and Spain as wanderers.”
Steve Gilford sends word, “Because of my book about Rosie the Riveter and the 1,495 ships built by Henry Kaiser between 1941 and 1945, I have been asked to speak to many academic, community, and professional groups. I am also on the crew of the SS Red Oak Victory, a 10,000-ton WWII freighter that after renovation will go to sea as a traveling museum. And since I had a career interviewing for broadcast hundreds of artists, politicians, and scientists, I am now recording extensive conversations with people who want to leave something special for their children and grandchildren.”
Richard Weinert writes, “After 18 years of helping young musicians launch concert careers, I am retiring as president of Concert Artists Guild. I was the honoree at CAG’s spring gala, joined by classmates Doug Rosenthal, Andy Marks, Joe Schwartz, and Martin Murray. In the future I hope to play more chamber music, spend more time with my five kids and four grandkids, and work on a book about how musicians make careers.”
Phil Perrone, our transplant from New York to Savannah, says he is “up in the northwest Georgia mountains getting back to trout fishing again, after exhausting myself kayaking in the turbulent surf of Savannah. A happy alternative.”