YAM Notes: May/June 2010

Readers of our webpage will know that Joe Staley, following in the grand tradition of Ed Greenberg and Tom Maxey, is organizing a mini-reunion for Chicago this fall. The dates are Sept.23-26. His co-chairmen for this enterprise are Fred VanderKloot , operating from his home base in New York, and John Moss, who’s on the ground in Chicago. Watch your mail and the website for more details; we are sure to have private park and boat tours galore, and maybe some brain food from a panel, who knows? HQ will  be a boutique hotel caled the Whitehall, on Delaware Place just off Michigan. I missed a couple, but by my count we have had at least five mini-reunions — San Francisco, Washington, Charleston, New York City and Santa Fe — and they have all been terrific. So save the date. The Second City beckons.

Jim Pender reports that he and Kathy attended the dedication of the E.T. Foote Green at the University of Miami, a gorgeous focal point on the University of Miami campus honoring Tad and Bosie for their long service and remarkable achievements as the university’s First Couple. During Tad’s tenure as President between 1981 and 2001, Miami established itself as a first-rate research center, greatly expanded its faculty, created three new schools and a residential college system. Norm Benford and Dick and Marcia Hunt joined the Penders at the dedication ceremonies.

Winter came early for Austin Hoyt, who began filiming in November in Moscow and deep in the Republic of Bashkortostan for a documentary on American efforts to relieve starvation in the new Soviet Russia during the early 1920’s. The United States fed as many as 18 million Russians. Saving people may also have meant saving the Bolshevik regime. “Rescuing Russia” will air on PBS’s American Experience series next winter or spring.

Fred Cowles joins the many classmates who have written to thank Ed Greenberg and other organizers for a terrific 50th reunion last year, which for Fred was also a reunion with his old roomate, Neil Grape, whom he had not seen since graduation. Fred is still mainly in upstate New york, Neil in Texas. Retired as a financial and estate planner, Fred busys  himself with family, grandchildren, travel and sailing — lots of it, in the Caribbean, off the Turkish coast, and on Nantucket,  where he has a home.

I regret to report the death of John Andrew Maxim, Jr. at his home in Arlington, Va., at the age of 71, of unknown causes. John served in the Navy following Yale, where he also received a law degree. For many years he was an attorney at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, where he rose to become associate general counsel.